Well, I've heard if Cisco Easter Eggs, but this is a weird one.
I work at a local ISP for my region, and we have one of our employees working on getting the hardware ready for infrastructure upgrades. One of the devices he's working on is a Catalyst 3750.
Well, he sent us a copy of the startup config file and most of it is this strange conspiracy story.
Has anyone seen anything like this before?

POST: CPU MIC register Tests : Begin
POST: CPU MIC register Tests : End, Status Passed
POST: PortASIC Memory Tests : Begin
POST: PortASIC Memory Tests : End, Status Passed
POST: CPU MIC interface Loopback Tests : Begin
POST: CPU MIC interface Loopback Tests : End, Status Passed
POST: PortASIC RingLoopback Tests : Begin
POST: PortASIC RingLoopback Tests : End, Status Passed
Waiting for Stack Master Election...
POST: PortASIC CAM Subsystem Tests : Begin
POST: PortASIC CAM Subsystem Tests : End, Status Passed
POST: No Cable found on stack port 1
POST: No Cable found on stack port 2
POST: PortASIC Stack Port Loopback Tests : Begin
POST: PortASIC Stack Port Loopback Tests : End, Status Passed
POST: PortASIC Port Loopback Tests : Begin
POST: PortASIC Port Loopback Tests : End, Status Passed
Election Complete
Switch 1 booting as Master
Waiting for Port download...Complete
This product contains cryptographic features and is subject to United
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third-party authority to import, export, distribute or use encryption.
Importers, exporters, distributors and users are responsible for
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agree to comply with applicable laws and regulations. If you are unable
to comply with U.S. and local laws, return this product immediately.
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If you require further assistance please contact us by sending email to
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cisco WS-C3750G-12S (PowerPC405) processor (revision R0) with 131072K bytes of memory.
Processor board ID CAT1125ZKHZ
Last reset from power-on
1 Virtual Ethernet interface
12 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces
The password-recovery mechanism is enabled.
512K bytes of flash-simulated non-volatile configuration memory.
Base ethernet MAC Address : 00:1C:B0:2F:D1:00
Motherboard assembly number : 73-9678-07
Power supply part number : 341-0048-03
Motherboard serial number : CAT11255C25
Power supply serial number : LIT11140GE6
Model revision number : R0
Motherboard revision number : B0
Model number : WS-C3750G-12S-E
System serial number : CAT1125ZKHZ
Top Assembly Part Number : 800-26634-04
Top Assembly Revision Number : A0
Version ID : V06
CLEI Code Number : CNM81W0GRB
Hardware Board Revision Number : 0x06
Switch Ports Model SW Version SW Image
* 1 12 WS-C3750G-12S 12.2(55)SE10 C3750-IPSERVICESK9-M
This message serves as a warning to the US government that they cannot get away ^with having their own citizens
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stalked, kidnapped, tortured, brain damaged and murdered by foreign intelligence ^ agencies .
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Request an investigation by the German government and the Council of Europe!
^
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Location of Turkish President Erdogan's illegal black site for terror suspects i ^n G ermany: 48.345941, 12.137753
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Is the CIA stalking and murdering ISIS terror suspects?
^
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Microwave weapons, group stalking and harassment ("gangstalking"), neurotoxins, ^hitmen, an illegal Turkish black site, Delta Force, and an airport kidnapping: A
true story
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QUOTES
^
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"If you were in the US, the CIA would just shoot you, we are nice so we will ^ commit you to a hospital instead" - Turkish police officer
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"When you get deported to the US, don't piss off the CIA officers like you d ^id with Erdogan (the Turkish president)" - Man at KBO Taufkirchen Station A2
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"The doctors here are trying to protect us from the psychos up at the top" - ^ Woman a t KBO Taufkirchen Station A2
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"You're lucky that the Turks got you first. With the Germans it would have b ^een wors e. The Turks usually don't kill" - Woman at KBO Taufkirchen Station A2
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NOTES
^
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Anyone with access to Europol or INTERPOL should be able to confirm that the ^ FBI se nt out a request/warning in 2017. You might not be able to view the detai
ls of this request unless you have the right handling code/password
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Nothing shows up for my name when it's searched in Law Enforcement Enterpris ^e Port al (LEEP). This is deliberate as the FBI is hiding my records to cover up
the terrorism investigation and everything else.
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The Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt) and Bavarian State Po ^lice bo th refuse to start an investigation due to political reasons, despite the
fact that many other people, mostly Turkish citizens, were kidnapped within Ger
many by fake po
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ice and brain damaged at the black site.
^
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I (John Erin Binns / CIA code name RAVEN) have been an ISIS terror suspect since ^ 2017.
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It began when an FBI Confidential Human Source whom I met online (Azaiah Crosswh ^ite / moda) gave my Skype account to his handler. The FBI then sent an administr
ative subpoena to Microsoft and obtained my email address, which I had previousl
y reused on my
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S passport application in 2016. An alert was also sent through the Europol Infor ^mation System to 16 countries in Europe stating that I was a terror suspect.
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On October 11, 2017, Arthur Gong from the US Department of Homeland Security int^errogated me about allegedly travelling to Latakia, Syria while I was waiting to
board a flight from London Heathrow Airport to Chicago Airport. When my plane l
anded in Chicag
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, I was flagged for secondary screening (See Exhibit A) and asked more questions^. My citizen ship was questioned, and the CBP officer got angry after I told him
that not answering his questions doesn't make me inadmissible to the US.
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In early 2018, I left the United States and moved to Turkey. Soon after, strange ^ things s tarted happening to me. Kenneth Currin Schuchman (Nexus Zeta), a dual F
BI/CIA informant who was given a pound of heroin by federal agents to inform on
me, attempted t
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entrap me on child pornography and terrorism charges while I was drunk.
^
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Schuchman tried persuading me into buying Stinger missiles and guns from a Tor w ^ebsite wh ich would be shipped in "xray proof boxes" (those don't even exist) to
my location. When that failed, he tried getting me to open a website which likel
y had exploit c
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de on it (he specifically told me to open it in Chrome) and then told me that he ^ knew of some good "Tor porn sites". When I asked him what type of porn was on t
hese websites, Schuchman replied that they contained child porn.
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Then, Schuchman told me in a call that Dingle/Drake/Logan Shwydiuk was going to ^come to my house and kill me, and asked me what I'd do if he came to my house. I
was drunk at the time, and I told Schuchman that I'd kill Shwydiuk. I suspect t
hat Schuchman w
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s recording this call for the FBI so that they could use it as evidence against ^me in a fabricated terrorism investigation.
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Around this time, I noticed that two Western males wearing white shirts and sung ^lasses wou ld frequently visit an apartment building behind the one I live in.
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Several days after I reported Schuchman to the DEA for selling heroin and right ^after he t ried entrapping me on computer fraud charges, he was indicted in the D
istrict of Alaska.
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That's when the harassment started...
^
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My phone was hacked by Turkish intelligence/MIT using some type of 0-click SMS R ^CE and GPS tracking spyware was planted on it. My phone's GPS feature would turn
on without my consent, and several minutes later, a flash mob of "street thugs"
would be block
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ng the sidewalk and shouting death threats at me. Sometimes, they'd just walk up ^ to me hold ing their cell phone in one hand and screaming death threats at the s
ame time. (Street theateGangstalking)
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I received more death threats than I can count, probably close to 100 from diffe ^rent sta lkers over the course of a few months.
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Now about the Western males: I saw them wearing night vision goggles on several ^occasions, they'd constantly harass me and illegally surveil me on Turkish terri
tory up until I called the police.
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Harassment from CIA contractors:
^
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I woke up and a male was pointing a microwave oven with the door removed at ^my sl eeping body from my neighbor's balcony. I was actually half-awake with my e
yes open and I could see the guy bringing the oven out onto the balcony and plug
ging it into an
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extension cable. Another time, somebody pointed a microwave oven magnetron with ^a metal ho rn at my body to shock me (I saw this as well). The neighbor was on va
cation and the men were not authorized to be in that unit, so they likely broke
in using lockpi
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king equipment.
^
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A red laser pointer was shined into my room using a gun scope from my neighb ^or's first floor unit. I went out onto my balcony and saw a guy doing this. When
the guy saw me, he quickly closed the blinds and started laughing. The unit was
being renovate
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at the time and the men were not authorized to be there.
^
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A microwave weapon was pointed at my head which caused me to black out momen ^taril y and see white flashes of light. The same device would cause me to feel ex
tremely paranoid and make my heart rate speed up. I remember that it had buttons
and a cord. It
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was about the size of a small desktop computer.
^
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Somebody was pointing a laser microphone at my bedroom window from the same ^first f loor unit. I was in a telephone call with someone else, and Azaiah Crossw
hite started repeating parts of this conversation back to me over Snapchat as an
intimidation/g
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slighting tactic. Crosswhite also got private pictures from my bedroom and poste ^d them on h is Snapchat story.
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Window/door slamming: This would happen constantly whenever I was in my bedr ^oom or o ut on my balcony. Sometimes one of the guys would slam a window/door and
microwave me right after it happened.
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Sabotage: The phone lines in my apartment building and the entrance door cab ^le wer e both cut.
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Use of pulsed energy projectile weapons: I saw one of the guys holding a gun ^-shap ed device, when he fired it, a ball of energy came out of the weapon and ma
de the windows in my bedroom shake.
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Information: The microwave weapons that are used by intelligence agencies to ^day co nsist of: a millimeter wave amplifier, a transmitter with extremely low fr
equency amplitude modulation, batteries, and a horn antenna/waveguide. Using dif
ferent modulati
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n frequencies, effects such as tachycardia, panic attacks, epileptic seizures, p ^aranoia, REM sleep can be induced. They are the perfect tool for covert harassme
nt as they leave no trace. See Exhibit B for a picture of a microwave weapon.
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Azaiah Crosswhite would make comments over Discord such as "[the CIA] are going ^to send me a copy of your destruction video", "your name is Cock Sucker", and "y
our code name is RAVEN". He'd also encourage me to murder the people who were ha
rassing me, go
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n a mass shooting spree, or commit suicide.
^
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These are all goals of the government stalking program which I was a victim of, ^according t o an article by Julianne McKinney, who is a former US army intelligen
ce officer and member of the Association of National Security Alumni. See: https
://www.bibliote
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apleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_mindcon28.htm .
^
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I called the police a few days before July 1, 2019. When the officers came, one ^of them s aid that I "talk too much" and that I should "keep [my] mouth shut".
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Then, intense microwave harassment started. I would hear footsteps in the unit a ^bove mine a nd my sleep would be disrupted due to the weapon that Turkish intelli
gence was using on me.
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On July 1, 2019, a man I didn't know started asking me questions such as "If som^ebody was ca ught selling illegal alcohol, what political party would that person
be from?". He also made comments implying that I had been under surveillance by
Turkish intell
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gence for a while, and warned me that the Turkish government had prepared a trap^ for me.
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Several minutes later, an elderly man from my neighborhood named Ozkan came and ^asked me i f I was the "exit/cikis". (exit/cikis is a term for the illegal killin
g of a terrorist by Turkish intelligence). He took me to his apartment and told
me to visit Kon
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k Ferry Station. I went to Bostanli Ferry Station and boarded a ferry to Konak. ^After the ferry started going to Konak, I overheard 3 men in a row near me talki
ng about how they were hired to kill me and that they'd dump my body in the ocea
n because I was
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allegedly an ISIS member.
^
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Once the ferry arrived at Konak, I immediately got a random person to dial 112 a^nd faked hav ing medical problems. An ambulance came to the ferry station, and I
was taken to Alsancak Nevvar Salih Isgoren Hospital. I told the emergency room d
octors that the
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e was nothing wrong with me, they ran my ID card through the emergency room comp ^uter, and my name came up as a wanted terrorist.
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I overheard the doctors talking about the fact that Azaiah Crosswhite's name cam ^e up on t he emergency room computers and that my name was changed to "Cock Sucke
r" in some type of database which they had access to.
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Police lights shined into the emergency room and I heard sirens as around 5 poli ^ce cars came to the hospital along with Turkish intelligence. I was given 2 inje
ctions of haldol, and a guy next to my bed who worked for Turkish intelligence c
alled somebody
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n his cell phone whom he referred to as "Erdogan". Maybe it was the Turkish pres ^ident? I don't know..
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The doctors kept me in the hospital until the next morning and I was then releas ^ed.
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Several days later, I was in Gultepe, Konak, at a relative's house, and people w ^ere firing gunshots into the air while somebody would use a microwave weapon to
make me feel like my head was going to explode. I saw people on a nearby rooftop
, they had guns
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(which they were constantly firing) and camouflage clothing. Whenever I'd get mi^crowaved, my phone would lose cell service and the camera would blur.
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While this was happening, I tried to contact somebody I barely knew who worked a^t the US Dep artment of Justice for help.
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As soon as I had a mental breakdown due to the constant gunfire and microwaving, ^ the gunfir e and microwave attacks immediately stopped. Two street thugs then at
tacked me (I believe that Turkish intelligence paid them money to do this) and p
revented me fro
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going home in a taxi.
^
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I called the police and they came rather quickly. When one of the police officer ^s looked up the information on my ID card through a mobile app on his phone, he
saw something in the police database. I was told by a Turkish police officer: "I
f you were in t
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e US, the CIA would just shoot you, we are nice so we will take you to a hospita ^l instea d". Fortunately, there were no beds available at the local hospital so I
was allowed to go home in a taxi.
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After I went home, the microwave harassment continued, and I went to Cesme a few ^ days later . The harassment continued there as well.
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I decided that I had to leave the country as the Turkish secret services were ag ^gressive ly pursuing me. On July 6, 2019, I boarded flight PC1019 from Sabiha Gok
cen Airport to Munich Airport. About 30 minutes after my flight took off, I noti
ced that the ma
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e and female in the row behind my seat were talking about me. The female was say ^ing that i t was sad that they had to kill me with a poison needle and that my re
al name wasn't given to them by MIT for security reasons. I immediately notified
a cabin crew m
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mber of their plot, and I was taken to another seat.
^
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The cabin crew member assured me that the German police had been notified, but o ^nce the pla ne landed, she grabbed me by my arm and told me to listen to my mothe
r while warning me not to contact the German police. I believe that she was affi
liated with MIT
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I gave a member of the Bundespolizei (immigration police) a piece of paper expla ^ining tha t I was being harassed with a microwave gun by Turkish intelligence, bu
t I was not given the opportunity to tell the Bundespolizei my full story. A fak
e Bavarian Stat
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Police officer then came and took me past immigration to the police station. I ^was pu t in a cell, and I noticed that all of the "officers" were speaking Turkis
h, ALL of them. I strongly suspect that an insider within the police force let T
urkish intellig
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nce into the station. I don't know if that insider is the commissar or someone e ^lse.
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One of them was calling me stupid in Turkish, and they were all discussing what ^they should do with me. "Ausganging"/killing me was discussed as an option, but
the fake police eventually decided to send me to a mental hospital. I was given
some forms to s
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gn, and I had no idea where I was being taken at the time. I signed the paperwor^k as I didn' t want to get ausganged/killed. I then heard the fake police discuss
ing in Turkish that I was lucky to be going to a mental hospital, as they usuall
y kill ISIS sus
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ects.
^
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A few minutes after I boarded the ambulance, I realized that something was wrong ^. A male and female who were in the ambulance with me started talking about my a
lleged cybercrimes and about somebody named Rosenberg who "wanted blood". Once t
he ambulance ar
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ived at KBO Taufkirchen Station A2 (48.345941, 12.137753), the same fake police ^officer who took me past immigration told the staff to fry my brain with gas and
that I'd then be transported to Anchorage International Airport.
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Then, four Turkish men came and forcibly put me in the neurotoxic gas room (whic ^h doubles a s a suicide watch room). My shoes were taken off (so that I couldn't
break down the door and escape), and a worker activated a metal fan. A gas which
smelled like f
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rmaldehyde then started to come out of the fan. I saw graffiti on the walls of t ^he gas roo m, all of the names that were carved into the walls were Turkish, and
I realized that I was at some type of illegal Turkish black site on German terri
tory. During th
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s time, Turkish intelligence was livestreaming the gas room camera to a group of ^ CIA i nformants (Azaiah Crosswhite, Jared Fazah, Justin Anglin) as a "destructio
n video". Azaiah Crosswhite had previously stated "[the CIA] are going to send m
e a copy of you
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destruction video".
^
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Jared Fazah had taken a $500,000 Bitcoin bribe to sell me out a few days before ^I was kidnap ped, while Justin Anglin is a CIA agent who has previously been to I
ran and other middle eastern countries. They were all talking about the livestre
am in a Discord
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server, sadly I don't have any screenshots as they were mysteriously deleted fro ^m my com puter (it may have been hacked).
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One hour after I was put in the gas room, a staff member came and turned off the^ fan in my r oom. This is the only reason why I don't suffer from brain damage to
day. I was saved by that staff member.
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About 3 hours after I was put in the gas room, I heard a helicopter hovering abo ^ve the fake mental hospital. This helicopter may have belonged to the US militar
y, but at the time I thought it belonged to the Bundeskriminalamt (Federal Crimi
nal Police Offi
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e) and that they were coming to save me.
^
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I banged on the door of the gas room and screamed for the police to come and sav ^e me, but nobody came.
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In the early morning hours of July 7, 2019, a Turkish doctor came into the room ^with a f lashlight. She commented aloud in Turkish that "[I] was made to rot". Th
en, a female CIA agent came into the room with my mother while I was pretending
to be mentally
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isabled. The doctors brought me chocolate milk and pizza, and the CIA agent star ^ted talkin g about how I'd be indicted by a grand jury in the District of Alaska
and forced into a plea deal for over 10 years in prison. That I'd be found menta
lly incompetent
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and have no choice but to take the plea deal, sending me to prison for a long ti ^me.
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The CIA agent declined to give my mother her real name and talked about previous ^ly living i n Australia. She had an Eastern European accent and told my mother to
throw away any receipts or evidence indicating that she was in the town of Tauf
kirchen, and to
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keep her cell phone turned off.
^
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The lady also told my mother that a US senator (I don't remember the senator's e ^xact name) wanted to meet with her. In 2018, Kenneth Currin Schuchman had told m
e that "a senator can order the killing of a US citizen in some cases" and told
one of my frien
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s that a US senator wanted to kill me. Nobody believed him back then, including ^me. I sti ll don't know who this senator is or why he wants me killed. (Note: Ken
neth Currin Schuchman has been repeatedly thrown in mental hospitals, and his fa
ther Robert Sch
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chman currently has guardianship over him).
^
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The lady left and I slept for a few hours in the neurotoxic gas room/suicide wat ^ch room. Th en after I woke up, a staff member woke up and unlocked the door. I w
as allowed to leave, and that's when the torture started. An African lady was pl
aying back a re
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ording of me in the gas room on one of the hospital computers and laughing at it^. The same l ady would also play screaming noises and the Turkish word for mental
ly retarded ("gerizekali") over a loudspeaker connected to the computer, and use
a microwave we
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pon which looked like a stereo speaker to give me epileptic seizures. I do remem ^ber that t he weapon was brought to the hospital in a large briefcase by men work
ing for Turkish intelligence.
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I met other people who were being held at the hospital. One lady told me "You're ^ lucky th at the Turks got you first. With the Germans it would have been worse.
The Turks usually don't kill". She also claimed to be a spy.
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I borrowed a cell phone from one of the other patients and called the police. On ^ce I told them that I was being held at a fake mental hospital run by the Turkis
h secret services, I was told that I "belonged in [the hospital]" by a German po
lice officer an
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they never responded to my emergency call.
^
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SETUP: new interface Vlan1 placed in "shutdown" state
Press RETURN to get started!
*Mar 1 00:01:17.242: %STACKMGR-4-SWITCH_ADDED: Switch 1 has been ADDED to the stack
*Mar 1 00:01:18.752: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Vlan1, changed state to down
*Mar 1 00:01:20.102: %SPANTREE-5-EXTENDED_SYSID: Extended SysId enabled for type vlan
*Mar 1 00:01:54.705: %PARSER-4-BADCFG: Unexpected end of configuration file.
*Mar 1 00:01:54.705: %SYS-5-CONFIG_I: Configured from memory by console
*Mar 1 00:01:54.907: %STACKMGR-5-SWITCH_READY: Switch 1 is READY
*Mar 1 00:01
Switch>
Switch>:54.907: %STACKMGR-4-STACK_LINK_CHANGE: Stack Port 1 Switch 1 has changed to state DOW N
*Mar 1 00:01:54.907: %STACKMGR-4-STACK_LINK_CHANGE: Stack Port 2 Switch 1 has changed to sta te DOWN
*Mar 1 00:01:55.183: %STACKMGR-5-MASTER_READY: Master Switch 1 is READY
*Mar 1 00:01:55.477: %SYS-5-RESTART: System restarted --
Cisco IOS Software, C3750 Software (C3750-IPSERVICESK9-M), Version 12.2(55)SE10, RELEASE SOFT WARE (fc2)
Technical Support: http://www.cisco.com/techsupport
Copyright (c) 1986-2015 by Cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Wed 11-Feb-15 11:40 by prod_rel_team
*Mar 1 00:01:55.511: %SSH-5-ENABLED: SSH 1.99 has been enabled
*Mar 1 00:01:56.140: %PHY-4-SFP_NOT_SUPPORTED: The SFP in Gi1/0/8 is not supported
*Mar 1 00:01:56.140: %PM-4-ERR_DISABLE: gbic-invalid error detected on Gi1/0/8, putting Gi1/ 0/8 in err-disable state
*Mar 1 00:01:56.173: %GBIC_SECURITY_CRYPT-4-VN_DATA_CRC_ERROR: GBIC in port Gi1/0/12 has bad crc
*Mar 1 00:01:56.173: %PM-4-ERR_DISABLE: gbic-invalid error detected on Gi1/0/12, putting Gi1 /0/12 in err-disable state
*Mar 1 00:01:56.719: %LINK-5-CHANGED: Interface Vlan1, changed state to administratively dow n
Switch>en
Switch#conft
Translating "conft"...domain server (255.255.255.255)
% Unknown command or computer name, or unable to find computer address
Switch#show run
Building configuration...
Current configuration : 988 bytes
!
version 12.2
no service pad
service timestamps debug datetime msec
service timestamps log datetime msec
no service password-encryption
!
hostname Switch
!
boot-start-marker
boot-end-marker
!
!
!
!
no aaa new-model
switch 1 provision ws-c3750g-12s
system mtu routing 1500
vtp domain Null
vtp mode transparent
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
spanning-tree mode pvst
spanning-tree extend system-id
!
vlan internal allocation policy ascending
!
vlan 61
name fttx
!
!
!
!
interface GigabitEthernet1/0/1
!
interface GigabitEthernet1/0/2
!
interface GigabitEthernet1/0/3
!
interface GigabitEthernet1/0/4
!
interface GigabitEthernet1/0/5
!
interface GigabitEthernet1/0/6
!
interface GigabitEthernet1/0/7
!
interface GigabitEthernet1/0/8
!
interface GigabitEthernet1/0/9
!
interface GigabitEthernet1/0/10
!
interface GigabitEthernet1/0/11
!
interface GigabitEthernet1/0/12
!
interface Vlan1
no ip address
shutdown
!
ip classless
ip http server
ip http secure-server
!
!
!
!
!
line con 0
line vty 5 15
!
end

I've found myself in a challenging situation with a coworker, and I could use some advice on how to handle it.
Let’s call her Stacey. Stacey and I started at our company around the same time, and most of our coworkers are in their late 40s or older.. im the youngest in the entire company, which is kinda typical for our industry and what we do. I was brought on board shortly after Stacey and quickly got up to speed with the rest of the team. However, Stacey has been struggling significantly since the beginning.
I’ve been more than willing to help her, as we have a lot of work to get through. Despite my efforts, Stacey remains at the same skill level she had when she started. She often waits for others to take work from the queue or finds excuses to avoid tasks. She also refuses to seek help from our senior team members, directing 95% of her questions to me. She frequently puts unwanted meetings on my calendar for training, shows up at my desk unannounced, and constantly needs to see how I resolve issues.
Adding to the frustration, Stacey works very odd hours—arriving at the crack of dawn and leaving by noon. When I come in, there are still tasks left undone despite her early start. It feels like her schedule isn’t beneficial to our workload, and her lack of progress is concerning especially needing to be on call...
I’m trying my hardest to remain polite, but sometimes I catch myself being passive-aggressive because of her unwillingness to try independently. In our industry, it's crucial to challenge oneself, utilize available resources, and then seek help if needed. Stacey skips the first two steps entirely and immediately asks for assistance.
I’m in my 20s and don’t want to stir up drama, especially since most of my coworkers are in their 40s and 50s. However, this situation is becoming unbearable. I'm puzzled that none of our senior members have addressed Stacey’s performance issues—at least, not that I’m aware of. Her lack of initiative and persistent need for hand-holding makes me question whether it's worth continuing to invest time and money in her for the companys sake. I'm losing my mind that no one is catching on to her bullshit?
Any advice on how to handle this would be greatly appreciated. How can I navigate this situation without causing unnecessary conflict at the office?

