I feel like I've been posting here a lot lately but it does help to just share struggles, wins, harder days, etc. with everyone in this community because yall get it. Anyway, took me a while but I realized I was expecting too much of my puppy too soon because I was ignoring what she was ready for.
She's great with commands indoors and after she's had a chance to meet and acclimate to new people (we're still working on not jumping and the overexcitement that comes from on leash introductions to strangers outside), and did very well with the puppies in her classes. I got frustrated when it worked for a while outside of class on our walks but when she stopped being consistent with it, it made walks overwhelming for me and made me feel like I was a bad pet parent for her pulling and trying to go say hi to other dogs. When she's off leash in an enclosed space with dogs/owners I trust, she's curious and if anything a bit reserved with them even as they're right next to her, so complete opposite of how she is out on walks.
But we just went on an evening walk since she had just eaten and I didn't want her running around immediately after, so we went to burn some more energy outside. Doesn't help that it's been heating up a lot more so we're a lot more limited as to when we can go on walks, but I digress. I've been working on crossing the street so we don't cross paths with oncoming dogs and make sure to tell her to wait if we see a dog or person passing by a little too close.
And yall, she did SO GOOD! She definitely got distracted in every instance, but she just watched on with curiosity, and minimal pulling before sitting for a "wait" and maybe a grunt or huff or two, but no barking at anyone or any of the dogs. 2-3 sets of people walking their dogs (which some were barking upon seeing her), one jogger, and 2 couples walking around on the other side of the street from us. Constant prompting to get her moving away from distractions and only stopping to cue a wait, focus, or let her sniff around. Still a long way to go, but we're seeing more and more progress little by little.

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/AdhesivenessMurky204
Originally posted to AITAH
AITAH for separating from my husband because he refused to get a vasectomy?
Thanks to u/queenlegolas and u/Direct-Caterpillar77 for suggesting this BoRU
Editor’s Note: added paragraph breaks for readability
Trigger Warnings: PTSD, mentions of abortion, domestic abuse, verbal abuse, sexual assault, rape
Original Post: April 28, 2024
My husband (28M, who I will call Jack) and I (27F) have been together for 4 years, we have 2 young children and I am pregnant again. I have been pregnant for what feels like most of our relationship. I got pregnant 4 months into our relationship. We got married a month before our daughter’s 1st birthday and ended up with a honeymoon baby. After our son was born, I talked to my OB and she put me on birth control and I have been taking it militantly.
My daughter is now 3 and my son is 2. A little over a month ago I discovered I am pregnant again, despite taking my birth control religiously. Abortion is banned in my state, and the pregnancy was discovered too far along to attempt to obtain one out of state. While Jack and I were nervous, we also love being parents and decided that 3 young kids would be a challenge, but 3 was a good number for us. Then we went in for the first ultrasound and got some unexpected news - it’s twins.
Things have been tough financially, and while we were stressed but excited for a third child, we were not expecting a third and fourth child. Beyond the finances, I am the primary caretaker and I know that twins is going to be a lot, three children under 5 is already a lot, but 4 children under 5 is going to be really really difficult for me. Physically, I am tired of being pregnant. I’ve been pregnant or breastfeeding the majority of our relationship. It’s exhausting, it feels awful, and I don’t recognize my body anymore.
Four children is enough. I don’t want more. I told Jack that I was done with pregnancy, I’ve been pregnant enough, I’ve been experimenting with different types of birth control for over a decade and I still can’t stop getting pregnant, abortion isn’t a valid option where we live, we need something more permanent. He agreed, and suggested an IUD, I told him no - if it did fail then it could cause an ectopic pregnancy which could kill me, especially where we live. I’ve had both control fail me multiple times already and I’m not taking the chance, so I suggested a vasectomy. He was not open to the idea, and was even upset that I suggested it and told me I should get my tubes tied. I told him a tubal ligation is a much bigger surgery and I could be recovering for weeks during which time I wouldn’t be able to work or take care of our 4 young children, but he could ice his balls for a day or two and be done with it. He told me that not getting pregnant was ultimately my responsibility, and topped it off by saying “that’s what your body your choice means, YOUR body, so YOU choose.” That’s when it went from a discussion to a full blown fight.
See, when I was 19 I had another birth control failure with my boyfriend at the time (who I will call Tom). I wanted an abortion, Tom did not because he was opposed. I told him I was getting the abortion since it was my body and my choice, and Tom said some horrible things to me, including threatening me. I broke up with him and got the abortion. In response, Tom ended up following me one night and attacking me. I don’t want to go into detail but it was horrible, and he ended up going to prison for a number of charges related to the attack. Not only do I have a number of scars and some long lasting physical effects, but I have PTSD as well.
Jack knows about my history and diagnosis, and has known from the beginning. I have a pretty prominent facial scar so I was upfront about it early on in our dating. Jack always presented himself as very pro-choice, so I was shocked that he would say that. I got really emotional and started crying and shouting, and it turned into a full-blown fight.
Eventually I said that birth control is a two-way street and so far I’ve been the only one managing it and he said “and now we have 2 kids and 2 more coming, great job.” I told him he sounded like Tom and he got super pissed, basically said how dare you compare me to him, and maybe he might want kids one day with someone who doesn’t compare him to her felon ex-boyfriend. I was stunned and horrified. I said “well then let’s not waste any fucking time,”then packed up myself and the kids and drove to my parents place.
It’s been about a week since the fight. I’ve spoken with Jack a few times and he has since apologized and said he was out of line and was speaking from a place of anxiety after finding out about the twins, but also that I said things that were out of line and it was wrong of me to insist he undergo a medical procedure. He said that can move on from the things I said and that he wants to see his children and be a family again. I told him no, that I didn’t want to “move on” from the things he said to me. I can’t just get over that and I think we need space apart. Jack was upset by this and while we talked I brought up getting a separation agreement to manage custody and finances while we figure things out. He did not like this suggestion, said we didn’t need to pull the courts into this.
I haven’t told a lot of people about what’s happening but my family and a couple close friends. My sister and best friend both think I should throw the whole man away, but my brother (who is the only other one married with kids) thinks that I’m being extreme for what sums up to a fight between two scared people who both said nasty things. My mom is trying to be supportive but is occasionally reminding me that I “don’t want to be a single mother of 4” and telling me not to let my PTSD drive my decisions, while my dad is being completely unhelpful (he thinks jokes are helpful - like calling me Doorknob because I “can’t stop getting knocked up”, telling me to let the oven cool down, real knee-slappers). I don’t know what to do. My kids are happy to be at grandma and grandpas house but they miss their daddy, I’m 4 months pregnant and already uncomfortable as hell, I wish I could go back to being a happy little family but I’m so hung up on the things he said in that fight. Am I destroying my family over one bad night? Am I being unreasonable for asking my husband to get a vasectomy?
Edit: I've noticed a lot of people recommending condoms. I have gotten pregnant with condoms twice. Our second child and my first pregnancy were both conceived using condoms properly (correct fit, put on correctly, single use, not expired, no breaks, etc). I do not trust condoms enough to not fail a third time. I know the failure rate is supposedly small, but it's not personally small enough for me. Edit to the edit: I'm sorry, I didn't expect so many comments so fast and I can't keep up with them. By the first pregnancy I mean the pregnancy with Tom. With Jack I was on the patch when I got pregnant with our daughter, condoms with our son, and the pill with the twins. So far I haven't ever suspected that Jack has tampered with our birth control and always presumed that I'm a fertile Myrtle.
I recognize the comments and just want people to know I'm seeing the suggestion. I'm not dismissing it, but the thought of it is deeply upsetting and has provoked a lot of anxiety. I just wanted to make it clear that if the suggestion is only based on the condoms, that the condom pregnancies were with two different partners. While I know I always used condoms properly with Tom, I do believe that Tom could have been fully capable of sabotaging the condoms.
AITAH has no consensus bot, OOP received mixed reactions of NTAs and YTAs
Relevant Comments
deepsleepsheepmeep: NTA. Your husband is though. Your body has already been through A LOT. A tubal ligation is a serious surgery and you are right about being out of commission for a while when recovering. If he is more concerned with an imaginary future wife than he is for you, I don’t think there is much hope for this marriage.
We have 4 close friends who all got vasectomies. None of them bitched about it like your wimp of a husband. We actually had fun vasectomy themed parties for them.
On the off chance he does end up getting a vasectomy, make sure to do the follow up appointments. One of the vasectomy fab 4 did not follow through and ended up with a post-vasectomy baby.

OOP: Thank you, I feel like this is a lot of what has been so upsetting has been that he's thinking about some imaginary future wife when I'm right here, his actual wife, the mother of his children. It's like he's already imagining a future without me.

 
Update: AITAH for separating from my husband because he refused to get a vasectomy?: May 3, 2024
I didn’t expect so many comments and literally couldn’t go through them all. It seemed like the majority of people said I was NTA but I did get a lot of YTAs telling me I was trying to force him to get a medical procedure and telling me to get one instead. Besides already addressing my reasonings why I made my request in the original post (which I want you to read with real "per my last email" energy), I in no way am *forcing* him to have a medical procedure, but I am saying that I do not want to be with a partner who is not willing to be snipped. This is an issue of compatibility. The number of children you want, the methods of birth control you’re willing to use, those are issues of compatibility and a reason relationships end all the time. If he doesn’t want to be sterilized that’s fine, but then that means that we’re not compatible anymore, since it means he wants more children and I don’t. Beyond that there were some YTA comments and some DMs that were just nasty, calling me a murderer and saying my body is a cemetery. Sadly enough, I expected those types of comments, because I know there are a lot of Toms out in the world.
First I wanted to address a couple things that kept coming up, because last post turned into thousands of comments that all said about 5 different things, so to avoid my inbox becoming another echo chamber:

You’re 100% going to have a C-section anyway so just get a tubal while giving birth.

No, I’m not 100% going to have a C-section anyway. Twins are not an automatic C-section. With my birth history there is no reason to presume that a C-section is in my future. My OB agrees, and has discussed the possibility as doctors have to do but also said that based on my past two birth experiences, I'm a "perfect candidate" for vaginal delivery.
I also am not going to mince words: tubal ligations are *less* effective than vasectomies with a *much higher* likelihood of an ectopic pregnancy. Ectopic pregnancy can *kill me*. In fact I got a PM from a woman who is a fellow fertile Myrtle who had an ectopic after a tubal. I am rejecting birth control options that, if they fail, would lead to my likely death. I don’t want to be pregnant again but I also don’t want to die and leave my children motherless, and in no way should anyone assume that traveling to another state to obtain an emergency abortion will continue to be an option in the future - we live in scary times, and Gilead is a real possibility. The comments seemed to have the vibe that people think that ligations are magically more effective than vasectomies and vasectomies are more of a whisper of sterility than an actual sterilization method so for those in the back VASECTOMIES ARE MORE EFFECTIVE THAN TUBAL LIGATIONS, FULL STOP. So I really need y’all to shut up about it.

Go to another state and obtain an abortion anyway.

I appreciate the personal offers to help I received in DMs deeply, but no. I’m in my 2nd trimester, which I know is still legal in some places, however I am at a point in my pregnancy where I personally as an individual do not feel comfortable obtaining an abortion, considering I would be *even farther* along by the time I could travel (which is not only finances, but logistics as well). I am 16 weeks pregnant now, these babies aren’t just clusters of cells to me anymore, and I’m not going to expand on that since it’s not up for debate.

Why not adoption?

With love and respect to everyone who has gone through adoption in all its aspects, adoption is absolutely not for me. This is a thought process I already went through 8 years ago, and now that I’m a mother and not a scared teenager I know it’s even less for me. I personally could not go through with it and come out the other side intact. Going through a full pregnancy, having my babies, and then being separated from them would break me.

Leave him and give him full custody of the twins

No. Because going through a full pregnancy, having my babies, and then being separated from them would break me. Jesus, some of y’all.

Just have a sexless marriage.

No. I love banging my husband, obviously lol. I don't want to be in a sexless marriage and anyone who has been to an abstinence-only high school knows that abstinence is not the way lol. There were a lot of comments assuming I would be perfectly fine withholding sex from my husband and having na dead bedroom, and I wouldn't. I have a sex drive. I'm going to want to bang my husband. Wanting to have sex with your spouse is *normal*.

What you would do about birth control if you divorced and dated in the future?

I’m not thinking of dating anyone else right now, because I’m thinking more about saving my actual marriage instead of an imaginary relationship. And if theoretically I did, I would probably seek out a partner who was snipped or was ready to be to be honestly, or a woman. I’m bisexual so there’s a very good chance that my future partner wouldn’t have the right parts to knock me up anyway lol.

Jack is sabotaging your birth control

I clarified my methods in the original post (as per my last email), but I did want to address this because it came up a LOT. I don’t have reason to believe that Jack sabotaged my birth control. A number of other fertile Myrtles showed up and brought up they or their family members repeated pregnancies in the face of birth control, including tubals. Accusing my husband of reproductive coercion for no reason other than I keep getting pregnant is a big leap and a weighty accusation. I am not the only fertile Myrtle out there, there's a reason there's a whole term for it.

Your husband is a narcissist, abuser, psychopath, and he does no childcare

My husband and I historically have a really healthy and loving relationship outside of this fight. In fact, this fight is the first time we’ve really had a fight, we’ve only ever had little arguments that we’ve been able to talk through. He’s an active father, the reason that I do the majority of childcare is due to circumstance between maternity leaves, our job schedules and the fact that I breastfed my babies. Someone also presumed I’m the breadwinner, which isn’t quite true. Jack makes more than me, but we do not have deeply significant differences in our incomes. When he is home he does his fair share of cleaning and cooking (arguably more than me at times), and parenting. That being said, the things he said in the heat of the moment were deeply concerning, and we’re addressing that together.
So to get down to the nitty gritty of the real update: since the last time I posted, Jack and I have sat down together and had a real come to Jesus talk. I’m not going to go through the whole breakdown, but it basically boiled down to this: it’s the vasectomy, but it’s more than the vasectomy. It was wrong of me to compare him to Tom but it was wronger of him to weaponize my trauma against me in a very malicious way. The way he intentionally used the same language my abuser used in an effort to hurt me was not acceptable and damaged the trust between us. He agreed it was not acceptable and said that in the aftermath he was horrified and ashamed his own words, and that he (as an explanation and not an excuse) kind of snapped under the stress. Oh and what he said about his “next wife” was not an indication of him not being committed to me but was because he felt hurt and wanted to hurt me back. He has apologized numerous times and seems to feel genuinely bad about it.
As for the separation, I am still going forward with it. I need space and time and I need to take that before the babies come. I am still staying with my parents who, for the record, are not sick of me or the kids. We’re a tight knit family, I only moved out when I moved in with Jack, and my sister moved out about a year ago so they have been empty nesting, and my mom doesn’t like that we live “too far” (an hour) away. What I have realized with space and time is how deeply triggering it was, in a way that I cannot explain to those without PTSD from DV, those who know will know. It’s deeply unsettled me and I’m having a hard time “getting over it” so to speak. There is now a lot of fear of my husband that was never there before and it’s going to take a lot to repair that trust and sense of safety. I cannot make a decision while I’m in this space, and I am addressing this with my personal therapist. Overall, I told him that if he wanted to stay married to me I needed two things from him: marriage counseling and a vasectomy, and even then I still cannot guarantee him anything. He understands, but I do not know what will happen with the vasectomy right now, we focused more on talking about the fight, but he is very aware that it's now a dealbreaker. And we have a marriage counseling appointment set up for next week. I'm hoping that counseling will bring some clarity to the situation, and in the mean time for the next couple months I'm focusing on giving my kids lots of cuddles and preparing myself for two new babies to come into my world, with or without Jack.
Additional information from OOP on her relationships

OOP: I've been through a trial to convict my ex-boyfriend of trying to kill me because of an abortion in a deep red, deeply religious area. I've definitely heard worse things, and I typically have pretty thick skin. That being said, I am pregnant and pretty emotional, so it's not the best experience. That being said, I do appreciate the level-headed comments when I see them through the sea of comments kind of saying the same stuff over and over. I'm not reading a lot of them if what I can see in the comment notification starts off nasty, so a lot of it is just inbox white noise. My favorites are the ones that start off with "I'm not going to read that BUT..." and I just think lol same. Like you don't want to read my post but expect me to read your comment that was made without even reading the situation? lol nope. And there are a lot of people conflating "providing someone with a hard choice" with "forcing someone into a medical procedure" and it just makes wading through for the actually helpful comments more tiring. Thank you though, I very much appreciate the kindness. Sorry, I've gotten so much of the same nonsense I guess I needed a little vent lol.

OOP on wanting her husband to make a decision and be on the same page

OOP: I want to be honest with him about where I am emotionally because I want him to make an informed decision. While the vasectomy is a deal breaker, it's really my secondary concern. My primary concern is the way he acted during the fight and his intention exploitation of my trauma because he was mad and scared. I think that telling him "get the snip to stay with me" and then deciding to leave anyway because there are deeper issues and/or I don't feel safe anymore would be cruel. He deserves to have the full picture before he makes a choice, doesn't he?
If he doesn't want the vasectomy, that's his choice. It's not what I want, but it is what it is. If he wants to call it quits at 4 kids, then it is what it is and if he secretly wants to be the next Nick Cannon then it is what it is he should be free to do that. That is part of why I don't know where he is on the vasectomy right now and we didn't really discuss it much when we talked, I'm focusing on discussing the bigger issue for me which is trust and safety within the relationship. The only way for him to make an informed decision about whether or not he get a vasectomy is for him to have all the information about the situation. If that makes him want a vasectomy less, then it is what it is. It's not about making him want to have a vasectomy. It's about being on the same page.

 

DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/justathrowaway282641
Originally posted to TwoHotTakes + her own page
Previous BoRU #1, BoRU #2, BoRU #3, BoRU #4, BoRU #5, BoRU 6
Editor’s Note: removed all relevant comments from older posts to make space for new updates. To see all older relevant comments, check out the previous BoRUs above
NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ----
[New Update]: My family forgot to invite me to my grandparents funeral, but they are convinced I was there.
Trigger Warnings: death of loved ones, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, harassment
RECAP
Original Post: November 14, 2023**
I’m 30s F and caused a major blowup in my family and now none of them are talking to me. For background, my hometown is tiny (500pop) and when I went 2 hrs away to “the city” (15,000pop) for college, I loved it. I ended up staying after graduation, got married, and am happy here for a decade. I visit my home town every few weeks or so, call/text my family near daily, and thought we were all good. My family’s pretty small. Just my brother, mom, step dad, dad, step mom, and an aunt and uncle (mom’s siblings, never married, no kids). My mother's grandparents moved to my home town when I was in high school and were just down the street from us. My family has always been pretty drama free (aside from my parent’s divorce when I was a kid) and we’ve been happy. The step-parents were blended in perfectly and we share holidays and celebrations together. We’re all super close and just the perfect little group.
Ever since I moved away, the topic of “when am I moving back?” is constant, and I’ve always laughed it off. My home town has nothing. You have to drive 30 minutes for milk and bread. 60-90 minute one-way commutes to work. And floods shut down the main road every Easter. I love the town, but I love here more. I have parks, stores, community events, a library! The “city” is great. My family grumbles that I need to move back, but I refuse. I've been trying to encourage them to come here, especially since it's not an hour drive to the nearest medical facility.
Now to the meat and potatoes: both my grandparents passed over COVID times. They were both old and their health had been failing for a while so it was only a matter of time. Thankfully they didn’t catch it, but it made visiting them impossible and we survived mostly through FaceTime. They both passed in their sleep months apart. Both were cremated and kept securely under the kitchen sink for safe keeping while the pandemic blew over. That was 2021.
Well, I just found out my family held a funeral for them and scattered the ashes in my uncle’s maple grove over the summer. No one said a word to me about it. I’ve visited numerous times before and after and not one word. I only found out because my great uncle from California posted on Facebook a few weeks ago that he is entering hospice and was so thankful his health stayed strong enough for him to see his little sister (my grandma) to her final resting place. I was confused and called my mom. She was all “Yeah, the funeral we had in July, remember?” Ya’ll, I visited them for the 4th of July. They did the funeral the 8th. Not a word about it to me. They had planned this for months. Long enough to arrange for my infirm great uncle to be brought over from the other side of the country. Apparently, they talked about it “all the time”.
Everyone is convinced I was at the funeral. They SWEAR I was there. I can prove I wasn’t because Google’s got my location history. My hubby is baffled because he was supposedly there, too, but he had to work every weekend in June and July. Time clock doesn’t lie. My family straight up forgot about me. I’m hurt. I’m sad. And they’re pissed at me “for lying”. They think I’m causing drama over nothing. Nothing I say can convince them I wasn’t there. My family is united in this. And they’ve all put me “on read” until I admit I’m wrong. They think I’ve gone nuts. Either there’s a doppelganger of me attending events, or my family doesn’t want to admit they screwed up. I’m not backing down.
Thanksgiving is coming up, and my family’s been vague posting on Facebook about “forgetful kids” and mental health. It’s so freaking weird and I don’t know if I’m in bizzaro world or what’s going on. My mom’s best friend reached out and said I should just admit I was wrong and apologize, that I’m causing my mom so much unnecessary stress. I asked her if she’s checked everyone’s home for CO2. She hung up on me. (We checked our CO2, and our testers are running just fine.) I have reached out to a few people in my home town to check in on my folks, and they all say they're fine. I even spoke with the local volunteer fire fighter group to see if they could check for gas leaks. Not sure if they were able to.
I don’t know what to do. I’ve shown them the proof I wasn’t there, but they know I’m tech savvy and just assume I’ve Photoshopped it. Hubby says we need a break, and we’re going to be staying home this holiday season.
Edit: I don't know the update rules, so I'll post updates to my profile should anyone want them.  
Update #1: November 27, 2023
Not sure how to do updates on posts, so figured I'd post anything on my profile. Folks have private messaged me and this will be easier I think?
It's 11/27 and Thanksgiving just happened. Hubby and I stayed home. We got a small turkey and made our own little thanksgiving. It was nice. We ate around noon, then watched a movie, and later sat outside with a bottle of wine to watch the sun set behind the trees and neighbor houses.
We usually take the day before off, drive to my folks, stay the night, and help with the Thanksgiving Day cooking. So it wasn't until Wednesday night that my mom broke the silence. Mom called and asked when I was showing up, and I told her we were staying home this year, but for them to have a happy Thanksgiving, and to give the rest of the family my love. She was quiet for a long time after I said that, and I think she eventually mumbled an "okay", or something, and hung up. It wasn't an angry hang up. Just a hang up. On Thanksgiving day, I sent a group "Happy Thanksgiving!" gif to our family group chat. I received a few "happy Thanksgiving"'s back. No one's said anything else. There's been no posts on Facebook.  
Update #2: December 12, 2023
So, I think I mentioned in one of my comments that my dad and I usually talk on the phone every Sunday morning. We're both early risers so we'd chat over our morning coffees and watch the sunrise. Him and I haven't really spoken since this all went down and it's been tough. I'm used to talking to him, you know?
Well, I was sitting outside in my usual spot, watching the sun rise and freezing my butt off, and he called me. I'm not entirely sure how to describe the emotions I felt. It was a mix of panic, hope, terror, happiness, and dread. I ended up answering because I just had to know what he wanted. It was an awkward conversation. He didn't address the current "drama", but instead tiptoed around the situation with all the grace of an cow on stilts. For instance, a simple "How are you doing?" Type question was answered with a "Not good." And the whole conversation would stall out for a bit because he knew why I wasn't doing well. So we ended up talking about the weather, the various winter birds we'd seen in our feeders, and the Christmas decorations around town. Things like that.
Eventually he asked if we were coming out for Christmas, and sounded sad when I told him we weren't. He asked if him and step mom could come visit us instead, and I told him it wasn't a good idea this year. That hubby and I were going to spend a quiet holiday together. I let him know he should be receiving some gifts at his PO Box any day now, so to please pick them up from the post office and put them under the family tree for everyone. He said he'd ship ours to us as well.
And that was pretty much it. No crazy drama to report. The only posts on Facebook have been the usual Christmas excitement ones, countdowns, photos of Santa, silly gift ideas, photos of company Christmas parties.
On a personal note: Hubby and I are doing alright. Our health is good, our spirits high, and we're as solid as ever. We each got Christmas bonus' at our jobs, so we're excited about that. They're not large, but we're happy to have them. We have also done advent calendars for the first time ever. I got him a Lego one, and he got me a hot chocolate one. We're going to do the calendars again next year. Maybe make a tradition out of it.
Everyone please have a safe and happy holidays.  
Inheritance: December 16, 2023
I've received a lot - A LOT - of messages and private DMs urging me to check into inheritance and such. I'm really touched a lot of Internet strangers are worried about me and I wanted to ensure everyone that inheritance is most likely not an issue here. I'd almost be relieved if it was, because then it would at least make some sense. Money does weird things to people, you know?
No one in my family is wealthy by any means. After my grandparents' passed, their small estate was used to pay for their end of life expenses and remaining assets split up. Everyone directly related got an equal split (so excluded my dad and the step parents). I don't remember the exact amount I received, but it was around $5k if I recall. My brother gave me his share, too, so I could finish paying off my college debt while the interest freeze was active.
The great uncle from California has kids and grand kids, and great grandkids of his own, and also isn't wealthy. I think one of his kids makes good money doing something in finance, but I'm not entirely sure. I can't imagine he left us anything, as we hardly knew him. My mom, aunt, and uncle only met him a few times in their lives, and my brother and I even less. Grandma and him were close, but I don't think he liked my grandpa much.  
Christmas: December 25, 2023
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I've received a lot of support through my posts and I'm really grateful. Writing these updates have had a therapeutic effect.
Yesterday was Sunday, but I didn't answer my dad when he called. I just really didn't feel up to a pointless chat, so let it go to voicemail. He tried to reach me a few times throughout the day, but I didn't answer.
Our bestie last minute invited us over to his house for Christmas day lunch (today), so husband and I were busy all Christmas Eve making cookies, peanut brittle, and homemade suckers/hard candies for his kids. Mom tried to reach out as well, but I also ignored her calls.
We had a BLAST at lunch! Our friend's kids are a lot of fun to be around. They got some techy presents from their grandparents (Quest vr headset and steam decks, lucky little rascals) Friend and his wife aren't good with tech, while hubby and I are, so we helped get them set up while our friend played a good host to his folks and inlaws. The grandparents didn't realize that a Steam deck required a Steam account, so we got the kids all their own accounts set up, added them to our steam friends lists, and gifted them some games. We also bought them a few VR games for their headset, and they were off to the races with Beat Saber in no time.
As for my folks: My brother texted and asked if we could talk sometime tomorrow. I think me ignoring mom and dad has caused some kind of upset. Which they deserve.  
Brother’s call: December 26, 2023
Spoke with my brother over the phone this morning.
For starters, he apologized for everything. Him and I are good (for now). For a bit of background, my brother and I are only 2 years apart. There weren't a lot of kids around growing up, so the two of us were often stuck doing stuff together. So we have a lot of shared interests and passions. He's been pretty silent on this whole matter, but still "part of the group", if you know what I mean. I think the thought of losing him out of my life was probably the most painful, because he's always been there. He was my rock until I met my husband. He's definitely a Mama's boy, though, so anything mom wanted, he made sure she got. I'm happy to have him back.
Without further ado, here's the story from the horse's mouth:
Mom apparently had a cancer scare late last year (which no one told me about, go figure), and dad had a stint put in his heart back in January (which I did know about). This "sense of mortality" has apparently lit a fire under Mom's ass to get me back home. But since I wasn't reacting to her passive aggressive hinting, she and step mom decided to go full crazy. My great uncle's health was bad, and he'd been asking about funeral arrangements for his sister (my grandma) for a while, so the moms decided to plan it. And use the event as a giant middle finger to me. They kept all the planning pretty hush-hush between the two of them, so no one on our side of the family actually knew about the funeral until like 2 weeks before. The moms said they'd invited hubby and I. No one thought anything about it. No one thought to mention, confirm, or check with me.
The plan was to scatter the ashes, say a few words, and maybe head to town for lunch. It was a small affair. The mom's didn't even tell the family that our great uncle was coming for it. Like I said, it was a small thing. Barely a footnote. No one thought it was odd because we're pretty chill people.
4th of July happens. Hubby and I are out. No one thought to mention it, as we were all busy celebrating and having a great time. Any time the topic of "this weekend" would start, the conversation would be quickly shifted by one of the moms. We went back home.
8th of July happens. Great uncle rolls into town with a few of his kids, grandkids, and great grandkids, and it's a surprise to everyone (but the moms). Everyone drives to the maple grove and the moms have brought a ton of food and stuff. It's a full blown party. No one on my side noticed I wasn't there, because there were so many extra faces outside the usual group. They did the spreading of the ashes, they said their words, they ate, they had a great time. It wasn't until our great uncle left, and all his side left with him, that they realized I wasn't there. And hadn't been there.
And this is where the crazy went up a notch. My brother says the moms were happy no one noticed I wasn't there. And that this was proof to everyone that I needed to move back because I was so easily forgotten about. Because none of them thought to reach out, right? They basically did a ton of guilt tripping manipulation bullshit and it made everyone upset at me for not showing up. Somehow it was my fault for being excluded. So suddenly everyone was on their side with "sticking it to me".
But then a few months went by, and tempers cooled, and then I guess the horror of it set in. Followed by the shame, but by then they were "in too deep". How do you undo something like this? And since I hadn't brought it up, I guess they figured they would all just stay quiet about it and hope I never asked about a funeral.
That's when I discovered the situation from my great uncle's Facebook and called my mom, who panicked and went with the stupidest solution. Claiming I was there. Don't I remember?
I ended up talking with a few friends from high school, mentioning the situation, and word got back to those in town. So suddenly town gossip and little old church ladies got involved. Was I, or wasn't I at the funeral? Did my family forget to invite me to the funeral of the only grandparents I'd ever know? Or am I just causing a ruckus? My brother said they all just went with mom's answer. Of course they wouldn't forget me. Of course I was there. Of course they're good people. And it just snowballed.
The family expected me to eventually fold. I'm usually a nonconfrontational person, so me sticking to my guns was unexpected. And then I missed Thanksgiving. And now Christmas. With no sign of backing down. And I guess the realization that I could just stop being part of their lives is setting in and my parents are panicking. He's tried just getting them to apologize and explain, but stubbornness prevails. They want to rug sweep, but I'm not letting them.
My brother is upset with everything that's happened. He's realized just how crappy it all has been and he wants nothing to do with it anymore. But since he lives with my mom, he can't "get away from it".
He has asked if he can come stay with us for a little bit. I spoke with hubby, and he's in agreement with me that my brother can come crash in our spare bedroom for as long as he wants. Brother works remotely, so it's no trouble for him to pick up and go. I believe he's making the trip today or tomorrow. Not entirely sure, but I expect crap to hit the fan when he arrives.
On a side note, hubby's stoked that my brother and I made up. The two usually game together, but haven't due to "the situation". He's downstairs right now setting up his man cave in preparation for my brother's arrival. I'm happy to see him so excited.  
Brother's Here: December 27, 2023
My brother rolled in late last night. He'd obviously been crying and when I opened the door, he just held me and sobbed. I'd never seen him like that before and soon both of us were just standing in the doorway crying into one another. He kept apologizing. Over and over again. Said he wasn't sure why he went with it. Just kept saying sorry. Hubby got him all set up in the spare bedroom while brother and I talked. My brother's a wreck. He's always been a big guy, but he's lost a lot of weight and his clothes just hang off him. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was on drugs. We talked for a little bit before bed and he re-explained everything for my husband. I'd told hubby the story, but it was just so weird that hearing it again helped.
This morning my brother was up at dawn making some coffee and getting his work day going. Hubby's off all week (lucky) so hubby made us working folk some pancakes and bacon. So far everything's peaceful. We've decided not to answer any calls from our family. They've been made aware that he arrived safely, and that we are going to spend the New Years together, and that we're not answering any calls until January 1st. They may text if they wish. I'm sure they're losing their minds. Serves them right.
Everyone, have a safe and happy new years! Don't drink and drive!  
Happy 2024!: January 2, 2024
I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable holidays, and may the new year be full of joy and happiness!
Not too much of an update. Things here have been quiet. My brother's settled in nicely and he's a great housemate. Our place isn't very big, but we have full basement and a nice outside patio/porch area so it doesn't feel crowded at all with the extra addition. He's a quiet and clean guy. No hassle at all. He got some fresh clothes from the Walmart, a haircut, and trimmed his beard, so he's more "presentable" now. He's a lady killer when he gets cleaned up. He's made nice with the (very nosy, but kind) retired couple next door and is adapting to "city living" nicely.
Folks back home have been mostly well behaved. There's been a few texts back and forth, as we're not answering calls. Mom mainly wants to know when brother's coming back, but he's keen on staying here for a while. Mom said I can't "keep him" and I told her he's a grown ass man and can do what he wants. Brother says he has her blocked after she ORDERED him to return home.
Brother has tentatively asked if he could stay long term, should he decide to, or at least longer than a usual visitor would stay. Which we're fine with. He has a good paying job and could afford an apartment, but he's never lived on his own and I would guess he has some anxiety about it. Should that be the case, he'll start paying us some rent and we'd probably adjust to give him the basement as his own space.  
Had to change the locks: January 17, 2024
My brother is officially staying with us for the long haul. Hubby and him spent all Sunday organizing the basement and shifting things around so he now has his own area to be comfortable in. He's pretty handy and has also started fixing little things around our house. Our windows and doors have never closed and locked/unlocked smoother. He even fixed one of the closets we never use because we can never get the darn door open. Sadly, he also had to change the locks on our house and get us all new keys.
This is because while hubby and I were out this Saturday, the moms showed up. They'd been calling and texting us all week, but we weren't really answering them, so I guess the two decided to drive over and hash it out in person. They have emergency keys to my place, and just let themselves in. Brother told them to leave, they argued, and my nosy (but kind) neighbors called the police when they noticed the commotion. So, we get a call from neighbor's wife, return home to some cops in our yard, all the neighbors out "vacuuming their trees", and my nosy (but kind) neighbors standing on my porch with my brother behind them, doing their best Gandalf "You shall not pass" impression.
Had to talk with the cops, explain that we were having a family dispute and word vomited. I don't really remember what all I said, and was shaking a lot. Our local cops are really great. Fantastic guys and gals in blue, and took it all in stride. It's really cold here, so one had me join him in his cruiser with the heat on, and gave me a bottle of water to calm down while we talked. They asked if we wanted the moms trespassed but I wasn't sure if that counted as a criminal charge so just asked the cops if they could just make them leave, which the cops did with no fuss. I think the moms were shocked we were taking this so seriously. They didn't fight or scream at us. Just left quietly.
My dad promised me he'd make sure his wife left us alone. "Or else". He said he'd also have a stern talk with my mom. Him and I talked Sunday morning, and he seemed absolutely at the end of his rope. Husband jokingly told my dad he could move in, too. To which he declined.
Not sure where to go from here, but we're getting some ring cameras installed once they arrive. And everyone but my dad is blocked. Hopefully they all just leave us alone.  
Nothing New To Report: February 2, 2024
Had a lot of DMs for updates, but don't have much anything to report on. The moms are behaving themselves. All's quiet on the western front. Felt weird ignoring or copy/pasting "no updates" to everyone, so here's what we've been doing, should anyone care.
Dad got a new bird/squirrel feeder from Amazon (looks like a little picnic table for a child's dolly but has a mesh top for the bird seed. I think it's supposed to be for chickens?) It's totes adorbs. To his horror, it also works as a Cooper hawk feeder, so now he's "fortifying his defenses" and putting up some trellises around it. He'll have to wait till warmer weather before planting anything to grow on them.
We had some ring cameras installed and put in a motion-activated camera that double functions as a light bulb. It goes in the light fixture outside the front door and is pretty cool. Video quality isn't all that great, but it's a nice addition I guess. It does overlook the bird feeders, so I've been watching it on my lunch breaks on the days I have to go into the office.
Hubby and brother are feuding. They started a coop farm in Stardew Valley a few days ago and they both want to romance Leah. My husband confided in me that he's also been romancing Sebastian as a backup. I'm not sure why he's keeping this a secret, but he's pretty smug about it.
RELEVANT COMMENTS
fractal_frog I hope your dad can outsmart the hawks!

OOP: He'll be able to, I just know it. He's used to dealing with the wildlife and having hawks about, but he just wasn't expecting one to snag a meal right from his new feeder.
I told him it was "technically" still a bird feeder. Just....for bigger birds. Which he thought was funny. He said he might make a little "no hawks allowed" sign to put up next to it.

MissOP: keep the updates coming. the moms are so close to folding it's just a little bit more. LMAO also, the bro mance between your husband and brother is so cute. lol Honestly, I think your husband making sure he has a side piece of Sebastian is absolutely the play.

OOP: So far still no word from the moms, but I hope you're right. I would love an apology and for us to begin moving past this. But I NEED that apology. I feel selfish saying that, but I refuse to "be the bigger person" on this. I just won't.
As for my brother and husband, yeah, they're basically soul mates. The two hit it off immediately when they first met, and they've been thick as thieves for years.  

Update: February 27, 2024
My dad came out for a visit over the weekend. We had a good time and the weather was lovely for some grilling and beers. It was really nice to see him again and he seemed healthy and in good spirits.
Here's his report from back home: Step mom (dad's wife) has started to realize she's screwed up. I credit her change of mindset to the fact that my dad sat her down and laid it out for her: she leaves his kids alone, or she's getting divorce papers. That apparently shut her up right quick, because they had a prenup done when they married and I'm not sure the details of it, but it wouldn't end favorably for her. She hasn't worked in years, so I imagine she'd be eligible for alimony? But I'm not versed in any of that legal mumbojumbo. Dad didn't seem too worried about it, so I'm not gonna worry about it.
Step dad was pissed the police were involved in the last "mom visit" (despite no one getting arrested or anything) and was in a "the kids are out of control and need to be reigned back in" mindset. When my dad pointed out that "the kids" in question were all in their mid-30s, it took some of the steam out of stepdad's sails. According to my dad, even my mom looked a little surprised when he said that. So, part of me is wondering if a good chunk of this whole thing is my mom not truly realizing that her kids were grown, and no longer children she could make demands of. Both of the moms have left us alone. I expected my mom to continue to kick up a fuss, but I think the cops spooked her.
There was a wonderful suggestion by a comment or to get their pastor involved, which I passed along to my dad. Dad has since spoken to their pastor about everything. He's a young guy, relatively new to their church, and joked that his first month on the job he had to do 3 funerals in a row and his new "flock" were just dying to get away from him, so he's got a sense of humor which is nice. The new pastor agreed to sit down with everyone and help the family hash it all out in a true "Come to Jesus" type moment next month, so that maybe we could celebrate Easter together as our first holiday as a family. Dad said the pastor was aware our family was having some troubles, but unsure of exactly what was going on, and since he was new, the pastor didn't want to pry. He has also agreed to do a small service down at my uncle's maple grove later in the summer, as it usually floods and is a muddy mess all spring. According to my dad, my aunt and uncle are so over all the drama and just ready to move on, so I expect hugs and apologies from them when we next meet.
Stardew Valley Update: My brother was victorious in the grand fight for Leah. It was a hard battle. Well fought. When my husband exposed his plans to woo Sebastian all this time, it was quite the betrayal. Dramatics aside, their farm is really cute and I'm so happy they're enjoying the game!  
Update 4/1 - Final one I think - April 1, 2024
Happy April Fools everyone! I hope you all check your caramel apples for stray onions before taking a bite! I also hope your Easter weekend was a delightful one.
It is with great joy that I tell you all about our most recent update! Possibly even a conclusion to this whole ordeal.
The entire family (aunt, uncle, moms, dads, brother, me, husband) and pastor met at my dad's house and we all sat down to hash the situation out. As expected from what my dad said, my aunt and uncle greeted us all with apologies and hugs, which was nice. My uncle usually helps host the Easter egg hunts with the church and he brought our Easter baskets to give to us in case us kids weren't sticking around the for the weekend. I'm not sure why but seeing it made me tear up and feel stupid, because it was just a basket of candy but it meant a lot to me for some reason.
The pastor led us in a prayer and talked about forgiveness and such. He then asked us all to talk one at a time about how we're feeling and what we want the end result of today to be. No one was allowed to interrupt so everyone got to talk. It was nice. The consensus for the group was that most everyone wanted things to go back to "normal". The only ones who had any variance off this was my mom and step dad. They both wanted all us kids to move back to the area.
The pastor asked them why they wanted us back, and neither could give a good reason other than "because family", and the pastor asked us if we were thriving where we were. And we said we were. He asked if we were happy there. Which we were. He then asked my mom and step dad if they wanted us to give up our happiness to make them happy.
And Mom broke down and said no. We all had a good cry. The pastor then asked about the funeral and lies that led up to it and followed it and how it made us all feel and what we wished we'd done differently if we had the chance. It was all very emotional, but in a good way, you know? Everyone apologized and admitted they f-ed up and did a really crappy thing.
We all talked for a long, long time and the pastor was a great mediator. Eventually we all reached some sort of resolution and I think we're good now. Emotions are still high and a little raw in areas, but we stayed for Easter weekend and had a nice time. We're going to keep moving forward slowly and try to repair the relationship, but I believe we're well and truly out of the woods.
As for my brother, he's still staying with us, and mom will stop trying to guilt trip him back home. He's thinking about renting a small apartment in our area but we're not pushing him to make a decision. He knows he's welcome to stay as long as he wants. I think he wants to try dating (he's had a few girlfriends but never anything serious) and is embarrassed to bring any girls around our place, lol. He's been going to a few random classes/bookclubs at the local library for something free to do and hitting it off with all the little old ladies who attend, and they keep trying to hook him up with girls his age who they know. He has been on a few lunches/coffee dates with a couple girls, but I think he's too embarrassed by the attention to give it a real try at "dating" any of them. He's happy, though, which is all I could ask for.
I'm not sure if there will be any more updates, as I think it's all be resolved about as much as it can be at the moment. I wanted to thank you all for your words of advice and giving me a place to vent and scream into the void. Please be kind to one another and to yourselves. Thank you.
Relevant Comments
emjkr: What a nice and hopeful update, I’m really glad you stuck to your guns when everyone threw sanity out the window!
But, could your mother explain how she thought this would work out in her favour?

OOP: I don't think mom thought too far ahead. I believe she assumed it would all just magically work out the way she wanted it to. She said she wasn't sure what she was expecting to happen (which I think was a lie, but I wasn't going to push it).

mak_zaddy: This was a great update! But ummmmmm no stardew valley update? What gives? Has Sebastian been woo’ed? How’s Leah? What’s happening?

OOP: Sebastian has indeed been wooed (and whoohooed) There's kids and cows and chickens. The two are still having a wonderful time at the game. They're working on completing the community center but it's slow going as they aren't trying to speedrun and just doing things as they want. I believe they're thinking about going into the desert mines once they complete that bundle, but they're both super chicken shit about it!

-my-cabbages: I don't really understand what you had to apologize for ... but I'm glad you're happy and the situation seems to be settling down

OOP: There wasn't much of an apology on my end, as everyone agreed I had done nothing wrong. Mine was more of a "I'm sorry you didn't feel as though I would listen." Type apology, which I don't really believe is a proper apology because apologies like that push the blame back on another. I mostly expressed my feelings and the shock of it all, and how betrayed I felt.  

----NEW UPDATE----

Small, happy update: May 7, 2024 (1 month later)
Things as wonderful as the moment. Still doing baby steps with The Moms. We're texting and talking on the phones more, which is nice. Very civil.
Dad "accidentally" bought a bunch of hand crafted bird feeders at a craft fair. By accidentally, I mean: he had a little too much fun in the beer tent, went for a stroll while step mom wasn't looking, and stumbled upon a guy's booth and bought "one of each". He wouldn't tell me how MANY "one of each" was, but he cackled like a witch when I asked. Step mom said she's forcing him to give a few to me, so I'm expecting a delivery or a Dad-visit any day now.
My brother is officially "going steady" with a girl. We've met her a few times and she seems like a real sweetheart. She's our age and has a little boy (5-6 years old, I haven't asked) from a previous relationship (The dad's not in the picture from what I can gather). She's the granddaughter of one of his Book Club members, so the old ladies made good match makers in the end. The relationship is still very new and I'm routing for them.
No new Stardew Valley updates. Work has been a little crazy lately and I haven't been able to play much of anything, and brother has been distracted by his new lady friend. So, husband finally started Baldur's Gate 3, and fell for Gale's "magic trick" so now those two are a thing. I expect him to be sufficiently distracted from reality for the next few weeks.
 

DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

The listener accidentally calls on a surprisingly polite spirit, and the listener tries to help him pass on
Monetization is okay! No major changes to the script though, if you are wondering about something in that regard please feel free to message me! Let me know if you intend to fill this script and leave me your channel so I can keep an eye out, or post the video and send me a link! Always super happy to see people's hard work! ^-^
Enjoy!
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[Scene opens with some ambient spooky music, and the sound of a ouija board piece scratching on the board, writing something out. Some sort of sound like a phasing in or out of energy or something as the ghost appears]
Ghost: Oh- uh, hello there!
[Sound of the board and piece falling on the floor, followed by a thud]
Ghost: Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you! Are you alright? You didn’t hit your head, did you?
Listener: ….
Ghost: Huh? What do you mean who am I? You already asked if anyone was here! I said yes, and then spelled out my name for you! Remember? This just happened! Maybe you did hit your head…
Listener: ….
Ghost: Oh- well how did you think it was moving on its own then?
Listener: ….
Ghost: Magnets…? Sorry, no. There are probably some spirit boards that are fake, but this one is genuine! It was mine, a long time ago. I was hoping you’d find it eventually when you first moved in here.
Listener: ….
Ghost: Yes, this was my apartment. This was my room, in fact. I was glad you were the one to end up sleeping in here and not your roommate. You seem more in tune with the other side. By the way, love the decor! Some of it is definitely mine, I was glad you put it back up! Most people don’t decorate their rooms with the possessions of long deceased inhabitants that they found in storage boxes in the back of a walk-in closet, haha. I used to live here with my mom, I’m guessing when I died, she couldn’t stand to take some of my things with her. She was superstitious, so she never liked ‘occult’ related things. Although turns out she was right, so I guess she earned an I told you so. Too bad she left before I could get her to notice me. Most people can’t perceive me at all, and well, no one lived in this unit for a long time.
Listener: ….
Ghost: How did I die? My my, that’s an awfully forward question. To tell you the truth though, I don’t remember. The last thing I remember is watching tv in the living room, but I don’t know how much time passed between my last memory, and my death. I know for sure I died here though, I haven’t been able to leave this place. I haven’t even been able to go out into the main hall.
Listener: ….
Ghost: Ah, it’s not all bad! I can still turn the tv on, so there’s that at least! Uh- sorry, a-about your power bill… Ahem anyway, I seem to have this weird… attunement I want to say, to certain things. I don’t know how it works, electromagnetic waves maybe? I didn’t pay much attention in high school science. Or- high school in general, really.
Listener: ….
Ghost: Oh, I don’t know why I’m still here. Unfinished business, I guess? I don’t know, most spirits are angry, vengeful psychos because they got murdered or something. I don’t even know how I died, and life wasn’t all that great either, so I don’t really have anything to be angry about. I mean I miss my mom, sure, but I know my grandparents would take care of her, and she has some brothers and sisters and really great friends.
Listener: ….
Ghost: Aha, no, no girlfriends. No boyfriends, either. No friends, at least not close ones. No one to really miss me, besides my mom. I’ll admit, it does get a bit lonely from time to time.
Listener: ….
Ghost: You… want to help me? Well- that’s really sweet and all, but I don’t even know why I’m still here… where would we even start?
Listener: ….
Ghost: When did I die… I’m not totally sure. My sense of time isn’t great anymore, maybe twenty years ago or so? Things have changed so much, at least what I can see from the window. I’d say a long time.
Listener: ….
Ghost: Obituaries… that’s not a bad idea! At least gives you a place to start! Are you-... sure you want to help me with this? I feel like I’m putting you out, I only wanted to talk to you and say hello, but you’re going out of your way to do something kind for me.
Listener: ….
Ghost: Well, okay, if you’re sure then, thank you! Just one question- how long are you going to leave the creepy music playing? I’m not spooky enough to warrant that. Am I?
[Music stops abruptly]
Ghost: [The ghost laughs] You totally forgot about your mood ambience, huh? Do you like music? I did too. Not too many good ghostly radio stations these days though, haha… but anyway! I think you’ll be able to see me from now on, I sense some sort of… connection with you now through the spirit board. As long as nothing happens to it, I think you’ll be able to see and hear me from now on! I don’t think your roommate will though, so that probably works out for the best.
Listener: ….
Ghost: Thank you, so much… I actually feel kind of hopeful about not being trapped in this tiny apartment for the rest of… well, forever. I finally have a chance. That means a lot to me. I thought you might not be afraid of me, given your apparent interest in spirits, but this is even better than I could have hoped for.
Listener: ….
Ghost: I’m glad to see you’re so enthusiastic, but don’t you think you should be getting to bed? Your schedule on the fridge says you work at 7 tomorrow, and it’s past 11.
Listener: ….
Ghost: Of course! I’m dead, not blind! I can check your schedule just as easily as you can! It was nice knowing when people were going to be here and when they weren’t. I… actually paid really close attention to it. Alright, no more distractions! Get to sleep, or you’ll be totally exhausted for the first day of our investigation tomorrow!
[Listener turns off a lamp and gets into bed]
Ghost: Goodnight. And again… thank you. You’re committing more time to me than I deserve.
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Part 2 coming soon!

