By my count, there are 15 T5 ships available for just dilithium or a level 40 token, which someone might want a starter build for to help them finish off the episode missions and start the reputation grind. My Strict Budget Build covers the three science vessels, the Baby Step series covers the three cruisers with tactical ensigns, Quick Looks 1 and 2 cover the Hegh'ta Bird of Prey and the Jem'hadar Escort, and there's definitely an argument to be made that some are just bad choices. But there was one more I wanted to take a look at here. This series will not be as thoroughly researched as those previous series, and it will not feature optimized skill builds (there are many resources for that), but the builds will be proven in the Badlands Battlezone and in solo Defense of Starbase One Advanced, as well as extensively parsed in the Wanted (Argala System) patrol with comparisons to similar builds. That should adequately demonstrate that they can get you whatever reputation marks you need, using only mission, basic (generally Mk XII uncommon) Exchange, and Phoenix Store items. Each build will be allowed one Mk XV item to maintain parity with the Strict Budget Build, usually a forward weapon. It's also easy enough to put these together that I could be persuaded to do more if there's a ship that deserves it.
So, why the Vo'Quv? Well it's in the name, it's a carrier. Hangar bays are expensive to boost in this game, but that means they have to be balanced to have pretty good base damage. In this case the two hangars did more than half the damage of most of the other builds in this series with hardly any support for them. The downside to carriers is that they often sacrifice a lot for those hangars. Not so for Flight Deck Carriers, which are pretty much full cruisers, or any of the single hangar types, but the science carriers like the Vo'Quv don't really have an obvious path to getting ship damage, especially on this budget. Their turn rate is terrible, which is a problem for most things, they have only 6 weapons so getting a lot from energy weapons is out, and they don't have a secondary deflector, which did do more on my science vessel build than the hangars did here.
So where did I end up, then? Well, with 6 science ability slots and not a ton of options I couldn't see not using them for some direct exotic damage. And since that required me to face forward, and the turn rate was terrible and I couldn't do much about it, I concluded that I'd have to use turrets in the rear with either beam arrays or single cannons forward, the two widest arc weapon combinations possible apart from pure turrets, although their damage potential is limited. The Chronometric set also seemed like a must have, providing a large amount of EPG and some Polaron cat1 from the tac console, and a bit of aux power from the 2 piece, but I wasn't sure whether I'd want the Morphogenic set or not, since it would mean sacrificing a cannon. Then, I went to the TRINITY DPS Calculator from STO BETTER and started plugging in some rough options. Single cannons outperformed beam arrays even with the Chronometric 3 piece, so that settled that, and getting the crtd from the Morphogenic 3 piece and Cannon Scatter Volley was well worth losing a forward cannon for the torp. Attack Pattern Beta proved a bigger contributor than expected thanks to boosting the exotic damage as well, which is why that's at 2 and CSV is at 1, and easily outperformed including a Torpedo Spread as well. Finally I switched the power settings away from a balanced configuration toward weapons over aux and aux over weapons, and the high aux version did best. So that was the build.
How did it perform? Well it was sluggish, obviously, I expected that. But the DPS was pretty impressive and was reflected in how quickly it got kills. And the survivability was pretty good, with a lot of hull and pretty good healing I really couldn't complain, except that it was so sluggish it was hard to run out of range and heal if I needed to. On the other hand when I did withdraw the fighters kept fighting, contributing to the highest Wanted Elite DPS of any of the builds in the table with only one attempt needed to survive the whole mission (the science vessel could do better by charging in and dying a couple of times, but needed to play cautiously and sacrifice its CPB to survive). They were even powerful enough to handle the Birds of Prey in Starbase One Advanced without any help from the mothership, potentially even without player input, which could be convenient.

Captain Details

Captain Name	Stilt
Captain Career	Science
Captain Faction	Federation
Captain Race	Vulcan
Primary Specialization	Temporal	The best specialization for exotic builds, as well as for ground builds and a good generalist option, it provides debuffs, damage boosts, EPG, and survivability

Space Skill Tree

Rank	Engineering		Science		Tactical
Lieutenant		Advanced Hull Capacity			Advanced Energy Weapon Training	Advanced Projectile Weapon Training
Lt. Commander	Improved Electro-Plasma System Flow	Impulse Expertise	Improved Control Expertise	Drain Expertise	Targeting Expertise	Defensive Maneuvering
			Control Amplification	Drain Infection
Commander	Hull Plating				Advanced Weapon Amplification	Advanced Weapon Specialization
Captain	Defensive Subsystem Tuning		Advanced Exotic Particle Generator	Advanced Long Range Targeting Sensors	Advanced Hull Penetration	Advanced Shield Weakening
Admiral					Coordination Protocols	Advanced Tactical Readiness
					Defensive Coordination
					Offensive Coordination
1 Points Left	8		11		26

Space Skill Unlocks

Purchases	Engineering	Science	Tactical
2	Hazard Emitters III	Science Team III	Tachyon Beam III
5	Battery Expertise	Sector Space Travel Speed
7	Feedback Pulse III	Photonic Shockwave III	Jam Sensors III
10		Maximum Shield Capacity
12			Tractor Beam III
15		Control Resistance
17			Viral Matrix III
20		Shield Drain Resistance
24 (Ultimate)			Focused Frenzy
25 (1st Ultimate Enhancer)			Frenzied Assault
26 (2nd Ultimate Enhancer)			Team Frenzy

This skill tree is my generalist one from Strict Budget Build part 2, and it pretty much needs to be. This build relies on both energy weapon and exotic damage, so it can't afford to neglect either one. There are other generalist skill trees, of course, but that is what you'll need to be looking for, any single purpose tree isn't going to get the job done.

Ship Loadout: Vo'Quv Carrier

Slot	Item	Notes
Fore Weapon 1	Polaron Cannon	The one Mk XV, single cannons are usually a poor choice, but they will outperform beam arrays forward/turrets aft and provide 180 degrees of firing arc
Fore Weapon 2	Polaron Cannon	The Vo'Quv suffers from terrible turn rate so it doesn't want weapons with narrow arcs, but it needs to face forward for the exotic damage
Fore Weapon 3	Morphogenic Polaron Energy Torpedo Launcher	Here for the 3 piece set bonus providing 30% crtd to the whole ship
Aft Weapon 1	Heavy Chronometric Polaron Turret	Mostly need a turret, 2 piece provides some aux
Aft Weapon 2	Morphogenic Polaron Energy Weapon	Another turret, and contributes to the 3 piece
Aft Weapon 3	Polaron Turret	Just a turret
Deflector	Solanae Deflector Array Mk XII Very Rare	Provides more EPG out of the box than any other mission reward
Impulse Engines	Sol Defense Impulse Engines Mk XII Very Rare	With the bonus from getting hit this does just provide the best total turn rate out of the mission rewards at 14.7 degrees/s, replace with Fortified Competitive rep engines
Warp Core	Obelisk Subspace Rift Warp Core	This build only hits 122 aux so this doesn't actually help, could consider Deuterium-Stabilized but the benefit is minimal
Shields	Sol Defense Covariant Shield Array Mk XII Very Rare	2 piece is nice for survivability, alternative would be Jem'Hadar 2 piece for a bit of Polaron cat1.
Devices	Exotic Particle Flood	Crafted in Science R&D. I do have to admit that the materials are a little hard to come by, and Admiralty (with account unlocked ships) is the best source I've found.
	Deuterium Surplus	Evasive Maneuvers in battery form, and you can collect 4 per day from the Alhena system.
	Delta Alliance Reinforcements Beacon	Handy damage boost
3 Engineering Consoles	Console - Engineering - Trellium-D Plating Mk XII Very Rare	Good survivability console, could use a Neutronium instead
	Console - Engineering - Polaric Modulator Mk XII Very Rare	Boosts Inertia, which is rare, as well as turn rate, and slipstream turn rate at warp
	Console - Engineering - House Martok Defensive Configuration Mk XII Very Rare	Boosts turn rate and provides some survivability, an RCS would work too
4 Science Consoles	Console - Science - Temporal Disentanglement Suite Mk XII Very Rare	Nice crit and durability boost, plus some power.
	Console - Science - Temporally Shielded Datacore Mk XII Very Rare	Slightly less EPG than Particle Generators but it makes up for it with the CtrlX
	Console - Science - Particle Generator Mk XII Uncommon	Just need EPG
	Console - Science - Particle Generator Mk XII Common
2 Tactical Consoles	Console - Tactical - Morphogenic Matrix Controller Mk XII Very Rare	For the 3 piece and some polaron cat1
	Console - Tactical - Chronometric Capacitor Mk XII Very Rare	Good EPG, some aux from the 2 piece, and some Polaron cat1, and this build uses all of it
2 Hangar Bays	Hangar - To'Duj Fighters	These provide more DPS than any other hangar that's available by default, and they come with the ship, they will die in heavy AoE content, otherwise use two
	Hangar - Delta Flyers	These have slightly less DPS than To'duj but never die in any content, but do require a level 65 KDF character for Cross Faction Flying, could substitute B'rels for more DPS loss

Officer Details

Bridge Officers
Lt. Commander Tactical	Tactical Team I	Shield distribution and debuff clear, may cause firing cycle problems but I haven't seen it
	Cannon: Scatter Volley I	Excellent weapon damage buff and also spreads APB to up to 3 targets
	Attack Pattern Beta II	Unusual to slot this above the firing mode, but it boosts every damage source and weapon damage is only ~1/4 of the total
Lt. Commander Engineering	Emergency Power to Engines I	More than doubles speed and provides +2 turn rate, essential mobility for any build
	Auxiliary to Structural I	Excellent heal and damage resist, and on a very short cooldown
	Emergency Power to Weapons III	Major energy weapon damage boost
Commander Science	Hazard Emitters I	Good hull heal and debuff clear
	Destabilizing Resonance Beam I	Good exotic damage, used with GW
	Photonic Officer II	Cooldown reduction
	Gravity Well III	Good exotic damage and control
Lieutenant Science	Science Team I	Shield heal and debuff clear
	Tyken's Rift I	Exotic damage, alternate with GW

Traits & Duty Officers

Trait	Name	Description	Notes
Personal Traits	Astrophysicist		A little bit of EPG
	Cannon Training		A little more cannon damage
	Conservation of Energy		Significant exotic damage while solo, but stacks don't last long
	Deft Cannoneer		Boosts turn rate by 1, on this build we need it, from Cannons R&D
	Fleet Coordinator		One of the best traits in the game when on a team
	Give Your All		Excellent hull damage resistance
	Operative		Some extra crit
	Particle Manipulator		The most powerful trait for exotic damage, +50%/+29.6% crth/crtd on this build, from Science R&D
	Photonic Capacitor		Extra Photonic Fleet is nice to have
Starship Traits	None		Unconventional Tactics from completing Strategist is definitely worth slotting here, but I kept it cheap.
Space Reputation Traits	None		You'll start picking these up very quickly, Precision and Advanced Targeting Systems are top picks.
Duty Officers	Projectile Weapons Officer		"Law" from A Fistful of Gorn, a bit of a pain to get there, but worth having
	Projectile Weapons Officer		A common included in my first duty officer pack
	Astrometrics Scientist		Uncommon, also in my first pack, handy to have set
	Conn Officer		From Phoenix, a must have for mobility in any build

This table shows all damage sources in one Wanted Advanced run, with multiple lines from the same source summed together.

Source	DPS
To'Duj Fighters	6594
Delta Flyers	4504
Gravity Well	3571
Photonic Fleet	3170
Polaron Cannons	2889
Destabilizing Resonance Beam	1728
Chronometric Turret	1156
Polaron Turret	1001
Morphogenic Turret	994
Morphogenic Torpedo	855
Tyken's Rift	839
Drain Infection	708
Entropic Rider	144

^{Table formatting brought to you by ExcelToReddit}
Now, let's talk keybinds. In STO on PC you're going to want to learn keybinding eventually, and most of it's not too hard and can be done through the chat window (although it is arguably better to create a separate text file with your binds, that's more complicated). The first thing I always do is to set up a secondary fire weapons button through settings, usually V, just in case I screw up and my intended fire keybind doesn't work. While I'm there I usually set Distribute Shields to Left Shift, it's a pretty good survivability boost, although a lot of people do say it can mess up firing cycles, but personally I've never noticed a problem. Then, the commands you'll want to know are "FirePhasers" or "FireAll", "+power_exec Distribute_Shields", and "+TrayExecByTray # #", where # is a number. Note that the list of commands needs quotation marks around it, and commands should be separated by "$$". So if you typed the following into the chat: /bind y "+TrayExecByTray 0 0 $$ +TrayExecByTray 0 1 $$ +TrayExecByTray 1 2 $$ +TrayExecByTray 1 3" That would create a keybind so that y would activate the first and second abilities in the row labeled 1, and the third and fourth abilities in the row labeled 2 (0 in a keybind means 1 in the UI, 1 means 2, 2 means 3, etc., that's just how it works), starting with the fourth ability in 2 and then proceeding backwards. From there on in it's personal preference, put things where they feel natural to you, where you're used to them being. What I use has evolved naturally over time, I make no claims that it's efficient, just that I'm used to it, and I use it on everything. For fire weapons, distribute shields, Emergency Power abilities, cooldown reduction, often Aux to Structural, and anything else I just want to keep active I use spacebar, like this: /bind space "FireAll $$ +power_exec Distribute_Shields $$ +TrayExecByTray 6 0 $$ +TrayExecByTray 6 1 $$ +TrayExecByTray 6 2 $$ +TrayExecByTray 6 3 $$ +TrayExecByTray 6 4" That's the first 5 slots in row 7, which is usually enough. Then for my firing modes, Attack Pattern Beta, and so on, things with short cooldowns I activate as I attack, I use the 7 key, no good reason for that it just happened, and the first 4 slots in row 3: /bind 7 "+TrayExecByTray 2 0 $$ +TrayExecByTray 2 1 $$ +TrayExecByTray 2 2 $$ +TrayExecByTray 2 3" And finally for my exotic builds I always put Gravity Well and Destabilizing Resonance beam on 2, using the next two slots in row 3, although it is true that the usual logic behind that doesn't apply here, I just did it out of habit: /bind 2 "+TrayExecByTray 2 4 $$ +TrayExecByTray 2 5" That's all the keybinds I use, everything else I activate manually, one at a time, but it does compress 13 keys I might want to be pressing down to 3, which helps a lot.
Now, the difficult thing about this build is that I really don't know how to suggest upgrading it, apart from the obvious necessity of some Competitive Reputation engines to get their Overcharge to improve turn rate, I made sure to use Aux to Structural to pair with the Fortified version of those. The damage is very divided between different types, with about 40% from hangars, 25% from exotics, and 21% from energy weapons, and it's not getting a lot out of any of them, but I'll provide my own ideas and the STO BETTER Basics links for all three. Currently the biggest damage source is the hangars, but trying to improve those would be expensive. Ideally you'd like to pick up Superior Area Denial from the Mirror Strike Wing Escort lockbox ship, or at least the Independent Wingmate space trait, but those are very expensive compared to this build. Even the more minor and less powerful Advanced Engineering – Hangar Craft Power Transmission consoles are starting at 1 million energy credits each on PC for either a Mk XII with a useless mod or a Mk II with an [EPG] mod, or 5 million for a Mk II with [Polaron], while Swarmer Matrix is going for 7 million. If you wanted to work on exotic damage you could of course pick up the Temporal reputation two piece, and then you might want Subspace Vortex or Very Cold in Space to replace the heals with some more damage, but those will cost you 9 million, and really you'd want to pair them with Spore Infused Anomalies from the Somerville or Batlh C-store ships for a truly potent source of exotic damage. You might be able to get good exotic damage out of the Gravimetric Photon and Particle Emission Plasma torpedoes after picking up the Competitive engines, and those aren't as expensive, but they do give you a much narrower arc. And if you wanted to improve the energy weapons, of course there are reputation items you can pick up starting with the Discovery reputation shield, but you're pretty limited by the combination of poor turn rate and forward firing exotics. You could try to switch to dual (heavy) cannons, probably moving the torpedo to the rear and dropping the plain turret, but I don't think I'm a good enough pilot to pull that off even with Competitive engines, which would leave you with single cannons which have underwhelming base damage and very few set items to support them. I just don't know what direction to go in to make a really impactful improvement in this build.
Finally, here's the table of DPS testing in the Wanted patrol for all five equivalent budget builds. The Luna used the original, unaltered Strict Budget Build, using the mentioned swap of Emergency Power to Shields instead of Aux to Structural for better survivability against non-Borg. The Vor'cha sat somewhere between parts one and two of the Baby Step series, meaning it had exactly the same consoles as the Hegh'ta BoP and similar ones to the Jem Escort, and the beam equivalents of the phaser weapons, with exactly the abilities and personal traits in the Baby Step posts. It must also be said that the Vor'cha and Vo'quv were the only builds to never die on elite difficulty, and the Vor'cha was definitely the toughest, although all the builds took about 20 minutes to get through the mission so using them at that difficulty is a bad idea. The Hegh'ta of course used the Quick Looks 1 build, and the Jem Escort used the Quick Looks 2 build.

	Elite (DPS thousands)	Advanced 1 (DPS thousands)	Advanced 2	Advanced 3	Advanced 4	Advanced Average
Hegh'ta Heavy BoP	20.0	20.1	21.5	22.5	23.2	21.8
Jem'hadar Escort	19.3	23.4	20.6	21.8	19.7	21.4
Vo'quV Carrier	27.3	26.3	28.2	26.6	25.2	26.6
Luna Science Vessel	24.8	31.4	28.3	27.9	27.0	28.6
Vor'cha Battlecruiser	15.1	15.0	14.1	14.8	14.6	14.6

^{Table formatting brought to you by ExcelToReddit}

Death House and atmosphere, helps?
Hello everyone, I’m in a bit of a pickle. I’m GMing death house revised for my party with some twists and fun additions from me.
We started with everyone at the campfire, and after they awoke they found their gear gone. They got transported in barovia with only their pjs, and anything they went to bed holding or donning. I described how the woods were unnaturally still, not a single critter moving around, no tracks indicating they walked there and no tracks indicating anyone stole their gear. They were immediately approached by the mists, churning with evil energy and I described how a young boy tried to run through them, desperately, but was mercilessly cut in half by a monster inside the mists and tossed aside like a broken toy.
They got to the house, found out the gardener was a creep, beat him senseless and threw him inside the house, at which point they were sucked in and saw how the gardener they were holding by the neck disintegrated into a skeleton. I gave them an idea about the outside as well, describing how the gardener was still there cutting the grass, while mistwraiths, wolves, giant bats and undead cats roamed the property, guarding the house.
I also gave them some hauntings when they were alone: The sorcerer got a creepy little walter speaking to him asking to play hide and seek The paladin got furniture to attack her after she smashed the furniture upstairs The cleric got Mrs Durst haunting him culminating in him getting poisoned for 1h after she tried to restrain him and he cast sacred flame.
Players complain there’s not enough macabre and spookyness, and I would like some pointers on how to add more of that. I am damaging them (paladin got 8 points of damage after falling a dex save against a charging couch, cleric got 1pt of damage from mrs durst throwing a knife at him plus poison, rest is gonna come slowly but surely) but they want more spooky and macabre and I don’t know what to add, how to set the mood so to speak. Tips?
Also one of the players is strahd himself, disguised as a party member, and I plan to have him TPK the party when the session is concluded. Ideas? Thanks!

In Missing Pieces, Agent Phillip Jeffries checked in to a Buenos Aires Hotel named Palm De Luxe.
Another kind of "de luxe" is a Rolex wristwatch that according to the company itself is une montre de luxe. Another kind of palm is a date, as in a date palm. These seemingly unrelated kinds would then come back together because a Rolex watch has a date on its clock face, like seen when Andy glanced his in P5.
Stars turn, and the time presents itself.
Andy's Rolex was also linked to another luxury item, Mr C's 2015 Mercedes-Benz S 550 Coupé the three-pointed star of which matched the position of the hands of Andy's watch, giving us the likely answer to the Log Lady's P2 riddle about "stars turning" and the time presenting itself. There may have been all sorts of transformations here so that also another Mercedes, the 2001 Mercedes-Benz C-Klasse driven by the Polish Accountant, was this same item. As the story moved forward, it seems to have been in constant flux so that select characters and their surroundings kept wildly changing from one scene to another.
We got another riddle about stars in P13 when Hawk revealed his ancient map to Sheriff Truman. Earlier in P9, the deputies had found some information with two dates on a piece of paper inside a metal tube left behind by Major Briggs.

Hawk: "The Major also gave us a date, day after tomorrow. If you read these stars --"

Hawk waved his hand over the rudimentary starry sky of his map.

Hawk: "-- you find that same date --"

The date that Major gave them was a shooting star.
He pointed multiple times at a specific location on the map. We didn't see what it was exactly but since he had already pointed at the Major's old station on the Blue Pine Mountain, "that same date" was somewhere up and right from the mountain.
Among the stars on the map's sky, there was one different, a shooting star on the area that Hawk appeared to point at. But how could a date and a shooting star link to each other?
This takes us to Agent Tammy Preston whose real name was given in the credits as Tamara,. Coincidentally, the name "Tamara" means a date palm. She was also a star of different kind, like Albert recalled in P12.

Albert: "Agent Preston, you've been on our radar since you made the honors list at George Washington High, not to mention the dean's list at MIT and top of your class at Quantico."

Pay attention to the shooting star.
Later in P16, after telling her story, the manufactured Diane got agitated and draw her pistol. Whatever she planned to do, Albert and Tammy were faster and shot her. At 41:24, there was a strange glitch. Briefly, only Albert was behind the desk, drawing his weapon, whereas Tammy had disappeared. But after a quick cut to Diane getting hit, Tammy was back, shooting Diane as well.
As usual, the glitch right that moment probably urged us to pay attention to Tammy. On computer screens behind her, there were two FBI emblems. The emblem is decorated with 13 stars, making her surrounded by stars. She was shooting, and there was fire coming from her pistol.
Perhaps Tammy was the "date" that was also the "shooting star" in the starry sky on Hawk's map.
So, on one hand, we got a star linked to Rolex and Mercedes-Benz and on the other, a star linked to Tammy. Would these two star riddles perhaps meet each other so that ultimately they were about the same thing?
In P2, Mr C's Mercedes went to a storage and he got a Lincoln Town Car. Jack appeared to have got himself into some trouble with him. A bit later, Mr C told what happened.