When I was about 35, I met a guy from Canada through OK Cupid. We had an intense online relationship for about a month or so before we met in person which is another story. During our conversations, he casually mentioned house centipedes and how they would scurry up his walls occasionally. I was like... what? I googled "house centipede" and was horrified. I had literally never seen a picture of something like that, let alone in real life, and had definitely never heard of them, ever. Mind you I had lived in Michigan, California, Spain, and Germany over the course of my life up to that point.
A few months later I saw one in my own house. I'm convinced it was summoned by his mentioning them and bringing them into my world. Since then, if I saw something about them online or on Reddit or wherever, I would again see one in my house. I actively avoided talking about them, reading about them, thinking about them, or even acknowledging they existed because if I did, one would appear.
When I moved into my current house, which is a renovated 8th century Moorish watchtower in Portugal, I watched a video of a previous tenant giving a tour and snippets of his life living there. One part of the video always stuck with me: he said that the house is alive, and it talks to you. If you listen closely, you will hear it.
The past four times I've slept there (a few months ago I started spending more time in Lisbon), I woke up to bites all over my body. What was biting me, I have no idea. I went up there a few days ago to gather some things and saw SIX centipedes in he house in less than 24 hours. The kicker was when I picked up my boot to put it on and one crawled out almost touching my hand.
The house is telling me to leave (through demonic messengers) and I am leaving it.
ANY FUCKING QUESTIONS?

I’ve (26M) struggled with depression and some suicidal ideation on and off since I was 16. It was a long road and took a lot of work on myself and countless hours of therapy, but around the end of 2023, I was in what I now consider to be the peak of my life. I was working a job I mostly liked, two semesters away from finishing my bachelor’s degree online and exercising almost every other day. After years of loneliness, I finally found a friend group I really adored spending time with, and I had a boyfriend with whom I hadn’t even realized I had fallen in love, whom I’d seen for about 6 months. For perhaps the first time, I had a generally positive outlook, I felt confident and attractive, and I had so much going for me. I had no clue that I was about to make a decision that would significantly alter that course and steer me off into the deepest, darkest depression and most relentless desire to end it all that I’ve ever felt. This is a very long and personal post about my decision to have surgery that I now, in hindsight, believe to have been unnecessary. The surgery itself has left me with chronic pain and probably lifelong negative consequences that are far worse than anything I ever experienced prior. I’ve kept most of this to myself other than sharing it with my therapist, and although I’m on the ledge, I think writing it all down and putting it out there may calm me somewhat. I haven’t spared some graphic details of some of the more sensitive changes to my body because I want this to be as detailed and accurate as possible. And anyway, why should I care? I may be dead soon anyway... My hope is that if I share my story, someone, somewhere, might benefit from it and might not make the same mistake I did that has me sincerely wanting to off myself. So here it goes.
Around NovembeDecember 2023, I started experiencing some strange stabbing pain in my upper right abdomen that would come on suddenly and then go away for no obvious reason. I also thought I saw trace amounts of blood in my stool, and this concerned me enough that I reached out to my primary care doctor at the beginning of January. My doctor is always booked for months, so they told me to go to the emergency room. The ER was packed, and I ended up sitting in the waiting room for about eight hours in between going for an ultrasound and a CT scan. I was getting very tired of waiting and was about ready to give up and leave as I had to work early in the morning the next day. Looking back, I wish I had left. Just before I was about to leave, they called me back and told me that they found something on the CT scan called an intussusception in my small bowel. This is a condition where the intestine gets caught on a “lead point” and folds in on itself, sort of like a telescope. It is most often found in infants and is very rarely found in people my age, yet I was told it is a medical emergency because the tissue of my bowel could die if left untreated, and/or the lead point could be a potentially cancerous tumor. They admitted me and told me they would scan me again in the morning because, despite the severity, there was a chance it could resolve. Hearing that I would be staying overnight shocked me, as I had never been hospitalized before, having always been in good physical health. I have never had digestive issues in the past, I’ve never been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis or anything of the sort, and I had never heard of this condition, but every medical professional I spoke to seemed very concerned that I had it. They didn’t have a bed for me in the hospital at that point, so I had to sleep in the packed and quite chaotic ER. About an hour after I was given a bed, a man was admitted a few feet from me who was very aggressive with all of the nurses, screaming and cursing at them throughout the night. I was not allowed to eat or drink, given the possibility of surgery. I struggled to get any sleep in that environment and woke up the next morning feeling very lethargic.
The surgeon and resident came by my bed and we spoke briefly. The surgeon explained that while the condition was serious, if it continued to show up in my CT scans, they could do minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery to resect the piece of my bowel that was telescoped and stitch it back together. I feel they really downplayed the severity of this procedure. I will never forget them saying, “It’s such a small piece of your bowel, you won’t miss it.” They felt that since I was young and otherwise healthy, I should have no problem making a full recovery. I felt confident in the fact that I was speaking to the chief of surgery at the hospital, who has more than twenty years of experience in the field. Then they brought me for my second scan, and within a few hours I was told the intussusception had not resolved. I was admitted to a hospital room, and the resident came to discuss moving forward with the surgery. My first impulse was “absolutely not,” but I quickly second-guessed myself. Everything I saw in the limited research I was able to do on my phone stated that this was indeed a serious condition that warranted surgery. In that moment, it seemed like the reasons not to go through with it were somewhat vain, such as not wanting the scars and having to forgo lifting weights at the gym for some time. Though it didn’t quite make sense to me that they wanted to operate on the complete opposite side of my body from the one that was in pain and which brought me into the ER in the first place. When I asked the resident about this, he responded, “We don’t understand how referred pain works,” Okay, fair enough, I thought. More than anything, I thought that if a doctor was in front of me, telling me what was going on with my body was an emergency situation that warranted immediate surgery, I should probably listen to them. They’re the “experts,” after all. And given the state I was in, having been in the hospital for over 24 hours at that point, running on very little sleep and nothing to eat, I don’t think I really had the capacity to fully parse what was going on, but given the doctors level of concern, it seemed like I urgently had to make a decision. After about an hour of talking it over with my mother, even though I never had any pain in the area they were about to operate on, I signed the consent papers. (Biggest fucking mistake of my life) I remember they listed risks of things that could go wrong during or shortly after the surgery, such as infection, bowel perforation, etc. They did not mention the procedure’s possible long-term consequences, and neither the surgeon nor resident ever mentioned possible long-term complications, and I didn’t think to ask. I had no experience with this kind of thing whatsoever; I am not a doctor, I don’t know any doctors, and no one I know has ever had abdominal surgery… I was so naive to trust these people, but I did. In fact, I trusted them so much that I was not terribly scared of the procedure I was about to undergo. Again, I chalk that up to the reduced mental capacity I was in, given a tough overnight stay in the ER. I remember the adrenaline rush as I was wheeled down to the operating room. I was singing one of my favorite songs in my head, hyping myself up for the procedure ahead of me. The last thing I remember was one of the OR nurses telling my mother not to worry, that the surgeon was “the best,” and that they had even operated on her husband.
I woke up high as a kite. I heard one of the nurses say I had been given fentanyl, which I remember freaked me out; I had forgotten it is more than a street drug and actually has legitimate uses. The procedure had gone fine, and I was discharged only a day or two later, with my only guidance upon discharge being not to lift heavy objects and “take it easy,” I was in some pain, but it was to be expected at that point and was well controlled by combining Tylenol and Advil. The surgeon called later that week to inform me that the pathology report had come back and that the lead point was simply “some swollen lymph nodes,” I was relieved to hear that it was not cancer. At my follow-up appointment two weeks later, I reported feeling pretty much fine. I had been granted medical leave and short-term disability from my job for six weeks following the surgery. This was the full length of time after which the surgeons expected I would recover fully. I used the time off to hang out with friends and my boyfriend and to focus on finishing what would have been my final semester of school. Those were the last few weeks that I felt somewhat normal despite what I had just gone through. I had no idea what was about to come.
About 5 weeks post-op is when I first began experiencing worse pain deep in my abdomen, right where I had the surgery, plus the pain in my upper right abdomen had not gone away. This new pain is crampy, yet sometimes stabbing, and had seemed to worsen with activity; I have experienced it every single day, nearly every hour, to varying degrees, since the beginning of February. That was also when I began regularly bloating and having difficulty going to the bathroom. No matter how hard I try to push, I can’t fully evacuate my bowels. (This is a nightmare for someone who has receptive anal sex like I used to do regularly. It is now impossible). With the emergence of all these symptoms, I felt very, very scared that there was something else wrong with me. And, of course, this all happened in the week when I was set to return to work. I have a physically demanding customer service job, and I was in so much pain that I found it impossible to be nice to the customers or even stand, so I left and, thankfully, was allowed to take the rest of the week off to figure things out. I obviously called my surgeon, but it also prompted me to do deeper research into the complications that can develop following abdominal surgery. I began pouring over medical journals, trying to figure out what was going on in my body on my own. That was when I first learned about “surgical adhesions.” These are fibrous bands of scar tissue that can develop due to the incisions made during surgery and handling of the bowel. As your body heals from the trauma of surgery, this scar tissue forms and can cause your intestine to stick to other organs or structures in your body. According to medical literature, they form in 90% of all patients who undergo abdominal surgery, but not all adhesions cause complications like what I’ve experienced. They are not easy to diagnose as they are impossible to visualize on any imaging tests, they do not go away on their own (it’s scar tissue), and the only treatment is surgically cutting them apart, which is risky, given that there’s a strong chance they will just grow back and possibly be even worse. This was obviously terrifying to me, but when I asked the surgeon about this, they said, “There’s very little chance that’s what’s happening,” given that the procedure was laparoscopic, not open. I scheduled another appointment with them, wherein they seemed quite dismissive of my concerns. They said the pain was likely “incisional” (it wasn’t and isn’t) but that they would order another CT scan so we could see what was going on. They also wrote me a script for gabapentin, an anticonvulsant meant to prevent seizures that is used off-label to treat pain and anxiety, with the qualifier that they would not write a script for anything stronger, basically implying that I was seeking narcotics, which was not at all the case, and which I found extremely offensive.
My next CT scan was scheduled about a month following that appointment in early March. In the interim, I began taking the gabapentin. I used more than I was prescribed because it was the only way I was able to control the pain and allow myself to feel comfortable at work. I didn’t anticipate the changes it would cause to my mood and behavior. In addition to feeling depressed and scared, I was also becoming easily emotionally dysregulated in ways I believe I would have been able to control prior to taking the medication. But when I didn’t take it, I was in pretty bad pain almost all the time, and I didn’t understand why at that point. My boyfriend noticed these changes in my mood and decided he needed space from me to protect his emotional wellbeing. I didn’t blame him then, and I still don’t, but I miss him terribly. We were supposed to remain “friends,” and he at least pretended he wanted that for a bit of time. At that point, I became determined to ween myself off the gabapentin and continue to work on improving my mental and physical health, for myself, but also for him; as I said, I really loved him. Later that week, after we split, I had my CT scan, and the surgeon called to tell me that it looked like I was just constipated. They advised me to take Miralax daily to ease that constipation, which should hopefully make me feel better. To me, this seemed like a huge relief. I started taking the Miralax, and at that point, I started exercising and lifting weights again. I also started trying to bulk up again, which had been an important part of my fitness journey prior to the surgery.
So April rolls around, and I am still trying my best to resume my normal life, which felt possible again at that point. I did end up successfully weening myself off gabapentin. With this newfound reinvigoration, I attempted to get my boyfriend back. We would make plans, but then he would reschedule again and again. Eventually, he kept our plans, and we met up for a talk in the park. We obviously had a lot to talk about in our relationship, at which point he told me that he simply was not attracted to me anymore. This was devastating news, as that was the first time I realized it was really over. Before I had thought that if I could show him how much I was trying to get back to the place I was before the surgery, he would stick around, but that was the moment I realized it was impossible for him to see me in the light he once did. Nevertheless, I tried to push on, kept going to the gym, and kept trying to get my life back. I was still seeing my friends regularly, and I was able to push myself to get through work, even though it was painful and hard. Plus, I was still working on my degree despite not feeling able to give it my best effort and focus with everything going on. I was still motivated to keep going, and I thought things might improve from there.
Well, lo and behold, they did not. One day in early April, I was sitting on the couch, sort of mindlessly snacking on some almonds before I was set to go have drinks with friends and see a concert. Immediately afterward, I felt that pain again in my abdomen. Despite that, I was really excited to see my friends and see the show. We met at a bar, where I had three cocktails before we made our way to the venue. I drank one or two more while the opener played. But by the time the headliner came on, I ended up in so much pain that I told my friends quite regrettably that I had to leave. I walked home and ate a small snack, wrongfully thinking it might make me feel better, before popping a melatonin and heading to bed. I woke up around 2 AM in the most intense pain I have experienced both before and after the surgery. I was extremely bloated and unable to pass gas or move my bowels. I had read somewhere that this was a sign of bowel obstruction and that I needed to seek medical attention. I made the decision to go to the ER. I walked down the stairs to leave, and as I did, I felt myself begin to vomit. Thankfully I was able to make it to the sink as I puked up what I imagine was that snack I’d had before bed. Shortly after, I arrived at the ER, this time choosing a different facility from the one where the surgeon had dismissed all of my post-surgical concerns. I was quickly admitted and given another CT scan. They confirmed my bowel was obstructed and told me they would place a tube into my nose down to my stomach to try to pump some of the blockage out. I asked the ER doctor if I was going to need to have surgery, to which he replied, “It’s a strong possibility.” This was horrifying to me. Getting the tube inserted into my nose was so painful, and I was screaming in agony the entire time. Then they gave me morphine, and I passed out. The details and timeline of that hospital stay are somewhat hazy in my mind, but I ended up being there for four days, over which I was given a “gastro graph challenge” test, wherein I was instructed to drink a contrast element which would be visualized by a series of Xrays so the doctors could monitor if anything was passing through my intestines. I met with another surgeon, whom I found to be much more attentive than my prior one, or at least simply possessing superior active listening skills. In fact, I felt that all of the staff at this second hospital were a lot more sensitive to my needs than the first. I really wish I had gone there the first time, as it’s the best hospital in the city. Add that to my long list of mistakes… Anyway.
Despite her more positive demeanor, she recommended another emergency surgery, this time a laparotomy (open) surgery to resect my bowel a second time. Her hypothesis was that the anastomosis (the medical term for the connection formed between my bowel loops during the first surgery) could be too narrow to allow food to pass through properly. I asked this new surgeon if it was possible I had adhesions causing this problem, and unlike the last one, she said, “It’s possible,” especially given that these symptoms began emerging a few weeks after the first surgery. But, like I said, they don’t really know what’s going on until they cut you open and go in there. Given that I am now much more aware of the risks of surgery and the risks of having a second procedure, I was fervently against going under the knife again. I simply couldn’t handle it. So I opted for conservative management, which meant waiting it out, taking an enema, and eventually getting back on a liquid and then solid diet. Thankfully, sitting in the hospital being NPO (Latin for nil per os - “nothing by mouth”) and taking the gastro graph made it pass eventually, and I didn’t have to have a second surgery. I was discharged from the hospital with instructions to schedule another diagnostic test called a “small bowel series,” in which they use xrays to track the amount of time it takes liquid to pass through your digestive system and to start a “low residue” diet- meaning eating very little fiber. Suddenly gone from my diet are all of the fruits and vegetables I once loved, and I can’t eat nuts or seeds (It seems to me that those almonds caused the obstruction in the first place). Basically, I’m now forced to exist on a diet of the most processed foods imaginable because although they are demonstrably unhealthy, that is all that my body is now able to safely digest.
After leaving that second hospital stay, I proceeded to delve even further into research about not only long-term abdominal surgery complications such as adhesions but also the nature of adult intussusceptions in general. I once again started furiously googling, finding results from medical journals and personal accounts from Reddit. I came to the conclusion that intussusceptions in adults, while ostensibly serious, have a strong possibility of resolving on their own, especially when they present in the small bowel, in the absence of vomiting (I never vomited before going to the hospital in January), when there is no obvious lead point (they couldn’t see it on my scans) and there is no obstruction (I was never obstructed before the surgery). Furthermore, while intussusception does present with blood in the stool, it is usually described as “currant jelly stool” (something I don’t recommend you google because it looks atrocious), which is not even close to the trace amounts of blood I saw in my own stool. (But no one ever asked, so how would I know the difference?) I never experienced any pain whatsoever in the area of my small bowel before the surgery. And yet I was told by a doctor that I was experiencing a medical emergency, which might have been caused by some malignant growth, which scared the shit out of me and made me feel at the time that immediate action was necessary. At one point, I even found a paper that attributed intussusception to cannabis use, which I had engaged in that week. In these papers, the authors highlight that these intussusceptions were transient and did not require surgical intervention. And on the point of adhesions, they are not easily diagnosed, and they are not easily treatable without surgical intervention; and said intervention is a cache 22 scenario because every time you get cut open, you risk growing back even more adhesions.
With all of this knowledge, I became absolutely distraught. I was never informed that by having this procedure performed, I would be at this increased risk of experiencing bowel obstruction. Like most people, I literally had no idea what an “adhesion” even was. What made me lose hope the most was that it seems as if doctors do these surgeries and simply ignore adhesion as a consequence because they don’t have any feasible way to prevent it or treat it without potentially creating more adhesion. So, although I was released from the hospital having avoided a second surgery, I felt more lost and hopeless than ever. I simply couldn’t cope with the realization that this would be something I would deal with for the rest of my life, something I could’ve avoided had I never agreed to get the first surgery because although I had that original pain I mentioned earlier- which has still continued to this day, it wasn’t and isn’t anything close to how excruciating the obstruction was, and it wasn’t really disrupting my life in the way the post-surgical pain has. But under the guidance of doctors, I opted to permanently alter my body, and there’s no going back. I feel so incredibly stupid for being deceived by these “medical professionals” who didn’t take the time to understand what was actually going on with me and chose to take an overly aggressive course of action that has left me permanently altered, in pain, and completely diminished my quality of life.
That week after leaving the hospital was truly the most suicidal I have ever felt. As I mentioned, I’ve dealt with suicidal ideation on and off since my adolescence. I’ve always had latent thoughts about wanting to die, wanting to escape, feeling like I’m hopeless and there’s no use trying to better myself. But this time, the desire to end my life was so much more intense. I became extremely disassociated from everything in life. In that week following my second hospitalization, there was absolutely nothing that could bring me joy. Before the surgery, I used to find deep pleasure in simply walking around my neighborhood for at least an hour every day. But I couldn’t do it anymore because walking gives me time to think, and thinking is too painful. It always leads back to the realization of the way I am now. Nothing could make me smile or laugh. I couldn’t even listen to music, one of my favorite things in the world. I became completely devoid of all emotions as my research transitioned away from my various new ailments and into ways I could end my life.
The rest of April and May passed by in a blur. Over that time, I’ve had two more appointments with the surgeons I met at the second hospital, a small bowel study (a more in-depth series of x-rays tracking the transit time of liquid through the GI tract), and a colonoscopy and endoscopy. Those have not yielded any significant findings as to what is going on, making me believe even more that all of these problems are being caused by adhesions. However, the small bowel study did reveal that my stomach is slightly herniated, which I believe is the cause of the original pain that I sought care for in the first place. At my last appointment, I was told to see a “small bowel specialist” GI doctor. But that was three weeks ago, and I haven’t even been able to get an appointment with them. I’m on a waiting list, but I imagine I’m looking at many months before I can get an appointment. I don’t know what they’re going to do for me. I don’t know that there’s anything that can be done besides more surgery, and I am very fearful about that. I fear the only way that these fucking doctors who fucked me up in the first place are going to even try to help me is if I’m obstructed again. But the changes to my diet, as much as I hate them, have kept me in a more manageable amount of pain and out of the hospital for now.
It is now June, and I am shocked that I am still here and confused about what to do now. Despite the diet, I still feel pain and discomfort at some point in the day, every single day. I think about wanting this all to end all of the time. I have not attempted again, though I did pick up another nitrogen tank, and I’ve also stockpiled a 90 day supply of my antidepressant, so at least I have the option. I am drinking two bottles of wine or half a bottle of vodka nearly every night. Alcohol is the only thing that seems to quiet my thoughts enough to get through each evening. I am sitting here in a cycle where I think about doing it, but I still feel obligated to go to work, to see my friends, and to feed my cat. My life has continued, but I don’t feel like I’m living anymore; I merely exist. I feel extremely unattractive because although I look the same as I did on the outside, I’m overcome with never ending emotional pain and turmoil on the inside. I am now unable to take care of myself and be on top of my life the way I used to be. After the second hospitalization, I dropped out of school and have no plans to continue, as I won’t need a bachelor’s degree when I’m dead. I have stopped exercising altogether, as it feels like there’s no point in trying to improve or take care of a body that has been permanently broken. Through all of this, I’ve lost much of my confidence and I feel I have completely lost my identity. I miss that old me so much. I miss my boyfriend so much. Plans with my friends are sometimes the only thing that keeps me going, and I am extremely grateful for them, but despite their continued presence, I feel extremely isolated and lonely. It’s hard to explain what I’ve been through to people without the context of all that has happened. I don’t have the energy to share it with them. And I feel if I speak about what I’m going through, I will feel like a burden, killing the vibe, and I don’t want that.
I have never felt this alienated from my body and from everything in life. I cannot cope with the fact that things will never be how they were before. I feel so incredibly distraught that I threw away what was shaping up to be the best days of my life. There’s nothing I or anyone else can do to change what has happened to me. It took me such a long time to get to the place I was in before the surgery. It was a brief and beautiful couple of months, but it’s over, and there’s no way for me to return. Even if there was, I don’t have that much of a fight left in me. I feel like such a fucking idiot for allowing the doctors to do this to me. I look around at all the happy people around me and know that I am dragging them down with my depression. I am tired of feeling helpless and like a burden on everyone I love. I am a shell of the person I once was. Ending it all is the singular thing that’s in my control. It is the only way to end all of this pain and suffering and stop the concern and confusion of my loved ones. I know that my exit will be painful to them, but they will all get over it in time. But me? I don’t think I will ever get over this. I will never be able to accept this horrible choice that I made. I am so tired of living this way. I am supposed to turn 27 soon, but I really don’t want to live to see my birthday. I have nothing to celebrate. My life is completely, irreversibly fucked. I don’t know when I will go, but it will be sooner rather than later. I am so sorry to everyone. I know this will hurt. I just can’t go on living this way. To all the people I care about, know that I love you, and I am so thankful you were part of my life. I know you will all go on to do great things without me. This entire saga has been unbearable; my life has spun out of control, and suicide is the only way to end my suffering. I’m sorry. I’m signing off.
TL;DR: Doctors performed a surgery I now think was unnecessary and the complications make me want to kill myself.