Hey folks -
I know I said I was done posting FV content, but as much as I was intending to step away, theorizing about stuff helps order my mind so I am back to posting. My retirement lasted all of a week 😂😂
I want to explore some of the concepts and inspirations of the Fractalverse from Marathon.
For those who don't know, Marathon is a video game series from Bungie (yes, that Bungie)... The series is often regarded as a spiritual predecessor of Bungie's Halo series.
Significantly for us, it is one of Chris' favorite games of all time, and a lot of the content from Marathon is used as inspiration in the Eragon/Fractalverse series.
https://twitter.com/paolini/status/1661742366028623874
Man, I hope the new #Marathon game is good. The original three were a huge, huge influence on me. Some of the best sci-fi writing out there.
One

If it's a game that doesn't use a mouse, like the old Marathon games, then I use 8426 (with 7 &9 for strafing) for movement and left-hand keys like space, command, option, etc. for shooting, swapping weapons, activating, etc.

Two

Hey, big Marathon fan, which is how I found your work. Been listening to your Leela cover a lot while writing.

Three

Marathon series, Halo, Mass Effect, and the Myst series (although those might be counted as fantasy).

Four

Myst (and sequels), the Marathon trilogy, Escape Velocity, Mass Effect 1-3, Halo 1-4, Skyrim, Oblivion, Portal 1&2, and more.

Five

Since no one guessed it, the sketch I posted earlier was from the end-screen of Marathon Infinity, last game in an awesome trilogy.

Six

@TheDragonUniver Ha! I beat the Vidmaster challenges in the old Marathon games, in the Total Carnage setting no less!

Seven!

@ndemordaunt Awesome. Glad to hear it. I've been playing Halo since it was called Marathon. 🙂 Hope you enjoy my future books!

Alright, I think I've proven my point. Let's get started.
First things first, let's talk about the Jjaro:

The Jjaro were an extremely advanced species--or an extremely advanced individual--which vanished from the Milky Way galaxy... The Jjaro possessed high-quality cyborg technology, such as that used to create the S'pht, as well as a star-destroying weapon known as the trih xeem, the ability to move entire planets by warping space around them as was used by the S'pht'Kr, some sort of time manipulation technology, and various ways of dealing with the W'rkncacnter

Sound familiar? Let's take it line by line with a few tangents along the way.

The Jjaro were an extremely advanced species--or an extremely advanced individual--which vanished from the Milky Way galaxy...

Hmm. Extremely advanced species. Who mysteriously Vanished. Check.

The Jjaro possessed high-quality cyborg technology, such as that used to create the S'pht

We'll get into this a bit later, but there is evidence that the Old Ones created/manipulated the Wraunai. Specifically from the Terminology section:

WRANAUI: sentient, space-faring race originating from the planet Pelagius... Some evidence indicates they may have been genetically modified by the Old Ones at some point in their distant past (Appendix III, TSIASOS).

Not a perfect fit, but lines up well enough. This next bit is extremely curious though -

The Jjaro possessed high-quality cyborg technology, such as that used to create the S'pht, as well as a star-destroying weapon known as the trih xeem

A star-destroying weapon. We haven't seen anything like that before... Or have we?
I've speculated on this in one of my previous posts; I think the "star-destroying weapon" is the black ball in this picture, which was some early concept art for TSIASOS.
You see the Black Ball heading for the sun? Check this out -
Compare it to the picture of the Trih Xeem.
Black ball with a trailing cloud, heading right for the sun? It's a perfect match with the concept art.
This is also significant for the World of Eragon, because:
MURTAGH SPOILERS BELOW
The visions from Azlagur all have him "rise" from the ground to "eat the sun"
Which is SUPER significant, because of the implications of the Marathon Infinity backstory:

In Marathon Infinity, a W'rkncacnter is imprisoned in the sun of planet Lh'owon. It is theorized by some that the W'rkncacnter's powerfully chaotic nature may be responsible for the jumps between realities seen in the game. When the Pfhor use a trih xeem device to send the star into early nova, the creature is released, to the horror and destruction of the Pfhor.

We will touch back on the reality jumping in a bit, but for now I want to focus on the "sun imprisonment" theme.
A cosmic-level baddie imprisoned in the sun. THAT is the endgame for Azlagur. Either he is a planetary-level villain, who will "rise" due to the Trih Xeem and Eat the Sun, releasing the equivalent W'rkncacnter, or he IS the equivalent W'rkncacnter, and will rise when the Trih Xeem is released. It all fits in with the concept art above.
And from this, we can deduce the overarching concepts of Angela's storyline.

Q: Will we get Angela lore? I feel like she could have killed Galbatorix and just didn't feel like it.
A: For those who don't know Angela is based on my sister Angela, because she breaks the fourth wall to a degree she has. Not only does she have plot armor, she knows she's in a story and can break the story itself. So, yes, she could have killed Galbatorix, but that would have made for a very bad story. That said, I do have an entire book planned around Angela, and it's very high on my list of books to write because it takes place before some of these other big stories I want to write. And that's also the difficult thing. I have my big storylines, and then I have a couple of one off side books I want to write, and it's just a question of time, energy and effort.

Given her appearance in TSIASOS, we can interpret that Angela is a "cosmic"-level character, who can cross time and space.
So... what's actually going on behind the scenes? We know she's been in/around Nal Gorgoth, and Tronjheim. She's definitely affiliated with the Draumar, and Tenga in some fashion. So... what's the actual story going on?
Let's take a look at the story of Marathon infinity:

Marathon Infinity begins as the Pfhor destroy Lh'owon using a Jjaro-derived doomsday weapon known as the Trih Xeem or "early nova". Unfortunately, the weapon also releases a powerful chaotic being: The W’rkncacnter, which threatens to destroy the entire galaxy. Because of the W’rkncacnter's chaos or by means of some Jjaro tech of his own, the player is transported back and forward in time, finding himself jumping between timelines and fighting for various sides in a desperate attempt to prevent the chaotic being's release.

So the weapon releases a powerful cosmic-level entity, which threatens to destroy the galaxy. And as a result, the "player" jumps around in time, jumping between timelines and fighting for various sides to prevent the being's release.
Sound familiar?
Jumping around in time and between timelines - that's what she's doing with the portals, the non-standard torque gates.
There are a ton of parallels with Angela and time (such as the references to her being a time lord), so for lack of better information, the most informed guess we can make is that she is trying to prevent the rise of Azlagur himself, or the creature freed by the death of the sun from Az "eating" the sun.
For lack of a better answer, Angela IS the player character from Marathon Infinity.
Alrighty, I could make several posts about the above, but for the sake of space and time, let's get back to the original passage.

the ability to move entire planets by warping space around them

Move planets by warping the space around them eh? That sounds familiar:

Then she was soaring through a nebula, and for a moment, she beheld a patch of twisted space. She could see it was twisted by the way it warped the surrounding gas. And from the patch, she felt a warped sensation, a feeling of utter wrongness, and it terrified her, for she knew its meaning. Chaos. Evil. Hunger.

Warping space around a planet. And Chaos... Sure sounds like the W’rkncacnter.
The last piece here also parallels with what we know about the series:

some sort of time manipulation technology,

Time manipulation - We know, based on various clues left throughout the series, that the Old Ones had the ability to manipulate time. Chris indicates as much here:

Right now no matter what way you swing it, we have issues in terms of time.

Correct.

Moving along, let's keep pulling the Jjaro thread together. The paragraph on Technology reads:

Jjaro technology is incredibly advanced and they have made many discoveries about the secrets of the universe. One of their ships, the Manus Celer Dei, was able to survive the closure of the universe, they uplifted the S'pht, defeated the W'rkncacnter, had mastered time control, had a station capable of compressing the mass and energy of a supernova into a black hole millennia beyond reckoning after it was decommissioned and abandoned, and a few of their artefacts were able to create a cyborg who could also survive the closure of the universe and escape it all together.

A station capable of compressing the mass and energy of a supernova into a black hole. And then it was decommissioned and abandoned.
Sound familiar, anyone?
The Great Beacons. That's what they are. The energy of a supernova in the form of a black hole, which were then decommissioned and abandoned.
We know the Great Beacons are no longer functioning. And it sure sounds like the description of a black hole (both in spacetime format, as a "whirlpool", and also visually)

and a few of their artefacts were able to create a cyborg who could also survive the closure of the universe and escape it all together.

Seeker? I'm not sure, but it sure has a lot of durability.
Alright, we're getting up there in word-count so I want to cut this short.
The last piece I want to talk about here are the parallels betwen the Wranaui and S'pht. It's not a perfect match, but there are a lot of overlaps between the two races.
First, the Wranaui:

WRANAUI: sentient, space-faring race originating from the planet Pelagius. Highly complex life cycle, with an equally complicated, hierarchical social structure dominated by Arms and a ruling form. Wranaui are naturally an ocean-based species, but through extensive use of artificial bodies, have adapted themselves to nearly every possible environment. Aggressive and expansionist, they have little regard for individual rights or safety, given their reliance on replacement bodies. Their scent-based language is exceedingly difficult for humans to translate. Even without technological augmentation, Wranaui are biologically immortal; their genetic-base bodies are always able to revert to an immature form in order to renew their flesh and stave off senescence. Some evidence indicates they may have been genetically modified by the Old Ones at some point in their distant past.

So, to summarize:

• Grew up in water
  
• Advanced scientifically due to the discovery of Vanished technology
  
• Complex hierarchical social structures.
  
• Forms & Use of artificial bodies.
  
• Genetically modified by the Vanished/Old Ones.
  

Let's compare that with the S'phet:

The S'pht were brought to Lh'owon by the Jjarro and Pthia as servants. The S'pht terraformed the planet from a barren desert into "marsh and sea, rivers and forests." When the Jjaro left Lh'owon after the death of "Pthia," the S'pht were released from their servitude, split into eleven clans, and leadership of the race was given to the S'pht royals.[6]

Genetically modified. Check.

The Pfhor forced them out of their typical forms, (as seen used by the S'pht'Kr) and into the strange garb of the Compilers and the armor of the Cyborgs.

Usage of "Forms". Check

After Pthia's death, Yrro scattered the S'pht across Lh'owon, separated them into eleven clans

Hierarchical society with different clans (Arms). Check.
The main two differences here are the usage of smell as a language, and the grew up in water.
Other than that, there are a TON of parallels.
Well, we're getting up there in word count and I've just started to ponder and fully understand the connections between the two series.
A few other random connections I noticed (I will add as time goes on):
Nmarhl and Narhl)
L'phet and S'pht
Alright, we are getting up there in word count, so I think that's it from me now. There are a lot more Eragon-specific relationships I've left out of here; I'll cover these in another post over on that subreddit.
Curious to see if anyone else has found other connections - Let me know what you think in the comments!

So i got rear ended on the highway the other day and I've never been in an accident before so apologies for the questions.
The accident happened in stop and go traffic when it was wet from raining a few hours earlier. I changed lanes into a new lane and was fully in my new lane for a good 30-40 seconds. As i braked when the guys in front of me braked, I saw in my rear view mirror the guy behind me coming at speed and rear ends me....now we pull over and 911 says cops arent going to come.
We both file claims and I get a call from his insurance company basically saying that guy claims I cut him off....which is bs. Now the damage to my car is on the bar right side (impact dents and what not) and his damage is on the front left side. The reason the damage is only on one half of the rear of my car is because the guy behind me tried to swerve to the right at the last second to avoid the collision.
Now does this guy actually have grounds to put some of the fault on me? I mean its a "he said she said" situation i guess. I am worried the photo evidence (since damage is only on one side) could actually give him an edge. Should i be concerned and how should i proceed when talking to insurance? Are mediators able to judge from the photos of damage whether his claims are true or not?

My wife's sister Eva has always been the center of attention. She is very self centered and is obsessed with romanticizing her life to her own detriment. She refuses to take a job that she isn't passionate about and has bounced around various countries traveling for the last 8ish years. This wasn't a huge deal, but several years ago, she was impregnated by and married a 20 year old guy.
My wife has always been the responsible one in her family. She raised her other nephew for the first few years of his life because her other sister Dina had severe postpartum depression. Additionally, her parents went through a messy divorce and she had to care for her sisters a lot growing up, so she’s “the responsible one”.
Eva always says that no one has ever helped her and she's always had to do everything herself. That is far from true. She is the kid’s primary caregiver, so I’ll give her credit, but she is by no means raising him alone. She relies heavily on her family for money and childcare. Eva’s father regularly flies her out to see him, paying for everything and also sends her money. Her husband’s family also sends her money monthly. Her mother flies out to her and assists with childcare every month or so for sometimes weeks at a time. My wife flew out when she gave birth, helped with caring for both her and the child afterwards, and none of them to my knowledge ever received a thank you. She thanks them by constantly telling them they need to step up and do more. It's never enough. I'm fully convinced that her family could all care for her 24/7 and she would still tell them they weren't doing enough because she’s fundamentally unhappy and blames everyone else for it.
Her relationship with the child's dad has been rocky from the beginning. She doesn't want to be with him, but she also doesn't want him seeing other people. He’s always seemed like an okay dad, though he travels for his job, so he’s gone for days or weeks at a time. Also like I said, he was basically a teenager when they met, so he doesn’t have much in terms of a career or experience. When he’s home, she tells him he needs to work because they need money. When he works she tells him they need him at home. They live overseas so they do have some free childcare, but she says that it’s not enough time to allow her a part time job.
So yeah, things have never been great and it’s no secret I don’t really like being around her. She’s a pleasant enough person to talk to (most of the time,) but she’s such a chaotic presence that any time we’re with her, I’m on edge. Her family feels the same.
Things came to a head recently when Eva’s husband finally had enough and essentially told her that he can’t make her happy and they need to live separate lives and co-parent. Every time my wife visits them, they inevitably end up screaming at each other, so we all think this is for the best. He’s not the best dad, but he’s far from the worst. He’s also pretty self-centered and romanticizes his life similar to her. Now that they’re breaking up though, she’s accusing him of abuse, though I’m unclear what she’s specifically accusing him of. Since she’s started with those allegations, she’ll also backtrack on them, alternating between being angry that her family won’t support her in her abusive situation, and then being angry that he isn’t around more to help and telling them that she needs him home more. It’s also worth mentioning that her definition of abuse has stretched to saying that her friend abused her by giving someone else a job that they were supposed to give her. Additionally, she was previously diagnosed as a teen for being schizophrenic. I don’t know much about schizophrenia, but she definitely has something going on mentally, though to me it’s more what I imagine BPD or bi-polar to look like. She seemingly floats between multiple different versions of reality, and fully convinces herself that whichever version she’s in right now is the only one there is and ever has been. She’s open to therapy which her family has encouraged and said they’d pay for, but she won’t do the work of actually finding a therapist.
So, now she’s in a custody battle with the father which she’s predictably not handling well. He wanted to move into another apartment in their complex and she refused, saying he’ll be too close. Then she’s refusing to give him the two items from their apartment that he wanted to keep for himself. She’s always been very vindictive once she decides that someone has wronged her. When asked to actually draw up a custody agreement that she’ll agree to she won’t, presumably because she prefers shifting goalposts and not having something that people can hold her to.
It’s new drama every day. She’s constantly berating her parents and sisters for not doing enough for them and “siding with her abuser” when they try and do anything productive with the joint custody discussions. Honestly if it wasn’t for her child, I don’t think they’d put up with it, but everyone is concerned for the kid. He’s so sweet and they don’t want him cut out of their lives. They try to walk a fine line of influencing what they can while stopping short of telling her the whole truth, that she’s the one that’s being unreasonable most of the time. Honestly they’re probably some of the few stable presences in the kid’s life, so they want to make sure they stay in it.
My wife has asked what I think, but I don’t have a great answer. I know generally it’s best to not cater to the demands of someone so toxic and unwell, and by not fully calling her on her shit, they’re enabling her to some degree. On the other hand, they’re right that if they did call her on her shit, she would burn them and likely cut them out of the child’s life. Even if the court battle gets nasty, I don’t see her getting less than 50% custody of the kid. She’s been his primary caregiver and while it’s probably not a great environment mentally for him, it’s not anything that the courts would separate a family over. In general, she’s not a bad mom and doesn’t mistreat the kid from what I’ve seen, though she will weaponize him against the father.
All this is taking a mental toll on my wife, but she’s decided to do what she can to ensure the best outcome for her nephew given the circumstances. So she does what she can to try and influence from the sidelines while also walking on egg-shells trying not to piss off her sister too much. It would be much better for her mentally if she stopped interacting and participating in her sister’s drama, but again, there’s the kid to worry about. She’s tried just engaging less and her sister takes it the same as if she’d disagree with her. Anyone have any advice with how to approach this? What can I do to support her?
tldr; wife's sister is unstable and treats her family poorly but they're forced to cater to her to stay involved her her child's life. What do?

My wife's sister Eva has always been the center of attention. She is very self centered and is obsessed with romanticizing her life to her own detriment. She refuses to take a job that she isn't passionate about and has bounced around various countries traveling for the last 8ish years. This wasn't a huge deal, but several years ago, she was impregnated by and married a 20 year old guy.
My wife has always been the responsible one in her family. She raised her other nephew for the first few years of his life because her other sister Dina had severe postpartum depression. Additionally, her parents went through a messy divorce and she had to care for her sisters a lot growing up, so she’s “the responsible one”.
Eva always says that no one has ever helped her and she's always had to do everything herself. That is far from true. She is the kid’s primary caregiver, so I’ll give her credit, but she is by no means raising him alone. She relies heavily on her family for money and childcare. Eva’s father regularly flies her out to see him, paying for everything and also sends her money. Her husband’s family also sends her money monthly. Her mother flies out to her and assists with childcare every month or so for sometimes weeks at a time. My wife flew out when she gave birth, helped with caring for both her and the child afterwards, and none of them to my knowledge ever received a thank you. She thanks them by constantly telling them they need to step up and do more. It's never enough. I'm fully convinced that her family could all care for her 24/7 and she would still tell them they weren't doing enough because she’s fundamentally unhappy and blames everyone else for it.
Her relationship with the child's dad has been rocky from the beginning. She doesn't want to be with him, but she also doesn't want him seeing other people. He’s always seemed like an okay dad, though he travels for his job, so he’s gone for days or weeks at a time. Also like I said, he was basically a teenager when they met, so he doesn’t have much in terms of a career or experience. When he’s home, she tells him he needs to work because they need money. When he works she tells him they need him at home. They live overseas so they do have some free childcare, but she says that it’s not enough time to allow her a part time job.
So yeah, things have never been great and it’s no secret I don’t really like being around her. She’s a pleasant enough person to talk to (most of the time,) but she’s such a chaotic presence that any time we’re with her, I’m on edge. Her family feels the same.
Things came to a head recently when Eva’s husband finally had enough and essentially told her that he can’t make her happy and they need to live separate lives and co-parent. Every time my wife visits them, they inevitably end up screaming at each other, so we all think this is for the best. He’s not the best dad, but he’s far from the worst. He’s also pretty self-centered and romanticizes his life similar to her. Now that they’re breaking up though, she’s accusing him of abuse, though I’m unclear what she’s specifically accusing him of. Since she’s started with those allegations, she’ll also backtrack on them, alternating between being angry that her family won’t support her in her abusive situation, and then being angry that he isn’t around more to help and telling them that she needs him home more. It’s also worth mentioning that her definition of abuse has stretched to saying that her friend abused her by giving someone else a job that they were supposed to give her. Additionally, she was previously diagnosed as a teen for being schizophrenic. I don’t know much about schizophrenia, but she definitely has something going on mentally, though to me it’s more what I imagine BPD or bi-polar to look like. She seemingly floats between multiple different versions of reality, and fully convinces herself that whichever version she’s in right now is the only one there is and ever has been. She’s open to therapy which her family has encouraged and said they’d pay for, but she won’t do the work of actually finding a therapist.
So, now she’s in a custody battle with the father which she’s predictably not handling well. He wanted to move into another apartment in their complex and she refused, saying he’ll be too close. Then she’s refusing to give him the two items from their apartment that he wanted to keep for himself. She’s always been very vindictive once she decides that someone has wronged her. When asked to actually draw up a custody agreement that she’ll agree to she won’t, presumably because she prefers shifting goalposts and not having something that people can hold her to.
It’s new drama every day. She’s constantly berating her parents and sisters for not doing enough for them and “siding with her abuser” when they try and do anything productive with the joint custody discussions. Honestly if it wasn’t for her child, I don’t think they’d put up with it, but everyone is concerned for the kid. He’s so sweet and they don’t want him cut out of their lives. They try to walk a fine line of influencing what they can while stopping short of telling her the whole truth, that she’s the one that’s being unreasonable most of the time. Honestly they’re probably some of the few stable presences in the kid’s life, so they want to make sure they stay in it.
My wife has asked what I think, but I don’t have a great answer. I know generally it’s best to not cater to the demands of someone so toxic and unwell, and by not fully calling her on her shit, they’re enabling her to some degree. On the other hand, they’re right that if they did call her on her shit, she would burn them and likely cut them out of the child’s life. Even if the court battle gets nasty, I don’t see her getting less than 50% custody of the kid. She’s been his primary caregiver and while it’s probably not a great environment mentally for him, it’s not anything that the courts would separate a family over. In general, she’s not a bad mom and doesn’t mistreat the kid from what I’ve seen, though she will weaponize him against the father.
All this is taking a mental toll on my wife, but she’s decided to do what she can to ensure the best outcome for her nephew given the circumstances. So she does what she can to try and influence from the sidelines while also walking on egg-shells trying not to piss off her sister too much. It would be much better for her mentally if she stopped interacting and participating in her sister’s drama, but again, there’s the kid to worry about. She’s tried just engaging less and her sister takes it the same as if she’d disagree with her. Anyone have any advice with how to approach this? What can I do to support her?
tldr; wife's sister is unstable and treats her family poorly but they're forced to cater to her to stay involved her her child's life. What do?

Hello, sorry if I'm posting in the wrong thread but I don't have anywhere else to go. I don't know if I'm reading the situation wrong/if I'm the crazy exaggerator so here I wanted an outside opinion.
For context, me and my sister were raised by my single mom, who is also an immigrant. My sister has classified my mom as a narcissist and an abuser, and I would definitely agree that she has narcissistic tendencies, they're pretty much in line with the "immigrant parent" experience and although the abuse has lessened with age.
My sister was pretty much the scapegoat and I was the golden child 80% of the time; the only time I was "the problem" was when social issues were involved as I was very much autistic+ADD and had no idea how to relate to others, so I was bullied and blamed for it. My sister has ADHD and was terrible at school, which is where a lot of my mom's anger towards her came from. She's very bitter about the majority of our childhood, which I understand; there are things that happened that I will also simply never recover from, even with therapy.
My sister is bubbly, charismatic, and very empathetic. I can't stress that enough; everyone loves her. She's friends with random people in our neighborhood, she talks to and befriends homeless people, and is training to be a social worker. She has many close friends and talks to them all day and night. Our relationship was pretty rocky when we were kids, and I can't say that we're as close as some siblings are, but I always thought our relationship was okay. My mom would sometimes complain that we were against her, but I think she was just frustrated that we wouldn't turn on each other easily. However, I did start to notice a few things about my sisters behavior that is concerning me.

• She has a victim complex/hard time doing anything important by herself, but only when I'm available to help/do it for her.

I think this is a consequence of her never being trusted to do things as a child, but I thought she would attempt to get better with age. Nope. She would ask me to fill out her student loan and passport forms, saying that she was scared to get things wrong. When I would try to get her to do it herself, she would get upset with me and call me selfish. She says that this is because she feels that she is not smart enough to do anything bc of her childhood; fair, but she's 22 now, so I think she should try to help herself out and try to build confidence. She now pays her friends to fill out forms for her; one of them is actually being paid to apply for graduate programs for her. Any mention of this makes her talk about how badly she was treated as a kid and how its lead to her being so scared of doing anything, so OF COURSE she needs help 24/7.
But at the same time, she goes out of her way to help other people with their paperwork; she even helped a coworker get into grant/loan program for university, and that paperwork was 10 times harder than what she has to fill out. It's very confusing, it makes me feel like she does these things so people like her.

• She hates responsibility.
  I feel like this is her being self aware that she's sort of useless. For example; she doesn't have a credit card, and just uses my moms/mine and pays us back at the end of the month. Recently, I asked her to stop using my credit card since she kept forgetting to pay me the right amount. She also had this habit of using my card as a form of revenge against me if I forgot to pick up her things during my grocery run (she can't drive). She would also threaten to use my card if I didn't do things for her (she said it was a joke, but it rubbed me the wrong way). Anyway, she got upset and said she needed my card for emergencies. I asked why she didn't just apply for a credit card. She said she was unsure if she would be responsible enough to manage a credit cards and make payments on time. But...she felt comfortable using MY card? The one that I have to manage and make sure payments are made on time? I explained how worrisome that was and she just told me I was crazy and controlling.
  

This has also steeped into how she approaches things like deadlines. She missed a deadline for a grant she really needed (twice) and spent an entire week emailing the grant team asking them to accept her application, and then emailing their bosses when they refused. Whenever she's rejected from graduate programs she's always confused and says she should've gotten in, even though there are some clear deficits in her applications.

• She is always telling me how bad of a person I am when I don't do as she says. Like, morally.

