My mother has been bitching at me all day for who knows what reason. I'll give some backstory on yesterday: My bf of 2 years and I gave my mother separate gifts for Mother's Day. Why? Because my bf gets extremely emotional during Mother's Day, as he is estranged from his mother and no contact (her choice). I will spare the details, but it's safe to say it's not his fault. He rather go out to buy his gifts on his own, when there are no crowds, on his own accord.. I guess where he doesn't feel as emotional. I have told him a few times that I can put both of our names on a gift, but he felt comfortable enough to get something, so he did. I thanked him and appreciate the effort he's putting forth towards my mom, who he says he sees as a mom now. He ended up getting her a Bissel Steam mop, which she mentioned she wanted quite a few times.
Here's where I probably fucked up: I asked her a week prior what she wanted for Mother's Day. She had a short but expensive (perfume, gift cards, stuff from amazon) list. I started a new job, and we get paid monthly so I am stuck on 0 til the end of the month. I planned on making it up to her then, but at this point idk. I got her the cheapest thing from the list, and created a grab bag of smaller but cheap things she likes (her fave cookies, gift card to fave restaurant, fave (stuffed) animal).
I completely forgot to tell my bf what the list was.
Anyway, on the actual day, my mom seemed happy with her gifts, but a bit snarky. I couldn't figure out why.
It all came to a head today, I get interrogated in my room about who bought what gift. I realize there's some aggression there, so I ask if everything is ok. My mom goes "so you weren't the one who bought the stupid gift." I ask which gift is stupid. She says the mop. I explain that he probably thought it was the mop you wanted. She explains that she already has a steamer that works fine (we didn't know about the steamer) and that if we were so unsure, we should have just gave her cash. Then she calls the mop a waste of money and that we could have taken her out to eat with the money.
I told her that she is really ungrateful and selfish, and that with knowing his background, she is really rude to react this way. She then starts attacking me for other things, like my character, communication skills and how I need to start giving her more money because she does more for me than I do for her.
I know I should have told my bf about her requests, but I genuinely forgot and really thought she would be happy with whatever he gets her. To solve this, she could return it, but to get cash she'd need the receipt. And I know he'd be devastated to know that she took the mop back. Is this all my fault?
TLDR: BF with mom trauma bought my mom a gift, she called it a "waste of money" and blamed me for it getting to her in the first place.

I have traveled a bit lately and have gotten behind on my thank you post, my deepest apologies, I know how it feels to send something out and not know if it ever got to its destination!
I deeply love this sub and am still amazed at how talented, kind and awesome you all are.
u/_pickupthepieces thanks for the Owl card and exchanging happy mail with me. Yes this week we have had plenty of sunshine!! Although temps are still yo-yoing.
u/amyt13 thank you so much for the Madeira postcard. Sounds like you had an amazing time there. I took my family there for New Year's Eve one year. I book a excursion on a boat with drinks and snacks, I few minutes before midnight they sail out in to the harbor. The fireworks display was truly AMAZING, they were going off in sync 360 degrees all around the boat.
u/articfox_12 thank you for the handmade postcard. Very clever idea to laminate and send. We did and will have a wonderful vacation. I like to travel about every month from March to Nov...
u/babyraspberry x 2 thank you for the Spring mail postcard and all the spring themed ephemera, good for you for taking Mable out for so many walks. I bet she loves it. Thank you too for the Munro's Books postcard, I love the Carl Sagan book quote. I really want to visit Vancouver Island, I hear their gardens are stunning!
u/cake-at-midnight thank you for the thank you postcard, I am glad you liked the birthday card I made for you :) I love my Cricut, I don't use it nearly as much as I should. You can create some amazing things with it!
u/cassius1213 thank you very much for the Awesome Eclipse postmarked postcard. Love that they actually created a specific postmark for the total eclipse.
u/DanerysWon lol love the ballerina hippo postcard, thanks so much, sounds like you had an amazing time at Disney. What a fun place to honeymoon too!
u/DaniGeek what a beautiful hummingbird card you found for me on your treasure hunt! And so fitting as I just saw my first hummingbird yesterday, finally!! Thanks for your book recommendations, it just so happens that I have not read Life of Pi but I just got tickets to see the theater production! I am trying to decide if I should read the book or watch the movie before I see the play. Thoughts? Redwall is a series I read with my son years ago. and the Dresden files is something my son also recently suggested.
u/doughe29 thank you for the Holland MI tulip card. I went to the tulip festival a few years back, very lovely. Yes, Cincy Zoo has a wonderful display of tulips, do come one year. It also has a great Holiday light display in Nov/Dec that is worth seeing.
u/duygusu thank you for the sparkly Awesome thank you card. I am glad you liked the card I sent, wishing you a quick settling in process. Thanks too for the pretty pansy sticker.
u/ez330 thank you for the Ohio Eclipse postcard. Did you not get to see it? We drove up to Dayton to the Air Museum and the clouds parted at just the right time for us to enjoy the majority of the eclipse. Love all the cool space themed stamps you used.
u/Ginger_ninjah thank you for the sunflower mini card and all the fun stickers. Sounds like you have been busy, still loving your Ninja food processor? LOL still shredding cheese?
u/HexagonalRainbow x 2 Thank you for the Legoland postcard. I could see how it would be really easy to spend way more money than intended at the Brick Factory. And a outlet store too - yikes! How many things have you built with what you bought though? I bet a ton of cool things. Secondly, thanks for the Mount Fuji postcard, very pretty! How did you qualification go for work?
u/keqani thanks for the Krieg postcard, love all the cute stickers you adorned the postcard with!
u/libertyprogrammer x 3 thank you for the Cincy OH postcard. Hmmm Leicester UK in 2044? Not sure I would make plans that far ahead lol. Thank you for the Houses of Parliament postcard, I walked around that area so often, I will respond to your update soon. Believe it or not I just today got your postcard you sent from Kruger National Park! It is dated Dec 20th. Can't believe it took so long to find its way to me. Awesome that you saw so many amazing animals!!
u/Mediocre_Radish_7216 thanks for the wonderful and cute snail mail postcard. You should do a scavenger hunt sometime, I had so much fun with it.
u/melhen16 Thank you for the National Postcard Week rainbow postcard, and thanks for the history lesson on the birth of the postcard, wonder what John Charlton would think about the industry he started?!
u/Mysteryvus x 2 thank you for the beautiful lemon thank you card, it is really very pretty. I am glad you liked the bday card I made as I thought about the things you mentioned you liked. Thanks to for the travel postcard, I really do like to travel. I am calling the travel agent my friend used tomorrow to start the planning of our Australia/NZ trip :) wish me luck!
u/ninayjang thank you for the Rome postcard, I love those art type postcards. I will tell you more about my NM trip soon.
u/PinkPengin thank you for the birds and penguin upcycle postcard. Good to hear from you my friend. I too have a pile of things I am supposed to finish up......I keep getting distracted with making travel plans, people visiting, or one of many other things that grabs my attention.
u/princecowboy thank you for the pen and ink dog face postcard. You were absolutely right, by the time I got this you had made it to your 100 flair - Congrats again. And by now you have received my 100 flair congrats card LOL.
u/purpleroots thank you for the CRAVE postcard with all your doodles :)
u/raspberrypoppyseed thank you for the awesome Disney Gang postcard. Did you have an amazing visit? Did you see any of the parades? They are one of my favorite things to do there.
u/rennbrig thank you for the beautiful artwork postcard of "Shaw Island Meadow" it really is so pretty, so glad you reached your sending goal :)
u/TheFeistyFox thank you so much for my sticker bomb scavenger birthday card, it was fun getting something to stretch my bday celebration this far :) thanks for the washi samples too, love the watermelon!!
u/TyeDyeAmish thank you for the bull fighting postcard, I would have to agree, the bulls probably don't like it! It is not something that I would want to see. I have heard how they are done and I just don't think I could watch it.
u/zenshark33 x 2 thank you for the Happy Spring orange flowers postcard, I have moved several times and the think I like the most is getting rid of things so I don't have to move them, so I am right there with you! Thank you for the purple flower Random Happy Mail postcard, always fun to get unexpected happy mail!
u/Zznightzzz thank you for the birthday postcard from my Scavenger hunt! I loved hearing all about your island and the people there. No problem on its delay in getting sent, been there, done that!! I love that you sent it. I still have one other person that I have not received from so if it makes you feel better you aren't the last one :)
u/wabisabi_sf, u/ninajyang and u/littlemermaidxx thank you so much for the Meet Up postcard from the SF stamp show. What a great venue to meet up and get together!!

Hello Everyone. This is 100% a true story.
I thought this would be a good story to share here as it deals with getting petty revenge on someone who was being transphobic and a horrible person. This is a long story but the ending is worth it.
This story takes place back in 2020 and was just reminded of it by one of my best Friends lets call her "Hannah". Hannah and I had a mutual friend, lets call him Zack. I at the time was just starting to come out as trans. This plays a part later.
Zack and I were friends after I meet him throw an EX, the EX was a good man but I am the type of person that does not do well being friends with EXs but was trying because this EX was a good person. This in the end also I keep talking to Zack and at time thought he was a good guy.
Anyway it was late in fall when Zack brought up moving into together due to I was having a hard time with my family and only had a dorm to live in. During this time he also brought up that he had a friend, Hannah, that was also looking for a place to live as her home life was not great either. I said I would have to her first before I said yes to anything. Hannah was on the same page as me and wanted to meet me first too.
So one day Invited them both over to the dorm I was living in, as if anything went wrong the College I was at had great police (had meet many of them during the time I was at college) this made me feel safer meeting new people. Hannah and Zack came over and me and Hannah hit it off well to the point you would have thought we had been friends for years. There were many times her and I would hang out without Zack, which he never liked. Red flag right there. Due to this I started to see the cracks in Zack's shell.
He was very passive of Hannah to almost boyfriend level. Which got worries after I came out as Transgender. Red flag number 2. He would also try to one up me and say things underhanded about me being trans. Now I am a huge werewolf geek and the underhanded things would be like "I will never be an alpha" or shit like that. Now I never called myself an alpha or anything like that. He also said that I would never have a man's mindsight. I never told Hannah any of this because I wanted to stay her friend and do to my trust problems thought she would take his side so that is all my fault.
One night I was talking to Hannah not sharing everything but told her Zack was pissing me off. She had known him longer then I did. She said that it could be do to his religious background and that could be why he was being a ass. That is when she opened up to me about something.
Turned out they where Friends with benefits. Zack was always wanting to make things more then that but Hannah had been hurt bad by an EX, like almost killed. So she did not trust getting back into any relationship. But felt she was safe with him and thought of slowly building up to a relationship. However she also spilled all the tea on him in bed, and I mean all the TEA!
So lets jump forward a few months to Hannah's Birthday. Zack wanted to host it the first night and then she would spend the next night with me. Hannah was going a hard time with family during this time so we planned a Birthday weekend for her. Turns out Zack invited her over for night before so she would be over one night without me so they could be the Birthday *GIGGITYY*. Well as many people know there is something that happens to most women once a month. Yes, Hannah was on her period. To her defense she did not know what Zack was planning for the night she thought he was just being nice because she got into a fight with her family.
So the next day comes around and they pick me up as I did not have a car. Everything seemed off as Hannah's mood was not normal. I wanted to ask what was up but also thought it was because of the fight with her family so I just wanted to make her happy. The day goes on and we are playing her fav video game. She went to bed early which I thought was odd as the two of us are night owls. I asked Zack what was going on. He said nothing but I could tell he was lying but dropped it.
The next day we get to mail in our city as planned and well Zack was doing something and it was just Hannah and I alone. That is when she told me what was going on between them. Apparently Zack was mad because Hannah did not SLEEP with her the night before I showed up. I was pissed, but then she keep going and he keep pushing and begging for it. to the point that when she said she was on her period he just said "THEY COULD PUT A TOWEL DOWN".
That was it for me I was done playing nice to Zack and started to think of ways to tell him how much of a pig he was. I am the type of person where three stracks your out. Hannah and I are huge nerds and you could say she is some where between punk and goth. So we told Zack we where going to Spencer's. Zack said he was going to go to another store as he hated this store. You see in the frount of Spencer's is a nerd, punk and goth best dream, as for the back of the store is full of sex toys and other adult themed things. Knowing this I told Hannah to pick out something she wanted for her birthday anything, and I would get it for her.
Well Hannah was looking at new pricings and wallets I headed to the back of the store to get some goodies for Zack. I payed for the stuff all without Hannah knowing. Best part the store has black bags that you can't see throw due to the things they sell. After I walked up to Hannah and I bought the things she wanted all to her protest. So she told me she would by lunch witch I agreed too because as friends we hate to feel like we are using each other even on holidays.
We left the store and went to the food court and ordered food. Once we sat down Hannah texted Zack where we were. That is when she looked at the large bag I had gotten and she asked me what I had gotten. I handed the bag and told her it was for Zack. The grin on her face was the best thing that I have seen. You see Hannah is also a very petty person and she very much approved of what I had gotten for Zack.
Zack showed up some time later and we planned to go back to his house so she could her car and her stuff to come to my place for the night. That is when the "gift" was given to Zack. I was putting Hannah's stuff in her car for her and wish I could have seen his face when he first opened bag.
You see when I am hurt I get petty but if you upset someone close to me I get PETTY. In the bag he found a large bag of candy and a few lollypop DICKS. But it gets better, I also got him a female blow up doll. There was also two cards. the first said "Congrats on your new girlfriend" which I signed alone and the other said "suck a mountain of dicks" which we both signed.
The next thing I know Hannah is walking out with the biggest grin on her face. With him storming after her when he saw me he said I was just mad that I would never be a "true man". Hannah turned on her heels but before she could do anything I yelled back "he would never be bigger then my pinky finger". He looked so mad and red. Hannah got in her car, we drove off and never looked back.
This may have been to far but I regret nothing.
Hannah says it was the best birthday gift anyone has ever gotten her due to his face he made when he saw all his new goodies. Hannah and I are still great friends to this day and know we have each others backs on anything.