Mr C: "I killed Jack two hours ago after he wired the car."

It wasn't clear if he meant the Mercedes-Benz or the Lincoln. Another strange exchange around wiring was later in P4 when the FBI team was wrapping up at Yankton airport.

Cole: "You're wearing a wire, Tammy." Tammy: "You asked me to!" Cole: "Right. Go wait in the restaurant."

The star turned, and an hourglass presented itself.
Frustrated, Tammy turned around and went in. The two men kept staring at her curvy walking. Perhaps the idea here was that as this star turned, an hourglass figure presented itself, the time of different kind.
That this was the association we needed to make was hinted by framing Tammy in the middle of a wider shot that had the fence reflected on the windows. Later in P12, when we got to Audrey and Charlie for the first time and camera panned slowly across the room, it stopped so that on the right, there was another kind of fence visible through a window while on the left, there was an actual hourglass on Charlie's desk.
Judy has a turning figure 8.
Another name for the hourglass body shape is "figure 8". In P17, the teapot version of Jeffries kept thinking about Judy when Cooper and Gerard paid him a visit, even if nobody was asking him about it.

Jeffries: "This ... is where you'll find Judy. There may be someone -- Did you ask me this?"

In the steam, the "two birds with one stone" symbol of the green ring appeared and quickly transformed into number 8. A dot appeared on it. The number turned around, just like Tammy turned her figure 8.
To Tammy and the blue rows.
The last we saw of Mr C's Mercedes-Benz was in P2 when it disappeared behind a coiling door that looked like a set of blue rows. Later in P12, Tammy agreed to join the FBI's Blue Rose task force, and they all cheered for her.

Cole: "To Tammy and the Blue Rose!"

You got a date with a Bell who might show up as a luxury timepiece.
In Missing Pieces, when Jeffries arrived to Hotel Palm De Luxe, he got a note from "Miss Judy". The receptionist held it for a while so that it was framed between a heavily decorated clock face and a bell. Perhaps this was the shot that gave Lynch the idea to cast Chrysta Bell in the role of a the character who would also appear as a luxury watch.
The male characters driving or having a Mercedes-Benz - the Mr C in the opening episode, garageman Jack in P2 and the Polish Accountant in P16 - or wearing a Rolex - Red in P6 and the Andy on the logging road in P7 - seem to all have been various incarnations of Phillip Jeffries, changing from one appearance to another. He was, after all, a former FBI Agent. At the same time, these cars and watches seem to have been abstractions for the same character who appeared as Tammy. Assuming she indeed was Judy, the two of them seem to have hit it off and gone together to their own worlds.
The Major also gave us a date. This would now take us to Cole's story he told to Albert and Tammy in P17.

Cole: "For 25 years, I've kept something from you, Albert. Before he disappeared, Major Briggs shared with me and Cooper his discovery of an entity, an extreme negative force called in olden times 'Jowday.' Over time, it's become 'Judy.' Major Briggs, Cooper, and I put together a plan that could lead us to Judy."

The little story was prefaced with inconsistent acting and repeated footage, as seems usual to help us connect the dots. At 2:21, there was a shot of Tammy and Albert. Then back to Cole who quietly stared at Albert and then looked at something in front of Tammy. Cut back to the other two, Tammy's wine glass had jumped to another location, and now she held her right arm with her left. There was a cut back to Cole, repeating the exact same footage we just saw, with him again looking at something in front of Tammy.
The glitching may have suggested that the topic of Cole's story was right there, listening how the boys had a plan to get to her. Apparently, the Major had had a role to play why and how she was there - it was him who had discovered Judy and given the "date", apparently then Tamara Preston. Coincidentally, later in the episode, she was in the Twin Peaks Sheriff's station 10/2 at 2:53pm.
But there were two dates on the Major's slip of paper, implying that things weren't quite as straightforward.

TW: Alcoholism, drug addiction, violence, suicidal ideation, sex abuse
This is going to be a LLLLLOOONNNNGGGGG one. This story goes back quite a way, but yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the ending to this story and I'm feeling it, still got some guilt about everything that happened, wondering what I could have done differently and I just want to vent it out and hope to get some closure from it.
This story started in 2010.
Characters in this story (names are fake, duh!):

• Me, Guy, 32M at the time, 45 now.
• My BFF Stephanie, 33F at the time.
• Stephen, 40M at the time, Stephanie's boyfriend.
• Maryse, 27F at the time.

Background and intro
I had known Stephanie for many years and we had the kind of friendship that made her BFs and my GFs uncomfortable to put it lightly. We had never crossed that boundary and I wouldn't consider us in the friendzone, we were just friend, but the kind of friend where she would sit on my lap with her arms around my neck or her head on my shoulder.
At the start of 2010, Stephanie met her then boyfriend, Stephen. He tolerated me and my friendship with Stephanie because I also had a gf back then. She liked Stephanie, wasn't at all jealous of my friendship with her, so he didn't deem me too suspicious. Then my gf and I broke up for reasons unimportant and all hell broke loose for Stephen. He became convinced that I would try and steal Stephanie from him. He insisted that Stephanie introduce me to her female friends or female friends of his. Thus began what I called the year of the 50 blind dates. It was probably closer to 20, but still I like saying the year of 50 blind dates. Most of them were unremarkable and never went beyond the first date. There are some fun stories in there if anyone wants to hear them eventually!
In July of that year, I had to switch gears because I had to focus up and study for a professional exam for a certification important to my career. This exam required close to 600-800 hours of study over a 3-4 month period. So I hunkered down, told Stephanie to stop the blind dates for now because I had to focus on that. She respected my wishes and, other a text here or there, we went low contact for the last two months before the exam.
Except for one fateful night in September. Her birthday was in September and she always threw these big bashes at her house. She would throw a big pool party that started around noon and would go on to the wee hours of the morning. I knew she would harass me to go to her party, so I made some quick math and figured I would lose more energy and time trying to dodge her calls, texts and most likely visits at my place than by just going to the party itself. So when she called me to ask, I just said: "Okay I'll go to your damn party, now git." I texted her I would get there in the evening probably around 8. She texted back "Great, can't wait. Now study, bitch!"
So I ultimately get there around 8PM. Basically everybody is already drunk off their gourd. Stephanie sees me, squeals in excitement and runs to me in her bikini and just jumps in the air and slams into me, wraps her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist and gives me a big hug. I hug her back and just keep walking back to the pool where she had started, carrying her with me. I just duck my head around hers and say hi to Stephen, who just glares at me.
She drops back down and I give her her gift. We chat for a few seconds and says "There's beer in the fridge and food in the dining room." I told her I'd be right back.
I go inside and grab a beer from the fridge. I head to the dining room and the table is against the wall with a buffet of sandwiches, tomato pizza, salads, etc. I grab a plate and start putting food on it. I was focused on the task because I was starving. I barely noticed, sitting at the end of the table one of the most stunning woman I have ever seen. I just see her in my peripheral vision and I do a quick double take, quick glance at her and back to the food. I do that a second time. And finally a third time. At that point she is just straight up staring at me and I can't help but chuckle and whisper under my breath "Subtle Guy, sub-tle".
Thankfully she starts laughing too, saving me some embarassment. I look at her and greet her. She says "Hi, I'm Maryse and I'm guessing you're Guy?" I just nod and we start talking. At that point, I just thought I have no shot with her, she's so far out of my league that I'm just gonna talk to her until she sees one of the "models" hanging out by the pool and ditches me for him.
So I'm not feeling like I'm playing for anything, so I'm just myself and not nervous, just talking to her as I would any friend. We chat and she laughs at all my jokes, she gets all my cultural references. She never gets up or ditches me. The plate of food I had made and the beer I had gotten are sitting on the table next to me untouched, I was too busy with the convo to think about food or beer anymore.
After what felt like only 20-30 minutes, Stephanie comes in and tells me, fake grumpy: "So that's where you disappeared to. I invite my best friend to a party and he spends the whole night talking to someone else." I laugh and go: "What do you mean the whole night? I haven't been here that long." She says "Dude, it's 2AM. You've been here for 6 hours..." My jaw dropped and I just said: "Wow, time flies when you're having fun." Maryse chimes in, with a big smile: "It sure does!" That made me happy as you can imagine.
Now I was a little stuck because where Stephanie lived, there's no night service for the bus and the subway had been closed for an hour or so. I figured I would cab it. So I turn to Maryse and tell her: "It was absolutely lovely to meet you and I enjoyed our conversation very much." She says that she did too. I continued with "At the moment, my schedule is incredibly hectic. I'm basically working full-time, studying full-time and sleeping part-time. So I don't have a lot of free time, but if she was interested, whatever little free time I had, I would love to call her or text her to keep on getting to know her."
I see Stephanie in the backgroudnd, looking like a proud mama at how smooth that came out, knowing I was always anything but smooth with women, as proven by the string of blind dates! Maryse has a big smile and we exchange numbers. I go to Stephanie to wish her a happy birthday again. While I'm talking to her, my phone buzzes with a text from Maryse: "Just checking!"
I asked Stephanie "What's the best cab company to call in this area?" Maryse chimes in: "Where do you live?" I tell her where I lived and she goes "It's on the way to where I live, I can give you a ride if you want." Stephanie raised an eyebrow in surprise. I learned later, she did it because it absolutely was not on the way to her place, like, at all. I say that I would love that as it would give us a chance to keep talking.
We get in her car, driving to my place. We talk, she asks me what I'm studying as I hadn't mentioned it earlier. I tell her all about the boring maths I had to study. Much too quickly, we get to my place. She parks in front of my building and we keep talking. At some point, I tell her: "Normally, this is where I would try to "trick" you into coming up to my place..." She interrupts me: "You wouldn't need to trick me. I'm willing and able!"
I tell her that "As tempting as that sounds, I know who I am and I know that if you come up and things proceed to where they're going, I'm not going to be able to study for the rest of the month. I have a kind of obsessive mind and when I find someone or something I like, I can push everything else to the side in favor of that. So to make sure I can still focus on my studying, I have to go up by myself."
She looks at me, a little disappointed but then says, half-jokingly: "We don't have to go up, there's a backseat right there!" We laugh and I give her a kiss and wish her a good night. I managed to stay strong and go back to my condo. Damn it, why did I have to stay strong!!!
My exam was at the beginning of november. During the month of october, we texted a bunch of times and talked on the phone. We went for coffee a couple of times and dinner once. She respected my boundaries and never pushed for more, which I appreciated but also hated at the same time, if that makes sense. The exam came and it was a monster of a Friday. I slept for basically 18 hours after the exam as the adrenalin dropped and my system crashed.
I texted her when I woke up at around 1PM. She was working at the clothing store Stephanie owned. She said "I'm off at 5PM, wanna meet me." I said: "Duh! Why do you think I'm texting? ;)" So I met her at the store downtown. I asked if she wanted to grab a drink, go for dinner, or what. She proposed going to her place and getting some take out. Stephanie who was closing the store at that moment, came up to us and said: "Hey, so what are we doing?" I said: "WE, that is Maryse and I, are going to her place and getting some takeout. Bye!" I'm sure you'll understand when I tell you that no food was ever ordered that night!
Thus followed a whirlwind month of November where any free time we had was spent together, and I wasn't going to complain!
The troubles
By the start of december, things were still going great with us. One saturday night, we were having dinner at a restaurant and I mention that this coming Friday is my office Christmas party, that it's employees only, so we wouln't see each other that night. She tells me: "Oh sure, that's fine! It'll give me a chance to go see some girlfriends I've been neglecting lately." I said "Great! BTW I also got us a reservation at [this great restaurant she had mentioned a few times] for next Saturday, so we could go there and I'll tell you all about my party and you can tell me all about her night with the girls!"
That was settled, I thought. I was wrong. On Thursday, we had spent the evening together at her place and I was about to leave to go back to my place. She tells me: "So are you coming to meet me at the store tomorrow or do I go to your place?" I reminded her: "Neither, tomorrow is my office Christmas party and we won't see each other tomorrow." She said: "Oh right, I forgot." I asked her if she had made plans with her friends like she had mentioned last saturday. She said that they were all busy tomorrow and weren't available.
She suggested "If your party is boring, maybe you could come meet me." I retorted that it wasn't going to be, knowing who was going to be there.
"Yeah but what if?"
"But it won't"
"But what IFFFFFF?" she kept insisting and I kept saying no. After what felt like 30 minutes of that (probably only 2-3 minutes in reality), I had enough and just said to end the argument: "Okay, if it's boring, I'll come. but it won't be." She said: "Cool" with a big smile on her face. I came to learn that that smile meant "Challenge accepted".
The following night, my colleague and I were pregaming in a conference room before leaving for the party proper and my phone buzzes. Maryse was wishing me a good party. I replied. She texted me again. I replied. She texted again, but I was in a conversation with a colleague so I didn't reply or even look at the phone. My phone buzzes again. Still talking, and didn't want to be rude to my colleague. Another buzz. I just kept talking. Phone buzzes differently, she was now calling because I hadn't answered her texts.
"Why aren't you replying to my texts?"
"Hey, sorry, was talking to my colleague Patrick."
"What? you don't want to talk to me?"
"I am talking to you now."
"Why didn't you reply to my texts?"
"Because it would have been rude to my colleague to pull my phone out while talking to him."
"But you're talking to me now."
"Because I thought something was wrong, maybe it was an emergency."
"I wanted to talk to you, that's all."
"Well, gotta go back to the party. Talk to you later."
She kept texting and if I didn't reply right away, she would call after two or three missed texts. After about 2 hours of this, I stopped answering the texts. When she called back, I asked her: "Aren't you supposed to be working?" which started another round of guilt-tripping of "why are you asking me this? you don't want to talk to me?" At that point I had had enough and wanted to enjoy my party. I remembered that the Blackberry (no shaming old tech!) I had had an annoying feature, but I was hoping to put it to good use at that moment.
Whenever the battery would get really low, like less than 1%, it would let out an ear-piercing BEEP for about 3 seconds, reminiding you to charge it and giving you a heart attack all at the same time. It would do that even when you were in silent mode. It had happened a few days earlier when I was with Maryse. I figured, if I press a button on the Blackberry, it would make a beep too that could be heard through the phone. So while I was talking to Maryse, I pressed my thumb on the space bar for a good 3 seconds and sputtered; "what... the .... what?" trying to put on a somewhat believable performance.
She asked what that noise was and I tell her that it was my blackberry letting me know I was low battery and it might shut off any second. I told her "Listen I'm gonna wish you a good night, I'm having a good time at my party so I'll see you tomorrow at 5PM to go spend our evening together. I hope you have a good....." and hung up mid-sentence. I promptly shut my phone off and went back to the party. I concede that I may be a bit of an AH for that move.
The party was great, I got drunk much quicker than I expected owing to the fact that I hadn't had a drink in over two months because Maryse didn't drink so I didn't either when we were together, and we were always together. At 1AM, I went home and passed out on my bed.
This is another place where I may have been an AH. I didn't turn my cell phone back on and I unplugged my home line too, because I wanted to sleep the deep sleep of the drunkard. I woke up at around 1:30 PM, not knowing it was already too late. In my mind, I was meeting Maryse at 5PM to go out on the town that night. Maryse had other ideas as you'll see.
So like I said, I woke up at 1:30PM and was sticky with alcohol sweat, so I went straight for the shower to get clean again. While in the shower, my stomach grumbled with hunger and I started daydreaming of bacon and eggs. That pushed me out of the shower right quick. I dried myself off quickly, tied the towel around my waist and went to the fridge. No bacon.... booo. Looked at the egg compartment... no eggs... booo again. Okay then, how about a cream cheese bagel. No cream cheese, damn it. Look in the pantry, no bagels.... god. I was starting to get angry. Okay, cereals then. I pick up the cereal box, that mofo was empty and I get mad: "who's the idiot who puts the empty box back in the pantry?" I remembered I live alone.
I close the fridge dejected and see the grocery list stuck on the fridge, taunting me with everything I wanted to eat for breakfast written on it. But I felt like if I went to the grocery store hungry as I Was, I'm just gonna pay 600$ and not get one single healthy thing to eat. I then remembered there's a restaurant next to the grocery store that serves breakfast until 3PM. I get excited! I get dressed quickly, grab my wallet and keys, put my boots on, my coat on, wrap my scarf, my tuque and my gloves and go to the restaurant. If you notice, I didn't mention my phone in there.
I get to the restaurant and confirm that they still have breakfast and get even more excited when she confirms it. I order the "heart attack", at least that's how I nicknamed it: 3 eggs, 3 servings of bacon, 2 sausages, and, I guess to give one peace of mind, fruit (or to be precise, one single solitary slice of orange). Now that the food is ordered and coming I figured I would check if I have any messages. I pat the pocket where my phone always is. No phone. uh-oh. I start clutching evert pocket, no luck.
I wonder if I should go back home after the meal before going to the grocery store and decide against it, it would be too long a detour. So I scarf my breakfast down, rush through the grocery store. I get home and set my bags down in front of the fridge. I go pick up my blackberry. I turn it back on. The little tape icon tells me there are messages on my voicemail, at that time there were no red dots with a number in it to tell you how many.
I connect to the voicemail while starting to put the groceries away. The little automated voice tells me "You have 25 new messages." I pull the phone away from my ear, look at it in disbelief as if saying: "are you f'ing kidding me?" So I press 1 to start playing the messages.
Remember: Maryse knew I was at a party with a dead phone, no chargers and I probably wouldn't get home until 1AM. From 6:30PM, when my phone died, to 11:34 PM, when she went to sleep she left me 9 messages. BTW I know she went to sleep at 11:34PM because she left me a message saying "it's 11:34PM and I'm going to bed. Thinking of you." The 9 messages were in the same vein. These are the salient details, but the messages were all much longer.
She woke up at 7:15 the following day, I'll let you guess how I know that tidbit of information! She left me 5 more messages like those from the day before: 7:15 woke up. 7:35 going to take a shower. 7:55 out of the shower. 8:25 getting ready to leave for work 8:50 walking out of the subway to go to the store.
She leaves me another message at 9 that was different. She sounded very excited as if she had had the best idea in the world: "Hey it's 9AM, I'm about to start my shift. I know we're only supposed to meet after my shift, but what if you came and met me for lunch so you could tell me all about your party." I just did my best Scooby-Doo "Ruh-Roh" and chuckled that I blew that, not thinking the calamity that was awaiting me.
Another couple of messages to talk logistics: "I could take my lunch at 12 or 12:30, let me know which you prefer." "I'm taking my lunch at 12:30"
A slightly worried message: "It's 11:15 and you stil have not said if you were coming or not, are you okay?"
The first bomb goes off and I knew I was in trouble then: "Where are you? We're supposed to meet for lunch and you still haven't given me any sign of life, you're not answering your home phone either, what happened?" Reminder: we were not supposed to meet for lunch, she suggested doing so a couple of hours earlier and I never agreed to anything. I guess she told her colleagues I would meet her for lunch and it was now fact and could perhaps make her look bad in front of her colleagues.
The second bomb drops: "It's almost noon now, WHERE ARE YOU? Stephanie says you're probably sleeping off your drunk, but I don't believe her. I'm sure you got yourself a slut and cheated on me. Didn't you? didn't you, you asshole." Stephanie knows me very well, but that wasn't enough for Maryse it seems.
Ensued four more messages from 12:30 to 1:15, where she starts sounding more and more drunk and accusatory, spewing more attacks like in the message above. At that point I already knew it was over, there was no coming back from that. I can understand having trust issues, but that was nuclear. I don't tolerate jealousy because of horrible experiences with a couple of jealous toxic exes.
A final message comes in, and it's a different voice, that of my best friend being more than a little angry: "Hey Guy, listen, Maryse tells me you had a Christmas party yesterday, so I'm guessing you're sleeping off your drunk, still. But call me when you get this. I put Maryse, who's f'ing drunk, in the backstore so she can dry off and "do inventory". She can't be on the sales floor obviously and I just don't feel safe sending her home in the state she's in. Call me to tell me how you want to handle this."
At that point I had finished putting away my groceries and had put my boots and my coat on and was making my way to the subway to go to the store. I call Stephanie and tell her I got the messages and I was coming. She was right, I was sleeping off my drunk and had just woke up (didn't feel the need to mention the breakfast and grocery store). I ask her if she knows what I'm gonna do when I get there. She says that she knows and understands. She knows my bad history.
When I get out of the subway, I call her again before getting to the store. I ask her how she wants me to do this. It's her store and I don't want to create drama in front of her customers. Does she want me to wait outside and she tells Maryse to meet me in the street or do I go in the store and she takes me to the backstore and I do it there? She says to come to the store.
I walk in the store and every saleswomen on the floor looks at me and gives me the biggest case of the stink-eye. They only have Maryse's side of the story, so they think I did all these horrible things. I see Stephanie in the middle of the store and I walk towards her. She shakes her head and points me towards the cash register. I look over there and see Julia, a salesperson that I've known for a couple of years and really like, who also happens to be the biggest gossip in the store. I understand what Stephanie is trying to do. She's gonna make me tell her my story in front of Julia so Julia can spread the "good news" to the other employees and rehabilitate my name possibly.
So I get to the register and say Hi to Julia. She barely acknoledges me. Steph joins me. She asks me:
"How are you?"
"I was better an hour ago, before I listened to those voicemails. I had gone to our office party last night, had a great night, got drunk off my ass, got home at around 2 and woke up around 2."
Julia asks "Maryse told us you were supposed to meet her for lunch."
"No we weren't. I have a reservation for tonight at XYZ restaurant. I was supposed to take the day to do errands, stuff around the condo and meet her here at closing time. She suggested that it could be fun if I came at lunchtime to meet her, but that was never the plan."
Julia asks again "But why didn't you answer your phone?"
"It ran out of battery last night during the party and when I got home, I was so drunk that I forgot to plug it back in. I only plugged it when I woke up at 2. That's when the messages came in."
Julia asks "She says she tried calling your home line and you didn't answer and your machine didn't kick in."
"Yeah, that one's my fault, I knew I wanted to sleep and telemarketers have a habit of calling me early saturday mornings so I didn't want to be awoken by a call for a rug cleaning service, so I unplugged it yesterday morning, knowing I would be drunk when I got home and forget and be angry if I was awakened by a telemarketer."
Julia gave me a hint of a smile, showing me she was starting to believe me. She asked me a few more questions and then she asked what I was gonna do. I told her that whatever I'll do, I would tell Maryse first.
I looked at Stephanie and said: "Can you open the back store so I can go see her?" So we went to the backstore. As we reached the door, it swung opened and out popped Maryse, looking absolutely terrifying, I actually jumped back when I saw her. Her usual perfect makeup was completely smeared, her mascara streaking down her cheeks from the crying. Her hair was disheveled. She was a mess. Apparently, she had had enough of waiting back there and was planning on leaving the store to go home and had put her coat and boots on.
When she saw me, she went into an unhinged rant about me being an asshole for cheating on her, me not being great in bed, me not treating her right, etc. I let her vent everything she had to say, I looked at Stephanie and apologized for creating such a scene in her store. I tell Maryse we should go outside and talk in private. She keeps on yelling, but when I grab her hand to lead her outside, she follows.
When we get outside, her anger had started to wane a little, or maybe just her energy. I was able to talk to her to explain everything, how I had gotten drunk, had overslept (alone) and woke up at 2PM. I reminded her that we were only supposed to meet at 5PM not for lunch. The anger was leaving her and a smile almost appeared on her face. Through all of this I was being very calm and patient with her, which she interpreted as me not being mad at her. I then said in a firmer tone: "However..." and let it hang for a second.
The beginning smile vanished. I continued: "When you accused me of cheating on you, that broke me. That triggered memories of toxic exes who would always accuse me of cheating, not trusting me when I would tell them where I was, snooping on me, stalking me. Because of those experiences, I have a zero tolerance policy for jealousy. I told her that if she was behaving like after only two months of dating, it didn't bode well for the future and I have to protect myself."
At that, the tears started again and she just turned and ran/waddled away. I told her to wait, but she didn't hear me. I turned towards the entrance of the store to see basically all the employees and customers milling around the door trying to catch the drama. I went back inside to talk to my best friend. The mood had definitely changed and no one was giving me the stink eye anymore, but I didn't really care. I was just sad that it had ended, but proud of myself for having stood up for myself.
So AITA for getting drunk and keeping my phone turned off?
There is a lot more to this story and if you want to learn what happened afterwards, then read on.
The immediate aftermath
So I went back inside the store and talked to Stephanie. I told her that I had a reserrvation for XX restaurant and if she wanted to go with Stephen, she could take it, I wasn't in the mood for a dinner. She said "I already have plans for tonight, but thanks for offering." Julia said she would go with me if I wanted, but I just said that I wasn't in the mood to go out. I just wanted to crash and eat a pizza and get into a food coma.
Stephanie said she didn't feel comfortable leaving me by myself and I should join them at her house. They were having friends over to play board games and it could at least distract me a little. I said why not. So brimming with enthusiasm, I went to play bored games. I left early as I wasn't in the mood. I was feeling a little better, but still a bit down. I thanked Stephanie for the invite and left. I got home and just passed out on the bed.
I woke up at around 7AM the next morning and I saw along the corners of the window the tell-tale signs of a snow-drift and got excited as it was the first snow of the season. I pushed the curtains aside and looked on to see a beautiful white carpet outside. It was early enough that very few cars had marred the whiteness. I was admiring it when I noticed that, against the red bricks of the building across the street, there was a pink blotch. As I focused, the blotch became human shaped and I cleared my eyes enough to realize that it was Maryse and she was raising her cell phone to her ear.
On cue, my phone rings. I pick it up. Still sounding drunk, she asks me if we can speak. I ask her to give me five minutes to get dressed and I'll meet her down there. She asks why she can't come up. I say that I'm not sure I want her in my apartment. She says that it's cold out. I say: "Good, then this will be quick."
I get dressed and meet her outside. I'm still bleary-eyed from having woken up 5 minutes ago, but I try to get my wits together. I tell her that we're going to walk to the subway. It 's a 10-minute walk normally, but with her drunkenness, it might take 15-20 minutes. That's how long she has to tell me what she wants to tell me.
She wants to apologize for accusing me of cheating on her. She says she knows I'm a great guy and... I may be the A-hole at this point too, but I start to drift off in my little bubble and start daydreaming about, if I go back to bed, would there still be some residual heat or would it be cold? I could take a hot shower and warm the bed that way. I could still hear her in the background making excuses, saying how she had been cheated on, but I wasn't really listening.
During the daydreaming I notice it got quite quiet. I look on my left and she's not there, I turn around she's a good 5-6 steps behind me looking angry and she says: "you're not listening" I just say: "when you're right, you're right." I tell her that I understand she's been hurt too in the past, and I hope she can work to resolve her issues, but I was done and I'm going back to bed. I was a bit harsh there, but I was tired and still down.
I walk past her and get maybe 10 paces past her when I hear a scream coming from her. I turn around and I see her messing with something inside her coat. She pulls out a chef's knife with like an 8-inch blade. That wakes me the fuck up. Byebye bleary eyes, hello wakefulness. better than a cup of coffee or a red bull I tell you!
So she's got the knife, she's screaming something that I can't quite understand. She gets quiet and then she charges at me with the knife. If I'm being honest I could have stayed where I was and she probably would have missed me anyways, but someone charges at me with a knife, I'm gonna nope out of there. I take a massive side step and once she gets to where I was and realizes that I'm no longer there, she turns her head towards me and says heyyyyy.
At that point, I have a moment of clarity and see what's gonna happen. She's drunk running one way and looking another, I know she's gonna trip. As I predicted, she stumbled over her feet and starts falling to the ground. I start praying to god and anybody who would listen: "Please don't let her cut herself. I don't want to have to explain this to the doctors, EMTs and nurses. I don't want her drunk ass deciding to take revenge on me by saying I did it."
Thankfully, she winds up in a sitting position on the sidewalk holding the knife up and it was clean. Thank god for small miracles. She starts crying and, other moment of clarity, I know she's gonna turn the knife on herself now. I jump towards her and I realize I was right, the knife starts moving towards her left wrist. I tackle her, grab her right wrist and twist it so she drops the knife. I pick the knife back up and put it in my pocket. She looks at me crying and says: "Why did you stop me?"
I pick her up and take her back to my building. In my building there was a couch in the lobby, so I take her there and I sit her down and plop myself next to her. I look at her and wonder out loud: "What am I gonna do with you? What can I do?"
She goes: "Just let me go, I'll be good." I tell her that's not going to happen. I realize I have three options and I give her the three options.
"So here's the choice I give you.
1- I pull out my phone, call 911 and tell them about the attempted murder back there and they send the police to arrest you. I don't want to do that because that could derail your life and not get you the help you need. Besides, they might not do anything anyway as it's your word against mine.
2= I pull out my phone, call 911 and tell them about the attempted suicide back there and that you need to be placed on a 72 hour hold. I could do that, but at the same time, again it's my word against yours, so maybe they don't believe me.
3- I'm gonna hazard a guess here. From what I've seen, you have alcohol problems. So I'm gonna guess you were in AA, had been sober for a while, I want to say 6 months, maybe less, when we met."
She confirms my guess.
"alright so option 3, I'm guessing you had a sponsor in AA." she nods "we call them up and tell them about your relapse and what happened this morning. Can they come get you and take care of you?"
She takes her phone out and picks a contact and calls. She hands me the phone. Someone answers and I explain the situation. They said they were coming right away. I give them my address, they get here 15 minutes later. Maryse had fallen asleep in the meantime, so I wake her up gently and help her to the car. Off she went.
I went back to my apartment and just crashed back to sleep.
A month later
Mid-january, my phone rings and I see Maryse's number on there. I send her to voice mail. Another call. Voicemail again. 5 minutes later, Private number calling. "Gee I wonder who that could be." Voicemail once more.
Afterwards, I didn't get any unidentified callers for a little over a week. One afternoon, I was at work and my phone rings and it's a number I do not recognize. I pick up.
"Hello."
"Hi, is this Guy?"
"Yes, to whom am I speaking?"
"This is Hannah, Maryse's sponsor. we spoke last month." I started fearing the worst.
"Yes, I remember. How can I help you?"
"Maryse tried to reach you last week and you rejected the calls. I think it could help Maryse if you listened to what she had to say. You're obviously not obligated to entertain her, but I think despite everything that happened, you still care about her or you would not have called me that morning."
"You are right, I do still care about Maryse. I'm just not sure how good it would be for her to meet me this soon after everything that happened. I understand wanting to work through the 9th step and making amends, but..." She interrupts me.
"So you know about the steps."
"Yes I have friends in the program. which is how I could guess that she was in the program too that morning."
"You know it's important."
"I know. I know. How about this: we meet in public at a cafe, you would have to be there. Not necessarily at the table with us, but nearby in case she needs help, in case meeting me causes her pain. Tell her I promise to be in a more receptive mood than I was that morning."
So we make an appointment for that saturday afternoon.
I get to the coffee shop. She's already there, and so is her sponsor. I realize happily that she's not wearing makeup. I say happily because that means she understands that this is not a date, but something serious. She's still stunningly beautiful, and I feel sad almost right away.
I grab a coffee and go join her at the table.
"Hey" I say,
"Hey. So this is gonna be uncomfortable, but thank you for agreeing to meet me and for coming, I appreciate it more than you know. I'm sure you heard I quit the store."
"I have, I'm sorry about that, I hope you didn't do it just because of me."
"No, I needed time to focus on myself for now."
She proceeds to tell me about how I wasn't far off with my guess. She had been sober 4 months when we met. Now she had 39 days. She tells me that in AA, if you are single, they recommend not dating anyone new for at least the first year of your sobriety as it can cause issues, similar to what happened with us. I was like her "drug" and as long as I was available, she could get her fix. But the moment I wasn't available all hell broke loose, and that is what led her back to drinking that day.
I told her I'm glad to see her back sober again this quickly and I hope she can get all the help she needs from it. I ask her if she wants to talk to me about her drinking.
She starts to share a story about how she started drinking at around 11 years old. When puberty hit her, she got into a deep depression because the sexual feelings she was starting to feel were triggering responses. As a child she had been abused by two of her uncles repeatedly and her parents never believed her. They accused her of trying to make herself interesting. That was until they caught one of those uncles red-handed.
They finally believed and took the necessary steps to protect their daughter. But they were poor and they couldn't afford therapy. So she never really got help for it. At 11, she started self medicating the depression with alcohol. When alcohol wasn't enough, she added drugs.
At that point, I was full on crying. She asked me if I wanted her to stop. I told her that she doesn't have to stop. That the tears are there because that was one more thing we had in common. I was also a survivor of sexual assault as a child. In my case, it wasn't a family member, it was only a stranger, so it only happened once. But I also self-medicated with alcohol at the onset of puberty, switching to drugs later on too. I was lucky to avoid the pitfalls of addiction, but I was still dealing with my demons, slowly making peace with them.
So there we were, sitting at a coffee shop, both crying and holding each other. I tell her that I think it's great she's getting help for her alcoholism and addicion, but was she doing anything to help with the underlying issue, the original trauma? She said no, she couldn't afford therapy. I tell her that I am a member of a survivors group and if she is interested, I could get her into a meeting and perhaps learn to heal that part of herself too.
She said that she could give it a try. I tell her I have to talk to the other members to know if I can bring someone new and I would let her know. If they said yes, we would go to her first meeting together, I would introduce her and then we would coordinate so that I never went to meetings where she was. I wanted to do that because I wanted her first few meetings to be about healing and I didn't want our own history to be intertwined or mixed in with that.
After that, we left both feeling content and, while not necesarily happy, at peace if you will. Later on, I contacted Stephanie who was one of the "pillars" of the support group (that's how we met) to ask her if it was okay for me to bring in a new member to the group. She said sure. She asked if it was anyone she knew. I told her she would have to meet her at the meeting if she decides to come.
We were having a meeting the following day. I called Maryse, told her the time and place, and she said she would be there. She came to the group meeting and was shocked to see Stephanie there but Stephanie kinda guessed that it was Maryse I was referring to.
I introduce her, we start sharing stories, talking about how we're feeling, etc. The meeting was good and Maryse liked the vibe. So for the first six months after that, I never saw Maryse and we planned which meeting we would be attending to ensure we didn't cross paths. She started feeling much better.
After maybe 2 and a half years, she finally felt ready and she started dating again. She met someone and she fell for him. They were together for about six months, she looked happy. Unfortunately after about six months, she caught him cheating on her. We tried supporting her, being good friends, cursing his name, doing all the things we could to make sure she didn't relapse. But on April 5th 2014, she ODed on heroin. She was hospitalized for 2 weeks after that.
Hannah took her in and she set up a room for Maryse. She was still in a fragile state, so a group of her friends and I started taking turns watching over Maryse, making sure there was always at least one person there with her to keep her company.
Despite our vigilance, on May 14th 2014, when Hannah was out running a quick errand, she was gone maybe 15 minutes tops, Maryse found a way to cut her wrists and she died. We found a note saying that "the OD was not an accident, and neither was that. Thanks for everything you did for me. I love you all, but I can't do this anymore."
It feels good to write that story (I'll just ignore the fat tears rolling down my face!). Thanks for reading this far and sorry for the long story, I just started writing and couldn't stop. I apologize if it was a bit of a bummer.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that they can get different meanings out of a piece of art, even if it wasn’t the author’s intention. I really just think this is wrong. The creator of the art is the only person who can verify what their message and intention was when creating the art.
Let’s take Fight Club for example. At least on the internet I’ve seen articles and numerous videos of people that are under the impression that Fight Club is a satire, critiquing toxic masculinity and highlighting and laughing at the way many men choose to express their feelings, through violence. But if you actually listen to the author of the book, Chuck Palahniuk, speak about why he wrote Fight Club and what he was trying to get at you realize that he really wasn’t writing a pure satire. Here are some quotes of Palahniuk on the Joe Rogan podcast discussing his book :
Link: https://youtu.be/GCuSDH-YEKI
“my classic thing is that there are so few social model novels or stories for men. For women there are … every season there’s a new Joy Luck Club, a new How to Make an American Quilt… all these different models where women can come together and talk about their lives and if you’re a man you’ve either got Fight Club or you have The Dead Poets Society”
“Jordan Peterson… he talks about that need for really rough play, and he talks about it a lot… We’ve kind of fallen away from this idea of consensual rough play and I think Fight Club resonated with that a lot”
“The idea that there needs to be a secondary father in Men’s lives… And you kind of put yourself in apprenticeship to the secondary father… So Fight Club was also depicting a new form of the secondary father with all these kids that were showing up on the doorstep of this ramshackle old house. So there was just so many aspects of men’s lives that were not being addressed when Fight Club came out…”
So as we can see Chuck was not completely condemning the act of fighting for fun. He actually likes the idea of “consensual rough play” as he calls it. He saw the problems that real men had during that time and took their reactions to those problems to an extreme in the book. He seems to understand the natural urge for violence that many feel when they are directionless and unfulfilled in life, and the catharsis of violence in a controlled setting.
So I’m just saying the book isn’t a cut and dry satire and critique of Toxic Masculinity like articles on the internet claim it is. It isn’t anti men either , I think it’s a commentary on lost men and consumerism, and somewhat of a cautionary tale. But people will read into it whatever ideology they fancy while disregarding the creator himself. If someone makes art that doesn’t align with your beliefs just call it satire and you can claim it for your side lol. So overall I think before we assign a meaning or message to a movie/art we should at least try to understand what the author was trying to say first.