A good example I can think of is that she asked me to chip in $23 for her friends birthday; I was confused why I had to pay since the girl wasn't MY friend. My sister argued that since I had talked to her and liked her, this made us friends, and friends contribute to birthdays. She also said if I backed out then she would have to split my part over other people who I would consider to be my friends and that those friends were in tight financial situations, so I would be a shitty person for making them pay extra. I still refused to pay; this really had nothing to do with me. She just looked at me and said that she was surprised that I was such a shitty person. There are similar stories to this; whenever she wants me to do something and I refuse, she makes me out to be a horrible person. Not in a yelling/screaming way; she just comments "oh, never knew you were that shitty" and keeps it up for however long it is until I do the thing she asked for. for some reason I never really saw them as weird until I brought it up with some friends and they said that was messed up.

• She makes fun of/belittles me in front of her friends constantly, but gets upset when I do it back.

^pretty self explanatory. a lot of my sisters friends really like me; I think they see me as a big sister, and a lot of them are in similar situations/career paths as me. They're all very nice. My sister and I are very snarky towards each other, but she is especially mean to me in front of her friends. I'm not 100% sure what she says either; she tries her best to make sure I'm not around much when she's talking to her friends, going out of her way to make sure to exclude me from any plans she makes even when her friends want me to come. She also enjoys rubbing the fact she has friends/plans that I can't join in my face. I'm usually quite busy so it doesn't bother me much, but I have noticed it. she also tends to try and be mean to me in front of them as a joke, but if I snap back I can tell that she gets upset about it. She's asked me to not call her things like stupid in front of her friends (fair, she can be super sensitive about that), but has told many of them about my ASD without my permission (she only asked when they let it slip that they knew). So that's weird.

• she is always switching up the narrative.

this is the thing that makes me feel INSANE. she is always telling me how horrible she has it at home and how much our mom hates her, and how I will never understand how it feels to be her so it's unfair when I call her out on things like not doing chores (like she does to me) because she will always be scolded more harshly than I will be. that's fine, a little grace is fine, but then she'll just outright lie about how "great" she is. For example, in the summer my mother was gone, so we split the chores in the house. I work a lot on weekdays, so she was to take care of general upkeep, and I would do the heavy chores (taking laundry to the laundromat, cooking in bulk for the week, mopping and vacuuming the apartment) on the weekend. I noticed that she would often not be the best at this, but as long as I could fix it on the weekend it was fine. But if I ever messed up, she would be merciless; she refused to wash the dishes for a whole week because I couldn't do them on Sunday since I had extra errands to run that weekend. I brought this up to her and she said we split the chores and that was that. I pointed out that she wasn't keeping her end of the bargain either, but she told me she was simply too busy to keep up with all the work she was being given and that the chore split was unfair anyway. I didn't really know how to deal with that so I dropped it.

• She sets boundaries, but I can't.

There are more issues but I will leave it at this one for last. She has always been very vocal about setting boundaries with me and my mom. For example, we can't give her chores last minute or it messes up her schedule (even if she's doing nothing). She's also really big on talking issues out, but usually the talk just keeps going until we agree with whatever she's saying. Personally, I am the type of person who gets really short and petty when I'm angry, so its not a good idea to talk to me. She will INSIST on talking to me even when I want to shut the conversation down and say my refusal to talk is just proof that she's right and I'm wrong. But if I talk, the conversation will just repeat itself until she gets the answer she wants out of me. She's very good with therapy-speech as well; to be honest, she always sounds condescending when she argues with me or my mom even though she says I'm just projecting. I could be, but I don't hear it when she's arguing with her friends or in online classes.
I'm probably being very one sided here, but whenever I think about some of these issues it just reminds me of my mom in a way. I've survived my mom by just nodding along and waiting for the storm to blow over, but my sisters actions are much more annoying to me for some reason. If anyone has any input it would be appreciated. I don't want to think I'm living with 2 narcissists; maybe I'm actually the problem. because of my ASD I find it very hard to communicate my feelings and I tend to shut up or become very mean and short at random times. I try my best but I do need to work on using my words and making sure they can't be used against me.

The Collect
O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
Readings:
Psalm 97; 99; 100 Reading I Samuel 16:1–13a
Gospel: Matthew 8:18–27
18 Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side.
19 And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest
20 And Jesus saith unto him,The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head
21 And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
22 But Jesus said unto him,Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.
23 And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him.
24 And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep.
25 And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.
26 And he saith unto them,Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.
27 But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!
Commentary:
Our study for today encompasses a collection of seemingly unrelated passages, but when viewed as a whole we find a great lesson in the cost of discipleship; not only for those who made up the first century church but for us today as well.
Although the verses recommended for this day begin with verse 18, by looking back at the rest of the chapter we find information which establishes the scene and gives us context for our understanding. Rather than to take a single verse at its face value, we must always look at the preceding verses as well as those that follow so as to thoroughly understand.
Assuming Matthews recollections of the events of chapter 8 are reflective of works of Christ that hapopened on the same day—and not events from throughout his ministry and lumped together here as Matthew wrote this Gospel years after the fact—we could conclude that our Lord had a busy day.
The chapter begins as Jesus is coming down off of the mountain where he preached the Sermon on the Mount, a great multitude of people following his every step, and a leper comes to worship him, he heals the man and tells him, “See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.” Then after entering Capernium a Roman Centurion comes to him asking Jesus to heal his servant. Impressed by the faith of a man who was not a Jew, but a Roman Gentile, Jesus healed the man’s slave by the authority of his word without even going to the slave’s bedside.
Matthew tells us that Jesus continued to heal many that day, beginning with Peter’s mother-in-law, then many others who were sick or possess by demons.
Our Lord had no qualms about healing the sick, but throughout the Gospels we can detect a note of concern on his part in that many were coming to him, apparently for the sole purpose of the healing of physical ailments, and not for the healing of spiritual illness. We find in more than one place, Jesus making the decision to cross over the Sea of Galilee, presumably so that he could teach away from the crowds that seemed to only want physical cures.
“Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side. And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest And Jesus saith unto him,The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (vs. 18-20)
In a time when most were illiterate and few could even write, Scribes held an important position. Scribes had knowledge of the law and could draft legal documents (contracts for marriage, divorce, loans, inheritance, mortgages, the sale of land, and the like). Every village had at least one scribe, and we can surmise that scribes enjoyed a certain degree of wealth due to the need of their services.
Jesus lived a very simple life, traveling about teaching the people of his plan for salvation, a life that was not glamorous and one without financial compensation. Jesus didn’t tell the man “No, you can’t follow Me.” But He told him the truth, without painting a glamorized version of what it was like to follow Him. This is the opposite of techniques used by many evangelists today, but Jesus wanted the man to know what it would really be like.
“And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him,Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” (vs. 21-22)
“Actually, this man did not ask for permission to dig a grave for his deceased father. He wanted to remain in his father’s house and care for him until the father died. This was obviously an indefinite period, which could drag on and on. This man was another of His disciples; yet he did not follow Jesus as he should have, nor as the 12 disciples did. This shows us that the term disciples has a somewhat broad meaning in the Gospel of Matthew, and must be understood in its context. The man wanted to follow Jesus, but not just yet. He knew it was good and that he should do it, but he felt there was a good reason why he could not do it now.” (Guzik)
“The excuse that this disciple made, to defer an immediate attendance on Christ (v. 21); "Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Before I come to be a close and constant follower of thee, let me be allowed to perform this last office of respect to my father; and in the mean time, let it suffice to be a hearer of thee now and then, when I can spare time." His father (some think) was now sick, or dying, or dead; others think, he was only aged, and not likely in a course of nature, to continue long; and he desired leave to attend upon him in his sickness, at his death, and to his grave, and then he would be at Christ's service. This seemed a reasonable request, and yet it was not right. He had not the zeal he should have had for the work, and therefore pleaded this, because it seemed a plausible plea.” (Henry)
“And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep. And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And he saith unto them,Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!” (vs. 23-27)
“He does not chide them for disturbing him with their prayers, but for disturbing themselves with their fears.” (Henry)
Here we have three great lessons in discipleship. The scribe would have been accustomed to receiving remuneration for his services, a disciple of Christ in those days as well as today must be prepared for hardship. Scribes such as this man enjoyed a certain degree of celebrity, an important man in the community who provided a service that was often needed. Disciples seldom gain celebrity, and the ones that do, frequently experience a downfall. Jesus said; “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Mt. 6:24) Jesus knew that this man would find it difficult to leave that which he was used to and to take up the cross and follow him.
The second lesson involves a disciple—a follower but not of the 12—who would have Jesus wait on him, until the man’s father had died and his affairs settled. Jesus knew his time on Earth was short, his appointment with destiny was just months away, but this man expected Jesus to wait for him.
We have to remember that at this point in his ministry, even the 12 seemed to think that when he established the Kingdom of God, they would enjoy high ranking positions in his administration. So many failed to realize that Jesus was speaking of a spiritual kingdom, a heavenly kingdom, and not a worldly political subdivision. Although Matthew does not make this point clear, we might surmise that this man wanted to be part of what he erroneously perceived to be a glorious worldly kingdom that rivaled that of King David’s era. Whatever the case may be in this man’s situation, when we consider the rebuke Jesus gave him “Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” We can learn of another great cost in discipleship, the need to serve Jesus versus the need to serve our own agenda.
Finally we come to the third lesson. “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” We, as disciples of Christ, must always have faith, even in the face of danger.
Matthew Henry wrote: “His disciples followed him; the twelve kept close to him, when others staid behind upon the terra firma, where there was sure footing. Note, They, and they only, will be found the true disciples of Christ, that are willing to go to sea with him, to follow him into dangers and difficulties. Many would be content to go the land-way to heaven, that will rather stand still, or go back, than venture upon a dangerous sea; but those that would rest with Christ hereafter must follow him now wherever he leads them, into a ship or into a prison, as well as into a palace.”
Benediction
Almighty and most merciful God, grant that by the indwelling of your Holy Spirit we may be enlightened and strengthened for your service; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Thought for the Day:
The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all others, charity.
Benjamin Franklin

The Collect
O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
Readings:
Psalm 97; 99; 100 Reading I Samuel 16:1–13a
Gospel: Matthew 8:18–27
18 Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side.
19 And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest
20 And Jesus saith unto him,The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head
21 And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
22 But Jesus said unto him,Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.
23 And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him.
24 And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep.
25 And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.
26 And he saith unto them,Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.
27 But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!
Commentary:
Our study for today encompasses a collection of seemingly unrelated passages, but when viewed as a whole we find a great lesson in the cost of discipleship; not only for those who made up the first century church but for us today as well.
Although the verses recommended for this day begin with verse 18, by looking back at the rest of the chapter we find information which establishes the scene and gives us context for our understanding. Rather than to take a single verse at its face value, we must always look at the preceding verses as well as those that follow so as to thoroughly understand.
Assuming Matthews recollections of the events of chapter 8 are reflective of works of Christ that hapopened on the same day—and not events from throughout his ministry and lumped together here as Matthew wrote this Gospel years after the fact—we could conclude that our Lord had a busy day.
The chapter begins as Jesus is coming down off of the mountain where he preached the Sermon on the Mount, a great multitude of people following his every step, and a leper comes to worship him, he heals the man and tells him, “See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.” Then after entering Capernium a Roman Centurion comes to him asking Jesus to heal his servant. Impressed by the faith of a man who was not a Jew, but a Roman Gentile, Jesus healed the man’s slave by the authority of his word without even going to the slave’s bedside.
Matthew tells us that Jesus continued to heal many that day, beginning with Peter’s mother-in-law, then many others who were sick or possess by demons.
Our Lord had no qualms about healing the sick, but throughout the Gospels we can detect a note of concern on his part in that many were coming to him, apparently for the sole purpose of the healing of physical ailments, and not for the healing of spiritual illness. We find in more than one place, Jesus making the decision to cross over the Sea of Galilee, presumably so that he could teach away from the crowds that seemed to only want physical cures.
“Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side. And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest And Jesus saith unto him,The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (vs. 18-20)
In a time when most were illiterate and few could even write, Scribes held an important position. Scribes had knowledge of the law and could draft legal documents (contracts for marriage, divorce, loans, inheritance, mortgages, the sale of land, and the like). Every village had at least one scribe, and we can surmise that scribes enjoyed a certain degree of wealth due to the need of their services.
Jesus lived a very simple life, traveling about teaching the people of his plan for salvation, a life that was not glamorous and one without financial compensation. Jesus didn’t tell the man “No, you can’t follow Me.” But He told him the truth, without painting a glamorized version of what it was like to follow Him. This is the opposite of techniques used by many evangelists today, but Jesus wanted the man to know what it would really be like.
“And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him,Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” (vs. 21-22)
“Actually, this man did not ask for permission to dig a grave for his deceased father. He wanted to remain in his father’s house and care for him until the father died. This was obviously an indefinite period, which could drag on and on. This man was another of His disciples; yet he did not follow Jesus as he should have, nor as the 12 disciples did. This shows us that the term disciples has a somewhat broad meaning in the Gospel of Matthew, and must be understood in its context. The man wanted to follow Jesus, but not just yet. He knew it was good and that he should do it, but he felt there was a good reason why he could not do it now.” (Guzik)
“The excuse that this disciple made, to defer an immediate attendance on Christ (v. 21); "Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Before I come to be a close and constant follower of thee, let me be allowed to perform this last office of respect to my father; and in the mean time, let it suffice to be a hearer of thee now and then, when I can spare time." His father (some think) was now sick, or dying, or dead; others think, he was only aged, and not likely in a course of nature, to continue long; and he desired leave to attend upon him in his sickness, at his death, and to his grave, and then he would be at Christ's service. This seemed a reasonable request, and yet it was not right. He had not the zeal he should have had for the work, and therefore pleaded this, because it seemed a plausible plea.” (Henry)
“And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep. And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And he saith unto them,Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!” (vs. 23-27)
“He does not chide them for disturbing him with their prayers, but for disturbing themselves with their fears.” (Henry)
Here we have three great lessons in discipleship. The scribe would have been accustomed to receiving remuneration for his services, a disciple of Christ in those days as well as today must be prepared for hardship. Scribes such as this man enjoyed a certain degree of celebrity, an important man in the community who provided a service that was often needed. Disciples seldom gain celebrity, and the ones that do, frequently experience a downfall. Jesus said; “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Mt. 6:24) Jesus knew that this man would find it difficult to leave that which he was used to and to take up the cross and follow him.
The second lesson involves a disciple—a follower but not of the 12—who would have Jesus wait on him, until the man’s father had died and his affairs settled. Jesus knew his time on Earth was short, his appointment with destiny was just months away, but this man expected Jesus to wait for him.
We have to remember that at this point in his ministry, even the 12 seemed to think that when he established the Kingdom of God, they would enjoy high ranking positions in his administration. So many failed to realize that Jesus was speaking of a spiritual kingdom, a heavenly kingdom, and not a worldly political subdivision. Although Matthew does not make this point clear, we might surmise that this man wanted to be part of what he erroneously perceived to be a glorious worldly kingdom that rivaled that of King David’s era. Whatever the case may be in this man’s situation, when we consider the rebuke Jesus gave him “Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” We can learn of another great cost in discipleship, the need to serve Jesus versus the need to serve our own agenda.
Finally we come to the third lesson. “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” We, as disciples of Christ, must always have faith, even in the face of danger.
Matthew Henry wrote: “His disciples followed him; the twelve kept close to him, when others staid behind upon the terra firma, where there was sure footing. Note, They, and they only, will be found the true disciples of Christ, that are willing to go to sea with him, to follow him into dangers and difficulties. Many would be content to go the land-way to heaven, that will rather stand still, or go back, than venture upon a dangerous sea; but those that would rest with Christ hereafter must follow him now wherever he leads them, into a ship or into a prison, as well as into a palace.”
Benediction
Almighty and most merciful God, grant that by the indwelling of your Holy Spirit we may be enlightened and strengthened for your service; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Thought for the Day:
The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all others, charity.
Benjamin Franklin

https://globalnews.ca/pages/audioondemand/ 11:11AM audio time on Shaye Ganam this morning.
Shaye: ...How would you assess what happened on university campuses in Alberta this week?
Eric: Well, I think a number of things are true. Number 1 is, of course - that is protected speech and of course, that was/did appear to be, by all accounts, a peaceful assembly. So there's no question that because the charter applies, the individuals on those campuses at U of A and U of C, had protected charter rights. Now, the next question. Is/does a no-camping rule - is that a reasonable limit for universities to enforce? And I think there's good arguments to suggest that it is.
I mean, for example, if it's true for this protest, it's got to be true for all protests. So, does it mean that anybody protesting anything can simply move into a university campus and set up camp, and live there, perhaps indefinitely until their quote/unquote demands are met? If the university has to have a neutral approach to all these incidents of speech... so if there's a policy that says, - well, I guess camp is expression so I guess you can camp here - then they have to take that same position with the next protest, and the next protest, and somebody that wants to set up a anti-vaccine tent-city on the campus too. You can't pick your winners and losers.
So, does the university have a reasonable position to say - our campuses aren't equipped for camping? There are not bathroom facilities, there are not cooking facilities. There's a danger to individuals when they are here in the dark without campus security. We wouldn't be able to manage the situation if a counter-protest showed up in the middle of the night. If a fire tears through one of these tent cities and a bunch of 20-year-olds perish wouldn't we be liable? We are not equipped to be a campsite for expression. That seems to be, to me, not a crazy position for the university to take.
The question is, how does it execute that policy and I think that's where, you know, you're going to get a lot of yelling on both sides. But from my perspective, if you've got a responsible policy that says no camping, then what is the way to engage the protesters with that message. How do you communicate that to them? What timeline do you give them to exercise their free-speech rights and have a dignified exit? Or is your first move, on the first night at dawn to send in baton wielding police officers? I think there's some criticism here that that's a disproportionate response to a peaceful protest.
Smart dude. Good interview.

The Collect
O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
Readings:
Psalm 97; 99; 100 Reading I Samuel 16:1–13a
Gospel: Matthew 8:18–27
18 Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side.
19 And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest
20 And Jesus saith unto him,The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head
21 And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
22 But Jesus said unto him,Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.
23 And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him.
24 And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep.
25 And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.
26 And he saith unto them,Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.
27 But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!
Commentary:
Our study for today encompasses a collection of seemingly unrelated passages, but when viewed as a whole we find a great lesson in the cost of discipleship; not only for those who made up the first century church but for us today as well.
Although the verses recommended for this day begin with verse 18, by looking back at the rest of the chapter we find information which establishes the scene and gives us context for our understanding. Rather than to take a single verse at its face value, we must always look at the preceding verses as well as those that follow so as to thoroughly understand.
Assuming Matthews recollections of the events of chapter 8 are reflective of works of Christ that hapopened on the same day—and not events from throughout his ministry and lumped together here as Matthew wrote this Gospel years after the fact—we could conclude that our Lord had a busy day.
The chapter begins as Jesus is coming down off of the mountain where he preached the Sermon on the Mount, a great multitude of people following his every step, and a leper comes to worship him, he heals the man and tells him, “See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.” Then after entering Capernium a Roman Centurion comes to him asking Jesus to heal his servant. Impressed by the faith of a man who was not a Jew, but a Roman Gentile, Jesus healed the man’s slave by the authority of his word without even going to the slave’s bedside.
Matthew tells us that Jesus continued to heal many that day, beginning with Peter’s mother-in-law, then many others who were sick or possess by demons.
Our Lord had no qualms about healing the sick, but throughout the Gospels we can detect a note of concern on his part in that many were coming to him, apparently for the sole purpose of the healing of physical ailments, and not for the healing of spiritual illness. We find in more than one place, Jesus making the decision to cross over the Sea of Galilee, presumably so that he could teach away from the crowds that seemed to only want physical cures.
“Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side. And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest And Jesus saith unto him,The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (vs. 18-20)
In a time when most were illiterate and few could even write, Scribes held an important position. Scribes had knowledge of the law and could draft legal documents (contracts for marriage, divorce, loans, inheritance, mortgages, the sale of land, and the like). Every village had at least one scribe, and we can surmise that scribes enjoyed a certain degree of wealth due to the need of their services.
Jesus lived a very simple life, traveling about teaching the people of his plan for salvation, a life that was not glamorous and one without financial compensation. Jesus didn’t tell the man “No, you can’t follow Me.” But He told him the truth, without painting a glamorized version of what it was like to follow Him. This is the opposite of techniques used by many evangelists today, but Jesus wanted the man to know what it would really be like.
“And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him,Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” (vs. 21-22)
“Actually, this man did not ask for permission to dig a grave for his deceased father. He wanted to remain in his father’s house and care for him until the father died. This was obviously an indefinite period, which could drag on and on. This man was another of His disciples; yet he did not follow Jesus as he should have, nor as the 12 disciples did. This shows us that the term disciples has a somewhat broad meaning in the Gospel of Matthew, and must be understood in its context. The man wanted to follow Jesus, but not just yet. He knew it was good and that he should do it, but he felt there was a good reason why he could not do it now.” (Guzik)
“The excuse that this disciple made, to defer an immediate attendance on Christ (v. 21); "Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Before I come to be a close and constant follower of thee, let me be allowed to perform this last office of respect to my father; and in the mean time, let it suffice to be a hearer of thee now and then, when I can spare time." His father (some think) was now sick, or dying, or dead; others think, he was only aged, and not likely in a course of nature, to continue long; and he desired leave to attend upon him in his sickness, at his death, and to his grave, and then he would be at Christ's service. This seemed a reasonable request, and yet it was not right. He had not the zeal he should have had for the work, and therefore pleaded this, because it seemed a plausible plea.” (Henry)
“And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep. And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And he saith unto them,Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!” (vs. 23-27)
“He does not chide them for disturbing him with their prayers, but for disturbing themselves with their fears.” (Henry)
Here we have three great lessons in discipleship. The scribe would have been accustomed to receiving remuneration for his services, a disciple of Christ in those days as well as today must be prepared for hardship. Scribes such as this man enjoyed a certain degree of celebrity, an important man in the community who provided a service that was often needed. Disciples seldom gain celebrity, and the ones that do, frequently experience a downfall. Jesus said; “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Mt. 6:24) Jesus knew that this man would find it difficult to leave that which he was used to and to take up the cross and follow him.
The second lesson involves a disciple—a follower but not of the 12—who would have Jesus wait on him, until the man’s father had died and his affairs settled. Jesus knew his time on Earth was short, his appointment with destiny was just months away, but this man expected Jesus to wait for him.
We have to remember that at this point in his ministry, even the 12 seemed to think that when he established the Kingdom of God, they would enjoy high ranking positions in his administration. So many failed to realize that Jesus was speaking of a spiritual kingdom, a heavenly kingdom, and not a worldly political subdivision. Although Matthew does not make this point clear, we might surmise that this man wanted to be part of what he erroneously perceived to be a glorious worldly kingdom that rivaled that of King David’s era. Whatever the case may be in this man’s situation, when we consider the rebuke Jesus gave him “Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” We can learn of another great cost in discipleship, the need to serve Jesus versus the need to serve our own agenda.
Finally we come to the third lesson. “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” We, as disciples of Christ, must always have faith, even in the face of danger.
Matthew Henry wrote: “His disciples followed him; the twelve kept close to him, when others staid behind upon the terra firma, where there was sure footing. Note, They, and they only, will be found the true disciples of Christ, that are willing to go to sea with him, to follow him into dangers and difficulties. Many would be content to go the land-way to heaven, that will rather stand still, or go back, than venture upon a dangerous sea; but those that would rest with Christ hereafter must follow him now wherever he leads them, into a ship or into a prison, as well as into a palace.”
Benediction
Almighty and most merciful God, grant that by the indwelling of your Holy Spirit we may be enlightened and strengthened for your service; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Thought for the Day:
The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all others, charity.
Benjamin Franklin