I love reading classic literature, specifically works from the 19th century, so I wanted to write a fan work for this game with that feeling:
“You are quite ridiculous!” came the vivacious and teasing voice of one student passing by the open window. This declaration was answered by the distinct and familiar laughter of another, carried on the autumn wind and drenched in the odor of decaying foliage and the promise of rain.
From his seat in the west wing of the library, parchment and tomes stacked beside him, Ominis Gaunt followed the sound until it vanished completely beyond the courtyard, sensations of uneasy feeling coloring his neck and ears. After a pause, he regained his senses. He shook his head, as if banishing the regretful thought that had then stolen into his mind.
“Why does he keep volunteering himself on her behalf?” He whispered, thinking of the owner of that feminine voice – a new fifth-year student at Hogwarts - an anomaly on its own merit - who had, in half the time succeeding her arrival, attained the magnetic affections of his oldest friend, Sebastian Sallow. “Of course - it’s because she’s new and decidedly beautiful.” Ominis told himself, merely speculating on the state of her physiognomy by the lilting cadence of her voice and the faint wisps of form his wand could communicate to him at a distance. Being blind since birth, he, out of necessity, had developed a magical ‘seeing eye' with the ebony tool he now pressed between his right forefinger and the book in his lap.
He hadn’t dared approach her directly when she’d first entered the Slytherin common room a month prior, for a frenzy of students had erupted around her the moment she’d set foot in it. From there, rumors spread like bees pollinating a garden after a long and depressing winter:
“The new girl had a ministry escort!”
“She was attacked by a dragon!”
“No, she rode the dragon!”
“Supposedly she was a squib before…”
“That can’t be - I heard she's a transfer student and can speak seven languages!”
“That’s a cover - her real secret was that she was privately tutored and has rare and explosively dangerous magic!”
These accounts became increasingly absurd because no one truly knew anything for certain, thus making everything possible. The girl herself was peculiarly private but charmingly polite - a combination that instantly made any would-be-pryer retreat into stuttering awkwardness. They did at the very least glean her name, which quickly became the subject of their fantastical speculations: Mélisande Clarusia Warwick.
From within his pocket, Ominis retrieved the note Sebastian’s owl had delivered him that day:
“Ominis,
Apologies for the abrupt change of plans, but our anticipated study session this afternoon must be postponed. Professor Weasley has graciously requested I accompany ‘MC’ to Hogsmeade for the replenishment of her class supplies, a task I’m sure you know I could hardly decline, given my inclination towards gentlemanly conduct. Incidentally, I cannot help but suspect Mel’s humble dismissal of her exceptional dueling prowess belies a deliberate modesty; there is undoubtedly more to her than meets the eye.
Regardless, I’ll make it up to you! If I’m not in the common room by nightfall, you know where to find me.
Sebastian.”
It did not escape Ominis’s notice that Sebastian, after weathering defeat by her in a duel during their first Defense Against the Dark Arts class together, had taken personal interest in MC and even dubbed her as such - among other names - needling her about the verbose nature of her formal title. Further, it was uncharacteristic of Sebastian to cancel a study session, seeing as he typically made any excuse to visit the library on behalf of research for his ill sister, Anne… nevermind the fact that Ominis could not recall any instance in recent memory where Sebastian had canceled on him, specifically.
After a moment’s hesitation, he refined the creases on the letter and tucked it back into the pocket of his waistcoat. He swallowed, brows furrowing and found that he no longer cared about the dancing plague of 1518 or the other contents of the book he’d since abandoned on his lap.
Sebastian did not come to dinner that evening. In customary fashion, Ominis found himself solitary - twiddling his fork on his plate - his company forsaken even by his housemates, who tended to cast upon him looks of cautious regard. They granted him a wide berth - huddling together three or four invisible student’s places apart from him. Through the soles of his shoes he felt the vibrations of doors slamming across the hall as students filtered out and the bench beneath him shifted when those occupying it left. The idle chatter of two teachers drifted across the cavernous room. Ominis sighed, folding a leaf of wax paper over a blueberry muffin.
“She was missing too…” he noted passively and wondered if he ought to have purloined a second muffin from the banquet table.
He held his wand aloft as he rose, a crimson bead of light fluttering like a heartbeat on its tip. The sensation of structures - rows of oak tables and benches - extended across the space before him. As he walked, he approximated the mass of these objects: how near they existed to his kneecaps, how firmly they were anchored to the floor - all actions thoughtlessly natural to him.
The passageway led from the Great Hall into the Viaduct Courtyard and a faint chill heralded that twilight had fallen upon the surrounding landscape. The tumult of student life had withdrawn for the night, taking with them a clamor of distracting noises and smells. Ominis meditated on the silence, finding solace in measuring the rhythm of his footfalls as he paced across the leaf-littered earth.
He imagined Sebastian with his freckled nose buried in a book in the Undercroft and smiled.
“It’s not the first time he’s worked through dinner,” he reminded himself. “Anne is lucky to have such a brother.” A pang of sadness worked dully at his chest following the mention of Anne’s name. Nothing had been quite like it was since before she’d fallen ill. “Even Sebastian’s laughter seems contrived these days.”
Suddenly a thunderous crack echoed across the hillside to his right, akin to a bolt of lightning striking a tree. Ominis jolted so forcefully that he nearly dropped the muffin in his left hand.
“W-what was that?” He gasped, his head swimming with adrenaline. The atmosphere reeked of burnt timber. Swiftly, he sought the protection of the cloister, his wand hand sweeping the clearing.
The path beneath his feet dropped into a series of stairs ending where the Black Lake licked the limestone and wooden boats rocked innocently in the building below. To the muggle, prepared to dismiss the absence of petrichor, this artificial thunderstroke might have signified a distant storm but Ominis knew well the vast and formidable traits of magic.
Someone was dashing up the stairs to his left - their feet tapping like raindrops on the hard surface. Ominis pressed himself plumb against the column and held his breath.
Her scent preceded her - like honeysuckle, mild and sweet. Following closely, the sound of her breath, quick and shallow, as though from a brisk sprint. The swish of her robes marked her entrance, swift and fleeting. In a moment, she vanished through the nearest castle door, oblivious to the presence of an onlooker.
Ominis found himself immobilized by his perplexity. He had, he was sure, sensed some great surge of energy, unlike any he had previously encountered, as she glided past him. An enigmatic metallic tang lingered on her garments, its quality imprinted on his senses. As he reviewed the day’s - no - the month’s occurrences and considered Sebastian’s recent preoccupation, a daring notion began to take root in his mind:
The new girl was forging a novel strain of magic.

Sorry for the rant, this is going to be a long one. There are lot involved and leading up to this. I know my fiancé and I need to work on a lot. We’ve done therapy and plan on doing more at some point.
So yesterday was supposed to be a special day for my fiancé. It was her birthday and Mother’s Day. I want to start by saying she is a great mother and our kids love her to death.
Our relationship hasn’t been the best since kids. A lot of on and off arguing. We’ll have a huge blow out argument. We won’t communicate for a few days, have a half assed talk about it (which also turns into a kinda mini argument) then move on and pretend nothing happened. Things have been great the past month or 2. We celebrated my birthday the previous weekend and she made me feel very special.
Saturday was a kids B Day party and then we took it back to her parents house. My fiancé is somewhat of a night owl. She likes to stay up and drink her white claw or wine or whatever and chill. I use to be as well, but after kids and getting older and working a vigorous job I’m not so much anymore. I wake up at 3:30 during the week for work. And when she wants to stay up and I don’t, she doesn’t like it very much and lets me know.
So Saturday night at her parents, she’s feeling pretty tipsy, the kids fell asleep and it’s like 10/10:30 at this point. I’ve had a few myself and took a few hits from the pen earlier (only on weekends when the kids are asleep, it’s legal where I live) and I’m getting tired. We decide to pack the kids up and head home (3 houses up). She’s already making comments about how I’m lame and don’t want to hang out with her for her birthday. That she just wants to spend her day alone or something like that. I already know what this leads to so I say goodnight and head up to bed.
I get a text saying how she doesn’t want to go out to eat tomorrow (I reserved a table for us and her parents to get tacos and margaritas, what she said she wanted to do.) and that she’s not mad not just not up for it. I say ok it’s your day whatever you want.
A few minutes later I get a text saying I’m a huge disappointment, how I lack effort she’s done she’s done etc etc. I fed in to it a little bit and texted back which I probably shouldn’t have done, and basically said you wanted space I gave you space.
So I wake up the next day, everyone is out of bed, which is rare before me. Go down stairs and see the kids gave her her presents which imo was extremely wrong to not wait for me or wake me up. I’m visibly upset and ask “how was your gifts did you like them?”
The rest of the day she shut me out. Went out of her way to exclude me from anything she did with our kids. Told me to stay home when they stopped by her moms. Before this I went out and got her and her mom flowers and wine anyway. I wanted her to have her day. But she made it clear she didn’t want me involved.
I didn’t want to make it about me but I was extremely hurt. Fast forward to the next day, I’m at work and send her a text saying I don’t deserve this. All because I don’t like to stay up late. I say that I finally see I’m not the one for her. Which I do think, I just can’t stand the thought of our kids not having their parents together and being away from them.
Anyway, to make it quick, she pretty much says she’s hurt I didn’t do anything for her, that I hate her and she deserves more, how this is all my fault, I should have done all this stuff. All the typical BS.
Wtf? AITAH? Like I said, she made it crystal clear she didn’t want anything to do with me on her day. I was excited for Sunday. I was ready to make breakfast in bed and make her feel special and celebrate her. In so many ways she said she didn’t want that. Now I’m in the wrong and it’s all my fault.
/rant
TLDR my fiancé is hurt and “heartbroken” because I didn’t get to do much for her on her birthday/Mother’s Day because she wouldn’t let me.

My god. I just about died laughing. My folks have been in Colorado about an hour north of Denver since '82. I'm almost in my 30s, and have lived in Colorado almost my whole life, except for a year in New Zealand.
My mother forgot about Casa Bonita until one evening when she when she was up late pricing Christmas ornaments and watching late night TV. One of the shows was the Casa Bonita South Park episode. This episode of South Park opened up a whole vault of memories. How it was a chain from OKC and now is the only one left is in Lakewood. A old friends sister who used to be a fire spinner in the late 70s. The flags on the table for the only edible food, the sopapilla. (Sopapilla: fried dough normally topped with cinnamon sugar and or honey, similar to a beignets, but also sometimes stuffed with savory fillings like Navajo Tacos.)
WELP. This started my mother to planning a whole day in Denver. We went to get my catholic school uniform because of course we had to drive to Denver to get my damn jumpers and skirts, so lets make it fun. It was a random Wednesday in the summer we took the aged truck down to Denver. (yes my mother was already working on Christmas durning the summer, retail!). Got my uniform and headed to Casa Bonita.
We pulled up to the pink building next to the 99 cent shop, and Big Sir Waterbed. I was unimpressed with the uniform I'd have to wear and now a strange pink builing. Honestly the water bed place looked more entertaining. But in we went. Like holy shit! Who knew this weird pink building had a indoor water fall! We could sit next to the cliff divers, and chat with them the whole time! There was also a gorilla who would chase the cliff divers . (We were also probably the only patrons there, maybe 8 other people max.) I got a raise a little flag to eat more sopapilla. There was the mines! And a jail! Seeing as there was no one there my mother just let me run around and be the little weirdo i was.
It's a fond memory. Years later one of the radio stations had "Nerfs LOL at 505" and they made a spoof on a Casa Bonita daycare for kids, this was probably 2012~13. It talk about the waterbed nextdoor and 'how it was ok for the kids to be in the kitchen because all they used is a microwave!'. It got me and my other friends talking about it and how we should take a trip. The trip never happened, but it was fun the share memories of our weird childhood restaurant that only the lower income kids or the kids who's parents worked too much went to.
Then 2019 (i think) rolled around and Casa Bonita was expected to close. One of the good things that happened in 2020 was the South Park guys buy the old pink building. It sparked talk on a Discord, a lot of NoCo folks on there. And i had the pleasure for informing the other folks on there that "yes Casa Bonita is real." And "No, the South Park guys did not make it up." I was so fun to let people know that it was a real place.
I've gotten a few regular at the bar I work at tell me about their trips down there, but non of them grew up here in Colorado, they only know it due to the show. They all have had a fun time, told me the food was edible and they enjoyed it, and they still have the sopapilla flags.

I would like to start off, please don't just say "Hi" I would like to hear at least a little bit about you such as age, gender and hobbies :<
Hi! Male 18 Arkansas! Looking for somebody to talk to and hopefully get along with, hopefully we can become something more than friends? I'd prefer that over anything. Also, don't ghost me? I'm tired of being ghosted :>
My cons, I can't drive at the moments but I'm working my way to get there. I will have my license soon!
I'm also slightly chubby but my height kinda fixes it. I'm around 6 feet tall and weigh around 230lbs
I play games alot or sleep alot.
I'm very clingy and I get attached way to easily
My pros?
I can cook! I can make really good fried chicken and homemade baked Mac n cheese so if you ever want some im your guy :3
I try my best to be sweet and kind
I'm a pretty big nerd (not book smart but random fact smart)
And I have a cat!
I also love stuffed animals and I really hope to be able to make a collection someday
My interests/hobbies Include: playing games, drawing, watching tv/YouTube, listening to music, cooking, and learning useless lore about things.
Now, I don't really have a type, I love all shapes and sizes of people (although I do prefer chubby people! It means they know how to eat well) but please don't hesitate to dm me! I'm sure that as long as you aren't too manipulative or toxic well be fine!
And my age range? Please don't be over 25. Anything over just kinda makes me feel uneasy :<
I really hope to talk to you!!!!

I would like to start off, please don't just say "Hi" I would like to hear at least a little bit about you such as age, gender and hobbies :<
Hi! Male 18 Arkansas! Looking for somebody to talk to and hopefully get along with, hopefully we can become something more than friends? I'd prefer that over anything. Also, don't ghost me? I'm tired of being ghosted :>
My cons, I can't drive at the moments but I'm working my way to get there. I will have my license soon!
I'm also slightly chubby but my height kinda fixes it. I'm around 6 feet tall and weigh around 230lbs
I play games alot or sleep alot.
I'm very clingy and I get attached way to easily
My pros?
I can cook! I can make really good fried chicken and homemade baked Mac n cheese so if you ever want some im your guy :3
I try my best to be sweet and kind
I'm a pretty big nerd (not book smart but random fact smart)
And I have a cat!
I also love stuffed animals and I really hope to be able to make a collection someday
My interests/hobbies Include: playing games, drawing, watching tv/YouTube, listening to music, cooking, and learning useless lore about things.
Now, I don't really have a type, I love all shapes and sizes of people (although I do prefer chubby people! It means they know how to eat well) but please don't hesitate to dm me! I'm sure that as long as you aren't too manipulative or toxic well be fine!
And my age range? Please don't be over 25. Anything over just kinda makes me feel uneasy :<
I really hope to talk to you!!!!

One of the things I appreciated most about the owl house was the hexside, or at least how it was treated. It is a magic school in a fantasy world, which the protagonist begins to attend despite being someone unusual, at least for that school. Does it remind you of anything? And despite this, it hasn't become a clone of Harry Potter, like The Worst Witch and many other series like that. Why? Because hexside was a school. Just a school and nothing else. If you take, for example, Wensday, the Worst Witch or even Percy Jackson, you will see how the school in question becomes much more than a school. It essentially becomes the center of the protagonist's life (not really for Percy Jackson, he too somehow managed to free himself from Harry Potter's influence but in a different way), with all the events that happen in the school and concern the school. Instead the hexside is just that: a school. Nothing more, nothing less. It is used as a pretext to make Luz more powerful, it is the setting of various episodes (some parodies of Harry Potter), it even becomes the base of the rebels. But never, NEVER on toh will the hexside have such a central role as to make the owl house considered "a harry potter clone". It may seem like a simple thing, but it is much more difficult than it seems

This is an expansion of a recent post and also incorporates some ideas from this theory (by u/ndependent-Design17). Throughout the series the reader is repeatedly reminded that "only death can pay for life" — that magic, especially powerful magic, comes at great cost.

