Link if it's hard to read in this post: https://jordankligman.substack.com/p/ontario-intentionally-denying-health
Who Is Denying Health Care?
I’d like to tell you this is an outlier, but across the board patients are getting denied access to health care. How do I know? It’s happening to me.
Family Doctors Are Denying Health Care
What do family doctors do? They don’t do physicals anymore. Their jobs is essentially order referrals and requisitions. They don’t even do that well. Roughly half of my referrals don’t go through. I had a previous family doctor use my entire appointment to lecture me on getting the COVID vaccine. I had already had my first dose and was scheduled to get my second shot at the time. Keep in mind I had that doctor’s appointment because I have serious physical pain. The doctor wasn’t interested in treating me. He was interested in pushing a specific ideology. I’ve had the Pfizer COVID vaccine in total five times. I was overdue for my tetanus vaccine. I had to ask during three different appointments before I was granted that vaccine. This is absurd.
What’s more absurd is I have had multiple family doctors reject me as a patient. Health Care Connect, a government funded service, claimed these doctors were accepting new patients but they weren’t. I found one doctor on my own that was accepting new patients. The receptionist made me bring a printout out of my prescriptions as if I was a drug addict. After waiting a month for my appointment to meet this doctor he refused to take me as a patient. Claimed he couldn’t help me. He didn’t even ask for the prescription printouts. He couldn’t give me an answer as to why he couldn’t help me. So I asked him to put in it in writing he was declining me as a patient. He declined to do so and said he wasn’t obligated to do so.
Walk-in Doctors Are Denying Health Care
I requested imaging to try to find the source of my pain from a walk-in doctor. They claim they sent the requisition. A year later and the hospital the requisition was supposedly sent to had no record of it. So I went back to the walk-in clinic to try to get them to resend the referral. Instead of seeing a doctor this time they gave me a physicians assistant. The PA refused to resend my imaging referral. Told me to go to the emergency room to get my imaging. I thought the entire point of a walk-in clinic was to keep people out of the ER? I’ve since been to the ER. No they won’t just giving you imaging if you ask even if you are prepared to wait 5+ hours. I demanded a copy of the requisition for the imaging from the walk-in clinic they claim they initially sent. I scanned it in and emailed to the hospital.
Hospitals Are Denying Health Care
Even with the requisition dated a year earlier they would not honour the requisition. It gets worse. Multiple hospitals have denied me health care. An ER doctor looked at my medical records and essentially denied me health care. He basically inferred since other doctors couldn’t find the source of my pain he wasn’t going to waste his time thinking about it. He ordered bloodwork to confirm I wasn’t actively dying and then kicked me out. I signed up for a virtual emergency call with another hospital as recommended to me by telehealth. That hospital nurse during the call denied me care because she said they don’t do second opinions. So I said fine get me an appointment with any doctor of your choosing. She then claimed where I lived wasn’t in the catchment zone for that hospital. I’ve been to this hospital many times. I have an outstanding referral that has gone unanswered from this hospital. Changing the reason mid conversation as to why I am being denied health care seems like a lot of nonsense. A finally my favourite hospital. That’s sarcasm because this third hospital scanned the wrong part of my body and then lied about it. Not only did they bully my family doctor into taking the blame for this error, but they had all my personal information wrong. This hospital thought I was in a wheelchair. They also had the wrong phone number for me. It was a area code for a city not even in the Greater Toronto Area. All I wanted from this hospital was an apology and for them to fix their mistake. The PR person from this hospital told me they were taking steps to ensure this would never happen again. I asked what steps were taking place. I was not given an coherent answer. They gave me another scan, but I have no idea if that was even done correctly. I tried to confirm with the technician what part of my body they were scanning. Her response was that she is doing the requisition called for. So no steps to ensure correct scans were being done. The extra radiation from another CT scan probably isn’t ideal but what I am more concerned about is the dye. My scan didn’t call for dye, but at some point the hospital changed the scan and decided it was a good idea to inject me with dye for a scan I didn’t need my I remind you.
The Government Is Denying Health Care
I have tried to get in touch with the Minister of Health for Ontario, Sylvia Jones. All I get back is a copy paste form letter that doesn’t relate to my situation. I have spoken to my local MPP. She was defending the doctors that denied me care. Then claimed the government is hiring more family doctors. Not sure how that related to my situation, but okay… Then she asked me if I was open to private health care. My response was I was open on a contingency basis, but I don’t think she understood me. If a private doctor could can diagnosis me I’ll pay whatever their fee is. If they phone it in and cannot figure anything out I don’t agree with private health care. The problem is private health is rampant in Ontario. So much so it’s a two-tier system. From my understanding private health care was not currently legal in Ontario, but there are loopholes. These private doctors sell yearly subscriptions ranging from $3000 to $10,000/year. I’ve heard speculation that some of these private clinics may even charge as much as $20,000 but I have been unable to verify that claim. It’s kind of hard when these clinics don’t post their rates online and operate in the shadows.
https://jordankligman.substack.com/p/ontario-intentionally-denying-health

Buckle up. This ride is a little crazy. My son was hired by a DoD activity and required a Secret clearance. They granted him an interim clearance which gave him access to most things he needed to do and places he needed to go. After a couple of months of waiting for the final clearance determination, his supervisor queried security and it came out that they had marked his clearance No Determination and stopped working on it. It turns out they never should have even given him an interim at that point. So they told him to turn in his badge and go home. He was put on administrative leave. After a month of paid administrative leave, HR said they can’t keep paying him if he can’t get a clearance and they would have to terminate him. His supervisor (who liked him very much and wanted him back in the office) tipped him off and advised him to resign so he wouldn’t have a termination on his record. Son followed that advice but HR said he couldn’t resign once the termination was already in process. So he got a termination letter. From what we could gather (none of this was communicated to us directly) DCAS requested verification of sponsorship from the activity and the security department failed to respond. So that’s why DCAS couldn’t proceed with the clearance investigation and marked it None. For the sake of full disclosure, he did admit to smoking weed in college (within a year) and he did check himself into a psych facility for a week from which he was discharged and hasn’t had a problem since; but he was never told that he was denied a clearance. Son emailed the CO of the activity for help, naively thinking he would want to correct the failure of his security department. But instead, Son ended up getting his final SF-50 saying he resigned, in contradiction to the termination letter.
So after three months, he applied again. Now his clearance is pending a suitability evaluation because, get this, he answered yes to the question “Have you ever been fired or quit because you were told you were going to be fired?”
If you made it this far, I applaud you.
If they decide he’s not suitable because of the termination/resignation that was completely their fault, what recourse do we have?

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I’m helping a new immigrant from abroad who is the victim of identity theft. A scammer got him to reveal personal information; he is now receiving demand letters from local banks and his credit rating is shot. Looking for references to local non-profits or other resources to help him clear up this mess.

Ok this is gonna be a very long, rambling, and probably somewhat disorganized post, so please bear with me.
I'm sure other people have had this same idea as well, but I'm not subscribed to the rebornevo forums and I'm not very active on this subreddit either, so I don't know how frequently it's been discussed outside of the small number of times I've seen it on Twitter, which still was after I had the thought when I first played V12 years ago. Even if it is I still wanted to try and organize my thoughts about it and present all of the evidence that brought me to think this even without engaging much with the larger community.
To jump right into it, the theory that I've been subscribing to for a pretty long time and was very confident in (until realizing some flaws with it) is that Madame X is the incarnation of Nymiera from Maria(nette)'s now dead universe, which is likely the same universe that Clear, Kieran, and potentially the Thunder Warrior Tapu Koko are from. She was defeated by her universe's Indriad but somehow managed to escape with her life, albeit badly injured, and was effectively out of commission, which led to Indriad eventually being able to bring about Storm 9 which would eventually lead to the end the world. Nymiera then likely got help from either her world's Xara and Jean, or Clear and Kieran themselves to construct her suit and escape to the next universe.
There's quite a few reasons I have to think this. I feel like a ton of evidence from throughout the game supports the idea, and I've been making note of them for years at this point. This is gonna be a bit meandering, but it's really difficult to organize thoughts about a plot as complicated as Rejuv's even if you're focusing on only one character, so again please bear with me:

• The most obvious point is that Madame X shows up directly in the prologue, to the Maria that becomes the one we meet in the Chrysalis manor. She clearly already has some amount of control over time at this point as well, meaning she had likely already claimed her world's time diamond but was unable to stop Indriad using it.
• Nymiera clearly still remembers the old world we learn about in the Third Layer. She knows Adrest by name and recognizes his presence within the player, hints at the emergence of the Zeight in the present day, and knows about the Archetype. Madame X, in the first cutscene where she's introduced at Blacksteeple, immediately refers to the player as the Interceptor, and she also clearly recognizes the power the Melia gains from the Archetype in the Bad Future. They in general seem to possess similar knowledge of major concepts like these.
  • Although you could argue that she might simply have learned about these things from Clear and Kieran, the fact that we see Madame X specifically talking to Maria in the prologue shows that she was at least aware of the Archetype already.
• This is an admittedly very small point that is potentially a coincidence, but I still want to acknowledge it: Madame X's suit seems to be evoking the image of a dragon and mostly uses dark colors. The two characters that we know are directly descended from Nymiera, Alexandra and Damian, favor Dragon and Dark type Pokemon, respectively.
• We know that Nymiera dual wielded crystal swords as her primary weapons rather than relying on Pokemon, and Madame X engages in combat almost exclusively with her sword. The only exception that we see is her attacking the player with her Yveltal at Blacksteeple Castle.
• We see the aforementioned crystal swords, as well as the corpse of Hazuki's Aegislash, within the storage room of the Chrysalis Manor, which all but confirms that Nymiera and the Defenders of Aevium were soundly defeated by Indriad in this timeline and he claimed their weapons as trophies.
  • As a small thought on the full fate of her world's defenders: Vivian was already dead because of the botched ritual, Hazuki was most likely killed, Anju was defeated but taken alive and imprisoned, likely to act as a potential vessel for Indriad (which is something I'd also like to talk about but that's best saved for another post). Given how cruel of a man Indriad is and how much he likes to torment people, I think that crippling Nymiera so she could no longer stand against him and then forcing her to live with the pain of her failure sounds like the type of thing he'd do. This is more of a headcanon, though, not something I'm actually trying to present as a major evidence for the theory.
• Because of .Karma Files we have explicit confirmation that Nymiera is an incarnation of Xerneas; it's a little on the nose for sure, but this can explain why she so heavily associates with the letter X, including why she took her name and took the name of Team Xen for her own, new organization even though it otherwise seems to be completely unrelated to the Team Xen of the Miera Region.
• If her mask is destroyed at the Pyramid, and she's effectively defeated prior to Clear and Kieran's intervention, she makes a remark about how the battle would have gone differently if not for her suit. It's vague, yes, but the implication is that the suit places some sort of limit on her power and she'd be far stronger without it, as while wearing it she can't fight at full capacity. This explains why she only wields one sword instead of two, as she likely can't dual wield without her full physical strength.
  • This next bit is straying into headcanon territory, so I don't fully count it for the theory, but we don't know exactly why she's wearing the suit; it's definitely not just to hide her identity, because there'd be far easier ways of doing that. I like to think that it's necessary for her to survive and limits her power to keep her from overexerting herself, similar to Darth Vader's suit from Star Wars. This would make sense with the idea I have that she was grievously wounded by Indriad even though she survived her fight with him.
• We know that there's a second Blacksteeple Castle on the same island that's hidden behind a protective barrier, which only Madame X can pass through. It's likely that this is the original Blacksteeple Castle and the one that we occupy during the prison arc is just a replica. We see in the Bad Future that Blacksteeple Castle has some sort of connection to Nymiera with the mosaic that we see. It's confirmed by Madame X that Blacksteeple was once Nymiera's castle, that she lost in the war mentioned in the legend that Nymiera tells to us. This would explain why Madame X is so protective of the original castle in the present day and why she can access it.
  • This would also explain why so much Xerneas iconography is still included in the replica of the castle.
• We already know from the Regi sidequests in V13.5 that Nymiera's view of morality was a bit... warped, and she was willing to do some truly inhumane and manipulative shit if she thought it was necessary for the good of the many. Madame X's methods are obviously far more extreme than Nymiera's ever were, but even though her motivations and ultimate goal are unclear there's still hints that all of the things she's responsible for are, to her, just a means to an end. If Madame X is Nymiera, with her spirit having been broken by her failure to stop her world's Indriad, it's not hard to see how that already warped "Good of the many no matter the cost" mentality could evolve into doing absolutely anything to achieve her goals.
• The underground chamber in Kugearen where we find the Weird Diary has a lot going on, but the notable things are the statues of the Defenders,drawing of the Archetype, and map of present day Aevium. Hazuki's is missing, and Anju and Nymiera's are destroyed, with the game specifically noting that their eyes are torn out. There is no statue of Hazuki, and Vivian's is not only intact, but poised for battle. To break this all down a bit:
  • The Archetype symbol being so prominent as well as the present-day map show that it's someone who can both time travel and knows about the Archetype
  • The three statues are of the Defenders that we know will suffer a poor fate.
    • Hazuki's is missing because she is the only that survived.
    • Vivian's is standing and complete because she was the only one able to mostly die on her own terms, but her spirit still struggled because of the failed spell; being poised for battle still lines up with the curse placed on her reincarnations.
    • Anju and Nymiera are both missing in the present day and were never seen again. Anju's fate is ambiguous, but obviously there's something going on with Angie (Which I have another theory about, but again, story for another post). Nymiera's spirit has appeared, but clearly can only do so much, as her only real act aside from talking to the player is transferring Hazuki's power to Saki.
  • Nymiera fancied herself an artist, and seemed to especially like working with stone given the many statues in Blacksteeple as well as the multiple stone carvings in her room.
  • All of this points to someone who can reliably time travel, knows of the archetype, has knowledge of Rift Pokemon, and has an intimate knowledge of the Defenders and their fates. Madame X is the only person who meets all of those first few qualifications, and it's also worth noting that Madame X's suit distinctly lacks eyes, similar to the two statues.