Milicent Questline is one of the best questlines in the game. Not only it tells us a lot about the lore but also takes us on a journey throughout the Lands Between. Many believe that this journey is the reminiscent of Maleina’s journey back to Haligtree. I totally agree to that. But how could Milicent be connected to Maleina in such a way that we are reliving Maleinas memories through her?
In the battle of Aeonia Maleina has challenged Radahn. The reason why they were battling has been explored by many. Im gonna skip it. But Maleina had reasons to kill him. However Radahn was the mightiest of demigods. Defeating him was of course no easy feat. As expected Radahn was giving Maleina a real hard time. They were both equal in power. At some point Maleina has understood what needed to be done to meet Radahns measure. Then she removed the needle. She was resisting the call of scarlet rot, but there were probably bigger things at stake. So she let the scarlet rot takes its course.
Now I believe, the moment where Maleina removed the needle is the exact moment when Milicent was born. Please read this part carefully. When we meet Milicent at Haligtree she tells us this:
There is something I must return to Malenia. The will that was once her own. The dignity, the sense of self, that allowed her to resist the call of the scarlet rot. The pride she abandoned, to meet Radahn's measure.
This dialogue in Milicent’s questline is crucial in understanding her identity. The aim of her entire journey is to get back to Maleina and return her the pride and the will power she once had. Maleina was able to resist the call of scarlet rot, thanks to her pride. I believe when Maleina removed the needle to use scarlet rot, she also has casted her pride aside. Milicent is the embodiment of the pride Maleina has abandoned.
Lets now look at some in game hints.
The heart of Battle of Aeonia was Aeonian Swamp. This is where we could find Scarlet bloom plants. Milicent invades us at this location and Gowry tells us that he found Milicent in this swamp. Like i have said this is the location where Maleina removed the needle. We get this needle from O'Neil after defeating him.
Another hint is the Finley. Maleina was carried back to Haligtree by her loyal knight Finlay. Ashes of Finlay tells us that she fend off all foes alone while carrying Malenia. We find a prosthetic arm in shaded castle protected by a cleanrot knight. I believe that was Maleinas arm. Which means she was missing an arm during this entire journey. Thats why she couldn’t help Finlay. As the pride of Maleina, Milicent express his sorrow at some point by saying that she could have aided Tarnished, if she had an arm. That is exactly what Maleina must have to Finlay, if Finlay had been doing all the work. Furthermore, if we give Milicent the prosthetic arm then kill her, we get Milicent’s prosthetic. Item description reads "The despair of sweet betrayal transformed Millicent from a mere bud into a magnificent flower". If you were wondering, why we can't see Milicent turning into a flower its because it doesn't refer to our betrayal, rather Maleina’s betrayal to her own pride- Milicent. Magnificent Flower is already the young woman we know as Milicent.
Finally at the end of her questline, before Milicent fights with her sisters, Gowry tells us "If you happen to be present for the girl's fight with her sisters, I ask that you side with the sisters and kill Millicent." I believe this dialogue solves a big mystery. Maleina was resisting the call of scarlet rot during her entire life. We don’t quite know how much of a will power it takes to fight against it, but just like Radahn she had a fight on its own. Now of course I'm not comparing holding freaking stars to holding back scarlet rot, but it was also hard for Maleina to fight in that condition. We actually see this battle in game, when we get to the end of Milicent’s questline. The fight Milicent has with her sisters, is the fight Maleina had with her feelings.
Rest of dialogue continues: "It must be done by your hand; no other. Millicent trusts you, rather deeply in fact. Sever that trust. Nurtured by betrayal, her bud will flower most vividly." This part is attributed to the relationship of Maleina and Miquella. Many argue that Miquella betrays Maleina and as a result she could bloom more vividly. I also agree to that. Milicent and Tarnished also build the very same relationship. Miquella gives Maleina a needle - we also give Milicent a needle. Miquella gives Maleina an arm- we also do that for Milicent. The only difference is, during her fight against Radahn Maleina was alone. She doesn’t have her Miquella to back her up. In contrast Milicent still has Tarnished. So together we win the fight unlike Maleina. However what follows is heartbreaking. Milicent embarks on this journey to realize her faith, that is to go back and unite with Maleina. But Maleina’s destiny was already sealed after her fight with Radahn. At the branches of Haligtree, Oracle Envoys are already celebrating the coming of a new goddess. Milicent’s memory clears and realizes that Maleina will become Goddes of Rot. That’s why she refuses to go back to her and removes the needle. We find her laying next to a swamp of rot - a similar location to where she was born, waiting for her demise, uttering Tarnished what anyone with dignity would:
"Thank you. With your help, I was able to live as my own person, if only in passing. Tell whoever put you up to this. That if I am to flower into something other than myself, I would rather rot into nothingness as I am".
Maleina’s pride doesnt accept her destiny of becoming Goddess of Rot. If blooming means turning into something that she isn't, then she would rather rot. I love Milicent’s questline and this was my interpretation. I hope you enjoyed it.

I was a damaged person. But I was on the mend.
I had a pretty traumatic break up with my childhood best friend, turned girlfriend. I had known her since we were 8 years old. We had been boyfriend and girlfriend since we were 13 and had been so for 9 years until my junior year of college when she cheated on me in a very cruel way. It came to light that she had cheated on me many times before as well.
I loved her so god damn much! I thought we were one of those stories where two souls were knitted together from eternity to eternity, or some hallmark card bullshit like that.
I was emotionally shattered and it took me a while until one day about 2 years later, I woke up and thought about her, but then realized that I hadn't thought about her at all the previous day. It was glorious and I knew then that I was on the mend. After that, my healing process sort of exponentially snowballed and I was back in the saddle as far as relationships went. I started going on dates and meeting up with women.
I was a software engineer working for a large corporation. Because I was good at my job, and because I didn't have a family, I was given the opportunity to move to Singapore and lead a project there for what would be a couple of years but turned out to be 7 years.
The great thing about Singapore is that they speak the "King's English" when they're not speaking "Singlish" (a patois of mostly English with funky grammar, but with Malay, Chinese, and Hindi thrown in). So I didn't have to learn a whole new language to fit in. I just had to learn how to translate Singlish to English, which wasn't too hard after a couple of months of trying. I even learned the lingo and it would amuse my coworkers a whole lot when I spoke Singlish. They thought it was hilarious.
I was a good looking guy (still am!!) but I really let myself go in my depression. I was a tall, muscular 210 pounds when I broke up with my ex, but I had ballooned up to over 300 pounds. I started a workout regimen and lost it all but the workout regimen became sort of an obsession. It was the one thing that grounded me. After I went to Singapore, one of my business perks was a gym membership at "Fitness First", a local gym franchise. I was down to my previous weight, but I had to practically camp out at the gym because the best thing about Singapore is the FOOD. The food is incredible! However, you WILL pack on the weight if you don't get your ass to the gym.
The meet cute
I was working out one day much later than normal due to some overtime on my project and I saw a girl on a treadmill. The treadmill was the one I usually use because it was in the back and kind of out of the way. The girl was stunning! The thing that stuck out to me was that she was had her hair in a pony tail through a ball cap, which is a look I find very attractive. I was a little nervous because, even though I was fairly confident about the way I look, I was definitely batting out of my league with this girl.
I went to her and chatted her up after she got off of the treadmill. She didn't look me in the eye and didn't really engage. I figured that I had acted like what is now known as a "gym creep" and I figured it was a "swing and a miss!" I apologized and said I wouldn't bother her anymore. I stuck out my hand and said "I'm OP, by the way. What's your name?"
She hesitated and looked at me for a bit and said "Lilly" (not her real name).
I remember this exactly because she later said that it was what intrigued her about me. At the time, she was an actress/model who had done some print/public billboard type ads, product demo booths at expos, and even a bit part in a local tv (Mediacorp) series. She had started to attract public attention because of these (mainly the TV show and the ads that were hanging all around town at that time) not just from men but from women too and it was super uncomfortable for her.
The fact that I had no idea who she was relaxed her and made her think that I was attracted to her for her and not because her face was everywhere at the time. After she told me about it, I did notice her face everywhere. But photoshop was a thing even back then, so I didn't recognize her from her ads and I really don't look at ads, tuning them out. I also didn't watch her TV show because it was in Mandarin Chinese and I don't speak or understand any Chinese, and I wasn't in a position where I was required to attend or arrange trade shows.
In the years prior to meeting me, Lilly had undergone a lot of plastic surgery (breast, eyelid, facial contouring, nose job, lipo, etc). She said it got to where she didn't recognize herself in the mirror and it disturbed and depressed her. She hadn't particularly wanted the surgery but she got the procedures done at the behest of her family who wanted her to bring in more money and the people in charge of her career development (don't know the term). It was all very expensive and she felt like she owed her family and the talent people who managed her.
Later, I found out that she hated the public recognition. Not just from men, but mostly from women who were really catty about her plastic surgery. The people in charge of her were pushing her to start singing but she didn't have a good voice and would need a bunch of training for that. She was depressed due to not recognizing herself in the mirror any more and didn't want to follow the career track that she had been on. They were pushing her to do more figure/body modeling which was why she was in the gym. She was SUPER uncomfortable with that and constantly hungry and pissed off.
She was afraid that she would do some more modeling and then get married off by her parents to some rich mainland Chinese man that she would be ambivalent about (she preferred Caucasian men) and she'd be forced to be a traditional pampered Chinese wife living in Beijing.(Doesn't sound that bad to me. Some of those Chinese businessmen live crazy luxurious lifestyles.
Since I was working a lot of overtime, I kept going to the gym later at night and we saw each other and I would wave and smile and she would smile and wave back. OK I was kinda hoping to meet her regularly. I spotted her on a couple of exercises and we began to chat with each other a bit. A couple of times I had to steady her because she was fainting from being hungry and working out at the same time. I used that as an excuse to take her out to a hawker center, which like a mall food court but with delicious local food (not chain restaurants). We chatted and got along really well. It became a regular thing until I confessed I had a crush on her. We started dating after that until it got to a point where she practically moved into my place.
She, of course, had her share of guys interested in her. She was on livejournal at the time (remember livejournal??) and she was doing that and posting pictures of herself for her career mostly, but I'm sure she did enjoy the attention. She had one guy from Belgium who was really after her. He actually bought her 800 thread count sheets, which is an oddly practical but vaguely inappropriate gift. He actually visited Singapore on business (he was a tech sales guy) and wanted to meet up with her in a public place, a hawker center. I still had trust issues from my previous "love of my life" betraying me. To this day, I cringe at my behavior at the time, but I laid down a clear boundary. She could absolutely go see and hang out with this guy if she wanted to, but if she did, she'd be doing it as a single available girl and we would be through. She said she saw my face "turn to stone" and it was clear that she would lose me if she went to meet up with that guy. That honestly gave her pause about our relationship and she really considered ending it at the time. I didn't know that until much later, though. Certainly, I'm glad that she didn't. She didn't go meet up with the guy. To this day, we call the incident "The Belgian Waffle". OK so I call it that, she thinks it's stupid.
Meeting her family
Eventually, Lilly asked if I could have dinner with her parents, saying that they wanted to meet me. I bought some gifts, basically Japanese cookies in really nice packaging, and then we met. I did the traditional thing and formally introduced myself and asked them about their family and history.
At the time, Lilly got some criticism from her extended family because I am a white guy. There was a certain stigma attached to local girls who liked white guys. They called those girls "SPGs" which stands for "Sarong Party Girls", a derogatory name for the prostitutes who would entertain British expats at after hours parties "back in the day".
Over the next few months, I won over her family mainly by eating their food and being accepting of their culture. I grew up in Texas, so pickled jalapenos were common in my house...like salt and pepper, we put them on everything. Later on, I was the kind of guy who put tabasco or sriracha on everything. So eating their spicy food was no problem for me. I remember us both going shopping at an open air market and seeing an older woman cutting up cili padi. I asked if I could try some. She looked at my pale face and then at Lilly and she said I could. I bit into one and chewed it up as the woman looked at me with an amused look on her face. She was waiting for me to jump up and down with fire shooting out of my mouth, I guess. I disappointed her, but she and Lilly were impressed. She later told her mother and she was impressed too. She wanted me to eat one for her as well. Oh well, trained monkey time I guess.
The real test came when I tried Durian for the first time. This is the same food that "defeated" Andrew Zimmern, the "Bizarre Foods" guy. I actually liked it. I had a D24 durian, which admittedly is like the "beginner version" of durians. There are like 16 different types. When you get past the smell and actually taste it, it doesn't smell that bad any more. It's very sweet and creamy. It's like the taste overwrites your disgust of the smell. I think that's what really impressed them to an extreme degree. They started calling me an "egg", because I was "white on the outside but yellow on the inside."
I would visit her grandmother with her. In true Chinese fashion, Lilly and her brother Johnny were raised by their paternal grandparents while their parents worked full time jobs, so her grandmother was like her mom. She was in an elder care facility at this point, though. She didn't like living there, but it was all they could afford. We would visit her every week and she'd be very happy. She didn't speak any English at all so she and Lilly would just chat speaking Hokkien Chinese while her grandmother would pet my hairy forearms like I was a dog. She was absolutely smitten with my hairy forearms.
Meeting my family
After a little over a year, I took her back to Texas to meet my family. It was quite the culture shock. Lilly was amazed by red barns and hay bales, black and white Holstein cows, things she saw in movies about the USA. She particularly was impressed by the cluster mailboxes lined up on country roads ("So cute, leh!") We actually had to stop the car and take pictures of her standing next to them, smiling goofily for the photo. I made sure to take her to the Texas hill country during spring, when the hills are covered with soft green grass and festooned with bluebonnets, sunflowers, indian paintbrushes, black eyed susans, daisies, etc. I had to practically hold her down to keep her from picking them. It's not illegal or anything, it's just frowned upon and tradition to leave them alone. OK, I let her pick some. Give me a break, I was in love with the girl.
Driving was also something that kind of boggled her mind. Texas is huge, and traveling from my parents' place to visit my brothers and their families was a seemingly endless trek. Driving from Houston to Austin, to Corpus Christi was crazy long, even with the stops to visit my relatives.
Lilly was practically agoraphobic at the big sky in Texas. She was used to being in a forest of tall concrete and steel buildings, with only strips of blue sky available at the top. In Texas that sky went from horizon to horizon. She was also amazed at the uncountable numbers of stars at night away from the city lights. She later told me it was like visiting Narnia or something.
In Texas, she got her share of looks from guys, especially in the bigger cities. I wasn't jealous. I've never been a jealous guy, although my experience with my ex "love of my life" really put my radar up, I still was proud that other guys were attracted to her. My attitude was "go ahead and eat your hearts out, she's with me!"
When she met my oldest brother, it was like a cultural thing with her, so she was very deferential and respectful. I knew that my oldest brother was attracted to her because he was stumbling and stuttering when he was speaking to her, looking at her but kind of avoiding looking at her. I wasn't too concerned because he was a married guy with 2 sons and not a scumbag, but it was still pretty amusing to see "Mr. Smooth-don't-let-em-know-you-want-em-kid" at a loss for words.
My parents met Lilly finally (she was super nervous but she did really well) and later my mom brought me aside and asked me if she should re-set her mother's diamond engagement ring. I thought about it a bit, and then told her "yes". My mom's eyes started sparkling with images of unborn grandchildren and she smiled bigger than I had ever seen her smile (kind of unsettling actually). My dad later brought me aside and basically told me I couldn't do any better and I would be a "god damn fool" if I let her get away from me. I agreed. My dad then told me something that remains with me to this day: "She will make your life sparkle, son." (she has).
Before our time in the US was up my mom gave me the ring and I asked Lilly to be my wife in a field of wildflowers, which had become her favorite place to be in Texas. She said yes. Looking back, that was one of the happiest days of my life. It was up there with losing my virginity to "the love of my life" (who turned out to be a duplicitous crazy person but at the time it was really special), my wedding day to Lilly, and the births of our children.
The Engagement
When we got back to Singapore we had to pretend we weren't engaged because I had to ask her parents for their daughter's hand in marriage. I spoke with them and explained how my prospects in my career were good. I told them that I loved their daughter and that my family also loved their daughter. We had to schedule a phone call between my parents and her parents.
I had clued my parents in as far as the traditions go. In Chinese culture, the groom pays for the wedding rather than the bride. The groom also has to give the bride's parents certain auspicious gifts. My parents luckily had done a tour of China a few years before and knew all of this beforehand, having befriended their local tour guide who was saving up money for his own wedding at the time. On the call, they agreed upon a pinjin, which is basically "betrothal money". We started to plan the Guo Da Li ceremony which would take place in 3 months time, and 3 months before the wedding.
Unfortunately life threw us a curve ball and Lilly's grandmother died. It was bittersweet because, while Lilly missed her, her grandmother had become very old and infirm to the point where her quality of life was pretty low. All wedding stuff was put on hiatus until the funeral was over plus 100 days for mourning.
After that, we were able to do the Guo Da Li ceremony. I gave my future in laws a red packet of money plus special cakes and 12 mandarin oranges and gold jewelry. It all went very well.
Wedding planning started in earnest. I got some money from my dad (who insisted) but the lion's share was out of my pocket. During this process I was able to meet some incredible people. The stand outs were Richard and Jimmy. Rich and Jimmy were tailors and dressmakers. They were a couple and they gave my fiancée a really good deal on a wedding dress and cocktail dress if she agreed to do some print modeling for their business. They also made me a tuxedo and a suit. I offered to model for them as well and we all had a good laugh at that prospect (OK they were doing most of the laughing - ego still hurts from that one, guys).
The venue we were using was Chijmes. It's the same one used in the move "Crazy Rich Asians". It was back when they had first started offering it up as a venue so it wasn't crazy expensive at the time. Plus, it was a smaller venue for weddings. Usually weddings are held in large hotel ballrooms and are huge affairs (this is what I was told). The families both invite everyone they've ever met to come: Neighbors, business contacts, everyone. They all bring red packets filled with cash. We opted for the "small" wedding.
The Bachelor Party
We had planned bachelobachelorette parties on the same night (separate venues). Lilly's MOH threw hers while Rich and Jimmy threw mine. My best man was my dad (because he's the best man that I know) and so cigars and brandy would have been disappointing to my work friends and my future brother in law and cousins. I don't think anyone was prepared for what happened.
We had the party at the sushi restaurant of a friend of Rich and Jimmy's. It was after hours. We had some incredible sashimi and rolls. I even tried fish sperm. Didn't like it. I asked Jimmy are you sure it's FISH, sperm?? He said of course he'd never do that to me. To be fair, it did taste and smell very fishy. I don't know how human sperm tastes like (or maybe I do now, I don't know).
After the sushi was done, it was time for the entertainment, and oh boy. Rich and Jimmy hired a trans entertainer who sang show tunes. The thing is, she had an incredible voice. She was obviously biologically male, but she really carried herself with a lot more femininity than I've seen from biological women. She sang and told jokes and roasted me pretty thoroughly. My dad was there and he thought it was funny as hell. My friends from work, especially the Aussies and Brits, thought it was great, my future BIL and most of my future cousins did too. Other cousins politely excused themselves and left. I think the free flowing booze and beer kept most people there, though.
After her thoroughly entertaining performance, it was time for the dancers. This is kind of where it went off the rails. Rich and Jimmy hired exotic dancers...but they were all male or trans. Now, to be fair, it wasn't like they didn't tell me about it beforehand. They did. Personally, I thought it would be hilarious to announce that the strippers were here and then have male dancers come out. I have a twisted sense of humor, I suppose. I certainly wasn't going to cheat on the most beautiful woman in the world mere weeks before our wedding, so prostitutes and female dancers were completely out of the question for me. They jokingly suggested male dancers it and we laughed. I thought about it a bit and I guess I'm "take-the-joke-too-far" guy so I encouraged it. Lilly knew about it and thought it was funny as well and wanted me to video tape it while it happened. ("Yeah right you just want to ogle the dancers" "Of course, lah!")
What I wasn't prepared for was the PLATOON of banana hammocks that marched out into the restaurant. Smooth greased up Asian chests everywhere! My dad was of course shocked at first and then looked at me and we started laughing and the ridiculousness of it. My dad stood up and clapped his hand on my shoulder and put a mock serious look on his face. The people immediately around me witnessed my dad telling me that he loved me and accepted my life style choice and that nothing I could say or do would ever change the fact that he and mom loved me and accepted me. Thanks, dad. I was laughing during the whole thing and my future BIL and work buddies who were around me were laughing as well. My dad excused himself and said he had to go find my mom and tell her the "bad news about her future grandchildren" and left ("Can adopt, lah! Can surrogate, meh!" Thanks for the support, guys). My future BIL laughed and said that since all of the available male dancers were at my party, there were none available to attend his sister's party, so she was "safe".
Among the highlights of the evening is that I discovered that a few of my co-workers and future cousins were in fact gay. I was told to stay out of the ladies' room no matter what. I wasn't planning on going in but thanks for the warning. I was proud that we all only vomited in the trash cans and not on the floor (what a waste of some damn good sushi....and fish sperm). Rich and Jimmy stayed next to each other all night. I even saw them holding hands and looking at each other lovingly. To my shame, I was under the common misconception that all gay men were very promiscuous and I kind of expected them to pair off with the dancers. What I saw that night was a very loving monogamous relationship.
The Wedding Day
The day of the wedding came a few days later and I had the good fortune of being the first one in my family to experience the fun and interesting experience of a groom going through a Chinese-style wedding. I say "Chinese-style" because while we did do a lot of the traditions from a Chinese wedding, we did say vows to God before a Christian minister. This was something she insisted on as her family had converted from Taoism to Christianity (but still kept the Taoist traditions and festivals).
First up was the gatecrash. I went over to the her family's apartment and the MOH and bridesmaids stood at the door refusing to let me in unless I gave them $9999.00. Nine is a significant symbol to them. It means "longevity" I think. So the whole idea is for me to haggle the price down by doing challenges and games. I had to do a handstand and walk with my hands. I had to answer trivia questions ("What is her nickname for you?" "Cranky old man" "What is your nickname for her?" "Baby"). BIL and I had to do "the worm". I haggled them down to $99 which I paid to them in a red packet. My BIL and wife chided me for not going lower but my dad was there and was in his 70s and couldn't do any feats of strength.
After I "secured" my bride, we did the traditional tea ceremony with her parents and my parents. Lilly was dressed in a traditional red silk qipao, tailor made by Rich and Jimmy. I gotta tell you people, the qipao really does it for me! Not gonna lie, it was like cupid gut punched me when I saw her dressed in it . My parents were pretty stoic throughout but my mom sympathy cried with Lilly's parents when she tearfully did the tea ceremony with her mother and father. We received red packets from each set of parents. I was told the red packet her parents gave us had most of the bride price we paid in it. Her mom gave her her grandmother's jeweled antique watch and my mom gave her a sapphire ring (sapphire is my birth stone). As we left her home to go to Chijmes, I told her "we're keeping that dress, understand me??" She laughed.
We got to Chijmes, did the photos and she walked down the aisle in a beautiful white dress with a small train behind it with sequins on it. My dad gave me the ring. He was my best man. He was my best man because he's the best man I know. After the wedding, she changed into a champagne colored strapless cocktail dress another Rich and Jimmy original. THREE wardrobe changes, people! THREE! All with different hair and make up and she did it super quick. I don't know what wizardry was invoked but we may be indebted to the hoary netherworld.
We honeymooned at the Fullerton Hotel. The old British colonial Post Office was converted to a luxury hotel in 2001. We stayed there for 3 days ordering overpriced room service ("Go to hawker center, lah! Much cheaper better food, meh!).
Emigration and Immigration
So a little bit before this time, a little event happened in New York. You might have heard about it. Anyway because some sexually repressed incels decided to murder thousands of people, USA's immigration was all jacked up. The INS went bye-bye. Then we had the BCIS for a brief moment, followed by the USCIS. I saw that my project was ending and my company helped me with her immigration. It was a pain, though. It seems like we had new forms to fill out every week while the old ones became obsolete. That's how I remember it, anyway. It was a pretty frustrating time and I almost had to leave her behind (it wouldn't have been permanent but it would be a long time). Luckily we were able to make it time.
For explanation purposes, we didn't get LEGALLY married in Singapore. We had the religious ceremony but no "government contracts" were involved. This is because, at that time at least, it was easier to bring over a fiancée than a wife, for some reason. So Lilly was a "90 Day Fiancée"!! We got married at the county courthouse when we finally were able to go to my new project. We didn't wait 90 days. We did in three (jet lag).
Unfortunately for her, we moved from Singapore, a 24 hour international class city, to a sleepy seaside town in the USA near a military base. Lots of fun was had with that. A total fish out of water story for another time (What is this "coin laundry"? Do you Americans have a place to wash your coins?).
My BIL got married to a beautiful girl and moved to Australia and opened a Bait and Tackle store in Surfer's Paradise on the east coast of Australia. He has 2 daughters. In 2012 he was caught cheating on his wife and lost everything. She moved back to Singapore with his kids, and he kind of struggled for a while. He got another bait and tackle store eventually and tries to see his daughters whenever he can. They don't have a good relationship.
Rich and Jimmy celebrated the decriminalization of homosexuality in Singapore in 2022, but they still can't get married. We still talk from time to time. Writing this, I find myself missing them. I had some really fun times because of them. I've never had better conversations in Singapore than with them while at Lilly's dress fittings (and my suit fittings).
We have been married for 21 years. She has never given up being a Singaporean citizen. She keeps her passport current. She's a "permanent resident" here in the USA. We have three kids, two boys and a girl. We are still married. She still wears her hair in a pony tail with a ball cap when she works out. She still wears that qipao on special occasions, which I try to achieve as often as possible. She's still my Baby and I'm still her Cranky Old Man.
Thanks for reading.