"Only death can pay for life, my lord. A great gift requires a great sacrifice.”

Davos, ASOS
This phrase or variations of this phrase are repeated by Melisandre, Mirri, etc. at various points throughout the series. That which follows is a highly speculative theory on the nature of the cost of magic in the series. Specifically, that souls are central to the exercise of magic and can be used as magic currency.

1. establishing the concept of the soul

Oh, to be sure, there is much we do not understand. The years pass in their hundreds and their thousands, and what does any man see of life but a few summers, a few winters? We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so they seem… but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes.

Bran, AGOT
What happens after we die? Is there some part of us that lives on or do we simply cease to exist. These are fundamental questions that are essentially unanswerable in life but not in ASOIAF. The reader is given a point-of-view account of death in the prologue of ADWD. After unsuccessfully attempting to steal the body of Thistle, a wildling spearwife, Varamyr dies and briefly becomes a disembodied consciousness:

The white world turned and fell away. For a moment it was as if he were inside the weirwood, gazing out through carved red eyes as a dying man twitched feebly on the ground and a madwoman danced blind and bloody underneath the moon, weeping red tears and ripping at her clothes. Then both were gone and he was rising, melting, his spirit borne on some cold wind. He was in the snow and in the clouds, he was a sparrow, a squirrel, an oak. A horned owl flew silently between his trees, hunting a hare; Varamyr was inside the owl, inside the hare, inside the trees. Deep below the frozen ground, earthworms burrowed blindly in the dark, and he was them as well. I am the wood, and everything that’s in it, he thought, exulting.

Prologue, ADWD
Afterward his "spirit," or soul, is eventually transferred into a body of wolf and he begins his second life. This event, and the process of skin-changing more generally, appears to involve projection or transfer of a soul from one body into another. The process of projecting or transferring souls to either animal vessels or the weirwoods is central to the magic of the Children of the Forest.

“Someone else was in the raven,” he told Lord Brynden, once he had returned to his own skin. “Some girl. I felt her.”
“A woman, of those who sing the song of earth,” his teacher said. “Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you would remain in Summer if your boy’s flesh were to die upon the morrow. A shadow on the soul. She will not harm you.”
"Do all the birds have singers in them?"
“All,” Lord Brynden said.

Bran, ADWD
After death a "shadow on the soul" of the Singers remain in the crows. The soul of Orell is also described as living on in the body of his eagle after his death.
This process appears to take two forms: the soul can be temporarily projected from one body into another (e.g., as happens when Bran skin-changes into Hodor) or can be permanently transferred as is described in the separate examples above.
These transferred souls merge with their recipient, at least to some degree, and may decay over time:

"The wolf is part of you from that day on, and you’re part of him. Both of you will change.”
Other beasts were best left alone, the hunter had declared. Cats were vain and cruel, always ready to turn on you. Elk and deer were prey; wear their skins too long, and even the bravest man became a coward. Bears, boars, badgers, weasels … Haggon did not hold with such. “Some skins you never want to wear, boy. You won’t like what you’d become.” Birds were the worst, to hear him tell it. “Men were not meant to leave the earth. Spend too much time in the clouds and you never want to come back down again.
...
"They say you forget," Haggon had told him, a few weeks before his own death.
"When the man's flesh dies, his spirit lives on inside the beast, but every day his memory fades, and the beast becomes a little less a warg, a little more a wolf, until nothing of the man is left and only the beast remains."

Prologue, ADWD
Bran is provided with similar warnings about the danger of spending too much time in Summer's skin by Jojen.
The Bran that appears to Jon-Ghost in the vision in ACOK is also likely the lingering soul of a non-contemporary Bran, contained in the weirwoods and communicating from the future.

The weirwood had his brother’s face. Had his brother always had three eyes?
Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow.
He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.
"Don’t be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this." And the tree reached down and touched him.

Jon, ACOK
There is more information about this in the Time Traveling Bran series. Briefly, the version of Bran in this vision does not appear to be contemporaneous because likes the dark, is able to open Jon's third eye, smells of death, etc. (This is well outside of the scope of this theory however.)

2. shadow magic requires souls

As above the reader is repeatedly reminded throughout the series that "only death can pay for life." What is specifically being sacrificed, though? Is the magic being fueled by the blood of the sacrificed or by something else?
To answer this let us examine one of the most concrete example of magic in the series, the use or exchange of Stannis Baratheon's "life-fire" in order for Melisandre to manifest the shadows used to kill Renly Baratheon and Courtney Penrose.

Shadows only live when given birth by light, and the king's fires burn so low I dare not draw off any more to make another son. It might well kill him."
Melisandre moved closer.
"With another man, though... a man whose flames still burn hot and high... if you truly wish to serve your king's cause, come to my chamber one night. I could give you pleasure such as you have never known, and with your life-fire I could make..."

Davos, ASOS
According to this explanation, the cost of producing these shadow appears to have been part of his "life-fire," or soul. The shadow is specifically described as having the shape Stannis supporting this. Whether this applies to other types of magic — specifically blood magic or fire magic — is less clear but shadow magic very much appears to require the use of souls.
This type of exchange is also directly referenced in the story of the Night's King provided by Old Nan:

A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well. (Credit to u/DigLost5791 for this reference.)

Bran, ASOS
Stannis is described by Davos afterward as follows:

The look of him was a shock. He seemed ten years older than the man that Davos had left at Storm’s End when he set sail for the Blackwater and the battle that would be their undoing. The king’s close-cropped beard was spiderwebbed with grey hairs, and he had dropped two stone or more of weight. He had never been a fleshy man, but now the bones moved beneath his skin like spears, fighting to cut free. Even his crown seemed too large for his head. His eyes were blue pits lost in deep hollows, and the shape of a skull could be seen beneath his face.

Davos, ASOS
Asha later describes Stannis as appearing life a "man with one foot in the grave."

What little flesh he’d carried on his tall, spare frame at Deepwood Motte had melted away during the march. The shape of his skull could be seen under his skin, and his jaw was clenched so hard Asha feared his teeth might shatter.

Asha, ADWD
These descriptions seem appropriate for a character that has lost part of their "life-fire" or soul.
Throughout the series Stannis is forced to make a series of increasingly difficult decisions. The most significant of these decisions regards the fate of his nephew, Eric Storm. Melisandre repeatedly urges him to "give [her] the boy," presumably to be burned, but is rebuffed by Stannis.

“I know the cost! Last night, gazing into that hearth, I saw things in the flames as well. I saw a king, a crown of fire on his brows, burning… burning, Davos. His own crown consumed his flesh and turned him into ash. Do you think I need Melisandre to tell me what that means? Or you?” The king moved, so his shadow fell upon King’s Landing.
"…what is the life of one bastard boy against a kingdom?”
“Everything,” said Davos, softly.

Davos, ASOS
Is the life of this bastard boy worth the lives of millions that would die if the Others break through the Wall? Making a deal with the devil and literally selling his soul in pursuit of some greater good seems very appropriate for his character, thematically. The description of his flesh turning to ash in this vision is representative also supports this interpretation.

3. blood and fire magic

As opposed to the creation of the shadows described above, we are also provided an example of so-called blood magic in the leech burning ritual.

“Give me the boy, Your Grace. It is the surer way. The better way. Give me the boy and I shall wake the stone dragon.”
...
Melisandre bowed her head stiffly, and said, “As my king commands.” Reaching up her left sleeve with her right hand, she flung a handful of powder into the brazier. The coals roared. As pale flames writhed atop them, the red woman retrieved the silver dish and brought it to the king. Davos watched her lift the lid. Beneath were three large black leeches, fat with blood. The boy’s blood, Davos knew. A king’s blood. Stannis stretched forth a hand, and his fingers closed around one of the leeches.
“Say the name,” Melisandre commanded.

Davos, ASOS
Following this ritual all of the mentioned individuals do die but do so as the part of separate conspiracies (e.g., Robb Stark is betrayed by the Freys and Boltons, Joffrey Baratheon by Littlefinger and the Tyrells, etc.) which were already in place. It is left intentionally ambiguous by the author but it does not appear that the ritual meaningfully contributed to their deaths.
The creation of the shadows is said by Melisandre to have required part of Stannis' "life-fire" or soul. Could it be that the leech burning ritual was unsuccessful because blood alone is not sufficient as a sacrifice?
These forms of magic are frequently described in the community as "shadow magic" and "blood magic." These concepts — "fire and blood" and "flame and shadow" — are highly associated with one another in the text:

“Shadow?" Davos felt his flesh prickling. "A shadow is a thing of darkness."
”You are more ignorant than a child, ser knight. There are no shadows in the dark. Shadows are the servants of light, the children of fire. The brightest flame casts the darkest shadows."

Davos, ACOK
I speculate that these are different expressions of the same concept; that all of these fall under the general umbrella of fire magic and share common principles. "Fire consumes and in the end there's nothing left."

4. dancing shadows

The tent was aglow with the light of braziers within. Through the blood-spattered sandsilk, she glimpsed shadows moving.
Mirri Maz Duur was dancing, and not alone.
...
No, Dany wanted to say, no, not that, you mustn’t, but when she opened her mouth, a long wail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin. What was wrong with them, couldn’t they see?
Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.
“The Lamb Woman knows the secrets of the birthing bed,” Irri said. “She said so, I heard her.”
“Yes,” Doreah agreed, “I heard her too.”
No, she shouted, or perhaps she only thought it, for no whisper of sound escaped her lips. She was being carried. Her eyes opened to gaze up at a flat dead sky, black and bleak and starless. Please, no. The sound of Mirri Maz Duur’s voice grew louder, until it filled the world. The shapes! She screamed. The dancers!
Ser Jorah carried her inside the tent.

Daenerys, AGOT
The introduction of shadow magic in the series is provided above with Mirri Max Duur. Following this ritual Drogo is described as a lifeless husk:

"He seems to like the warmth, Princess," Ser Jorah said. "His eyes follow the sun, though he does not see it. He can walk after a fashion. He will go where you lead him, but no farther. He will eat if you put food in his mouth, drink if you dribble water on his lips."

Daenerys, AGOT
It has previously been speculated that Mirri "reverse skin-changed" Drogo (e.g., "strength of the mount go into the rider, strength of the beast go into the man."). The description provided is less consistent with a horse soul inhabiting a human body than it is with the complete or near-complete absence of a soul. It appears more likely in retrospect that Mirri sacrificed part of Drogo's soul to summon the shadows and likely as a means to kill Daenerys' unborn child.

“The stallion who mounts the world will burn no cities now. His khalasar shall trample no nations into dust."

Daenerys, AGOT

5. reanimation

If "only death can pay for life" and souls are used as a form of magical currency how does one explain the reanimation or resurrection process?
There is a paucity of information on the reanimation of the dead in the series. The resurrection of Beric Dondarrion, for example, appears to be different in fundamental ways from that of the wights or Cold Hands. (We are potentially given a point-of-view account of this process if you accept that Victarion died in ADWD.)

“Thoros, how many times have you brought me back now?”
The red priest bowed his head. “It is R’hllor who brings you back, my lord. The Lord of Light. I am only his instrument.”
“How many times?” Lord Beric insisted.
“Six,” Thoros said reluctantly.
“And each time is harder. You have grown reckless, my lord. Is death so very sweet?”
Arya, ASOS

There is no immediately identifiable magical cost for these "kisses of life," at least at first glance. Thoros later tells us that he breathed part of his "flames" or soul into Beric:

“That first time, his lordship had a hole right through him and blood in his mouth, I knew there was no hope. So when his poor torn chest stopped moving, I gave him the good god's own kiss to send him on his way. I filled my mouth with fire and breathed the flames inside him, down his throat to lungs and heart and soul. The last kiss it is called, and many a time I saw the old priests bestow it on the Lord's servants as they died." (Credit to u/watchersontheweb for providing this quote in the initial thread.)

Arya, ASOS
Thoros is also described as appearing very different after performing this ritual several times in a way that is not entirely dissimilar to the changes in Stannis’ appearance referenced above.

“Here’s the wizard, skinny squirrel. You’ll get your answers now.”
He pointed toward the fire, where Tom Sevenstrings stood talking to a tall thin man with oddments of old armor buckled on over his ratty pink robes. That can’t be Thoros of Myr. Arya remembered the red priest as fat, with a smooth face and a shiny bald head. This man had a droopy face and a full head of shaggy grey hair.
...
“Thoros of Myr. You used to shave your head.”
“To betoken a humble heart, but in truth my heart was vain. Besides, I lost my razor in the woods.” The priest slapped his belly. “I am less than I was, but more. A year in the wild will melt the flesh off a man. Would that I could find a tailor to take in my skin. I might look young again, and pretty maids would shower me with kisses.”

Arya, ASOS
Thoros attributes these changes to his renewed devotion to the Red God and spending "a year in the wild" as above although he is not exactly forthcoming with Arya about the resurrection process. It is also likely that he does not entirely understand what specifically is being exchanged here.
Later he describes Beric giving the "kiss of life" to the corpse of Catelyn Stark:

“The Freys slashed her throat from ear to ear. When we found her by the river she was three days dead. Harwin begged me to give her the kiss of life, but it had been too long. I would not do it, so Lord Beric put his lips to hers instead, and the flame of life passed from him to her. And… she rose. May the Lord of Light protect us. She rose.”

Brienne, AFFC
Notably, this process produces a reanimated Catelyn (a.k.a. Lady Stoneheart). The soul of Beric, or at least whatever is left of his soul at this point in the series, is consumed in order to resurrect Catelyn and not transferred.

6. cold shadows (wild speculation)

The terms "white shadows," "pale shadows," and "cold shadows" are repeated used to describe the Others. The Others are also highly associated with ghosts — the spirits or souls of the dead bound to the earth. (The forrest in which they are introduced is literally called the Haunted Forrest.)

The Others made no sound.
Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness. Then it was gone. Branches stirred gently in the wind, scratching at one another with wooden fingers. Will opened his mouth to call down a warning, and the words seemed to freeze in his throat. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps it had only been a bird, a reflection on the snow, some trick of the moonlight. What had he seen, after all?
“Will, where are you?” Ser Waymar called up. “Can you see anything?” He was turning in a slow circle, suddenly wary, his sword in hand. He must have felt them, as Will felt them. There was nothing to see. “Answer me! Why is it so cold?” It was cold.
Shivering, Will clung more tightly to his perch. His face pressed hard against the trunk of the sentinel. He could feel the sweet, sticky sap on his cheek. A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywhere dappled with the deep grey-green of the trees. The patterns ran like moonlight on water with every step it took. Will heard the breath go out of Ser Waymar Royce in a long hiss. ...
The Other slid forward on silent feet. In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen. No human metal had gone into the forging of that blade. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor.