Essentially, the image I see with this is a Nymiera who became so disgusted at her own failures that she threw everything away, including her old identity, and and decided the best way to create a good world was to tear everything down and rebuild it herself, taking her belief in "The good of the many" to its furthest extreme and becoming a vengeful and bitter person in the process. She keeps "protecting" the Interceptor in hopes that their own quest will eventually guide them to resetting everything and destroying Karma for good.
However... in the process of thinking through this all over the last couple days, I realized several holes in this theory that I have to acknowledge, and keep it from really being an effective one.
First, if Nymiera is the avatar of Xerneas, then why is Madame X only ever seen using a Yveltal?
Second, the one aspect of Madame X's backstory story that she elected to reveal to us is about her mother. In her own words, "My "mother" was a weak individual who gave her life to protect me". Not only does Nymiera never hint at anything remotely similar this, but none of Adrest, Variya, or any of the files Adrest sends to Erin hint at anything even remotely close to this for Nymiera.
Third, which I think is the biggest issue: when we see Madame X's mask get broken by Sakitron at the pyramid, what little we see of her appearance doesn't exactly match up with Nymiera. What appears to be black hair could also just be a broken piece of her mask, her eyes are a bright red, and even though we barely see any skin, it visibly is not as dark as Nymiera's.
The first point is actually pretty easy to explain: the Yveltal is Indriad. Obviously we don't know how Indriad became a Yveltal, but there is precedent for shit like this happening and there's multiple hints towards it:

• Indriad is confirmed at the end of .Karma files is an avatar of Yveltal in the same way that Nymiera is one of Xerneas.
• In the Bad Future, when Melanie summons her Yveltal, she explicitly refers to it as her father. Melanie is a bad future version of Melia, Melia is in some capacity connected to Maria and is still explicitly related to Indriad's kids, the implication is pretty clear.
• There are other physical avatars of legendaries in the game: Spacea and Tiempa, who both can transform into the legendaries they are the avatars of. I don't know if it's ever been confirmed if Griselda was an explicit avatar of Giratina, but nonetheless, she was permanently transformed into one and can't change back. It's not unreasonable to see something similar happening to Indriad given that we don't know his final fate in the game's main timeline yet.
• Yes, this means there's some fucky shit going on with Angie, I have ideas about that as well but that also takes a ton of explanation and is best saved for a different post.

The other two though... I think more or less disprove the theory. Family-related trauma is already one of the game's biggest theme; if Nymiera had something related to her mother, it would have been made clear by this point. And there's just no way that I can think of to really justify the drastic difference in appearance between the two. I could simply handwave it and say "The differences in appearance are either a spriting error or a lighting thing with her helmet" and "We just haven't learned about Nymiera's mother yet", but both of those would just be copout answers to ignore.
I'm still confident that I'm onto something here and there is a connection between these two characters, but can't confidently say that I think I'm 100% correct.
...so instead I came up with a crackpot theory that nonetheless I think has a nonzero chance of being true, although its much less likely .
Madame X isn't an alternate universe Nymiera. She's an alternate universe Nim.
Is it a stupid assertion? Yes. But hear me out, starting with some of the more minor points:

• There is very obviously a connection between Nim and Nymiera. The game's placed a lot of emphasis on Nim's relationship to Alexandra and Damian, Nymiera's direct descendents, and Nim took her name from Nymiera's. When Nim appears in the flashback with Alexaandra and Damian she's calling out the names of Hazuki and the player character, yelling for them to watch out. This implies four things:
  • Nim originates in the past and was sent into the future.
  • Given that we haven't met her in the past, she probably comes into existence in the state that she already was.
  • Nim will meet the player and Hazuki in the past during some dangerous event, most likely a final battle with Indriad before Storm-9 fully hits, as we still don't know the final fate of the Defenders.
  • She doesn't say Anju and Nymiera's names, implying either something already happened to them or Nim was cut off in the middle of her sentence when she was sent forward in time.
• Despite Madame X claiming that Nymiera is dead, her spirit has appeared multiple times and is still very aware of the ongoing plot. Her body, however, has not.
• Clear going out of her way to manipulate Nim shows that Madame X likely has an interest in Nim herself.
• While she obviously prefers to use her psychic abilities, Nim's still clearly proficient with melee weapons as there's a handful of times where she uses her... hairpin things as a polearm of sorts.

There's three main reasons I think there actually is something here though: Nim's physical appearance, Madame X's "mother", and the reason Madame X needs her suit despite it making her weaker.
First: Nim's physical appearance is extremely similar to Madame X's under her mask. As Lorna, we can see that her pupils have a red hue very similar to Madame X's. Looking at both Nim's sprites and her official art, her skin tone is lighter than Nymiera's but still darker then most of the rest of the cast, which also lines up with the broken mask. Finally, assuming Madame X actually has black hair and that's not just a broken part of her mask in the sprite, Nim's hair is the same color.
Second: When Madame X mentions her "Mother", its quoted, presumably for air quotes. While it could just be her disrespecting her "Mother", it feels far more significant than that, like its moreso implying that whoever she's talking about wasn't her mother in the traditional sense. Madame X also states that the difference between her "Mother"'s sacrifice and the player's mom's sacrifice is that the player's mom's didn't matter; thus indirectly implying that Madame X's mom's sacrifice was important even if she looks down upon her mom for it. Assuming that Nymiera shares some connection to Nim- be it that Nymiera created her, Nim is her reincarnation, or something else- it's not unreasonable to think that Nim, after overcoming her memory issues, could view Nymiera as something of a mother figure, especially considering that Nim took her name Nymiera's because she felt a connection.
Third: The suit. There's a very obvious reason that Nim would need a suit to suppress her own power: to keep herself from draining the life force of her subordinates and stop her own Storm from getting out of control. It's a leap, sure, but it would explain why she needs a suit that actively inhibits her.
Why would Nim be doing all of this, and how would she become such a cruel and vengeful person? We see something similar happen to our own Nim through Clear's manipulation through preying on her fears and insecurities. Assuming bad enough shit happened to her, I could absolutely see an alternate universe Nim who lacked the support of characters like Aelita, Melia, and the Player going down this path.
Is this theory accurate? Probably not, but it was really fun to think about. I never fucking know what's gonna happen with this game which is why it's so fun to speculate about the absolute mess of lore that it has.
Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this massive ramble, it was fun to write and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day!

Mr. Steve Lewis
Mr. Patrick McKinney
Mr. Bryan Freiermuth
c/o Gideons 1898 LLC et al
1600 East Buena Vista Drive