About two years ago, I was in contact with a woman who wanted to write a book titled “Strong Daughters Of Bad Mothers”. She wanted to publicize both her own story and the stories of other women who were willing to share. So she made an online post and received quite a bit of backlash. Because of the term "Bad Mothers". The thread that developed was interesting, but also quite exhausting because of the obvious tunnel vision of some of the commenters. Rather than getting caught up in this useless discussion, I decided to write an article in support of her.
My mother died a few years ago, but being estranged from her years before her death, I know all the struggles someone goes through. I thought maybe, some of you might find my article helpful as well. Sorry, if the wording is a litttle off at times, I had to translate it for this sub. So here it goes:
MEASURABLE SUCCESS / FAILURE IN PARENTING?
So far I haven’t been blessed with the task of being a mother. From my own experience, I can only say what I wouldn’t ever want my child to have to deal with. But could I ever be competent enough to provide at least everything that seems important to me? Love and appreciation without expecting anything in return? The ability to love and care for themselves? Encouragement through weaknesses and promotion of strengths?
At what point does one become "bad" at parenting? Is there a scale? A scale that goes from “total neglect” = “terrible” to “raising a child to be a superhero” = “perfect”? ​​I hardly think so. And why is that? Because of human failure. There are no special categories for that. Though we feel most comfortable when we can put everything in its drawer and label it. But does that mean that once you reach a certain level of failure, you’re not allowed to call things by their name just because they’re not obviously "measurable"?
Imagine this: You trust your dentist to do a decent job, but on almost every visit they pull the wrong tooth or drill in the wrong place - would you say to yourself, "Well, maybe they haven’t had an easy life," or would you rather conclude that you chose a lousy dentist? Too trivial? Too far-fetched? After all, you can't compare a visit to the dentist to a family life, can you? Well, sometimes you can.
Let me further illustrate why the simple adjective "bad" should be removed from the taboo when it comes to parent-child relationships: Have you ever advised a friend/family membeacquaintance to distance themselves from someone? Because you realized that their relationship (developing or existing) clearly wasn’t doing them any good? Have you ever told someone: "This person is bad for you"? If so, did you try to think of a better word? Or did “bad” just roll off the tongue - because it was the truth?
Yes, some of you may be offended when we refer to ourselves as children of "bad" parents. How disrespectful. They gave us the gift of life - or they adopted us. Either way, a total no-go! Right? But maybe you should ask yourself WHY exactly it triggers you so much.
As the daughter of a bad mother, let me tell you this: People who have had difficult, perhaps even traumatic, childhoods are rarely interested in a "revenge" or "shaming" anyone. It's about finally being seen and heard. It's about no longer hiding our scars (physical and psychological). It’s about staying true to ourselves when others lecture us about "family values".
The level of respect and compassion that is undoubtedly given to BOTH bad and good parents is equally due to their children.
If something was "not good"... what was it? Open for improvement? Probably. Not quite ideal? Possibly. Mediocre? Perhaps. But these quibbles over words do not minimize the damage done. Especially when it was just that: BAD.
Awful. Horrible. Disastrous. Traumatizing.
We can add whatever suits our case. Whatever suits OUR FEELINGS. It is primarily a judgment of "parenting", not particularly of the people who dabble in it. For the greatest harm can be done with the best of intentions. Maybe they failed because they "didn’t know better". Maybe they passed on what was given to them. They too were once children, and perhaps they themselves were victims in some way. But do any of these possibilities or facts change the outcome? Or reverse our trauma? Sadly, no.
Deep down, somewhere, there is still is a child reaching out for help because they have been hurt. Don’t shut them up or push them away. Don’t yell at them or tell them “not to be so dramatic”. Instead, just listen. For healing also means acknowledging all the wounds that have been inflicted, both visible and invisible. Don’t belittle them just because you don't like their choice of words.
So please, just take that child's hand. Even if they're already an adult. Listen closely. Watch carefully. It doesn’t matter if you can’t fully grasp the implications of what you're hearing or seeing. Just be open and compassionate. And maybe your own inner child will speak up and have a thing or two to say.
June, 2022

The Collect
O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
Readings:
Psalm 97; 99; 100 Reading I Samuel 16:1–13a
Gospel: Matthew 8:18–27
18 Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side.
19 And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest
20 And Jesus saith unto him,The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head
21 And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
22 But Jesus said unto him,Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.
23 And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him.
24 And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep.
25 And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.
26 And he saith unto them,Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.
27 But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!
Commentary:
Our study for today encompasses a collection of seemingly unrelated passages, but when viewed as a whole we find a great lesson in the cost of discipleship; not only for those who made up the first century church but for us today as well.
Although the verses recommended for this day begin with verse 18, by looking back at the rest of the chapter we find information which establishes the scene and gives us context for our understanding. Rather than to take a single verse at its face value, we must always look at the preceding verses as well as those that follow so as to thoroughly understand.
Assuming Matthews recollections of the events of chapter 8 are reflective of works of Christ that hapopened on the same day—and not events from throughout his ministry and lumped together here as Matthew wrote this Gospel years after the fact—we could conclude that our Lord had a busy day.
The chapter begins as Jesus is coming down off of the mountain where he preached the Sermon on the Mount, a great multitude of people following his every step, and a leper comes to worship him, he heals the man and tells him, “See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.” Then after entering Capernium a Roman Centurion comes to him asking Jesus to heal his servant. Impressed by the faith of a man who was not a Jew, but a Roman Gentile, Jesus healed the man’s slave by the authority of his word without even going to the slave’s bedside.
Matthew tells us that Jesus continued to heal many that day, beginning with Peter’s mother-in-law, then many others who were sick or possess by demons.
Our Lord had no qualms about healing the sick, but throughout the Gospels we can detect a note of concern on his part in that many were coming to him, apparently for the sole purpose of the healing of physical ailments, and not for the healing of spiritual illness. We find in more than one place, Jesus making the decision to cross over the Sea of Galilee, presumably so that he could teach away from the crowds that seemed to only want physical cures.
“Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side. And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest And Jesus saith unto him,The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (vs. 18-20)
In a time when most were illiterate and few could even write, Scribes held an important position. Scribes had knowledge of the law and could draft legal documents (contracts for marriage, divorce, loans, inheritance, mortgages, the sale of land, and the like). Every village had at least one scribe, and we can surmise that scribes enjoyed a certain degree of wealth due to the need of their services.
Jesus lived a very simple life, traveling about teaching the people of his plan for salvation, a life that was not glamorous and one without financial compensation. Jesus didn’t tell the man “No, you can’t follow Me.” But He told him the truth, without painting a glamorized version of what it was like to follow Him. This is the opposite of techniques used by many evangelists today, but Jesus wanted the man to know what it would really be like.
“And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him,Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” (vs. 21-22)
“Actually, this man did not ask for permission to dig a grave for his deceased father. He wanted to remain in his father’s house and care for him until the father died. This was obviously an indefinite period, which could drag on and on. This man was another of His disciples; yet he did not follow Jesus as he should have, nor as the 12 disciples did. This shows us that the term disciples has a somewhat broad meaning in the Gospel of Matthew, and must be understood in its context. The man wanted to follow Jesus, but not just yet. He knew it was good and that he should do it, but he felt there was a good reason why he could not do it now.” (Guzik)
“The excuse that this disciple made, to defer an immediate attendance on Christ (v. 21); "Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Before I come to be a close and constant follower of thee, let me be allowed to perform this last office of respect to my father; and in the mean time, let it suffice to be a hearer of thee now and then, when I can spare time." His father (some think) was now sick, or dying, or dead; others think, he was only aged, and not likely in a course of nature, to continue long; and he desired leave to attend upon him in his sickness, at his death, and to his grave, and then he would be at Christ's service. This seemed a reasonable request, and yet it was not right. He had not the zeal he should have had for the work, and therefore pleaded this, because it seemed a plausible plea.” (Henry)
“And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep. And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And he saith unto them,Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!” (vs. 23-27)
“He does not chide them for disturbing him with their prayers, but for disturbing themselves with their fears.” (Henry)
Here we have three great lessons in discipleship. The scribe would have been accustomed to receiving remuneration for his services, a disciple of Christ in those days as well as today must be prepared for hardship. Scribes such as this man enjoyed a certain degree of celebrity, an important man in the community who provided a service that was often needed. Disciples seldom gain celebrity, and the ones that do, frequently experience a downfall. Jesus said; “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Mt. 6:24) Jesus knew that this man would find it difficult to leave that which he was used to and to take up the cross and follow him.
The second lesson involves a disciple—a follower but not of the 12—who would have Jesus wait on him, until the man’s father had died and his affairs settled. Jesus knew his time on Earth was short, his appointment with destiny was just months away, but this man expected Jesus to wait for him.
We have to remember that at this point in his ministry, even the 12 seemed to think that when he established the Kingdom of God, they would enjoy high ranking positions in his administration. So many failed to realize that Jesus was speaking of a spiritual kingdom, a heavenly kingdom, and not a worldly political subdivision. Although Matthew does not make this point clear, we might surmise that this man wanted to be part of what he erroneously perceived to be a glorious worldly kingdom that rivaled that of King David’s era. Whatever the case may be in this man’s situation, when we consider the rebuke Jesus gave him “Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” We can learn of another great cost in discipleship, the need to serve Jesus versus the need to serve our own agenda.
Finally we come to the third lesson. “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” We, as disciples of Christ, must always have faith, even in the face of danger.
Matthew Henry wrote: “His disciples followed him; the twelve kept close to him, when others staid behind upon the terra firma, where there was sure footing. Note, They, and they only, will be found the true disciples of Christ, that are willing to go to sea with him, to follow him into dangers and difficulties. Many would be content to go the land-way to heaven, that will rather stand still, or go back, than venture upon a dangerous sea; but those that would rest with Christ hereafter must follow him now wherever he leads them, into a ship or into a prison, as well as into a palace.”
Benediction
Almighty and most merciful God, grant that by the indwelling of your Holy Spirit we may be enlightened and strengthened for your service; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Thought for the Day:
The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all others, charity.
Benjamin Franklin

The Collect
O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
Readings:
Psalm 97; 99; 100 Reading I Samuel 16:1–13a
Gospel: Matthew 8:18–27
18 Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side.
19 And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest
20 And Jesus saith unto him,The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head
21 And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
22 But Jesus said unto him,Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.
23 And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him.
24 And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep.
25 And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.
26 And he saith unto them,Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.
27 But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!
Commentary:
Our study for today encompasses a collection of seemingly unrelated passages, but when viewed as a whole we find a great lesson in the cost of discipleship; not only for those who made up the first century church but for us today as well.
Although the verses recommended for this day begin with verse 18, by looking back at the rest of the chapter we find information which establishes the scene and gives us context for our understanding. Rather than to take a single verse at its face value, we must always look at the preceding verses as well as those that follow so as to thoroughly understand.
Assuming Matthews recollections of the events of chapter 8 are reflective of works of Christ that hapopened on the same day—and not events from throughout his ministry and lumped together here as Matthew wrote this Gospel years after the fact—we could conclude that our Lord had a busy day.
The chapter begins as Jesus is coming down off of the mountain where he preached the Sermon on the Mount, a great multitude of people following his every step, and a leper comes to worship him, he heals the man and tells him, “See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.” Then after entering Capernium a Roman Centurion comes to him asking Jesus to heal his servant. Impressed by the faith of a man who was not a Jew, but a Roman Gentile, Jesus healed the man’s slave by the authority of his word without even going to the slave’s bedside.
Matthew tells us that Jesus continued to heal many that day, beginning with Peter’s mother-in-law, then many others who were sick or possess by demons.
Our Lord had no qualms about healing the sick, but throughout the Gospels we can detect a note of concern on his part in that many were coming to him, apparently for the sole purpose of the healing of physical ailments, and not for the healing of spiritual illness. We find in more than one place, Jesus making the decision to cross over the Sea of Galilee, presumably so that he could teach away from the crowds that seemed to only want physical cures.
“Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side. And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest And Jesus saith unto him,The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (vs. 18-20)
In a time when most were illiterate and few could even write, Scribes held an important position. Scribes had knowledge of the law and could draft legal documents (contracts for marriage, divorce, loans, inheritance, mortgages, the sale of land, and the like). Every village had at least one scribe, and we can surmise that scribes enjoyed a certain degree of wealth due to the need of their services.
Jesus lived a very simple life, traveling about teaching the people of his plan for salvation, a life that was not glamorous and one without financial compensation. Jesus didn’t tell the man “No, you can’t follow Me.” But He told him the truth, without painting a glamorized version of what it was like to follow Him. This is the opposite of techniques used by many evangelists today, but Jesus wanted the man to know what it would really be like.
“And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him,Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” (vs. 21-22)
“Actually, this man did not ask for permission to dig a grave for his deceased father. He wanted to remain in his father’s house and care for him until the father died. This was obviously an indefinite period, which could drag on and on. This man was another of His disciples; yet he did not follow Jesus as he should have, nor as the 12 disciples did. This shows us that the term disciples has a somewhat broad meaning in the Gospel of Matthew, and must be understood in its context. The man wanted to follow Jesus, but not just yet. He knew it was good and that he should do it, but he felt there was a good reason why he could not do it now.” (Guzik)
“The excuse that this disciple made, to defer an immediate attendance on Christ (v. 21); "Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Before I come to be a close and constant follower of thee, let me be allowed to perform this last office of respect to my father; and in the mean time, let it suffice to be a hearer of thee now and then, when I can spare time." His father (some think) was now sick, or dying, or dead; others think, he was only aged, and not likely in a course of nature, to continue long; and he desired leave to attend upon him in his sickness, at his death, and to his grave, and then he would be at Christ's service. This seemed a reasonable request, and yet it was not right. He had not the zeal he should have had for the work, and therefore pleaded this, because it seemed a plausible plea.” (Henry)
“And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep. And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And he saith unto them,Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!” (vs. 23-27)
“He does not chide them for disturbing him with their prayers, but for disturbing themselves with their fears.” (Henry)
Here we have three great lessons in discipleship. The scribe would have been accustomed to receiving remuneration for his services, a disciple of Christ in those days as well as today must be prepared for hardship. Scribes such as this man enjoyed a certain degree of celebrity, an important man in the community who provided a service that was often needed. Disciples seldom gain celebrity, and the ones that do, frequently experience a downfall. Jesus said; “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Mt. 6:24) Jesus knew that this man would find it difficult to leave that which he was used to and to take up the cross and follow him.
The second lesson involves a disciple—a follower but not of the 12—who would have Jesus wait on him, until the man’s father had died and his affairs settled. Jesus knew his time on Earth was short, his appointment with destiny was just months away, but this man expected Jesus to wait for him.
We have to remember that at this point in his ministry, even the 12 seemed to think that when he established the Kingdom of God, they would enjoy high ranking positions in his administration. So many failed to realize that Jesus was speaking of a spiritual kingdom, a heavenly kingdom, and not a worldly political subdivision. Although Matthew does not make this point clear, we might surmise that this man wanted to be part of what he erroneously perceived to be a glorious worldly kingdom that rivaled that of King David’s era. Whatever the case may be in this man’s situation, when we consider the rebuke Jesus gave him “Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” We can learn of another great cost in discipleship, the need to serve Jesus versus the need to serve our own agenda.
Finally we come to the third lesson. “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” We, as disciples of Christ, must always have faith, even in the face of danger.
Matthew Henry wrote: “His disciples followed him; the twelve kept close to him, when others staid behind upon the terra firma, where there was sure footing. Note, They, and they only, will be found the true disciples of Christ, that are willing to go to sea with him, to follow him into dangers and difficulties. Many would be content to go the land-way to heaven, that will rather stand still, or go back, than venture upon a dangerous sea; but those that would rest with Christ hereafter must follow him now wherever he leads them, into a ship or into a prison, as well as into a palace.”
Benediction
Almighty and most merciful God, grant that by the indwelling of your Holy Spirit we may be enlightened and strengthened for your service; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Thought for the Day:
The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all others, charity.
Benjamin Franklin