Hi everyone! I know I may sound a little bit too dramatic with what I'm going to say, but since I can't contain this situation anymore and I feel that even though I'm trying my best to keep going with my life, I think it's still essential for me to discuss this topic with someone I can relate to in order to manage this issue in the best way possible. In fact, recently I've stumbled upon an ad on Youtube about a strategy war game set in the hypothetical III World War (that I promptly blocked, of course) and I also began being terribly afraid to even have a look at Twitter (now called X) search tendencies, because I noticed that there's too much attention about what's going to happen if the conflict between Russia and the western countries is destined to continue. I mean, I'm not judging people who're interested to keep theirselves informed about our dramatic geopolitical situation of course, but at the same time I feel such an intense anger (combined with an devastating feeling of panic and terror) because I can't stand such injustices that my chest seems to literally burn and sometimes I even struggle to swallow because of the anguish derived from such news and psychological terrorism. Furthermore, here in Europe there'll be elections in a few days, and I'm honestly scared, because I've constantly the sensation that we're surrounded by hypocritical and evil politicians, whose obly goal is gaining the citizens' consensus through a disgustingly sneaky brainwash to gain more power at the expense of the well being of our beautiful planet (because as you already know, using nuclear weapons can only result in the total destruction of our environment and civilization) and the people who don't deserve all of this. So to sum up, I'm more and more panicked by this situation and I don't know how to deal with my anxiety properly. But my questions are also: do you feel the same as I do? And if so, how do you deal with your state of mind when triggered in such a way? Do you also feel guilty because of your decision to avoid such news on social media (considering that it's highly possible to be misunderstood by others who might label your attitude as indifference)?

Part 1 — link Part 2 — link Part 3 — link Part 4 — link
The penultimate script! And the climax of the story. We'll conclude next time with the heartfelt dénouement. Only one editing phase left. I can't wait to be done with this series, haha.
Remember that this script has two speakers, the Heir and the Contact. The Contact will show up in the last script, but only briefly.
Feel free to record, monetize, and/or modify as long as you give credit.
And any sort of constructive critique or feedback is welcome!
Wordcount: 2000
Setting: The first half is spent with the listener laying in a ditch in the streets outside the summit. Then the Contact drags them to a nearby stable. Finally, the heir's public execution in an inappropriately well-appointed garden within the summit.
Summary: There you are, bleeding in a ditch. The heir is gone. Off on a fool's errand to save the King and Queen. The Republic has outplayed you all. But someone is getting closer. And they're cursing your name in a familiar voice. Maybe there is a chance to set things right. You did not come without contingencies.
(Listener's contact rushes from the summit through the streets, getting closer)
[Contact]
[Sarcastic] Sure. Just leave me behind. That's fine. Don't worry about your fellow agent or anything. The summit fucking implodes and you up and vanish. Fantastic timing. Just—
(Sees the listener) Oh shit!
(Rushes over) Hey. Hey! Can you hear me? Are you alive?
...
Heartbeat. You lucky bastard. Left bleeding in a gutter and you pull through. Eh. Mostly.
That's a lot of bloody bandages. I guess someone took pity on you. Didn't stick around though. Whoever it was, you owe them your miserable life. But I can't afford to be nice.
Come on, wake up! Don't pull this with me. I can see your eyes are open. I know you can hear me.
Rise and fucking shine!
...
Finally. Yep, yep, can we speed up the whole delirious act? We need to move. Soldiers are looking for us.
...
Uh, no. I don't know what happened to you. Mainly because you abandoned me. Remember that? But I'm generous: water, bridge, you get it. Want to repay me? Then get over your flesh wound, stand up, and get moving. It's just a scratch. If you can't handle that, I will bail on you.
...
An arrow? Fine. That would explain all the blood. But it doesn't matter. Last I checked you were a Dominion assassin. With that injury you could march ten miles through a blizzard. Barefoot. Try harder.
But this isn't about pain, is it? This is about morale. You're at rock bottom. Not to mention exhausted. But you had your little nap. Take your second wind and get on your feet.
Grab my hand. Up you go. There. Steady. I got your arm. Here, lean on my shoulder.
You should be thankful I came back for you.
...
Why?! I'm saving your life, and you ask why? Wow. Do you not trust me? Talk about ungrateful.
Didn't I tell you before? My job is to get us—both of us—out of here alive. 'Cause when shit like this happens, we can't survive on our own. We're a team, like it or not.
Come on, there's a stable up ahead. Saw a couple horses we can steal. Just one step at a time.
...
Those bandages, that wasn't you. Remember who it was? If someone knows where we are—
...
The royal heir?! You didn't kill them?!
...
You—ugh, no. You're right, it doesn't matter now. I didn't think the Republic could pull off a real coup. Nobody else did either, apparently. Doesn't make me feel less stupid.
There's some good news though. It's obvious we aren't to blame. When we get back home, our superiors probably won't have us killed. If we get home.
Wait... where's the heir then?
...
Ah... I get it. Found out our plan, huh? Considering the circumstances, you really are a lucky bastard. By all rights, you should have a lot more bloody holes. Looks like your unprofessional fondness for the target was returned.
Shame about the whole thing. The assassination plot, I mean. A job's a job. And aristocrats certainly don't deserve an exception. But this one was different. Your little royal might be the only noble I can believe is, you know, noble. 'Specially riding off to go die.
...
No, I didn't see anything. Don't think I need to. Soldiers have been searching for any loose nobles. But there aren't any around here. If I were putting down money, I'd say the Republic finished their collection.
...
I didn't say dead.
Actually, things calmed down after the initial attack. They're being all... "Republic-y" about the whole thing. Acting like they're doing the Kingdom a favor. I slipped away when their newly wed was blathering on and on about the "tragic necessity of their actions". Blegh.
All that to say, they got the King and Queen chained up. The execution won't be for a while. Not until they're good and ready. But they have the heir now. The Republic may be full of windbags, but this is an opportunity they won't waste. The royal family has about a day left to live.
(Arrive at a small stable with a couple horses)
Speaking of living, we're here. Our four-hoofed tickets to freedom.
Huh. Someone must have been in a hurry; they're saddled and ready. Doesn't bode well for their owner, but good for us. Let's go. I'll help you up.
...
Quit stalling. The Republic is still hunting us.
...
I'm sorry? Save who?
...
No! Absolutely fucking not! We are the ones who need to be saved. And we have our exit right here. You have no obligation to rescue the heir. Your job was the exact opposite. Did you forget?
...
I saved your life. You shouldn't throw it away over some bandages. Especially for someone who hates your guts now.
...
You know what? I gave you three chances. I'm not staying here to die. Listen to me. We don't need to make it all the way home. Our forces are stationed nearby. All we have to do is ride 'till we reach them and then—
—What?
...
Yes, Dominion troops are still in the area. You should know that. What does it matter?
...
The plan's already gone sideways. Calling them in won't do any good. Remember, they were supposed to be the backup coup in case the Kingdom figured out the plan. But the Republic struck first. I don't see how bloodshed helps us here.
...
Wait. Are you serious? You want our military to save the Kingdom.
This is... making a disturbing amount of sense. Let me talk through this.
I call in the cavalry to free the Kingdom from the Republic. That unifies Dominion and Kingdom against the Republic despite what our leaders think. The Dominion gets the war they want, and the Kingdom gets to make peace with one of their neighbors. And the powers will balance out...
Still sounds crazy. But it's better than the Republic controlling the Kingdom.
...
There's one problem: we can only ride so fast. If the royal family dies before we return, this will all be for nothing. Even worse, we'll have a war on two fronts.
...
You're staying? The blood on your chest is still wet. What are you going to do?
...
(Long sigh) Fine. Save the heir. I knew you were too sentimental for this job. We need you to go all-out. If this is what it takes, do it. Cut them to ribbons.
If I run this horse ragged, I'll be back before dawn. Hopefully, with a small army in tow. That's your timeline.
...
Good luck you lunatic. You better be alive when I get back, both of you. This better be love. If I did all just for you to die tragically, I swear I'll—
I'm going, I'm going!
Do your job this time!
(Contact rides off)
... ... ...
(The heir gives a speech to the Republic forces before their execution)
[Heir]
(Indignant) Very well. If my spouse says that these are my last words, I will heed the threat.
I know my voice will fall on deaf ears. A court of Republic sycophants and Kingdom traitors is hardly worthy to witness the death of a lineage. But they will serve their purpose. As will I. Willing or not.
But know this: the Kingdom will not bow to your tricks. My people will never surrender. Take the crown and they will rip it from your head. Take the throne and they will topple it. You may think you've won but rebellion will smolder under our ashes.
You posture yourselves as "liberators", yet you would kill me in front of my parents? Your cruelty betrays your fecklessness!
(The heir's spouse hits them)
...
(Deep breaths) What's the matter, my love? Was execution insufficient? You needed to strike me yourself. Are you so thin-skinned, even in triumph? I can't believe I married someone so pathetic.
...
Your words would sting if I had heart left to break. Let's finish this. I have nothing more to say to you all.
Mother, Father... I'm sorry.
...
You needn't be shy, executioner. My neck is there for the—
(The listener swoops in, subduing the heir's spouse and the executioner)
It... it's you. What are... Did you just stab my partner?
...
Not a complaint, just a question.
...
You didn't kill them, did you?
...
Good, a hostage will make this easier. However, we are surrounded by Republic soldiers. Did you have a scheme to survive the stalemate? An escape plan?
...
The Dominion?! I... that's right! The papers said a company of soldiers were stationed nearby. It slipped my mind. You called them to aid us?
...
How can I trust you? I will admit, you saved my life. But what's to say you aren't manipulating me again? I'm sick of being a pawn.
...
I see. The Republic hardly needs to be framed now. And coming to our aid will require your leaders to ally with us. That... I think that would work!
One moment.
(The heir addresses the crowd)
Agents of the Republic. The execution of my family will be indefinitely postponed. Before you seek to retaliate my... my guardian has my darling spouse at the point of a knife. Furthermore, you have fallen into our trap. The unified forces of the Kingdom and Dominion will soon arrive to liberate us.
I would advise you all to surrender now.
...
(Back to the listener)
What? It was only a slight exaggeration. A little fib to make this go more smoothly. See, they're cowering already. We've won. Now, keep your eye on the Republic's soon-to-be divorcée.
(Heir rushes over to their parents)
Mother, Father, are you alright? Please forgive me for returning. I know you'd prefer my escape, but I couldn't let you die. I was overwhelmed and felt like I had no one I could trust and—
...
Yes, I'm fine. Shaken, but fine. I am much better now that we are all safe. Thanks to my guardian here.
...
Correct, from the caravan. The one who escorted me home after my "escapade" in the capital.
...
F-fond of them?! I—ahem—I must have given the wrong impression if you recall them as "the one I'm fond of". We don't have time for teasing. We must secure ourselves for when the Dominion forces arrive.
...
How did I know? Oh... uh... well. It's a bit complicated.
(Deep breath) My guardian discovered a plot by the Dominion to kill me. It was to pit us against the Republic, but it turns out they did not need the help. The Dominion posted a reserve force nearby as a precautionary measure. Now they are being called to aid us instead. Is that sufficient?
...
Right, we'll speak afterwards. Please, take command. I'm quite spent. If you don't mind, I'll rest over here.
(The king and queen leave)
...
You have not yet assuaged all my fears of betrayal, still... thank you. I believe I treated you worse than I ought. But, to learn that you—above all others—betrayed me... and the idea of losing my parents... it was too much to bear.
...
Yes, above all others. You heard what the King and Queen said. There was a reason I was so open with you on the road. And why I lied to them about your plot.
My feelings are confused and stormy. But when all of this is over, I would speak with you. I may have shielded you for now, but there is much to discuss regarding the future of our three nations.
...
Good. Now... be honest. How unbecoming would it be if I kicked my traitorous spouse?
...
(Sigh) You are correct. Why must it be so hard to win with grace?
I will let justice take its course. Nothing left to do now but wait. Please, keep watch over me. I am too tired to sit patiently.

Background

The company I work for recently decided to sponsor a cohort of folks to get AWS certified. Since being notified that this was happening, I've been poking around in this subreddit looking for advice, popular studying materials, etc. I ended up finding some really useful information in here, so I wanted to provide others with my experience hoping it'll help them too.
As for my (relevant) professional background, I have about 2-3 years of experience working with various services in AWS. While I don't think it's 100% necessary to have this much hands on experience, I can say that it absolutely helped.

Studying & Preparation

The program offered to us was basically split into two chunks:

1. A 4-day live course experience (taken at-home)
2. Dedicated self-study time with materials provided by WhizLabs, AWS SkillBuilder, and Skillsoft

The expectation was to take the live course, study (a lot), and come out the other side in about a month or so with certification in-hand.
I'll say right off the bat - every resource named above was valuable overall and contributed to passing the exam. That said, I'll get into a little bit of detail for anyone interested and wondering which path they might take.
4-Day Live Course
The live course was good for all the reasons you might expect, and not good for other reasons you might expect. The instructor was very knowledgeable, answered any/all questions we had throughout, and put in effort for a solid 8+ hours each day. The downside to a live course structured over 4-days is, you're effectively cramming brand new information for those 8+ hours on the instructors' schedule - you run to the bathroom, you miss something. You don't understand something - you can ask, but don't want to hold up the class. Everyone learns at a different pace, and there's just no retaining an entire certifications worth of information in 3 days plus an "Exam Prep" day. By hour 5 or 6, you're pretty much fried (or at least I was).
Self-study: WhizLabs, AWS Skillbuilder, Skillsoft, and Tutorials Dojo
Here's the obvious "meat and potatoes" of the exam preparation experience, and what I assume most people will be interested in.
WhizLabs
Right after the live course ended, I dove headfirst into self-study mode. I consumed every single SAA-C03 training video WhizLabs offered in about a week or so, sprinkling their practice tests in throughout. As expected, I started off slow and began to heat up as I continued learning and getting used to question phrasing.
WhizLabs Practice Tests

Practice Tests	Attempt #1	Attempt #2
Test 1	54%	80%
Test 2	69%	85%
Test 3	83%	-
Test 4	85%	-
Test 5	63%	91%
Test 6	78%	93%
Final Test	95%	-

Note: Second attempts were never taken directly after the first, and always given 3-4 days in between attempts to minimize memorizing the questions/answers.
AWS Skillbuilder
I didn't spend a ton of time here, but there are a number of useful resources to take advantage of, including an "official" AWS SAA-C03 practice exam! This was, in my opinion, a great experience because only AWS has the secret sauce for question weighting, unscored questions, etc. I also thought the questions were written a bit better than WhizLabs overall and more closely reflected the actual exam (as expected). I also took comfort in knowing that it's regularly updated and maintained by AWS. I only made a single attempt on this and scored a 723 - cutting it close, but I took it on the earlier side of my video review before finishing all of the content on WhizLabs.
Skillsoft
Almost no time spent here based on some feedback from others in my cohort. I heard that their practice questions were on the easier side, so I elected to skip it and move onto TD practice tests based on reviews on this subreddit!
Tutorials Dojo
Ah, the reigning king of SAA-C03 practice tests! I was actually a bit skeptical of TD when I first read about them because I'd never heard of them before (even after taking a number of other Cisco certifications). For anyone else trying to AVOID dumps and wondering about legitimate studying resources, simply use the AWS "Partner Solutions Finder" and filter by "Authorized Training Partners" found here: AWS Partner Solutions Finder (amazonaws.com).
Anyways, about a week or so out from my exam I decided that taking WhizLabs practice tests over and over again had reached the point of diminishing returns, so I called an audible and purchased the SAA-C03 practice tests pack from Tutorials Dojo. I wasn't reimbursed for this or anything - it was all out of pocket, and it was the best $15 I've ever spent! If you're on the fence about buying these leading up to your exam, hesitate no further. This is one of those times where I would've MUCH rather had and not needed than needed and not had - I would've been a trainwreck if I'd failed the exam and TD could've made the difference.
Tutorials Dojo Practice Tests

Test	Score (Date)
Review - Set 1	68% (29-MAY-2024)
Review - Set 2	78% (30-MAY-2024)
Review - Set 3	68% (1-JUN-2024)
Review - Set 4	71% (2-JUN-2024)
Review - Set 5	77% (3-JUN-2024)
Review - Set 6	-
Review - Set 7	71% (4-JUN-2024)
Bonus Review - Set 8	76% (4-JUN-2024)
Timed - Set 1	94% (2-JUN-2024)
Timed - Set 2	-
Timed - Set 3	95% (6-JUN-2024)
Timed - Set 4	94% (2-JUN-2024)
Timed - Set 5	-
Timed - Set 6	77% (3-JUN-2024)
Timed - Set 7	-
Bonus Timed - Set 8	100% (5-JUN-2024)
Final Test	86% (6-JUN-2024)

Note: Again, tried not to take the same exam multiple times in a row to avoid memorization of questions/answers.
For the TD tests, I only made 1 attempt per test. If I failed, I retook it, but in a different mode just to mix it up a little. As you can see, I was getting pretty confident toward the end of my studying. After doing well on the final test, I opted to take all of the topic-based tests too just to say I left no stone unturned - I found these valuable as well.
WhizLabs VS SkillBuilder VS Skillsoft VS Tutorials Dojo
I think this is another thing people are curious about, so I'll comment on this briefly. IMO, the quality control of TD was on par with the official AWS Skillbuilder practice exam, and better overall than my experience with WhizLabs. I didn't do much on Skillsoft, so I don't have much to say about them, but I'm sure they are a useful resource as well - I was on a time crunch and had a deadline of 7-JUN-2024, so I had to make the most of my time. I'll also add that I wouldn't change much around my self-studying and the materials I used. I wanted a very well rounded, repetitious approach where I could cast my net as wide as possible - utilizing all of these different sources for studying was exactly what I needed/wanted.