Prologue, AGOT
This is again highly speculative but it seems reasonable to consider that these cold shadows are not "ice demons" or "ice zombies" but are in fact ghosts, the spirits or souls of men that are bound to the earth through magic by the Children of the Forest. (The textual evidence of the creation of the Others by the Children has previously been discussed at length in the community in separate posts.) "Fire consumes, but cold preserves."
This would explain several of the unusual characteristics of the Others described by Tormund:

“Tormund,” Jon said, as they watched four old women pull a cartful of children toward the gate, “tell me of our foe. I would know all there is to know of the Others.”
The wildling rubbed his mouth. “Not here,” he mumbled, “not this side o’ your Wall.” The old man glanced uneasily toward the trees in their white mantles. “They’re never far, you know. They won’t come out by day, not when that old sun’s shining, but don’t think that means they went away. Shadows never go away. Might be you don’t see them, but they’re always clinging to your heels.”
...
Tormund turned back.
"You know nothing. You killed a dead man, aye, I heard. Mance killed a hundred. A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up… how do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teeth … air so cold it hurts to breathe, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?"

Jon, ADWD
A reasonable interpretation of this information is that the Others are present during the day, at least in some capacity, and are only able to assume corporeal form at night.
The Others are also described as "going lightly upon the snow" which would also supports the idea that they are ghosts:

“The white walkers go lightly on the snow,” the ranger said. “You’ll find no prints to mark their passage.”

Samwell, ASOS

7. conclusions

This highly speculative theory attempts to reconcile several seemingly disparate concepts in the series related to magic, namely the actual nature of magical sacrifice ("only death can pay for life") and shadows or shadow magic. More specifically, I suggest that souls are the primary magical currency and can be consumed using fire magic to summon shadows, create glamours, etc. I also speculate that similar processes took place during Mirri Maz Duur's shadow-binding ritual in AGOT and during the repeated resurrections of Berric Dondarrion in ASOS. I further suggest that the Others are ghosts, the spirits or souls of the dead bound to the earth.
EDIT: edited several times to address formatting issues

This is an expansion of a recent post and also incorporates some ideas from this theory (by u/ndependent-Design17). Throughout the series the reader is repeatedly reminded that "only death can pay for life" — that magic, especially powerful magic, comes at great cost.

"Only death can pay for life, my lord. A great gift requires a great sacrifice.”

Davos, ASOS
This phrase or variations of this phrase are repeated by Melisandre, Mirri, etc. at various points throughout the series. That which follows is a highly speculative theory on the nature of the cost of magic in the series. Specifically, that souls are central to the exercise of magic and can be used as magic currency.

1. establishing the concept of the soul

Oh, to be sure, there is much we do not understand. The years pass in their hundreds and their thousands, and what does any man see of life but a few summers, a few winters? We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so they seem… but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes.

Bran, AGOT
What happens after we die? Is there some part of us that lives on or do we simply cease to exist. These are fundamental questions that are essentially unanswerable in life but not in ASOIAF. The reader is given a point-of-view account of death in the prologue of ADWD. After unsuccessfully attempting to steal the body of Thistle, a wildling spearwife, Varamyr dies and briefly becomes a disembodied consciousness:

The white world turned and fell away. For a moment it was as if he were inside the weirwood, gazing out through carved red eyes as a dying man twitched feebly on the ground and a madwoman danced blind and bloody underneath the moon, weeping red tears and ripping at her clothes. Then both were gone and he was rising, melting, his spirit borne on some cold wind. He was in the snow and in the clouds, he was a sparrow, a squirrel, an oak. A horned owl flew silently between his trees, hunting a hare; Varamyr was inside the owl, inside the hare, inside the trees. Deep below the frozen ground, earthworms burrowed blindly in the dark, and he was them as well. I am the wood, and everything that’s in it, he thought, exulting.

Prologue, ADWD
Afterward his "spirit," or soul, is eventually transferred into a body of wolf and he begins his second life. This event, and the process of skin-changing more generally, appears to involve projection or transfer of a soul from one body into another. The process of projecting or transferring souls to either animal vessels or the weirwoods is central to the magic of the Children of the Forest.

“Someone else was in the raven,” he told Lord Brynden, once he had returned to his own skin. “Some girl. I felt her.”
“A woman, of those who sing the song of earth,” his teacher said. “Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you would remain in Summer if your boy’s flesh were to die upon the morrow. A shadow on the soul. She will not harm you.”
"Do all the birds have singers in them?"
“All,” Lord Brynden said.

Bran, ADWD
After death a "shadow on the soul" of the Singers remain in the crows. The soul of Orell is also described as living on in the body of his eagle after his death.
This process appears to take two forms: the soul can be temporarily projected from one body into another (e.g., as happens when Bran skin-changes into Hodor) or can be permanently transferred as is described in the separate examples above.
These transferred souls merge with their recipient, at least to some degree, and may decay over time:

"The wolf is part of you from that day on, and you’re part of him. Both of you will change.”
Other beasts were best left alone, the hunter had declared. Cats were vain and cruel, always ready to turn on you. Elk and deer were prey; wear their skins too long, and even the bravest man became a coward. Bears, boars, badgers, weasels … Haggon did not hold with such. “Some skins you never want to wear, boy. You won’t like what you’d become.” Birds were the worst, to hear him tell it. “Men were not meant to leave the earth. Spend too much time in the clouds and you never want to come back down again.
...
"They say you forget," Haggon had told him, a few weeks before his own death.
"When the man's flesh dies, his spirit lives on inside the beast, but every day his memory fades, and the beast becomes a little less a warg, a little more a wolf, until nothing of the man is left and only the beast remains."

Prologue, ADWD
Bran is provided with similar warnings about the danger of spending too much time in Summer's skin by Jojen.
The Bran that appears to Jon-Ghost in the vision in ACOK is also likely the lingering soul of a non-contemporary Bran, contained in the weirwoods and communicating from the future.

The weirwood had his brother’s face. Had his brother always had three eyes?
Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow.
He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.
"Don’t be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this." And the tree reached down and touched him.

Jon, ACOK
There is more information about this in the Time Traveling Bran series. Briefly, the version of Bran in this vision does not appear to be contemporaneous because likes the dark, is able to open Jon's third eye, smells of death, etc. (This is well outside of the scope of this theory however.)

2. shadow magic requires souls

As above the reader is repeatedly reminded throughout the series that "only death can pay for life." What is specifically being sacrificed, though? Is the magic being fueled by the blood of the sacrificed or by something else?
To answer this let us examine one of the most concrete example of magic in the series, the use or exchange of Stannis Baratheon's "life-fire" in order for Melisandre to manifest the shadows used to kill Renly Baratheon and Courtney Penrose.

Shadows only live when given birth by light, and the king's fires burn so low I dare not draw off any more to make another son. It might well kill him."
Melisandre moved closer.
"With another man, though... a man whose flames still burn hot and high... if you truly wish to serve your king's cause, come to my chamber one night. I could give you pleasure such as you have never known, and with your life-fire I could make..."

Davos, ASOS
According to this explanation, the cost of producing these shadow appears to have been part of his "life-fire," or soul. The shadow is specifically described as having the shape Stannis supporting this. Whether this applies to other types of magic — specifically blood magic or fire magic — is less clear but shadow magic very much appears to require the use of souls.
This type of exchange is also directly referenced in the story of the Night's King provided by Old Nan:

A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well. (Credit to u/DigLost5791 for this reference.)

Bran, ASOS
Stannis is described by Davos afterward as follows:

The look of him was a shock. He seemed ten years older than the man that Davos had left at Storm’s End when he set sail for the Blackwater and the battle that would be their undoing. The king’s close-cropped beard was spiderwebbed with grey hairs, and he had dropped two stone or more of weight. He had never been a fleshy man, but now the bones moved beneath his skin like spears, fighting to cut free. Even his crown seemed too large for his head. His eyes were blue pits lost in deep hollows, and the shape of a skull could be seen beneath his face.

Davos, ASOS
Asha later describes Stannis as appearing life a "man with one foot in the grave."

What little flesh he’d carried on his tall, spare frame at Deepwood Motte had melted away during the march. The shape of his skull could be seen under his skin, and his jaw was clenched so hard Asha feared his teeth might shatter.

Asha, ADWD
These descriptions seem appropriate for a character that has lost part of their "life-fire" or soul.
Throughout the series Stannis is forced to make a series of increasingly difficult decisions. The most significant of these decisions regards the fate of his nephew, Eric Storm. Melisandre repeatedly urges him to "give [her] the boy," presumably to be burned, but is rebuffed by Stannis.

“I know the cost! Last night, gazing into that hearth, I saw things in the flames as well. I saw a king, a crown of fire on his brows, burning… burning, Davos. His own crown consumed his flesh and turned him into ash. Do you think I need Melisandre to tell me what that means? Or you?” The king moved, so his shadow fell upon King’s Landing.
"…what is the life of one bastard boy against a kingdom?”
“Everything,” said Davos, softly.

Davos, ASOS
Is the life of this bastard boy worth the lives of millions that would die if the Others break through the Wall? Making a deal with the devil and literally selling his soul in pursuit of some greater good seems very appropriate for his character, thematically. The description of his flesh turning to ash in this vision is representative also supports this interpretation.

3. blood and fire magic

As opposed to the creation of the shadows described above, we are also provided an example of so-called blood magic in the leech burning ritual.

“Give me the boy, Your Grace. It is the surer way. The better way. Give me the boy and I shall wake the stone dragon.”
...
Melisandre bowed her head stiffly, and said, “As my king commands.” Reaching up her left sleeve with her right hand, she flung a handful of powder into the brazier. The coals roared. As pale flames writhed atop them, the red woman retrieved the silver dish and brought it to the king. Davos watched her lift the lid. Beneath were three large black leeches, fat with blood. The boy’s blood, Davos knew. A king’s blood. Stannis stretched forth a hand, and his fingers closed around one of the leeches.
“Say the name,” Melisandre commanded.

Davos, ASOS
Following this ritual all of the mentioned individuals do die but do so as the part of separate conspiracies (e.g., Robb Stark is betrayed by the Freys and Boltons, Joffrey Baratheon by Littlefinger and the Tyrells, etc.) which were already in place. It is left intentionally ambiguous by the author but it does not appear that the ritual meaningfully contributed to their deaths.
The creation of the shadows is said by Melisandre to have required part of Stannis' "life-fire" or soul. Could it be that the leech burning ritual was unsuccessful because blood alone is not sufficient as a sacrifice?
These forms of magic are frequently described in the community as "shadow magic" and "blood magic." These concepts — "fire and blood" and "flame and shadow" — are highly associated with one another in the text:

“Shadow?" Davos felt his flesh prickling. "A shadow is a thing of darkness."
”You are more ignorant than a child, ser knight. There are no shadows in the dark. Shadows are the servants of light, the children of fire. The brightest flame casts the darkest shadows."

Davos, ACOK
I speculate that these are different expressions of the same concept; that all of these fall under the general umbrella of fire magic and share common principles. "Fire consumes and in the end there's nothing left."

4. dancing shadows

The tent was aglow with the light of braziers within. Through the blood-spattered sandsilk, she glimpsed shadows moving.
Mirri Maz Duur was dancing, and not alone.
...
No, Dany wanted to say, no, not that, you mustn’t, but when she opened her mouth, a long wail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin. What was wrong with them, couldn’t they see?
Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.
“The Lamb Woman knows the secrets of the birthing bed,” Irri said. “She said so, I heard her.”
“Yes,” Doreah agreed, “I heard her too.”
No, she shouted, or perhaps she only thought it, for no whisper of sound escaped her lips. She was being carried. Her eyes opened to gaze up at a flat dead sky, black and bleak and starless. Please, no. The sound of Mirri Maz Duur’s voice grew louder, until it filled the world. The shapes! She screamed. The dancers!
Ser Jorah carried her inside the tent.

Daenerys, AGOT
The introduction of shadow magic in the series is provided above with Mirri Max Duur. Following this ritual Drogo is described as a lifeless husk:

"He seems to like the warmth, Princess," Ser Jorah said. "His eyes follow the sun, though he does not see it. He can walk after a fashion. He will go where you lead him, but no farther. He will eat if you put food in his mouth, drink if you dribble water on his lips."

Daenerys, AGOT
It has previously been speculated that Mirri "reverse skin-changed" Drogo (e.g., "strength of the mount go into the rider, strength of the beast go into the man."). The description provided is less consistent with a horse soul inhabiting a human body than it is with the complete or near-complete absence of a soul. It appears more likely in retrospect that Mirri sacrificed part of Drogo's soul to summon the shadows and likely as a means to kill Daenerys' unborn child.

“The stallion who mounts the world will burn no cities now. His khalasar shall trample no nations into dust."

Daenerys, AGOT

5. reanimation

If "only death can pay for life" and souls are used as a form of magical currency how does one explain the reanimation or resurrection process?
There is a paucity of information on the reanimation of the dead in the series. The resurrection of Beric Dondarrion, for example, appears to be different in fundamental ways from that of the wights or Cold Hands. (We are potentially given a point-of-view account of this process if you accept that Victarion died in ADWD.)

“Thoros, how many times have you brought me back now?”
The red priest bowed his head. “It is R’hllor who brings you back, my lord. The Lord of Light. I am only his instrument.”
“How many times?” Lord Beric insisted.
“Six,” Thoros said reluctantly.
“And each time is harder. You have grown reckless, my lord. Is death so very sweet?”
Arya, ASOS

There is no immediately identifiable magical cost for these "kisses of life," at least at first glance. Thoros later tells us that he breathed part of his "flames" or soul into Beric:

“That first time, his lordship had a hole right through him and blood in his mouth, I knew there was no hope. So when his poor torn chest stopped moving, I gave him the good god's own kiss to send him on his way. I filled my mouth with fire and breathed the flames inside him, down his throat to lungs and heart and soul. The last kiss it is called, and many a time I saw the old priests bestow it on the Lord's servants as they died." (Credit to u/watchersontheweb for providing this quote in the initial thread.)

Arya, ASOS
Thoros is also described as appearing very different after performing this ritual several times in a way that is not entirely dissimilar to the changes in Stannis’ appearance referenced above.