A

Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830
VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL
May 10th, 2024
Final Demand
Gentlemen,
There is an odor most foul in the Bakehouse. It is the stench of the fish rotting from the head.
To our proprietor Steve, and our managers Bryan and Patrick:
There is dissension within the ranks, and if the following items are not resolved as we outline
below, we’re prepared to drag this house of cards to the ground.
Before we proceed with our grievances, numerous and shocking, and the demands to resolve
them; allow us a moment for introductions.
We, are the Ghosts of Gideons, the poor and unfortunate souls upon whom you have built your
cookie empire. We are the many, the unseen, and as of the disastrous meeting May 6th, 2024, the
decidedly unheard.
Many of us have approached management and ownership multiple times with helpful hints,
strong suggestions, and desperate pleas to rectify a myriad of health, safety and operational
concerns- with nearly all of them being dismissed or ignored entirely.
Now, we, the collective, have banded together to deliver this tome- not as a warning of what is to
come, but as a final demand to resolve the issues outlined herein. You may dismiss us
individually, but you cannot ignore all of us together.
Make no mistake, if the following solutions are not implemented with immediate effect, we will
do everything in our power to topple this cookie castle permanently.
We should start by informing you, that, yes- we are but lowly workers for Gideons, however, we
are supported by families who hold prominent positions in the community as lawyers, labor
1
representatives, publicists, and county government workers. Families who love us, and want to
see us remain safely and fairly employed.
Through our vast, and well connected network the following steps have already been
implemented:
1) A lawsuit for your numerous unfair and unsafe labor practices and work conditions has
been drafted.
2) A press release, along with a copy of this letter, have been sent to local and national
media.
3) We have created social channels to connect directly with customers and inform them of
the reprehensible work conditions we are enduring.
4) We have filed health and safety reports with local government bodies detailing the
extensive issues we are faced with at the Springs location.
5) We have informed Disney Springs leadership of our position relating to the above, and
below in this letter.
In all cases, these competent bodies are awaiting our word. If the demands listed herein are not
satisfied immediately, we will, in tandem with the above, begin a campaign to inform the world
of your numerous transgressions, filing lawsuits and media coverages exposing you and the
Company for the shill that it is, and we will not stop until the Bakehouse bakes no more.
We should also mention that should any attempt be made to retaliate against us, including
termination, reducing our hours, benefits, or taking other pervasive actions against any Gideons
employee, will promptly result in our bringing legal class-action.
The time has come for you, our leaders, to actually lead. This means spending money where
money must be spent, and making the following operational changes, so that we can all continue
to exist in harmony, and not feel like we’re trapped on an 1800’s plantation- working for the big
house.
1) Communication- How dare you drag the entire workforce to a 9AM meeting,
demanding our presence, and then talk directly at us with the most mundane drivel we’ve
ever heard. Everything dictated today could have been very well sent as an email-
especially when you did not allow for any discussion between us, the workers who
actually make your business run, and the disconnected upper-management who are hell
bent on implementing misguided and inefficient policies. Do not call us in for a
mandatory meeting again when the points can be covered in an email, unless you intend
to open the floor for actual conversation and listen to what we have to say.
2
To that end, since our voices were silenced this morning, we demand the following:
● Cold Brew- We will not adopt the ‘bartender’ shaking style of preparing the cold
brew drinks. When we have 10+ beverages queuing to be made, shaking each
drink 10 times will severely impact our ability to be efficient. This is but one
example of Steve’s desire to have ‘form over function’. We understand there may
be a ‘look’ you’re going for, but when it compromises our ability to efficiently
perform our function, we refuse. We demand to be allowed to resume our ‘stir
stick’ preparation immediately.
● Point System/ Order Accuracy- Under no circumstance should Management take
the side of the Guest over the word of the employee. Too often we see guests
complain that an order was incorrect, and Management issues a point to an
employee. This must stop immediately. We demand you implement a ‘please
check your screen for order accuracy’ procedure where the guest confirms their
order before they pay, and remove the ‘point’ system. If the guest confirms the
order, it reduces the possibility for an inaccurate order.
● Inconsistent/ Inaccurate menu boards and Social Postings- The inside Menu
Board has been outdated for nearly two years. It must be updated immediately to
remove items we no longer sell (IE Coke Products) and ingredient offerings (IE
Banana WALNUT). By correctly labeling the items, it reduces the stress on us in
having to confirm that certain items have nuts, or not being yelled at by guests
who are disgruntled that we no longer sell Coke products. Further, there are
multiple social media inaccuracies when describing new products (IE peanut
butter buttercream, VS the actual peanut butter cream cheese). These inaccurate
product descriptions hurt the brand, and cause confusion with the guests when
they come to order these products. Also the new umbrellas are not UV resistant;
therefore any mention of them ‘protecting you from the sun’ is false, and may
result in legal action from guests. We demand you only post accurate descriptions
to the website/ social media to avoid further guest/ employee confrontation.
● HR- Given the fact that Cynthia engaged in using racial slurs during the May 6th
meeting, referring to guests as gypsies and hoodlums, we demand her firing and
removal immediately. Multiple members of staff were deeply offended by the
hurtful stereotypes that Cynthia perpetuated, and we no longer have any trust in
her ability to lead this organization, especially from a HR perspective, when she
herself seems to harbor unfair and demeaning racial views.
● Management- We cannot express with limited words the level of dissatisfaction
we maintain for Drew. The staff, in our entirety, have never dealt with such
incompetent, slothful, and wasteful behavior. Drew consistently stays on his
phone, refusing to help the team accomplish any of their tasks, and barely exudes
a modicum of effort through his rare action of helping build cake boxes or taking
out trash before disembarking on a break (which none us other managers/leads are
3
cookie king, bringing in circa $40,000 per day, affording you a life of luxury, and not
fairly compensate the employees that are making Gideons everything that it is. The
cookies are good, but make no mistake, as was stated during the May 6th meeting, the
customers come for us. I can’t imagine what they’ll say when they learn about the
slave-like conditions in which we work, especially with Auntie Anne’s earning $18 per
hour + tips.
3) Hours- Part time is up to 30 hours per week, full time is 30 hours or more. We must have
a guaranteed number of hours per week, pending our availability. For example, if a
full-time employee has open availability, they must be scheduled for 40 hours. If a
part-time person has open availability, they must be scheduled for up to 30 hours per
week. This is to ensure we have a stable and uniform weekly income, guaranteed by our
base pay and consistent hours.
4) On Call- All shifts that are ‘on- call’ must be guaranteed a full 8 hour shift, regardless if
the employee is called into work or not. We clear our day and make ourselves available to
cover the Company, and we demand to be compensated a full 8 hours ($16 per hour) for
the flexibility to suit the Company’s needs.
5) Pay Protection- In the event that the store is closed for any reason, employees currently
scheduled to be working during the closure must receive all payment for the shifts they
were scheduled for. If the AC goes out again, and we’re down for several days, those of
us scheduled must receive full compensation for shifts as scheduled.
3) Health & Safety- While it seems that Gideon’s is based primarily on the ‘cool factor’ in how
our processes look from a customer perspective, we are still a fully functioning kitchen and retail
location with a haphazard health and safety process, at best.
To ensure a properly safe workplace and customer experience, we demand the following changes
immediately:
1) Shorts/ Heat Safety Prevention- We’ve been told time and time again that the ‘Disney
Contract’ we cannot wear shorts. After having multiple conversations with Disney
Springs leadership and the Unite Here 362 representatives, we have come to understand
that a change in uniform can be initiated by amendment. No longer can the ‘look’ of
something overpower the safety of us. In terms of being outside in the sunlight and heat,
we demand that the contract be amended immediately to account for a uniform change,
thus allowing us to wear shorts within the next five days. It is dangerous for us to be
outside in the heat and sunlight during high-heat (more than 70 degrees fahrenheit) days,
wearing all black and long pants. We are unwilling to compromise our personal health
and safety to appease your ‘style guide’ insisting on long pants, but we’re happy to
maintain a look via style guide for shorts. In addition, we have seen multiple large/
battery operated fans in use around Disney property, keeping other Cast cool during these
heat waves. We demand that large fans are procured and placed in strategic outside
5
locations within the next 5 days, so that we may have respite during high temp days. The
cooling towels and neck fans you have provided are ineffective.
2) Egress- We bakers are trapped. There is no second means of fire egress from the kitchen,
and should a fire or other disaster occur with the ovens, we would be trapped and unable
to escape. We demand you add in additional egress from the bakery, into the outside
alley. We understand this will require planning and stairs, however, planning must be
commenced immediately. We will not work in an unsafe environment, and with no place
to escape in the event of an emergency, we will be burned alive.
3) Handicap accessibility- Our retail location does not comply with ADA mobility
standards. The counters must be moved to allow an employee who utilizes a wheelchair
or other mobility device the proper space to move behind the counters and throughout the
kitchen. While yes, a wheelchair will ‘fit’, they will be unable to properly move. We are
discriminating against hiring ADA employees due to the way the store is currently
overcrowded and built. We demand proper spacing be added within the next 90 days.
4) Safety Training & Procedures- As of right now Operations have not developed any safety
or training procedures relating to fire, bomb threat, active shooter, lighting/ rain, accident
or other hazard. We are provided with no training in the event of any of these
emergencies, and we are all woefully unprepared with a common knowledge of how to
address emergency situations. We demand that a safety plan be developed and provided
to each of us in writing, and that we receive sufficient training of the new procedures
within 14 days.
5) Sanitation- Our baking sheets never get cleaned. We demand that you hire an outside
vendor to pick up used equipment nightly at close, and deliver a clean set at the same
time, so that we may rotate clean equipment daily. It is too large a task for us to wash in
house, and this needs to be automated for us. Our current sanitation procedure is
inadequate to ensure proper health and safety standards.
6) Bathroom breaks- Many of us suffer from various biological disabilities that force
frequent trips to the restroom. We simply cannot ‘hold it’ until we’re on break. IF we
need to go to the restroom, we must be immediately accommodated to do so without
repercussions. While this is not common, it does happen, and must be allowed.
6
Demand Timeline:
May 11th- Cold Brew BartendeShaking preparation is disbanded, stir stick preparation is
reimplemented.
May 11th- Cynthia is terminated immediately for using racial slurs during a company meeting.
May 11th- Drew is demoted as manager immediately for failure to act as a leader, and help his
team, undergoing an immense retraining before he is reinstated.
May 12th- All employees earn a base rate of $16 + tip share.
May 12th- An automatic/ mandatory 7.5% gratuity is placed on all guest orders.
May 12th- All ‘on call’ shifts will be guaranteed a full 8 hours ($16 p/h), regardless of working
or not.
May 12th- Lead/ Trainer pay to increase to at least $19 per hour when training, and $18 per hour
at all other times + tip share.
May 11th- Planning for additional egress to begin. Must be fully installed and operational no
later than June 20th, 2024.
May 17th- A $1,200 bonus is paid to all employees who worked during the last three pay
periods. This bonus covers the lower wages suffered from the ‘no tip’ asking policy.
May 13th- Schedules to be created, guaranteeing all ‘part-time’ employees up to 30 hours per
week based on employee availability, and ‘full-time’ employees at least 40 hours per week,
based on employee availability.
May 14th- Commercial grade fans outside submitted for approval to Disney, installed upon
approval.
May 15th- Shorts implemented for all workers, all shifts, when the outside temperature is more
than 70 degrees fahrenheit.
May 14th- Sanitation company must be contracted to pick up used baking sheets nightly, and a
second set of baking sheets to be procured to ensure sufficient sanitation of products in direct
contact with food.
May 24th- All health & safety procedures will be drafted and provided to all employees in
writing, with in-person training to occur with all employees. New hires shall receive the new
procedures and same in person training as a part of their onboarding.
August 4th- Handicap/ADA compliance. The store and kitchen must be rearranged/ decluttered
to allow for the hiring of mobility device users, including wheelchairs, to comply with ADA
layout requirements.
7
While the above demands only scratch a portion of the hazardous operational procedures, we are
confident that should they all be addressed and the solutions we have demanded are implemented
within the allotted timelines, we can avoid a disastrous fallout and continue to work together to
ensure Gideons remains a successful operation.
We understand that this will most likely come as a shock, not less because ownership and
operations seem to be blissfully unaware of the vast deterioration, but moreover, the inane
procedural overhauls implemented in today’s meeting simply reek of disconnection to the reality
of the process, and will only serve to further delay and complicate the already struggling
operation.
It is time to see beyond all of the narcissistic ‘it looks cool, so we’re going to do it my way’
absurdity, and recognize that the above demands come from your soldiers on the frontlines. A
tough pill to swallow, but it is medicine critical to survival, nevertheless. We further recommend
that all upper management leadership work at least one eight hour, front of house shift per six
months, to ensure they remain fully connected and relevant.
We must issue a final word of warning: should this letter be ignored, or any of the above
demands are not implemented, or any retaliatory action be taken, it will be met with the most
severe consequences.
We know that you are amassing a fortune, and all we Ghosts ask for is a fair wage, a safe and
comfortable working environment, and to be treated with dignity and respect.
We’d hate for the adoring public to learn of any other reality. This is your one, final, opportunity
to make it right.
We look forward to your prompt email reply confirming your plan of action to comply with our
demands herein.
In Solidarity,
The Ghosts of Gideons.

In the "fortnight" music video and performance the measuring tool the doctors/nurses are using on her looks a lot like geiger counter, measuring the level s of radiation she exhumes. As a nod to the protagonist`s love interest being so toxic its poisoning her in small doses. In addition to that her black dress looks similar to a dress Marie Curie is pictured in and as we know her possessions are still radioactive and will be for centuries to come. Marie Curie discovered radium. The radium was used in production of "glow in the dark". There were female factory workers, later called "Radium girls" who were unknowingly poisoning themselves with radioactive paint.
This is juuuust a tiny analysis on some of her lyrics, excuse my rambling. 1. The tortured poets department

• "But I've seen this episode and still loved the show" seems like a nod to exile.
• "Who else decodes you?" - this seems like a reference to the enigma machine, very similar in looks to the typewriter and depending on use very few people were in the know on decoding said message. 2. "My boy only breaks his favorite toys" - it gives the vibe of one sided relationship/situationhionship where one would build something and the other person would destroy it.

3. So long London
- "I saw in my mind fairy lights through the mist" could be a reference to the great smog of London, during which visibility was extremely low.

• "you left me at the house by the Heath" - the Heath is a pub and right next to it is the Heathlands court - a care home looking like a house, which ties with "I was supposed to be sent away but they forgot to come and get me", so he took her there.

4. LOML - Who's gonna stop us from waltzing back into rekindled flames If we know the steps anyway? - it describes the loss of love for the
5. The black dog - "I still miss the smoke" - as smoke is used as slang for fighting, this could mean she misses the fighting or being in dark as smoke could be very dense.
6. Who is afraid of little old me - "You don't get to tell me about "sad"" - is reminding me of a tiktok in which they were seemingly arguing in a restaurant at the time it was rumored that Joe said that to her. The video was from December 2022 in New Orleans the video - Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn at a restaurant in New Orleans. December 2022

So I want to learn to speak Tagalog. Yes I know there are many variations. I’m looking for the most prominent one similar to mandarin/cantonese.
Quite simply I work in nursing and so many people are from the phillipines. I hear Tagalog all day long. Not a problem.
But I’m also on dialysis . Have kidney failure. And there’s this girl these that I talk to a lot….. she speaks Tagalog. I though it would be cool to learn a bit….im a simple man…. When I was with my ex I learned beginners French……
Anyways, I’m reading a book on Tagalog and watching some videos and its the same problem I had with French. I know Spanish and English. So I try to speak those when I try another language. But I learned those by starting with the alphabet then gramatical rules. Then progressing to words…. For example CAT = ccc—aaaa—-tttt…. And GATO…… gh… ah…. Ttt….O. And French - CHATTE. I can literally hear those words, they sound similar and spell them out because I know those alphabets and grammar rules. When I’m reading or listening to Tagalog…. It sounds different. The letters don’t seem to always correspond with the character itself. And I’m trying to find a book on grammatical rules.
Question: how do you guys teach children Tagalog? Outside of school? What resources/ rules, things help them learn….
They say it’s harder to learn a language the older you get. I disagree….. it’s more that the people teaching you are adults. And they are teaching you as another adult and not as they would a child learning the rules. My approach to Tagalog would be to try from the basics and build to try to avoid any bad habits.
Anyways , thank you.
Serious people only please. If you hate foreigners, that’s a you problem. I have no problems with anyone. This is a serious enquiry. Looking for actual learning material.

I am back with another review for my holy grail - the AB lip balm-again, it’s gonna be a long post.
As I have mentioned again and again, the AB balm is the one to rule them all. It moisturizes, it removes my lip peeling, and prevents future peeling. It has a heavenly texture, and no matter how much you apply it to your lips, there is no pilling or white cast even after rubbing your lips together. Don’t get me started with how it feels on your lips, my lips feel sooooo pillowy (not sure if that’s a word). This has also been the first winter that my lips have not cracked or been painful dry…and it is this beautiful texture that is its downfall.
I was very excited when I found out that Augustinus Bader was coming with a color version of this lip balm with a collaboration with Sofia Coppola . It’s no exaggeration that I’ve been through at least 15 tubes of this lip balm. I keep one accesible at all time (purse, desk, by my bed, etc) … that’s how much I like it.
The version comes with a very cute colored strip at the base of the tube and colored logo at the top. On the inside of the tube, the letters are also highlighted with color. The change is minimal, but meshes well. Whoever was in charge, did a good job.
The AB balm texture continues to be its original buttery, and light formula. For reference, I chose the shade #1. Now, if you’ve ever used watery lip tints, you’ll know that they will settle into dry spots. For me it makes those dry spots a shade darker and make my lips overall, blotchy. Some also settle into your lip lines if you don’t blot them with your finger. This is exactly what the AB tinted balm does, it’s just that in this instance, it is its amazing formula that works against it. The color settles immediately on my lip lines, it is not a smooth even application of color that a lip stain like a Rare Beauty Lip Oil would give you . It also leave (hopefully this makes sense) an outline of color where the rounded edge of the lip balm touches my lip. Meaning that it leaves patches of colored lines on the outline of my lips. I’m disappointed, so disappointed. I REALLY REALLY wanted to love it, but I can’t…the only way to salvage it is to even it out with my fingers, but that defeats the purpose of an easy, no mirror application. If you are not careful with its application, you’ll look like a baby that’s learning how to eat and has food all around their lips after slurping spaghetti!!!
Now, this tinted balm did give me an idea. I felt that its texture would mesh well with a tint or stain. I have a lot of leftover AB tubes. I save them, scrape the leftovers at the bottom of the tube, melt and fill a little pot with it.
This time around, I dug through my lippies and chose my Cha Cha Benefit tint in “mango”. I melted all my lip balm leftover on a wax burner. I (generously, but did not measure it) poured the lip tint in the melted lip balm. This made the AB melted lip balm solidify a bit, but as soon as it warmed again, it melted and after stirring it, it combined beautifully. I did noticed that it solidified easily as soon as I pulled it away from the wax burner and so I had to work fast…and Voila!!! It turned soooooo goood! My hunch was right and my little experiment worked!
As soon as the leftovers from the pot I melted the lip balm on solidified, I tried it on. Guys, the melting process did not destroy its original texture (although I have yet to see how this mixture will work in a lip tube form). The color spreads smooth on my lips, no blotching or settling on my imperfections or dry lips, and with the cute color payoff!
So, with little extra work, I came with the best of both worlds! My favorite of all time lip balm, but with a “personal improvement”.
I do hope that in the future, Augustinus Bader will come with a similar product… and as soon as that happens, I will be getting my hand on them too!