Exam

I'll preface this section by saying I am the worst test taker in history. I've always been a nervous, anxious wreck leading up to any test on any level - my heart pounds, my blood pumps, my hands shake. It's just how I am /shrug. If this sounds like you, I hope you can read through this post and use this information to boost your confidence.
So, the day finally came.
I got up around 7am with the exam scheduled for 12:15pm. I ate a small breakfast and had some coffee before cutting myself off of all food and drinks. For me, 2 hours is pretty long time to sit still and be 100% concentrated on something without having to go to the bathroom, so I took extra caution here and had nothing for a good 3-4 hours prior to the exam (YMMV).
I know some folks swear by relaxing the morning of their test, but I couldn't help myself. I actually made a little to-do list for myself for that morning:

• Finish section tests - 30 minutes
• Review final test - 30 minutes
• Review flashcards - 60 minutes
• Review weak topics - 60 minutes

After completing that checklist, I had about 30 minutes before leaving to take the test in-person at a Pearson Vue testing center. I took this time to just try to chill my nerves, reflect, and be with my family a little bit.
Finally, it was time to hit the road. I got there about 30 minutes early and whipped out my flashcards again. Ironically, I opted to take the test at a testing center to avoid noisy yardwork around my neighborhood - as soon as I parked, a crew on riding lawnmowers was doing donuts right behind my car... lol. About 20 minutes before my scheduled appointment time, I went inside, checked in, and hit the restroom one last time.
GO TIME.
With the lawnmower gang in full force right outside the test center windows, I opted to use the noise cancelling headset they supplied. This worked well, despite being able to hear my uncontrollable heartbeat the entire time.
How were the questions?
I'm not sure if I got unlucky or what, but even after 300+ hours of studying, 250+ flashcards, and 900+ practice questions, I still felt like I got caught off-guard by a large number of questions. I was getting what seemed like odd outlier questions about container services that weren't ever mentioned in my studying. I want to stay somewhat ambiguous here when talking about exam questions to avoid any trouble but suffice to say that it was not what I expected. I hit the core services hard while studying: ASGs, EC2, S3, EFS, Route53, ELB, RDS, DynamoDB, ECS/EKS, etc. etc. What I ended up getting were questions about outlying services that I didn't ever remember seeing before (which I didn't think was possible). I even asked my wife to check the official AWS exam guide to see if a few of these services were mentioned - nope.
Was the real exam easier or harder than all the practice tests?
If I had to give a cut and dry answer based on my personal experience and the question set I received, I'd say harder unfortunately.
In hindsight, would you have changed anything?
Nope! I studied extremely hard for this exam. It was difficult for me despite my experience, but I would do it the same way if I had to do it all over again. I think going far and wide is what you want for the Associate level test - lay eyes on everything once or twice, and don't sink too much time into diving very deeply into any particular thing (unless it piques your interest, of course).

Drumroll... Final Score

After about 7 weeks of study hell, I'm proud to pat myself on the back for scoring a 791 on the SAA-C03!
I didn't exactly blow the test out of the water, but I also walked out of the testing center accepting the fact that I tanked the exam hard. I called my wife on the way home to vent and give her the bad news and spent the rest of the day finishing up some work and lounging around the house, fully expecting to have to start studying again after our upcoming vacation (which would also be kind of a drag after potentially failing).
In the end, it all worked out. I randomly woke up around midnight to check my results via phone in bed to find out the good news. I sprang up, woke up my poor wife, and we celebrated right then and there.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading and I sincerely hope this helps others in some way. Also, be sure to thank those around you who supported you leading up to your test - they were there to pick up the slack while your head was buried in the "cloud," and they will be there to celebrate your accomplishments after you pass your exam.

Hi guys,
Thinking back, this is not my first Reddit post of a similar nature. I think all my life I’ve been addicted to things (weed, porn, “self help”, exercise). This is just one that’s been the most detrimental. I am a problem gambler and need help. I think I also need a place to just let it all out. Hopefully people will read and comment/resonate but I’m literally unable to concentrate at work because things are bad again. I apologize for it being long and you will all likely skip but if anyone reads, thank you.
I have a lot of trauma and am very lonely a lot of times. I had a bad experience being social and I think people pick up on my extreme awkwardness but they do not make me feel welcome, they come across judgy and I feel like I’m performing a dance begging for acceptance. So I spend even more time online (and have been like that since childhood) and don’t get much social interaction. This is relevant to how I got so sucked in so far.
Growing up, my parents were not only strict, but very strict about money. We were poor and they always told me to avoid debt but made it more about school debt (which I did avoid). They definitely talked about predatory credit card practices etc, but the one thing they did not ever instill in us was mitigating problem spending and gambling. Not just me but my mom and sister have really bad spending habits on food and unnecessary purchases…but I’m getting a bit ahead…
I didn’t get a credit card until a bit later, and didn’t have a job until about 2018-19 at 21. Even then, I barely used the CC and also barely drank. I hated gambling at a young age because I only know it as the casino in big cities with the excessive alcohol and lights and cigar smells I hated. Of course I was on my high horse at a younger age saying people were just “paying money to lose money and that made no sense”…My parents went to Vegas a lot, not weekly but every maybe 3-6 months because of comps. And us living close. I was mostly there just to watch my siblings and never went down to actually be in the casino. The vibes just always made me uncomfortable.
The one thing I did do was buy stocks. I remember briefly trying to understand the day trading stuff and I was so overwhelmed I just stuck to my traditional buying stocks and leaving them like a savings. Did good all the way until COVID, everything was down and I had to quit my job to move for school and was so burnt out from working (as “essential” while everyone else was not working) that I just took time off from work for like a year and a half. Spent all my stock market savings that was basically just all my money minus the interest made because of the COVID dip. I sold at the worst time possible but chose to do that instead of just getting work or even trying to learn about getting unemployment for my “mental health” LOL.
Right in my senior year of college I had a roommate who used a draft fantasy sports book. Never knew about money lines or anything about sports period,because I was too lazy to figure out sports rules, let alone betting line math…but I wanted to be accepted as a man and thought sports would be a good way to learn and build friendships…and “investing” money into it seemed like a worthwhile trade.
He explained oveunder props. Easy as cake. You think they’ll go over a certain line and you pick that. Even easier to upload your card and make an account. I thought it would be harmless…
I made one, did okay, but no crazy bets just $30-50 MAX like every couple of weeks. Trying to get into sports and fit in with the boys…. Didn’t care too much about losing $20 here and there and that’s my problem…
I then bring this up to a classmate in our data science class in 2022 wondering if there’s ways people can track player data…who tells me about “tailing” people who post their player picks online. Never knew about that/that there was already a market (bc I was new to sports).
He tells me about a guy he follows. Guy has a site with “the best prop data”. Clearly know this other guy is just selling his services but the service seems so beneficial. “Best hit rates in the game!” “No one has data like this”. Straight snake oil salesman tactics and I’m so aware of it, but it’s like I just didn’t care. Of course it’s just like ESPN data all on a histogram and not that revolutionary, and it’s like I already know I’m signing up for getting played but I just accept it(likely because I have settled for a lot in my life). I get a membership. I think oh I’ll make a ROI worth the cost of the membership and more! Right….
That was in about March-ish I think of last year. (Yea it was, because I specifically remember the old classmate asking me about March madness…). From March to June I had losses, but nothing super horrible, I didn’t really track it but I had never spent more than $100 max and probably only spent around $175 a month which was about the rate of all my subscriptions combined. but around this time I had also just had a very traumatic experience getting robbed and abandoned drunkenly during a party on campus. Somehow I made it back from the party to my house and allegedly my roommate helped me vomit/clean up but I woke up to my wallet and phone gone.
I felt violated, confused because I couldn’t remember certain events, sad that my “friends” didn’t even have my back at certain points. I was angry and really embarrassed and depressed and felt like I couldn’t trust ANYONE around me. Of course, them feeling second hand embarrassment from me, stopped inviting me out and our interactions got so awkward after that. I felt like now my reputation was just that drunk idiot who did god knows what while blacked out. And didn’t really have a lot of support.
My gambling got worse, but I didn’t make that much money so I also didn’t really bet that much either? It’s kind of a blur around that time now and I don’t really remember but I don’t think I was on the group chats/apps nearly as much as I am now. I also deleted them around graduation time because I needed to focus and I needed to save $$$ for my move out.
Fast forward I was in okay-ish shape: was able to get an apartment and higher paying job…but my relationship was strained with my now ex girlfriend. It was bad. I redownloaded the apps during this time. I was trying to plan out our future and she was not helping me. I was basically doing everything myself in the relationship and felt like my “investment” in our relationship wasn’t going anywhere…as she was not communicating and not helping me plan, so i began using that money for bets.
Initially it was “it’s just for fun now that I have more income! I can afford it now” then it was “oh it will be like a side hustle”.
But I got worse. I felt so disconnected and burnt out from my new job in finance, also very numb to large amounts of $$ on screens all day that I started betting hundreds daily. Then tie in disconnected from my ex and now had no friends. I was numb and needed to feel something, and alcohol was not enough. I’d drink here and there but never enough to get completely trashed like before because I was scared of that.
Now remember the subscription? This sub comes with a “chat room” FULL of a bunch of enabling children and their ring leader who makes the datasets. I used to respect what the guy does but I have so many problems with his business model: advertising slightly over 50/50 guesses as a worthwhile investment, getting his data out 5 minutes before games start (obviously so he can make his picks on his own first and then tell the followers after), calling his own patrons idiots and trying to make it sound like he’s the best gambler in the world and that if we’re losing we are just “not doing it right” when he’s really using $100,000s of dollars from subscribers to make his for fun bets while people desperately cling to some sort of “mathematical explanation” for why Alpha McThree is a better pick than Johnny Appleseeds.
I digress again. Basically there’s people around my age (20s) older (40s) and possibly younger all in these chats enabling each other to bet. You feel rushed because you have to “beat the prop bumps” when they move the lines. You feel constantly on edge and that anxiety feels good because of the potential payout, and then horrible when you’re off by one or two players and lose everything.
I became obsessed. It is probably the combination of the rush, the colors, the screen lighting in a more comfortable way to social media…the people encouraging you or congratulating you or worse bonding over shared loss, you start to feel in community.
Mind you, the community itself was toxic. I am part of the LGBT community but never disclosed, and there is so much homophobia and transphobia, sometimes even racism (I mean I get that I’m positing this to Reddit LOL) but it’s just weird to me as a POC who is part of this community to see all that stuff everyday and then say those are my people….and to pay a subscription to be apart of it…it felt like a weird digital fraternity. It felt “cool” to have a badge for my sports book, for people to recognize my nickname, to see the same names everyday, it felt like routine.
Everyday I’d wake up and bet. When I got COVID in December the amounts doubled and I was spending $500 in minutes instead of spread across days. I didn’t even care anymore. I’d keep playing and eventually lose it. Every single time like “I’m just gonna play enough to make my money back and pay off some of the debt and then delete everything!”
It never happens. I’m still $6k in debt, am -$230 overdraft and am now doing the one thing I really said would never do: ask my dad for help. I can’t concentrate on work because I’m so overwhelmed. I just got paid, still two weeks left and I have absolutely no money anywhere. And since I haven’t even paid my mom back the first time I am worried about asking again.
My dad doesn’t really reach out, but he texted me the other day. So instead of responding I just sent him a screenshot of my overdraft and told him I had to pay my apartment security deposit (which is true, technically) but it is really the stupid $600 bet that put me overdraft. I basically paid X amount on my credit card, didn’t see it post, told myself “maybe I forgot to do it” and said I had enough for the bets, lost three idiotic bets and then both the misses and the CC payment posted.
I feel like the “bending” of the truth will l start piling up and that things will stop checking out. He’s probably wondering how I’m overdraft and can connect two and two together (he’s seen my screenshots of bets when I was up, and asked me when I get paid and I’m too scared to say I got paid TWO DAYS AGO and am out -$2000) so I’m even more embarrassed and feel like I’m disappointing everyone.
I already owe my mom, and they aren’t even that rich at all so I feel horrible taking their money trying to pay myself back and then ending up back here again. But I am equally worried of them going nuclear and me being trapped back home/having to give up control of my bank account bc of it.
I feel stuck at my job because I need it to pay off my debt and save money/pay bills. I hate it so much, but need to stay here because of how bad the market is and I think dealing with the stress enables my behavior. I feel worse because I should have $20k saved up by now but instead I’m now total down -$26k. (The 20 I would’ve had saved plus my credit card).
So it’s just my lack of control and unnecessary purchase staring me in the face. Every day. While it takes me weeks to make even a dent in my debt. I literally have nothing in my fridge right now. I don’t know what I’m going to eat next week. And throughout all this my ex and I still talk, she still buys me lunch, she is a saint but our dynamic would not work
I’m meeting with my therapist today, and I contemplate either getting a new one specializing in addiction or stopping constantly one because of the cost but two because I’ll talk about it but I feel like I’m not even changing or doing the work…
I feel alone trying to get out of this hole and like this debt will follow me forever. I also wonder if I feel like I’m addicted to the wallowing too? Like now I have a reason to stay depressed.
How do I get better? Is there even any hope for me? I feel like I’m messing my life up and constantly at the mercy of something else and not myself… people around me have cars and solo apartments and I’m living check to check in debt with no purpose. How do I deal with stress?

Swiatek vs Paolini :

It is unreal how much progress Paolini has made in the last season. She had never made it past the second round of a major until this year. She was consistently ranked outside the top 50 and would take losses to players below her ranking regularly, but now will move into the top 10 for the first time. It seemed like her lack of a serve and lack of power gave her a very pronounced ceiling, but somehow things have changed. Paolini was always very consistent from the baseline, but this season she’s been automatic. She’s settled into a De Minaur role where she just beats everyone she’s supposed to, and in the matches where she’s projected to lose she seems to compete to her full ability anyway. This year she has wins against Sakkari, Kalinskaya, Jabeur, Garcia, Rybakina, and now she’s into her first major finals after a very impressive performance against Mirra Andreeva.
The semifinals against Andreeva was expected (by me at least) to be a long drawn out baseline affair. Both players are very good defensively, and neither really has a significant edge in power. What ensued was a quality learning experience for Andreeva, but I wonder if her coaches couldn’t have avoided it for her. Paolini didn’t miss much in this match, but she didn’t have to. Andreeva seemed focused early on hitting through her opponent. She had gotten to this point by outlasting her opponents, but here she seemed intent on hitting big. Moonballs, height, dropshots, and pace changes had been a big part of her game, but against Paolini it felt like she didn’t think her opponent would miss. Maybe that was a fair assumption, but supplying all the offense when you’re evenly matched in terms of power and defensive ability just makes things easy on your opponent. Andreeva seemed to punch herself out while Paolini’s task became simple.
Perhaps Paolini wasn’t going to miss and Andreeva just had a bad day, but it felt like Andreeva’s team needed to deliver the message that she wasn’t going to hit past Paolini. To me, Andreeva’s backhand down the line is a great weapon, but it’s the way she’s able to hit it at the end of long rallies that makes it effective. Here, she tried to go for it frequently and from a bit behind the baseline, and it just resulted in errors. If I’m coaching a junior player in a big moment, I’m looking to constantly remind them that they’re there for a reason, and they’re good enough to compete with their opponent, and to outlast them. Maybe they delivered the message, but it feels like playing Paolini you need to be locked in and prepared for the long haul, and for your poweoffense to play a role at the end rather than the beginning.
This was a difficult match to navigate in general, since the last one was so close and the moment was big. In the last meeting also, Paolini led 5-2 and Andreeva was able to win that set, so finding herself down 5-2 again must have raised some internal dialogue about “stay the course we’ve been here before” vs “oh F was last time the fluke?” In some ways, I think the Sabalenka match hurt her a bit because of Aryna’s stomach issues. The plot there became about Andreeva finding any decent shot to the open court. If she made Sabalenka run, she profited, and I think some of that mindset carried over into her shot selection against Paolini. I’m especially disappointed she went away from the moonballs because Paolini is (as some of you may have heard the announcers mention 45 times) not that tall. Height is trouble for shorter tennis players, and Paolini reflects pace extremely well as she showed in the Rybakina match.
Once Andreeva got a bit upset at how things were going, the match was over. The expectations are so high for her, and when she wins it just adds on more of them because of the nature of a bracket. The pressure doesn’t end until you’re out of the tournament, and you realize way before the match is over that that impending doom is coming. When things go poorly, we think players should be professional, but I can offer that realizing everyone is watching you and feeling like you’re letting them down is extremely heavy. You almost end up wanting your loved ones to leave so you can just lose in peace. There is plenty of time for Andreeva to grow and learn on tour, I just feel a bit bad that she has to do it publicly. It was a great run followed by a moment that she’ll probably regret until her next great moment. It’ll come, but for now I think we got the right finalist.
Paolini isn’t expected to do much with Swiatek, but that won’t stop her. She can be outrallied here, but “prove it” is the way I’d describe her play. You can beat her, but she’s not going to help you. Her backhand stays low and is hit with good pace, and her forehand can do damage when she gets to move forward on it. She has the same ability to take the forehand up the line early that Tsitsipas had during his early succcess, and her serving is not a weapon but isn’t really costing her a lot. The semifinals against Gauff seemed like the finals, but Gauff imploded in a way that Paolini won’t. I’m not sure the score will be much more competitive, but I think the rallies will be of a higher quality because Paolini’s game and shot selection are very much automatic at this point.
Gauff is one of the best players on tour, but she’s still trying to decide what her game looks like. Since she does so much better than so many players, and is a better and fitter athlete, she gets away with a lot of stuff. Her forehand can break down, and she can make a lot of impatient errors when she tries to end rallies. This is what happened in the second set, and it gave Swiatek a break just as the pressure was building for her. Aiming high is good, and I’d like to see Gauff do it all the time. The mental gas-tank that it takes to constantly find the next offensive shot and misdirect your opponent as well is not something you can just decide on. You need to be working on that stuff in the early rounds and not deviating from it. It’s a no-brainer to make sure you get the win, but Gauff’s appearances at 250s and 500s going forward should really be used as training for her offense (with an almost Bublik style approach). It feels like when Gauff gets upset or motivated, she just starts hitting bigger. No adjustment is needed on her backhand, but her forehand production isn’t ideal and her backswing tends to disappeaget irregular when she’s trying to hit bigger on that side. It’s somethiing I’m sure her team is working on, and her forehand has improved over the last few seasons, but Iga is setting the bar extremely high. Gauff 100% wants to compete at the top level, and continuing to develop her forehand/serve technique is something she needs to do to catch up.
It’s funny that the better Swiatek gets, the less I mention her in her matches. Her stats are absurd at this point. She’s won 21 of her 24 finals, she’s won RG 3 times already, and she’s locked up the #1 ranking for this year and it’s only June. These conditions are perfect for her game and aside from a heroic performance from Osaka, no one is getting close. Now she gets a first time finalist whose game doesn’t contain the weapons (big serve/huge power) that are typically required to beat her. Add in that the candidate with those weapons en masse (Sabalenka) would not have even been favored to win a set against her had she made the finals, and it paints a picture of a player who could potentially be at the top of tennis for a very long time. The buzz is already “can she beat Nadal’s record for RG titles?” and she hasn’t even played the finals yet. Tennis is a sport that has been constantly plagued by huge letdowns and pressure infused upsets, but Iga Swiatek is just plain better than everyone on clay.
As far as the tennis, Swiatek’s approach doesn’t have to change much. She hits bigger off both wings than Paolini, and significantly so. Their previous meetings where at times when Paolini was not at her best, but Swiatek yielded only 3 games in those matches. She serves bigger, has a familiar opponent who is in unfamiliar territory, and she’s in excellent form at her best tournament. Add in that the clay is a little bit slower than usual this fortnight, and it all helps her.
Paolini’s speed is the best equalizer for her here. Swiatek is going to dominate rallies, but Jasmine can put the extra ball back over and over and at least probe to see if Swiatek gets impatient. Paolini won’t falter because of the uphill battle, because she is used to that being the case when she gets on the court. There are no expectations for her here, so while there might be nerves, there is no pressure. Any positive result is a good one, and her place on tour and financial situation is assured for at least a few seasons. That’s a big boost for a player, and sometimes it can let their game open up a bit. I do think Paolini will be able to break at least once here, but her serve will be too hard to defend in the long run. Swiatek is zipping players who have majors to their names, and she’s one step away from another well-deserved RG title. Swiatek in 2, with Paolini winning 4-5 games.

Anyone else bummed that every episode is live now? There hasn't been a studio episode since last August. I've found I enjoy the studio episodes way more than the live ones, it just better fits the vibe of a small group of friends shooting the shit about some ridiculous movie they saw recently. You get more hilarious personal stories and reactions and less trying to work the crowd like a pep rally. I've been going back through all the old episodes and started just skipping the live ones. This is all personal preference of course, and I'm sure many like the live episodes as much if not more than the studio ones. All the same, anyone know if they will be headed back to the studio soon?