“Here’s the wizard, skinny squirrel. You’ll get your answers now.”
He pointed toward the fire, where Tom Sevenstrings stood talking to a tall thin man with oddments of old armor buckled on over his ratty pink robes. That can’t be Thoros of Myr. Arya remembered the red priest as fat, with a smooth face and a shiny bald head. This man had a droopy face and a full head of shaggy grey hair.
...
“Thoros of Myr. You used to shave your head.”
“To betoken a humble heart, but in truth my heart was vain. Besides, I lost my razor in the woods.” The priest slapped his belly. “I am less than I was, but more. A year in the wild will melt the flesh off a man. Would that I could find a tailor to take in my skin. I might look young again, and pretty maids would shower me with kisses.”

Arya, ASOS
Thoros attributes these changes to his renewed devotion to the Red God and spending "a year in the wild" as above although he is not exactly forthcoming with Arya about the resurrection process. It is also likely that he does not entirely understand what specifically is being exchanged here.
Later he describes Beric giving the "kiss of life" to the corpse of Catelyn Stark:

“The Freys slashed her throat from ear to ear. When we found her by the river she was three days dead. Harwin begged me to give her the kiss of life, but it had been too long. I would not do it, so Lord Beric put his lips to hers instead, and the flame of life passed from him to her. And… she rose. May the Lord of Light protect us. She rose.”

Brienne, AFFC
Notably, this process produces a reanimated Catelyn (a.k.a. Lady Stoneheart). The soul of Beric, or at least whatever is left of his soul at this point in the series, is consumed in order to resurrect Catelyn and not transferred.

6. cold shadows (wild speculation)

The terms "white shadows," "pale shadows," and "cold shadows" are repeated used to describe the Others. The Others are also highly associated with ghosts — the spirits or souls of the dead bound to the earth. (The forrest in which they are introduced is literally called the Haunted Forrest.)

The Others made no sound.
Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness. Then it was gone. Branches stirred gently in the wind, scratching at one another with wooden fingers. Will opened his mouth to call down a warning, and the words seemed to freeze in his throat. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps it had only been a bird, a reflection on the snow, some trick of the moonlight. What had he seen, after all?
“Will, where are you?” Ser Waymar called up. “Can you see anything?” He was turning in a slow circle, suddenly wary, his sword in hand. He must have felt them, as Will felt them. There was nothing to see. “Answer me! Why is it so cold?” It was cold.
Shivering, Will clung more tightly to his perch. His face pressed hard against the trunk of the sentinel. He could feel the sweet, sticky sap on his cheek. A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywhere dappled with the deep grey-green of the trees. The patterns ran like moonlight on water with every step it took. Will heard the breath go out of Ser Waymar Royce in a long hiss. ...
The Other slid forward on silent feet. In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen. No human metal had gone into the forging of that blade. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor.

Prologue, AGOT
This is again highly speculative but it seems reasonable to consider that these cold shadows are not "ice demons" or "ice zombies" but are in fact ghosts, the spirits or souls of men that are bound to the earth through magic by the Children of the Forest. (The textual evidence of the creation of the Others by the Children is linked in a separate post here.) "Fire consumes, but cold preserves."
This would explain several of the unusual characteristics of the Others described by Tormund:

“Tormund,” Jon said, as they watched four old women pull a cartful of children toward the gate, “tell me of our foe. I would know all there is to know of the Others.”
The wildling rubbed his mouth. “Not here,” he mumbled, “not this side o’ your Wall.” The old man glanced uneasily toward the trees in their white mantles. “They’re never far, you know. They won’t come out by day, not when that old sun’s shining, but don’t think that means they went away. Shadows never go away. Might be you don’t see them, but they’re always clinging to your heels.”
...
Tormund turned back.
"You know nothing. You killed a dead man, aye, I heard. Mance killed a hundred. A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up… how do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teeth … air so cold it hurts to breathe, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?"

Jon, ADWD
A reasonable interpretation of this information is that the Others are present during the day, at least in some capacity, and are only able to assume corporeal form at night.
The Others are also described as "going lightly upon the snow" which would also supports the idea that they are ghosts:

“The white walkers go lightly on the snow,” the ranger said. “You’ll find no prints to mark their passage.”

Samwell, ASOS

7. conclusions

This highly speculative theory attempts to reconcile several seemingly disparate concepts in the series related to magic, namely the actual nature of magical sacrifice ("only death can pay for life") and shadows or shadow magic. More specifically, I suggest that souls are the primary magical currency and can be consumed using fire magic to summon shadows, create glamours, etc. I also speculate that similar processes took place during Mirri Maz Duur's shadow-binding ritual in AGOT and during the repeated resurrections of Berric Dondarrion in ASOS. I further suggest that the Others are ghosts, the spirits or souls of the dead bound to the earth.
EDIT: edited several times to address formatting issues

Hello,
The background: I work in IT for a multi-county public library system. For additional context, I am a sysadmin type but while I was in college I also pursued broadcasting/sound/video/editing and related tech and I got a bunch of certificates related to that. Our library is governed by a Board of Trustees and one of the requirements that is built in there somewhere is that they are to have their monthly board meetings at the different locations throughout the muti-county area. Roughly 1/3 of the possible meeting locations are reasonably set up for a public meeting in terms of space and equipment, the other 2/3rds are not.
During the pandemic, these meetings went entirely to Zoom. When restrictions on gatherings loosened, the former library director asked IT to try to come up with a way to make these meetings hybrid. Due to my history with broadcasting, this ended up on my desk. After testing some out of the box solutions like the Meeting Owl and a Logitech device and finding them unsatisfactory for the requirements and good two way communication, I came up with an in-house solution using tabletop mics, a portable PA system the library already had, a laptop, a Razor webcam and a 2 Bus sound mixer that outputs via balanced mic output and USB simultaneously. The cost to the library was < $1000 and library administration was really happy with the results, to the degree that it went from a temporary ask to a permanent fixture of the meetings. It can go anywhere there is power and network, it provides two way communication over Zoom and the quality is about what one would expect for a single camera public meeting broadcast. The primary downsides are that it is quite a bit more complicated to set up than an out of box solution and since a lot of the equipment was budget conscious, some of it is needing replaced/upgraded.
Now we have new leadership for the district and they want IT to re-evaluate this system for replacement, with a high level of preference of something out of box and able to be run by a layperson. My manager and I have looked all around, but still can’t find anything “name brand” that seems able to meet the requirements. I want to make sure we have this right before we go back and advise we were not able to find anything simpler, so I thought I would check in here to see if anyone else has this type of experience and if you did, how it worked out. Requirements are:
1.) Portable, only requires power and network
2.) Has to be able to mix and amplify sound from mic’ed in person individuals and the output from zoom
3.) Has to be able to broadcast sound from mic’ed in person individuals to zoon
4.) Able to capture video for broadcast to Zoom
5.) Able to output to Zoom video to HDMI to project for in person individuals
Bonus points for something that can do this with minimal IT involvement.Extra bonus points if your group has a job classification that would be in charge of a task like this, can you tell me a bit about it? Like… if it is IT, what job classification would this fall under? If you have a group in house that runs something like this, can you mention their job class?Extra extra extra bonus points if your group decided to outsource this work and you have a rough idea of what the rate paid to the group that does this work for you is. =)
Thanks all!

Hello,
The background: I work in IT for a multi-county public library system. For additional context, I am a sysadmin type but while I was in college I also pursued broadcasting/sound/video/editing and related tech and I got a bunch of certificates related to that. Our library is governed by a Board of Trustees and one of the requirements that is built in there somewhere is that they are to have their monthly board meetings at the different locations throughout the muti-county area. Roughly 1/3 of the possible meeting locations are reasonably set up for a public meeting in terms of space and equipment, the other 2/3rds are not.
During the pandemic, these meetings went entirely to Zoom. When restrictions on gatherings loosened, the former library director asked IT to try to come up with a way to make these meetings hybrid. Due to my history with broadcasting, this ended up on my desk. After testing some out of the box solutions like the Meeting Owl and a Logitech device and finding them unsatisfactory for the requirements and good two way communication, I came up with an in-house solution using tabletop mics, a portable PA system the library already had, a laptop, a Razor webcam and a 2 Bus sound mixer that outputs via balanced mic output and USB simultaneously. The cost to the library was < $1000 and library administration was really happy with the results, to the degree that it went from a temporary ask to a permanent fixture of the meetings. It can go anywhere there is power and network, it provides two way communication over Zoom and the quality is about what one would expect for a single camera public meeting broadcast. The primary downsides are that it is quite a bit more complicated to set up than an out of box solution and since a lot of the equipment was budget conscious, some of it is needing replaced/upgraded.
Now we have new leadership for the district and they want IT to re-evaluate this system for replacement, with a high level of preference of something out of box and able to be run by a layperson. My manager and I have looked all around, but still can’t find anything “name brand” that seems able to meet the requirements. I want to make sure we have this right before we go back and advise we were not able to find anything simpler, so I thought I would check in here to see if anyone else has this type of experience and if you did, how it worked out. Requirements are:
1.) Portable, only requires power and network
2.) Has to be able to mix and amplify sound from mic’ed in person individuals and the output from zoom
3.) Has to be able to broadcast sound from mic’ed in person individuals to zoon
4.) Able to capture video for broadcast to Zoom
5.) Able to output to Zoom video to HDMI to project for in person individuals
Bonus points for something that can do this with minimal IT involvement.
Extra bonus points if your group has a job classification that would be in charge of a task like this, can you tell me a bit about it? Like… if it is IT, what job classification would this fall under? If you have a group in house that runs something like this, can you mention their job class?
Extra extra extra bonus points if your group decided to outsource this work and you have a rough idea of what the rate paid to the group that does this work for you is.
Thanks all!

Recently, I saw a post regarding how a WB/NBCU merger would be better than the Disney/Fox merger (and honestly, I agree! I'd take the WB/NBCU merger over Disney/Fox and ESPECIALLY Sony/Paramount the latter of which would likely get punched in the face by anti-trust laws since Sony owns Columbia/TriStaScreen Gems).
Anyhow, one question I had was "How would a Universal/Warner Bros. merger affect Cartoon Network and its sister services (Boomerang, Adult Swim, Cartoonito, Toonami, Discovery Family, and now, Universal Kids)?"

• Cartoon Network - For our main network, Cartoon Network should return to an all-ages animation network, focusing on primarily modern shows with (most) older shows being on MeTV Toons. Any older show not on MeTV Toons can air on Cartoon Network as a nighttime block replacing Adult Swim. I was also thinking that CN could strike a distribution deal with WildBrain to air
• Adult Swim - Due to NBCUniversal already having NBC Sports, Adult Swim can easily replace TruTV. Impractical Jokers could move to TBS or E! while Adult Swim could take over TruTV's channel slot to become an all-day service. Toonami can air either only on Saturdays (taking up the entire day) or daily as a nighttime block akin to Qubo Night Owl.
• Cartoonito - In this setting, Cartoonito would replace Boomerang due to the channel losing relevance with MeTV Toons and Cartoon Network's Latenight lineup. The Cartoonito shows on MAX and the TV-Y shows on Universal Kids could also move to Cartoonito as well.
• Discovery Family - For Discovery Family, I'd say sever ties with Hasbro and rebrand it back to Hub and make it teen-oriented as a transitional network from the 6-11 KidsCo and the 21+ Adult Swim. Hub would target a 12 to 20 audience and would focus it's programming lineup on primarily TV-PG and light TV-14 content such as Unicorns, My Adventures, The Loony Tunes Show, Adventure Time, Steven Universe, Regular Show, Bob's Burgers, Home Movies, ACME Night, Sitting Ducks, She-Ra, The Amazing World of Gumball, Total Drama, Mobile Suit Gundam, Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, Digimon, The Flintstones, Space Ghost, The Simpsons (provided they get the rights from Disney), The Powerpuff Girls (1998 and Z), and possibly Tamagotchi if Warnerversal is willing to produce and English dub of it. of course, with Discovery's involvement, a few live-action shows such Cake Boss and Too Cute, and a few Xploration Station shows (no HMPG/Litton shows as they're everywhere) as well as Superman and Lois, saving the show from The CW and it's Arrowverse-infested fingerprints) could also serve as additions to the Teen-focused network.
• Universal Kids - Universal Kids could become Warnerversal's primary kids channel becoming KidsCo. KidsCo could target as I mention, the 6-11 audience (compared to CNito's 2-5, Hub's 12-20 and AS's 21+). KidsCo would primarily base its lineup off of DreamWorks with Teen Titans Go! moving from Cartoon Network.

So TLDR:

• Cartoon Network - All ages animation network.
• Adult Swim - Becomes 24/7 and focuses on Adult Animation.
• Cartoonito - Also becomes 24/7 (with MeTV Toons replacing Boomerang) and focuses on preschoolers.
• Hub (formerly Discovery Family) - Focusing on Teens and Young Adults.
• KidsCo (formerly Universal Kids) - Focusing on kids (6-11).

How does this sound? Let me know in the comments! Feel free to share what you would think is the best for you in this scenario.