So, I've kind of posted about this in other threads, specifically on askreddit, but by some users request, I will do my best to fully relay this entire tale up to the current point, as well as provide as much context I am able (and will provide missing context if asked in comments).
TL;DR
A friend of mine of 4 years drank himself into liver failure and his wife cheated on him, so I offered him a free room to try and put his life back together, and I was repaid for the thought with a divorce of my own, but honestly, it's probably not that bad.
Part 1: CONTEXT
Me and my wife have been together since early 2014, and married in late 2017. We have been through much together, including two extended deployments, one of which was 10 and a half months long. We have traveled the world together, lived on both coasts of the US, and despite much of our struggles and how things eventually went down, I was always convinced we would work as a team to overcome any issues.
The friend in question was, largely, an online friend. We met playing an MMO during covid and we quickly formed a very tight knit, but small, community that were very close that included me, my wife, my friend, his wife, and 4 other friends. Covid was a wild time and I was surprised how easy it was to form friends in this group and we kept in touch, as a whole, even once quarantine had ended and most of us had moved on from that particular game. This was a group that, while it started online, we have met most of these people several times IRL and had vacations to spend time together and just hang out.
Part 2: His Problems
Fast forward to about January of 2024. My buddy, from here on out I will refer to as Z (and for a quick add, I will refer to my wife as D), contacts us to tell us his condition is dire and he has been diagnosed with stage 4 cirrhosis of the liver as a consequence of his extensive drinking. Shaken, we quickly charter a flight out to visit. Within a week, we're staying with him and his wife and his roommate and a couple members of his family who are taking care of him. This man is bloated, yellow, and probably about 350lbs now. We are worried, but stay supportive and positive that help can be found, especially since he seems keen on changing his lifestyle for the better. Some of his family start a gofundme that we donate to, and many of the people in our gaming circle who have grown close also donate several thousand dollars (One member of our raid team donated 10k. You never know who is stealth rich on the internet I guess). Me and several other friends discuss the possibilities of helping him get on disability and even getting ourselves tested as compatible living donors. Sad, but hopeful, we depart about a week later, and stay in constant touch.
About a month later, I'm getting a call from one of our mutuals letting me know that "Hey, so I may have goofed up." and tells me how Z's wife had visited him and had a 3 way with him and his wife. I am obviously irate at this and turn to back Z up with comments like "So much for in sickness and in health, huh?" I do what I can to stay supportive, and my wife, D, also makes it a point to stay in touch with him as he has found himself banished to the couch of his apartment. Not even allowed to sleep in his own bed and frequently uncomfortable even being in his bedroom to use the PC.
I'm not particularly rich, but I am not poor either. I served in the military and have a high VA rating which means a constant income and have a steady job and a couple side gigs that pay well enough. My love language, in many ways, is gift giving. I pride myself on being able to pick a good gift, even if it's a little early for an occasion such as a bday or christmas, and will often pull the trigger on something if it means a lot or I think it will help. In this case, my brother was selling an old steam deck because he wanted a new OLED model, so I figured "two birds, one stone", and buy the steam deck off him and send it to Z so we can still game together.
In the intervening months, Z and D start playing games that I have no interest in (Disney Dreamlight Valley), but I am happy to play other games and hang out and chat. Really, nothing seems amiss, but since his banishment, me and my wife are both pushing for him to come and take up the spare bedroom we have in our home. Soon enough, I buy him a plane ticket and he arrives with little more than the clothes on his back and we take him in, no cost other than the expectation that he might help around the house a bit (he was a chef, so having a cook and someone to help clean was ideal for me who often did not have the time or energy to handle these tasks as thoroughly as I would like).
Part 3: The Incident
Now, I am skipping ahead a little bit here, but there's not much to be said about the time between. My wife worked part time hours, and when she did go to work, she'd have him tag along just so he wouldn't "Sit and stew with bad thoughts" at the house alone. I will admit that throughout this entire ordeal, I have had several, several times where my brain tried to warn me, but I ignored ALL of those signs because I trusted him, but more importantly, I trusted her with my life.
One new, frequent argument I found myself having with her was she would fall asleep on the couch, and when I finally tried to go to bed, I'd do my best to wake her and drag her upstairs. These became extremely frequent occurrences and I expressed to her how frustrated I was that I had to fight with her just to come to bed so we could sleep (mind you, this is not even about sex. Often I'm taking her to bed at like, 1am and I work at 7, so I really just wanted her to be sleeping in the bed). Hell, one time, I started catching the vibes that the longer I sat and waited for her to be ready to go upstairs, she just never would be, because they were waiting for me to leave so they could talk in hushed tones. On THAT particular night, I went upstairs alone with her finally awake, and she did not join me for another half hour.
Finally, the day arrives. Its Sunday. We are all downstairs hanging out. One of their newest habits I can't really stand but just dealt with is that she'd sit and crochet while he doomscrolled or strummed on a guitar I bought him and listen to music videos on youtube endlessly. Eventually, I grow weary and give my wife a kiss and tell her I'm gonna go upstairs and play some GW2 for a bit.
About an hour passes, and she enters the game room and tells me "I am uncomfortable. I really need to talk to you. Oh, you're dying!" (As she entered the room, I immediately turn face to talk to her and disregard the game, but she decided that my Charr was more important that what was about to happen, so she of course warns me.) We step into the bedroom and close the door.
"You're going to hate me," she says through tears, "me and Z kissed!" At this point, my brain short circuits and I recall one of my first thoughts being "Oh lord, here we go." and just a general desire to not be a part of this conversation. Shock sets in almost immediately. Still with a healthy dose of denial, I talk to her about what had happened and told her that it needed to end. Even at this point, I did not want to send this man home. Was it shock? Denial? Probably a mixture of the two, or some other additional emotional responses. She gets up after some discussion and goes downstairs, promising to shut him down, but comes back about 15 minutes later sobbing "I couldn't do it! I couldn't end it..." (Side note: In my confused haze of a mind, I feel personally threatened, and after she leaves the bedroom, I lock the door and grab a metal water cub I keep at my side and prepare to actually fight if it comes to it, but once she returns, I back off that idea again.)
Talking with her more, I present her with two options; Couple's therapy, or divorce. BOTH of these options are world ending to her, and she even goes so far as to suggest that just because I said the "D word" that it was what I wanted, which was objectively untrue. We talk back and forth about things I don't quite recall at this point, aside from one point where she comes back and locks herself in the master bath and tells me to call 911, she doesn't care, because she's going to take a bunch of pills, but after a couple of hours, Z shows up to the door and knocks and asks if he can come in. I tell him he may enter, and we talk for a bit. After about 5ish minutes, we decide to go downstairs to the living room and continue the discussion.
Once I sit down on the sofa, I immediately feel like I'm being positioned as the bad guy. I'm in the corner of our sectional, and she's on my left, he's on my right. She tells him "He said it's either a divorce or couple's therapy." "Oh, so he gave you an ultimatum?" I continue to argue that yes, those are the two only options. Z tells me "You're not being fair to her emotions. She is telling you there is another option." I am thoroughly baffled at this statement.
D: I didn't think it was possible and I didn't mean for it to happen, but I have fallen in love with another man. My heart has room for two. I truly have two soulmates. I have never been happier than sleeping on the couch next to my two boys.
Z: There is no reason you guys can't stay married, and we can explore what we've found. I mean, look at how happy she has been since I have been here!
Sick to my stomach, I get up to go vomit in the toilet. Now, I wore a silicone wedding ring, and often find even with a hand wash, a little water tends to get trapped under it. After I finish and wash myself up, I come back and am playing with my ring to dry it. She sees this as a sign that I am uncomfortable again wearing my ring, and takes off her ring as I sit back down and hands me her wedding ring.
Me: Uh, excuse me?
D: This is what you want, I can tell.
Me: No? I was washing my hands and water gets stuck under my ring...
D: Oh... I thought... okay. (And she takes back her ring from me)
I tell her, very clearly, the options are to either end things with him, or end things with me. At this point, I'm still in shock, but sober in mind enough to decide that this is not worth fighting over. I will not argue with my own wife my merits or why she shouldn't just pack up and leave with a jobless, now essentially homeless man, and if she cannot figure that out herself then I will eventually move on.
Crying, sobbing, she sits down in front of him and says, "I'm so sorry, I fought for you. I really did. I told you I'd fight for you and I failed. I loved being your girlfriend, but I need to be a good wife and stay."
Z says "Alright." and starts to go gather his things to leave. As he does, she grabs him and says "No, wait! Please don't go. I don't know what I want."
Z: Ok, well if we're getting all this out in the open, I want to say this. I love this girl. I love her with my whole heart, and without her, life is not worth living. I will not leave this house if you (me) tell me to. Only her. You are taking this very well right now, I can tell you want to hit me (Still in shock, no, I can genuinely say that emotion or thought had not actually registered outside of the event upstairs earlier), but this is my stand.
D: OP, we had a good run. I'm sorry.
And with that, I get up and go to get my sandals and leave the house to get some air. As I try to go, she runs to the door and he follows her. She pushes the door closed and says "No wait, please!"
Me: No, this is the deal. I'm going out to get some fresh air. I am not threatening self harm to "win you back".
D: Will you be back?
Me: I don't know.
Z: Man, I'm telling you, you don't understand, you think I am your enemy, but I am not.
And with that, I leave and shut the door.
In the about, hour, I am gone, I drive around near the house and I call my supervisor who I have a very good relationship with (and I did not want to involve direct friends or family yet because I'm afraid it's too early to start spreading this news). I go over to her house nearby and we chat shortly. After our talk, I have at least something of a clear head and go home, with words for both of them.
As I arrive home, there is no one downstairs. I go upstairs. His door is closed. I knock on the door.
Z: Uh, one second.
I wait for about 5 agonizing seconds, but I refuse to be shut out of rooms in my own home and open the door. He is shirtless, and she is hiding in the corner just out of sight of me. I look him in the eye.
Me: Really?
Z: Yep.
Me: Get out of my house.
And with that, they both silently pack their things and leave.
The second I hear the front door close, I start calling people. I am not above pettiness, and the first person I call is her mom, whom I have a good relationship with. She is SHAKEN and immediately calls her. (I find out later that it was a particularly harsh verbal beating by her, but it really doesn't change anything.)
When I come downstairs to check the state of the house, I see her wedding ring on the counter. I call out of work the next day and lay down and hope I die.
Part 4: Her Problems
So, there is some additional context that I did not add in part 1 because a lot of it is red flags I ignored over the course of our relationship that, in the days following, started to become more and more obvious. There are many that I spent much effort playing off or covering her for, but I will try to briefly list much of what I see as glaring issues in the relationship that were never remedied.
This woman is 30 years old and cannot drive. She can drive and HAS driven my vehicle at the start of the relationship (albeit illegally), but after one tiny little accident where she hit a pole and knocked my side mirror off (which she paid for and fixed before telling me, it really wasn't a big deal. I was on deployment), she never drove again. Attempts to get her behind the wheel would end very quickly after they started, and the conditions to get her in the seat were often extremely time limited, scheduled, or something would come up, and every time I told her "okay, this month we're getting your license for sure" it just wouldn't happen and I'd end up feeling like the one who was at fault.
She does not have her Bachelor's degree because she did not turn in her final project for one single class. Not only that, but she has never truly pursued a career with the things she learned from the coursework, or even used her AA.
For half of the relationship, she did not work at all. When she did, it was often part time work, and if she was saddled with full time hours or, god forbid, overtime, it was a world-ending affair. She would come home and constantly be tired from her few hours at work and would do little more than sit around and crochet.
Our agreement when we bought our house was that she was going to work full time and we were going to split household duties, but I would definitely scoop the cat box because she was allergic (but she wanted cats) and wash dishes (because she hated them), and she would do laundry (because I hated it). In practice, all her version of laundry turned out to be was to throw loads in when one of us was out of clothes and just hit wash and then rotate, and then leave all the clothes in a pile on the bed. EVERYONE KNOWS folding the laundry is the worst part! Come on! Men's clothes are easy! I don't wear that much! (When we would fold, I often finished in a third of her time and would just hang out and chat until she was done)
Ultimately, this meant that for many years now, she was working barely more than part time if she was working at all, and would sort-of do laundry. Meanwhile, I am scooping litter, folding laundry, doing dishes, doing all related yard work, doing all the household cleaning, handling all the finances, I did MOST of the cooking, and all of the grocery shopping (often going alone), driving her from work if I could (she'd uber it if not) and picking her up and driving her home, as well as just generally being a chauffeur for her for 10 years, while working a full time job and a side gig online. Many nights I'd have to stop what I was doing to pick her up at closing hours, and then would sit in the parking lot for 30 minutes while she did tasks like vacuum her little crystal shop that she definitely could have done before close so I didn't end up waiting so damn long. Then we'd come home hang out and eat while we watched TV, and then if I wanted to try and go upstairs to do another hobby, I'd be silently guilted about it because she wanted to sit on the couch and crochet.
Part 5: My Problems
I am not perfect, and admit I have flaws. One of her favorite things to claim to our friends now is that I was "emotionally neglectful", and if there is truth to it, I think I can pin down the day. Before I started working full time again, I was going to school on the 9/11 GI bill. I was not a good student in my younger years, but in time, I have become rather good at school. My first two semesters back I easily maintained a 4.0 GPA. Over the summer in 2022, I, woefully, decided to take a Calc 2 class online because I could not find one in person and wanted to be ready for Calc 3 in the Fall to fill a prereq for my bachelor's, and I really liked the instructor for that Calc 3 class. This calc 2 class was painful. The instructor had clearly recorded all his lectures during Covid and we were simply given the full course of videos and given work assignments and said "Email me if you have questions." This is not how I learn, but I figured, hey, it's one class. I'm working again, but one class isn't a huge deal. I can knock this out.
I was wrong.
After the second exam, I had a low C in the class and I knew I couldn't keep up. I withdrew from the class feeling no other option. I tend to be pretty good at math, and ultimately my dream was to work with 3d printing on an industrial scale with a Mechanical Engineering degree- and if that failed I had my military history (which is engineering relevant) and a degree to fall back on and work should come easily. After clicking that withdraw button, I saw those dreams vaporize. After that, I threw myself into my government civilian job full time and slowly fell into depression. By the end of our relationship, with the toll of doing 99% of the work around the house and for her and with my dreams dead and buried, at age 33, I would wake up and pray I died. I would never kill myself, but I wanted to just die. I felt backed into a corner. I still did everything I could to support her and hoped that one day, she would pick up some of the load and maybe, just maybe, I could go back, but that day did not come (At least not in the way I expected).
Part 6: The Aftermath
This post is already too long, and if I include every single detail that has come to light since, I might actually hit the post cap, but I will go over at least some of it here.
I have had my friends come out in droves. Both of them have been effectively exiled, at least from what I can see, from every friend circle we have. After a couple of days, they flew back to live with, I guess, his parents in Vegas while they sorted shit out, because after I spoke with Z's previous roommate, he adamantly explained he was tired of all the "fucking drama" that Z had been bringing into the house and was just done with it.
I have spoken with many, many people and gotten even more context and even receipts of some of each of their conversations to our mutual friends, and some of the shit I read is just hilarious. He is "not ashamed of pursuing happiness, he is just sad that people got hurt". She is "coming to terms with emotional neglect and felt trapped, but now, yes now, she is free."
I got my neighbors to watch the cats, and took my dog up to visit my closest friend of 20 years and spent about a week and a half drinking, smoking, and talking about all this while surrounded by some of the most beautiful nature the US has to offer. Truly, without this man, I don't think I'd have gotten this far as quickly as I have. He really has been a lifesaver and I truly, to my dying day, will always appreciate him.
Paperwork has been filed, we wish to remain on good terms, and one day I still do hope I can be a friend to her, but she is woefully immature and incapable of adequately performing in an adult society. I have quit my job and am returning to school with a much lighter budget and will be getting that degree I desperately need.
It's been hard, real hard. I have put every ounce of my being into this relationship, and I truly felt like she was part of me, and nothing like this could ever happen. But it's that trust that allowed this to happen. I do not hate her, I'm just disappointed. I will pick up my pieces and, hopefully, find myself whole again soon.
Part 7: Rambling anecdotes
These are some stories I wanted to include in the previous body of text but didn't feel like it kept the same flow (if there even is any at all, I'm not proofreading this). If I remember any others after I post, Ill just toss them in the comments.
Early after Z came to live with us, my mother came to the house to drop off a package. I am pretty sure I was at work, but when my mother came to the door, both of them answered the door and the way my mom describes it "First of all, do you answer the door at your friends house? Also, the way he hovered over her made me uncomfortable. They were in the doorway and he was right up behind her poking his head out." She said my wife had told her that I was feeling unwell and was upstairs sleeping. I can't even be sure at this point.
Shortly before all the things happened, my parents were going out of town to celebrate their own anniversary, and I had agreed to dog-sit their 5 month old puppy (who, while cute, has WAY too much energy and was EXTREMELY difficult to handle, and I have raised several dogs at this point). We met up and took the dog, and then ALL of us (including Z) went to dinner. At dinner, my mother looked at my wife and asked, directly "And so how long have you been married? 6, almost 7 years? Well at least you missed that 7 year itch, huh" and my wife shortly followed with a comment about how she was not hungry and did not eat dinner that night.
All of this happened WHILE THIS CRAZY PUPPY was running around the house, and part of me thinks he pushed this to happen when it did because he could not stand having to help take care of this dog any longer (2 days).
About a week after all this happened, my wife did not text or call me, or respond to any messages or emails I sent her (I didn't send many, but they exist). Frustrated, I text her and tell her I need to talk to her about logistics moving forward, specifically about her belongings. She told me "I will talk to you when I am ready." We did not talk for another week. Also, she told me to stop talking to her mom. (I have a good relationship with both of my in-laws and while her step-father tried to remain impartial to the best of his abilities, he gave me some of the best advice I could possibly have gotten at that time, mostly about how to move forward and cope, as he has personally dealt with this with smaller relationships 3 separate times in his life which he gave me details on, and we are still on good terms.)
Their favorite TV show to watch together was Outlander, which, if you aren't aware, is basically a story about a woman who time travels and has two men in her life.
One of our biggest constant points of contention was my friendship with an old high school buddy (who I spent much of the time in the aftermath hanging out with while healing). We believe, with good reason, that she hated this man because after I had almost been hospitalized for psych reasons due to stress, he had told me I needed to talk to her about working again and doing more to help around the house. She figured out, obviously, who was telling me to say these things, and sent a very, very angry text to his wife. They all apparently made up, but I know she never let that grudge go.
One of the fairly recent hobbies I got into was D&D. It seemed like a good fit for all of us. She loved fantasy and gaming, I enjoyed 3d printing and story telling. She needed friends, and a party of people hangin out would give her at least a few connections to start. Every night she "participated" in D&D, she mostly sat quiet and did not do anything. Hell, I tried to get her to participate in 2 different games, and after she left the first one, she asked to just sit quietly in the discord call (This first one was online only, second was in person) and listen, which was super awkward. In the in person game, after 3 months of playing, she did not know how to play her character at all, and mostly spent her time at the table crocheting. (My buddy even made a comment about how at one point, he was proud of how good I was getting at DMing and I was giving particularly good exposition, and she interrupted me to hand another player at the table a dice bag she made. I don't remember it, but I absolutely believe this happened.)
The day of "the incident", she had a meltdown about how a friend of hers had ghosted her. I told her it was okay, she was much younger anyway and people grow apart. She's probably going through stuff and we should respect that path she's on. She cried about how she has no friends.
Also the day of "the incident", we were in the shower together and she told me she had met her sister's new BF on facetime. I asked "why did she break up with her old one?" "Well... she cheated on him." "Oh, that's a shame. Cheating is probably the most cowardly act a person can do to another. If you're going to start a new relationship, you need to grow a pair and end it before starting a new one." She clearly took my words to heart.
One of my biggest pet peeves about cleaning the house is our dog sheds, a lot. If I see a hairball roll through the house it immediately drains me a bit. We had a roomba. She would send that thing home when it started and never start it again. It barely ran. She would not vacuum.
One of the most common descriptors of her I've heard used by many people now that they're "allowed to" is "She was there, doing the thing with us, but it was like she wasn't there."
Something she thought that I apparently hadn't figured out by the time we talked after everything happened was that they had been talking since February. I told her I wasn't stupid and had figured it out already that this wasn't out of the blue.
Z's wife is currently pregnant with the baby of the man she cheated on him with. (And he is also married)
Anything else I remember Ill leave for comments, I know there is much, much more.