The title is true but not in the way you think.
TL;DR - My friend liked me n got jealous of my love for someone else, we went no contact, our friend died, we got back in contact and im not sure if his current relationship is good for him right now.
I 19F met Daniel 19M when I was 8. He lived next door and I befriended him and his sister. We always constantly hung out doing whatever kids do.
In 2016 he moved to another country because his mom was dying of cancer, I barely kept in touch considering I was a child with no phone.
2021 they came back, and we immediately clicked as if those years no contact didn’t happen.
Daniel was very quiet and reserved, I was more out. I guess he warmed up to that and we became real close.
Thru out the months he started up his social life after being gone for a long time and started going to the gym. He would beg me to go but I wouldn’t find interest in it.
He ended up convincing me, I went. A week in we met this girl 20F (I’ll call her X). I found her pretty attractive. I always knew I was gay n my appearance doesn’t hide it. I never thought I’d have to mention it to Daniel since we’d both talk about girls we found attractive at the time, and I’m 5’10 with short hair and dress manlier then he does. I’ve never had to mention it to anyone, everyone just knew I was gay.
Daniel’s sister (I’ll call her Patti) befriended this insanely attractive girl we’d met. To make a long story short; she found me attractive too, we started FaceTiming as a group (X, Patti, and I) then late after Patti would sleep, X and I would spend the rest of the night talking. I was falling deeply in love.
X and myself weren’t secretive about our feelings for eachother. I think it’s important to mention she was the first I’ve ever gotten this far with. I began realizing Daniel was resentful towards X. Being really dry with her when she talked to him. Giving nasty faces, and just overall a very obvious way of showing he didn’t like her.
I on the other hand was drowning in her every chance I got, I guess you can say I started hanging with her more, which is normal when meeting a new potential lover but I should also say Daniel had his own friends he would hang with before and after X and I never had a problem with any of it. I befriended his friends too.
He started avoiding me, becoming dry, showing obvious signs of depression. He came to my house one night crying and opened up about how he feels lonely and wants a gf.
Later on I find out from a close friend that Daniel likes me. That he wanted to tell me but a majority of his friends were telling him I’m clearly gay. As well as one of my close friends telling him it too. He ended up telling me and I told him how I thought he knew I was into girls which I guess he was oblivious to, not sure how but he was.
Daniel and I stayed close for a bit but then he started to change. All he talked about was how he gets so much Pü$$y and acting like disrespecting girls is a fun hobby for him. At this point me and X were in a relationship. I mentioned to him how ugly he sounds talking like that, n how when he first got here and had his own personality instead of an adopted one he was better to be around.
We drifted and he’d call and text to check up on me thru out the year but nothing more than that. He worked with X and she had told me that he called her a good b*tch during some interaction. I texted him and very civilly said to not say that shi to her n that if he had any respect for me he would respect her despite his negative feelings towards her. He took it as me telling him to not talk to her and went about that telling X he’s “not allowed to talk to her” which I never said.
After that we rarely spoke at all. The other day one of his friends (someone I used to hang with) died in a very horrific/violent accident. It had been a year and a half since I spoke to Daniel atp. I called him and we spoke, he was obviously devastated and I texted him after letting him know I was here whenever he needed it.
I visited our friend’s grave today and saw him there. He didn’t speak to me or my friend or older sisters who were also good friends with him. We came home and FaceTimed him. We sat for an hour, we talked about our friend, what we’ve all been up to and laughed a bit for a good hour. After we hung up I texted him that it was good catching up and seeing him smile after all that’s happened and we started chatting from there. I basically told him that doesn’t matter what happened with us or how much time passed by, that we’ve known eachother long enough that we’re family by nature atp.
I would like to add that I saw him a few times in the no contact phase and he was completely distant. Except I realized something was off. I later found out he has a gf.
After some connecting of the dots. I realized she is manipulating him and taking control. He’s mentioned he cut everybody off and only talked to his gf when I saw him at Walmart some time ago. I went on his tiktok and every video is of her. Not even himself. I went on his insta that he just made and saw married in the bio. Then I saw her socials. On her tiktok she had a video about her ex, she also had nothing in her insta bio and then a video captioned something like she’d kill or run over any girl that tries talking to her bf (Daniel)
Not to mention he doesn’t even talk to my friend when he sees her and they were really good friends with no bad blood. My sister tried giving him a fist bump and he hesitated even tho he’d be the first to initiate when he saw us in public before.
Now you might not find this manipulative or controlling but hear this, while I was on FaceTime with him I mention seeing a vid of him and his gf on my tiktok to which he replied “I hate those videos” to which my friend asked why and he mentioned how his gf made him post them so that it’s known he’s with her. And she also made him create a whole new insta and put married in the bio. And he did it because he felt bad as to how she got cheated on before him. Which made no sense.
I didn’t pry because we hadn’t talked in a minute but I plan to be here for him more, because even tho I don’t know his gf I know that anyone that does that is never good in the long run & her requests will only get worse until she’s dug him in a hole deep enough where he feels like she’s the only one who can get him out since she’s slowly cutting himself off of everything except her. And after having his best friend die in the most brutal way, someone like that is the last thing he needs in his greiving and healing journey. And because I can also admit I miss having my best friend.
To those of you who have been in a toxic relationship, you can acknowledge these are beginning signs of one. To those of you who’ve never been in a toxic relationships, trust it only gets worse from there^.
Even if we don’t get close, it’s enough knowing he’s not suffering more than he already is with his friends passing.

As a warning this is pretty graphic, blood, bugs, ect.
This weekend me and my partner were on a little vacation for my graduation (about 20 mins away from home) , and we have about 30 different chickens and birds. We do everything to try and keep out predators, and recently we had taken in an elderly turkey a co worker found abandoned. So earlier this month Darrel had been attacked in the middle of the night presumably, nothing major but a slight cut and some tail feathers missing. We assumed it was another turkey (wild) because at that time he was in a temporary shelter without a roof. After that, we quickly set up his permanent shelter, fully caged in. Fwd to this weekend, my partner was coming back to our house daily to check on our birds and other animals, and when he wasn’t his mom was coming later in the days. On Saturday, he couldn’t come check, and his mother had checked in earlier that morning. Sunday we came home with my friend to go to a Mother’s Day dinner and that’s when we found him. My partner came running in the house crying and frantically finding gloves and medicine saying that Darrel had been attacked and was barley moving. I’m freaking out and go out to help, blood is everywhere. He was still standing and alive but in pain. My partner then tells me his wound has maggots and is too far gone to help. To spare the harder details, we did what we had to do. I said goodbye before he did it, and all I can see is his face, and him letting me pet his head as I said goodbye and apologized for not being there. I keep re living the gagging me and my partner were going through as we tried to fix him. Hearing his death twitch when I opened the door after the shot. My partner wouldn’t let me go out for a few. I’m usually okay with death as it comes with this life style but what I can’t get out of my head is the fact he had to be alive with such wounds, and seeing my partner fall apart. I couldn’t get the smell out of my mind, and still can’t. We took him to the pond on our property, and put him to rest with a hydrangea I had got for my graduation.
We set up the live trap to hopefully catch what got him before it tried to get to our other birds, and it ended up being a fox that was riddled with mange, and cleared up the thought of why it didn’t just kill him instead of leaving him like that. it’s because it was suffering trying to get a meal. It couldn’t see it was so covered and it was so skinny, and starved. it made since as to why it would even try to get at a 60lb bird. I don’t know how to stop seeing it all playing in my head. I miss him. I wanted to give him a good rest of his days. I miss his talking in the mornings. I hate this.