My father always told me that the morning after a stormy, spring night was the best time to go birdwatching. Something about the rain makes them come to the ground more, be it the fact that more worms migrate to the surface or just that wet feathers make it harder to fly. Unfortunately though, rain brings out more than just birds. Let this story be a warning to all you birdwatchers or nature fanatics out there: the forests aren’t as safe as you think they are.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
I still remember the events that happened on that day clearly.
The mud sloshed underneath my boots as I walked through the forest. It was around 6 in the morning and the weather had cleared up a bit since the night before. My back was hurting from lugging my spotting scope and backpack along for the past four kilometers, and I still had another three to go until I reached ‘Uhu valley’, but everything would be worth it in the end. After all, there was a good chance that I could spot a rare Eurasian eagle-owl that day, and there was nothing in the world that would keep me from seeing one. During my little hike, I stopped several times when I saw something that caught my attention, as insignificant as some of it might have been. Through my binoculars, I saw several Eurasian blue tits frolicking around, singing their little songs as they hoped to attract a mate. I also spotted a little goldcrest, building a nest with its partner. As I was watching a common blackbird forage for food, I noticed something moving in the undergrowth far behind it. At the time I thought nothing of it, the creature moved away too quickly for me to get a good look at it and I figured it was probably just a deer or something like that. After staring at the bushes through my binoculars for a few more seconds I decided it was time for me to continue again. I didn’t want to miss the owl.
By the time I reached my destination another hour had passed. I unpacked my stuff and set up my spotting scope to get a good view of the valley. Now all I had to do was wait for a Eurasian eagle-owl to show itself. The first half of an hour was uneventful, with a few common bird species flying by here and there. Every now and then a buzzard would fly over, making itself heard with its mewing calls, but nothing else really stood out. That’s when all of a sudden I saw something move in the corner of my eyes. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing; a Eurasian eagle-owl had landed not more than five meters away from me. It was an amazing sight, I could see every little detail: its large, orange eyes, its plumage that was a mix of dark and light stripes and specks, the powerful claws it uses to catch its prey… At that moment, I remembered why I got into birdwatching in the first place.
Sadly, my moment of awe was short-lived, since the owl got scared away by snapping branches and rustling coming from the undergrowth. A putrid, metallic smell filled my nostrils and snapped me out of my trance. Almost instantly, I was overcome with an intense feeling of dread and anxiety. I could not make out what was moving through the bushes, but It sounded bigger than a deer. My mind was racing, trying to think of which animal it could possibly be, when all of a sudden my thoughts were interrupted by someone talking in a raspy voice.
“Wow… The view… Here… Is amazing… Frank!”
All the hair on my body sprang up immediately. This was no animal, no, whatever this was could not be explained in natural terms. I knew I had to get out of there and that I had to be quick. In a hasty decision I decided to leave all of my equipment behind and I just bolted, and the creature gave chase. I ran as fast as I could without even bothering to look behind me. Whatever the creature could be, I didn’t want to find out. I could hear loud footsteps coming from behind me as I ran, and occasionally the creature would speak, each sentence it said painting a clearer picture about what might happen if I could not escape it in time.
“What… Is that… Over… There?” the hoarse voice said.
I kept running, not caring about the pain in my chest, or the cramp in my leg.
“Make it… Stop… Please…” it cried out, “I don’t… Want to… Die…”
The voice sounded closer than before, I could almost feel the creature’s breath in my neck. My legs were really starting to give in now and I had no idea how much longer I could run.
“Fuck, don’t let this be the way my life ends,” I panted, “I can’t die like this.”
The next few moments were a blur. I remember thinking that this was it, that my life would end just because I wanted to see a damned owl. I also remember giving one last sprint in a last ditch effort to shake off my pursuer. Every memory after that has been wiped from my brain. The next thing I remembered was that I was back in my car, covered in dirt and beyond tired.
I have been to many psychiatrists since to try and make sense of the situation, but no amount of therapy could help. Usually, they just told me that something traumatic must have happened to me, after which my mind filled in the blanks to cope with the situation, but I know that’s not true. What could possibly go wrong on a hike in a regular, temperate forest without any natural danger? Nothing that’s bad enough for me to make up some fairy tales about what happened, that’s for sure. Something attacked me in that forest, I’m sure of it. And that something let me live on purpose, to toy with me. It took me three months to get over my fear of the woods but just two days ago I finally went birdwatching again at a local nature reserve. Everything was going well, I was finally having fun again and reconnecting with nature. That was, until I noticed a familiar metallic smell in the air. Some might call me crazy, and say that there’s no way that this supposed creature is hunting me, like a cat toying with its food, but I know it is. Because before I was able to get out of there, I heard it say one last thing:
“Don’t let… This… Be the… Way… My life… Ends…”

This is in Scotland, and the deposit is correctly lodged in a deposit scheme.
Tenants have moved out after ~9 years in the property. They are my second set of tenants since I started letting it, and I've had a fair number of problems with them over the years - mainly not paying rent. Now they have moved out I've got the following issues:

• Rent was paid up until April 16th. Initially they gave notice on the 10th that they would return keys on the 18th (notice was incorrect, but I was happy they were leaving). They finally moved out and returned keys on the 29th so they had possession of the flat for 13 days without paying any rent, which would have been approximately £350 pro-rata.
• The flat was dirty - no attempt at cleaning at all. Hair everywhere, grime and greasy feeling stuff on all the surfaces etc. Literal rubbish stuffed down the back of a couple of the radiators.
• A4 sized hole in one wall which has been badly patched. I do not know when or how this happened.
• Several broken and missing bits in the fridge freezer. I could replace the parts, but the bits on the inside of the door that would support them are also broken.
• The plinth under the kitchen units needs replaced as they snapped it when trying to remove it for some reason.
• Vinyl floor in the kitchen has a big yellow patch (looks like a rug or large mat may have been put down and coloured the flooring) as well as being dirty and ripped.
• Laminate flooring in living room is damaged and will need replaced. It was in good condition at the start of their tenancy, but is 20 years old.
• Smashed mirror in the main bedroom.
• 2 doors are badly cracked through the wood vertically up and down from the lock - looks almost like someone tried to batter them down.
• Windows in the living room are damaged - they tried to disable the window restrictor arms previously and ended up damaging the wooden window frames. Looks like one window might need to be replaced.

I've had 2 quotes for cleaning, one for around £300 and one for £500. The fridge freezer will need to be replaced as a new door + all the replacement parts would be over £600 - I'm assuming I'll have to let this go since it was "old" having been purchased 10 years ago. I've not managed to get any quotes for the repairs to the doors or windows yet.
I just don't know how much of this is to be expected and I should just eat the cost, or if this goes beyond wear and tear and I can claim for some of this from the deposit.
If it's relevant, I'm planning on selling the property as being LL is not for me, but I will need to do a lot of work to make it presentable enough to do so.

My father always told me that the morning after a stormy, spring night was the best time to go birdwatching. Something about the rain makes them come to the ground more, be it the fact that more worms migrate to the surface or just that wet feathers make it harder to fly. Unfortunately though, rain brings out more than just birds. Let this story be a warning to all you birdwatchers or nature fanatics out there: the forests aren’t as safe as you think they are.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
I still remember the events that happened on that day clearly.
The mud sloshed underneath my boots as I walked through the forest. It was around 6 in the morning and the weather had cleared up a bit since the night before. My back was hurting from lugging my spotting scope and backpack along for the past four kilometers, and I still had another three to go until I reached ‘Uhu valley’, but everything would be worth it in the end. After all, there was a good chance that I could spot a rare Eurasian eagle-owl that day, and there was nothing in the world that would keep me from seeing one. During my little hike, I stopped several times when I saw something that caught my attention, as insignificant as some of it might have been. Through my binoculars, I saw several Eurasian blue tits frolicking around, singing their little songs as they hoped to attract a mate. I also spotted a little goldcrest, building a nest with its partner. As I was watching a common blackbird forage for food, I noticed something moving in the undergrowth far behind it. At the time I thought nothing of it, the creature moved away too quickly for me to get a good look at it and I figured it was probably just a deer or something like that. After staring at the bushes through my binoculars for a few more seconds I decided it was time for me to continue again. I didn’t want to miss the owl.
By the time I reached my destination another hour had passed. I unpacked my stuff and set up my spotting scope to get a good view of the valley. Now all I had to do was wait for a Eurasian eagle-owl to show itself. The first half of an hour was uneventful, with a few common bird species flying by here and there. Every now and then a buzzard would fly over, making itself heard with its mewing calls, but nothing else really stood out. That’s when all of a sudden I saw something move in the corner of my eyes. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing; a Eurasian eagle-owl had landed not more than five meters away from me. It was an amazing sight, I could see every little detail: its large, orange eyes, its plumage that was a mix of dark and light stripes and specks, the powerful claws it uses to catch its prey… At that moment, I remembered why I got into birdwatching in the first place.
Sadly, my moment of awe was short-lived, since the owl got scared away by snapping branches and rustling coming from the undergrowth. A putrid, metallic smell filled my nostrils and snapped me out of my trance. Almost instantly, I was overcome with an intense feeling of dread and anxiety. I could not make out what was moving through the bushes, but It sounded bigger than a deer. My mind was racing, trying to think of which animal it could possibly be, when all of a sudden my thoughts were interrupted by someone talking in a raspy voice.
“Wow… The view… Here… Is amazing… Frank!”
All the hair on my body sprang up immediately. This was no animal, no, whatever this was could not be explained in natural terms. I knew I had to get out of there and that I had to be quick. In a hasty decision I decided to leave all of my equipment behind and I just bolted, and the creature gave chase. I ran as fast as I could without even bothering to look behind me. Whatever the creature could be, I didn’t want to find out. I could hear loud footsteps coming from behind me as I ran, and occasionally the creature would speak, each sentence it said painting a clearer picture about what might happen if I could not escape it in time.
“What… Is that… Over… There?” the hoarse voice said.
I kept running, not caring about the pain in my chest, or the cramp in my leg.
“Make it… Stop… Please…” it cried out, “I don’t… Want to… Die…”
The voice sounded closer than before, I could almost feel the creature’s breath in my neck. My legs were really starting to give in now and I had no idea how much longer I could run.
“Fuck, don’t let this be the way my life ends,” I panted, “I can’t die like this.”
The next few moments were a blur. I remember thinking that this was it, that my life would end just because I wanted to see a damned owl. I also remember giving one last sprint in a last ditch effort to shake off my pursuer. Every memory after that has been wiped from my brain. The next thing I remembered was that I was back in my car, covered in dirt and beyond tired.
I have been to many psychiatrists since to try and make sense of the situation, but no amount of therapy could help. Usually, they just told me that something traumatic must have happened to me, after which my mind filled in the blanks to cope with the situation, but I know that’s not true. What could possibly go wrong on a hike in a regular, temperate forest without any natural danger? Nothing that’s bad enough for me to make up some fairy tales about what happened, that’s for sure. Something attacked me in that forest, I’m sure of it. And that something let me live on purpose, to toy with me. It took me three months to get over my fear of the woods but just two days ago I finally went birdwatching again at a local nature reserve. Everything was going well, I was finally having fun again and reconnecting with nature. That was, until I noticed a familiar metallic smell in the air. Some might call me crazy, and say that there’s no way that this supposed creature is hunting me, like a cat toying with its food, but I know it is. Because before I was able to get out of there, I heard it say one last thing:
“Don’t let… This… Be the… Way… My life… Ends…”

I(25M) began texting her(20F) after we met one random day. I was sure to keep it flirty which I assumed gave her a clear idea of my intentions of not 'just being friends'. In a couple of days I invited her to dinner at my place and she agreed. We cooked while we talked all about our hobbies etc and according to her the food was delicious.
We went to my room with the wine and continued our conversation. While she sat besides me on the bed I realized it wasnt a romantic or flirty conversation we were having. I thought I would be friend zoned if I didn't do something. So I told her that " Hey, this might be too direct but I really want to kiss you right now ". She gave me a surprised look(with a smile) and told me that she had no Idea that I liked her and she thought I liked someone else.
Guess who had a surprising look on his face now. I told her that I did like her and how amazing she was. Also that I don't like someone else.
Then, She : if we date what kind of relationship are you expecting? Coz the culture in this country is of casual and open relationship and guys try to pursue me when they realize that I am gonna go back in a few(3) months (she and I are international students).
Me : I didn't know that you are gonna go back until before dinner and I have liked u before knowing that fact. I dont care, 3 days , 3 months or 3 years, we will see. I wanna know you.....(pause)....So can I kiss you or not?
She giggles, doesn't say anything, I go in for a kiss. It feels weird. I get a feeling like she's not into it. I ask her if theres a problem she says NO so I go for it again.
She does the same thing this time so I ask what's up.
She: in our culture we go on a few dates before we kiss or anything.
Me : oh ok if that's what you'd like we can do that (slowly backing off)
She :(giggles) what do you mean we are already at the kissing stage right now.
Now I am all confused and I am kissing her again but I can feel that she's not opening up completely or more like trying to move away lil by lil. So I put a break to it and I say
Me: you don't look comfortable enough, take a few minutes and meanwhile I'll get some water for us.
I walk out of my room with the bottle, talk with my roomies for like 5 mins and come back.
I see her talking on her phone with her friend about the plans we had with them later. I move her hair from her face while she's on the call (coz she's too damn pretty) she don't mind that(to my knowledge) and she cut the call.
Me : (with my hands around her waist) what happened?( As in why are you not comfortable)
She: (smiles) nothing everything is ok. Are you ok?
Me : I am ok
She : you don't look ok!
Me : I am.
So I try again to kiss her but I then again get the same feeling.
Me : what?
She : you had alcohol.
I dont know what she meant by that. I smelled like alcohol or does she not want to do anything coz we r drunk(we weren't that drunk). Felt like an excuse again.
She: we should go, friends must be there by now.
Me: 5 more minutes?
She : 5 mins? Okay. I'll just text them.
Proceeded to text but there's already a text saying that friends are waiting for a while now.
She : we should go , are you coming?
Me: (politely) hmm, why don't you take some time on your own, I don't wanna make it weird for you.. so I'll skip this one.
She : hmm, alright... Okay...okay.
But I didn't want to end it like this either, awkward/ inconclusive. So I kiss her for the last time and there's no hesitation from her side either.
Oh also, I had a stuffed koala bear since forever that she liked and I told she could have when she came to my room. While she was getting her stuff to go after we kissed,
She: what about the koala bear?
Me : take it.
She : No, really?
Me : Ya , you can get it back later.
She : Yay!
I walked her to the door to say bye. We locked eyes and smiled for quite a while saying byes.
I told her to text after she's back if she wills.
The next day I get a text from her saying that she gave a thought about the idea of a relationship with me but she prefers to stay friends. And that she'll bring the koala anytime I am free.
What did I do wrong? Did she get a wrong idea or think I lied about what I want? Or did she just not like me. It left me really confused. What am I missing
I really like her I just don't know what happened.

"Ahem...Cinnaswirl cookies! Get your Cinnaswirl cookies!" Kokichi practiced in his announcer voice. It was Saturday afternoon. Every Saturday and Sunday up until the week before the surprise field trip, Hope's Peak was opened for two hours for the students volunteering to sell cookies. The students who volunteered placed their stands throughout various parts of the academy. Sayaka and Hina set theirs up in the cafeteria, Shuichi and Kaede in the auditorium, Rantaro and Kirumi in the lobby, Himiko outside the front entrance of the building, and Kokichi in the gym.
Himiko unfolded a table and placed the two tin bowls of cookies on it. Above her, she hung a dull sign announcing her chocolate chip cookies were for sale. She wasn't proud of it, but it was the best she could do in thirty minutes before rushing off to sell her cookies.
"Himiko, you decided to sell cookies, too?" Kaede asked as she and Shuichi passed by her.
"Nyeh...yeah," Himiko mumbled.
"You're not selling them with Kokichi?" Kaede asked. "Are you two fighting?"
"No. It was Kokichi's idea to compete against each other," Himiko explained. "Boyfriend against girlfriend. He thought it would be something fun and different."
"Hm, that actually does sound like fun!" Kaede admitted. "Don't you think, Shuichi? I bet I could sell more cookies than you!"
"I guess it would be kind of fun," Shuichi agreed. "But, I prefer working together. I think I get things done better that way, rather than doing things on my own."
"Maybe we should try competing against each other at least once," Kaede said.
"Ah, well, I guess that would be okay," Shuichi said.
"Well, we should get going," Kaede said. "I hope you sell a lot of cookies, Himiko!" Shuichi looked doubtfully at Himiko's sign.
"Good luck, Himiko," he said with a polite smile.
"Nyeh...thanks. I'm gonna need it," Himiko muttered. With that, Kaede and Shuichi were gone, leaving Himiko to utter a discouraged sigh to herself. She looked up to see students approaching the school. Many saw but ignored her as they entered the building. Meanwhile, Kokichi had his first customer inside.
"Hey, Hiro!" Kokichi exclaimed with a devious grin. "You wanna buy some Cinnaswirl cookies?" Hiro looked at the cookies. Beautiful swirls of cinnamon designs were etched onto the cookies.
"Whoa! These look pretty sick!" Hiro exclaimed, picking a cookie up and examining it. "What are they exactly?"
"They're just regular, ol' cinnamon cookies," Kokichi replied, holding out a cookie to Hiro. "Go ahead! Try one for ¥500!" Hiro paid and bit into the cookie and chewed cautiously.
"Hey! These are actually...pretty..." Suddenly, he began panting. He fanned his mouth. "H-Hot! Why are...these cookies so...hot?!" He threw the cookie to the ground and fanned his face with both his hands. "WATER!! I, like...need water!!" He started running around in circles, hyperventilating.