I am back with another review for my holy grail - the AB lip balm-again, it’s gonna be a long post.
As I have mentioned again and again, the AB balm is the one to rule them all. It moisturizes, it removes my lip peeling, and prevents future peeling. It has a heavenly texture, and no matter how much you apply it to your lips, there is no pilling or white cast even after rubbing your lips together. Don’t get me started with how it feels on your lips, my lips feel sooooo pillowy (not sure if that’s a word). This has also been the first winter that my lips have not cracked or been painful dry…and it is this beautiful texture that is its downfall.
I was very excited when I found out that Augustinus Bader was coming with a color version of this lip balm with a collaboration with Sofia Coppola . It’s no exaggeration that I’ve been through at least 15 tubes of this lip balm. I keep one accesible at all time (purse, desk, by my bed, etc) … that’s how much I like it.
The version comes with a very cute colored strip at the base of the tube and colored logo at the top. On the inside of the tube, the letters are also highlighted with color. The change is minimal, but meshes well. Whoever was in charge, did a good job.
The AB balm texture continues to be its original buttery, and light formula. For reference, I chose the shade #1. Now, if you’ve ever used watery lip tints, you’ll know that they will settle into dry spots. For me it makes those dry spots a shade darker and make my lips overall, blotchy. Some also settle into your lip lines if you don’t blot them with your finger. This is exactly what the AB tinted balm does, it’s just that in this instance, it is its amazing formula that works against it. The color settles immediately on my lip lines, it is not a smooth even application of color that a lip stain like a Rare Beauty Lip Oil would give you . It also leave (hopefully this makes sense) an outline of color where the rounded edge of the lip balm touches my lip. Meaning that it leaves patches of colored lines on the outline of my lips. I’m disappointed, so disappointed. I REALLY REALLY wanted to love it, but I can’t…the only way to salvage it is to even it out with my fingers, but that defeats the purpose of an easy, no mirror application. If you are not careful with its application, you’ll look like a baby that’s learning how to eat and has food all around their lips after slurping spaghetti!!!
Now, this tinted balm did give me an idea. I felt that its texture would mesh well with a tint or stain. I have a lot of leftover AB tubes. I save them, scrape the leftovers at the bottom of the tube, melt and fill a little pot with it.
This time around, I dug through my lippies and chose my Cha Cha Benefit tint in “mango”. I melted all my lip balm leftover on a wax burner. I (generously, but did not measure it) poured the lip tint in the melted lip balm. This made the AB melted lip balm solidify a bit, but as soon as it warmed again, it melted and after stirring it, it combined beautifully. I did noticed that it solidified easily as soon as I pulled it away from the wax burner and so I had to work fast…and Voila!!! It turned soooooo goood! My hunch was right and my little experiment worked!
As soon as the leftovers from the pot I melted the lip balm on solidified, I tried it on. Guys, the melting process did not destroy its original texture (although I have yet to see how this mixture will work in a lip tube form). The color spreads smooth on my lips, no blotching or settling on my imperfections or dry lips, and with the cute color payoff!
So, with little extra work, I came with the best of both worlds! My favorite of all time lip balm, but with a “personal improvement”.
I do hope that in the future, Augustinus Bader will come with a similar product… and as soon as that happens, I will be getting my hand on them too!