I’m not too sure if this is the right place to post this. Hell, I don’t know if anyone’s even gonna see it. I want to start this off by saying that this story isn’t to be taken lightly. I don’t want you to read this and try to copy what is done, instead take it as a warning. A warning to never play this game, a warning I wish I had gotten before I made that mistake.
I lived almost my entire life in the middle of Delaware, if you forgot that was a state I wouldn’t blame you. In my neighborhood there were 3 kids I always played with everyday. Kyle, Jimmy, and Seth. Our houses were close enough to each other that we played together whenever we had the chance.
We did all the typical things a couple 13 year old boys would do. Swimming in the local pool, going to the Walmart and buying nothing, or just hang in one of our basements and being jack-asses. It was almost a Disney-like childhood. Sleepovers were nothing new for us, I think we had one almost every weekend. What was new was not having any parents there to watch us.
Seth offered to host the next one and included that his parents were gonna be gone for the night. They were staying down at the beach and told Seth it would be fine for him to invite us over. Fine for him, not so much for the rest of us. I think me and the other guys pleaded and begged our parent’s multiple times to let us go.
Our parents knew each other and trusted us but the idea of 4 pre-pubescent boys being alone in a house was any parents worse nightmare. Somehow, by the grace of god, they agreed the night before. After all this time, I still wish they had denied us. Maybe things would have ended differently.
I wanna tell you about the events that happened that night that changed me into who I am. It changed my life and every families that was involved in it. This is the night I played Hide and Seek with my friends.
“Hide and Seek? Won’t that get boring with just 4 of us?” I asked suspiciously as I took a handful of Doritos from the bowl on the table. It was about 10:30pm when Kyle suggested we play a game so we could try and stay up later.
“Yeah man and besides, we have an Xbox.” Jimmy pointed out. Seth came walking down the basement with some sodas in hand, almost dropping the cans
“What are you guys talking about? You better not be thinking of touching my controller with your greasy hands Jimmy, not after last time.”
“It was an accident! I got you a new one.” Jimmy responded before chuckling a bit.
“No guys, I saw this on the internet a few nights ago. We have to try it.” Kyle said. He almost sounded like he was pleading with us.
Kyle was always the kind of kid to believe in spooky things. Ghost, werewolves, demons. You name it, Kyle probably believed it. I remember one time he somehow got us all to go in the woods with him during the winter to look for dog people that a YouTuber said was out near us. We all got the flu after that.
“Oh god, another one of these? Is it gonna be like that dog thing again?” Seth chimed in.
“It’s not like that, this one is real. I promise dude.” Kyle seemed genuine about it. I almost felt bad as the other guys called him stupid for it.
“Alright man, we try your game for a bit. Then if it’s a bust, we play Xbox.” I suggested. Kyles face lite up as he got some paper out of his bag.
“Who said you were in charge of deciding when to play my Xbox?” Seth questioned. I just shushed him as Kyle got some more stuff out of his bag. Candles, lighters, a knife. I would have hated to see what would happen if we said no to his idea.
“Alright, first. We gotta turn all the lights off. Not a single one can be on during the game.” We looked at each other before we went off to get the house started. I had been in Seth’s house almost as much as mine but there’s strangeness to it when the lights were all off. We got back to the basement where we found Kyle lighting the candles and placing them on the ground around the paper. As we sat around him I could see some words on the paper. “Ready or Not, here it comes”
“What’s that for?” I pointed as Kyle placed the last candle down.
“That’s to start the game. I saw these Indian guys play it and they said you have to start the game just like this or it doesn’t work.” Kyle answered as he slowly pulled the knife up and turned to face us.
“Now, we have to cut ourselves.”
“Like Sarah from home room?” Jimmy chuckled
“I thought that was a rumor?” Seth remarked as he leaned towards Jimmy
“Guys! Focus! Just a small prick on your finger. Then you put it on the paper.” Kyle demanded as he slowly pressed the knife tip into his finger
“This feels very, extreme. Is this safe to play?” I asked, seeing Kyle whence as blood slowly pooled on the top of his finger
“I think so, the guys seemed like they were having fun when they did it.” He held the knife towards me next, the guys watched as I reluctantly took the knife and plucked my finger. I did encourage us to play this for Kyle sake, I couldn’t chicken out now. The other two did the same, Jimmy had more tears then the rest of us but when he finished he handed the knife back to Kyle.
“Now?” Seth asked, rubbing his finger on his Pokémon pajama bottoms.
“Now, repeat after me.” We all listened to Kyle and repeated
“ 1, 2, 3. Ready or not, come find me.” We stared at each other. Silence filled the basement as our eyes kept darting to see if anything happened.
“Do you hear that?” Seth whispered We listened as the most quiet fart escaped him. He fell on his back and laughed. Jimmy joined him and so did I. We laughed and laughed, I looked to see if Kyle found it as amusing but was met with sadness. He looked almost heart broken, I knew he lived for these kinda things and for it to not work most have broken him. I moved to him and smiled
“Hey, at least we didn’t have to sit out in negative degrees to get results this time huh?” He smiled slight back
“Yeah I guess you’re right. I don’t know how those guys made it look so convincing.”
“CGI probably, my dad says that’s how most things are done like that.” Seth said as he got up to go turn the light back on. Before he hit the switch, a loud thud filled the room. I’ll never forget the look on his face as he rushed back to the floor where we were all sitting.
“W-what was that?” Jimmy whispered to me. I didn’t know what to say until Kyle reluctantly chimed in.
“It’s him, the seeker.” We sat still as another thud could be heard. Like it was right above us.
“What the fuck dude? S-Seth? Did you invite someone else over? Duncan or Josh maybe?” Jimmy was frantic with his questions as his eyes filled with tears.
“No, it’s him.” Kyle answered before Seth could respond.
“Who?” I asked
“The seeker. The person who plays the game with us.”
“Well tell him we don’t wanna play anymore.” Seth demanded, making sure to keep his voice down.
“We can’t, they said he plays until everyone is found.”
“What do you mean until we’re found?” I asked, I kept looking at the stairs. My brain was trying to wrap around what was happening while also trying to keep reason in it.
“It’s like hide and seek. We play until we’re all found or he can’t find us.” Kyle answered
“Ok, let’s go get found so the game can be over.” Seth tried to stand before Kyle pulled him down.
“No, we don’t wanna be found. Bad things happen if we’re found.” Kyle looked at the carpet as he said it. The thud got louder, almost like it was searching the house.
“Ok, ok. Then we should just stay down here right? If we hide down here it won’t find us….h-how long do we have to hide man?” I stuttered as I waited for Kyle to answer.
“I…I don’t know.”
We sat there in silence, thuds and crashes from upstairs made the silence somehow louder. I had wished it was all a prank. Seth and Jimmy loved pulling those and Kyle was usually the target for them. But I knew it wasn’t that, I knew this was real. I don’t know how it was but at that moment there was something upstairs, tearing the house apart trying to find us.
We stayed like that until Seth finally spoke “Let’s run.”
“What?” Kyle mumbled out, his face covered by his hands. Tears were rolling down his cheeks.
“Let’s run, the doors not to far from the basement entrance. We unlock it and run to a neighbors.” Seth looked for nods or any sign of agreement. Jimmy nodded and I slowly shook yes. I looked at Kyle, grabbing his leg and squeezing it.
“Come on man, we’re definitely faster than it. We’ll be out before it even sees us.” I smiled at him.
He looked up and slowly smiled, nodding. We all slowly moved to the base of the basement stairs. Looking down into a dark basement is scary, but looking up into a dark house is another whole kind of fear. I don’t know how long we took going up those steps but it felt like ages, we were slowly ascending into what could be our end. Seth held the doorknob and just stared at it. I knew he didn’t wanna be the one to open it, to potentially be the one to see what ever it was that was on the other side. I scooted around Jimmy and slowly turned to knob.
The door silently opened, the house was almost pitch dark. The only light we had was from the moon herself, shining into the windows and illuminating the destroyed house. He quietly but quickly moved towards the front door. I peered into the living room to see the chairs and couches turned upside down, some side table doors ripped off they hinges.
“Hurry up man.” Jimmy urged Seth on as he fumbled slightly with the deadbolt. I looked to see Kyle slight behind, close to the basement door. I moved over to get him ready to run
“Let’s go Kyle, we gotta get-“ I almost finished my words as I watched his face turn from scared to horrified. I turned slightly to see Jimmy on the floor crawling away from the door.
I’m not sure even after all this time how to describe what we saw that night. I had wished it was just a man. Some man that was in the house with us but it sadly wasn’t. The best I can try and give a description is to think of a Picasso painting. It had a crookedness to it. Its arm jagged and legs crumbled as it towered over Seth. Seth didn’t move, he didn’t try and fight. All he could do was stand there and look up to see its eyes peering down at him. It picked Seth up and like a rag doll threw him into the living room. A mean and disgusting noise came from his body as he hit the wall of the fireplace. I quickly got Jimmy to his feet and Kyle to snap out of his gaze. Me and Kyle ran to the bathroom as Jimmy made his to the kitchen. I locked the door as I tried to catch my own heart from jumping out my chest. “J-Jimmy? Where-“
My question was shortly answered as I heard Jimmy whimpering and crying outside the room. I unlocked the door and peaked out the crack. I watched “it” linger its way towards him and all I could hear was wet sounds. I quickly shut the door and relocked it. My mind didn’t really process what had just happened in what couldn’t have been more than 3 minutes. My two friends I had been with almost my entire life were gone, just like that. I sat on the cold tile floor as I listened to the thudding from outside. My breathing was dull as I looked to see Kyle shaking by the toilet. I slowly moved my self over and gave him a hug. I knew what he was thinking, I knew the horrible things he was saying to himself in his mind. I didn’t know how to tell him that what was happening wasn’t his fault. I’m not sure that even now I could find the words to tell him that.
“We’ll be fine, we just gotta stay here. It won’t find us.” I tried to reassure him.
“No, it will find us. We can’t stay here.”
“Kyle, Seth and Jimmy are dead. We can’t go back out there and run. I don’t know why we thought it would work.”
“No we…we…I need to get to the basement.” Kyle said, he looked up at me.
“Why? It’s a dead end there. It will-“
“Maybe, I can try and end the game. Rip the paper up…something, I don’t know.” I didn’t know what to say.
On one hand it was the only idea we had besides hiding and waiting to be found. On the other, I couldn’t bring myself to put that hope in his mind. To encourage him just to watch as it fails, He knew this as he came to his own conclusion.
“I’ll go down there, and you head for the coat closet. If it doesn’t work I’ll run back up and I’ll head there to hide with you. Ok?” He nodded to himself. I just stared at him as I nodded back slight. We stood up and slowly unlocked the door. It wasn’t anywhere we could see, which made it all more frightening. We slowly made our way to the basement door
“Good Luck” I whispered to him. He smiled and went our separate ways in the house. I quickly got in the coat closet that was almost directly in front of the basement door, and Kyle made his way down stairs.
That was the last I saw of Kyle, it wasn’t long after I heard loud thudding outside the closet door that quickly went down the stairs. All I could do was sit there, and listen as I heard the silent screams and the pounding of flesh over and over and over again. Soon the hits became more wet, and the screams became more silent.
I sat in the closet and accepted my fate. I slight covered myself with a fallen coat as I heard the thudding move around the house. It was only a matter of time before it got me, before it ripped the door open and I would be met with its horrifying figure. I looked out the slits of the closet door and saw the moon light shining through the windows.
I’m not sure when I fell asleep or even how I did. My body must have been so exhausted that it decided sleep was more important than survival. My eyes slowly opened to see daylight peering though the house. The night was gone and the day had come to save me. Although I was relieved I still forced my eyes shut. The small amount of what I saw was enough to make me do it. I saw the closet door was open, I didn’t wanna have them open as it might slowly peer from the corner and look at me. I didn’t want my last image to be that. I just kept them closed and covered my ears. And then I felt it. Thuds.
I could feel the thudding get closer, closer, closer. Two hands grabbed me, this was it. My flight or fight kicked in and I started to fight. Kicking, hitting, screaming. Anything I could think of I was doing.
“Calm down son, calm down. You’re safe.” Those words hit me like a wall, a calmness I hadn’t felt since the day before came over me. My eyes slowly opened to see the face of a young man kneeling in front of me, his hands holding my arms. He was a police officer.
“It’s gonna be alright.” He reassured me again as he slowly brought me to my feet. He walked me out of the closet and faintly said “Keep your eyes down kid, I’ll lead you out.” I think he said it more for himself, cause I knew what he didn’t want me to see.
Seth was laying in the living room, he’s body bruised from the impact with the wall and his bones broken.Jimmy was on the kitchen counter, multiple wounds and slashes were found on him. Kyle…I’m not sure what really happened to him. The reports on his body never came out. I just know I’ll never forget those sounds from when I hid in the closet.
Seth’s parents moved away almost immediately after the incident. Just left, didn’t take a single thing from that house. It was later taken down, I guess no one wanted to live in a house where something like that could happen.
I saw Jimmy and Kyles parents every once and awhile when I walked around the neighborhood. They would give me small smiles and waves and I would return them back. No more, no less. After high school I moved away for college, my parents knew why and never argued that I should stay closer.
That was a little more than 15 years ago. Few weeks back my dad called to tell me mom had passed away. He offered if I wanted to stay at home for the funeral, stay in my old room. I hesitated. I thought of that night every day for the past 15 years, never really bringing myself to wanna be back in that neighborhood. I refused and opted for a hotel a few miles away in town.
And that’s where I am now, in my bed writing my tale. I want you to take it as a warning, cause as I write this I know I’m not alone. It’s here, it’s in the closet of the hotel room. I can just make out its outline. It’s crooked legs crouching to fit inside, its arms slight poking out from some clothes, and its eyes staring at me. It knows I see it, and it knows I’m writing about that night. I’m not sure why now it decided to finish the game from all those years ago but here we are. Once I finish and close my laptop, it will kill me. My father will have to bury his son just moments after burying my mother.
I say this again, this tale is a warning. If I could I would go back and tell myself to never play that game. I would tell my parents to never let us have that sleep over. I would do everything in my power to stop that night from happening, to be able to save my friends. So please, I beg and plead to you, don’t play this game. Cause if you do, whether your ready or not…
He’s coming to find you

As a warning this is pretty graphic, blood, bugs, ect.
This weekend me and my partner were on a little vacation for my graduation (about 20 mins away from home) , and we have about 30 different chickens and birds. We do everything to try and keep out predators, and recently we had taken in an elderly turkey a co worker found abandoned. So earlier this month Darrel had been attacked in the middle of the night presumably, nothing major but a slight cut and some tail feathers missing. We assumed it was another turkey (wild) because at that time he was in a temporary shelter without a roof. After that, we quickly set up his permanent shelter, fully caged in. Fwd to this weekend, my partner was coming back to our house daily to check on our birds and other animals, and when he wasn’t his mom was coming later in the days. On Saturday, he couldn’t come check, and his mother had checked in earlier that morning. Sunday we came home with my friend to go to a Mother’s Day dinner and that’s when we found him. My partner came running in the house crying and frantically finding gloves and medicine saying that Darrel had been attacked and was barley moving. I’m freaking out and go out to help, blood is everywhere. He was still standing and alive but in pain. My partner then tells me his wound has maggots and is too far gone to help. To spare the harder details, we did what we had to do. I said goodbye before he did it, and all I can see is his face, and him letting me pet his head as I said goodbye and apologized for not being there. I keep re living the gagging me and my partner were going through as we tried to fix him. I’m usually okay with death as it comes with this life style but what I can’t get out of my head is the fact he had to be alive with such wounds, and seeing my partner fall apart. I couldn’t get the smell out of my mind, and still can’t. We took him to the pond on our property, and put him to rest with a hydrangea I had got for my graduation. We set up the live trap to hopefully catch what got him before it tried to get to our other birds, and it ended up being a fox that was riddled with mange, and cleared up the thought of why it didn’t just kill him instead of leaving him like that. it’s because it was suffering trying to get a meal. It couldn’t see it was so covered and it was so skinny, and starved. it made since as to why it would even try to get at a 60lb bird. I don’t know how to stop seeing it all playing in my head. I miss him. I wanted to give him a good rest of his days. I miss his talking in the mornings. I hate this.

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/WholePomegranate5342
Originally posted to TrueOffMyChest
My Parents Tried to Screw Over My Dying StepMother, Blew Up All Of Our Lives Instead
Trigger Warnings: infidelity, imminent death, terminal illness, financial exploitation, physical assault, emotional abuse and manipulation
Original Post: February 13, 2024
Throwaway for obvious reasons.
My (17F) stepmother "Jane" is a wonderful, wonderful woman. She and my father got married when I was 4, and she's been a rock in my life ever since. My mother was always my primary caregiver, but up until that point her relationship with my father was acrimonious and I basically never saw him. Jane was the reason they developed a stable co-parenting relationship, she encouraged everyone having a good relationship with each other and was always there to support me and my mom when things got rough.
Jane was always a really hard worker. When she met my dad, he was living out of a hotel and my mother was doing everything in her power to keep me away from him because she was petty and angry that their relationship didn't work out. Meanwhile Jane had a great job, a nice house, helped my dad get back on his feet, negotiated a visitation schedule with my mom (who hated her for a long time), and made sure my dad sent us money every week because neither one of them could afford an attorney to negotiate child support payments. Jane had no reason to do any of these things but as I got older she made it clear that she loved me as much as she loved my (half) brothers who were born a few years later. I even have my own room in her house because at the time we lived with my grandparents / various boyfriends of my mom and Jane felt that I needed a more stable environment than that. She's like the opposite of the evil stepmom.
When I was 15, Jane won a big lawsuit against an airline company and got awarded upwards of a million dollars. She used the money to build sizable trust funds for me and my brothers so that we would be taken care of later in life. Despite having a lot more money she still wanted to live a fairly modest life, so she paid off the house she has and has been living there ever since with my dad. Sure she bought a new car and they went on a few nice vacations but she didn't blow all her money on stupid things, which I respected.
About a year ago, things started getting really weird. Whenever I saw Jane she seemed to look sicker and sicker, but no one would tell me or my brothers why even though I know they knew. All we knew is that she was at the hospital a lot. Around the same time, my mom has been coming around my dad a lot more and acting really strange, basically like she was trying to romance him. Whenever Jane was in the hospital my mother would insist on spending the night at their house and playing mom to my brothers, which was so weird to me because she never liked them or Jane. She'd be the perfect little housewife and my mom is NOT like that at all. It was super fake.
Worst of all, my dad started falling for it. I'm not stupid - I'm pretty sure they were sleeping together. I tried to shield my brothers from it but they're not dumb either. I tried talking to my dad too but he insisted it wasn't like that.
Then a few weeks ago, my mom started talking about all the places she'd like to visit, how she wanted a new car and was looking to invest... which is weird because my mom has been a bartender her whole life and has lived paycheck to paycheck since before I was born. She was acting like she was about to get a lot of money, which started to make me really suspicious. Between Jane being sick and my mom acting all nouveau riche, I had a lot of questions.
Finally I decided to visit Jane in the hospital and ask her about my trust fund. I found out that if anything happened to her, that my dad would inherit all the money including full control of the trusts for me and my brothers. She asked me why I was so interested in the trust fund so I told her what's going on with my parents and how my mom has been acting with my dad. I didn't want to but after everything she did for me, she deserved the truth. It really hurt me to break her heart like that, especially once I found out that she was basically in hospice at this point because of irreversible kidney failure. She's only got a few more months. We both cried so much.
Then, two days ago everything came to a head. My mom stormed in furious and started arguing with my dad. Apparently Jane met with her lawyer and changed the trust so that my dad would get nothing and all of the trusts would be controlled by my step-aunt. She demanded to know how Jane found out about their relationship and I came out and told them that I told Jane everything. I told them that if they wanted to play stupid games they would win stupid prizes and that I wasn't going to let them screw Jane over after all the help she gave my family when she didn't have to.
My mom slapped me and my dad just looked so defeated. Then my mom told my dad that she didn't really love him, that she was just pretending to so he would marry her and she could get all of the money. The worst part about it is that my brothers witnessed the whole thing and now on top of their mom dying they have to deal with a cheating dad and his vindictive ex. Our whole family is in ruins and I feel like it's my fault even though I know it's not.
Yesterday I visited Jane again and told her about the fallout. She apologized and said that she had to dissolve my trust fund to make sure my mother didn't get a hold of the money, but that as "her oldest" I will inherit the house/property after she is gone and that's worth more than the other two trust funds combined. My father won't get anything because she's going to divorce him before she dies, and honestly I'm happy for her. She made me promise to take care of my brothers and told me that once I turn 18 this summer I can kick my dad out of the house if I want to. And I FULLY plan to do that btw.
I haven't talked to my dad since and I can't even look at my mom. I can't believe they would conspire to do this to Jane after all this time. Just proof that they deserve each other and I'm embarrassed that they're my parents. Once I turn 18 I'm going to cut my dad out as much as I can and cut my mom out completely. I hope she rots. Meanwhile I'm going to try and be at the hospital as much as I can until Jane passes away.
Anyways. I just needed to vent. I'm really messed up about the whole thing and I feel super betrayed, although I can't even begin to imagine how Jane feels. I'm gonna be so f-ed up when she dies. I can't even think about that right now. But at least she's not surrounded by people who just want to bring her down.
Thanks for reading.
Edit: Some people are asking a lot of the same stuff so I'll just clarify here --
My brothers - My plan is to use some of the estate money fight for guardianship for my twin brothers so that they can live in the house while I kick my dad out. If I can't get guardianship then I will have to let my dad stay in the house. However once I turn 18 I will technically be an adult so even if my dad leaves I'm still legally able to be responsible for them. The only thing I won't be able to do is stop him from taking them if he leaves. But they will be 18 in six years so even if they do have to leave they will always be able to come back whenever they want. In a perfect world my dad would just leave and let my brothers stay with me which I'm sure my bio-mom would be very supportive of because right now she hates all of us and I doubt that will change anytime soon.
The trust - from what I understand, my brothers will inherit 1/3 each of the estate and the remaining 1/3 will be used to keep the house running until they turn 18. After that it will be up to me if I want to keep the house or sell it. At that point my brothers will still have money left in the trust so they can branch out or do whatever they want, otherwise I will not sell the house and just pass it on to them or keep it and maintain it myself and they can just stay with me as long as they need to.
(Edit to the edit) So I just spoke to Jane and she told me that the reason she dissolved the trust is because originally it was going to be split 3x between us kids and my dad would inherit the house. She dissolved my 3rd and switched it over to make it to take care of the house maintenance, and instead put the house in my name so my dad wouldn't get it. Plus by doing that at least financially I would be getting a much bigger share (the house is worth about 1.5x the amount of my brothers trusts) I just wouldn't be able to do anything with it until my brothers are 18, which I'm totally cool with. Sorry if I don't have a better answer but I'm just trying to translate what she told me.
My parents - The big fight happened on Sunday and I haven't spoken to either of my parents since, I think they're both at my mom's place right now but that's fine with us because we're all still mad at them so they can stay gone for all we care. I know technically that's not legal to just leave us alone but I've been taking care of my brothers for over a year I can handle a few days while he gets his shit together. Screw both of them.
Hope that clears some stuff up.
TLDR; My bio parents tried to screw my terminally ill stepmother out of trust fund money, but she caught on and now no one on my side of the family gets anything.
Additional Information from OOP on her parents, stepmom’s health, trust funds