"Hm? Water won't help," Kokichi said, then pulled out a giant jug of milk and poured some into a cup. "Try milk instead! That'll be another ¥500!" Hiro reached into his pockets to grab whatever amount of money he had.
"Here!! Just take it, or whatever!" he yelled and immediately reached for the milk, gulping it down. "I need more!"
"Soooorry..." Kokichi said, hiding the milk back under the table. "That was all the milk I had. Maybe you should go get some more at the convenience store! Make sure to exit out that way!" He pointed to the exit door of the gym that led right outside.
"Whatever woooorks!" Hiro cried, running out of the gym. Kokichi figured if Hiro left the school grounds through that door, he wouldn't be able to warn the other students who were already inside about his devil cookies. Grinning deviously, he counted the money. In his haste, Hiro had thrown him ¥3000, making a total of ¥3500.
"Nee-heehee...looks like I'm the Cookie Monster now!" Kokichi murmured with satisfaction.
***
Back at the front of the school, Himiko sat in silence, waiting for one customer to show up. She was half-relieved, half-disappointed to see Tenko, Angie, and Tsumugi walk up to her stand. They were basically her "pity friends."
"Oh, wow, Himiko! I didn't know you were selling cookies!" Tenko cried. "I bet they taste amazing!"
"What cookies do you have for us, Himiko?" Angie chirped. Himiko opened the tin bowls.
"Oh, my...they're just plain chocolate chip cookies," Tsumugi mumbled, feeling slightly disappointed.
"So? What's wrong with that?!" Tenko asked, frowning at Tsumugi.
"I'll bet they are delicious, Himiko!" Angie said.
"Nyeh...are you gonna buy any?" Himiko asked.
"Ooo, I will take this kind," Angie said, pointing to the soft chocolate chip cookies. Tenko glared at her.

"Well, I'll take the other cookies!" she said, pointing to the crunchy ones.
"That'll be ¥500," Himiko said. Angie paid and took a cookie.

"I'll give you ¥1000!" Tenko offered. "I am your best friend after all!"
"No, that's okay, Tenko," Himiko said, and Tenko reluctantly paid her the ¥500. The last thing Himiko wanted was pity money. It would only make her feel worse. She turned to Tsumugi. "Nyeh...are you gonna buy any, Tsumugi?"

"No..." Tsumugi answered quietly. "Sorry, Himiko. I may be plain, but I like for my cookies to not be so plain. No offense."
"WOOOOW!!! THESE COOKIES ARE AMAZING!!!" Tenko yelled. Then, she turned to Tsumugi. "How dare you not try Himiko's cookies, Tsumugi! They're the best cookies I've ever eaten! And I bet Himiko baked these all by herself like the talented mage she is!"

"No...I didn't," Himiko said.

"Well, you probably did most of the work, so that's why they taste so good!" Tenko exclaimed.
"Yeah, sure...whatever," Himiko muttered.
"These cookies are absolutely divine, Himiko!" Angie said. "Perhaps you had Atua's help in making them?"
"Of course she didn't, Angie!" Tenko said. "She doesn't need help from your god...if he even exists, anyways!"
"Nyeh...I didn't have help from Atua, Angie," Himiko answered. "I had help from other friends of mine."
"You have friends besides me, Himiko?!" Tenko cried in horror. "Wh-Who are they?!"
"Just friends," Himiko said. "Anyways, is that all?"
"Aaah! I don't have anymore money!" Tenko cried, checking her purse. "I-I need to go get a job! That way, I'll buy all of your cookies, Himiko!" Himiko sighed.
"I want other people to try my cookies, too, Tenko," she said.
"Have you had any other customers at all, Himiko?" Tsumugi asked. Himiko gulped and shook her head.

"Oh..." Tsumugi mumbled sympathetically.
"Well, I'm sure more customers will approach you, Himiko! Just give it time!" Angie said with an optimistic smile.
"Yeah! And if they don't, I'll be sure to get that job so I can buy all of your cookies!" Tenko said. The three girls wished Himiko good luck and waved goodbye. Himiko sighed forlornly. Having her friends buy all of her cookies only made her feel incompetent. As the afternoon wore on, she waited and waited for more customers, but none came. She hung her head dejectedly as a couple of tears forced their way down her cheek. Why had she even bothered?
Part Six
After two hours passed, Kokichi counted up the money he had made. Sifting through the last of his con money, he had made a total of ¥75000. He stuffed the money into his pocket and headed out to the front of the school, where Himiko was.
"Hey, Himiko! Look at all the money I made!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Nee-heehee...I got the most money from Byakuya! You should have seen the moment he bit into one of my cookies! He-...Wait, what are you doing?" Himiko was ripping up her sign in anger and sadness.
"I quit," she muttered. Kokichi stared at her.
"Why?" he asked. "How much did you make?"
"Not as much as you...just like I said would happen," Himiko answered bitterly. She clenched her fists as she tried to hold back tears. Kokichi went to the jar on her table and saw the total of ¥1000 from Tenko and Angie.
"I'm guessing that's from Tenko and Angie?" he said.
"Yeah," Himiko curtly replied.
"Himiko, you can just try again tomorrow," Kokichi pointed out.

"I'm not going to," Himiko said, throwing her sign into a nearby trashcan.
"So that's just it? You're going to give up...just like that?" Kokichi asked, frowning. Himiko couldn't contain her tears.
"Yes, Kokichi! Okay?!" she cried in frustration as she angrily wiped her tears. "I've humiliated myself enough, so I'm giving up!!" Kokichi firmly grabbed her hand and looked her in the eye.
"No, you're not, Himiko," he said. Himiko yanked her hand away.
"I don't care about this stupid competition anymore!" she yelled. "Just leave me alone!"
"This isn't about the competition anymore, Himiko," Kokichi said. "This is about you now!"
"Yeah, like, how I keep telling you that I can't do this stupid cookie sale, and I didn't wanna do this stupid cookie sale in the first place!" Himiko said.
"Then why did you do it, Himiko?!" Kokichi cried.
"Because...because...I'm an idiot, okay?!" Himiko sobbed. "I thought I'd be able to do this, but all I found out is that I'm a big, huge loser!"
"See, that's your problem right there!" Kokichi said in frustration. "That piss-poor attitude of yours is the reason for your failures, Himiko!" Himiko stared at him with a hurt expression. "I wanted to do this competition for fun, Himiko," Kokichi continued. "It's one thing if you didn't wanna do it because you didn't like the idea, or that it would have been better if we simply worked together, or something. I would have understood that. But the reason why you didn't want to do it is because you think so poorly of yourself that you don't think you're capable of doing anything! You seriously need to cut that out!" Himiko hung her head in shame.
"I don't know how," she wailed, balling her fists against her eyes in frustration and sadness. "Sometimes...I feel so...worthless! So...useless!" She looked at Kokichi with a tear-stained face. "I'm not smart or confident, or able to do things like you are." Kokichi sighed.
"Himiko, you have got to stop comparing yourself to me," he said firmly. "You're not me, and I don't expect you to be like me." He gripped her shoulders and looked her in the eye. "You're you. You're your own person. And you should be smart, confident, and capable of doing things your way." Himiko gasped as she sniffed and wiped her tears away. Kokichi sighed deeply. "Listen to me, Himiko, there might come a day when you and I might not be together anymore, whether it's because we broke up, or I died, or whatever. I want you to be able to stand on your own two feet without feeling helpless, or stuck, or too scared to do anything. I want it so that, if I'm not around, you'd be able to make it in this world on your own. And if you needed assistance, you could go to Tenko and Angie as friends, not as your caretakers who'll coddle you and hide you from the world. You can't hide from this world. Besides, what if something were to happen to them, too? Who would you turn to then?" Himiko shivered at the thought. "That's why I want you to stop thinking of yourself as some incompetent, dumb little girl, Himiko. That's not what you are. You are smart and you are capable. You just need to see it for yourself." Himiko nodded in response, tears still streaking down her cheeks. Kokichi wrapped his arms around her. Himiko laid her head against his chest as she continued to sob.
"I'm sorry, Kokichi," she said in a shaky whisper.
"Don't be," Kokichi said, giving her back a comforting rub. Then, he chuckled. "After all...a GiRl ShOuLdN't ApOlOgIzE sO EaSiLy," he said, mocking Kaito. Through her tears, Himiko laughed. Kokichi laughed along with her. Himiko looked up at him, smiling gratefully. Kokichi smiled back and softly kissed her forehead. "I love you, Himiko."
"I love you, too, Kokichi," Himiko sniffed. They gave each other a soft kiss on the lips. Now calm, Himiko laid her head against Kokichi's chest once again and squeezed him tighter, never wanting to let him go.

You CAN co-sleep and night wean! We went from waking to nurse every hour to 11 hours of no nursing in 3 nights!
I literally made an account just to share this story because I am floored at how well this worked and hope it gives someone the courage to try.
I still cuddle her to re-settle a few times a night, she’s not sleeping through totally unsupported. But it is a huge weight off to not be breastfeeding constantly at night! She is slowly needing less and less support through the night and is resettling herself a lot more.
Synopsis:
Fill them up with food and tire them out during the day.
Have a set bedtime routine.
At least a week before teach the idea “the sun is shining” and have a visual like a specific window in the bedroom.
Prep them mentally “soon we will only have milk when the sun is shining”.
Use a narrative with a character in a book or photos or drawings of your baby.
Use a stuffed animal to narrate/process the emotions/what’s happening to baby.
Use the same language over and over when they request milk and just hold strong!
Be sure to center your resolve and stay super calm and loving.
Support them to sleep however they need but keep repeating your “we’ll have milk when the sun is shining. I love you!” mantras to them.
Your baby understands a lot more than you think, they’re resilient, and they know you’re always there for them!
Background:
My 16-month old is what many would call a “high needs”, “sensitive”, “clingy” or “demanding” baby. She literally only slept in my arms or on top of me. Sometimes we’d get a two or three hour stretch but generally, she wanted a boob in her mouth every hour. I was really starting to feel the exhaustion here after 16 months of never sleeping more than 3 hours at a time.
I was SO AFRAID so start night weaning. She’s a stubborn baby. She was used to me responding every time she needed me. I was worried she’d feel betrayed. I was fully prepared for her to fight it and not sleep at all, since she’s already such a hard sleeper. I had snacks ready and imagined I’d be up for hours rocking and pacing in the living room like I was with a newborn haha.
(I had already tried to do the Elizabeth Pantley pull off method where you pull the boob out as they start to fall asleep, but it just made her angry and got us in a cycle of overtired crying. )
Preparation:
I prepped her a week in advance just teaching her what “the sun is shining” means, and she picked it up quickly! I pointed to the window a lot ”look! The sun is shining!” Made sure she associated it also with a specific window in the bedroom.
I ordered the book on Amazon “Sally weans from night nursing”. I didn’t really read the whole text to her, just used the pictures to explain like “the baby is sad and crying for lechita in her bed! But the mama says no baby, lechita is sleeping. I will pat your back. We will have lechita when the sun is shining!” You could make your own pictures too, the book was just easier for me.
Once she got the concept “the sun is shining”, I prepped her mentally, “in three days, lechita is sleeping at night. We’ll only have lechita when the sun is shining!”
Day 1:
Kept the reminders up all day “look the sun is shining! Tonight there is no more lechita in bed. Lechita will be sleeping. We will have lechita when the sun is shining.” We had a big day with the library, park, children’s museum. I wanted to really tire her out haha.
At night we did our usual bedtime routine but I pushed her to nurse a lot before we brushed teeth.
I made a big show of putting band aids on my nipples and a bra and shirt on. Saying “lechita is sleeping! No more lechita until the sun is shining!” She seemed concerned looking and lifting my shirt and touching them haha.
When we laid in bed she was definitely confused and frustrated. I stood up and swayed with her a bit to calm her down and then laid back down.
She fussed a little bit and tugged at my shirt but I kept saying “lechita is sleeping! No more lechita at night. I know it’s hard, I love you. I’ll pat your back. We will have lechita when the sun is shining.” She pointed at my boobs and at the window like she was getting it!
Then my baby started this, I can’t take credit for it, I just followed her lead. She took her Elmo doll and was pretending to make him nurse. So I took him off and said “you want lechita Elmo? Are you sad? Are you crying? I’m sorry! I know it’s hard! Lechita is sleeping! We will have lechita when the sun is shining!” I would pat Elmo’s back too. She seemed to process the change through Elmo so we did A LOT of that haha.
She fell asleep after 20 minutes cuddling next to my boob but no nursing! She woke up throughout the night every 2 hours but would resettle herself or go back to sleep with a few back pats and shushing. I actually comforted her maybe 3-4 times before she had milk 7 hours after falling asleep!
I was so surprised how well it went! She resettled so quickly throughout the night and only fussed, no crying! At dawn when I said “the sun is shining!” She quickly grabbed Elmo and went for the boob like “we did it together Buddy!”
Day 2:
Kinda the same story falling asleep with Elmo to process the emotions, the mantras, etc. She fell asleep after 30 minutes on top of me with me singing to her. Throughout the night she needed less support, I could just wrap my arms around her and she’d re-settle. I comforted her like that maybe 3-4 times, and she nursed after 7 hours just like night 1.
Day 3:
She was a little harder to get to sleep, maybe took 40 minutes, but never cried, just talking and rolling around and fussing a bit. Eventually she fell asleep on top of me. She had a good long stretch and then just needed some cuddling to re-settle maybe 3 times. This time I tried to push that early morning feed and just patted her back to sleep. She had her first nursing session 11 hours after bedtime this time!
In the morning she went at it so hard and my boobs were so engorged that she spit up a lot for basically the first time in her life! So I would be careful on that, maybe hand express before and take it easy.
Reflection:
I am kicking myself for waiting so long and being so scared to make this change! But maybe this was just the right time, she was old enough to understand what was happening, and I was firm in my resolve that it was time. I am so proud of baby and have so much more respect and trust that she can handle big changes! I hope this gives someone the courage to try!
I also want anyone struggling with a “hard” baby to know that they might just blossom into a super sweet, chill, independent, flexible toddler. I am slowly seeing that with my “hard” baby!