Messaging on behalf of a friend needing assistance with establishing child support in Florida:
BACKGROUND: She has a 7 year old with the baby daddy who has been out of the picture for over 4 years now. When he left, they were living together in an apartment when he trashed the place (holes in walls, broken doors, etc) and walked out leaving a ~$3K charge to her credit report. She has been working as a server and also knocking out a nursing degree, graduating with her bachelors degree this summer. It’s been very tough financially and she is now facing an eviction because the apartment raised rent by $350 with only a 2 week notice so the additional child support income would make an immense difference if we succeed.
INFO: She opened up a case with the Florida Department of Revenue (DOR) child support program (CSP) in June of 2023 and they gave feedback that they could not find him. Earlier this year, she was able to find his legitimate address and place of work to submit in her case. Despite all of this, she recently received a letter in the mail from the Florida DOR CSP stating:
‘On 06/07/2023, we started this proceeding by issuing a Notice of Proceeding to Establish Administrative Support Order. We have decided to end this proceeding because We have been unable to find the other parent to serve the first notice.
This proceeding is terminated without prejudice. If circumstances change, a judicial or administrative proceeding may be started at a later date.’
ASK: Has anyone else had this type of trouble? It feels like we basically did DOR CSP’s job by finding the baby daddy’s address and place of work but they still came back with the letter saying they couldn’t find him. What are our options to get them to put him in a ‘found’ state in their system so that everything else can move forward in the process?

Hello all,
I am a prospective political science PhD student looking for advice and help, particularly in what programs to apply to and the chances of getting in. I am interested in American politics, particularly centered on elections, representation, and voting.
I have a bachelors in political science and masters in public administration (with two certificates in nonprofit management and genocide/mass atrocity prevention) from SUNY Binghamton (Binghamton University), both with a 4.0.
I have not taken the GRE yet (so no scores rn), but am taking the summer to study. I feel like my letters of recommendation will be pretty good as well and feel strong about my writing sample. I have no official research or publications, but am working on the latter.
So far my professors have recommended schools like the Ivys, MIT, NYU, SUNY Stony Brook, etc..
What programs do you all recommend and do you think I can get into them?
Thank you in advance

How It Ended
by Ethan O’Driscoll
A thrilling Post apocalypse story
Intro
HRV-1
22 July 2024
Dr Olivia Warren Head of Biotech NARU
This is my latest report on the HRV-1 Virus we were instructed to design by the Russian Government.
The HRV-1 is an incredibly viral and infectious Retrovirus similar to HIV. Changes have been make on a genetic level to provide the request modes of transmission and symptoms.
Those symptoms are:

• Profuse bleeding from the mouth, eyes, lips, gums and pores of the skin
• Confusion
• Coma
• Total organ failure leading to death
• Reanimation after death and post-mortem hypo-aggression

This all included in a highly infectious package
The infection vectors are:

• bodily fluids
• contaminated area
• ANYTHING that has come in contact with infected bodily fluids
• airborne droplets

This is by far the most dangerous diseases we’ve ever designed. I pray to god the Russians only want it as a means of deterrent because if they use it I have no doubt it will end the world. The first sample should be ready to ship next week.
Chapter 1
The Outbreak
1 January 2025
Dr Olivia Warren Head of Biotech NARU
I can’t believe the bastards used it. The first cases came in from Kiev in December from there it spread like a wild fire through Europe the death toll now sits at 65 millions. The hordes rampage through city after city by the millions. There is no way to stop this. What have I done.
NATO forces have established a quarantine of Europe but I can’t help but feel like its too little too late. My estimate is that all infected nations in Europe will be consumed within the next month or two. The Corporation has started the construction of a company safe haven for us higher ups. All we can do is hope the construction is complete before this thing breaks quarantine.
15 February 2025
Dr Olivia Warren
The world is ending. Europe is gone. The quarantine is broken. We’ve got cases in Asia, South America, Here at home in the US, Australia and Africa nowhere is safe. I did this.
Infection number right now:

• Africa 100 Million
• Europe 890 Million
• Asia 250 Million
• North America 250 Thousand
• South America 120 Million
• Australia 24 Million