It is a man, old and scraggy. He wears a jacket that lays over the red plaid button shirt and blue jeans. He wears an old baseball cap and a pair of glasses. He yelled something to Dad, holding his hands up like he was pleading, although we couldn’t hear it over the truck engine. They talked, but we couldn’t hear what they were saying.
“Hey, what are they saying”, I asked, while petting Matt’s hair, calming him. The old man then put his hands down and came close to Dad in a cautious way. They seem to start having some kind of conversation.
“I don’t really know, hopefully, something good”, Mom answered. They talked for a little while, with daylight beginning to disappear, giving us a sense of dread, and making me more worried about what weird creature was going to show up. Eventually, the old man turned and pointed toward what I think is the northeast. They then shook hands and walked back to their respective vehicles. “What’s going on”, Mom asked as Dad got into the truck.
“Well, our new friend here invited us to dinner at his farm”, Dad replied.
“Does he have supplies?”
“Well, he says has supplies for us to make the journey.”
“Should we even trust him? We just met h-”
“Relax, he’s just an old man, living alone at his farm, feeding his cows. What could go wrong”, Dad countered. The old man then entered the truck that was running and drove slowly, expecting us to follow him.
“Alrighty then, but we have to be cautious”, Mom said, with her suspicions of the old man. We then followed the old truck along the dark, frozen road. It just feels like something is going to show up along the road, but nothing happened. Matt did eventually stop crying, but he is still upset about the Joe escape thing.
“Where are we going”, Matt lamented, with the prior series of events in mind.
“I guess somebody is offering us dinner”, I answered.
“Why can’t we just go home?”
“It’s only going to be a stop, like a hotel. After that, we go to our new home, I guess”, I said, taking another look at Matt and cradling to comfort him. “It’s going to be okay.” I stared out into the darkness. I looked to the sky from the window and I faintly saw something in the clear, dark sky, lit up by the waning moon. They were brilliant, green auroras that defy the bright moon, dancing across the sky like ribbons in the wind. The truck eventually took a right-hand turn into another road, with us following suit. I can see a bright, orange light emerging from a patch of tree. When we passed by, it seemed it was a house, at a farm, burning in a massive flame.
“I guess those people aren’t so, uh, lucky”, Dad said, taking a quick look at it before looking at the road. Passing by, we went on and continued to follow the old man’s truck. We passed onto another intersection until he turned into a driveway to what I believe to be his farm. Going into the driveway, I can see an old house, along with a dilapidated farm further away, barely visible by the headlights. The old man parked by the house, where there were a few other trucks there. We parked alongside the truck and we got out into the cold, near-silent night.
“Welcome to sanctuary, where all are welcome”, the old man bellowed. This is the first time I’ve heard his voice. Matt was the last to get out of the truck, slowly and clumsily climbing out of the truck.
“What’s your name”, my Mom politely asked the old man.
“Oh, I guess your husband didn’t tell ya. My name is Steven, but you can call me Steve”, the old man said, with some crackling in his voice. “I am very proud to host a dinner for you and your family”, he continued. “What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Oh, my name is Janice”, Mom replied, quite pleased at his politeness.
“Hello, Janice, and what are their names”, Steven asked, pointing to me and Matt.
“That’s my daughter Kate and my son Matt”, Dad said to Mom.
“Oh, what wonderful names for a couple of beautiful children you have”, Steve grinned. “Come, it is dangerous out here.” We followed him to the house, which looked like it had seen better days. He entered through the double-set door, the first a solid door and a screen door behind. Entering the house, it smelled like what you’d expect, old man. Looking onto the floor is made of glossy wood and walls with cracks, likely caused by the earthquake. It is dark in there, lit by candlelight from many candles, yet it’s fairly warm here. I don’t know why we went into the house, but Dad was right, Steve is just a lonely, old man. Matter of fact, there seems to be nothing wrong here, other than the cracks in the walls. “Sorry, the power went out. Had to resort to the candles. I knew my wife would come in handy”, Steve explained as he took his coat off. “Oh, supper will be ready right away. Had to use the fireplace to cook. Also, can you take your boots off?” We took our boots and set them aside. We went into what seemed to be a living room, with dusty old-style furniture.
“So, where do we sit”, Mom asked.
“Oh, well, follow me”, Steve commanded, leading us to the dining room, with a long, wooden table and six wooden chairs, along with their corresponding old-fashioned plates, glasses and cutlery, lit up in the candlelight. We noticed that everything on the table was covered in a thin veil of dust. “My apologies, the recent shocks dropped a bit of dust on the table”, he explained as he noticed us looking at the plates and moved into another room nearby. “Take your seats if you like.” We all settled onto the chairs, and blew off our plates of the dust settled there.
“When will we eat”, Matt impatiently said.
“Once Steve comes out with the food”, Mom answered. Matt sat there with a tired look on his face. Dad seemed to be in a better mood than before and it looked like he wanted to start a conversation.
“Hey, should we talk about something”, Dad asked. I then see Steve with a bowl and a silver plate.
“Here we go, may not be much, but at least it’ll fulfil the soul”, Steve said, smiling when he served us mashed potatoes and meatloaf. “So, shall we pray?” That came unexpectedly, as we are not too religious, but we were in his house and gave us shelter and food.
“Sure, we can do that”, Mom said and we all bowed our heads and put our hands together. Steve cleared his throat
“Thank you, Lord, for this good food to feed the soul in these hard times. I shall pray, in the name of the Lord and Jesus Christ, that these hard times shall be over, so we can get on with our lives. Amen.” We raised our heads and grabbed whatever food there was onto our plates. “Oh, there’s no gravy, so we have to deal with bare potaters and meatloaf.”
“Oh, not to worry. Thank you for the food”, Dad thanked Steve. We began to eat the food once we got it sorted.
“So, what brings you here”, Steve asked.
“Well, there is an evacuation order in effect for this area, so we had to go to Regina”, Dad explained, with Steve taking in every word. “So, we came from Strasbourg, we tried going south towards Regina, but we hit an obstacle in the way and we had to take another route, leading us here.”
“And we encountered a few odd things along the way”, Mom added.
“Huh, interesting. What do you guys think is going on”, Steve inquired.
“By the things we saw, we have no idea. Dinosaurs, devil dogs, hell pigs, the whole deal. I shouldn’t forget the earthquake. They told us a pipeline leak caused by the earthquake”, Dad clarified to Steve.
“Hmm… is that so”, Steve wondered. “Wonder what I think is happening? The Rapture is happening. Do you know how the Bible tells us of the end times? Good people sent to be with God and his kingdom, the rest here to suffer the Hell unleashed by Satan.” By this point, he was beginning to rant, but we couldn't stop it as we all began to feel tired and powerless. “So, the Devil will send his demons in the form of these illusions so that they can torment the sinners. It is happening, it is-” Steve manically continued as I drew towards blackness and his voice becoming less coherent. My vision is now all black.
I saw those same lights, but more rapidly than before. I then emerged onto the same clear sky, but something felt different. I can smell something in the air. I can smell what seems to be chemicals in the air. Looking down, I was terrified. Dark, grey rock in the shape of ropes and folds, similar to those I saw of lava flows on a volcano in pictures. This went on as far as the eye could see. I can see no tree this time, just the cooled lava everywhere. I then walked, feeling every bump and crag. I thought I walked forever until I heard a rumbling sound and woke up.
I am in total darkness. It is cold and it smells like cow manure. I tried to move my hand, but it seemed to be bonded behind my back by a rope. I tried to move my feet, but they were also bound by rope to the legs I tried to speak, only to realise my mouth was agape by a cloth in my mouth. I heard shuffling nearby but I could not see. It was then shone in light when Steve entered the door, holding a candle, revealing all of us in the same situation. I then can see what we are in. We are in that same wooden dilapidated barn we saw earlier and seems to be more damaged than the house, wood creaking can be heard.
“These sedatives are more effective than I thought. Maybe I should use them more often”, Steve smoothly explained, like he’s some kind of agent and began pacing. “Wonder why you are here? Well, I wondered the same thing to myself, why didn’t God take me to his heaven? When I first heard of the government telling us of those evacuation plans, I thought it was that, a leaking pipe. I began to notice things I couldn’t believe myself, at least at first. Earthquakes, weird creatures showing up, people disappearing, the whole spiel. I connected the dots. The Rapture is happening, for sure, but why me? Why was I the one left here on this Earth”, Steve calmly ranted, pacing around the barn, but it seemed to sound crazier and angrier the more he paced. “I thought I had lost my way. I’ve been unfaithful to God and his son. But, I realised that God always has a plan and he left me on this Earth to serve a purpose. I wondered what my purpose was until I had a moment.” He then stopped in place and calmed down. He turned to look at Mom with accusing yet crazed eyes.
“I’m supposed to keep the sinners here in line, to earn a place in God’s kingdom, or suffer in Hell. I know you are a sweet woman, Janice, but your treachery with Satan is over and I am going to do what’s right.” Mom then looked at all of us, with assuring eyes like that of an innocent yet caring mother we all know knew. I began crying and trying to speak through the cloth, but I was helpless to watch by. “Forgive me, Father, for what I am going to do.” He then pulled a knife from his pocket and plunged it into Mom’s neck with no mercy. I looked away once he did that, trembling, with tears pouring out and my vision glazed and I fell limp. I could see my brother tearing up, but he did not look away. I can hear Dad behind me, with his screams of agony and anger covered by the cloth. It felt like I was in slow motion, taking in every moment.
I then heard the chair, screeching as Steve dragged the chair containing Mom’s lifeless body towards the door, leaving behind a trail of blood. I couldn’t bear to see my mother like this. I shut my eyes very hard and hoped it would go away. The door then shut, leaving us alone with a candle, fearing what would come next. I stared at the candle, seeing it dance in the flames like a woman dancing in the darkness. Is this how it’ll end, I thought. End up dying to this sick man? My Mom was killed in front of me. I sobbed with that thought, then I began to think about the inevitable death of me. I hope there’s something after I die. Maybe I’ll see Mom again.
It was silent for a while, nearly no sound other than our moans. Dad seems to be fidgeting at the back of his chair, rocking it slowly. Looking past him, I shuddered at the glistening pool of blood, where Mom was last alive, could be my fate. I then see Dad release his arms from the back of the chair and remove the cloth from his mouth. He silently stood up and bent down to untie his legs from the chair legs. He then went to me and removed my cloth.
“H-h-how did you do that”, I silently wept, fearing that Steve would show up at the door and kill us all.
“My binding is loose. The old man probably took a liking to me”, Dad whispered. “I should remove your binds.” He untied them, releasing me, doing the same for Matt. “Now, we need to be quiet.” We then walked, quietly, along the painfully creaking wood in the near dark, following the blood trail, glistening in the candlelight. We cringed and dreaded each sound we made and watched the door in case it began to creak open. A few silent steps later, we made it to the door and we slowly opened it so as not to make any noise. What was revealed to us is nothing new, other than the blood trail continuing in the snow directing towards the back of the barn. “Okay, Kate, Matt, you guys run to the truck.”
“What about you”, I sobbed.
“Don’t worry about me”, Dad responded, giving me his keys and forcing them into my hand. “If I’m not back in a few minutes, leave. Don’t look back, take care of your brother, okay? I love you, no matter what happens.” He then kissed me on the head and ran to follow the blood trail. We quickly walked towards the black truck, stranded there for maybe hours. Getting closer, freedom is getting closer. When we got to a fair distance to the truck, I heard footsteps behind me and, the next thing I knew, I was knocked over to the ground into the hard snow on my face. A hand turned me over to give me a glimpse of a crazed Steve, his eyes wilder than before.
“Oh, yes, trying to escape”, he bragged. I looked at him, frozen in fear, like a deer in headlights and he caressed my face with his bloodied blade. “You do have a pretty face, but I’m afraid you are just one of Satan's creations, made to pull me to lust.” He then raised his knife in the air when a familiar side emerged, out of the blue.
Joe came and bit him in the arm that was holding the knife. Steve screamed in agony the moment he realised what happened. He shook Joe off and stood up to stand his ground. I stood up as Joe hissed and walked around the crazed being he wounded, not in fear but in aggressiveness. “Is this one of your pets, demon”, Steve screamed as Joe came in for another attack, but Steve countered that with a slash to the snout. Joe then ran away, whining, into the darkness. This sequence of events gave me the chance to enter the truck on the driver’s side. I had some trouble starting it, besides this is my first time driving a truck.
Steve menacelily walked towards the when Dad came barreling and tackled him to the ground. Dad was on top when he went limp. I finally put the keys in the engine turned it on and backed out, with memory serving me the instructions on such a vehicle. Steve pushed Dad’s body and stood up, but by that time, we left the farm.
“Turn back, we have to get Dad”, Matt cried, but I was very emotional, accepting what happened. I felt that, without my parents, I feel… useless.
“Dad’s dead”, I screamed at Matt and he began gagging uncontrollably in tears. I began to feel sorry for him. “Sorry, I, I don’t know.”
“It’s okay”, Matt sniffled. “I guess Mom and Dad are dead anyways.” It was silence for a few more minutes, tears welling in our eyes.
“Hey, our parents are in a better place”, I said, trying to make the situation positive.
“But we are stuck here, without them? Don’t we deserve to go to a better place?”
“Don’t say that”, I huffed and I paused for a bit. “I know we are in the, uh, right place now. Let me tell you something, once we get to Regina, I will take care of you, no matter what life throws at us.”
“What about Joe”, Matt asked.
“He’ll be fine. He probably found his girlfriend already.”
“Hey, don’t you have a boyfriend?”
“I, uh, I don’t have one. That I know of”, I spoke, bringing me back to Sam, remembering that she’s the only friend that I ever knew, and I left her. Without her, I felt alone, no one would ever relate. I began to tear up. “I don’t have any friends. I am alone,” I sobbed.
“What do you mean? I’m your brother!” I looked at Matt, and smiled, happy that he acknowledged that we were in this together.
“Thank you”, I thanked him. I slowly stopped on the road, just to hug Matt hard, crying my eyes out. We then heard what sounded like an elephant in front of us. We looked up to see a walking snow-covered brown fur wall with four pillar-like legs in front of us. Its curved tusks gleaned in the light and the eyes reflected in the light. The furry trunk waved around like a searching snake from a tree. We both knew what it was.
“Hey, look at that, a woolly mammoth”, Matt said, excitement running through him. At this point, we weren’t surprised.
“Yep, that is a woolly mammoth”, I added. The mammoth turned to us on the road, seemingly confused about where it was. It looked at our truck and seemed to growl, like an elephant. We are starting to realise this thing is becoming aggressive.
“Uh, should we move”, Matt asked. I remembered hearing something about standing your ground in case of an encounter with an elephant. I hoped it would work for a bigger, furrier version of one.
“No, we have to stand our ground.”
“But, it’ll attack u-”
“Trust me!” I then honked my horn and it backed up. It then rushed, then stopped, a mock charge. Eventually, it moved out of the road, disappearing into the darkness. We sighed in relief.
“That was close”, Matt sighed. I then continued to drive in the night, headlights leading the way. The road is bumpy, as noticed by every ditch and peak we hit, but surprisingly, Matt was fast asleep. I began to get comfortable driving and used to the road by that point. It was silent for a while until we hit a smaller intersection. That is when the truck shut down, completely and stopped. I tried the gas many times but with no effect. There is no light, nothing. It is near-darkness here, shone only by the moonlight.
“Shit”, I yelled, desperate to turn the truck on without much success. Matt woke up, confused.
“What happened”, he yawned.
“The truck turned itself off. I can’t get it back on”, I fretted and at that moment, Matt was just as panicked as I am.
“Why?”
“I-I don’t know. One moment, we were driving, another it just-”, I quavered, when I heard something rustle in the distance. We stood still, hoping whatever it was didn’t find us. I looked around, hoping to see something in the moonlight. I then see a long, walking animal. It looked like some sort of alligator at first, except for a dinosaur-like head. Once I strained my eyes to the darkness, my fear levels rose as I could see it walk on its hind limbs, with its forelimbs dangling nearly touching the ground.
It was wandering around on the road when I heard a near-crocodilian growl at Matt’s side of the truck. Another of those creatures appeared, seemingly looking into the window like a hungry bear, giving us a chance to see its scaly head. Its exposed alligator teeth gleaned in the light like knives, but more terrifying was the eye. Its serpentine pupil shone brilliantly in the light like eyes in the dark. It then ducked down, gave a hiss, and moved towards the other one. A few more showed up and formed a group.
“What should we do”, Matt asked. “Should we stay?” I looked around, hoping for another way to escape them without them noticing. I further strained my eyes and mentally mapped out the area. There is a cemetery on my right-hand side, a grain bin storage yard on my left and a series of trailers on the other side of the highway, which is ahead of us, from the storage area. There, I see a series of white, storage buildings, something we can go to and wait it out inside.
“Okay, so slowly open the door”, I instructed Matt. The click of the doors opening cringed us. We looked at the group, but there was no response from them. We then, as slowly as we could, opened the door and stepped out. Still no response. Matt then quietly ran to the other side, towards me. “Okay, we are going into the storage yard and go to the other entrance”, I said, pointing to the other right-hand corner. I wanted to get as far away from these things as possible before making a safe crossing. “Then, we cross the highway on the other side, run into the buildings and stay there for the night. Are you ready?”
“I guess”, he whispered, looking at me in fearful doubt.
“We are going to do this”, I whispered back. We then silently ran over, having to rely on our night-adapted eyes, to the corner, walking past the bins. We made it and nothing behind us so far. “We’re good so far.” We then crossed the road and noticed nothing. We noticed a tanker truck, leaking some sort of fluid across the road. I easily recognized it as fuel, based on its distinctive, sickly smell. I wouldn’t be worried about it if it weren’t for a collapsed light pole that is somehow still flickering with electricity near the area where the fuel would be flowing. We quickly avoided the fluid when I froze to see the group of the walking alligators, running towards us. “Run!” Matt tried to run, but one of those things appeared and clamped its jaws at the back of his neck. He yelped in pain and it took him down to the ground. “Matt”, I yelled, helplessly watching as the creature tore into him.
Matt reached out his arm before the others came to him, then a flash of fire came. At this point, I knew what happened, but I couldn’t even think before it exploded. It blew me towards the building, far away. I was knocked out for a few seconds before I regained consciousness, groaning in pain on the ice. I noticed something especially painful just below my chest. I reached towards the area with my hand. I pressed on it, more painful than ever and raised my hand, only to see blood, brightened by the fire. I realised I was wounded, maybe by shrapnel made by the explosion.
I looked toward where the truck was and all I saw was a blaze. Those things weren’t there, at least. I also noticed something else, too, there’s no Matt. I tried to look around for something, some sort of sign of my brother within the fire, but I saw none. I then wept, realising I had failed. I have failed to keep him safe. I have failed to give him a better life. I failed him as a sister. I could’ve done better. The thoughts poured in as tears glazed my eyes. At that moment, I failed to look around me.
I noticed a dark thing beside the blaze. I thought it was Matt, preparing to greet him back, even though I knew he couldn’t survive the explosion. The image became clearer and clearer as I noticed it was one of the walking crocs that, glazed by the fire, was coming towards me.
“Just kill me”, I screamed, preparing to painfully die to meet my maker. The creature was about to attack me when something large, silent as the wind, came charging and clamped down its massive jaws, filled with conical teeth on the hapless creature and raised it. The crocodile struggled before going limp with a crunch within its strong jaws. The big, dark and scaly monster that it is towered over me and is as long as a bus, possibly longer. Its large legs are a contradiction to its small arms that hide beneath its scarred, bulky body.
It turned to look at me with an oddly bird-like expression, revealing in the firelight numerous scars from battles I could never know and looked at me with its beady bird-like eyes, breathing out wisps from its nostrils like a dragon in the cool air. I recognized it as a creature I know too well, a T. Rex. I breathed heavily and sickly, looking at the thing, nearly expecting me to drop the body and go after me. Instead, it simply walked away, carrying its bloody prize with it, and steadily retreated into the darkness.
I then lay down in agonizing exhaustion on my back, thinking of the next step of action like I'm on a suicide mission I would never come back from. I looked in the direction of the graveyard and had one thought. I guess I am dying. a graveyard will do. I struggled to stand up, noticing my blood-soaked clothes and felt a broken left leg. I grasped my wound, limping step by step and enduring the sharp pain while shaking in the cold. Every step I took, I remembered all the memories, good or bad, that I had with my parents. My brother. My friends. My family. I eventually reached the cemetery and slouched at a tree.
“Guess I’m joining you, guys”, I said, speaking to the snow-covered gravestones, only to hear something. A familiar sound of chirping emerged and, lit by the blaze, it was a sight I can hope for. “Joe, what are you doing here”, I depressingly cheered as Joe went to me and curled up in my lap as if he were a cat. I noticed the new-found scar he had on his little snout, but I paid no mind as I petted him. “I guess you came back. Thank you so much for what you did”, I thanked him, not expecting such a loyal creature would be with me, comforting me, to the end, like what my mother used to do when I was a newborn. I heard another noise, this time a deep rumble.
I thought it was another earthquake coming, but it got louder the closer it got to me, becoming more animalistic only felt small vibrations I barely felt. Joe stayed put, oddly enough, as T. Rex, different from the first one, came. It walked towards us until it stopped short of us. It began to produce a low-pitched, bird-like purring, attracting Joe. I realised something, that this T. Rex is Joe’s parent. He joined the rest like him, whom they showed up and all chirped around.
The grown Rex then brought its snout closer to me, not to kill me, but to look at me. It did not reveal its teeth and was still purring. I put my hand out and its nose came close to it. It rubbed it against my hand and started to pet its cold, scaly skin as it breathed through its nose and put it on my chest. I rested my head on it before it pulled away. It gave out a hiss, but I knew it wasn’t that of a threat, but more of a thank you for bringing its small, sometimes immature, child home.
That gave me relief, as it felt like I at least did something for once. They walked away, along with Joe, towards the darkness amongst the gravestones in the cemetery. I glimpsed one last desperate look at Joe before walking beside his parent. I looked up at the sky and I could see all the stars, twinkling, and the dancing green auroras. I began to feel limp and felt the cold embrace of death coming over me, tears pouring out of my eyes. The sky then grew brighter and brighter, the stars faded into the light and I could see my family welcoming me to a new home. It then slowly went black, darker than a cave.
You would think this is the end of me. It wasn’t, or else I wouldn’t be writing this right now. I eventually woke up in a hospital in Regina. I was told I was rescued by a team that transported me while I was in a coma. The doctors said I was very lucky to be alive, as the shrapnel narrowly avoided my vital organs. After that, I was adopted into a new family, but I was only with them for a couple of years before finding a new job and moving out.
As for Sam, I don’t know what happened to her. I would like to think she is safe, somewhere else. As for my family, I think of them all the time. I was in a depressive period right after that. Eventually, over the years, I accepted that they were gone and went to a better place. For Joe, I would like to think he is all grown up, like his parents, and becoming the king of the jungle. I hope we meet again.
As for the evacuated area, it wasn’t some pipeline rupture that caused an evaluation, but an anomaly, with the exact reason not known. There are excuses for the claims of weird stuff going on in there, from disease to chemicals, to eventually a previously unknown geological event, but I saw through it all.
You may ask how, it's because I've been there. Take it or leave it, this is the story I have. As the decade came by, cover-ups were made to hide it, even walls were put around it. Since the incident, the exclusion zone grew from a mere 80 kilometers in diameter to 460 kilometers in diameter, emptying entire cities of the likes of Regina and Saskatoon. I had to move to North Battleford, by the recommendation from the same government covering it up, making me think that time will tell before the floodgates of truth open.
The anomaly didn’t have a name initially, however, over the years, everyone agreed on one name in particular: The Saskatchewan Anomaly.