Sorry this is really long and it might have some grammatical issues because english isn’t my first language and I’m not a good writer. So sorry!! TW: Self harm and eating disorders
I (16F) have a younger sister (14F) who I don’t really have a good relationship with although we do get along on occasion. When I was little I used to be kind of aggressive, I always used to slap and kick my sister when she annoyed me, she wasn’t as strong so when she tried to hit me back it barely hurt. As we grew up my sister took over a lot of that aggression, so often when we are fighting or something she gets physical really quickly, nowadays I try to avoid using physical violence, but now of course she won’t.
My sister has also always been really insecure, she grew up with tiktok so she’s super chronically online and tries to keep up with the beauty standards. She also has a big obsession with skincare and makeup (me personally, I don’t really wear makeup, so I don’t really get the obsession). She especially has a big problem with her own “acne”. She doesn’t really have a lot of acne but she sees blackheads and with her long and sharp nails she tries to pop them which results in a lot of scabs and scars. The same thing happened with her arms, she finds “pimples” that dont exist and keeps trying to pop them, she now has arms full of small scars of that. My parents hated that she did that and kept trying to stop her from doing that but she was as she described “addicted” to it. Often she would use this to get negatieve attention from my parents (ex. someone says something that upsets her and she immediately starts fidgeting with her arms). My parents sometimes refer to it as a form of self harm but she isn’t really hurting herself, she’s just kind of mutilating her body (I don’t know if that’s specifically referred to as selfharm). So are they blowing that out of proportion or is it something that other teen girls do too (to some extent)?
My sister also has a big attitude problem, which is often normal for teens but idk I feel like she is worse. My mother has very little patience with my sister so she often lashes out at us for not cleaning our rooms, making a mess, or anything else really (which I feel like is pretty normal for mothers). But because of my mothers lack of patience, she and my sister often clash. They scream at eachother often and my sister usually likes to test how far she can go with my parents when they’re mad (which is more difficult with my dad because he’s a lot more patient). I feel like this is typical adolescent behaviour, but when my parents try to talk to her about it and other issues she has, like the agressiveness and the “self harm”, she ignores them and just goes on her phone. My parents don’t really know how to deal with these situations so they just let her be. They never had a complete proper conversation with my sister about her attitude and insecurities because she always shuts herself out from us whenever the subject is brought up.
She’s also a big perfectionist in relation to school, she spends the entire day on her phone and when she has to hand it in in the evening thats when she does her homework or studies for her tests. She sleeps very little during a school week and I think thats also a big cause for her constant bad moods.
Now my main concern: Our whole lives me and my sister both had struggles with eating, we are both pretty picky, we were slow eaters and we never ate in big portions. Fortunately I mostly grew out of that (im still pretty picky but I eat bigger portions and at a normal pace now). My parents used to always make us breakfast and lunch for school, eventually i just started making my own lunch and breakfast but my sister never did. Because my sister was such a slow eater she could never finish her lunch at school, that’s how it started out. Often she would skip breakfast because she “didn’t have time to eat” even though she woke up at 6am to get ready and goes to school at 8am. Eventually she decided that she could be in charge of her own lunch, which meant that she didn’t actually bring a lunch to school. She would only take 2 cookies and that’s it. Then eventually when she returned home she would either eat very little lunch or grabs a bag of chips. That’s the issue, she skips meals but always eats chips and candy. My sister says she’s never hungry, and with almost every meal we eat she says she doesn’t like it, she also says that she hates the texture and it feels weird in her stomach and throat?? I’m afraid this might eventually develop into an eating disorder.
All this talk of food causes a lot of conflict with us at home and I don’t know what to do. My dad says to wait it out and that she’ll grow out of it and that it’s typical adolescent behaviour and my mom is very worried, she spoils her in the hopes that she’ll be grateful and stops always having a bad attitude. She takes advantage of the fact that my mom spoils her and always comes back to her after a fight asking for more stuff.
This has been going on for atleast 2 years now (the serious stuff) and I feel like it’s slowly distancing our family and I don’t feel like my parents are doing anything that will help her. They don’t want to label her because that would make her feel different from the people surrounding her but I have a feeling that this isn’t normal adolescent behaviour. My parents also don’t want me to interfere but I just feel like they arent doing anything to stop it. What do I do?

Just got on with our local ambulance here, they handle most of the 911 for our state. They were really nice in interviews, seems like a good group and company
I’ve got a week orientation coming up which is mainly Benefits and learning to drive an Ambulance. After that 10 days or so of training or ride alongs, they said that if I do well there it can be shortened but they say 10 days so people don’t feel rushed.
I did pretty well in the Army courses and the EMT course there, I’m not the best with numbers or books but I managed to get through that in the short time they give you.
I did really well on the skills assessments and I can treat most scenarios correctly.
My main concern is remembering numbers, so reading the signs from BP if it’s high or low, Cardiac issues in general, and some things like that.
I’ve been re-reading the book because I’ve been out a while, and I told them that this is my first job in the field
I’m more wondering what I should focus on remembering when it comes to the more complicated issues. I know that ARMT/Paramedic handle a lot of it but I just don’t want to look useless in the first few days.
Hard to explain what I’m saying here. I know a lot but I feel like I don’t know anything at the same time. I do well once I have someone in front of me and can just start going through motions.

Hello. I am in my third year of under graduation right now. I have wanted to become a CA, but during completion of my 12 standard I was very diffident and unsure about my self in terms of whether I will be able to crack this course or not. This uncertainty resulted in me pursuing a bachelor's degree and avoided pursuing CA. However, now that I am in my final year of graduation, I want to give CA course a shot. I don't want to regret in future thinking I should have given it a shot but didn't because I was too scared to face a failure or was diffident. By the way, this uncertainty in me is because I am not good with theory, I don't remember concepts easily, and even if I succeed to recall them, I mess up presenting my thoughts in exams. As I am going to be an undergraduate, I will be pursuing(if I am going to) CA course through direct entry(New scheme). So, anyone who has done their CA, tell me about your journey. Any advices will be appreciated.
By the way, after reading my post, you must have realised I am very diffident and anxious kind of person which might be annoying because many of you might think that such a person is not suited to become a CA, which I agree because I myself is unsure about my abilities. I have become too much timid over time :(. I also think what will I do if I fail to clear intefinals after multiple attempts because at that point of time I would be quite old as I would be pursuing CA through direct entry.

Part 2
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It was late when I got back home but for as tired as I was, I knew that I wasn’t going to sleep a wink.
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I went into my computer room and opened up my laptop, before plugging in the USB the bartender had given me. There were four folders on it, each one containing the feed from a different camera in the Rooster. I clicked into one of the folders at random and picked through the video files inside, looking for the stretch of footage that I needed. It didn’t take me long to find it either.
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I clicked into one of the video files, and watched as the chaos of the Red Rooster played out before me. People drinking, flirting, laughing. Living their lives. Nothing I hadn’t seen before. I let the footage play for a bit, before getting up to grab myself a couple of beers from the fridge. When I got back, I started skipping through the video, waiting for the moment my two victims showed up.
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When I’d taken the bartender's statement, he’d told me that he’d seen the two before, both separate and together. He didn’t know their names, but he knew their faces. Other patrons recognized them too. One of them had identified the red haired girl as ‘Kayley’ and had mentioned she lived down at River Ridge, a trailer park outside of town. Nobody had been able to name the Elegant Woman, although a lot of patrons had said they’d seen her around before.
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Apparently, both of them usually came to hook up, leaving with a different stranger on most nights. Odds are, they’d why they were there on that night too. They’d come in at around 8:47. The Elegant looking dark haired woman seemed to be the one taking the lead, and seemed to be the one doing most of the talking. She and Kayley went to sit at the bar, talking amongst each other all the while. I couldn’t say for sure what they were talking about. Even if the file had audio, I doubt I’d have been able to single them out over the crowd. They looked at ease though.
​
They shared a couple of drinks. Nothing seemed that out of the ordinary. I took a sip of my beer, watching them. Eventually, Kayley got distracted talking to a man further down the bar, while the Elegant Woman stayed at the bar, drinking casually as if she had all the time in the world.
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The man in the suit came in at around 9:12.
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My attention shifted to him the moment he came in through the door.
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He fit the description that every witness I’d spoken to had given about the shooter. A tall man with a red beard in a black suit who was wearing a pair of reflective sunglasses despite the fact that it was 9 at night. Even beneath his suit, it was easy to tell he had a good physique, and his crew cut implied a military history to me.
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Red Beard took a seat at the bar, a few seats down from the Elegant Woman. He ordered a drink, and nursed it for a bit, discreetly looking around at the other patrons of the bar but not seeming to look directly at either the Elegant Woman or Kayley. He just drank his beer, and when he was finished, he got up and switched seats, moving to sit beside the Elegant Woman. She looked over at him, putting on a charming smile as they talked. I almost got the impression that they were flirting with each other.
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They kept talking for a while and as they did, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. If I didn’t know what was coming next… it would have caught me completely off guard. When she turned to take a sip of her drink, the gun appeared in his hand, almost without warning. She didn’t even have time to react before he shot her at point blank range. Three bullets straight to the chest.
​
I saw Kayley spin around and freeze up. Her entire body tensed, as if she was ready to lunge at the shooter. If that was her intention though, she never got the chance. He put two bullets in her without even thinking, then without so much as a glance backward, he took off toward the door.
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I rubbed my temples, watching as the chaos of the aftermath unfolded. Some people called 911. Some, like the bartender, ran to the aid of the bodies. I saw myself run in through the door less than six minutes after the shooting had happened.
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That was where I stopped the video.
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I took another sip of my beer, and sighed. I rewound it a little bit, watching as the shooter came in and watching as he left. I might recognize this man on the street if I saw him, but other than his red hair and sunglasses, there wasn’t really much to go off of.
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The way he left… he walked away almost casually, as if he had someplace to be. He didn’t run. He didn’t panic. He was cold, calm, and professional. I guess that fit with the other murders, didn’t it?
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I steeled myself to review the footage again, this time from another camera. Maybe there’d be something from one of the angles that I didn’t see. I checked the angles of the other three cameras. Two of them wouldn’t offer me much. One of them didn’t even catch the shooting. But the last one…
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The last one looked promising.
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It was situated near the back of the bar and through it, you could see out a window onto the street. It wasn’t the best view… but it was different.
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From that angle, I could see a black sedan pull up to drop the man in the suit off. I saw him walk in the door and sit by the bar and from there, the scene played out the same as it did before. The man in the suit shot the two women and he left.
​
He strode out toward the sedan parked out front, got in the passenger seat and the sedan took off like a shot. There’d been a getaway driver. Interesting…
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I set my unfinished beer down. I could drink the rest of it later. I needed to go on a little drive.
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It was around 4 AM when I returned to the Red Rooster. I parked my car on the street, exactly where the black sedan had parked, and got out. The downtown area around me was dead silent. Lifeless almost. There wasn’t another soul in sight. But that was fine by me. That just meant that there were no distractions.
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It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for. There was a bank across the street and I walked toward it. The doors were locked, but that was fine. I could see what I needed through the windows.
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Bank machines.
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More specifically, bank machines with cameras. Cameras that were pointed right at the Red Rooster.
Perfect.
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***
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I was off shift the next day, but that just gave me time to get some actual work done. It was probably better I do it all from home. This case was Di Cesares now. I wasn’t sure what she’d do if she caught me working on it, and I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to find out. Judging by those fangs in her mouth, she wasn’t human either. Hell, I wasn’t sure if she was actually even from the State Police… I got the impression that Sheriff Smith didn’t seem to think so. But if she wasn’t with them, who was she with? Why hadn’t the State Police sent someone else? Had she done something to them? Even if she had, I couldn’t just believe that the State Police wouldn’t notice something like that.
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No… there was something else going on here. But I could figure that out later.
​
First things first - I needed to review the footage from the bank machines. The bank was more than willing to give me access to the footage when I asked. They knew who I was, they knew what had happened and they knew why I was asking.
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Once I got back home, it didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for. Just as I’d hoped, the bank machines had recorded the car that had been waiting outside the Red Rooster. I couldn’t make out the license plate from the footage… but I could see enough to identify the make and model of the car.
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An Audi A6 Sedan.
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I’m not much of a car guy, but I can say that there’s not a lot of Audi’s in rural Ohio. Even without the license plate, this shouldn’t have been hard to find. I made a call to a buddy of mine in the BMV, told him what I was looking for and within the hour, he had the results for me.
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It turns out, there were actually only eight Audi A6 Sedans registered in our county and all of them were registered to the same company.
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Apostle Security.
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Naturally, I did a bit of research on them. Apostle was a mid-sized private security firm based in Cincinnati, although they had a few other offices in Ohio and some of the surrounding states. It’d been started by a man named Joseph Cray about ten years ago, although beyond that I couldn’t find out much about their history and really, I didn’t care. Their website didn’t list any offices in my county… but the BMV seemed to say otherwise. My friend there had given me an address outside of town and even if I was off duty, I figured that no one could give me any guff for taking a little scenic drive. And if I just so happened to see some black Audi’s that looked like the one that had been parked outside of Red Rooster last night… well, maybe I’d pass that information along to whoever was on duty at the time. I’m pretty sure it was Biggs and Hoffman. They could decide whether or not to tell Di Cesare. It would be completely out of my hands.
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I headed out to my car, plugged the address I’d gotten into my GPS and took a little drive.
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As I drove through the backroads leading out of town, I felt a sense of quiet apprehension. Maybe I was being naive, putting my hopes on this lead. But I’d done the work. If Apostle really was behind this, it would make sense for them to have some sort of location in the county. If I was right, maybe I wouldn’t find all the answers to this surreal mess of a case, but I’d at least find the shooters. That was something. At least people wouldn’t be dying anymore.
​
Christ… I still didn’t know what to make of the victims. The gills on Kayley, the fangs on Patricia Russell, the fractures on Geoffery Vickers bones. Maybe these people really were monsters? If so… maybe these shooters knew that. Maybe that was why they did it.
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But even if that was the case - I still couldn’t just leave a roving kill squad to wander around unchecked. The way things were going, it was just a matter of time until one of the victims was just some innocent bystander. I passed by a familiar sign as I neared the edge of the county. An advertisement for the local Volkswagen dealership.
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‘You’re in Smith Country!’ It declared, along with a prominent smiling photo of Aaron Smith himself. I’d always found that sign a little creepy. The eyes and the smile were both a little too wide. It made the man look downright unhinged. I’d never actually met Aaron Smith in person, despite working for his older brother. The Sheriff would mention him from time to time and I could see the family resemblance, but it was hard to imagine the face on that sign sitting down to an odd Sunday dinner with Sheriff Smith.
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To be fair, they probably didn’t talk much. I don’t think Aaron Smith himself even lived in town anymore. He owned a bunch of other dealerships scattered around southwest Ohio. Smith Volkswagen was just the oldest. But the sign had been there forever, and why fix what ain’t broken, even if it is creepy as hell?
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Either way, just past that unsettling sign was my destination. Once upon a time, it’d been a small auto garage that had long since gone defunct. It’d been closed down since before I moved to town. From what I’d seen, Smith Volkswagen had used the property as an additional lot to store the cars they had no room for, from time to time but it didn’t seem like they did that anymore. Now the place just looked completely dead. There were no cars parked out front, Audi or otherwise.
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I pulled into the parking lot, and checked the address I had to make sure it was correct. This was definitely the place. I parked my car and got out, before making my way to the front door. I found it locked.
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Naturally.
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Guess my luck had to run out somewhere. Maybe this was a dead end? I already knew I probably wasn’t getting inside without a warrant, and I didn’t exactly know what my chances were of getting one.
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I tried the door again. It still didn’t open. From the corner of my eye, I noticed a security camera by the door. I stared up into it. The presence of a camera probably didn’t mean much. Whoever owned this property probably wanted to deter adventurous kids and urban explorers from going in. Maybe it was nothing, but I still couldn’t help but find it interesting.
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I considered just going back to the car but didn’t want to feel like I’d wasted my time, so I figured I’d snoop a little bit. I took a quick walk around the perimeter, peeking in through the windows that I passed. I didn’t see much, but judging by what I could see, this place wasn’t abandoned. I didn’t see anyone inside, but the inside looked awfully clean for an abandoned building.
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Going out around back, I noticed that there were garbage bags in the dumpsters out back. Not a lot… but enough to confirm to me that there were people here. Maybe this wasn’t a dead end…
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I heard a sudden mechanical whirr from the other side of the building that made me pause. I rounded the corner, moving along the back of the building just in time to see a convoy of five black Audi’s rolling out of the garage door, one after the other. They turned onto the road, moving almost in perfect sync as they headed toward town. I felt a knot form in my stomach as I watched them go.
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I’d found the cars I’d been looking for… although if they were going somewhere, odds are that we’d be getting a call about it all too soon.
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My heart was beating faster in my chest.
I knew I couldn’t just sit there and watch. I knew I needed to do something.
So I did.
​
I ran back to my car as fast as my legs could carry me, leaping behind the wheel and keying the engine. I tore back out onto the road, speeding after the convoy. I didn’t know what my plan was. I didn’t have a plan. I just knew that if I didn’t do something, people were going to die.
​
The convoy turned away from downtown, following the river north. They passed by the River Ridge RV park, moving further down the road towards the outskirts of the county. It was hard to say exactly where they were going. There wasn’t much out that way, not for several miles. But they were moving with purpose and so was I.
​
About ten miles past River Ridge, I noticed something up ahead. Flashing lights, like what you’d see on a squad car, although there was no color to them. They were just white.
​
The convoy in front of me finally began to pull off the road. I could see them passing another Audi, this one outfitted with an LED bar. Two men on the road waved them off. Both of them were dressed in well pressed suits and wore reflective sunglasses. One of them was bald with a very thick dark stubble, and the other had a familiar red beard and military crew cut.
​
The knot in my stomach grew tighter as I drove toward the men, waiting for them to stop me. I reached for my pistol, ready for them to make a move. They just waved me on, barely even looking at me. I still kept my hand on my gun as I drove past, watching Red Beard and Baldy like a hawk.
​
I could see two other men behind the parked Audi with the flashing lights out of the corner of my eye. They were on the ground, fidgeting with something. It took me a moment to figure out what it was.
​
Spike strips.
​
I’d seen them before. We’d used them back during my army days at vehicle checkpoints and while we’d never had to use them while I’d been working as a city cop, we did have them.
​
They were setting up an ambush here. The five Audi’s that had pulled off the road parked along the shoulder further down. I could see men in suits getting out of them. I didn’t see any guns… I guess they were still partially trying to be subtle. But I still had a feeling that they were armed.
​
I kept on driving, going further down the road. Stopping and confronting these men wasn’t an option. Maybe they weren’t interested in making a mess by shooting any random schmuck who passed by their little trap, but that didn’t change the fact that they were probably dangerous. Charging in and dealing with them by myself wasn’t a smart idea. So instead, I reached for my phone, and I called Biggs.
​
He answered on the first ring.
“Hey Sawy-”
“Ethan, we have a situation,” I said. “Who’s on duty with you right now?”
“Right now it’s Hoffman, why what’s going on?”
“Call Hoffman, call the Sheriff and call Lopez. There’s going to be another attack.”
“What? Where?”
​
“I’ve spotted some suspects setting up some kind of ambush ten miles north of River Ridge. How soon can you be here?”
“Twenty, thirty minutes, maybe?” He said, “Sawyer, where are you right now?”
“I just passed the ambush point. They’re gearing up for something, now move your ass!”
“Y-yeah, of course!”
Biggs hung up immediately, and I pulled off to the side of the road. I took a deep breath, before checking the magazine of my pistol and getting out.
​
I wasn’t going to charge in needlessly… but I needed to have eyes on this situation. It’d be easier if I could get closer on foot. Leaving my car behind, I dipped into the woods along the other side of the road, letting them hide me as I walked back along the road toward the ambush.
​
The river whispered beside me as I crept through the trees, and the steep incline leading down toward the river helped keep me low and hidden from sight.
​
I could see the flashing white lights of the parked Audi, and watched as they suddenly went dark. Red Beard was speaking into a walkie talkie, and on the far side of the road, I could see several men waiting by the five parked Audi’s. This time, they had guns. Assault rifles, by the looks of it.
​
I was right. There was another attack coming and it was coming now.
“Fish market’s on the move, gentlemen. Put out the nets!” Red Beard said.
​
On his order, I watched one of the men pull the spike strip across the road, while Red Beard addressed the men on the far side of the road. He spoke like a drill instructor and the men he addressed carried themselves like soldiers.
“As of right now, we are locked in on this operation! We run things smooth, we run it clean, we get the job done. No mistakes like last time! No stragglers! Understood?”
“Sir yes sir!” Came a familiar chorus.
​
After a few minutes, headlights appeared further down the road. I watched them from my vantage point, praying they belonged to Biggs. But the oncoming vehicle was too big to be a squad car. This looked more like an RV.
​
No…
​
This was a whole convoy of RV’s. Most likely coming from River Ridge.
​
I couldn’t count them all, but they were all heading towards the ambush… and that was when the pieces slowly began to click into place.
​
Kayley, the girl who’d survived… the girl the people at Red Rooster had been able to ID. She’d lived at River Ridge. If she and her friend from the other night weren’t human… then there was a damn good chance that there were others just like them there. Other women with gills. I guess River Ridge would be the perfect place for them… it was quiet, away from the hustle and bustle of downtown and close to the water. Whatever these people were… it’d just about be the perfect place for them.
‘Fish market’s on the move.’
​
That’s what Red Beard had said.
​
The other killings hadn’t exactly been low key… if there were more girls like Kayley at River Ridge, odds are they’d heard about them. And odds are that once they realized they were being targeted too, their first instinct would be to get the hell out of dodge. That would explain why they were carrying out this attack in broad daylight too. They weren’t going off of their own schedule, they were trying to catch the monsters as they fled. And now their targets were here… drawing closer and closer to their massacre with each passing second.
​
There was no sign of Biggs or anyone else. They still had to be at least fifteen minutes out… probably more.. By the time they got here, the shooting would probably already be over.
​
I couldn’t let that happen.
​
For the record - I knew that what I was about to do was extraordinarily stupid, but I didn’t see a whole lot of other options. I couldn’t allow them to ambush those RV’s. I couldn’t. I didn’t really stop to weigh the pros and cons in my head. Sure, I knew that what I was about to do had a chance of survival that was damn near zero… but hey, everyone dies sometime, right? This was the only option I had available to me. In a lot of ways, it wasn’t really even a choice I made. I just did it. I took aim at the nearest target, and I fired.
​
I saw one of the men by the car, the bald one with the scruff grab his shoulder and stumble back a step. He wasn’t dead, but he was hurt. I shot at him again, but he was low enough to the ground and far enough away that I didn’t hit him. He hastily dragged himself off the road and behind the Audi. He still managed to stand, so clearly he wasn’t in that bad a shape.
​
The moment he heard the gunshots, Red Beard spun around, drawing his own pistol as he did. I knew that he saw me. I could see his expression creasing into a scowl the moment he did. Our eyes locked for only a split second before the air was filled with the sound of gunshots.
​
POP. POP. POP.
​
I felt a white hot pain sting across my arm as one of his bullets grazed me, and even though I returned fire I doubt I hit him. Red Beard dove behind his Audi, but behind him I could see his little kill squad moving in.
​
I couldn’t count how many of them there were. More than ten. Fifteen, maybe? Twenty at most? Who could say.
​
I retreated back into the trees, skidding down the forested incline toward the river as I waited for the gunmen to come for me.
“Keep off the road!” Red Beard snarled, “Watch your fire! Wait until you have a shot!”
He must’ve been trying to salvage this operation… Although from where I sat, the RV’s looked to be slowing down. Seems they’d noticed the gunfire.
​
Red Beard glanced in the direction of the RV’s, and I could see the gears in his head spinning. This was all going wrong… but he didn’t seem the type to give up. On the road, the lead RV moved to make a U turn. I could see Red Beard watching it, and took a pot shot at him. It didn’t hit him, but it did shatter the driver's side window of his Audi.
​
Roaring in frustration, Red Beard fired three shots back at me.
“Goddamnit! Fuck it! Squads 1 and 2, kill that son of a bitch! 3 to 5, intercept the convoy, NOW!”
​
I saw some of his men back off, running back to their cars. The rest moved onto the road, coming after me. I fired at them, and I saw one of them stumble back as I shot him dead in the chest. But he didn’t die. He stumbled, but picked himself right back up.
​
Great, they were armored too.
​
I was punished for poking my head out by a burst of machine gun fire. The trees by my head splintered as I dove down into cover. I lost my footing, sliding further down the incline toward the river. The only reason I didn’t fall all the way down was because I caught myself on a tree. Looking up, I could see about eight figures at the top of the incline, coming down off the road. One of them spotted me and opened fire. All I could do was scramble out of the way and roll further down the hill toward the water.
​
Gunfire followed me, but I couldn’t see who was shooting. I couldn’t see where they were. I couldn’t stop to try and get a shot. There were too many of them. I dove down to safety behind a fallen old tree. Bullets rained down on it, tearing off chunks of bark and sending splinters raining down on me.
​
I gripped my gun tight. My blood rushing in my ears. Somehow… I always wondered if I’d die like this. Dug into the dirt, with bullets whizzing past my head. Maybe there wasn’t any other way for me to die? Who’s to say? But I’d be damned if I didn’t take at least one of those bastards down with me.
​
I took a deep breath. Steeled myself for what I was sure was going to be my last stand.
​
Then, gun in hand I rose to return fire.
​
Only when the rifles went off, they weren’t aimed at me.
​
I could see the eight figures standing in between the trees, but they’d turned away from me. They were shooting at something else now, although I couldn’t immediately see what. I just saw a shape, moving between the trees. I heard the ground shift and saw a cloud of dirt fly up. One of the armed men was sent screaming down the incline, into the river. I wasn’t sure if he’d survived the fall or not.
​
One of the other men opened fire, only for the shape to grab his rifle, I saw them force it down, before lunging at his throat. He screamed as they sank their teeth into him, but didn’t seem to be able to put up much of a fight otherwise. Two of his friends opened fire on him, hoping to kill the shape that had him in its grasp. The ground seemed to shift beneath them, sending both of them down the incline and into the river. Within seconds, whoever or whatever the hell this was had just taken out half of the men who were supposed to be killing me.
​
They tossed the man they’d just bitten to the ground and for the first time, I got a good look at my savior. Clementine Di Cesare’s mouth was smeared red with blood. Her sunglasses were absent and in her blue eyes I could see an unsettling calm. As if this wasn’t so much different to her than any other mundane chore.
​
The remaining gunmen seemed to freeze at the sight of her, not seeming to know how to react until Di Cesare moved. She was fast. It was hard to tell if she was running, or if the ground simply shifted beneath her. She lunged for the nearest gunman, kneeing him in the stomach and tossing him aside like he weighed nothing, although while she dealt with him, the man beside him got off a lucky shot.
​
Before Di Cesare could deal with him, he emptied half his magazine into her chest… but she didn’t fall. Hell, there wasn’t a scratch on her. The guy who’d shot her on the other hand?
​
Blood dribbled from his mouth. His body jerked violently as he collapsed to the ground. It was as if he’d been the one who’d gotten shot, not her. Di Cesare barely paid him any mind, regarding the final two men with that eerie calmness.
​
I could see one of them stumbling away, trying to get back up the incline. The other one just gritted his teeth and decided to fight on until the end. He was smart enough to know that shooting her wasn’t going to work, so instead he pulled a combat knife from his jacket and charged at her, as if it would do him any good.
​
Di Cesare barely even reacted. She sidestepped him and casually sent him down the incline into the river below. I saw him tumble down into the river before crashing into the water below with a final scream.
​
Di Cesare watched him fall with a quiet disinterest, before her attention shifted to me. I took a step back, half expecting her to come for me just like she did with the others. Instead, she simply wiped the blood from her mouth before she turned away from me, and headed back up the incline, moving with purpose.
​
I hesitated for a moment before following her. Di Cesare stepped out onto the road and surveyed the scene before her with an intense gaze. Whatever Red Beards plan had been… clearly everything had gone catastrophically wrong. I could see some of the black Audi’s on the road, trying to follow the RV’s, although the one that got the closest to one of the RV’s near the back of the convoy got rammed by it and sent careening off the road.
​
The tires of Red Beard’s Audi screeched as it tore back out onto the road. I saw him behind the wheel, sparing Di Cesare and I a single glance as he took off at top speed. I raised my gun to shoot at him but Di Cesare seized me by the wrist, stopping me from doing so. I looked over at her, confused.
“Let them run,” She said calmly. “We know where they are now.”
​
She looked down the road, back toward the fleeing RVs, and seemed momentarily content. One of the five parked Audi’s, driven by the survivor of the group who’d gone after me sped onto the road and Di Cesare regarded it with quiet disinterest before walking over to the road spikes and beginning to move them.
“Help me with this,” She said coolly.
​
I hesitated for a moment before doing exactly what she asked.
“You called for backup?” She asked, as we dragged the spikes off the road.
“I did,” I said. “Wait, you’re not with them?”
“No,” She replied plainly. We packed away the spikes but left them at the side of the road. Someone else could collect them as evidence. “I was with the RV convoy.”
​
I raised an eyebrow at her.
“You were with them?” I asked. “So you knew about the attack?”
“I knew it was likely,” She said. “Although I didn’t expect you here, Deputy Sawyer,”
She tilted her head at me.
“Working behind my back, I see.”
​
“I was following up on a lead,” I said. “I tracked the vehicle that last night's shooter used to a garage just on the edge of town. I saw some cars leaving and figured it was probably bad news, so I followed them here.”
“I see… you’re quite sedulous, aren’t you?”
“Well I couldn’t exactly sit around given the past few days, could I?” I asked. “What the hell just happened back there, on the incline? How did you… what the hell did you do? I watched someone shoot you, then die of their own gunshot wounds! How the hell did you do that? What the hell are you?”
​
The questions spilled out of me without much thought, although Di Cesare didn’t seem to care much.
“That’s a question with a complicated answer,” Di Cesare replied.
“Uncomplicate it, then!”
“I’m an old soldier, same as you,” She said. “Maybe I know a little bit of magic… maybe I’m not entirely human anymore, but that’s what I am at my core.”
“Vampire…” I said quietly.
She didn’t answer, but there was a look in her eyes that told me I was right. At this point, after seeing what I’d just seen, I wasn’t in much of a state of mind to doubt it.
​
“So that trick with the bullet wounds… was that a vampire thing or a magic thing” I asked.
“Attribution spell,” She said. “Makes me harder to kill. Not a lot gets through it. I’ll tell you what. Give me your car keys, and I’ll answer any questions you have later.”
She extended a hand to me.
​
“I’m sorry, my car keys?” I asked, “Why?!”
“I need to follow the RV’s to make sure they make it out of the county safely. You said you’ve called in backup. You still need to be here for when they arrive. So… I’ll be borrowing your vehicle.”
I hesitated for a moment, before swearing under my breath and handing my keys off to her.
“Do what you’ve got to do…” I said under my breath.
​
She nodded.
“It’ll be returned to you when I’m done, no worse for wear.”
With that, she pushed past me and walked toward my car and all I could really do was just watch. She took my car, and sped off after the RV’s, leaving me in the road to clean up the mess.