There is no hope
The safe zone is complete at least we are planning on moving all operations and personal within the week. I don’t know how I’m going to live with myself. Dixie is my only saving grace and at least she’ll be safe. I pray for the soul of all those my creation has killed.
20 March 2025
Dr Olivia Warren
Dixie is at the Safe zone.
I can’t live with myself any more. 4 billion people dead
Chapter 2
A New World
My name is Dixie Warren. Daughter of Dr Olivia Warren. Not that I’ve seen her in 15 years. I remember like it was yesterday. She told me to get on that NARU helicopter that she’d meet me at the safe zone. Those were the last words she ever said to me. I was 8 when the world ended.
Its been 15 years since the Outbreak. There isn’t really anything left of the old world. NARU still exists and turns out they created the virus and my mom was the head of the department that did it. They sold it to the Russians hoping they wouldn’t use it but they did.
It was specifically designed to spread and destroy as fast as possible and it did. I left the safe zone 2 years ago after I learned this information. Now I just spend my time wandering from town to town. My training on the NARU security team helps. At least I know all the best places to shoot a Freaker. That's what we call the infected and for good reason. Most of the time you’ll find them wondering around in groups of 5 to 10 if the group gets too big they turn on each other and form a pile of bodies devouring each other. They moan and scream to communicate and once they see you they will hunt you till you kill every last on of them or you get far enough away. They can run and are abnormally strong if there bodies aren’t damaged they’re a bitch to kill but I’m pretty good at it.
Right now I’m outside Richmond I’ve been stuck here for a week waiting for a large horde to move through. I’m hoping to hunt some of the stragglers and re-up on some supplies. A big horde like this usually leave a few hundred behind. My new AR has been waiting for some fun, I’ve got a new red dot and laser so I should be able to pop headshot after headshot but for now I should go find something to eat.
I’ve made it to a small department store outside the town. It looks like the horde is almost gone. Tons of freaks roaming around though. I can hear a few in the store. I’m going to try getting in through the back and take them out.
Made it back home and wow that store was a gold mine. I got food, water, bullets and even some whiskey. I’m going to enjoy the night then its time to hunt some stragglers. Then I’m thinking of going further south maybe New Orleans heard there might be a small settlement out there from another traveller, might be able to get another courier job or at least I’ll be able to stock up on supplies properly after all these years there isn’t much left in the cities to scavenge.
I better get some rest got a long day of freak killing and walking tomorrow.
Chapter 3
The Road to Home
I left Richmond yesterday. It’s a long road to New Orleans I wished I lived in the days when cars worked. NARU are the only people with working vehicles left and they aren’t exactly the sharing type. Its so lonely out here its been weeks since I last saw another living person the only things you see out here in the ruins are freaks by the hundreds. Its hard to believe the whole world was reduced to nothing by something my mom created. I remember her being the kindest most caring person in the world to think that she could create something so destructive is unbelievable. I’ve still got a long way to go the first city I should have to go through is Raleigh.
I’ve been walking for about a day and I can see the ruins from here. Its always so surreal to see the cities now, so desolate so empty. I remember growing up in Seattle, the city lights, the noise it was always so alive and busy. Now they’re all empty husks or mostly empty at least can’t forget about the freaks. Must’ve killed a thousand of them on my way here almost got bitten when one jumped me under an overpass about 10 miles back. Luckily my machete seems to be as good as ever at cutting up freaks. I should make it to Raleigh within the day.
Made it to Raleigh and its a mess, thousands of freaks I could hear the moaning and screaming from a mile away. I’m going to try finding my way around the city no point in trying to fight my way through a wall of freaks.
Heard crying coming from a house I walked past I decided to check it out and I found a young boy name Richie hiding in a bathroom with what looked like his infected parents trying to break the door down. I took both of them down with a clean headshot. The look on his face when he saw them dead breaks my heart. He says they’ve been hiding out in this house for a month or two after there homestead was overrun by freaks. Its a sad story but it gives me hope that people are at least trying to survive and rebuilt. He’s only 16 yet he’s seen so much and has nowhere else to go so I asked him if he wanted to stick with me and he was elated so I guess I’ve got a sidekick now. I’m not complaining should make the long lonely road more interesting. He’s got no combat experience but he can shoot a pistol so I gave him one of my backups at least I always carry extra. We’ve decided to hunker down for the night and do some scavenging before we leave for Charlotte tomorrow. I’ll be nice to have company for once I’ve been alone for so long.
I woke up to a gunshot and Richie screaming in the other room. When I got there I found Richie pale as snow and a little girl that was clearly infected shot lying on the floor. When I asked Richie who it was he replied in a cold distant voice “My little sister”. It was a heart breaking moment in less than 24 hours Richie had lost everyone. That was a feeling I knew too well my mom was all I had my dad died when I was really young and all I knew after the Outbreak before I left the safe haven was NARU but that wasn’t the best place to build personal connections just a bunch of science types that destroyed the world. Not exactly the most social lot and the security forces were just a bunch of military types that didn’t like the fact that as a teenager I was doing better than them in every metric except raw physical strength but even in that I was better than a lot of them. It’s almost time for us to get going I should pack up and make sure Richie’s okay.
We decided to stop by the old gun store on our way out of Raleigh. Richie mentioned seeing it when him and his dad went out to scavenge one time. He says it looked all locked up meaning there’s a good chance that there might still be something left to take. When we arrived there Richie was right it was locked tight it looked like there might be a way in from the roof so we decided to climb up when I got up there I was jumped by a freak that was just waiting but this one was different smarter in a way it heard me climbing up but instead of screaming and jumping off to get me it decided to hide and wait. In my years of freak killing I’ve never seen one that waits and ambushes. I hope this isn’t a sign that the infected are getting smarter. Anyway Richie popped it in the head and we got in to the gun store and what a find it was. I managed to get a brand new Glock 9 with a torch attachment and extended mag to replace the pistol I gave Richie. Speaking of Richie he decided on a 12 gauge pump with a tube extension and a AR-15 with a suppressor, extended mag and front grip. We also found enough ammo to keep us stocked even if we have to shoot our way to Charlotte now that we’re locked and loaded its time to leave this shit hole and start walking to the next shit hole at least for once I won’t be alone.
Chapter 4
The Road to Charlotte
We’d been walking for 60 miles before we were jumped by a gang of thugs. I caught a round to the leg before I knew what was happening Richie was more awake than me and managed to put a round through the bastards chest before his friends jumped out from behind two cars in front of us we managed to take cover behind a ruined car and we returned fire. I could see the thugs had no skill they just fired randomly in our direction while we were in cover I waited till they had to reload and tossed a molotov at one of them burning the bastard to a crisp. Richie rushed the other and unloaded some buckshot into his head. My leg hurts like a bitch. Richie bandaged it up for me he’s really starting to get used to life on the road. Looking at our map it looks like there is a gas station about 10 miles away so I guess I’ll limp my way there so we can hunker down while me leg heals. I still can’t believe I let the bastard catch me lacking but it won’t happen again
We made it too the gas station. The place looks almost perfectly preserved except the group of freaks that were shuffling around outside nothing that we couldn’t deal with. There is a lot of food and water here and we should be safe here while my leg heals. I hope we don’t run into any more problems till then. I trust Richie but he’s still learning and I’m not sure he’d be able to deal with any major problem on his own.
Its been 4 weeks since I took that shot to my leg and I’m feeling a lot better. Richie managed to find some painkiller so he was able to get the round out and everything healed nicely. He really is an amazing guy young and naive but he really is a good person. I don’t know how I did it without him for so long. It nice not being alone any more. I think I’m ready to get moving again we have about another 100 miles left to go before we get to Charlotte so we better get moving.
We’re about 20 miles from Charlotte, the roads been peaceful we ran into a group of survivors living on a pretty well fortified farm about 25 miles back. They were having issues with some freaks hanging around their water pumping station so we dealt with them for them in exchange for some antibiotics to help with an infection Richie got in his leg where he cut himself jumping a fence while a freak chased him before I could dome it. Only god knows how I didn’t get an infection in my leg after getting shot but he did from cutting himself on a rusty fence guess I’m just lucky. After helping them back we continued on our way. Nothing else interesting happened and Richie is looking a lot better and his cut is basically healed. We should get to Charlotte within the day but I want to stop on a hill on the Outskirts to set up base and get a look at the situation in the city because the farmers mentioned that a horde had passed through recently and they usually get held up in cities they should have moved on by now but better safe than sorry
Chapter 5
Charlotte
We made it to the hill outside Charlotte and the place is infested millions of freaks. I’ve never seen so many of them in one place and I think I know why. In the middle of the city is an old NARU emergency treatment centre. A place where all of the cities first infected were sent. A good plan till there were to many of them and quarantine was broken then all it was was a collection of infected right in the middle of the city which lead to the whole thing being infected much faster. I’m guessing this caused most of the freaks to pile and the smell was attracting more. Oh I forgot to mention the smell imagine a pile of thousands of rotting corpses that’s the smell I’m talking about. There’s no chance we’ll be able to get through the city but I need to get to that NARU site. There might be some old documents or something about my mom I need to find out what happened to her. I’ve spoken to Richie and we both agree that we should try and divert the horde away so we can have time to get to the NARU centre.
Richie has volunteered to draw the hordes attention away while I get to the NARU building. The plan is he triggers an explosion at an old gas station on the other side of town while I get to the building and look for information about the virus and what happened to my mom. All I know is that my mom created the virus while working for NARU. I need to find out what happened to her. I hate putting Richie at risk but it needs to be done.
I just heard the explosion and it works thousands of freaks started moving like a tidal wave of flesh towards the sound I hope Richie is on his way to the meeting place at the abandoned NARU checkpoint on the south side of town but I don’t have time to think about it now I’m almost at the NARU centre I need to be as fast as possible
I made it to the NARU centre and it’s covered in bodies there’s no way I can get in it looks more like a pile of living human corpses than a building I’m guessing the freaks all turned on and consumed each other till they were all stuck and fused together. I’m making my way to the NARU checkpoint I hope Richie is already there and safe.
I made it to the NARU checkpoint and reunited with Richie. He was covered in blood and gore. He had to kill hundreds of freaks to make it here. He says he was almost bitten a few times. I can’t believe I risked his life for nothing. I’ll never do it again. While exploring the place I found this.
20 March 2025
Dr Olivia Warren
Dixie is at the Safe zone.
I can’t live with myself any more. 4 billion people dead
The final communication between my mom and NARU it turns out she couldn’t live with the guilt and decided to kill herself. I can’t blame her I would probably do the same if I was the reason the world ended and killed billions of people but it still breaks my heart. I am happy to know she’s dead and not infected lumbering around somewhere.
Richie is exhausted and so am I were going to take a brake here and continue on to Atlanta tomorrow.
Everything is packed up and we’re ready to go. Last night was rough I kept watch while Richie slept I hate to admit it but I think I’m falling in love with him. I never really had a first love I live for 13 years at NARU but I was the oldest kid there by far by the time any of the boys were close to my age I was already jaded and thinking about leaving so I didn’t pay any attention to them but Richie is different when I found him he was so helpless and lost now he’s strong, confident and he’s so loyal to me. I don’t want to speak to soon by I think he might feel the same way I guess time will tell we still have a long road to walk together. Speaking of walking Atlanta here we come.
Chapter 6
Road to Atlanta
We ran into a group of survivors hiding in a shed on the outskirts of Charlotte on our way home two parents and a little girl they were all bitten and waiting to turn they begged us to put them down before they turned so I did but I think it took a toll on Richie. He’s been almost silent since it must’ve reminded him of his parents and little sister I hope the day never comes that one of us get bitten and the other one has to decide whether or not to do it but if it does I hope Richie has what it takes to put me down if not I hope I get to do it myself before I turn but I shouldn’t be thinking about things like that. Thinking about your own death is a pretty sure-fire way to make it happen.
We ran into a pretty large group of infected must’ve been about 20 of them but all of them behaved the same as the one that jumped me on the roof of the gun store back in Raleigh. I guess that confirms that it wasn’t a once off thing but I still wonder what causes it maybe I’ll find out one day. We took them all down and continued on I hate to admit it but I really enjoy killing freaks call it therapy I guess. Richie is running low on ammo for his 12 gauge. There should be a gun store in about 30 miles so we should be able to restock there. My ammo supplies are also running a bit low only got about a hundred rounds per gun left. I know that sounds like a lot but with all the freaks on the roads it barely enough after Raleigh I had about a 500 per gun. Lets hope we don’t run into any large hordes till we get to the gun store.
We made it to the gun store just to find it controlled by 2 less than friendly guys. They opened fire as soon as they same us. We returned fire and we’re about to enter the store. Richie kicked the door down and I rushed in I let of two shots taking down the one guy the other was a second away from filling me with bullets from his Uzi but luckily Richie put a round through his chest and another through his right eye before he could. Thank god. I don’t know what I would do without him. We’ve decided to rest tonight and continue tomorrow morning.
Dixie: “Hey Richie”
Richie: “Hey Dixie”
Dixie: ”How you feeling buddy”
Richie: ”Oh you know always OK”
Dixie: ”That’s good buddy”
Richie: “Hey Dixie thank you for everything you really are the best thing that ever happened to me”
Dixie: ”Don’t mention it buddy I love you”
We’re almost 20 miles away from Atlanta and I’m not hopeful judging by smell. I’m guessing its going to be a lot worse than Charlotte but we’ll have to wait and see.
We’ve made it to the outskirts of Atlanta and its as bad as I thought there are hundreds of body piles almost the size of buildings. The living freaks move around the city streets like blood through the veins of the body. Some of them are engaged in massive fights with other groups ripping each other apart.
We’re going in tomorrow but for now Richie’s hunting while I scope out the area. I hope he brings some venison anything but rabbit. I’m sick of rabbit meat. When he comes back I want to try and cuddle up to him and see what happens
Richie and I have eaten and we’re getting ready to sleep. I asked Richie if I could sleep in his sleeping bag with him. He looked at me like I was crazy but once I insisted I was serious I could see the joy on his face so we cuddled up for the night and went to sleep
Wow it felt so amazing sleeping in Richie’s arms and today everything feels different but in a good way everything just feels more intimate we had an amazing conversation about life this morning and it feels like our bond is on a whole new level. Its time to go explore Atlanta there should be an old NARU field hospital on the North-side of town but we’ve got a whole city to get through before that.
Chapter 7
Atlanta
Atlanta is a nightmare right now we’re stuck in a pharmacy bunch of freaks trying to get to us. I’m busy wiring up a pipe bomb while Richie holds the door then when I’m done BOOM
Richie Move....
BOOM....
Well that’s one way to deal with freaks. Always hate being covered in gore though. We’re near the city centre now and its as bad as we thought the place is infested with freaks every building, street and alley we’ve been fighting for every mile we’ve been moving basically carving our way through the city leaving streets flooded in blood but its worth it I can see the NARU hospital and it looks like I might be able to get in this time.
We’re Exploring the NARU hospital and its a goldmine I found a bunch of old documentation on the virus and even some reports of small towns keeping quarantine for years after the Fall. There’s also apparently an old supply and weapons depot nearby so were going there next.
Richie has been opening up a lot his little sister was out playing when a freak got her. Her parents couldn’t put her down so she turned and bit them he hid in the bathroom for 2 days before I got there and put then out of the misery. I wish I could understand how he feels because I never had anyone except my mom and I lost her so young so it never really affected me. I love him so much. This would be so difficult without him.
We made it to the NARU supply depot and it basically empty I mean it make sense Atlanta was one of the first city to fall due to vast number of infected that moved in from the nearby NARU detention camp. That was a bright idea locking up a bunch infected in one place and expecting the place to last. So the city fell to chaos pretty quickly and NARU withdrew most likely taking everything with them that or it was looted after the city fell doesn’t matter now its almost night and we should get some rest we’re going to camp on a nearby rooftop.
Sitting on the roof with Richie and a fire I can’t help but feel like life isn’t that bad yeah its not what it used to be but I mean I have food and freedom and someone I love what more could someone want from life. Looking out at the desolate streets full of freaks well except the streets we pushed through I see the death of the old world and the birth of a new one.
I should get to sleep we got a long road to Birmingham tomorrow. Its so warm and cosy pressed up against Richie.
Chapter 8
The Road To Birmingham
On our way out of Atlanta we ran into a huge freak and I mean a huge motherfucker must’ve been at least 10 feet tall and covered in muscle it looked like it was made of at least 5 other freaks. He tossed Richie against a car and knocked him out I managed to chop one of its arms off before it threw me 10 feat in the air and I crashed down on my back and passed out when I woke up Richie was putting round after round in the things chest and it still wouldn’t go down to I ran jumped on its back and used my machete to chop the freaks head off and burnt the body with a molotov just to be sure the thing was dead
Richie was pretty beat up and I’m not going to lie so was I my back hurts like a bitch but we keep on going no matter what because we still have each other. Still I wonder how those freaks got combined into that thing. Maybe that’s why they pile the way they do so they can combine into something bigger I remember something in one of the NARU document mentioning the virus being able to cause “cellular recombination” so I wonder if that’s not maybe what happened and if it is it means things are about to get a lot worse and a lot more dangerous.
We’re about 50 miles always from Birmingham now. The road has been pretty quite only the occasional group of freaks and the group of raiders we ran into outside a gas station awhile back but this time we got the drop on them and not the other way round gave all three of them a new hole in the head Richie was worried that they might be survivors till we found Sandra tied up in the gas station bathroom turns out the bastards grabbed her from her family farm during the night a few days ago and have been taking turns on her over and over since then. We agreed to take her home its the least we could do after everything that happened to her. When we got her home we found the place burnt down and her family butchered outside. I’m guessing after they grabbed her the bastards came back to finish the job. She’s decided to stick with us she’s a lot older than me and Richie. She used to be a nurse before the Outbreak she dealt with some of the first infected until NARU took over the hospitals. When things really started to go bad she moved back to Alabama to her old family farm to live with her parents they managed to set everything up before the Fall and have been living there since well till recently. She’s pretty shook about the whole situation but she should be okay in a day or two. We’ve all lost something in this new world.
We’ve made it to the outskirts of Birmingham and the place is a fortress looks like remnants of the US military and NARU have fortified the place they have watch towers, auto-turrents and armed patrols. Also looks like they have a lot of military hardware. I know better than to approach the main gate NARU has a shoot on site order for all there quarantine zones no reason to assume this place would be any different. Still I have to get a look inside. Tonight while Richie and Sandra set up camp I’m going to look around and see if I can find a way in. I have to know what’s going on here.
I’ve taken a look around and I’ve found a way in through an old sewer pipe running into an old factory from there I should be able to sneak into the city and have a look around maybe they have some new information on the virus or at least I should be able to find some weapons for Sandra
Chapter 9
Birmingham
Richie and Sandra are waiting for me back at camp while I go explore the city. I left most of my kit behind except my Glock and combat knife. I’m not planning on getting into any fights and if I do I want the finished as quickly as possible. I’ve made it to the sewer pipe it should lead me to the sewer grate I saw on the other side of the fence from there I should have free reign over the city as long as I avoid the NARU patrols and don’t draw to much attention to myself.
I’ve made it into the city and it looks like something out of a George Orwell novel. Security cameras on every street, I’ve seen security forces beat a man to death and another group drag a young women kicking and screaming into an abandoned building. I hate to say it but I think life is better outside with the freaks than in here. Can’t say I’m surprised there’s a reason I left the NARU security forces and the safe zone. Lets just say civilian life and happiness has never been on their priority list. I can see a NARU supply depot I should be able to get a uniform and standard load out last I remember NARU doesn’t have a way of removing employees from the database so my security id number should still work.
I was right NARU never changes I just used my id to get a brand new NARU-P-2a NARU's home grown assault rifle basically its everything the AR-15 is but better its literally a gun made for killing freaks and you can feel it. I always wished I stole one when I left but I guess better late than never I also scanned through a few of the latest security reports and it seems like big guys like we fought back in Atlanta are becoming more common as well as a new faster infected with razor sharp claws that hunt and ambush their victims. We haven’t ran into one of those yet and I hope we don’t any time soon. I hope Richie and Sandra are okay, they should be we have no shortage of fire-power but I still worry. I’m going to keep taking a look around and maybe find out how they’ve maintained quarantine for so long
Well I got my answer and its not a good one. The NARU higher ups here basically outlawed being sick. Anyone with any symptoms that might be HRV-1 are immediately executed and burnt without exception I guess that’s one way to maintain quarantine but I can’t help but wonder how many thousands of innocent people have died to maintain it.
I think its about time I get out of here and back to Richie and Sandra.
I made it back to camp. I’m so happy to be back with Richie. He went out hunting and brought back a nice fat wild pig for dinner. Sandra is looking a lot better as well she still has that distant look in her eye but that should go away soon
Next stop Montgomery Alabama.
Chapter 10
The Road to Montgomery
I still can’t get it out of my head. The freaks are changing getting more dangerous, if I understand correctly the longer they are infected the more unstable the virus gets leading to mutations. I hope this doesn’t mean that the longer we survive the harder its going to get but there’s no point in worrying about whether or not the freaks are going to be stronger in the future as long as we make sure we get stronger too it should work out just fine. Richie and I are doing really well our love kinda makes everything a lot easier. Gives us a reason if that makes sense Sandra on the other hand is kinda dead weight if I’m being honest but its not her fault. She’s been through a lot Richie and I do our best to look out for her and take care of her. I just wish she’d start to adjust to life out here she still winches every time we take out a group of freaks or thugs and she’s a bleeding heart. Yesterday as we were going past a little abandoned convenience store we heard a little girl crying when we asked what was wrong she said they were trapped and needed help. It was obviously a trap we could see the store was fortified and the little girl looked too happy for a kid whose parents were stuck and dying but Sandra insisted we go in and help and what do you know the kids parents are perfectly healthy and holding us at gun point luckily I’m pretty quick on the draw and managed to put two rounds through the fathers chest and Richie tackled the mom. I walked up to the big dude and put one through the head to make sure the mom learns her lesson. We agreed to let her and her daughter live as long as the promised to stop robbing travellers. Sandra couldn’t handle the fact that I finished the dad off even though I think that was better than leaving his family to watch him bleed out because there was no way he would have survive I shot him through both of his lungs they would have filled up with blood and he would have chocked to death I did him a favour by putting him down but she didn’t see it that way even threatened to go it on her own until Richie and I told her to go ahead if she really thought it was the best thing for her. She then decided to stick with us
We’re nearly at the outskirts of Montgomery, we just passed the old civil rights monument. The roads been a bit too still I have a bad feeling about what we’re going to find when we get there