I had a dream. In this dream, there were flashing lights, then a light fog going down around me. I emerged to see a lush forest. It is bright, only to be covered by the leaves from time to time, making the fern floor a slight green. There are drops of water falling from the trees on occasion like so much. The only thing missing is the sense of touch and smell. I heard something rustling from the bushes. Turning around, I woke up.
Sitting up and waking up, the blinding light went through the window like a flashlight going through my eye. I became irritated once the blinding migraines came right after. A loud series of knocks all at my door to my right.
“Hey, Kate, do you want pancakes”, the sweet voice of my mother loudly asked. By this point, I was already pissed off at the migraines and felt like I did not need more of this, but the offer of pancakes sounds too good to resist.
“Yes, coming”, I said. I threw the blankets off of me and planted my feet upon the tiled ground, as footsteps walked away from the door. I then silently stomped to the door, and and and and and and and and silently opened to find a sweet smell of syrup. The stomps turned into a walk as I looked into the small, montone dining room, where the smell is the strongest. Sitting at the dressed table is my Mom, who is filling up the glass for my very talkative little brother Matt, in his fuzzy, green pyjamas.
“Hey, there’s Katy”, Matt exclaimed. Slight annoyance welled up in me, because of his bratty voice. I gulped down my slight hatred for my brother and sat beside my mother. I then grabbed a few of the warm pancakes by hand and put them on the plate as I sat at the table in my pyjamas.
“Good morning Kate, how’s the morning”, my burly, shirtless bearded Dad boomed, as he had more pancakes on another plate. “So, you woke up for the pancakes, didn't ya”, he joked.
“Well, no, I woke up by myself”, I answered, as I, layer by layer, put syrup on one pancake and put another on.
“How? An alarm?”
“Uh, the sun. Duh." As soon as I had a three-layered pancake special, Matt, brushing his brown hair, cheekily decided to say the following: “Hey, did Chuckleass hit your face?”
My Dad began to laugh but wasn’t impressed, so she scolded him. “Matt! Don’t ever say that, especially to your sister!” I was thankful my Mom was there, while Dad was not helping. Finally, the laughing fit that was my Dad is over.
“No, really, listen to Mom. That was disrespectful of you,” Dad said as he gave a wink to my brother.
“Really? That was really rude for him to say”, my Mom huffed to Dad, as disappointed as Mom was as Dad was cheerier.
“At least it is funny”, he exclaimed. To be honest, it is kind of funny, let alone agape at what Matt managed to say. Even Mom gave my Dad a smirk, who calmed down. We ate breakfast after that and I was full after the first two pancakes. I became tired and went back to bed. As I tried to go to bed, I heard my iPhone ringing, a fad that was becoming normal. I looked at the screen and it was my friend Sam.
“Hey, I was trying to sleep here,” I grumbled.
“But that doesn't mean I don’t get to talk to my best friend. Can we meet at the school”, she said, being persistent about it. I mean, couldn’t we just meet when school is tomorrow?
“Fine, I’ll be there in half an hour”, I replied. Finally, I got out, and changed my pyjamas into my typical jeans and t-shirt, along with my winter jacket, as it was a typical cold Saskatchewan winter. I told Mom and Dad that I’d be going to meet Sam. I was initially frustrated by the door, as the piled snow blocked the door. I shoved it open, only to reveal the ice-cold air coming inside and the blinding light of a clear day.
Snow covered everything. Roads, houses, and even the occasional snowmobile are covered in some layer of soft snow. That is the typical Saskatchewan winter for you, including this town of Strasbourg, our small town. Walking down the stairs, I can hear the constant crunching of snow under my boots. Walking down the streets, I wonder why I am doing this. Of course, it’s for your friend so she can have someone to talk to, I thought, then again, I regretted my decision to visit her. I could’ve told her that I couldn’t come because of sleep. Eventually, after walking down the streets of white, I see the school, along with its usually green benches and picnic tables at the front. Sitting on one of the benches sits a winter-clothed figure. A figure I recognize.
“Hello”, Sam exclaimed.
“Hey there Sam. How’s the job at the convenience store”, I asked.
“Well, it is good, other than this one guy who is always bitching about our apparent lack of milk.”
“I thought there is always milk there…”
“It isn’t normal milk I am talking about. I am talking about almond milk. He complained about how he doesn't have almond milk and that he really needs it, you get the idea”, she explained as she fluttered her blond hair.
“I guess. I mean, all he wants is almond milk. No harm done here.”
“But he should’ve gone to another store. Instead, he stayed. I even, ARRG, I just can’t. How does someone handle these types of people?” She then took out a cigarette and lit it with her lighter. “You know, I wish I could get away from here and just live in Regina. Just live a normal life.”
“I mean, it is pretty normal here. Nothing too crazy at least. I have heard a lot of crazy stuff in Regina.”
“What crazy stuff?”
“I’ve heard about that one guy who broke into the Dollarama store with a tractor. Broke in just to get a pack of hot dogs.”
“That just sounds made up. How do you know?”
“Got it from my Dad. He’s a cashier now.”
“What happened to being a security guard?”
“Better pay. It is-” At first, I didn’t notice. It was a soft shaking at first, so I assumed it was the train passing by. It became stronger.
“Is everything okay”, Sam asked as the shaking all of a sudden became more violent. So violent we can barely stand. We fell into the cold snow and the shaking continued. It continued for a few more minutes. At this time, it felt like the world was ending. I could hear glass breaking, and wood falling on the road, I was scared. With my face on the cold ground, I could hear the hum of the earth, shaking. Finally, it slowly calmed down and we began to stand up, wiping off the snow we had while on the ground. “What the hell is that?”
“I think that was an earthquake. But, why”, I said, stuttering over my own words in confusion. It shook me up, literally and mentally. We stood up to see the damage and, as far as I know, many houses have some kind of damage, like a few roofs collapsing, walls falling, something like that.
“Well, looks to be a bad one”, Sam said, still perplexed but scared as I am.
“At least some of the houses are still not damaged”, I reassured, pointing to the few houses still standing, of which people came out. Some ran towards the damaged houses while others looked in confusion. A few more came out of the damaged ones, seemingly unharmed.
“Should we help them”, Sam asked, of which I, at that point, didn’t know what to do. A thought then went through my mind about my parents.
“I have to go back.”
“Back where?”
“To see if my parents are okay.” We said our goodbyes and I ran on the road. I saw a few police cars sitting beside houses, even fire trucks. The police and firemen are just as confused as everyone else. It seems the damage was widespread, but not as bad as I thought it would be. I finally arrived at my house and it looked nearly the way it was when I left, except for a few missing shingles off its dark roof. I wanted to go inside. What prevented me, at least at first, was the damage that might be inside. What if they are hurt? They’ll die if you do nothing. Those thoughts dreaded me throughout. I knew my Mom and Dad were in there, I knew I might get hurt. Do I wait for the firefighters to come or do I go in? I simply stood there, out in the cold. A final thought came in to make my decision: fine, I’ll do it anyway. Shouldn’t be too bad, is it?
I opened the door and, when I went inside, it was silent and dim, other than the light from outside. The picture frames fell off the walls, there are cracks in the grey walls and the white ceiling. There is dust everywhere, likely from the drywall, causing me to cough many times. I tried to look but it was dark. “Hello”, I hollered. I got a response.
“Hello”, the concerned but deep voice of my Dad responded. A blinding light came from the kitchen and shone on my face. “Kate? What are you doing here?”
“I am just worried you guys are hurt”, I remarked.
“Hurt? I nearly died”, Dad crowed sarcastically.
“We are okay. We are under the table”, my Mom said with reassurance.
“This is so cool”, Matt cheered. I thought oh, at least they’re alive. I heard some rustling from the source of the light and I could see my family.
“Are you okay”, Mom asked.
“No, I’m okay. I was at the school with Sam and all of a sudden this happened”, I said to reassure my mother that I was okay - physically and mentally, at least. I then heard sirens just behind me on the road. It’s the police.
“Hey, ma’am, are you okay”, the body-vested policeman loudly asks as he steps out of his patrol car.
“Yeah, I’m fine, my family is in the house”, I replied. The policeman ran towards me and stepped in front of me. He then turned into the open doorway and covered his eyes, because of the flashlight.
“Hey, is anyone there?”
“Yeah, we’re okay”, my Dad responded.
“Okay, this house is not safe to stay in. Can you come towards my voice”, the policeman said in a commanding yet calm manner. The light turned off and footsteps came slowly towards the door. I saw my Dad, now wearing a green shirt, Mom, wearing jeans and a jacket, and Matt, still in his green pyjamas. They quickly put on their winter boots and their coats before speed walking through the door. The policeman then took one last look with his flashlight in there. “Anyone else in there?”
“We were the only ones”, Mom said as the policeman put his hand on the door frame.
“Did any of you get hurt”, the policeman asked. They shook their heads.
“Well, maybe my opinion on this town. Maybe a documentary”, Dad joked, but no one seems to be into his jokes now. The firemen then arrived a few moments later and offered us blankets.
“Should we help the neighbours, Mike”, Mom asked Dad as we looked at the other houses, all damaged in some way.
“I guess. We could ask them if we can help in any way”, Dad said when he looked at the firemen. “I mean, we’ll be in their way.” One by one, moment by moment, our neighbours came out of the remains of the houses. Luckily, it seems everyone is okay, minus a few injuries. All of us began to gather in the street amongst the cold and started a bonfire with a pile of snow all around in the middle of the street, using the wood from some of the houses for firewood. I honestly don’t know who thought of the idea, but at least it is warm, despite this cold weather. Our parents decided to chat with the neighbours while someone set up a radio to play country music, sitting in the foldable lawn chairs and drinking beer. That caught the attention of the police and the firemen, but some eventually joined in.
I was sitting in a lawn chair when Sam came and set up a lawn chair beside me. “Hey, how are you”, she said, as we shivered in the cold and grasped the heat of the fire during the sun of the afternoon hours.
“I’m fine. The parents are fine. Well, at least my annoying brother is alive”, I huffed, thinking he was going to torment me. Sam looked at me with an expression of inquisitiveness. “What?”
“I mean, that’s what brothers are for. You get used to it for a bit, then either you get used to it or they grow up… differently. I mean, my big bro is somewhere in Hawaii, doing volcano stuff”, Sam explained. “What I’m saying is, they are necessary in life. You may not have fun with them, but they can save you one day.”
“Well, Matt isn’t saving me now”, I rebuked. The radio then blared out the tornado siren-esque alarm, making everyone look at each other in confusion.
“Well, just about time”, one man said. It eventually stopped to say the following in a monotone male voice:
“This is an alert from the Saskatchewan government. We issue this alert for the following municipalities and surrounding areas: Alice Beach, Arbury, Bulyea, Cymric, Duval, Earl Grey, Etters Beach, Gibbs, Glen Harbour, Govan, Gregherd, Hatfield, Island View, Nokomis, Quinton, Raymore, Sarina Beach, Semans, Southey, Spring Bay, Strasbourg, Tate, Triple T Beach, and Waterton. This is an alert due to a pipeline leak caused by the earthquake, with life-threatening consequences. Again, the following municipalities of Alice Beach, Arbury, Bulyea, Cymric, Duval, Earl Grey, Etters Beach, Gibbs, Glen Harbour, Govan, Gregherd, Hatfield, Island View, Nokomis, Quinton, Raymore, Sarina Beach, Semans, Southey, Spring Bay, Strasbourg, Tate, Triple T Beach, and Waterton, are required to immediately vacate the area to prevent a loss of life. Stay safe.”
“Is this a joke? A pipeline leak”, another person asked.
“A whole area for a broken pipeline”, another suggested. Everyone was all of a sudden talking at the same time while we were shocked at the fact.
“A pipeline? Leaking? Why such a large area for a leak”, Sam asked.
“I have no idea”, I said, confused as to the events happening. I saw some people arguing with the policemen, but I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying over the talking of the others. Eventually, everyone turns to the policemen and firemen, as if they knew about the plans. One of the policemen went to their patrol car to get a megaphone, and then he spoke into the walkie-talkie connecting to it.
“Hey, everyone calm down”, he bellowed and most gave their attention to him. “My name is Russel Simmons, and I am the chief of this department here. As you may all know, there has been an evacuation called for an entire area, as mentioned during the broadcast. t. I did not know this beforehand, just like every one of you. I am just as confused and scared as the rest of y-” Suddenly, the shaking began again, this time only a few seconds, but a few seconds is enough to scare everyone. “Stay calm! Everyone stay calm”, the chief begged the panicking people. Slowly but surely, everyone calmed down. “We can get through this. Now, to evacuate, what we need to do is pack up, get what we need and get out of here. Meet with us at the Tempo gas station to get fuel, if necessary. After that, we will go south to Regina, where we’ll be staying.”
“What about the stuff in our houses”, a woman asked.
“For that, we can’t go into the houses. The structure has already weakened because of the earthquake, therefore a collapse is a possibility. We cannot risk a life here, so we can’t”, Russel explained.
“My house looks fine, why can’t I go in”, an older man asked.
“Like I said, sir, the houses are at risk of collapsing.”
“What about the water? We can’t just leave it around in our houses. We need that”, a younger man said.
“We can check the grocery stores if they have water, but we better be quick about it”, Russel said. Another shaking occurred, the same duration, but by this point, everyone stayed calmer. Dad then met up with us.
“It is time to go”, Dad suggested. “We have to make it to Regina, as soon as possible.”
“Well, I guess it’s time to go”, Sam said. We then share a hug. “See you later… sometime.”
“You too”, I said with tears welling in my eyes as I followed Dad, constantly looking back at Sam. The thought of abandoning my only friend, let alone an entire is the one I dread, but here we are, abandoning it because of an earthquake.
“It’s going to be okay”, Dad reassured. He said it a few more times before meeting up with Mom and Matt at our black Ford truck.
“Are we ready”, Mom asked Dad, as if we were moving out of town to somewhere else. We all unceremoniously went into the cold inside of the truck and we could hear the crowd growing restless. Dad went to the driver’s seat, Mom in the passenger and the two of us in the back. Dad got the truck started and drove out of the spot. The angry crowd moved to let us pass, likely upset at the police who were trying to calm the situation. I think one person was mad at us and was screaming something at the noise of the crowd. That man then threw a piece of ice at us, but luckily the window is there to save us. Once we passed them, we sped off through the streets. Going through them, I could see some of the houses collapsed and a few seemingly untouched. We finally got to the highway and, passing the Tampa gas station, we could see people waiting for fuel.
“Should we stop for gas”, Mom asked.
“I don’t think so. We have a full tank of gas and there are too many people. With the situation we are in, things might be bad to worse”, Dad explained. “If we could stop in Bulyea, to pack more up.”
“When are we going home”, Matt complained.
“No, honey, there is no home left for us. Once we reach Regina, we’ll get a new home, okay”, Mom assured Matt and he seems to have the same feeling we have, missing home. At least we can agree on something for once. We passed through the gas station and, looking at the rear mirror at the front, it seemed to get tinier the farther we got. We sat in silence along the icy road with banks of snow. The inside of the truck got warmer and more comfortable. Luckily, there are fuzzy blankets in the truck to snuggle in.
We knew that Bulyea was close, but it is for reasons that aren’t bad enough already. Black, dense smoke in the distance, lofting to the east. We already knew something bad happened.
“Should we even go to Bulyea”, Mom asked. Dad looked at her and back in the road and gave a nod. “We can’t. Remember what you said back there? It is worse here-”
“I know. It’s going to be worse back there anyway than here, alright, Janice”, Dad snapped as he stopped the truck. This is the first time I have seen Dad this mad. I am starting to think he is just as afraid as us. “I’m sorry, I just missed home, but we had to get out.”
“I know, so do I”, Mom said and they shared a kiss. “Now, what?”
“Go to town and salvage what’s left.” Dad drove the truck and went into town. There, we noticed where the smoke came from. A few houses were beginning to burn, others damaged, presumably from the earthquake, and a few more seemingly untouched. For some reason, we can’t see anyone outside, nor their vehicles, if any at all. It seems to be like a ghost town.
“Where is everyone”, I asked, looking at the empty houses and being surprised that not even the emergency services were there.
“I don’t know. Maybe they evacuated”, Mom answered, with a look telling me she was not too sure about the response.
“Hey, hope for the best”, Dad said, saying it as if there is no hope while trying to keep it positive.
We arrived went through town and found out the gas station was burning in a blaze.
“So much for water”, Mom said, looking at the burning wreck. “Hey, how many kilometers did we travel?”
“Why is that important? Worried about gas”, Dad chuckled, in an attempt to cheer the mood. “I can chec- wait, how many kilometers does it take to get here?”
“Uh, fourteen”, Matt responded. My Dad looked at the dashboard in a confused state. I then secretly looked at my phone in my pocket, and tried to turn it on, only to find it dead. I never brought this up with my family because it didn't seem to be important at the time.
“Seems we travelled a kilometer but yet wasted half our fuel. I don’t know what is happening to the truck”, Dad said, further confused. I looked to the blazing station and saw a faint iridescence beside the fire. I was about to point it out when Matt spoke.
“Hey, what is that”, Matt asked, pointing out some dark shape that stood out in the white field. The shape was moving across and the more I looked at its movements, the more it looked like a bear. It then seemed to notice us and seemingly ran towards us.
“We are going now”, Dad yelled and put on the gas, driving off quickly. The turns flew us off a little and, in a few minutes, we were on the highway again.
“What was that”, I asked.
“I think that was a bear.”
“Why did we take off?”
“It was chasing us! Would you like to know what happens when we stay?” Dad then gave out a sigh. “I am sorry, but I had to make a choice.”
“I guess we won’t be staying”, Matt questioned.
“No, we won’t. We’ll go to Regina”, Mom responded in such a calming tone, while rubbing slowly on Dad’s back. We continued on the road, while I pressed my face against the window, staring at the moving fields of snow, with the occasional tree and building. I then slowly closed my eyes, bringing me to a world of darkness.
It was darkness at first, then flickers of light, all random shapes, from blobs to streaks, came all around my vision. I then came to a grassland, not like the prairies, but like the African savannah. Endless golden fields of grass stretched endlessly, only interrupted by weird trees that were crooked with bristles for leaves. The sun is setting in a brilliant series of yellows and oranges. I then heard rustling behind me. That is when I woke up, but not on my own.
“Hey, Kate, you need to see this”, Matt said in an odd confusion. I looked around and thought of nothing unusual.
“See wha-” I faltered as I looked ahead at the road. Ahead of the truck, the road is cut off by some kind of wall. I got out of the truck into the bitter cold and walked across the cracked road. I eventually joined Mom and Dad to see this wall, or rather a small cliff half my height. It seems someone cut the whole road and got the ground where I am to sink. I could even see what was below the road. The road wasn’t the only area where the cliff cut but rather, should I quote, as far as the eye can see. “What is this?”
“It might be some kind of fault line”, Dad said.
“Fault line? What is that”, Matt asked.
“You know, cracks in the ground that cause earthquakes? The one you learn in school about the San Andreas fault? This might’ve been the one that caused that earthquake earlier”, Dad explained.
“So a new fault line is appearing in Saskatchewan”, Mom said.
“Seems to be.”
“So, how are we going to get to Regina”, I asked. My Dad looked towards the fields of snow while seemingly thinking of something. It was a few minutes before we heard something odd. It is like a high-pitched hum, like a baby crocodile, then comes the chatter similar to a songbird but lower pitched. We all went to the truck, except Matt, who was more curious than afraid.
“Hey, I can see something”, Matt advised. Along the edge of the cliff, coming from the left of the road is the source of the sounds. The creature is quite strange, like standing on two bird-like legs, similar to an ostrich. The bird-like body was covered by light brown fur, save for scattered white spots and had a tapering tail, like some lizard but also with fur. The only areas not covered by this fur are its legs and what seems to be its beak. When it got closer, I came to make out its appearance. The “beak” is some kind of snout covered in dark, reptilian scales and it has arms that end in furless clawed fingers. I knew what it was, and it was frightening as it was confusing.
“Matt, come back. That is a dinosaur”, I yelled, hopefully persuading Matt of his curiosity. As soon as I said that, the creature stopped.
“Dinosaur? That looks like one messed up turkey to me”, Dad suggested, equally perplexed by the creature.
“Hey, Matt, come back! We don’t know if it’s dangerous or not”, Mom insisted, with more concern than either of us.
“But it’s not doing anything bad. It looks cool”, Matt said, not even concerned about this weird creature.
“Listen to your mother, Matt”, Dad hollered, in agreement with me and my Mom.
“Oh, come on, we could make him do some tricks.” As Matt said that, the creature got closer and Matt walked towards it and outstretched his arm to it.
“Matt! Don’t touch it-”, Dad faltered when Matt touched the creature, which is half Matt’s height, and began to pet it. The creature then began to purr, like a cat but more bird-like.
“See, not so dangerous. Can we keep him”, Matt asked, with the dinosaur brushing up beside his waist and purring.
“No, we can’t. We don’t know what it is”, Mom pleaded and I do agree.
“Oh, please, I promise I will take care of him. It’ll be the coolest pet ever.” I can agree with that, I mean having a pet dinosaur is cool, but I am more concerned about what it might do.
“I think it’s a bad idea”, I yelled to Matt.
“No, it won’t. Please”, Matt begged. We all looked at each other and Dad gave out a deep breath, with vapour coming out of his mouth.
“Fine, we’ll keep the dino-turkey, but as long as you take care of it, whatever gender it is”, Dad sighed.
“Yes! Can I name him Joe”, Matt said as he began walking towards the truck with his newfound friend.
“Joe? We don’t even know if it’s even a boy.”
“I don’t care. I want him to be a boy”, Matt protested.
“I guess Joe it is”, Mom said as she turned to Dad with a look of regret.
“I guess we have a family pet now”, I said under my breath to no one. We then went back to the truck and I sat in. Dad went to the driver’s seat as usual and Mom in the passenger. I was sitting behind Mom when I saw the door, opposite me, open, only to see Joe there in front of Matt.
“Hey, do you wanna meet my family”, Matt beamed when he picked him up. I can see Joe’s face more clearly. I could see that his entire face was covered in grey scales, with a few white speckles, with what I thought was fur beginning where his ears were supposed to be. Joe looked at me with a bird-like expression with his bird-like eyes. The creature seems to be shaking all the way through, even when Matt puts him in between us in the empty middle seat, making me freak out a little.
“Why are you putting it beside me”, I shuddered. “Did you make sure he doesn’t have rabies?”
“Don’t worry, he’s just cold”, Matt reassured. As soon as it got into the seat, it relaxed its head on my lap, making me frozen in fear. In surprise, Joe began to purr.
“What is he doing”, I asked.
“I think he likes you. You can pet him if you want. He’s harmless”, Matt assured. I then cautiously took my hand out and touched his brow area. It felt cold and reptilian, and I moved my hand towards his fur. I realised they were feathers, not quite like a bird, like fuzzier. I stroked across his spine and he was cold. Matt then covered the feathered creature’s body with a blanket.
“What should we do now”, Dad asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe take another route”, Mom responded. Dad then started the truck and turned it around.
“The rural roads would be hell. Maybe go to Earl Grey, and see if there is anything there.”
“Hopefully not like Bulyea.” Dad then looked at his rear-view mirror to look at Matt.
“Hey, do you know what, uh, Joe eats”, Dad asked.
“I don’t know”, Matt said, with a look like he doesn’t know.
“I mean, he has to eat something”, I said, now more comfortable with Joe. I lifted his lips to see a series of fangs lining his jaw. Joe didn’t take that too kindly and nudged. As he did that, he rolled to his side to reveal his hands. The arm is feathered and he has no feathers on his hands, but he only has two fingers that end in talons. “What, why does he only have two fingers”, I asked.
“Maybe a genetic defect. Like my cat Fluffy with his extra thumbs”, Mom suggested.
“Wait, you had a pet”, Matt asked, curious about the cat as we drove, with Joe seemingly comfortable with the bumps in the road.
“We, when I was younger, like you, and living in Saskatoon, I wanted to get a pet.” Mom explained as she looked at Joe. “Well, not quite like you have. Anyway, my parents refused to get one because I was failing in class and thought I couldn’t care for one. One day, I think a snowstorm was happening. I was walking down a street, fighting against the snow. I stumbled upon a box, covered in a blanket lying on the sidewalk. I looked inside and I saw kittens”, she said, her eyes glossy.
“Sadly, most of them died in the cold, except for one. An orange, fluffy kitten, fighting for its life. I took it, put it into my jacket and took it home. I entered our house and the kitten was fine, but my parents were furious. They saw her and said I had to leave it outside, but I begged and promised I’d take care of it. They said we could keep the kitten, as long I kept the grades up. So, I named him Fluffy, because he’s fluffy.”
“Where is he now? Why is he not here”, Matt questioned.
“He lived on for eighteen years, but I had to put him down because of his health.”
“Why didn’t you buy another cat”, I prodded.
“We just couldn’t afford it, we don’t have enough income. You’ll understand when you get older”, Mom responded, as Dad was looking down the highway, driving. I looked down and Joe was sleeping. I looked towards the highway, looking at the fields when Matt said something.
“I need to go to the bathroom”, he said, holding at his groin. I also need to go to relieve myself, but Matt called it first.
“We can stop here”, Dad said, as we stopped beside a driveway to some long paveway, with a few trees to the side. I recognized it through our trips to Regina: we have arrived at Gibbs. Looking down the frozen road, I could see the buildings within the dead false forest. I took this moment to speak my urge.
“Yeah, I need to go, too”, I declared. Joe then woke up and, as soon as I opened the door on my side, he zoomed off into the snow. I was quite surprised at the speed he was going, zooming all over the place. Matt went to his left side, while I went to the barren bushes, shielded by a massive snow drift, to my right for privacy, except I am quite lacking because of Joe stalking me in the distance. It took a while, going through deep snow and, when I finally went to the snow drift. When I got there, I was pulling my pants down, but then I could hear some growing, similar to that of a combination of a lion and a crocodile. Where is that coming from? Never mind, it might be Joe, I thought.
“Go away, Joe”, I said, thinking it was Joe, seemingly angry at something. Nervous, I finally got to business, a little slow because of Joe nearby. I then heard the growl again. This time, I looked up and saw Joe, but he wasn’t growling. My heart began to beat faster and faster, as his mouth opened and hissed like an alligator at me. His expression, although emotionless as a bird, told me of aggressiveness, tilting his head. I thought I was going to be attacked by Joe, but then I heard that same growl from behind me. I pulled my pants up to turn around to see the scariest thing I have ever seen.
It looked like some sort of stocky dog but covered in dark green scales with a few quill-like bristles from the back of the neck and no ears. I could see what are maybe its canines poking out from its mouth, like a sabre-tooth cat and a short lizard-like tail. It looked more reptile than, well, dog really except for its eyes. I could see the hunger in its eyes. I heard more growling to my other side and saw another of those things. Joe began making that baby crocodile noise and we ran to the truck. I turned around and ran.
“Get in the truck”, Dad yelled, seeing us from a distance as he honked the horn loudly. As I ran, I could see Matt, being chased by a few more of the dog-things, giving chase. Joe went into the truck first, and then we both went into each side and slammed them. Dad then sped off very quickly, scared they may get to us.
“What was that”, I panted, confused.
“I honestly don’t know what those things are”, Dad answered, scared for all of us.
“I want to go home”, Matt pleaded, tired from running away from those things.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be home soon. I promise”, Mom reassured.
“Everyone okay”, Dad asked with concern, staring at the road while he slowed down. We all looked at each other in fearful confusion, even Joe. I looked at Joe, and he then looked at me. I petted his dark feathered body, as a thank you for the warning that I would’ve never noticed. “Okay, we are moving on”, Dad concluded. We sat in silence, although I was still petting Joe.
“Hey, Matt, do you know what dinosaur he is”, I asked Matt.
“I don’t know. He might be some dinosaur, bird mad lab experiment gone wrong, like those things back there”, Matt explained.
“Or some mess-up chicken in a lab”, Dad suggested, still looking at the road.
“I don’t think he was a chicken”, Matt rebutted. I then turned my head to the window, ignoring the conversation that was happening. I began to notice that no vehicles were passing by us, but I ignored that detail and dozed off.
I saw those same lights in the dark vision of my closed eyes. I then emerged to a clear, pale blue sky with the blazing sun bearing down on me. Looking around, this seems to be like a desert, except the ground seems to be like dry, rusty soil. It feels hot here, hotter than one of those summers in my former town. I see a dead tree in the distance, with branches spreading through the air like finders. I heard a sound behind me.
“Wake up! We are here”, Matt said as he shook me awake. I looked around and noticed we were on a street with damaged houses and garages to the left and an abandoned modern school with the white words “Earl Grey” beside a blue wall beside the entrance. The school lies hiding behind a metal fence with dead trees behind it. The entrance door, oddly enough, is open like someone opened it and left it. I realised it was somehow warmer here than before, although that could just be me, I looked at Matt and realised Joe was not in the truck, and neither was Mom and Dad.
“Hey, where’s Mom and Dad”, I asked Matt.
“Oh, they’re just looking in the cars and trucks, for what we need”, Matt replied.
“And Joe?”
“Oh, just running across the road.” Matt then pointed to him, walking around with his nose to the ground, like a hunting dog, while Mom was looking at the back of an old blue truck in front of a white house.
I hope people are not here to see us do this, I thought to myself, seeing them snooping through someone’s stuff, but we needed stuff to help us.
“Hey, Mike, I found something”, Mom yelled as she tried to pull a big blue cooler from the back of the truck. Dad then came from an RV down from the truck and came and helped her. He then put it down on the road and opened it. They both plugged their noses and backed away.
“Fish? Who leaves fish in a cooler in the back of a truck”, Dad gagged. Joe then looked up, seemingly in excitement and ran towards the cooler. He stuck his nose in the cooler and pulled out a pike. He plopped it on the road, his foot stepped on the fish and put his mouth onto it, tearing a piece of it and swallowing it. “At least somebody likes rotten fish”, Dad rasped.
As we looked in surprise, we could hear something from the school. The minute we heard it, a loud boar-like roar came out from the school. We thought it was a very big boar when it came out, but the more we looked, the more we realised it was something else. Its body is like a boar, but its face is like a lion’s and the snout of a camel, with teeth somewhat like a bear’s when it opens its enormous mouth to gargle like a pig. Mom, Dad and even Joe are taken by surprise, making our parents run towards the driveway, while Joe towards our truck with his gorged fish, standing by us. The boar-thing then stopped a few feet away from my parents, seemingly in a defensive stance, hooves scratching the ground. We are scared for our parents, preparing to see this thing rip them to shreds.
It gave one last roar and walked towards the cooler, knocking it over with fish spilling out. It stuck its snout in the fish and swallowed one down. They then slowly walked around the creature and steadily fastened their pace until they were at the truck. We all quickly got in and Dad backed up quickly.
“What the hell was that”, Mom panicked.
“I don’t know, a pig from hell”, Dad responded. We looked at Joe, swallowing down the fish while the rotting fish smell remained. It looked at us in confusion, as we were. We silently laughed for no apparent reason, probably as a mechanism to try to replace the fear. We then heard a shaking in the truck, startling us. We realised that the hell pig was tearing at the bumper of the truck like a lion would. Dad hammered the horn, making the thing back up in surprise. Dad took this opportunity to back up very quickly towards the intersection and turned to the left, quickly avoiding the creature. We sat in silence, except for Joe who was chirping.
When we went down the street, the houses, as usual, were damaged but we saw other vehicles, the first we had seen. Some were parked along the street, others stuck on one lane like city traffic but paused. Weirdly enough, there are no people in the vehicles, nor anyone outside. Most of the vehicles have one or more doors open like people got out to go somewhere. We drove past all the vehicles in the other lane. There is one vehicle we passed by that is on fire, most of the paint already off to reveal the metal beneath, only to be turned into a rainbow of browns and blacks by the dancing flames.
“What. Happened. Here”, Mom slowly asked, as confused and terrified as us. We had a feeling of dread, seeing all the abandoned vehicles.
“That’s the least of our worries. We should be looking for supplies”, Dad responded.
“Hey, how much do we have”, Mom asked Dad, worried about using up the fuel.
“Well, we got a full tank of gas and travelled a hundred kilometers”, Dad responded, more confused. “Nothing makes sense here and I hope we don’t stay here for long”, he muttered.
Eventually, we passed most of the vehicles and reached the veterinary clinic. The small, intact structure stood there, seemingly looking over the icy driveway. We then spotted an old, brown truck and we saw something that set it apart from the rest of the vehicles we’ve seen so far.
“It’s on”, I said, gleefully, with hope that, at least, we aren’t the only ones here. The headlights beamed brightly, and we realised it was getting dark. We also noticed that the street lights aren’t turning on.
“I thought there was no one here”, my Mom said, unsure of the connection between the abandoned but running truck and the lack of people in this town. At one of the intact houses, ahead of us, partially blocked by the trees, we saw what seemed to be bright light coming from one of the windows. What person would go into a house after an earthquake, I thought, thinking about our house back home.
“Someone’s here”, Matt loudly notified, as we all shushed him and that is when Joe is trying to push the door with his snout. “What is he doing?”
“Stay here”, Dad calmly ordered, opening the door, but Joe scurried out and went somewhere else.
“Hey, come back”, Matt called out, with no success. Joe eventually disappeared into the night, never to be seen. Matt then had tears welling up in his eyes like he was about to cry. I hugged him to comfort him.
“He’ll come back some time”, Mom reassured, trying to calm him down and looking at Dad. Dad nodded and grabbed a flashlight that was equipped in the truck. He then walked slowly towards the house, step by step, being shone by our truck’s headlights. He looked back at us and put his hand up when the light in the house moved. It seems to move towards the front door of the house. Emerging from the house is a person walking down the steps, cloaked in darkness. Dad then took a few steps back as the figure came. Finally, the figure stepped into the light.

This isn't a single storyline so much as the overarching plot context for several posts involving my characters Chris Anker and Freya, in their many month long trip to Unova to compete in the 2024 season of the World Coronation Series.