https://sci-hub.st/10.1057/fr.1988.4 Feminist Review, No. 28, Family Secrets: Child Sexual Abuse (Spring, 1988), pp. 56-64
In the early 1970s, when a radical feminist consciousness pulled [incestuous abuse] out of the closet, we thought we were engaged in an unprecedented discovery. In fact, charity volunteers and social workers a century earlier dealt with incest cases daily, understanding them to be a standard, expected part of the caseload of a child-protective agency such as a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. How are we to explain this historical amnesia? Like the suppression of so much women's history and feminist analysis, this hiatus was not created simply by the decline in feminism between 1920 and 1970, but by an active reinterpretation of child sexual abuse. I shudder when I think about what this meant: not only because of the incest victims rendered invisible and mute, but also because of its threat to us today, the threat that great achievements in consciousness-raising can be rolled back by powerful ideological tanks. My motives in writing a history of family violence were thus far from disinterested.[1]
Charity and social workers in the late nineteenth-century United States were familiar with child sexual abuse and knew that its most common form of abuse was intrafamilial—that is, incest. Ten per cent of the family-violence case records of Boston child-saving agencies which I sampled, starting in 1880, contained incest (Gordon and O'Keefe, 1986; Gordon, 1984). Moreover, in their upper-class way these child savers had a feminist analysis of the problem: they blamed male brutality and lack of sexual control. They could safely offer such explanations because they believed the problem to occur exclusively among the Catholic immigrant poor, whom they perceived as of "inferior stock," crowded "like animals" into urban ghettoes. Thus, ironically, the very upper-class base of child-rescue work at the time promoted the identification of problems unmentionable by standards of Victorian propriety.
Despite these class limitations, the sympathy for child victims entailed by this sensibility was one of the major achievements of the nineteenth-century feminist movement. The attack on male sexual and familial violence was often disguised in temperance rhetoric. American women's historians have recently conducted a reinterpretation of temperance, acknowledging its anti-Catholic, anti-working class content, but also identifying its meanings for women contesting the evils that alcohol created for them and their families: violence, disease, impoverishment, male irresponsibility. Moreover, the feminist anti-violence campaign had significant successes. In the course of the century wife-beating was transformed from an acceptable practice into one which, despite its continued widespread incidence, was illegal and reprehensible, a seamy behaviour which men increasingly denied and tried to hide (Pleck, 1979). Indeed, the whole movement against child abuse which began in the 1870s was a product of a feminist sensibility in several ways: first, in opposing corporal punishment and preference for gentler methods of child training; second, in challenging the sanctity of the Victorian home and authority of the paterfamilias. Most manuals of child raising by the last quarter of the nineteenth century recommended physical punishment only as a last resort (Reposter note: Of course, this would still be child abuse. "Child training" is still a dehumanizing term. They didn't go anywhere nearly far enough.), and women's legal victories in child custody created a preference for maternal rights to children for a century.
Consider a few examples of incest cases from the late nineteenth century:[2]

In 1900 a thirteen year old girl has been placed out with a family in which the wife is absent. The SPCC worker reports that the "child's bed not slept in but [the father's bed is] much tumbled. The girl cries and dreads the night." (Case #1820A)
An incest victim reports, sometime in the 1890s, that her father "told her that it was all right for him to do such things and say such things to her, for all fathers did so with their daughters. Tried to force her to go to a hotel in Boston with him once. Also advised her to go with fellows to get money. Said that if she got in trouble he would help her out.…" (Case #2058A)

There were hundreds of these stories telling us not only that [incestuous abuse] occurred, but that child-saving agencies were aware of it and taking action against it. The publicity and fund-raising efforts of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children focussed on intrafamily "carnal abuse" directly, unembarrassed to include it as part of the need for SPCC intervention.
In the early twentieth century the child-savers' view of child sexual assault changed significantly, and incest was de-emphasized. By the 1920s, although child-protective agencies continued to meet many incest cases, a three-part interpretive transformation had occurred: the locus of the problem was moved from home to streets, the culprit transformed from father or other authoritative male family member to perverted stranger, the victim transformed from innocent betrayed to sex delinquent. In other words, the fact that child sex abuse is overwhelmingly a family problem was obscured; instead it was pictured as rape by strangers on the streets. (Anna Clark has shown how a similar reinterpretation of adult rape took place (Clark, 1987).) This is not to say that there was no extrafamilial sex abuse; there was, but, compared to incest, it was greatly exaggerated in both public and professional discourse.
Several factors contributed to this reinterpretation. The professionalization of social work tended to weaken the influence of feminists and social reformers among child protectors, even as, ironically, more women entered child welfare casework as salaried workers. After the women's suffrage victory in 1920 the organized feminist movement fragmented and weakened. During World War I venereal disease became a major problem for the armed forces (it was for this reason that condoms became widely available at this time, first issued by the Navy to sailors); servicemen were presented as victims of disease-ridden prostitutes. After the war, fears of Bolshevism, sexual freedom, and feminism combined to create a "pro-family" backlash.
The implications of this reinterpretation of child sexual abuse were pernicious for women and girls. The existence of sexual abuse became evidence requiring the constriction and domestication of girls, and their mothers were blamed for inadequate supervision if the girls were molested or even played on the streets. What was once categorized as carnal abuse, the perpetrators virtually all male, was often now categorized as moral neglect—meaning that the mother was the culprit and the behaviour of the victim was implicated. Some of the "sex abuse" was relatively noncoercive teenage sexuality. Female juvenile sex delinquency was constructed as a major social problem in early twentieth-century America, and it was a vague, victimless crime. Girls who smoked and drank, dressed or spoke immodestly, or simply loitered on the streets were convicted of sex delinquency in substantial numbers and sent to reformatories (Schlossman and Wallach, 1978). During World War I near armed-forces bases it was the servicemen who were the innocents, their girl partners the sources of pollution. Even girls who had been raped were no longer victims but temptresses. I do not mean to deny that some girls behaved in socially dangerous and self-destructive ways, nor that they sought out sexual adventure but, as many students of sex delinquents and other runaways today have observed, high proportions, quite possibly a majority of these girls, were first victims of sexual assault, typically familial. They were, so to speak, squeezed out onto the streets in search of safety and/or self-esteem from homes that were even more destructive than the street boys or men who exploited them.
Above all, this reinterpretation of child sexual abuse removed scrutiny from family and home, restoring the curtain of impunity that surrounded those sacred institutions. This was the period of the discovery of the "dirty old man," the "sex fiend," and the "pervert," the stereotypical culprit in child sex abuse cases in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. As before, I do not wish to deny that such figures existed. Child protection agencies uncovered child prostitution, pornography rings and sex criminals who molested literally scores of children. The victims were not always brutalized; the children of the very poor—not only in the Depression but in earlier decades too—could be bribed into acquiescence and silence with a nickel, an orange, a pail of coal. However, even these nonfamilial molesters were rarely "strangers." They were often neighbours, accepted members of communities, often small businessmen or janitors who had access to private space.
There were two peak periods of hysteria about sex crimes: 1937-40 and 1949-55. The panic had official government sponsorship, led by none less that J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI. In 1937 he called for a "War on the Sex Criminal." Hoover's rantings about "degenerates" threatening "American childhood and womanhood" assimilated these sexual anxieties to nationalism, racism and anti-Communism. It bears notice that, in contrast to earlier periods of public agitation against sex crimes, as in campaigns to raise the age of consent in the Progressive era, women's organizations played no role in this campaign (Freedman, 1987).
Meanwhile social workers became less likely to investigate girls' typically euphemistic accusations of their fathers.

In 1935 a mother turned her daughter in for sex delinquency. Investigation reveals that the daughter, fleeing from an abusive father, who also beat his wife severely, had spent most of her time for 4-5 years with her maternal uncle and aunt. She accused her maternal uncle of molesting her steadily. However, the MSPCC physical exam indicated that she was a virgin,[3] so no action was taken. (#3555A)
A battered woman, terrified of her husband, is told by their daughter, who has become a "sex delinquent," behaving "vulgarly," that her father has criminally assaulted her. The mother says "she would speak to him." At court the police chief says he is doubtful about taking up the case as the girl's word is the only evidence the Government could produce; he would not question the father "as it would be asking [him] to incriminate himself." The daughter was committed to an institution. (#2057A)
In 1920 a mother is so fearful that her new husband will abuse her daughter (from a previous marriage) that every time she goes out she hires a babysitter to chaperone them. Yet when the daughter, now eleven, says she has been raped by a "stranger" whom she refuses to name, the social workers not only fail to question whether she might be shielding her stepfather, but decide that her accusation is not credible and brand her a delinquent—a liar, immoral, and uncontrollable. She is boarded out as a domestic. (#3085A)
In 1930 a 14-year-old girl alleges sexual abuse by her widowed father and begs to be taken out of his home. No action is taken until the father brings her to court on stubborn-child charges and she, as well as her younger sister whom she has been trying to protect are sentenced, separately, to institutions. (#3585)

In addition to references like these, in which the agencies did not investigate or prosecute, there were many others in which agency workers simply did not pick up the broad hints that girls threw out, hoping to draw attention to their plight. Social workers ignored statements like, "I asked my mother for a lock on my door." These girls were not usually bribed or intimidated into silence. Some of the recent discussion of incest emphasizes victims' fearful silence, but this evidence is based on the work of therapists, counselling incest victims years later, who have often by then reconstructed their stories on the basis of their guilt; my evidence, contemporaneous with the abuse, showed that these children were usually very active in trying to get help, more so, for example, than victims of nonsexual child abuse (Gordon, 1986).
Not only did social workers de-emphasize incest, but academic experts dismissed it as an extremely rare, one-in-a-million occurrence (Weinberg, 1955). Psychoanalytic and anthropological interpretations, associated respectively with Freud and Levi-Strauss, attributed to incest taboos a vital role in the development of civilization; this logic brought with it the assumption that these taboos were effective and that incest was, in fact, rare; but in terms of impact on treatment of actual cases, Freudian thought did not so much cause social workers to deny children's complaints and hints about sexual mistreatment as it offered categories with which to explain away these complaints. As Boston psychiatrist Eleanor Pavenstedt commented in 1954:

Most of us have trained ourselves to skepticism toward the claims of young girls who maintain they have been seduced by their fathers… We must ask ourselves whether our tendency to disbelief is not in part at least based on denial. The incest barrier is perhaps the strongest support of our cultural family structure, and we may well shrink from the thought of its being threatened. (Pavenstedt, 1954)