OOP: (Why isn't Jane on dialysis) - I don't remember the exact details but Jane has a genetic condition where she gets cysts on her kidney. She already had a transplant a few years ago but now she developed problems with her arteries or something in her legs so she doesn't qualify for dialysis. She could get another transplant but she doesn't want to because the last time was so traumatic (rejections, etc). So she decided to just let herself go onto maintenance medications to prolong her death until she gets her affairs in order. She has a few other health problems that make the typical treatments really dangerous and according to her she'd rather die surrounded by loved ones than on an operating table.
(Dissolving the trust fund) - Jane told me she didn't technically have to do it, but she didn't trust my bio parents not to do something shady and get a hold of the money before I turn 18. Even if my aunt controlled the fund my dad would still be able to collect if something happened to Jane before I turn 18. Her lawyer suggested it's better safe than sorry and I agreed that it was the best option. I'm not an expert tho I don't know the details.
(How my mom knew) - Like I said before I'm pretty sure Jane told my dad, who then told my mom and that's how the argument started. I can't think of any other way and I didn't really care enough to ask.
(Jane's thoughts on my mom) - she didn't know my mom was doing all of that. My mom has her own place and would only come over whenever Jane was in the hospital for a few days at a time. I've been living with my dad for a little over a year so he probably told Jane that my mom was there to spend time with me, if he told her at all. Besides she didn't "move in" until a few months ago, which I guess is when they started hatching their plan. Jane never outright banned my mom from visiting so there really wasn't anything she could do.
Hope that helps.
Edit for the last part: The remainder of the money belonging to the estate that hasn't been put into trusts for my brothers is going to be used to maintain the house (utilities, taxes, etc) until my brothers are 18 and then I can either choose to sell the house or keep it and maintain it myself if I'm able to. I plan to go to school in that time and get a better job with the goal of keeping the house, but if I can't then I have the option to sell it. Not that I will but that's how it was explained to me.

OOP on her stepmom and their relationship, provides thoughts on her bio mom

OOP: Honestly it's because she's more of a "real" mom than my actual mom.
My bio mom is kind of ambiguous about my existence but Jane was always extra involved, sending me to sports teams and paying for dance classes and just showing interest in my hobbies as I got older. Plus as the only girl I think we bonded on a level she can't with my brothers so she always made sure to let me know I was on equal terms with them. When I was younger we would watch movies and have girl time where it was just us 1:1 and those are some of my best memories with her.
Jane is also really mature and someone I wanna be like when I get older whereas it feels like my mom is a teenager in an adult's body. She was constantly picking fights with my dad about dumb things and Jane was always there to smooth things over and keep my best interest at heart over her own feelings. I know my mom made Jane's life really difficult for a long time but Jane never complained or said anything to me about it whereas my mom CONSTANTLY complained about Jane. As I got older I just always felt more at peace when I was around Jane than when I was around my mom.
If you want your step kids to love you just be there for them and treat them like your own. Ignore whatever drama you have with your husbands ex and just love your kids. Trust me if you really care about them they will know.

Relevant Comments
mattdvs1979: My only advice is make sure you work with a lawyer once she passes so you get your inheritance and your parents can’t try to intervene, and then you keep your promise to use that money for you and your brothers’ welfare.

OOP: Oh absolutely, Jane already gave me the lawyer's info and between him and my step-aunt I'm sure I will be able to do what I need to do for them. I don't even care about the money, most people don't have trust funds and turn out just fine. I'm actually more glad that she gave me the house because you can be damn sure it's going to be a safe space for my brothers whether I end up getting custody of them or not. My brothers are basically Jane's legacy so my goal is to give them the life and guidance that I got from her, and that they won't get because she'll be gone.

OOP on the relationship between her father and her stepmom before they got exposed

OOP: Honestly it hurts a lot because before Jane got sick they seemed to have the perfect relationship. Until my birthgiver (I like that) came in and fucked everything up with her toxic personality. Honestly in a perfect world my mom will end up broke and alone and in a shitty nursing home with bed sores. And when she calls me and begs me for a relationship (because she needs the attention) it'll feel so good to hang up on her over and over again.

OOP on Jane (stepmom)’s health and if Jane is mentally okay on the whole situation

OOP: I think so. Apparently it's a genetic disease so she always knew she was going to get sick she just didn't know when so mentally I think she was prepared for it. I just hope that she can find peace knowing the truth and knowing that I'll be there to make sure her sons don't grow up all fucked up.

OOP on her brothers getting therapy to deal with their mom/step-mom’s health and her imminent death

OOP: Yeah. I've already sat them down and talked to them about what's going on, they seem to understand but they're understandably really sad about the whole thing. I told them that when they go to school they should ask about a grief counselor and I'm trying to get their health insurance info from Jane so I can find them a therapist for kids. As much as all of this sucks I think it's brought the three of us a lot closer together.
Thanks a lot. I really love my brothers and I know it's my job to take care of them properly now that they won't have a mom around. Jane did so much to raise me and my brothers won't have the opportunity so it's only right that I help them.
Since finding all of this out my plan has always been to have my brothers live with me, I'm already in charge of taking care of them and the house for the most part the only thing my dad does is help pay the bills. Unfortunately I won't be able to kick my dad out as long as he's their legal guardian which is why I'm trying to find some other solution to that. But if/when that gets resolved he can live under a bridge for all I care.

 
Update: May 8, 2024 (3 months later)
Please check my profile for my previous post. :)
Hi guys it’s me again, a lot of you asked me for an update on my situation with Jane and my family so I’ve come back with a few things that have happened since I initially posted. I will try to organize this in a way that addresses the major points of last time.
Jane is still alive and doing surprisingly well considering the circumstances. She’s always been a fighter and although her disease has been progressing she’s keeping a positive attitude with everything that is going on. She says she’s grateful that she was able to see everyone’s true colors before she passed so she could go into the next life knowing the truth. We have become so unbelievably close in the past few months and it’s getting harder and harder to know that she’s getting close to the end. She doesn’t ever talk about it though and I know it’s because she doesn’t want to hurt me but we both know the situation so we’re just making the best of our time. I'm also not being completely transparent about all of the drama at home but tbh I don't think she needs to hear all of that.
We did end up having that surprise celebration of life that I planned, a lot more people showed up than I thought but they all got an airbnb near the hospital where Jane is and we were able to take her out and spend some time at the lake near the facility. It was super lowkey which I know Jane preferred and I was even able to get her old college friend to come after I found him on Linkedin lol. We had food and there was music and we played games and it was overall a really great time, except Jane started crying at the end but she promised me it was just because she was grateful.
My brothers are also doing okay, my aunt (Jane's sister) is currently paying for them to go to therapy and they've become a lot more open about talking about the situation. They just turned 13 but a lot of the time it feels like I'm talking to actual adults lol. They've become really independent lately (in a good way) and aside from me driving them places I don't really have to do much for them anymore. Their grades aren't super great but they're not failing and considering the circumstances it could be a lot worse. They still hang out with friends and I'm keeping an eye out for like depression symptoms and stuff.
The situation with my mom is as funny as it is embarrassing tbh. She spent a few weeks ignoring us and then she tried to crawl back into my life basically begging me to let her move in because her lease is about to expire and she has nowhere to go. That convo went about as well as you'd think and she ended up calling me an ungrateful b**** and that I couldn't just ignore her because she's my mom. I told her to get out of the house before I call the cops and to go back to my dad (who at that point was only coming home every few days to "check on us" and grab some clothes.)
After that she tried coming by a few times and when I wouldn't open the door she would lose her mind and start yelling through the neighborhood. After three instances of this I finally called the cops but because I'm 17 they told me there's a possibility that I would have to go home with her since technically I'm a minor and need to be with the custodial parent. I told them no way because I was the only one watching my brothers atm. That led to a whole thing where after a few hours my dad basically showed up and I was allowed to stay there because there was finally an adult present and I'd basically lived there for over a year.
After that the cops firmly told my mom that if she keeps showing up and causing drama (my neighbors confirmed that she'd been there a few times screaming) that they would arrest her for trespassing since technically it was Jane's house and not hers. She left and hasn't tried coming to the house anymore but for a while she would call me constantly telling me I owed her and all kinds of stuff. She's now blocked on everything and anything she needs to say to me gets filtered through my dad.
As for my dad... well, since he's basically required to be here for another 2 months until I turn 18 we've basically just avoided each other. It's not too bad though because I've been heavily relying on guilting him for everything to get my way. For example he was going to contest the divorce but I threatened to kick him out when I turn 18 if he does that so he just signed all the paperwork for a "quickie divorce" and is basically doing whatever Jane tells him to do. I don't openly disrespect him or anything (he's still my dad) but I've made it clear that I have no intentions on doing anything he says ever again and he doesn't fight me on it. Most of the time he's just in his room and sometimes he'll go back to my mom's but only for a day or two before they argue and she kicks him out again lol. I haven't decided whether or not I'll kick him out yet and we haven't talked about it either so I'm kind of playing it by ear.
As for me, I'm handling everything as good as I can. I found a new job where I make a little more money so I've been focusing on saving as much as I can and just being there for my brothers. Between working and school and visiting Jane I've been so busy I haven't really had time to really stop and think about everything, but I know it'll come. One of my friends has really stepped up and helped me manage everything and I'm super grateful to him for being there for me and my brothers so we'll see how that goes.
Anyways I wish I had something more exciting to share but that's what's happened since my last post :) Thanks again for all the support on my last post.
Relevant Comments
OOP on the possibility of her stepmom being poisoned from her parents to get Jane’s money

OOP: Hi there,
A few people have mentioned this and yes we are absolutely certain she is not being poisoned, it’s a genetic disease causing her kidney failure and we have known about it for a long time but she shielded us from the worst of it hence why her “sudden” decline in health was such a shock to us, we thought she had more time.
My brothers have also been screened for this disease and thankfully neither of them have it.
Edit to add: I’m turning 18 in a few weeks so I don’t need to get emancipated and my dad has already agreed that my brothers will stay in the house with me because they have nowhere else to go.

OOP on Jane making video clips for her brothers

OOP: Yes actually a few people suggested this on my last post and we have been doing this for a few weeks now. Jane has a little digital recorder that she’s been putting her thoughts down on and she’s also written a few letters to us for major milestones. My brothers do not know about this as we want to surprise them but that said they have been coming to the hospital more now that they’re in therapy and able to deal with it. I know they do not want to have any regrets even though it’s a difficult situation.

OOP on her father after being exposed and her bio mom trying to manipulate him

OOP: I do think he’s remorseful, he hasn’t said it but the way he’s acting is telling me that, he’s being really passive when normally he gets a little belligerent if he really feels like he didn’t do anything wrong. Also I know I have every reason to kick him out but he’s still my dad even tho what he did to Jane was terrible. He’s just kind of a weak minded person and my bio mom really manipulated the crap out of him and continues to manipulate him but I can tell he’s getting tired of her BS because he’s spending less time with her.
He didn’t know she was showing up at the house and when he found out he was super pissed at her, they’ve been fighting nonstop and I can tell he’s not as much under her spell anymore because he’s at home more but who knows.

 

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

So my father used to own a cabin. In fact he used to own a lot of different properties. Which I suppose is just a roundabout way of saying that we grew up with money. Where things get a bit complicated is how he actually made that money.
The line that he constantly fed us was that he was an accountant running his own firm in an office in the city. Long hours, lots of business trips. We never saw him much. And whenever we did, he always seemed tired, his eyes perpetually bloodshot, as if he were always trying to force them to stay open.
He was sent off to prison right after I’d finished my first year of college.
The sentence? Fifteen years, for washing hundreds of millions of dollars for numerous cartels. Two weeks after he’d been booked, my mother committed suicide. As it turns out, she’d been helping him out through the entire thing and was facing some time herself. I guess she didn’t want to deal with all that and took the drastic way out.
A few months later, the government had seized pretty much all his property.
All of it, except for that cabin in the woods.
It took a long time for me to feel normal again. But eventually I managed it. Went back to school and graduated with a good enough GPA which allowed me to snag some shitty office job a few months later. But it was enough to pay the bills.
Fast forward about another year and I’ve basically scrubbed that entire sequence of events out of my brain. It took a little bit of therapy, a lot of psychedelics, but I finally did it, to the point where I was comfortable enough to go back to that cabin, the one place where I’d see my father for more than a few weeks at a time during our summer trips.
I decided to take along three of my friends from Uni - Jack, Pedro, Randy.
We drove down there at the beginning of May. The road leading to the cabin hadn’t been maintained at all and as a result, it had become borderline undrivable. I decided to save my vehicle the stress and parked in a nearby lot, leaving us about a one-and-a-half-mile trek through the woods, which really wasn’t so bad.
Our time in the cabin was pretty much spent getting drunk and stoned, and by the third night we had completely run out of food.
We decided to take the thirty minute walk over to the nearest rest stop, where I knew that there was a 24/7 diner. So we go there, eat our meals, and on the way back we notice a burning smell in the woods, as if there was a bonfire raging about nearby.
Of course that was a bit strange given that it was around 2AM. But we didn’t think too much of it at the time and we kept walking.
It was only when the smell continued to grow stronger as we got closer to the cabin that we understood something was very wrong. Soon it had become suffocating, and we could see the night sky tinged with orange in the near distance.
I felt my heart drop into my stomach and immediately I was sprinting, my worst fear realized as I reached the clearing where the cabin was located.
Completely up in flames, plumes of dark smoke blending in with the night.
It was a mix of different emotions that hit me all at once, the combination of them creating a sense of dread so deep I hadn’t thought it possible.
After reeling myself in, I called 9-1-1, with the operator telling me that the fire department would be on their way but wouldn’t be able to reach us for at least thirty minutes. The four of us walked away from the cabin in silence, getting far enough so that the smoke was no longer scratching at our throats.
Around ten minutes later, we noticed that the orange tinge in the sky had suddenly disappeared. And I mean suddenly. Like, gone in a single blink. I thought I might’ve been hallucinating, but it was clear from their expressions that my friends were seeing something similar.
Cautiously, we started making our way back towards the cabin, noticing that the smoke was no longer heavy in the air, having cleared up considerably. Once we reached the clearing, it had disappeared altogether.
I looked ahead, my brain working overtime to comprehend the sight before me. The cabin was no longer on fire. Burnt to a crisp, sure. But the raging, overwhelming flames that had been consuming it just minutes prior had somehow completely fizzled out.
The four of us looked between each other, as if to confirm we were all still seeing the same thing.
Using the flashlight on my phone to survey the damage, I found pretty much what I’d expected. Complete destruction. Absolutely zero hope of recovering anything.
I started taking some deep breaths, trying to calm myself down when I heard Pedro yelling out from the other side.
“Guys… where the fuck did this thing come from?”
We all walked over to him. Nestled in the debris was the corpse of… something. A monstrosity.
It was about the size of a bear, with the sections of its body that weren’t burnt showing pale, clammy skin with deep cuts etched throughout it, in what looked to be some kind of crude pattern. Its head had been smashed in, leaving nothing but an abnormally wide bottom jaw which was still baring long, black teeth. It had an uncountable number of long, thick arms that it was using to hold something that resembled a human infant, one that appeared to be completely unscathed, devoid of any burn marks. The longer I stared at it, the more that I was convinced I could see it breathing.
It was a bizarre enough sight to put us into a near-trance. What eventually snapped us out of it was the chanting.
It was barely noticeable at first, slowly escalating in pitch until it was clear that there were several human voices shouting in unison. Their tones were animalistic, their words strung together with just the bare beginnings of a rhythm. It sounded like they were speaking English, though I could hardly make out anything they were saying.
The strangest part though, was how quickly it was getting closer to us. Definitely not a walking pace. It was more like a sprint.
The four of us shared a quick glance between each other and immediately there was an understanding.
We ran like bats out of hell, tripping over branches, our own feet.
But eventually we reached my car, all of us scrambling to pile into it. As I was fumbling for my keys, the chanting had become deafening, to a point that hardly made sense. It sounded as if there were speakers lined up in a circle around us, all blasting that horrible noise.
And the second that I had put the keys into the ignition, things went silent. I found myself holding my breath as I looked up, my eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness until what I was seeing was unmistakable. Several figures standing completely still at the edge of the woods. All human-shaped but far too large to be people.
All the air being held in my lungs flooded out with one big exhale and I slammed the vehicle into drive and took a sharp turn before speeding the hell out of there, refusing to look in the rearview until we had made it into the highway.
I drove until I had reached the rest stop, which was now hosting an absurd number of police cars. I parked, got out, and approached one of the cops, asking if they were here because of the fire.
The cop shook his head. “Fire? No. Has there been a fire?”
I explained the situation with the cabin to him, deciding to leave out the creature and the chanting for the time being.
The cop nodded slowly, his expression remaining largely the same throughout.
“Alright,” he said. “We’ll look into it. And then give you an update in the morning. For tonight, just get a hotel or something.”
We exchanged numbers and I thanked him. As I began to walk away, he called out to me.
“Hey, can I ask you something?”
I turned back around.
“Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”
“Do you happen to be (my dad’s name)’s son?”
For a while I just stared at him. Eventually I nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “I thought I recognized you.”
“I don’t understand,” I told him. “I’ve never seen you before.”
The cop took a deep breath before taking a quick look around. “Come here,” he said. “Come close.”
Tentatively, I did so.
“I can’t tell you everything. I don’t even know everything. But I think you should have the right to know the truth about your father. All of the stuff that’s happened here tonight, all of the shit that you’ve seen… it has something to do with him.
He took another look around before continuing. “Cartels, right? Was that the story they told you? It’s not so creative. But I guess it doesn’t have to be creative to be believable. Cause the shit that he was actually mixed up in… you would not believe unless you’ve seen it for yourself.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.
“Look, I have your number. I’ll be in touch tomorrow morning. This is something I’m curious about as well. Maybe you can give me some answers, point me in the right directions. But not here. So get out of here before people start noticing you. And stay safe.”
I didn’t feel like staying in a hotel that night, so I drove back into the city, dropping everybody off before arriving back at my own apartment.
Of course I couldn’t sleep that night, my eyes wired open into the morning as I waited for the officer to call. He still hadn’t by the time that noon rolled around and so I tried calling him instead.
No answer.
Eventually I did receive a call from the police, telling me that my father’s cabin had burned down and that it was due to a forest fire.
I told them that wasn’t possible because there had been no forest fire and that I suspected foul play and wanted it to be investigated.
“It’s already been investigated,” are the exact words that the officer told me. “Don’t worry about it. Just get in touch with insurance. Go over your options.”
And before I could say anything else, he had hung up on me.
It was a mixture of anger and curiosity that compelled me to drive back down there. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t for the road leading towards the rest stop to be blocked altogether. There were two cop cars guarding the barrier, with a single officer signalling any vehicles approaching to turn around.
I pulled over to the side of the road and after some careful deliberation, I decided to get out and approach him and ask what was going on. Just to see what he might say.
When I finished the question, he stared at me for a long time. Uncomfortably long.
“Emergency construction,” is what he eventually told me.
After that encounter, I pretty much dropped trying to figure things out.
Some weird things have started happening to me since. Every night, I swear I can hear a baby crying in the apartment across from mine. The apartment that I thought had been occupied by a pair of college kids who definitely do not have children.
That cop that was supposed to call me finally did, a few nights ago. When I answered, I was met with dead silence on the other end. Nearly thirty seconds of it until the line clicked dead.
There’s an abandoned house sitting across the street from my apartment building, one that’s supposedly been there for years because the development of the store meant to take its place keeps getting delayed.
Somebody has started staring at me through its second-floor window. Whenever I catch them doing it, they’re quick to close the blinds, so I can never catch any details. But I know that the moment I turn away from it, their eyes are back on me.
I can’t confirm that any of these things are related. Whether it has anything to do with my father.
I just know that I don’t want to deal with it and that I want it to end.