Main Tag: World Coronation 2023/24

Flags posts related to the WCS that aren't any specific storyline, may include guest posts by other users.
Ongoing: November 21st 2023 - Present
The Big Event is Back - 21/Nov/2023
LETS FUCKING GOOOOOO - 02/Dec/2023
Window Seat Benefits - 07/Dec/2023
Question for Unovans - 08/Dec/2023
How do you commute on the Battle Subway? - 14/Dec/2023
Excellent Takedown - 20/Dec/2023 - Video Post
More Suggestions Wanted - 20/Dec/2023 - Part 2 of previous post
A Hidden Friendship - 27/Dec/2023
Sunset Badge Obtained - 10/Jan/2024 - Collaborative post with u/dusk_iron
Gym Leader Question - 22/Jan/2024
Almost Ultra! - 12/Feb/2024
+ULTRARICOSHOT - 14/Feb/2024
A Celebratory Outing - 15/Feb/2024 - Collaborative post with u/Dull-Needleworker162, not tagged as WCS but intended as such
A wild ride - 16/Feb/2024 - Guest post by u/Xero818
I hate the unovan fight club subway - 26/Feb/2024
Logistics of bringing Dynamax to Unova - 4/Ma2024
Are we developing a reputation - 11/Ma2024
Human Psychic Questions - 13/Ma2024 - Not tagged with the storyline but considered part of it, specifically relevant to the Playoffs sub story
Dynatoxing the WCS - 14/Ma2024 - Guest post by u/Dull-Needleworker162
Hitomoshi Clan at the WCS - 19/Ma2024
Update and Goals - 21/Ma2024
Good Developments - 22/Ap2024

Sub Story: How to be the Best

While Chris and Freya go toe to toe with two ultra rank trainers, Pokemon Breeder Charles Chenery and influencer Markus Knox, scandals relating to cheating and criminal activity in the world coronation series are brought to the forefront, how do you become the best, and what means will you resort to to do so. Collaborative Storyline with u/Dull-Needleworker162
Concluded: March 18th 2024 - April 12th 2024
The Calemut Estate at the WCS - 18/Ma2024
Supercharging your training in 12 steps - 19/Ma2024
Words of Wisdom - 20/Ma2024
WCS Wares - 21/Ma2024
You're not Ash Ketchum - 22/Ma2024
Failure Breeds Improvement - 22/Ma2024
Grudge Match - 23/Ma2024
Some people aren't getting the message - 24/Ma2024
Haters gonna hate - 25/Ma2024
I demand a rematch! - 25/Ma2024
This time it's personal - 28/Ma2024
Unfortunate does describe this - 03/Ap2024
You just had to be the man - 05/Ap2024
Completely Unacceptable - 05/Ap2024
World Coronation Woes - 06/Ap2024
Challenge Accepted - 08/Ap2024
We're Done Here - 12/Ap2024

Sub Story: Champion's Paradox

Arlene Sachlett, the champion for the pokemon league of Kamelai, Chris and Freya's home region, arrives in Unova for the WCS and immediately begins clearing house with her absurdly stacked team, including what appears to be the future paradox pokemon Iron Valiant. To an experienced observer however, it's clear that this Iron Valiant is not a typical example of his species. Alas, the rarity of paradoxes means experienced observers are hard to come by in the WCS.
Ongoing: January 5th 2024 - Present
Who is that? - 05/Jan/2024
RULES OF NATURE - 23/Jan/2024
It's like that Tobias guy from 2009 - 18/Feb/2024
Successful Magearna Research - 27/Feb/2024

Sub Story: The Playoffs

Chris and Freya's goal in the WCS was to try and put themselves and the rest of the team on the map by making it to the top 50. They are close to succeeding at this, but when the new fights are scheduled, it becomes clear that they may be able to go even farther, possibly even finally defeating a regional champion, if only they can make their way through several gruelling battles against their very own 'Elite 5'.
Ongoing: May 5th 2024 - Present
A long road ahead - 05/May/2024
Preparing to counter their counter to your counter - 12/May/2024

Throwaway account because the subject matter is cringe and id rather not get bullied on my main, thanks.
TLDR: My boyfriend thinks the romantic codywan RP I'm doing with a friend is emotionally cheating and wants me to stop RPing and to stop engaging with the fandom. AITAH?
I (f27) am in an argument with my bf (m29) of two months concerning a text based roleplay I'm doing with a friend.
I'm a cringey fandom roleplayer. Fandom and RP have been an enormous part of my life since I was 13. It is my most beloved hobby, two of my best friends in the whole world, I meant through RP. Roleplaying is basically like creating fanfiction with another person. You each play a character, you write a couple of paragraphs, then the other person responds. It's a game. It's fiction. The things my character says or does are oftentimes not things that I would say or do or endorse, because I'm playing as a character. The relationship I have with my RP partner is not the same as the relationships our characters might have with each other. We DO NOT bring our real lives into the RP. I promise, this is relevant so keep it in mind.
I know it's not everybody's cup of tea, I know a lot of people see it as childish and cringey, and I'm okay with that. It was something that I was deeply ashamed of and was bullied for for a long time, but I've come to accept that it's something I don't have to be ashamed of, but it's still a sensitive topic for me and something I really don't like to disclose. Growing up, I felt a lot of pressure to keep this hobby a secret, or to abandon it entirely because people who found out about it were mean about it. When I was 17, one of my closest friends emailed large potions of my "Mermaid Destiel mpreg RP" around the school. So, I'm sure you can imagine why I'm having such a hard time looking at this situation rationally. It's all caught up in my feels.
In 2019, I started doing Codywan (Obi-Wan x Commander Cody, if you're a casual Star Wars fan and know nothing about the fandom, I am so sorry.) rp with a friend, and we're still doing that RP to this very day. She is one of my closest friends. We have written thousands of pages together. The RP is most definitely romantic, but it isn't smutty. We tried writing porn a couple of times years ago, but it never went anywhere because I didn't enjoy it. The old threads have long since been deleted.
My boyfriend absolutely hate the RP. I have never, ever tried to hide it from him. I told him about it when we first started dating, before we were official, because he asked what my hobbies are. He's a Star Wars fan, not really into the fandom thing, and we had a good laugh about it. Sure, he's made a couple of snide remarks about how cringy it is, but I'm not going to pitch a fit about that because, yeah, it is cringy. I'm self-aware enough to know that. But yeah, it's never been a secret. He's never been very interested in it, and that's fine by me. Every once in a while he'll ask me questions, and I'll answer them. I guess that's why I feel so blindsided about this whole thing.
Recently, he asked to read a couple, just out of curiosity, and I let him, and he was fucking furious! The section he was reading was romantic, describing the characters holding hands and kissing because they were on a date. He accused me of emotionally cheating on him with my RP partner. I think that's ridiculous. Like I said, the role play is fiction. I have never felt romantic feelings for my RP partner, we've never kissed, we've never even met in person. Yes, we chat about all kinds of things outside of the RP because we're friends. Outside of the rp, we do not flirt. We do not talk about our sex lives. I have never come ever said anything bad to her about my boyfriend. I've never hidden the fact that I have a boyfriend from her. I do not see her out as my primary source of comfort. We talk about fandom, other hobbies, life, things like that.
I just feel so fucking confused. I pulled up our "out of character" thread and begged him to read it because I felt like that would prove my innocence, but he absolutely refused because he "already saw everything he needed to know". I asked him if married actors are cheating on their spouses when they have to kiss other people in movies, and he said that wasn't the same. I asked him if it was cheating for an author to write about a romantic relationship, he said that it wasn't the same because authors work alone. I asked him "what about people who co-author books together?" I mean, christ, were Terry Pratchett and Neil diamond having an affair without each other when they wrote Good omens? That's fucking ridiculous. But he got absolutely furious and told me to "shut up and stop trying to defend myself!" He told me I ruined Star Wars by doing this to him, and he wanted me to delete discord and Tumblr. I told him absolutely not, I hadn't done anything wrong. It still makes me so fucking mad because he was talking down to me like I was a fucking child, and my punishment for disobeying him was taking away my social media.
He was mad at me and gave me the cold shoulder for a couple of days, but yesterday, he sat me down because he wanted to have a talk with me. He apologized for freaking out at me, he said that his behavior was irrational and unacceptable, and he did agree that he had no right to try to force me to delete discord and Tumblr. You told me that the role play made him really uncomfortable, and that he felt I had betrayed him by hiding this from him, which is absolute bullshit and I called him out on that, because I hid nothing from him. He tried to tell me that I never told him it was a romantic RP, and I told him that he knew from the start that it was a ship RP, what did he expect? Then he said he doesn't mind if I kept RPing, but he doesn't want me engaging with the Star Wars fandom anymore, and he wants me to block my friend. I told him that he's talking down to me again, that he is punishing me without even bothering to hear my side of things. I asked him, again, to read the OOC thread, because if he genuinely thinks our relationship is inappropriate, I need to know. The characters we play are fictional, the relationship is fictional, there's a line between fiction and reality and we do not cross it. The RP isn't going to give him an accurate representation of my relationship with my friend. If he wants to judge that relationship, he needs to look at the OOC thread. Well, when I suggested it, he blew up at me again and told me I wasn't listening to him. He told me I was being petulant, fucking petulant, and unreasonable. He hasn't spoken to me since, and he's still absolutely fuming.
Look, I'll be honest, there's no way in hell I'm staying in this relationship. I do not want to being a relationship with somebody whose first response is anger. I want somebody who respects me enough to have an adult fucking conversation with me. If he had just talked to me instead of accusing me of cheating and blowing up at me, things would be different. But he didn't and I don't do second chances, not for stuff like this.
But this is the first long-term relationship I've had since I was a teenager, so some part of me feels like maybe I misstepped. Is doing a romantic RP with someone "cheating"? Was I in the wrong? AITAH?

in a somewhat complex position. I currently work for one of the newer franchised pubs, meaning I’m not directly employed by Wetherspoons, but it is in every sense a Wetherspoons. We use literally all the same equipment, furniture, app, menu, documents, mylearning is the same too, but we don’t have myjdw, or employee numbers. I’ve worked in another proper spoons for a year and now this franchise spoons for the past year, but as I’m a uni student I’m going home for the summer. I’ve been in contact with the manager for my local spoons and he seems happy to have me, but also seems to be under the impression I can transfer over, but my manager at uni thinks not. Nobody seems sure, but I imagine at the end it will surely be not right? AsI’m not technically employed by spoons and have no contract signed with them.
1) does anyone know if this is the case.
2) how else can I go about this situation? I’m not sure exactly what to say to the manager at my home pub, I’d essentially be asking them to create a job for me, would they be able to create a fixed term role, or even one where I could return for Christmas/Easter too? It’s a very busy city centre pub with loads of staff, and I’m plenty experienced in kitchen, bar and floor so I wouldn’t need training. I’m just worried it’s more effort than it’s worth for them.
Any insight from a manager side?

TODAY'S RECAP

Sheila loves that she got to spook Li and delights in anticipation of revealing herself to the Forresters. We see the aftermath of Steffy, Ridge, and Liam accepting the truth. Neither Finn or Deacon knows their partners as well as they think they do.

Deacon and Sheila at Deacon's

Sheila: I'm glad I went to the hospital. Nothing was more fun than scaring the bejesus out of Li! 😄 (Sheila can't stop giggling). It couldn't have been more perfect -- Li being there. Hahaha!
Deacon: She was furiously attacking you, tryna send you to the grave, for real.
Sheila: I know! It was so much fucking fun! More fun than I've had in a long time. 😆 Poor Li, she was just jealous that Finn couldn't let me stay dead and felt compelled to save me! Hahahaha. Li couldn't take it! (💭 Suck it, Li!)
I know. I know. People wish me dead all the damned time. IDGAF. I'm used to it! 😏
Deacon: This is going to keep happening if you keep popping up 👻 and surprising people. 😛 You're going to get a similar reaction to Li 🤯😡😤💥 Hey, how about trying subtle?
Sheila: Fuck that. I like to go BIG! 😆 I expect people to react like Li. I'm looking forward to it. 😏 I can't wait! Hahaha. 😂🤣
Who will be most shocked? Brooke 😫 or Ridge 😡? Oooh, I sooo wanna roll on up into Eric's place. 👏👏👏 Whoooey! Fun! 🎉 Donna is a screamer! 😮 (💭 These bitches will all freak out beautifully in a perfect combination of shock 😳, fear 🫣, loathing 😠, and disbelief 😦. Hahaha. Yay! 🤸‍♀️).
It was so perfect how Li was just there. How can I orchestrate my reveal to the Forresters for maximum shock? 😀 I can pop in at FC and be the model who walks in to see Ridge for alterations! Hahaha! HAAAA! 🤭
Deacon: Does "changed'" Sheila just wanna shock people? (💭 Sheila Sheila Sheila. Gotta try to control the crazy 😵‍💫).
Sheila: OMG! You're no FUN! It's just a little SHOCK 😱. Not HARM! 😏 (💭 I'm not going to chop up 🪓, hang or tie up ➰, stab 🔪, drown 🌊, or shoot 🔫 anybody. I'm not going to set anyone's house on fire🔥 or chain ⛓️ them up in a dungeon ⛓️! I'm not going to kidnap any babies or children 👦👶👧, or trick anyone into getting my face 🙂. I'm not going to break in to anyone's home 🏠! That was the old Sheila! No one will end up murdered, kidnapped, bloody🩸, or otherwise injured 🤕, ffs! Gah! Calm down! It's just a little mischief 🙄😏).
I just want to have a little fun 🥳. Come on! Nothing nefarious 👿. Just prankster fun 🤪😝!
Deacon: So remember the nice, chill, mellow, 😌 happy, calm, quiet life we discussed? (💭 Imagine being a stoner and our biggest stressor is getting the munchies 🍕🥪🍚🍪🍰🥯🍟🥨when we're out of snacks and our favorite places are closed.) No fantasies about scaring 👻 people and getting reactions from the Forresters. Let's get back to us, our engagement, and our nice, quiet life. (Deacon, Reddit wonders if you actually KNOW Sheila 🤔).
Sheila: Ppffrrtt. (💭 Alright, fine, we'll seeeeeee😏.)
(Sheila and Deacon laugh 😄😀 and smoochy smoochy kissy kissy 😍🥰. Then Sheila is snuggled up with Deacon getting a shoulder massage.)
Sheila: I missed this. 😍 I missed you and thought about you the whole time. I didn't think I'd be back here. I was thisclose to 💀.
But, here I am! With you and my imaginary ring. 👋💍 😀 WOW!
Deacon: 🙄 No more pretending. I want everyone to know how in love 😍💕 I am with you. 🥰 (More smoochy smoochy 😘🥰.)

Hope, Ridge, and Liam at FC

Ridge and Liam: Sheila! Changed? 🤨 Wha? 😦Nah. Nope. No. No fucking way! 😠 Is Finn crazy? 😵‍💫 Delusional? Stupid? Wtf is his problem? 😤
Ridge: You must have gotten it wrong. It can't be.
Hope: No. Sheila is--
Ridge: NOOOOOOO! Grrrr. 😠 Gah! 😦 Not about SHEILA. I know. I KNOW. 🤨 I get it. I heard you. Sheila's alive. Fuck. But whatever. No. I mean about the other thing -- Finn idiotically thinking this is GOOD news. Growl! Huff! Puff! 😤On what planet could he POSSIBLY believe this is good news? How clueless is he?
Liam: (quickly hopping on the anti-Finn train 🚂) Yah. Yah. I mean, seriously. Hope. How could Finn POSSIBLY think,💡🤔 with NO ❌ evidence, that psychopath Sheila 👿 is reformed 😇? Wtf?!
Hope: He has reasons. He--
Ridge: REASONS!? REASONS?! 😮 Snarl! 😡 What fucking REASONS?!
Hope: He says she's changed. He's seen her growth. 🌱 He's seen her sprout angel 😇 wings 🪽. He's seen a new and improved Sheila.
Liam: Give me a fucking break! It's pure foolishness 🥴 and personal bias! 😦 Gah! Just because the BABY MANCHILD has a childish need to have a relationship with his birth mommy, he's latched onto a fantasy that this demon 👿 psycho has reformed. (💭 Don't worry, Steffy 💕. I'll be your fall back guy.).
It's NOT REALITY! (💭 I'm really postering now, showing off to Ridge, matching him huff for puff! 😤).
Ridge: Yah! Grrrr. Harumph! 😤😡 What's gotten into this guy? 🤨 Growl! 😦 Sheila is an ANIMAL! Grrr! 😦 Animals don't change! Snort! 😤 Spiders 🕷️, snakes⚕️, reptiles 🐊, monsters 🧟‍♀️👺👿 like Sheila never change!
Hope: I felt the same way. (💭 I even gave up on a relationship with my dad ☹️ when he wouldn't break it off with Sheila.) But after seeing 👀 them together 💕, maybe we should keep an open mind 😐.) People said the same thing about Thomas, that he--
Ridge: 🤨 You DID NOT. You DID NOT just FUCKING GO THERE (💭 bitch!) Growl! 😡 Snarl! 😦 Snort 😤! Grrrr. You DID NOT just COMPARE my TALENTED, KIND, LOVING, REFORMED SON (some Redditors say you forgot enabled, entitled, obsessed, dangerous, and consequence free son) to that PSYCHOPATH SHEILA?! OMFG! 🤬
Hope: I'm not saying they're the same. 🫤🙄 (💭 Gah. Eye roll. Patience with the neanderthal. Deep breath.) I'm just saying people can change. So we could just possibly, maybe open the door a teeny, tiny 🤏 bit and entertain the possibility that Finn could possibly be right.
Ridge: You AGREE with (💭 the loser idiot) FINN about that psycho 🫨 Sheila?! What the fucking fuck, Hope?! (💭 Are you crazy and stupid too? Where's Brooke? I can't deal with you, ffs.😠)
Look, Finn has a weird ass connection to Sheila. But WTF, Hope. What's up with YOU? 🤔
Liam: 🤨
Hope: I explained. Sugar was planning to harm 🪓➰🔪🩸 Steffy. Sheila tried to stop her.
Liam: Hearsay. This story of Sheila fighting Sugar came from the least reliable source -- Sheila! (💭 Reddit hates to admit it, but Liam has a point). Sheila told you this story. You, Finn, and Deacon just accept it at face value.
But all we know for sure is that SHEILA didn't attack 🔪 Steffy. Sugar did. That doesn't mean Sheila has changed. It just means there were TWO psychos! 😵‍💫🫨 (Reddit really doesn't want to give Liam credit but kinda gotta suck it up and admit, he's making good points.)
Hope: Deacon and Finn think she HAS changed.
Ridge: Hope. (💭 Whooo boy. I have no patience under normal circumstances. 😑 This is WILDLY FRUSTRATING AF! 😡). Everything Sheila says is a LIE! It's all for show. Gah! 😦 Come ON!
Hope: For--
Ridge and Liam: FOR FINN! FOR FINN! OMFG! 😨
Ridge: She's feeding him the fantasy HE WANTS! Now, she's supposed to be mother of the year, ffs?! Growl! Snarl! 😡 Nah!
Hope: I'm not saying we just accept it. I'm just asking that we keep an open mind, for Finn's sake. (💭 Reddit wonders why Hope doesn't just wrap it up and extricate herself from this whole thing! She should just say ' I gave you the news. Talk to Finn. Byeeee.' Reddit says get out of there, Hope. It's been a looooooooooooooong af day!)
Look, I'm starting to see Finn's side. If indeed Sheila has changed, why shouldn't he want a relationship with her?
Ridge: NOT gonna HAPPEN. 🤨 😡 (Reddit thinks Ridge must have taken a few pointers from Victor Newman only Ridge is way louder.) Finn wants Sheila in their lives. Steffy's not gonna allow it.🫸❌ Absolutely not. ❌ No way. ❌ No how. ❌ Never. Ever. Gonna happen. ❌ Nope. ❌ Nah! ❌ Forget about it! ❌
Liam: Ohhh. Yah! Righ! After what she's endured being MARRIED to this guy who has some bullshit, primal connection to his psycho 🫨 birth mother. Now he wants to invite Sheila into her life? Well, he doesn't GET STEFFY! Steffy will NEVER allow it. She'll draw a line ➖in the sand. The stop 🛑 sign will go up. The hands will push 🫸 back 🫸 hard 🫸.
FINN DOESN'T KNOW STEFFY -- like AT ALL! (💭 Not like I know Steffy and love 😍 Steffy, and will protect Steffy 👩‍❤️‍👨.)
Ridge: 🤨
Hope: 🙄

Finn and Steffy at their home

Steffy: (it all sinks in) It wasn't Sheila I stabbed 🔪. 😣 It was a look-a-like, Sugar. 😖 I stabbed Sugar -- some woman who was tricked into plastic surgery to look like Sheila. What?! 🤯
Finn: Yah, babe. Isn't that a good thing? 🙂 Isn't that GREAT? 😀 Isn't that a relief? 😀 Isn't that a HUGE weight lifted? 😃 Aren't you thrilled 🤩, happy 😁, and bursting with joy 😊? I know I am. We thought you killed my birth mother, but you stabbed a totally different psycho! Pretty cool, huh? 🙄😃
Steffy: 🥺😠😡 (💭 Wow. OMG. Finn thinks I should be relieved? WTF?!)
Finn: Sugar kidnapped ➰⛓️ Sheila. If Deacon and I hadn't gotten there to SAVE her, she might not have survived, honey! This is SUCH AMAZINGLY AWESOME 👍 NEWS!
Steffy: So YOU think I'm supposed to be THANKFUL this monster 👿 is alive?! Are you fucking serious?! 😖😟
Finn: Nah. But yah. Isn't a small 🤏 part of you thankful? 🙄
Steffy: No. 😕
Finn: Relieved? 😀
Steffy: No. ☹️
Finn: Happy for me? 🙂
Steffy: No. 😣
Finn: Honey, babe, sweetheart, listen. We were struggling with the fact that you killed my birth mother, but we don't have to anymore. (💭 I know if I reframe this the right way, Steffy will have an ah ha 💡moment 😀 and feel relief. I just have to find the right words. I have faith 🙏 in us. I'm not even a little bit delusional.🥴 I know Steffy has a good and forgiving heart ❤️. She's just in shock 😳 and horrified 😱 and her mind is blown 🤯. But this will subside. 🙂 I'll just keep talking in a soothing voice. Yah!)
You killed someone who hated Sheila. Sugar was crazy. She wanted to hurt YOU to hurt HER. Get it? (💭 Sugar was the REALLY bad 👹 one. Sheila is a RECOVERING psycho! Big difference! 😀)
Steffy: So I'm supposed to be ooooh all happy and shit that psycho A is dead and psycho B is alive? 🤔 Nah! Finn, I'ma speak slowly so you can understand me when I tell you, NO I'm not happy or relieved or whatever tf you want me to be -- because the DANGER IS BACK! (💭 This man has the THICKEST, HARDEST HEAD! Fucking hell. He's freaking me out so badly that Dawn can't even find any emojis to express the emotional wreckage on my face! Anger, disbelief, confusion, fear, stress, anxiety, frustration -- all the feels!)
Finn: Nah. It's not back! That's the glorious, wonderful, amazing, beautiful, exciting, magnificent 😀😃😄😁 thing I'm just not adequately conveying to you, my love! No fear or danger! Sheila tried to PROTECT YOU. She tried to SAVE YOUR LIFE! She's your best friend ever! She wants to get pedicures together, not shoot us and leave us for dead! She's past that nonsense now. No more danger, honey! ☺️💕
She offered her own life to save you! She tried to fight Sugar. She loves us!
Steffy: Look. 🤨 Sugar's scheme was to blame Sheila. So, Sheila was just selfishly protecting HERSELF from getting blamed. That's all it was! (💭 If I just reframe this the right way, Finn will have an ah ha 💡 moment. He has to! I just have to find the right words to get through his thick skull and penetrate his delusional thinking. He's really worrying me and pissing me off. Wow. Just wow.)
Finn: Nah. She offered her own life! She cares more about us than her own life. SHEILA'S A HERO! Super Sheila🦸‍♀️ to the rescue, only she was chained up ⛓️ and fighting at a disadvantage, but she tried!
Steffy: Hero? HERO? 🤢🤮 You're calling SHEILA fucking psycho CARTER a HERO? Are you on crack? 😮 She tried to KILL🩸us. (💭 He's gone off the deep end into LA LA land 🤪.)
Finn: When Sugar told her--
Steffy: (Angry 😡 and frustrated 😖, Steffy Slams a chair 🪑💥 hard on the floor.) I DON'T GIVE AF ABOUT SUGAR!!! I don't CARE about her!!! 😦😣 She means NOTHING TO ME!!! (💭 STFU Finn! OMFG! Ahhhh! I have NO PATIENCE LEFT for his delusional BULLSHIT! I can't seem to get through to him! Why tf won't he LISTEN??!! 🤬)
WE'RE TALKING ABOUT SHEILA! 😠
S H E I L A !! 😡
We've been over this a ZILLION TIMES how she had terrorized my family for generations! How do you not GET IT?
Finn: I do. I underst--
Steffy: NO YOU DO NOT FUCKING UNDERSTAND!!!! 😡😤 GENERATIONS! GENERATIONS! That vile bitch is a LUNATIC! 😵‍💫🫨😈
(Steffy pleads 😫 with Finn in frustration 😖😣 to comprehend.)
She tried to KILL ME! And my MOTHER! And my GRANDMOTHER! 😩
I lost TIME with my mother! 😩 I lost TIME with YOU! 😫😣
She's tried to POISON people. So, even if she did try some feeble attempt to get that other stupid psychopath friend not to hurt me, SO FUCKING WHAT?!
NO! NO! NO NO NO NO! 😡 She's NO HERO! I NEVER want to hear you say that AGAIN! (💭 La La La La I can't hear you! I won't hear you! NO!)
Finn: 😑😞 (shakes his head. 💭 She's not getting it.)
Steffy: 😡😖 (shakes her head. 💭 He's lost his mind.)
Steffy: Do you hear me? She's vile. She is in no way a HERO! 😠 She left us in an ALLEY to DIE! What are you thinking? 😩
Finn: Yah yah. I knoooow. I know her past sins. She's made some mistakes 😒, some bad judgement calls🙄, she's been kind of a mess 🫤. She hasn't always put her best foot forward. She hasn't always been super thoughtful. Sure, she's wanted a lot of people dead 💀, but that was THEN and this is NOW! She's been working on herself. She's very into self help these days, and yoga and shit. The fact is she tried to save you!
Steffy: Don't CHALLENGE ME on FACTS ABOUT SHEILA! I'll give YOU the fucking FACTS Mr. Man! 😡 You will lose.
Finn: How about the handy dandy fact that she's alive and you didn't kill my birth mother? ☺️ That matters to me! I'm your husband (takes Steffy's hand). You're the most important person 💕 in the world 🌎 to me. But my birth mother was a mystery. I almost lost her. I just want to help her. I don't want to turn my back on her. 😟 (💭 She's kind of a hoot too, and stubborn and strong, kinda like someone else I love! ❤️)
Steffy: (looking miserable 😖) But you have to. I love you. 😢God, I love you! ❤️ (💭 And my heart is breaking 💔 right now.) You are SO GOOD! But Sheila is EVIL 👹. You are naive (💭 delusional) to think she'll change, that she won't devestate our lives.
Sheila is NOT going to be IN OUR LIVES, no where near Kelly or Hayes.
You can't have BOTH. 😟
It's either HER.
Or ME. 😐
Finn: 😕I hear you. Of COURSE it's YOU. It will always be you. ❤️ (Steffy and Finn share an emotional embrace, both with weary 😞, teary 😥, worried 🥺 expressions. They hold on to each other, emotionally spent.)
The end.