“Would you sacrifice yourself to save your entire species?” Carl talked through the intercom in the reactor room as he fiddled with more and more wires. He was looking for a very special wire and a very special place to stick it in. The quiet thunks on the other side of the door quieted down. They had been trying to breach the door for over an hour, and really, it hadn’t done much else but annoy everyone involved. If the aliens on the other side of the door had any humor, Carl would have told them that shoving a cactus in their rectums would have been a better use of everyone’s time.
“Of course I would.” The intercom spat out an answer from the not so professional ‘professional negotiator’. Their offers for Carl to open the door had been promises of great wealth, safety, and accommodations. To be clear, Carl did believe the xeno’s offers, its kind were notorious for being devilishly anal about following the letter AND spirit of agreements. If Carl opened the door, he would most likely receive the benefits and live the rest of his life in comfort.
“Would you sacrifice yourself to save a planet of your people?” Carl had walked over, ripped open, and looked through another set of wires as he spoke to the negotiator. He was glad that the room blocked not only the sight of the ugly bastards, but their stench. Before the war, he’d been on one of their stations. Genetic tampering had been rampant in their culture for millenia, and it meant that their appearance had been turned into a fashion of sorts, though a slowly shifting one. It was too bad that they had apparently taken some very, very strange ideals this time around. Abstraction was the name of the game for them, and Picasso would have been proud of what these aliens had made themselves into. Colors, shapes, and even the smell of their bodies were up for fuckery.
“Of course, would you not?” The alien sounded exasperated, and after the roundabouts Carl had spent the first hour talking to them about, it was no surprise. He was pretty sure that he’d spent at least twenty minutes talking about clowns and cocaine. Carl knew that there were only a few more panels where his prize would be waiting inside of. The ‘red wire’ was randomized in every ship. It was crucial, it was very important to the functioning of the reactor, and by extension, the orbital station. Gravity manipulation wasn’t easy. It wasn’t supposed to be easily found by any normal engineer. Its existence was kept down-low and close to heart. People spilled their hearts out over drinks.
“I’d like to think I would, though you never know until the moment arises. How about a continent? Save a few hundred million for your life?” Another panel down, and no wire to be found. A small notion of doubt had entered Carl’s mind by this point, it was pretty unlikely to not have found THE wire yet. Ten panels down, two to go. He spent a small moment playing eeny meeny miny moe between his two choices. The song said ‘right’. His gut told him to break the rule of the song, however, and he started taking the left one apart.
“If I had to.” And there it was. Carl could see that he had been right about the xenos. Little by little, Carl had started to see why this war had begun in the first place, and why these pricks would eventually lose it all. They had none of that go get em attitude to offset their bulging egos. They expected everyone they met to work off of a calculated list of pros and cons. Every action should be explainable by numbers, logic, and personal gain. Though even they had a small sense of collective good, not much, but a little.
“How about a city, let's say. . . 5 million people?” Carl just wanted to know how the negotiator’s personal scale weighed life. He felt like he was getting real close to the creature’s balance point. He also knew that the negotiator was grasping at straws to get the ‘illogical and unpredictable’ human to open the door for the xenos. If the negotiator was a human, they’d be ordering every type of explosive to blast the door before Carl could finish cooking up his plan. Carl took all the joy he could from the situation. He honestly felt like Bugs Bunny in the moment, the other side was simply so, so fucking dense to his plans. They’d probably hold a wrench for him if he just quickly opened the door and told them to. Fucking xenos.
“Hmmm, I would.” Carl had found the special wire that he’d been searching for. It wasn’t red, but it was as thick as his forearms. He carefully inserted a wire of his own into a joint on the wire, making very sure that it was attached properly. He wanted the following moments to have some theatrical value. Something to really talk about in whatever afterlife there was or wasn’t.
The intercom started buzzing for a moment, but he quickly screamed at the top of his lungs into the transmitter to shut the xeno up before it could start talking again.
Carl had his own monologue to get through while he dragged the massive wire across the room.
“You people work with variables and numbers so much more than we do, you’ve certainly realized that by now. You’ve had to really sweeten the deal you originally offered me and STILL nothing. We must be a very interesting debate subject in your universities. A statistical curiosity that befuddles the known models and expected values.”
“And you really fucked up when you thought we were almost like you. You saw our math, you saw our logical arguments, and you thought us to be mirrors of you. The problem with that is that we sent the people most like you to talk to you. Not a good decision for either of us. Good thing for us is that even our people who most resemble you are still human. They told you to fuck off real fast when you gave them a spreadsheet of expected taxes, exports, and laws. You started the war because we gave you more shit than your asses could handle.”
“AND THEN you tried to handle the war like it was a particularly ornery business meeting. You still are. I have been holed up with the MAIN REACTOR CORE for more than an hour. I have been insulting you, playing dumb, playing smart, and talking about SACRIFICING YOURSELF for most of that time. Why, most humans would have BLOWN UP with rage after all the shit I’ve been pulling. The situation would have gone CRITICAL if you had any sense.”
“It’s like you want this all to come CRASHING DOWN.”
“But hey, don’t worry about that, would you sacrifice yourself out of a personal vendetta against a single individual? No lives saved, nothing particularly impressive gained, really just an all in all stupid thing to do. Would you?” Carl was holding the door open switch in one hand, and the special switch in another. For him the scene would end in what he expected to be a very bright light. But there was a bit of foreplay to be had before going all in.
“No, of course not, that would not be good for anybody.” The slamming on the door started again, it was impressively fast, but still useless. Carl pressed the switch as far as he dared before he felt it teeter on the very, very edge of activation. He smiled and thought of the last good steak he’d had, some months ago now.
“On the contrary my friend, why if you only add spite, revenge, and everything sweet to your little calculations, you’d know that it would be very good indeed.” Carl pressed the door open switch and watched as four shapes crashed through and fell on the floor. A fifth one peeked through the doorway. Carl waved at him with the fun switch.
“My favourite explosives are flashbangs.” Carl twitched his thumb just the tiniest bit, and the reactor started to laugh in response. The reactor’s laugh was very quickly getting louder, so Carl had to yell at the very top of his lungs to get the last part across to the negotiator.
“ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY HAVE A LOT OF BANG IN THEM!!!”
The reactor thought this comment was especially funny, and broke down in laughter.
The light was red.
This one was very fun to write, I am not good with writing serious stuff, but I think I do a good job with using expressive language and shitting out references.
I hope you enjoyed reading!

I don't know how many others have struggled with trying to figure out if this beginner book is too hard, or is this one too easy, but I find myself spending a lot of time browsing for books online, combing through reviews (if there are even any in-depth written ones) and hoping someone knowledgeable gave an estimated rating level to get an idea of its difficulty.
There are so many books to keep track of that sound exactly what I was after, and I can't be certain Id comprehend, on top of the hoping I enjoy it too.
I mean, to be honest I could probably be looking at the samples given more often. But I'm lazy and easily distracted by all the other fun book titles I see when browsing. And chess books can very quickly ramp up in difficulty when reading through.
'Beginner' sure covers a wide range. And very subjective it feels.
Oh and also, when people actually give a rating number its great and I'm thankful for, since it gives the best frame of reference. Except they tend to not say from which rating they are referring to; FIDE, USCF, chesscom Lichess or whatever else there may be. It'd be handy if I had a FIDE rating myself. But I mean that isn't their fault.

On May 13, 2024, I received an email / letter from Mohela saying I owe them money for loans that were already paid off! When I logged into my account, all of a sudden I saw loans from undergrad, from more than 10 years ago, that show balances under $1. (e.g. $0.57, $0.76). Moreover, loans that were consolidated by a third party (PenFed) for my grad school back in 2019/2020, were now showing that Mohela never received payment for these loans. When I call Mohela, the service reps think that I'm crazy and that the "system/data is getting the information from studentaid.gov" - and that my outstanding principal balances are current. I believe (hypothesis) Mohela performed some sort of accounting system migration / maintenance / upgrade, and messed up all the accounting records / audit logs.
Update:
StudentAid.gov has details on my loans, and the original principal amounts, do not match the loan details/summary on my account for Mohela.com
Spoke to a supervisor at Mohela and they said they would email "upper management" for futher investigation.
It's clear that there is an accounting error in the systems right now, at least for my account.
I am pulling all the documentation / proof I need for the payments made from my banking records.

Freelance writer who has been writing academic papers, personal statements and taking online classes since 2008. I have a masters in English and have written papers for everything from economics to film theory to psychology. Most recently I've taken nursing classes for clients who need the degree to advance in their careers.
I have done jobs as small as one page papers and as large as doctoral thesis editing (when the doctoral candidate is so burnt out they don't even want to hear about their thesis subject)
Writing samples can be found at https://marlowe1.substack.com/p/jared-gonzalez-owes-me-100-academic
https://marlowe1.substack.com/p/brenda-rodriguez-hires-people-to?utm_campaign=reaction&utm_medium=email&utm_source=substack&utm_content=post
I charge $25/hour. It takes me approximately an hour a page but varies depending on how much I need to research the topic.
I give a quote and stick to it (unless it takes me less time)
Please contact me at omanlieder@yahoo.com.

Freelance writer who has been writing academic papers, personal statements and taking online classes since 2008. I have a masters in English and have written papers for everything from economics to film theory to psychology. Most recently I've taken nursing classes for clients who need the degree to advance in their careers.
I have done jobs as small as one page papers and as large as doctoral thesis editing (when the doctoral candidate is so burnt out they don't even want to hear about their thesis subject)
Writing samples can be found at https://marlowe1.substack.com/p/jared-gonzalez-owes-me-100-academic
https://marlowe1.substack.com/p/brenda-rodriguez-hires-people-to?utm_campaign=reaction&utm_medium=email&utm_source=substack&utm_content=post
I charge $25/hour. It takes me approximately an hour a page but varies depending on how much I need to research the topic.
I give a quote and stick to it (unless it takes me less time)
Please contact me at omanlieder@yahoo.com.

Freelance writer who has been writing academic papers, personal statements and taking online classes since 2008. I have a masters in English and have written papers for everything from economics to film theory to psychology. Most recently I've taken nursing classes for clients who need the degree to advance in their careers.
I have done jobs as small as one page papers and as large as doctoral thesis editing (when the doctoral candidate is so burnt out they don't even want to hear about their thesis subject)
Writing samples can be found at https://marlowe1.substack.com/p/jared-gonzalez-owes-me-100-academic
https://marlowe1.substack.com/p/brenda-rodriguez-hires-people-to?utm_campaign=reaction&utm_medium=email&utm_source=substack&utm_content=post
I charge $25/hour. It takes me approximately an hour a page but varies depending on how much I need to research the topic.
I give a quote and stick to it (unless it takes me less time)
Please contact me at omanlieder@yahoo.com.

Freelance writer who has been writing academic papers, personal statements and taking online classes since 2008. I have a masters in English and have written papers for everything from economics to film theory to psychology. Most recently I've taken nursing classes for clients who need the degree to advance in their careers.
I have done jobs as small as one page papers and as large as doctoral thesis editing (when the doctoral candidate is so burnt out they don't even want to hear about their thesis subject)
Writing samples can be found at https://marlowe1.substack.com/p/jared-gonzalez-owes-me-100-academic
https://marlowe1.substack.com/p/brenda-rodriguez-hires-people-to?utm_campaign=reaction&utm_medium=email&utm_source=substack&utm_content=post
I charge $25/hour. It takes me approximately an hour a page but varies depending on how much I need to research the topic.
I give a quote and stick to it (unless it takes me less time)
Please contact me at omanlieder@yahoo.com.

Freelance writer who has been writing academic papers, personal statements and taking online classes since 2008. I have a masters in English and have written papers for everything from economics to film theory to psychology. Most recently I've taken nursing classes for clients who need the degree to advance in their careers.
I have done jobs as small as one page papers and as large as doctoral thesis editing (when the doctoral candidate is so burnt out they don't even want to hear about their thesis subject)
Writing samples can be found at https://marlowe1.substack.com/p/jared-gonzalez-owes-me-100-academic
https://marlowe1.substack.com/p/brenda-rodriguez-hires-people-to?utm_campaign=reaction&utm_medium=email&utm_source=substack&utm_content=post
I charge $25/hour. It takes me approximately an hour a page but varies depending on how much I need to research the topic.
I give a quote and stick to it (unless it takes me less time)
Please contact me at omanlieder@yahoo.com.