I took a drop last year in Neet, had 516 last year and am scoring around 680 this year which is equivalent to maybe last year's 650-670. Just wanted to share a few thoughts regarding the current scene of competition and surrounding distractions in our lives.
I was in tenth to eleventh from 2020-2021 and this period and half of 2022 was only spent on online classes and on internet, I was wasted, i don't want to brag, nor someone overly forcing helping out to you people.
I just want to this to be out there because I eventually came out of that mess and in Diwali '23 I saw some of you peeeps' fucked up stories of this over indulgence on the internet, and this one girl who wasted on the internet on gore and shit, a serious backlog in her studies and useless tension now on her mind. I know there are a lot of you there morning 8 to 12 schedule internet, reels, shorts, games, some of you peeps go a level higher and it's just films all day, to the point where you are a walking talking Wikipedia of films, the delete reinstall cycle of games, wanking everyday, I know you, you may not be doing the same thing but it's the same cycle at any level, basic to it being the device and internet usage, it's only an overconsumption whether it be on reddit, fucking around on discord or on 4chan.
First off, there is a clear, definite, rational fucking answer to this, DO NOT fuck up your mind over this shit, regardless of everyone's u ique and different case the basic answers are the same
1.SEEK HELP: parents first, but if the environment in your house is a bit negative one please reach out to a psychologist, or even me, I'll try to help in whichever way I can, a good psychologist, actually gives you decisive answers and rational decisions best for your future
Clearing it out with your parents brings you all on a common ground. I was in a hostel and still the fallout and consequences of my usage had not appeared until l8tr after which I approached one(these "consequences" are not exactly withdrawal symptoms, but the fucking way this poisonous shit percolates into your mind, the changed perspective of yourself and the world through all this usage actually affects you BECAUSE REAL WORLD IS NOT LIKE THE ONLINE WORLD, i know you feel it too, whenever you sit down to study, you first try to study very seriously....and then you mind....drifts, thoughts and imaginations of your world involving the shit you saw or you recapping the films and getting and kicks out of that smiling on your study table, in your own world. Normalpeople are not like that, you need to stay in this real world, face these real problems, get kicks out of life, but don't worry cos the only difference between you and "normal" people is just a little effort, don't worry.
2.POSSIBLY CHOOSE A HOSTEL: the hostel environment helps you cut off from all distractions and especially a toxic environment around you if you have one and only makes you focus on the goal, it's a beautiful realisation of your capacity to do things and you can see in clarity how better you can be and how every moment you can utilise to being a better you. For my repeat I was at Sanjay Ghodawat Atigre which has got the benefit of reducing fees depending on your neet marks (sometimes even to the extent of 50k to 1 lakh)but you get all the exact same benefits as regular students which get into there for fucking 4.5 lakhs for two years
3.LASTLY remember a lot of people can just cut off from this shit but NOBODY can just sit idly without tasking your mind something, the mind is NOT made like that man, even if you do you'll find yourself drifting in your thoughts of this entertainment you sought earlier(the fallout of this shit that I faced earlier). Substitute it. Choose healthy habits, choose life man. Especially at this age (hoping you all are in 16-22) the body is damn active, when I did, i used to run 3-3.5 kms in 30 mins it felt amazing to devote the time to something like this, you actually tire yourself in good things(haha this is literally what even actual addicts do too, its just choosing to get your kicks out of other things, healthier things). You literally start noticing changes in your mindset too, tbh you guys maintain a very toxic environment here, which is actually sad because real life just ain't like that, anything and everything here distorts your perspective of the real world, even i, used to have Dr. House and shit as someone to be like but that ain't real, now it's people like Tatya Lahane, Baba Amte and Sindhutai Sakpal, those are real heroes no joke.
KEEP A POSITIVE MIND. You know that meditation, brahmakumaris and shit? Do that. Nah i don't believe in it either but trust me, the mind is no ambiguous thing it's just a restless little fish with infinite capacity and innumerous sensing, taking in all that you give it, so feed it good, and especially, trap it. That's where this meditation and shit comes in, it's just tricks man, see, a guy with a really bad reputation sits in front of you verbally abuses you and leaves, with your entrance exam on the near(even two years means near btw), what is the least fucking thing you can you can "do", brahmakumaris says "forgive em" pretty fucking stupid right? But that's the trick(on your mind) At this stage, rationally, without any emotion, you have to ask yourself what actually fucking matters, and trust me, they fucking don't, saying you forgive them means you LET GO of the hate of theirs you hold in your mind and CHOOSE yourself and your goal over them, or else you would be literally wasting your time too even when studying thinking over this person, trust me this isn't any different than the Stoic ideals of Marcus Aurelius and shit you read online, here it's just brought into effect ina different manner. They preach about God and to let go and give up control, surrender to them, how's that useful? That bitch cheating from your paper, your bus coming over late, you acting nice to a person but them not reflecting the same, let go, that shit wasn't in your control anyway. It's just little shit like this that helps in the long run.
AGAIN I'm not a psych or doctor, please seek actual help, communicate, reach out. I especially felt writing this out after parents literally took me to see their kid and he had been yabbering abiut a totally different problem but all about his room were the reflections of my life two years ago, that laptop, screen down, headphones connected, a phone nearby and a router, I knew immediately what the actual problem was, you guys spent so much time online that even when you do study, the actual things going on in your mind aren't the same. Him and that girl I read about on this place in Diwali, I hope for her, please keep a positive mind throughout all this, all of life indeed, you all are beautifully strong people. REMEMBER effort and discipline goes a long way than motivation and intelligence in this profession AND to focus only and only on the process, the effort, the goal and ambitions, all the time, even at the level of thought. Everyone and everything else will stay the same but you will "be like a rocky promontory against which the restless surf continually pounds; it stands fast while the churning sea is lulled to sleep at its feet". Love you all man, all the best.
P.S. I had to whore for some karma b4 posting here, so I joined a few subreddits, please don't judge me on that, I'll be here once a while if you guys want to reach out, but mostly I'm leaving this toxic place too.

The rift between them has caused a lot of tension in my family and now my mom wants to be in the life of her newborn grandson but refuses to address or try to mend things with my wife.
Little history: I probably introduced them too quickly. My grandmother was in town in south Florida about to move here from Illinois for a retirement community. My wife, girlfriend at the time, came with cookies or some form of baked goods like she usually does when visiting someone as a sign of affection and respect. Where it went wrong from here I have no idea. I suppose the initial crack was when wife scheduled a skitrip for her and I to have as a 1 year of dating anniversary present. We are not rich, this is a huge gift that made sense to her since I refused to let her pay rent. Our combines salaries are barely over 120k. So wife calls mom 6 months in advance because she is a planner for the sole purpose of asking my mom to watch one of our four dogs. Wife has already paid in full for the trip. Yet Mom decides it is a great idea to instead use the opportunity to hop on and take a family trip because it is the last time the family will have for a family vacation - I am the oldest of two boys and two stepsisters, my mom married the guy she left my father for who has twin girls of his own that were in the womb during the infidelity. Anyway mom completely takes over and decides to make our one year gift a family vacation, so she books tickets for a hotel nearby. Wife is bold but at the time not bold enough to stop my mom in her tracks for overstepping a boundary. At this time she still respected my mother and kind of let herself get steamrolled.
Probably skippable Family history: Now I have always had issues with my mother, resentment for leaving my father for my stepdad behind my own fathers back and constantly trying to keep brother and I from seeing “Disneyland dad who doesn’t do any of the work but gets all the fun.” my mother was very strict growing up, always bringing us to church and making my father feel guilty for not bringing brother and I on his weekend. So mom marries stepdad age 11, divorces him around 13 after asking me advice for her relationship and i encourage her to move out. Then remarries him and moves us back into his house age 15. Here I begin rebellion and normal teeenager stuff but stepdad won’t butt in because he isn’t my “biological father” so would have my mom intervene brother and i from behind the scenes. For example, I am young and messing around on the piano because music is important and I never had any formal training and mom comes in to tell me stepdad “wants to know when the concert is going to end because it is a little annoying.” Anyway, they have me prescribed adderall at 16 and in the parking lot holding my first prescription I am told that they would like me to move out and in with my father, who had chased us every time mom and stepdad moved several miles away (5 moves from age 5-15 all in one county). Anyway, brother and I are recovering alcoholics with (my) slipups triggered from interactions or visiting my mom, which mom claims is genetics from my father alone and has nothing to do with her. Maternal grandfather, mother, and I have some nasty temper problems which certainly are exacerbated by drinking (at least mine and moms).
Skitrip revelations: Wife and I are on the way to brothers graduation in Chicago, and wife has yet to reveal to me that my mother has taken over her massive investment of a couples ski vacation and it will now be a family vacation for mom, stepdad, brother, two stepsisters who are all getting out of gradschool. On the way to the airport I am told the news by future wife of my one year surprise. So I get upset and call my mom to call it off. She obliges my request and now holds resentment against me and now wife for “ruining her last family vacation.” Fine, whatever. Mother never says a word about it for months until we are out for a distant family members birthday dinner and at a table of about 8-10 people that are having a group conversation and gets real close to my wife’s ear and tells her privately along the lines of “you deprived our family of our last family vacation.” During this time my wife is frantically tapping my leg under the table because my mom can get a little aggressive. My mom saw this and later (privately to me) mocked her for doing it to my leg under the table.
Christmas blessings: Closer to Christmas maybe 2/3 weeks later we went to go see my mom and my mom had a couple drinks in her (not an alcoholic like brother and I just very sensitive to a couple glasses of wine and occasionally some hidden sips of wine or something) and invites my wife to Christmas church and out to dinner after because the family needs photos for a Christmas card and future wife “will be the photographer for it.” Now this can easily be a nothing comment but given the way my mom had been making future wife feel, it was taken as an insult. So wife declined church and showed up to family dinner just in time for photography session to be over.
The distance: Then mom moves to a fancy house up the coast and invites us up to visit. At first it is ok to bring the 4 dogs then the day before she says they will not have dogs at the house and we can easily find a sitter. 2 Dogs don’t get along, they need to be separated always as there has been two attacks on one from the other, so we can’t trust someone to come to the house and keep them separate and we won’t board 4 dogs it’s too expensive for us. Anyway we go back and forth being invited with the dogs then they retract the offer and say pick one dog to bring and leave the others and it’s just annoying, so we say forget it and don’t go. But my brother becomes engaged and decides to throw his engagement party at my mom’s new place near the beach. Great. First all the dogs are welcome, then day before they say it is too chaotic and she will pay for a small hotel room for one night for future wife and her dogs and my one (the attack dog) can stay in a crate at the house with me but I may not leave the dog to stay with her. And no reasonable cheap hotel in the area is going to accommodate 4 dogs. Anyway wife is stressed but feels obligated to come because I am the best man and I stay at the house while she checks her dogs into the hotel. Wife had made a cheesecake and brought it up in a separate car from me, 4 hour drive by the way, and night of.. my mom says no desserts for engagement party dinner, the dessert is themed or some crazy stuff. Wife shows up to dinner a little later and very flustered because of the situation plus I had relapsed on a bottle of whiskey a couple days prior to seeing my mom. Related, I don’t know. Anyway. Mom has had a couple drinks and future wife and I are talking about having children and religion comes up. Mom asks what we were thinking of doing about baptism or not and I jokingly said (guiltily to get on my moms nerves a bit) that he would have a bris and would love it if she would come to the bar mitzvah. now my wife’s mom was forced to convert from Catholicism to Judaism for her own mother in laws acceptance for a failed marriage so wife is not religious, but it hurt my wife and reasonably so when my mom replied “oh, son, I raised you better than that.” Still no acknowlegement of fault from that comment and mom thinks wife is “overly sensitive, dramatic, and childish” for wanting an apology for it.
Weddings: Future wife becomes current wife. We had gotten engaged on our next anniversary trip she planned for us. I proposed on our bike and barge through tulip season in holland with our feet in the water of the North Sea after a picnic in the dunes. her family business manufactures photo albums for professional photographers, so aside from our families all being divorced, estranged, difficult, and us trying to save money, we did not have a wedding, we just did the paperwork within a month of the proposal. I had already decided to have a baby with her before the trip so we were trying. 2 weeks before brothers wedding in Tennessee we become pregnant, so we break news immediately as to not steal limelight from brothers expensive wedding. Mom says she will cover cost of rental car so we can save money. Ok great. She books the tiny car and we pack it and head up the Smokey mountains to the cabins we are staying at. Two cabins for grooms family, one for his mother and one for his father, ten paces from each other: they havnt spoken but twice im since divorce in 1995 but through lawyers. Grandmother, mother, stepdad, 2 stepsisters and one boyfriend stayed in mom’s side. Wife and I stay at father’s side cabin with just his wife. His Wife’s 3 daughters and family’s stayed a town away down the mountain among extended family. Anyway, beautiful wedding takes place. My wife is sent into town to collect flowers and run errands for my mom which she happily obliged to since she is a solitary person and did not want wedding day drama. Day after, we are loading our rental sedan with our bags. Mom and grandma need a ride to the airport and our flight is before theirs so they will drop off the car for us 4 hours or so after we go to the airport 5 hours from current time. We’re loading the car. Stepcousin passed out in mother’s cabin night before and needed a ride. Disorganized brunch for 20 people is trying to be made. Father’s wife’s daughter books a reservation for 10 people which include her family, her sisters, me, my wife, dad, and their mom. My stepdad had left for home at this point as he had taken his own suv instead of flying with my mom and 90 year old grandma. So mom is trying to pack grandma in the car with bags and my wife and stepcousin. At this point mother asks stepmother if she and grandma are on reservation for the brunch. Stepmom says no they are not, she wasn’t sure of their plans. Mom says under her breath “fucking assholes, so typical,” and she goes into a bit of a rage to which my stepmom says here “it’s ok I will call and add you two it’s no big deal.” So we continue packing the car and realize we won’t all fit. So my wife tells my stepcousin to go ride with my father to the restaurant 10 minutes away we will meet you there. Mom says to wife, “no you go with the father.” Wife says “no I am going to ride with my husband” mom gets close to her face with her finger and says “this is my car, you can fucking Uber!” Wife is 6 weeks pregnant at this point and it all escalated from here. wife and mother start yelling at each other swearing at each other and we get into the car, mom behind wife who was in shotgun. 2 occasions on the trip I had to stop the car because mom had taken off her seatbelt to stand over the seat and scream in my wife’s face with so much vigor that spit came on to her face multiple times. I’m trying to tell them both to behave and mom sit down shut the f up. Mom is telling wife to get the f out of the car and find a ride, she has no right to speak because she’s “new here” (dating and living together for 3 years at this point). The following brunch she apologized in a crowd with a hushed voice at a table of 20 people trying to have a group conversation again privately to my wife “I’m sorry you get so upset” and my wife told her “that is not an apology.” The following several hours in the car with grandma and stepcousin and wife were some of the most uncomfortable moments of my life. At a gas station I pulled my mom aside and said I need ther to give a huge apology, that it was so nasty and inappropriate, my brother and I are used to abusive language and aggressive behavior but to my pregnant wife and any other human being it is disgusting and unacceptable. Sitting in the car was quiet for many hours until we got to the airport. No speaking about what happened just mom happy go lucky about Tennessee and Dollywood and wife and I in shock, cousin still half in the bag from a fun wedding, grandma 90 years old probably confused about what happened.
The family groupchat: Im waiting on an apology from my mother to my wife who is extremely hurt and expressed to my mom loads of time she needs to reach out and apologize. We’re not talking until she will do so. It is bugging me and keeping me up at night. My appendix flares up and I am admitted to the hospital with emergency appendectomy. Still pregnant Wife suggests I reach out to mom to let her know what’s going on. So I text mom I’m at the hospital and will have surgery. I send a pic or something that on my end says hasn’t gone through. Mom group texts our family group with stepdad, his daughters, brother and his wife, and grandma that I am in the hospital and attaches the pic I sent of me in there. Then she continues to rave about the success of her startup company and how they got FDA approved clinical trials finally completed or some pivotal moment that made the text about her. Wife and I are in a hospital so the picture comes up on moms end as unable to have been sent. Mom assumes that my wife has blocked her phone, so mom removes my wife from the chat. Wife is rushing home to take care of the dogs at this point and is not alerted on her phone, but on everyone else’s phone it clearly reads “(mom) has removed (wife) from the chat.” Immediately I text my mom and basically say how dare you do that to her she is the one who insisted I let you know out of respect and mom responds with blah blah she did this she did that I will not have it. So I go back to the family chat and remove mother. At this point I let everyone in the chat know what my mother has done and how she refuses to take responsibility for how she made my wife feel, address her feelings, apologize or do anything at all to reach out about the wedding incident or even inquire about the wellbeing of the pregnancy for her first grandchild. Stepdad finally steps in and tells me “enough.” Grandma says “shame on you.” I am dumbfounded. This is a hush hush family that hates to have anything out in the open and likes to maintain a picture perfect image. For examples; 1) I and wife were on the family Christmas card of a photo taken at the wedding that the whole world received except for wife and I. 2)brothers alcoholism was to remain hidden from the family as was his rehab treatment and how it affected his career. Now understand that they like to keep things quiet but that is not how I want to handle my problems, these things trigger alcohol use and violent outbursts on my part that I no longer wish to live through. Now appendectomy’s are pretty simple so I recovered quickly (it don’t rupture we just took it out). But during the time I was scheduled to be under anesthesia, stepdad reaches out to wife to have a chat and clear the air. Wife waits until I come to so i can be there and I hear the conversation. He claims to be here as a middleman like a business meeting to fix things once and for all. Wife and I are like wow great. He then proceeds to double down on my moms behalf that they will not be apologizing or meet any of her demands as she had already apologized as confirmed by 90yo grandma who was in the car and my mother herself. The term he used was stalemate to describe the situation. Wife and I are shocked but she has me keep quiet to show me what he will say. He proceeds to yell at her and they were screaming at each other, again steamrolling the conversation assuring us that he was down the middle yet maintains that mom has made a sufficient apology that needs to be accepted and wife needs to grow up and move on, then wishing her luck with the baby and a nice life. Next day I call stepdad to see how it went. He reassures me that he has done all he can and everything is back to normal. At this point I call him out and tell him I was conscious and explain to him what an apology is. But there is no dialogue with this guy like there is no dialogue with my mother. He proceeds to talk loudly over me like she does and basically call me a piece of shit for the amount he and mother have done for me. I speak to him first time like I never have before by calling him a hands off father and a pussy of a man who finally reaches out while he thinks I am under anesthesia to yell at my wife then pretend it’s cool, and I basically tell him he has never done a single thing for me to try and develop me into a man or nurture me as a child into an adult, but he thinks taking me on fishing trips and ski vacations are equivalent to love and nurturing growth and development just like my mom does. I reassure him that he has no right to talk about family being that he ruined his own as well as mine and couldn’t even tell my dad to his face that it was him who was sleeping with my mom behind his back when my dad came to him very upset as a friend when he got an anonymous phone tip at work one day. Then him and my mom laughed about it in court when my dad brought it up during the divorce. We ended with swearing and I felt very happy for finally giving my true feelings to him.
The birth: Months go by and nobody has said a thing. I can’t sleep at night seeing how much love I am getting from my father and his side for the baby, and my wife’s family, then thinking about how my own mother hasn’t reached out a single time. I’m dreaming about beating up my stepdad and it’s driving me mad. So weeks before the due date I reach out to my mom begging her to clear things up and apologize to my wife. Nothing. A week later i tell her how disappointed and abandoned I feel and want her in the family. Nothing. Baby comes a couple days early. Everyone is excited. Mom texts me begging for photos and to let everyone know. I tell her my brother and two stepsisters have received photos. I ask her to please reach out to wife she still needs to make amends for what’s happened between them and all she needs to do is reach out. Mom’s responses have been defensive, derisive, projecting, playing victim and referring to herself as a kicked puppy. Telling me my wife needs to apologize to her and making the conversation about mother son instead. She is beating around the bush. And she is sending me photos of my own baby that I did not send her. Her friends are congratulating me that I did not tell. Again she is pretending that everything is ok and it is not. She asked me to apologize to her husband for what I said on the phone that day. I said ok, watch this. So I sent the guy a message that was very apologetic and not passive aggressive or backhanded comments in any way. Still my mom won’t say anything.
Now: Baby is 6 days old. He is the best thing in my life and I wish my family were involved but it seems like I am living in a fantasy world where everyone can be happy together. I can be a jerk and have a terrible relationship with my mom, but I want more than anything to just feel loved enough where she can swallow her pride and make amends with my wife. Thats it. And she asked the other day to put a family group chat so everyone can be involved… for real? I know she is stressed with a high pressure job, but it seems heartless to me. She asks what big items she can get for the baby. Mom, baby is here we have everything for a couple months already. I said the biggest thing you can do is reach out and have a heart to heart with my wife so this rift can end and we can at least be cordial if you two can’t get along. I don’t think it will happen.
How do I mend this relationship between my wife and my mother?