So did the dominant sociology of the family, which inverted Levi-Strauss's functionalism to prove that the incest taboo was operative because it had to be. For example, "No known human society could tolerate much incest without ruinous disruption" (Gebhard, Gagnon, Pomeroy and Christenson, 1965: 208; Davis, 1949; Bell and Vogel, 1963). The few nonfeminist historians to study incest replicated that error by studying public beliefs about incest, not behaviour (Wohl, 1979; Strong, 1973).
The rediscovery of [incestuous abuse] in the 1970s was, then, merely a reinterpretation, and it did not come quickly. Nonsexual child abuse was resurrected as a social problem in the 1960s in a movement led by physicians but stimulated by the influence of the New Left, with its sympathy for youth and critique of authority and the family. Without pressure from feminists, [incestuous abuse] first reappeared as gender-neutral. Indeed, the very classification of all forms of intrafamily sexual activity as [incestuous abuse] obscures the meanings of these behaviours. For example, sibling sexual activity, or sex between other relatives of approximately the same age, is extremely common, difficult to identify and not necessarily abusive. Mother-child incest is extremely rare and, in my findings, more often than father-child incest, associated with adult mental illness; by contrast incestuous fathers have extremely "normal" profiles (Gordon and O'Keefe, 1984; Herman, 1981). (Reposter note: I am skeptical about these two claims. Maternal CSA is significantly rarer than paternal CSA, yes, but I doubt that it's "extremely" rare, and an analysis of adult supremacy as an axis of oppression intersecting with misogyny clarifies this. I am also skeptical of all pathologization and saneism-inflected broad claims about abuser psychology. I have reason to believe she and her sources were biased by heterosexism in reaching this conclusion. In contrast, youth liberation feminists would emphasize the adultism, domestic power, and authoritarian motives in an intersectional manner.) Yet many child abuse experts throughout the 1970s ignored these gender differences (Kempe, 1980; Money, 1980). Others found ingenious ways of explaining away actuality with speculation about possibility. Thus social worker Kate Rist argued that "society has created a stronger prohibition against mother-son incest" because "it is most likely to occur. This has led to the intriguing situation in which father-daughter incest appears to have a lower natural probability of occurrence, is therefore less strongly prohibited, and in practice occurs more often" (Rist, 1979; 682).
Historians do not usually like to speak of the "lessons of history," as if she were some objective, finally definitive schoolteacher. But in many years of work at the craft, I have never come across a story that so directly yields a moral. The moral is that the presence or absence of a strong feminist movement makes the difference between better and worse solutions to the social problem of child sexual abuse; more, that the very same evidence of sexual abuse will be differently defined in the presence or absence of that movement. Without a feminist analysis, evidence of child sexual abuse means that danger lies in sex perverts, in public spaces, in unsupervised girls, in sexually assertive girls. There are few ironies more bitter than the fact that rape of children—that most heinous of crimes—has also been the crime most drenched in victim-blaming. As with adult rape, child sexual abuse without feminist interpretation supplies evidence and arguments for constricting and disempowering children.
Such a reinterpretation arose again in the United States in the mid-1980s, a reinterpretation aided, of course, by the real and increasing incidence of deranged killers attacking strangers. In the school year 1984/85 my then second-grade daughter was taught three separate programmes in her classroom about how to react to sexual abuse attempts, all of them emphasizing strangers, and all of them gender-neutral. The most publicized sexual abuse cases have concerned daycare centres, and often female teachers, although daycare centres remain, on the whole, among the safest environments for children. The statistics about child sexual abuse remain what they were a century ago: the most dangerous place for children is the home, the most likely assailant their father. Similarly a panic about missing children not only exaggerated their numbers a thousandfold, but completely misstated the source of such "kidnappings": neglecting to mention that noncustodial parents are overwhelmingly the main kidnappers; and that teenage runaways, often from abusive homes, are overwhelmingly the majority of the missing children.
What then is the best policy? My argument should not be taken as an implicit call for de-emphasizing the problem. On the contrary. The children's educational programmes and pamphlets have strengths, particularly in so far as they offer assertiveness training for children: if it feels uncomfortable, trust your judgement and say no; scream loud and run fast; tell someone. Of course it is difficult and inadvisable to sow distrust of fathers, particularly because the more intimate fathers are with children, the more responsibility they have for children, the less likely they will be to abuse them sexually. (Reposter note: I get what she's trying to say here, but this is phrased poorly IMO. Sowing distrust is fine. If it's genuinely unjustified, then the problem will resolve itself.) However, education for children should contain a feminist and an anti-authoritarian analysis: should discuss the relative powerlessness of women and girls, and praise assertiveness and collective resistance in girls; should demystify the family and even discuss that ultimately tabooed subject, economic power in the family. Education for boys must be equally brave and delicate. Boys are children too, and often victimized sexually, but they are also future men, and school age is not too early to ask them to consider what's wrong with male sexual aggression, to teach them to criticize the multiple and powerful cultural messages that endorse male sexual aggression.
Probably the most important single contribution to the prevention of [father-daughter] incest would be the strengthening of mothers. By increasing their ability to support themselves and their social and psychological self-esteem, allowing them to choose independence if that is necessary to protect themselves and their daughters, men's sexual exploitation could be checked. In the historical incest cases I sampled, one of the most consistent common denominators was the extreme helplessness of mothers—often the victims of wife-beating themselves, they were often ill or otherwise isolated, they were the poorest, the least self-confident and the least often employed of mothers in these case records. This is not victim-blaming; their weaknesses were not their fault, but part of the systematic way in which male supremacy gives rise to [father-daughter] incest. It was a gain that wife-beating and [father-daughter] incest have become more criminalized, but we cannot expect women to prosecute aggressively if their prospects for single motherhood are so bleak.
Moreover, women's very subordination often contributes to making them child abusers and neglecters. Although women do not usually abuse children sexually, in these case records they were responsible for approximately half the nonsexual child abuse (the same proportion they occupy in many contemporary studies). Unfortunately, feminists have avoided women's own violence towards children and analysed family violence in terms of stereotypical male brutality and female gentleness. Women's violence should not be regarded as a problem that will somehow weaken our feminist claims; on the contrary, these claims should not rest on assumptions of women's superiority […]. Women's mistreatment of children also needs an analysis of the damages caused by the sexual division of labour and the pattern of women's exclusive responsibility for child-raising. In the US, too, the rather middle-class radical feminist groups never made issues of social services a political priority, although such services are fundamental to women's ability to resist violence, to protect their children, and to parent better themselves.
This is not to say that a good feminist line will solve the problems of child sexual abuse, especially not where the abuse has already occurred. Like everyone else, feminists who deal with policy or individual cases must wobble through many contradictions. For example: the victimization is real, but the tendency to exaggerate its incidence and to produce social and moral panics needs to be resisted. The problem emerges from the powerlessness, the effective invisibility and muteness of women and children, especially girls, but the adult anxiety has led to children's false accusations, and children's sufferings will not be corrected by eroding the due process rights and civil liberties of those accused. Child sexual abuse needs a political interpretation, in terms of male power. However, the prosecution of culprits—however necessary—and the breaking up of families that may result do not always benefit the child victims. Especially if they are incestuous, sex abuse cases have something of the tragic about them, because once they arise, tremendous human damage has already occurred, and a politically correct analysis will not ease the pain. Still, that analysis, situating the problem in the context of male supremacy in and outside the family, is the only long-term hope for prevention.
Notes
Linda Gordon is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin/Madison. She is the author of Woman's Body, Woman's Right and the forthcoming book on family violence noted below.
[1] My book, Heroes of Their Own Lives: The History and Politics of Family Violence, is forthcoming from Viking/Penguin US in early 1988. References to my sources and more information on my research methodology can be found there.
[2] These and other excerpts are from case records of Boston, Massachusetts, child-protection agencies (see Gordon, 1988).
[3] The standard response to a sex abuse allegation was to look at the condition of the hymen (Gordon, 1988).
References
BELL, Norman and VOGEL, Ezra (1963) editors A Modern Introduction to the Family New York: Free Press.
BREINES, Wini and GORDON, Linda (1983) "The New Scholarship on Family Violence" Signs 8, pp. 490-531.
CLARK, Anna (1987) Women's Silence, Men's Violence: Sexual Assault in England 1770-1845 London: Pandora Press.
DAVIS, Kingsley (1949) Human Society New York: Macmillan.
DUBOIS, Ellen and GORDON, Linda (1983) "Seeking Ecstasy on the Battlefield: Danger and Pleasure in Nineteenth-century Feminist Sexual Thought" Feminist Studies 9, pp. 7-25; also Feminist Review no. 11 (1981).
FREEDMAN, Estelle B. (1987) "'Uncontrolled Desires': The Response to the Sexual Psychopath, 1920-1960" Journal of American History Vol. 74, no. 1, pp. 83-106.
GEBHARD, Paul, GAGNON, J. POMEROY, Wardell and CHRISTENSON, C. (1965) Sex Offenders New York: Harper & Row.
GORDON, Linda and O'KEEFE, Paul (1984) "Incest as a Form of Family Violence: Evidence from Historical Case Records" Journal of Marriage and the Family Vol. 46, no. 1, pp. 27-34.
GORDON, Linda (1986) "Incest and Resistance: Patterns of Father-Daughter Incest, 1880-1930" Social Problems Vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 253-67.
GORDON, Linda (1988) Heroes of Their Own Lives: The Politics and History of Family Violence New York: Viking/Penguin.
HERMAN, Judith (1981) Father-Daughter Incest Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
KAUFMAN, Irving, PECK, Alice L. and TAGIURI, Consuelo K. (1954) "The Family Constellation and Overt Incestuous Relations Between Father and Daughter" American Journal of Orthopsychiatry Vol. 24, pp. 266-79.
KEMPE, C. Henry (1980) "Incest and Other Forms of Sexual Abuse" in KEMPE (1980).
KEMPE, C. Henry and HELFER, Ray (1980) The Battered Child Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
MONEY, John, (1980) Introduction to the incest section in WILLIAMS and MONEY (1980).
PAVENSTEDT, Eleanor (1954) Addendum to KAUFMAN, PECK and TAGIURI (1954).
PLECK, Elizabeth (1979) "Wife Beating in Nineteenth-century America" Victimology Vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 60-74.
RIST, Kate (1979) "Incest: Theoretical and Clinical Views" American Journal of Orthopsychiatry Vol. 49, no. 4, pp. 680-91.
RUSH, Florence (1980) The Best Kept Secret: Sexual Abuse of Children Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
SCHLOSSMAN, Steven and WALLACH, Stephanie (1978) "The Crime of Precocious Sexuality: Female Juvenile Delinquency in the Progressive Era" Harvard Educational Review 48, pp. 65-94.
STRONG, Bryan (1973) "Toward a History of the Experiential Family: Sex and Incest in the Nineteenth-century Family" Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 457-66.
WEINBERG, S. (1955) Incest Behavior New York: Citadel Press.
WILLIAMS, Gertrude J. and MONEY, John (1980) editors Traumatic Abuse and Neglect of Children at Home Baltimore: Johns Hopkins.
WOHL, Anthony S. (1979) "Sex and the Single Room: Incest Among the Victorian Working Classes" in The Victorian Family: Structure and Stress ed. Wohl. New York: St Martin's Press.

I (26F) had debilitating ptsd for years starting when I was 18 after a near death experience involving being roofied. It took a long time and a lot of work to get over it, but in the last few years I've finally been ok and been able to get off medication. But my biggest trigger still to this day is talking about death and what happens when we die. I completely avoid any conversations about it and get super panicked when it's brought up.
Very recently, my boyfriend's dad has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. He has been of course devastated and struggling with it, and I've been doing everything I can to be supportive and there for him. He has found a lot of peace in reading philosophy about life and death and has been re-exploring his beliefs about it, and he wants to discuss it with me constantly. His family also talks very bluntly about death and the situation which throws me off.
It really triggers and panics me when we talk about it, but I feel like right now this isn't about me it's about him and what he's going through is a lot worse than what I'm going through so I have just been handling the conversations as best I can. I feel like all these talks have resurfaced my PTSD and made me feel really unstable and ungrounded again. I'm freaked out because I really thought I was over this and doing well.
I'm not going to tell my bf to stop talking to me about his anxieties about his dad dying - that just seems incredibly selfish. But on the other hand I am really struggling right now and just need to at least tell someone other than him what I am going through.
I feel like this is my time as a partner to show him I am here for him through the bad times. I also want to protect my mental health. This is really hard for me right now and would appreciate any advice. Thank you!

I finally did it, I got it done. I successfully salvaged all of my old collection from when I was a young trainer. I got into Pokemon back when it first arrived to the states, I was literally 10 years old when Pokemon blew up everywhere.
I have a bunch of vintage Pokemon cards as a result, and my collection was rather comprehensive. I basically had a complete collection of Base Set through Team Rocket, all in 1st editions.
Recently I finished a big project. I had a very minty 1st Edition Base Set Charizard. I decided to bite the bullet and go through the Grading process with PSA. I am here to share with you the results, as well as my story. Hopefully it will illuminate the process and help others feel more confident about what they can or should do with their own Pokemon Card Collections.
I am going to break this whole thing down into sections so that those who only care about certain parts of the process can navigate better.
The Lore: Card and my backstory
The Awakening: The moment the community rescued me
The PSA Journey: How Grading fell into place
The PSA Scare: Lessons about the process
The Grade: Grade result and thoughts on how we got there.

The Lore:

As mentioned I got into Pokemon when I was 10 and the craze blew up in the US. My dad was a big wig with Toys'R'Us and so as a child I got access to a lot of cool promotional material and went to awesome prerelease events. A bunch of this material hyped me up for Pokemon before it even launched some of its best products, and I was hyped and eager for the show from a cool video my dad got about the whole thing, it was Team Rocket laying down some of the lore and their struggles they would go through in the show as they talked to The BOSS!
Of course I had the games, Red and Blue, one for me and my brother. But I also had a bunch of money saved for another obsession, POKEMON CARDS!
My Dad collected G.I Joes and Star Wars figures, my mom collected Beanie Babies, and so when I expressed interest in Collectible Cards they were more than happy to support me. Because my parents were collectors, I had good habits. I loved playing the Pokemon TCG but I knew better than to play with any of my 1st editions. My decks used duplicate cards from the unlimited prints of the series.
It also meant I got proper binders and thoughtful binder pagers that tried to avoid 3 ring binder issues, while still using 3 ring binders. This was an admitted weakness, but thankfully only a few common cards were subject to light damage from these rings, my binder pages gave enough room that they were relatively safe from the rings.
However, my other weakness was not using Penny Sleeves. Although the cards were kept away, they also did get shown off a handful of times. Charizard was always epic, and the card always sought after. So he got some time in the spotlight, but was always handled with care and after the Jungle series came out he was basically locked away from any showings as well, becoming a precious treasure kept in the dark.
After the Team Rocket series released for the Pokemon TCG I started to lose interest in playing. I had gotten a game boy version of the card game and it was FUN. But also burned me out after I was done. So I also stopped collecting around then. But I felt satiated. I had several complete collections, my brother even had his own full 1st Edition Base Set. I had pulled each card from a pack myself.
My parents helped me store the collection in secure containers and I stopped even admiring them a month or so later, my attention caught up in other serious matters.
My family and I moved to Arizona, and I knew where we kept the cards but never took them out. Eventually it was time for me to move to college and I knew better than to bring anything of serious value with me so I left my collection with my parents.
My parents ended up parting ways,, one staying in Arizona and one going to Texas. I was going through a bunch of my own growth and adventures so I wasn't there to help divide things up. I honestly had no idea where my collection was at this point but wasn't too worried.
It was my mom that thankfully had kept the collection in her mind. She went through a bunch of moves, as did my dad in Texas. Finally it was me though, that got some roots grounded and my life together, just took me until my late 20's. I recalled my old collection and asked my mom about it one day. She had to resort to her collection a few times for money, my brothers collection had become hers because he didn't care about Pokemon or the value of cards. Some of the best gems had been picked clean, no one giving her their fair value. I asked her if she knew where my collection was.
We tracked it down with my Dad in Texas, a blessing as the climate there helped keep the collection from any sort of damage. Although they had always been in a binder and always in secure containers, my biggest worry about the collection was the lack of climate control through out the years.
But as I picked through the collection, everything looked fantastic! I got my collection home and safely locked it away. However, I did nothing about it. I was scared of touching the cards or removing them from their binder. I had a grounded life but very little time to research the appropriate way to store or treat older cards and I decided if I couldn't do it right I would just keep them safe. I had taken a few pictures because an associate I knew had some serious cash and was interested in buying Charizard.
I took Charizard out of the binder, snapped some quick pictures, and gingerly put it back into safety. The associate tried to lowball me with an offer of a couple hundred bucks, said it wouldn't grade well, and we didn't do business.
I looked into what it might cost to grade Charizard with PSA, and at the time, the materials and website made it sound like in order to grade it, I would have to pay the costs of the value found for the highest grade just to get my card looked at. ((I would later find I was wrong about this)). But the highest grade for Charizard is worth hundreds of thousands. That would have made the grading fee almost $4000! That was not something I could afford just to see if the card would grade well, plus the idea of shipping such a valuable treasure terrified me. So I decided grading was out of my ability and forgot about the treasures as best I could. But I would wake up with night terrors sometimes and spend the rest of the night dreading things, was I making a mistake with my collection? Was it slowly getting even worse for wear? Did I have an opportunity I was wasting?
I had plenty else to fear in my world at the time so I never spent energy addressing these insecurities and anxieties regarding my collection. Five more years went by...

The Awakening:

Three months ago I was having a hard night. I was sifting through my phone and came across the few pictures I had taken of Charizard. I had the Reddit app, and normally I only use it for researching video game mechanics. But I was feeling inspired and confident in the reddit community. I had posted a picture of Charizard before on Instagram and Facebook but...those places are pretty dead! But when I posted my picture into Pokemoncardappraisal I was swarmed with positive advice and guidance! There were also plenty of private messages and I knew they weren't wise offers to take but I was floored just how much higher they still were than my previous experience being offered cash for this card.
Huge important lessons leveled up my brain here. We are talking about finally understanding toploaders, the metrics they judge a card over, how a card actually ages over time, how minty* my Charizard was and most importantly that PSA will upcharge you if they find your card to be more valuable than what you paid for.
I had been previously worried about things like "if I don't pay for the right service level, maybe they wont even give me a good grade" but knowing they would just ask for more money actually took a weight off my mind.
I ordered a bunch of penny sleeves and toploaders and began the slow and careful process of removing my precious gems from their former tombs and into proper protection that made it easier to display and store in a fancy new toploader chest. I took the time to carefully look over each card and try to assess what was worth sending in. The undisputable option still remained though, Charizard. Now that it was in a toploader it was much easier for me to scrutinize, and while putting it into the top loader I had a lot more knowledge under my belt and got a better idea of the condition. I also took a bunch more pictures to share.
The verdict was in, Charizard was valuable enough for the effort of a grade and in such stellar condition that it would be almost irresponsible to never try. I had the knowledge and experience to handle my gems responsibly and set to work making a plan.

The PSA Journey:

There were still serious concerns that had to be addressed. I had worked for both the Post Office and UPS, and I was not willing to risk shipping such a valuable card. Insurance doesn't work the way people think with shipping. You cannot just pay money and insure a stick for $10,000, have it get lost or damaged and then cash in on your claim. That would be insurance fraud.
These insurance companies will fight hard to avoid paying out in full. I have watched them fight bitterly against a $200 claim over a gold necklace that had receipts and everything to make value easy. But to these companies the value is always subjective and up for debate. So imagine the field day they would have over fighting an Ungraded Pokemon card!
Then there was the theft potential, so many extra hands and processes worried me a great deal and created nefarious opportunity, no matter how slim.
I tried asking PSA if they would allow me to do an in person drop off at their facility. But I was told I would have already had to have graded 3 - 5 cards with them before they even considered allowing me to use that option.
But there was a solution. I had never considered card shows or events. PSA has a newsletter you can sign up for that alerts you to upcoming events. I simply had to wait for one to appear in my area that allowed drop off or in person grading.
It only took a couple months and a card event cropped up an hour away from me. This was my chance. I prepared 33 of my best looking cards along with my Charizard and got ready.
This event had several advantages, one of which being a faster turn around time. Most importantly, according to PSA themselves, once you drop off a card at the event, THEIR insurance takes over right away! This meant not having to pay out money for shipping insurance through a carrier. It also means if you valued your card correctly and had documentation on the condition you would very realistically get a proper pay out as PSA understands cards and their value way more than your typical company. So if someone stole it or damaged it I could realistically be made more whole.
So all I had to do was fill out a Submission form on their website, but instead of packaging it for shipping I only had to bring my cards and paperwork, they were going to package it themselves and bring it back with them the next day on a plane to Headquarters.
So now the time came to make a big choice. *What level of service and insurance should I get? The service level dictates the insurance level. *
The service level called "Premium 3" costs $2,499. This service level gives an insurance value of $100,000, the next level is ((oddly)) called "Premium 5" which gives $250,000 insurance and costs $3,999. Charizard at a PSA 10 is worth around $250,000. I wasn't sure if my Charizard could get a 10, but this is where I run into a problem.
Ideally I wanted to insure it for the maximum value so that if something happened I could still be made whole. But keep in mind PSA does not refund your money if they determine your card isn't as valuable as you declared. They are happy to upcharge your costs to the correct value but if they determine the value to be lower you get nothing back. So I had to be very very confident in a 10 if I was to choose to insure it at this level, and at a cost of almost $4,000.
I couldn't do it. Couldn't afford it despite the potential, not at that high of a level.
So what I did was choose "Walk-Through" which has an insurance value of $10,000 and cost $500. Despite what the name implies, it does not mean you get to walk in your card to the facility. Just a name. $10,000 was enough insurance to cover the value of most Grades of Charizard, 1-7 are very comfortably under 10k in value. I could see some light wear on my Charizard, just the slightest of whitening on the back, and a small holo scratch that might be there but wasn't sure if it was a trick of the light or on the case. I was confident my chances of a 10 Grade were near zero but I also wasn't sure how harsh they were going to judge my vintage card. Word was vintage is graded pretty harshly. So I settled my hopes, insured it for $10,000, and dropped it off at the event with my other cards and paperwork.
They had cameras watching their every move, it was a very safe environment to drop off valuables. They were being tracked at every moment, and it was good to see. They made sure my paperwork was in order, that my cards were in a Rigid Card Saver I, and safely secured the goods before my eyes and gave me signed paperwork of who had processed me and all that.
I did not have to pay a cent to drop it off. They needed payment information when I filled out my online forms, but they do not charge you until they finish grading your card.
That was that. I had done it. I had finally dropped The Grail of all Pokemon Cards off on its journey to get graded and preserved. My anxiety levels lowered a bit, but were still high. There was a lot potentially riding on this.

The PSA Scare:

I feel it is important I mention I had been using the PSA App for everything up to this point. Charizard took a while to arrive in the database as received. I dropped it off on the 18th and received notice my other 32 cards were received on the 24th but not Charizard. It wasn't until the 28th that I finally saw progress in the App that Charizard was received. It makes sense that the different service levels are processed at different speeds, but I had thought since it all went in together it would be marked received together.
But no biggie, first little scare over, Charizard got there and is being tracked. But then the 31st arrives...
I look into the PSA App and see it is in the Grading stage, it passed research and identification no problem...and now there was a picture available. Now when you look at these pictures ON THE APP, you will just see a picture. But when you look at these pictures on a WEBSITE you get an important note that I did not get to see, that warns "Scans are taken inside of their holders" meaning what they had shipped in.
Now I wasn't aware of this fact since I was using the APP, and the scan of my Charizard looked AWFUL. And it very much looked like there was cardboard damage, like something had picked or poked my card. If there had been a warning in the APP like on the WEBSITE I would have easily concluded this was due to a bad scanner. But my service level also said I would get "Premium" high quality images so I trusted what my eyes were seeing.
I took to reddit to panic, seen here Look what PSA did to my Charizard and once again the community came in with fantastic advice and guidance on what they had gone through. They helped me realize it was a bad scan and that there was a warning about in on the website but not the app.
I am happy to report that since that scare I have received my card and physically confirmed in person that there was no damage, my card looks as clean as when I had sent it in.
I chose the most expensive shipping for returning to me called "Preferred shipping", which ended up being Fedex. They delivered it in the middle of the day, requiring a signature...but they did not ask for my name or require an ID.

The Grade:

So now we come to the conclusion of my tale. After all this work, all this stress, all this community bolstering, hopes and dreams...what came of it? What was the result and what is my personal takeaway? Well my 1st Edition Base Set #4 Charizard graded as a PSA 8. PSA's website calculates the "PSA Price" for a Grade 8 Charizard as $10,600, with an "average price" listed as $11,104.50
So even though I paid for a service level that only handled cards up to a value of $10,000, and PSAs own price for a Grade 8 is listed as $10,600, I did not get upcharged. According to their rules, they could have upcharged me for the next service level above Walk-through. But despite going over, I was given mercy!
Since my card is now properly preserved I was able to take it out into the sunlight and give it a strong examination with strong light. Besides the whitening on the back, I also see a couple of holo scratches, although I do still have the slab in the plastic they wrap around it for shipping, so it could just be on that.
However, given these circumstances I find it fascinating that I still got an 8. Pouring over Grading posts and examining cards sent to PSA and judged by other users I thought for certain a vintage card like mine would be graded rather harshly, and that PSA would not miss a chance to upcharge me.
Overall I feel like I got away with a strong grade and was given plenty of grace, both in the value of the service and the flexibility the minor wear deducted from my grade. I have always maintained that the odds for 10 were almost in the negatives, it just wasn't given expert worship its whole life, just passionate respect and care. So knowing my card had a few minor flaws my expectations were steeled for at best a 9, thinking it would at least Grade above a 5. Hitting Grade 8 feels fantastic.
I feel like for getting this card myself as a child, and a pretty young one at that, and all the travel, moves and scares this card came out phenomenally. I am ecstatic that my super rare card is now ultra protected, authenticated, and sealed from a majority of dangers that worried me before.
I will happily continue using PSA, who has astounding customer service and a support center that contains questions and guidance about things I wasn't even aware I should consider or expect. The whole process can feel very overwhelming and it is absolutely one of those things that you have to just do a few times before it all starts clicking together in your head.
I am eager to see what my other 32 cards are going to grade as, and have high hopes after seeing what my Charizard ended up scoring, many of the cards I sent in were in even better condition. I look forward to slowly working towards upgrading my completed collections into graded completed collections, perhaps even entirely sequentially graded.
Feel free to ask me any questions you can think of, and I will happily answer. I owe a lot to the community for giving me the courage and inspiration to tackle this project despite the pitfalls and anxiety traps, to overcome all of the unknowns and do something worth while not just monetarily but to preserve a precious piece of Pokemon history!
Thank you for taking the time to read and experience my journey, I hope I have inspired confidence and passion in some of you, perhaps eased your own anxieties about partaking in the grading process, and to just continue enjoying this hobby we all love so much.
Speaking as a Pokemon fan and trainer thats been around from the very start of the fandom, that has gone from being an excited kid to an awe struck adult, it has been incredibly beautiful to see our community grow, to see the fandom blossom and expand into so many avenues and games that have brought unmeasured joy to so many of us. It is a delight to see the card game I loved so much has never slowed down and I cannot wait to continue sharing that love with new pokemon fans, my own children rapidly becoming strong trainers of their own.
Thanks for getting this far. Have a fantastic day Poke Pals.