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Research Log - Vault-Tec Research Group Experiment 24 -Abstract [DATA CORRUPTED] -Log 11/1/2077 Admittants proved amenable to parting with chronometers in 82% of cases. Two incidents involving heirloom timepieces were resolved with the intervention of the arbitrator agent with the assistance of a security officer. Population of subjects was well selected, no disruption of experiment seems likely, and no subject has yet to notice the lack of chronometers. Personal note: My god. Those maniacs actually blew up the world. And now this is it, my job. For the rest of my life. I'll never leave work again.
-Log 12/1/2077 Several residents have expressed irritation in varying levels over the lack of chronometers; 90% of residents have commented on it in conversations that were recorded. In 3 instances it led to outbursts; attributing these to tensions over the event, and the transition, rather than results of the test. Discarded as test results. However, most residents do disagree on the exact date and time. As the public lights never deactivate, they can not even establish day from night. One group of families from the same neighborhood in 09016 have synced their sleep schedules, meanwhile, another family from 09009 have notably adopted entirely different schedules from each other, leading to estrangement. Disorganization abounds as many tasks are not attended by most of those responsible when they are slated to be performed. The selection criterion of highly organized individuals leaves them without the skills to perform with the flexibility needed to function in this state. Test proceeding as expected. Personal note: They're hitting the projections way ahead of schedule. They've already developed all the patterns expected, but after this, we have no predictions. It's pure data from this point on.
-Log 6/1/2077: Resident 34, Liam Anderson, had a psychotic break three days ago. Residents are completely at a loss as to the cause of his deterioration. They had no way to tell he was staying awake for 30-34 hours a 'day' and only sleeping 6-8. As provided sedatives do not cause or enhance drowsiness, he was pacified but remains under the effects of chronic fatigue, and has not yet slept, likely not for another 10 hours if his pattern holds or further deteriorates. Resident 4, Mark Humboldt, has been attempting to create candles for candle clocks for 2 months. Of course, all materials approved for use in this facility are extremely temperature resistant. None of the plastic consistency components will melt unless he pries open the reactor and throws them in. In a related note, Resident 5, Stacy Humboldt, has taken to living in the reactor room. She believes the rhythm of the hum of the reactor gives her a measure of time, and is possibly the only resident who is at peace due to this. Except the reactor doesn't have a rhythm, it's constant. Several of the members of the synced up family groups have taken to wearing light jackets for fall this month. The temperature has remained the same 68 degrees since they arrived. They tend not to associate with anyone outside this group, as it can throw off their timing. This said, 50% of them are sleeping 10% longer than they were in fall. A full 24% of systems vault-wide are overdue for maintenance. This is only partially due to the lack of maintenance alert systems which were deemed to be able to measure time. Ironically, if they could manage to focus on work, measuring and promptly servicing system decay could give residents the rhythm they need. They have failed to do this and continue to decay. The cabbage crop appears to be 30% dead or near dead from neglect. This experiment looks to be heading towards close. [DATA CORRUPTED]
-Research Log [DATA CORRUPTED] [DATA CORRUPTED]
-Research Log 11/1/2081: Four year mark since initiation of experiment. Liam had another psychotic break, that's twice this week, up from once a month last year. He tried to dig his way through the atrium ceiling again, again claiming he was going to find the sun. His ladder fell, and he somehow was hung gallows-style by some of the wiring he tore loose. Medical staff were in the process of cutting him down when someone pointed out his body was swaying in what they believed were precise one second increments (from what we could tell, it was about three quarters). They set up shifts to prod him to keep the tempo going. This fell apart in 2 days. The 'tribe of Matheson' which formed from the 09012 residents around one patriarch has evolved. Whereas his seeming ability to sleep exactly 8 hours with precise 16 hour waking periods granted him higher station (with 3 wives), he has now become a prisoner of his status. He is refused any stimulants, or medications that could affect his condition. His diet is controlled. He is given a strict activity regimen every day. Anyone inside or out of the tribe that attempts to interject into his routine is heavily watched at best, at worst, subject to violence. Two of the couples in this group who married last year celebrated their wedding anniversaries this month. They were only a month off, rather impressive. Gerald 'GeGe' Geare forced everyone he knew, with bribes and threats, to attend his 39th birthday party. There was no cake, as they never had yeast. Also, he is 42. He might be somewhat aware of this, but he may be trying to avoid the culls that were instituted after the cabbage famine. Finally, Mark [DATA CORRUPTED]
-Research Log, 12/24/2081: Mark has pried open the reactor.
Research Log, 12/30/2081: Nearly one week ago, Mark Humbolt used homemade tools to unfasten the outer casing and pry open the reactor core. This was done for the purpose of throwing in some plastic consistency components and seeing if and how fast they melted. He intended to do this indefinitely as a measurement of time. The actual result was immediate, severe radiation burns to the entire front of his body. As we have known, the vault suits do very little against concentrated radiation. As of this report, Mark is alive, but is not expected to survive another week. Stacy, who was still living in the reactor room at the time, saved the entire vault in the short term, by shoving the reactor casing back into place. However, Mark had bent it out of shape in his efforts, and there are several gaps now leaking radiation steadily into the vault. Stacy has remarked that she noted this, but still refuses to leave the reactor room. The other residents respected her wishes, and sealed the door. Personal Note: I just noticed the date of the incident. Did he know? There's no possible way.
Research Log, 6/1/2081: The radiation has spread through the ventilation. The entire vault is exposed. The cabbage crop, what is left of it, is nearly dead. The residents don't know how long they have, and wouldn't be able to measure it out anyway. Except for one: Mark has survived. What hadn't been apparent at the time were the small lead pans he had stuffed in his suit before opening the reactor. They spared his torso from much of the exposure. Perhaps it is a worse fate: The damage to his face was extensive, and his organs are beginning to fail. Worse, he remained alive to witness his sister Stacy undergo the process we have observed in other tests involving radiation, which has come to be called 'ghoulification'. Ironically, they still look rather similar to each other. Also ironically, he has finally created his time candles, from the body of Liam, which still hangs in the atrium, being used as a pendulum occasionally. Unfortunately, still lacking a reference of time to base his markings from, his hour notches pass in approximately 43 minutes. But he is the only one there with a consistent sense of time, now. He spends it in the reactor hallway, talking to Stacy through the door. It is the only place where the smell of the candles won't bother anyone. Stacy merely hums in the rhythm she imagined the reactor making when she was human. Now, going by what we know of ghouls, she may do it for eternity.
Research Log, 11/1/2081 All subjects have expired. Test complete.

PART 2

Max spent the evening jimmying the door back open. Then he set himself about seeing what kind of reactions he could get out of Ruth. So far it seemed only to be nature stuff, no politics or sports seemed to spark any interest. There had been a brief moment when he thought she started lighting up when he put the news on but, as it turned out pretty fast, she started to go still, the little stud bits stopped rotating and the ‘elements’, (as he remembered,) started to sink. Frightened, he quickly put on another documentary with an interesting narrator. She perked up again a short yet agonising minute later.
As a precaution he left the same channel on repeat so she could watch, and then he retreated quietly to his study so he could Google stuff like ‘artificial intelligence’ and ‘can water come alive’ and ‘alien machines’. Needles to say, he came away frustrated and no closer to understanding what the hell this thing was, though he did learn about some outlandish theories that the pyramids were built by aliens.
He peed, shoved a ham sandwich down his Gregory Peck, brushed his teeth and quickly shoved his joggers and a t-shirt on, dragged his bedding downstairs and onto the sofa. He adjusted the cushions across the room from the table and re-squared the carpet again.
At this moment, Scat, the long-haired tabby that he inherited from his mother, jumped arthritically onto the table. He stared with wide pupils at Ruth for a moment and snuggled himself down on the shiny table-top, as close to her as the bamboo plant would allow. He fell asleep almost instantly without his usual routine of ‘feed me, love me, now get the hell off me and let me sleep for 16 hours straight’.
“Right, Ruth,” he told the contraption, “I’m going to be sleeping here until... well, I’ll be sleeping here. If you don’t mind. If I snore, I would tell you to kick me but you don’t have legs now, do you? Maybe we’ll have to ask your maker, huh? When he comes back I’ll tell him you want to walk! Haha, he’ll think I’m a nutter. But I ‘spose talking to you I’d be a nutter by anyone’s standards, wouldn’t I?”
Ruth just stared at him.
Max felt a little uncomfortable again, now the windows were blacked out by the night and the only light that seemed to come from anywhere was the now-muted TV, the occasional passing car and Ruth. The only sounds came from a slightly squeaky nostril of a dead-to-the-world cat. That feeling of being watched had returned and somehow things seem more sinister in the dark, when it’s quiet, when nobody else is around, when everyone else is asleep…
He got up, turned all the lights on in the room.
Standing by the switch seemed ludicrous but he couldn’t help it. She was definitely watching. All the glitter was at his end of the tubes again, and it followed him as he sat down and pulled the duvet under his chin again.
“Well, night then… see you in the morning… sleep well…”
She didn’t answer.

Max woke up at some point after midnight. He had been having nightmares about being chased by something he couldn’t see, about some big raging ball of energy being just over his shoulder or in his periphery. He never caught sight of it but it touched him and he jolted awake.
Everything was exactly as it was before he fell asleep, except the TV had clicked into standby and was making a faint high-pitched squeal.
Should have got a new TV by now Max, he told himself.

The next morning Max woke sitting bolt upright, Ruth glittering her way towards Scat’s side and generally giving off the vibes she likes him. Th cat evidently heard Max move on the sofa, propped his ears up, yawned and stretched.
“NO, SCAT!” Max shouted and leapt towards the cat, just as he was doing his insanely stereotypical cat-like stretch where his chest goes down and his outstretched arms go forwards and butt goes backwards… right into Ruth.
“Don’t touch it, Scat!”
Oh, but he had. He set Ruth rocking slightly and Max could only stand and watch with his hands stuck to his head like he and his mates did when they were watching England trying to win the World Cup with penalties, painstakingly failing every single attempt.
I can’t touch it if it goes over it’s so screwed I’ve lost him the Nobel Prize this thing is alive does that mean I’m a murderer because of my cat what have I done what do I do fuck fuck fuck what can I do what can I
Ruth rocked her final rock and settled back onto the table without a final bounce-back. She sat as if she was glued to it now, never to be moved again.
Max sat and let out a relieved shuddering breath.
“Ohmygod. I thought you were a goner, Ruth! Bloody hell. Right,” Max stood up, pointed his irritated finger at Scat, “you, come here!” He grabbed the nonchalant son-of-a-gun from the table and promptly plonked him outside the kitchen door.
“You have no idea what you just did. None! I’d strangle you if I wouldn’t miss you, you know that?” he told Scat. In response, Scat rubbed himself over Max’s jogging bottoms and meowed for food.
“Fine. But you’re eating out here, you’re in the doghouse, mister,” he said, trying to maintain his anger despite his relief.
Max scooped out half a tin of the expensive stuff and mashed it in the bowl. Scat had a ear condition that his mother had been insistent was due to insufficient and inadequate food, hence this kitty being much much more of a kitty when he was inherited, though he turned out to be the right amount eventually. The problem was, because of her ridiculous and overly pompous pampering even by Max’s standards, this is all the damned creature would eat and he was getting skinny in his old age.
“You idiot,” he told Scat. “You could have scuppered us both, buddy, and we don’t even know what we got yet. When you’re done stuffing your face I’ll come let you in again, ok?” He stroked the full length of Scat’s back to the tip of his tail. “But stay off the damned table.”
Max wandered back into the front room to spend some more time with Ruth.
“So, Ruth, I was thinking, I know you like the nature documentaries and all, but the…”
Once again, as Max rounded the corner he stared at Ruth. She had changed shape. No longer was she a mass of glass tubes and glitter, she was an untamed riot of glass tubes and glitter which distended at the centre into that could only be described as a flat glass bubble with one tube going in and one going out on each side. Most of the glitter had formed clumps in the middle and was blobbing back and forth and looking like if Flubber mated with fairy dust and smoked weed while dancing the rumba.
“You gotta be kidding me!”
Max flopped down onto the sofa again, staring. It seemed to him he spent most of his life staring, these days. Staring at Ruth, staring at the TV, staring at the back of his eyelids, staring at Ruth some more…
Maybe that’s how flies feel, he thought, they don’t have eyelids. Must be horrible always having to stare around, not being able to control what you’re looking at. Annoying and stupid. Not like they understand what they see, anyways.
Max called in sick. Told them he’d be out for at least a fortnight.

He let Scat back in a few hours later, a Scat who ungratefully only ate half his food, altogether bypassed Max, shunned his table banishment and delicately placed himself next to Ruth again, immediately falling back asleep and making Max jealous.

It wasn’t until a few days later that Max realised he had no food in the house, except for one of Scat’s tins, and he absolutely was not going down that road. He had eaten cat food once as a dare while in college and he had thrown up for an hour solid. He made sure the first instalment went directly over his flatmate’s shoes. Serve him right for daring him in the first place.
Dare him to dare me anything again! Yeah!
Reluctantly it was time to go shopping. Instant noodles and trail mix could only sustain one’s life force for so long, and that ‘so long’ had come and gone.
Groceries unloaded, Max had a special little baggy of handmade organic treats in hand that he fully intended on unloading on Scat the second he got in (no, Max told himself, not to try and win my cat’s affections back from an inanimate object, that would be ridiculous.) Where was that cat, anyway?
He ambled into the front room, Ruth as solid and purposeful as always. Scat was where he had been, doing his best round rock impression on the table. He hadn’t been allowed on the table before Ruth arrived, (table-top fur floating into his breakfast eggs was not something Max would tolerate,) but now Max figured it was too late to break the habit. Perhaps once Ruth was given back to her rightful owner he would have to proverbially piss on the boundaries again, mark out what Scat was and was not allowed to do, and hope it worked. It probably wouldn’t. Dopey old thing.
And here was the dopey old thing, soft as ever, tucked up around that bamboo that was finally growing!
He poked Scat on his shoulder and wiggled the treat bag in front of his nose.
“Come on, up you get. Got summat tasty for ya!”
Scat didn’t move. He stroked him and gently called his name. Nothing. Ruth was glittering her way towards Scat again, fiercely and somehow tentatively, lovingly, bobbling around in the flat bubble. A sharp stab of fear thrilled through Max. He dropped the treats and picked the cat up but he flopped gently in his hands, tail limp and dangling.
“Scat! Scat, no! Come on, bud, wake up! Scat!” He started to sob, held him up to his face and cried into his fur. Max held him for what felt like hours, until finally he dug a hole in the middle of the lawn where he could see from most rooms, put him in a blanket-lined box three feet down, and planted the lucky bamboo on top of him.