Hey! So, I’ve been posting these analysis compilations for each team in their respective subs, however, I am banned in the Patriots sub, so I figured I’d post this one (and only this one) here.
Round 1, Pick 3 - Drake Maye, QB, North Carolina:
NFL: Maye has prototypical dimensions and an exceptional arm. The comparisons made between Maye and Buffalo’s Josh Allen are real when it comes to his size, arm strength and leadership skills. Maye lacks the experience of other QBs in this draft, but if he can iron out some of his inconsistencies, he can be a superstar for the Patriots.
CBS Sports: B. He might need some time on the bench, but he has the talent to develop into a good starting quarterback in this league. He just needs to fine tune a few mechanical things. The Patriots had to get a quarterback.
ESPN: They didn't overthink it. In need of a potential franchise quarterback, and open to trading the pick if a big-time offer came their way, the Patriots landed a player who gives the organization the same type of hope that Drew Bledsoe did after being selected No. 1 overall in 1993. Now comes the important part of developing Maye with quality coaching, and ensuring he doesn't have too many voices in his ear.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Freaked out when a bird got into his house last summer and knocked over a lamp.
Round 2, Pick 37 - Ja’Lynn Polk, WR, Washington:
NFL: I wonder if the Patriots weren't hoping for Coleman to fall to them. Polk has some nice physical traits, possesses really nice body control to adjust to passes outside his frame and stepped up nicely when Jalen McMillan was hurt midseason last year. But I saw Polk's upside as lower, viewing him more as a third-round talent. He'll add size to New England's smaller WR room, though.
CBS Sports: B-. Complete wideout without stellar athletic traits who tracks it awesomely. Flashes of YAC wiggle and power. Fun, versatile piece to add to the offense that needs it. A tick early for him though.
ESPN: The Patriots had explored trading back into the bottom of the first round on Thursday night but couldn't strike a deal, according to sources. So they regrouped, traded down three spots in the second round (from 34 to 37) to improve 27 spots later in the draft (from 137 to 110), and then grabbed the player they probably would have picked at 34 in Polk. A Bill Belichick-type move from the new regime that will be judged, in part, by if they should have gone with WR Ladd McConkey (selected at 34) instead.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: He is currently binging all 14,000 episodes of Days of Our Lives.
Round 3, Pick 68 - Caedan Wallace, OT, Penn State:
NFL: Wallace is a thick-bodied right tackle who developed into an NFL prospect later in his six-year college career. With 40 college starts, he has experience, but it's almost all at that position, and Coleman was considered something of an underachiever earlier in his career. A reach for me.
CBS Sports: C-. Sizable framed OT with lumbering feet. Average-at-best athlete. Plays with good calmness and accuracy at second level and has quality power but overall athletic profile was severely threatened often in college. A concern for his NFL future. New England did need to add some OL depth. Worried about his upside.
ESPN: The Patriots' top need areas entering the draft were QB, WR and OT, and Wallace caps off the 1-2-3 approach in filling them. He was mostly a right tackle in college, but Wolf said the team believes Wallace has the athletic ability to move to the left side. First-year offensive line coach Scott Peters comes from the Browns and his presence ties to Wallace, who at the least will be counted upon to be a top backup as a rookie.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: I’m just saying, if you know, you know.
Round 4, Pick 103 - Layden Robinson, OG, Texas A&M:
NFL: It's funny, if you hadn't told me Eliot Wolf was running the Patriots' draft room, I might have just assumed it was business as usual in Foxboro, with Bill Belichick overseeing things. Robinson, like Day 2 picks Ja'Lynn Polk and Caedan Wallace, were semi-value reaches. Robinson is a hard-nosed guard-only who improves the depth up front, but was it a massive need?
CBS Sports: B+. Mashing guard who plays more athletically than his workout. Tremendous burst off the snap on a routine basis. Could add more strength at the next level. Serious length but hands are late often. Nastiness is there for the run and pass protection. Upside blocker.
ESPN: With starting left guard Cole Strange attempting to return from a late-season injury that could affect his availability early this year, the Patriots are loading up on the offensive line to give themselves as many options as possible. Robinson has been a pure right guard, where 2023 fourth-round pick Sidy Sow is the projected starter. The team also has 2023 fifth-rounder Atonio Mafi, so Robinson joins the young pipeline up front. One scouting report referred to him as an "absolute freight train in the running game," which seems to reflect the style of lineman the team is looking for under the new coaching staff.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: You don’t stop the rock It to the bang-bang boogie, say up jump the boogie.
Round 4, Pick 110 - Javon Baker, WR, UCF:
NFL: I figured the Patriots would double up at receiver, and there was some talk of Baker being a Day 2 pick. I didn't love all of his tape, but he clearly features big-play prowess. UCF didn't fully unleash his talent, but Baker also needs to hone the details of his craft before he can be in a featured role.
CBS Sports: A+. This is a future No. 1 wideout. While not a burner, he plays faster and has the complete skill set. Releases at the line are good, flexibility to get open at intermediate level, YAC prowess, and especially rebounding skills are high-end.
ESPN: Baker is a big play waiting to happen, as evidenced by his five catches of 50-plus yards last season. So after the Patriots selected Ja’Lynn Polk in the second round, they doubled down with Baker -- which reflects how director of scouting Eliot Wolf is decisively addressing one of the team's top deficiencies. Wolf grew up in the Packers' system, and they have had recent success taking a similar approach at WR and TE. If there is a knock on Baker, it's that he has 14 drops over the past two seasons.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: His favorite movie of all time is Scream.
Round 6, Pick 180 - Marcellas Dial, CB, South Carolina:
NFL: Dial has decent length and has gotten his hands on a lot of passes the past three years, and he has a chance to make it as a jack of all trades in the secondary, with experience at multiple spots.
CBS Sports: A-. This is tremendous value. Zone awareness for days. Didn’t see the football thrown in his direction much. Outstanding ball skills when it does arrive. Doesn’t miss many tackles either. Hard to find a clear flaw to his game.
ESPN: Christian Gonzalez (2023 first-round pick), veteran Jonathan Jones and third-year player Marcus Jones are at the top of the CB depth chart, followed by a group of younger players whom Dial (6-0, 190) will compete against for a roster spot. That group includes Alex Austin, Marco Wilson, Shaun Wade, Isaiah Bolden and Azizi Hearn. As is often the case at this point in the draft, contributions on special teams figure to be a notable factor if Dial ultimately breaks through. Dial said he visited the Patriots before the draft (among the three teams he traveled to see) and had a feeling he would land with them.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: If you send the right mod $10,000 they will sell you the sub.
Round 6, Pick 193 - Joe Milton III, QB, Tennessee:
NFL: Milton's bazooka arm figured to make him a late-round flier, but I didn't have him landing in New England after the Patriots took Drake Maye with the third overall pick. Some teams have toyed with the idea of turning Milton into a Logan Thomas-like TE conversion.
CBS Sports: C+. Will immediately have one of the strongest arms in the NFL. Grew a lot as a passer after transfer to Tennessee. Accuracy is very hit or miss and he’s an average athlete. Coverage-reading needs to improve. Big frame.
ESPN: After taking Drake Maye No. 3 overall, and then Milton, this marks just the second time in team history that two QBs were selected in the same draft (1983 with Tony Eason and Tom Ramsey). Milton's physical traits stand out -- he's 6-foot-5 and 246 pounds with a powerful arm -- and some believe he could transition to tight end in the NFL. When looking at Milton through the QB-specific lens, the Patriots obviously view Maye as their hopeful long-term option, with veteran Jacoby Brissett the current projected starter until Maye is ready. They would still be looking to carry a No. 3 option. Bailey Zappe (2022 fourth-round pick) and second-year player Nathan Rourke are also on the depth chart, and their spots on the roster could be in jeopardy if the Patriots view Milton as the ideal developmental option.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Totally cried when he read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.
Round 7, Pick 231 - Jaheim Bell, TE, Florida State:
NFL: Bell was a versatile enough athlete that he played running back at South Carolina because of injuries, but his best chance to make it in the league is as a "move" tight end with his smaller frame.
CBS Sports: A+. H-back type with explosive YAC traits. Cutting skill and natural ability to absorb contact and keep the legs churning. Won’t be a natural separator but when schemed open he can be a fun asset in the New England offense.
ESPN: Coach Jerod Mayo said by this point of the draft, the Patriots were selecting the best player regardless of need. The 6-foot-2, 242-pound Bell played more than 40% of his snaps last season in the slot, so he's an H-back-type option more than an inline TE. The Patriots have veteran Hunter Henry atop their depth chart, with top backups Austin Hooper and Mitchell Wilcox on one-year contracts, so Bell gives them a developmental option with the future in mind. If he breaks through, he could be a safety valve for a young quarterback on safer, underneath routes. His 897 yards after the catch since 2021 rank second among FBS tight ends after Brock Bowers.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Consults the farmers almanac every day about the weather.

Hey everyone, I’ve finally turned to the Reddit community. I’m not sure where’s the best place to post this but there is an element of GERD and is very likely and a root cause for at least a large portion of it so will try here first. Apologies for how lengthy it is.
I’m a M38, obese through childhood and young adulthood, hypertension since teens that was treated with metoprolol (had palpitations as well) and even high cholesterol that was finally treated with statin in early twenties. Around the age of 25 I took last 2 years to lose about 150 pounds going from 360 to 210, (all natural from diet and exercise).
Shortly after this, I started getting one side numbness and tingling, rate headaches, and sometimes along with or separately bouts of chest pain and palpitations, sweating, hot flashes, left shoulder pain, arm pain, dizziness. This lead to a decade long investigation that lead to no real solution. Countless stress tests, echo/ekg, holters, blood work, head and neck MRIs, dopplers, EEGs, etc, no real diagnosis was made. The only thing that change was about 2 years after switched from metoprolol to losartan, as it was more appropriate now after the weight loss, which a doc thought was just the right thing to do and had no explanation for my symptoms otherwise. No more rate control since 2015.
Ultimately, after 10 years of this… For the neurological symptoms, it was a deemed hemiplegic or basilar migraines, with aura, with or without headache. I was told hey, it hasn’t killed you yet, so that alone tells us at least it’s not fatal. For the cardiac symptoms, anxiety or some type health anxiety, or something in the psych realm was deemed the culprit. I was told it’s best you ignore it, or jump on a medley of different drugs, which I was told likely won’t benefit me. Imagine having to live with all this, and being told by doctors to essentially ignore it all. I asked the crucial question, at least to me, that I’ll go ahead and listen to their advice, but what is my threshold? At what point am I to rush to an ER? Most people would run to one if they had these symptoms, as neuro could be stroke, and cardiac could be heart attack. They had no answer for this. After this decade long hunt, I spent a year in misery, personal issues, my blood pressure medications was doubled in dose after a breakup, then doubled again 2 weeks later (it was stressful), all during Covid year 2020. Unfortunately over the decade I slowly gained back 100 of the weight I had lost. Back 290 pounds. During this year I lost 30 of it again, down to 260 In 2021, I had pretty crazy bout of chest pain, and was offered do a coronary CTA, came back completely clean. No obstruction at all in vessels, and zero calcium score. This was reassuring enough to me at least cardiac wise I can rest easy(to some degree). For the neuro side, CGRP antagonist was on the table to try, but it would just be throwing medications at it, along with gabapentin and topamax as options. The latter were tried, but were not tolerated at all. In 2022, I had my first bout with covid, moderate, it left its lingering symptoms (which are hard to discern as I had a large amount of the symptoms of long covid for years before this too) An endoscopy was done. As a GI doc said since you’ve been having such a long list of symptoms for so long, let’s explore the GI route since you’ve ruled out the rest from what it seems. Endoscopy found a small hiatal hernia. And the trail went cold. Can a small one perhaps cause such symptoms?
Which brings us to the most current situation. March of 2023 I decided to do the stationary bike, high resistance and high effort for 30 minutes with HR at about 130, then 5 more minutes I ramped up effort even more to HR of 150. Towards the last minute or two o started getting chest pain. I obviously should have stopped but I figured hey I get some type of pain like this time to time let’s just hit the 35 minute mark. Big mistake.
When I stopped, the pain persisted. And took a while to get better. Like an hour or so. And it felt different than anything I’ve felt before. Felt radiating to arm and jaw. By nightfall it was fine, next morning it all started again when I got out of bed. I wish I had gone to ER so at least they’d run some tests on the spot. I contacted my cardiologist, who I saw four days later. He said there’s nothing to be done, even though I told him these are different symptoms, and seem to come from exertion. He offered me a repeat of the CT or a trip to the cath lab. I let him decide and he went with CT since it was non invasive.
2 weeks later I got the test done, and this time they found a 10% Non calcified plaque in the proximal LAD, the calcium score still zero. He said this doesn’t explain your symptoms, but since we have evidence of CAD, you have to be put on aspirin 81. Additionally, he offered Ranexa, as he thought maybe this could be microvascular disease. Ultimately he did not believe this to be new and different like I’ve been saying and jumbled it all into the last 15 years or so. No enzymes got tested, which I really wish had been.
*****I now had this exertional left arm pain, wrist pain on the outside, numbness, chest pain, pressure, dizziness, jaw pain, pain behind left ear, left side of neck headache, bouts of nausea and sweating, shortness of breath even. This was all way worse than what I used to deal with. And different too
My pcp advised against his trial medicine, as it has a very little success and plenty of adverse effects. Days past by, no improvement, I’m getting these symptoms on the daily. An incident 3 months later in summer after swift walk to the car after eat a large cookie (I include that because maybe it was GI?). For hours I felt tingly in the chest, light headed, just confused. My girlfriend even noticed I just seemed out of it. Chest felt tight and painful. It eventually got better many hours later.
Mid summer I went for a pulmonary consult, at my doc’s behest, only for this doc to rush me to an er on suspicion of an aortic dissection. They did a full CTA of head neck chest abdomen and pelvis….. nothing but unnecessary radiation and contrast exposure.
Late summer I had a week of sweating and light headed ness, now 6 months out from the exercise incident from March. I went to another cardiologist, who had no idea why my pressure was suddenly 90/60 (literally no changes have been made). I was told to cut my medication dose in half. Could this be due to the contrast from the CT earlier??
He ordered a stress test, my first one since then, which came back subpar 6-7 minutes only but I did hit the target rate. I may have called quits 1 minute or 2 early as I saw my blood pressure skyrocketing. It was considered a normal test regardless. That night I had the worst left arm pain lasting hours, but I was told there’s no explanation. I did start getting very intense headaches, ones that I still get
Interestingly, 1 month later, my blood pressure was suddenly now high, 150/80. Suddenly. no explanation why it was low then, and none for why it’s high now. We went back to regular dose of the medication.
I got a neuro consult again to see if it could all connect, autonomic testing was done for dysautonomia, came back normal. Back to Square 1 again.
In the fall of 2023 I tried a bout of PPI as all docs were pushing for this , nothing changed, but it did help with the occasional heartburn I got. I even gave a month try to benzodiazepine as to rule out psych causes, and then tried an Ssri for 2 months. Nothing, other than sedation.
This new year I caved and started metoprolol again. I was told maybe it will help if it’s microvascular disease. It wasn’t exactly indicated but at this point I was willing OT try it all. Initially it had some benefit I think, then dose was doubled in February but not much changed. I still take it presently, as my base HR had recently been higher than normal anyways.
In these last few months, all of this persists. And subjectively I think it’s getting worse. I’ve been feeling cold for months, but then feel like sweat at the same time (not drenched just clamy). Get bouts of nausea even at rest. All of the cardiac symptoms episodic pain dizziness with chest shoulder jaw back neck ear, etc all still there. Even from left arm it runs down like into the palm and pinky. I even get them during sex I just power through. Stressful moments also incite them. I cannot say for sure, but possibly food or spicy food can do it as well.
My cardiologists still believe nothing is new here, even though it feels completely different to me after that exercise incident. They suggest coping as is, or going in for another coronary CTA, or finally take a trip to a cath lab. Essentially they say objectively they see nothing, but if I keep complaining those are the best routes.( I was offered nitro as well but scared to take it) My neuro says unlikely they are related, but it they could be to the possible migraines. At least the new headaches. There’s some possible link with migraine and chest pain. Only way to know is try a cgrp. He’s going with Qulipta. My GI doc says it could be vagus nerve related, and/or esophageal, so let’s try a TCA, amitriptyline. I’ve also been suggested to try a higher dose of Xan.
——— I have no idea which trail to follow????
My labs are normal, -except CRP (I believe around 40 if I recall correctly) which is often elevated, -hsCRP of 1.8 which was moderate risk category, -and CPK which is often high as well around 400 but my docs blame it on statin use or maybe exercise (idk about that no one entertains it as cardiac but they must have their reasons)
I really don’t want to sit on all this and find out later I didn’t take the action necessary. I’m afraid of something serious happening. And daily this is interfering with my life.
My concern is maybe during that exercise I did something. Initially was concerned about damage from really high blood pressure during, coronary dissection maybe? Something else damaged? Or something missed? Did I make something worse? Does anyone think it’s all related to my past symptoms?
What could have happened with this exercise incident??
Any input, advice, suggestions, similar stories, appreciated.
If you made it this far. Thank you so much for reading. Take care.

Over the course of the past few months I have been working on compiling a list of my 500 favorite songs. It was sort of challenge that I gave myself and I'm super pumped with how it turned out. There were a few rules (only 5 songs per artist being the big rule, among a few others), and here's the list I came up with. Thought it was fun, so wanted to share here and see if it might spark any discussion about song placement, lack of songs/artists, or see if anyone had any similar lists. All thoughts are welcome! (and if you don't care to comb through all 500 songs for your favorite song or artist I'm more than happy to help you track 'em down)

1. Trash Panda - Aging out of the 20th Century
   
2. Djo - Roddy
   
3. The Beatles - Don't Let Me Down
   
4. Snail Mail - Heat Wave
   
5. Phoebe Bridgers - Savior Complex
   
6. Joji - SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK
   
7. The Shins - The Fear
   
8. Talking Heads - This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)
   
9. The Cranberries - Linger
   
10. Post Animal - Ralphie
    
11. Hop Along - Not Abel
    
12. The Beach Boys - Heroes And Villains
    
13. Electric Light Orchestra - Livin' Thing
    
14. The Monkees - As We Go Along
    
15. Blondie - Heart Of Glass
    
16. The Strokes - Oblivius
    
17. Chet Baker - It's Always You
    
18. The Beatles - Rain
    
19. Electric Light Orchestra - Telephone Line
    
20. Husbands - Must Be a Cop
    
21. Faces - Ooh La La
    
22. The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize??
    
23. Frank Ocean - Nights
    
24. Harry James - It's Been a Long, Long Time
    
25. The Turtles - Happy Together
    
26. Etta James - At Last
    
27. The Zombies - The Way I Feel Inside
    
28. The Beatles - Here, There And Everywhere
    
29. The Beach Boys - God Only Knows
    
30. Kanye West - Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1
    
31. Briston Maroney - Sinkin'
    
32. John Lennon - Oh My Love
    
33. Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass - Ladyfingers
    
34. Squirrel Flower - Headlights
    
35. The Backseat Lovers - Maple Syrup
    
36. The B-52's - Rock Lobster
    
37. George Harrison - All Things Must Pass
    
38. Snail Mail - Ben Franklin
    
39. Laura Elliott - Grass Stains
    
40. Djo - Chateau (Feel Alright)
    
41. Tame Impala - Eventually
    
42. The Backseat Lovers - Snowbank Blues
    
43. Claude Debussy - Clair de Lune
    
44. The Weeknd - Save Your Tears
    
45. Talking Heads - Thank You for Sending Me an Angel
    
46. The Zombies - Time of the Season
    
47. The War On Drugs - Nothing to Find
    
48. Queen - Brighton Rock
    
49. The Dream Academy - Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want
    
50. The B-52's - Strobe Light
    
51. The Cranberries - Dreams
    
52. Fugees - Killing Me Softly With His Song
    
53. Molchat Doma - Тоска
    
54. Tyler, The Creator - ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?
    
55. The Mamas & The Papas - Dream A Little Dream Of Me
    
56. The Chords - Sh-Boom
    
57. The Beatles - The Abbey Road Medley
    
58. The Ronettes - Be My Baby
    
59. The Who - Baba O'Riley
    
60. Dr. Dog - Where'd All the Time Go?
    
61. M83 - My Tears Are Becoming A Sea
    
62. Billie Eilish - everything i wanted
    
63. Outkast - Hey Ya!
    
64. Nat King Cole - Orange Colored Sky
    
65. The Notorious B.I.G. - Hypnotize
    
66. Four Tops - Reach Out I'll Be There
    
67. Foreign Air - Shut Up and Show Me
    
68. Leonard Cohen - So Long, Marianne
    
69. dodie - If I'm Being Honest
    
70. Briston Maroney - June
    
71. Post Malone - Sunflower
    
72. John Lennon - Isolation
    
73. Buddy Holly & The Crickets - Not Fade Away
    
74. Phoebe Bridgers - I Know The End
    
75. Kanye West - All Falls Down
    
76. Alvvays - Adult Diversion
    
77. John Lennon - Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)
    
78. Clairo - Amoeba
    
79. The Beach Boys - I Know There's An Answer
    
80. Paul McCartney - Let Me Roll It
    
81. Frank Ocean - Ivy
    
82. Radiohead - Motion Picture Soundtrack
    
83. Djo - Mutual Future (Repeat)
    
84. Phoebe Bridgers - Scott Street
    
85. Childish Gambino - Me and Your Mama
    
86. Pink Floyd - Astronomy Domine
    
87. The Pied Pipers - Dream
    
88. The Beach Boys - All I Wanna Do
    
89. Djo - Change
    
90. Второй этаж поражает - Крайности
    
91. Little Richard - Lucille
    
92. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Shanghai
    
93. Chet Baker - Deep In A Dream
    
94. The Beatles - It's All Too Much
    
95. Post Animal - Dirtpicker
    
96. The B-52's - Love Shack
    
97. EDEN - foreve/over
    
98. Kanye West - Ultralight Beam
    
99. The Zombies - Going Out Of My Head
    
100. Talking Heads - Found a Job
     
101. Snail Mail - Pristine
     
102. Tom Tom Club - Genius of Love
     
103. Tears For Fears - Everybody Wants To Rule The World
     
104. WILLIS - I Think I Like When It Rains
     
105. Chet Baker - But Not For Me
     
106. Naked Eyes - Always Something There to Remind Me
     
107. Tyler, The Creator - GONE, GONE / THANK YOU
     
108. Djo - Half Life
     
109. Trash Panda - Check Please
     
110. Briston Maroney - Deep Sea Diver
     
111. Beach Fossils - This Year
     
112. Momma - Medicine
     
113. Hop Along - Prior Things
     
114. Talking Heads - Road to Nowhere
     
115. Electric Light Orchestra - Turn to Stone
     
116. Briston Maroney - It's Not My Fault
     
117. Tyler, The Creator - NEW MAGIC WAND
     
118. Snail Mail - Headlock
     
119. Phil Collins - Take Me Home
     
120. Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know
     
121. The Beach Boys - Do It Again
     
122. Tame Impala - Breathe Deeper
     
123. Ella Fitzgerald - Misty
     
124. Phoebe Bridgers - Waiting Room
     
125. Kanye West - Runaway
     
126. Daft Punk - Get Lucky (feat. Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers)
     
127. Dire Straits - Money for Nothing
     
128. Kendrick Lamar - Alright
     
129. Black Country, New Road - Concorde
     
130. George Harrison - If Not for You
     
131. Harry Styles - Cherry
     
132. Ms. Lauryn Hill - Doo Wop (That Thing)
     
133. Paul McCartney - Junk
     
134. Wings - Maybe I'm Amazed [Live]
     
135. Talking Heads - Houses in Motion
     
136. Del Water Gap - Ode to a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat
     
137. Pixies - Where Is My Mind?
     
138. Queen - Seven Seas Of Rhye
     
139. Paul McCartney - Jet
     
140. Sufjan Stevens - Death with Dignity
     
141. A Flock Of Seagulls - I Ran (So Far Away)
     
142. Tame Impala - Let It Happen
     
143. Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love
     
144. Clairo - Management
     
145. Tommy James & The Shondells - I Think We're Alone Now
     
146. Fergie - Clumsy
     
147. Childish Gambino - This Is America
     
148. Prefab Sprout - The King of Rock 'N' Roll
     
149. Joy Again - Looking Out for You
     
150. Beach House - Space Song
     
151. John Lennon - Mind Games
     
152. The Weeknd - Gasoline
     
153. Weezer - Buddy Holly
     
154. Phoebe Bridgers - Sidelines
     
155. Tame Impala - New Person, Same Old Mistakes
     
156. Lana Del Rey - A&W
     
157. The Dillards - I've Just Seen a Face
     
158. The Doors - Break on Through (To the Other Side)
     
159. Julie London - I'm Glad There Is You
     
160. 2Pac - California Love
     
161. Dean Martin - Everybody Loves Somebody
     
162. Snail Mail - Anytime
     
163. The Strokes - The Adults Are Talking
     
164. Jordana, TV Girl - Better in the Dark
     
165. Juice WRLD - Hide (feat. Seezyn)
     
166. The Wild Reeds - Get Better
     
167. Finom - Mine
     
168. Hop Along - One That Suits Me
     
169. The Killers - Mr. Brightside
     
170. Michael Cera - Clay Pigeons
     
171. Clairo - Bags
     
172. Prince - Let's Go Crazy
     
173. The Zombies - She's Not There
     
174. Blackstreet - No Diggity
     
175. Frank Sinatra - I've Got You Under My Skin
     
176. John Denver - Take Me Home, Country Roads
     
177. Harry James - I'm Beginning to See The Light
     
178. The Clash - London Calling
     
179. Charles Bradley - Changes
     
180. Buddy Holly - (Ummmm, Oh Yeah) Dearest
     
181. Eagles - Seven Bridges Road [Live]
     
182. Moxie - Honey
     
183. Faces - Stay with Me
     
184. Post Animal - How Do You Feel
     
185. New Order - Age of Consent
     
186. Natalie Imbruglia - Torn
     
187. Lana Del Rey - Doin' Time
     
188. Twin Peaks - Blue Coupe
     
189. Kanye West - Gold Digger
     
190. Fruit Bats - The Bottom of It
     
191. Frank Sinatra - Somethin' Stupid
     
192. Lorde - Perfect Places
     
193. Martha Tilton - Exactly Like You
     
194. King Crimson - 21st Century Schizoid Man
     
195. Glen Campbell - Southern Nights
     
196. Claire Rosinkranz - Frankenstein
     
197. Guillemots - Made-Up Lovesong #43
     
198. Fleetwood Mac - Say You Love Me
     
199. Frankie Valli - Can't Take My Eyes off You
     
200. The Crickets - Don't Ever Change
     
201. Paul Anka - Put Your Head On My Shoulder
     
202. George Harrison - Isn't It a Pity
     
203. Trash Panda - Off
     
204. Super Besse - Holod
     
205. Beyoncé - Hold Up
     
206. Charlie Burg - I Don't Wanna Be Okay Without You
     
207. Eagles - Peaceful Easy Feeling
     
208. Ella Fitzgerald - It's A Lovely Day Today
     
209. PERMSKY KRAY - Дорогой Человек
     
210. The Little Dippers - Forever
     
211. The B-52's - There's a Moon in the Sky (Called the Moon)
     
212. Patti Page - Old Cape Cod
     
213. Daft Punk - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
     
214. The Soggy Bottom Boys - I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow
     
215. Trash Panda - Things Will Never Change
     
216. Hop Along - Well-dressed
     
217. Sixpence None The Richer - Kiss Me
     
218. TV Girl - Daughter of a Cop
     
219. LAUNDRY DAY - Jane
     
220. Tyler, The Creator - EARFQUAKE
     
221. Sigue Sigue Sputnik - Love Missile F1-11
     
222. Joji - Gimme Love
     
223. The Backseat Lovers - Pool House
     
224. The Weeknd - Take My Breath
     
225. Mild High Club - Homage
     
226. Doc Watson - Am I Born to Die?
     
227. Daniel Caesar - Streetcar
     
228. The Kinks - Sunny Afternoon
     
229. John Lennon - #9 Dream
     
230. Tame Impala - Elephant
     
231. Chuck Berry - You Never Can Tell
     
232. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
     
233. KIDS SEE GHOSTS - 4th Dimension
     
234. Soft Cell - Tainted Love
     
235. The B-52's - Song for a Future Generation
     
236. Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
     
237. Lana Del Rey - Blue Jeans
     
238. Billie Eilish - Halley's Comet
     
239. Glenn Miller - In the Mood
     
240. Kid Bloom - Control
     
241. The Cinematic Orchestra - To Build A Home
     
242. Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through The Grapevine
     
243. Brenda Lee - If You Love Me (Really Love Me)
     
244. TV Girl - Lovers Rock
     
245. Art Lown - Knew You Well
     
246. Dean Martin - Ain't That A Kick In The Head
     
247. Miniature Tigers - Like or Like Like
     
248. Electric Light Orchestra - Sweet Talkin' Woman
     
249. The Hunts - Ages
     
250. The Cars - Good Times Roll
     
251. Bill Withers - Lovely Day
     
252. Drake - God's Plan
     
253. Kansas - Point of Know Return
     
254. The Neighbourhood - Stargazing
     
255. The Clash - Rock the Casbah
     
256. Hop Along - What the Writer Meant
     
257. Briston Maroney - Under My Skin
     
258. Jack Stauber - Buttercup
     
259. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Ya Love
     
260. Ginger Root - Loretta
     
261. Thompson Twins - Hold Me Now
     
262. Frank Ocean - Pyramids
     
263. Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)
     
264. Destroy Boys - I Threw Glass at My Friend's Eyes and Now I'm on Probation
     
265. Mild High Club - Dionysian State
     
266. Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
     
267. Kevin Abstract - Empty
     
268. The Frights - Crust Bucket
     
269. Stealers Wheel - Stuck In The Middle With You
     
270. The Shins - Fighting in a Sack
     
271. fun. - We Are Young (feat. Janelle Monáe)
     
272. Lil Uzi Vert - Money Longer
     
273. Miniature Tigers - Cannibal Queen
     
274. The Doors - Touch Me
     
275. Jean Dawson - Clear Bones
     
276. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Catching Smoke
     
277. Molchat Doma - Люди Надоели
     
278. The Go-Go's - Our Lips Are Sealed
     
279. Billie Eilish - ocean eyes
     
280. BOYO - Crown
     
281. The 1975 - Somebody Else
     
282. Husbands - She's a Betty
     
283. Syd Barrett - If It's In You
     
284. Trash Panda - Atlanta Girls
     
285. Frank Ocean - Godspeed
     
286. Alice Phoebe Lou - Glow
     
287. Childish Gambino - Redbone
     
288. New Order - Blue Monday
     
289. Post Animal - Schedule
     
290. Harry Styles - Fine Line
     
291. Harry James - I'll Get By (As Long As I Have You)
     
292. Depeche Mode - Never Let Me Down Again
     
293. Chet Baker - I Fall In Love Too Easily
     
294. The Cranberries - Put Me Down
     
295. John Mayer - Edge of Desire
     
296. George Harrison - All Those Years Ago
     
297. Electric Light Orchestra - The Diary of Horace Wimp
     
298. Alex Clare - Too Close
     
299. Eric B. & Rakim - Know The Ledge
     
300. Peter Frampton - Show Me The Way [Live]
     
301. Simon & Garfunkel - Mrs. Robinson
     
302. Black Eyes - Deformative
     
303. The Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody
     
304. Bonny Light Horseman - Deep In Love
     
305. The Walker Brothers - The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore
     
306. Cage The Elephant - Cigarette Daydreams
     
307. Hot Flash Heat Wave - Raindrop
     
308. Clairo - Sofia
     
309. Kendrick Lamar - PRIDE.
     
310. Camille Saint-Saëns - The Swan
     
311. Weezer - Say It Ain't So
     
312. C418 - Sweden
     
313. Lana Del Rey - Let The Light In (feat. Father John Misty)
     
314. The Postal Service - Such Great Heights
     
315. Pickin' On Series - Those to Come
     
316. Lana Del Rey - Grandfather please stand on the shoulders of my father while he's deep-sea fishing (feat. RIOPY)
     
317. John Mayer - Moving On and Getting Over
     
318. Field Medic - POWERFUL LOVE
     
319. Cage The Elephant - Flow
     
320. Joji - Run
     
321. The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again
     
322. Boston - Peace of Mind
     
323. Ben E. King - This Magic Moment
     
324. David Bowie - Starman
     
325. Beastie Boys - Sabotage
     
326. Harry Belafonte - Banana Boat (Day-O)
     
327. Gene Krupa & His Orchestra - Rhumboogie
     
328. The Cardigans - Lovefool
     
329. The Kinks - You Really Got Me
     
330. The Zombies - She's Coming Home
     
331. Michael Jackson - Thriller
     
332. Moxie - Blue Skies
     
333. The Mamas & The Papas - Straight Shooter
     
334. Peter, Paul and Mary - Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
     
335. Green Day - Brain Stew
     
336. Dua Lipa - Levitating (feat. DaBaby)
     
337. The Police - Roxanne
     
338. Britney Spears - Toxic
     
339. Tears For Fears - Head Over Heels
     
340. Rex Orange County - Pluto Projector
     
341. The Strokes - Call It Fate, Call It Karma
     
342. Portugal. The Man - Feel It Still
     
343. The Black Crowes - Twice As Hard
     
344. Ted Nugent - Stranglehold
     
345. fun. - Some Nights
     
346. Wings - Silly Love Songs
     
347. Paramore - Still into You
     
348. Peter Frampton - Baby, I Love Your Way [Live]
     
349. The Monkees - Last Train to Clarksville
     
350. Royel Otis - Oysters In My Pocket
     
351. The Backseat Lovers - Growing/Dying
     
352. Nelly Furtado - Say It Right
     
353. Post Animal - Goggles
     
354. Erik Satie - Gymnopédie No. 1
     
355. Childish Gambino - IV. Sweatpants
     
356. Steely Dan - Dirty Work
     
357. ABBA - Lay All Your Love On Me
     
358. Still Woozy - Goodie Bag
     
359. Arlo Parks - Black Dog
     
360. Goth Babe - Weekend Friend
     
361. George & the Handsomes - Sleepy Beats
     
362. boygenius - 20
     
363. The Mills Brothers - You Always Hurt The One You Love
     
364. Travis Scott - SICKO MODE
     
365. Pinegrove - Need 2
     
366. The Backseat Lovers - Sinking Ship
     
367. Franz Schubert - Ave Maria
     
368. Zac Brown Band - Knee Deep (feat. Jimmy Buffett)
     
369. Justin Timberlake - Mirrors
     
370. Simon & Garfunkel - Cecilia
     
371. The Cranberries - Zombie
     
372. Daniel Caesar - Japanese Denim
     
373. Billie Holiday - Easy Living
     
374. ISLAND - By Your Side
     
375. Phil Collins - Tomorrow Never Knows
     
376. Bob Dylan - The Times They Are A-Changin'
     
377. The Four Freshmen - Day By Day
     
378. Fleetwood Mac - The Chain
     
379. Billy Joel - Big Shot
     
380. Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever
     
381. Yot Club - down bad
     
382. Rihanna - Stay
     
383. Fleetwood Mac - Landslide
     
384. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake, Op. 20, Act 2: No. 10, Scene. Moderato
     
385. The White Stripes - Fell In Love With a Girl
     
386. Alvvays - Easy On Your Own?
     
387. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - If We Were Vampires
     
388. Blackway - What's Up Danger (with Black Caviar)
     
389. Albert Hammond - It Never Rains in Southern California
     
390. Matt Maltese - Jupiter
     
391. John Denver - Mother Nature's Son
     
392. Childish Gambino - Sober
     
393. Claire Rosinkranz - Pools and Palm Trees
     
394. The Cars - Just What I Needed
     
395. The Doors - Light My Fire
     
396. Blondie - Tomorrow Never Knows
     
397. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Hell's Itch
     
398. The Japanese House - Saw You In A Dream
     
399. Franz Schubert - String Quartet No. 13 in A Minor, Op. 29 No. 1, D. 804
     
400. The Drifters - White Christmas
     
401. The 1975 - Robbers
     
402. George Harrison - Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea
     
403. The Frights - Tongues
     
404. Paramore - Ain't It Fun
     
405. Billy Joel - Pressure
     
406. Frank Sinatra - My Way
     
407. Art Lown - Going Back to Carolina
     
408. Bruno Mars - Just the Way You Are
     
409. Under The Rug - Lonesome & Mad
     
410. The Mamas & The Papas - Dedicated To The One I Love
     
411. Foster The People - Sit Next to Me
     
412. Weezer - Undone - The Sweater Song
     
413. Michael Jackson - Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
     
414. Tia Blake - Plastic Jesus
     
415. Los Bravos - Bring a Little Lovin'
     
416. Lady Gaga - Bad Romance
     
417. Minnie Riperton - Les Fleurs
     
418. Billy Idol - Dancing with Myself
     
419. Cody Fry - I Hear a Symphony
     
420. Gringo Sapiens - Driver's Licence
     
421. Vacations - Relax
     
422. Glitter Party - time waits
     
423. Steve Lacy - Bad Habit
     
424. The Crystals - Then He Kissed Me
     
425. The Pied Pipers - Mairzy Doats
     
426. Mitski - Bug Like an Angel
     
427. James Ray - I've Got My Mind Set On You
     
428. Clairo - Bubble Gum
     
429. Masayoshi Takanaka - SEXY DANCE
     
430. Nat King Cole - (I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons
     
431. Sleigh Bells - Crown On the Ground
     
432. Olivia Rodrigo - favorite crime
     
433. No Doubt - Just A Girl
     
434. Foreigner - Long, Long Way from Home
     
435. Heart - Crazy On You
     
436. The Hunts - Darlin'
     
437. David Bowie - Heroes
     
438. Alice Phoebe Lou - Hammer
     
439. Thee Oh Sees - Toe Cutter - Thumb Buster
     
440. Roar - I Can't Handle Change
     
441. TV Girl - Birds Dont Sing
     
442. Laufey - From The Start
     
443. Chas McDevitt Skiffle Group - Freight Train (feat. Nancy Whiskey)
     
444. Metro Boomin - Am I Dreaming
     
445. Liana Flores - rises the moon
     
446. POP ETC - Speak Up
     
447. Jean Knight - Mr. Big Stuff
     
448. The Platters - Twilight Time
     
449. Derek & The Dominos - Layla
     
450. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Homeless Man in Adidas
     
451. Charlie Burg - Lovesong (The Way)
     
452. Hot Flash Heat Wave - Gutter Girl
     
453. ABBA - Fernando
     
454. Mitski - My Love Mine All Mine
     
455. Savannah Conley - More Than Fine
     
456. Young the Giant - Mind Over Matter
     
457. Future Crib - Yer Movin'
     
458. Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone
     
459. benches - Violent
     
460. Musical Youth - Pass The Dutchie
     
461. Olivia Rodrigo - vampire
     
462. Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone - City Of Stars
     
463. Maya Hawke - Thérèse
     
464. Current Joys - A Different Age
     
465. Wayne Newton - Danke Schoen
     
466. La Roux - Bulletproof
     
467. Jason Segel, Walter - Man Or Muppet
     
468. U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
     
469. The Raconteurs - Steady, As She Goes
     
470. The Ink Spots - Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall
     
471. Ace of Base - The Sign
     
472. Vulfpeck - 1612
     
473. Nordista Freeze - Hey GiGi
     
474. The Chainsmokers - New York City
     
475. Suki Waterhouse - Johanna
     
476. Pete Rodriguez - I Like It Like That
     
477. Calvin Harris - Summer
     
478. The Rare Occasions - Notion
     
479. a-ha - Take on Me
     
480. Rush - Working Man
     
481. Traffic - Dear Mr. Fantasy
     
482. Starbuck - Moonlight Feels Right
     
483. Van Halen - Drop Dead Legs
     
484. The Troggs - Wild Thing
     
485. Led Zeppelin - Good Times Bad Times
     
486. The Byrds - Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)
     
487. Cream - Sunshine Of Your Love
     
488. Justin Timberlake - SexyBack (feat. Timbaland)
     
489. David Bowie - Suffragette City
     
490. Ludwig van Beethoven - Sonata No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 27, No. 2 "Moonlight"
     
491. Avicii - Wake Me Up
     
492. The Who - La-La-La-Lies
     
493. The Spinners - The Rubberband Man
     
494. MGMT - Time to Pretend
     
495. Hootie & The Blowfish - Only Wanna Be With You
     
496. Sheck Wes - Mo Bamba
     
497. Claire Rosinkranz - 123
     
498. Ringo Starr - Photograph
     
499. The Proclaimers - I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)
     
500. Duran Duran - Rio
     

[<< First] [< Previous] [Next >] [Patreon] [Discord]
Synopsis:
Juliette Contzen is a lazy, good-for-nothing princess. Overshadowed by her siblings, she's left with little to do but nap, read … and occasionally cut the falling raindrops with her sword. Spotted one day by an astonished adventurer, he insists on grading Juliette's swordsmanship, then promptly has a mental breakdown at the result.
Soon after, Juliette is given the news that her kingdom is on the brink of bankruptcy. At threat of being married off, the lazy princess vows to do whatever it takes to maintain her current lifestyle, and taking matters into her own hands, escapes in the middle of the night in order to restore her kingdom's finances.
Tags: Comedy, Adventure, Action, Fantasy, Copious Ohohohohos.
Chapter 239: Standing Start
A wine bottle rolled against the side of my boot.
Amidst a gallery of stunned faces and open mouths, it was easily the second most lively thing here.
The first was a clockwork doll clutching at her stomach in pain.
“Ahahahha~ ahahaha~ ahah … uck … ack … ughh … ahahaha~”
I pursed my lips.
Still, I said nothing.
For one thing, this was precisely what happened when one ate the mouldy cinnamon rolls combined with any grass growing by the side of the road. If Apple refused to eat something, then so should she.
But for another–
“What … What is this … ?”
It was because the first response was reserved for the baroness.
Her words came out in a quivering tone, matching the disbelief upon her face.
Frankly, she had to do better than that.
Only the wine from the bottle I nudged away dribbled into the soil. And also the line of drool from a comatose farmer. But I didn’t want to think about that.
Still, it was an excellent benchmark. Until her tears could properly overpower the sour aroma from the Château de Riaré Hensoise, I would deem her bawling to be incomplete.
She had a long way to go.
“How … How are you still …” she began, slowly rising from her seat. “This … This is impossible–”
I offered a tidy smile alongside a flick of my hair, relishing in the moonlight adorning my figure.
“I agree. It shouldn’t be possible. But I assure you, my skin is 100% natural.”
“E-Excuse me … ?”
“No magical enchantments. No unicorn elixirs. No witchly glamors. Just a healthy sleep schedule of however many hours I desire and a diet of fresh strawberry shortcakes.”
The baroness mouthed silently at my secrets being revealed.
A strange way of offering her gratitude. Other princesses hounded my door for this knowledge. Given her pale, blotchy skin and lips as dry as a pond in a desert, she should be pleading for more.
Instead, she pointed at the fallen drunk beside us.
“This … This shouldn’t be possible … no, wait … the clockwork doll … did she–”
She suddenly snapped towards Coppelia, her eyes widening.
“Uuh … ahaha … ugh, it hurts ... ahaha … it hurts so much … ahaha … my tummy … aha … oh no … I’m … I’m seeing daisies … aha … I … ugh … I think I need help …”
Coppelia hugged her stomach, writhing like a freshly hatched caterpillar. Her eyes darkened as hiccups of laughter assailed her defeated form.
The baroness pursed her lips.
Then, she turned to Renise instead.
“Did you–”
“A-Amazing! … I … I have no idea what you did … but it wasn’t just wonderful … it was beautiful! The colours! The warmth! It was like a rainbow come to life!”
With a smile worthy of any attendant, the maid brought her hands together in polite applause. Naturally, to be praised for my brushwork was nothing new to me. Nor was the sight of stars shining in her eyes with greater brightness than any in the night sky.
Why, that even came whenever I left my bedroom.
“You … how did … how did you defeat him … ?”
The strands of the baroness’s golden hair began to frizzle as she turned towards me. All I saw were her tonsils. Bright red and healthy. She should be pleased.
“This was … this was no common man … do you know who he is … ?”
Without offering a chance to ignore her, she stamped a foot, pointing at the fallen drunk with maddened jabs. The man offered no defence, now as spent and drained as the bottle beside him.
I raised a brow.
“Indeed, I do. He’s a farmer who made poor life choices. And between leaving his farm and offering his pitchfork to an overly ambitious baroness, the greater was you. My congratulations on being the superior mistake. I acknowledge your triumph.”
Bwam.
The baroness promptly slapped her palms down on the table.
“This man … is Willem of Hagel,” she said, her teeth gritted together. “A man desperate and cursed.”
“Yes, well, to be a peasant is a dire thing. But it could be worse. At least he isn’t nobility.”
A mouth further widened before me.
Indeed, this was a terrible time to realise her affliction. But I was no famed angel of healing for nothing. There was a cure for ambition. And it involved copious amounts of tears.
I was still waiting.
“There is no world in which you should have been able to defeat him … not if half the tales about him prove true … he is a famed opponent … all the while you are … you are …”
Suddenly, her eyes left my face for the very first time.
No longer feeling that my cheeks were in danger of being poked, she swept her eyes upon my person, as though hoping to find some blemish to signify I was as false as a field of corn.
She stopped at the sword by my side.
And also–
“A copper ring,” she said softly.
Suddenly, my 29th house of cards I was subtly constructing collapsed.
… T-The ring!
The blot on my finger! The insidious badge of shame! The symbol of the Adventurer’s Guild!
Why, I’d taken it for granted that my masterful disguise was impervious! But this was no ordinary noblewoman I was seated across!
This … This was one I’d previously sat across before!
I’d made a terrible mistake!
I was mesmerising! A beautiful princess as charming as I was modest!
There was utterly no scenario in which I’d be forgotten!
I … I should have removed the copper ring!
“O-Oho … ohoho … w-what copper ring?” I said, my hands vanishing below the table at a speed con artists could only nod at. “Ah, do you refer to the ruby inlaid ring I often carry on my hand? The one which changes colour depending on the longitude and latitude? In that case, you may very well have briefly spied something which resembled a copper hue. But it is in fact a thing of unparalleled beauty and craftsmanship. Not a disgraceful copper ring.”
The baroness slowly looked up at me, her eyes blinking.
“No. I wasn’t mistaken. I … I recognise that ring. It is a copper ring, the same size and shape as those worn by … adventurers.”
My mouth widened in horror.
At once, I immediately sought a plant pot or a heavy book. Something to immediately erase the past few seconds of her memory.
Why … if she knew my secret, then the shame would haunt me all the way until I’d found something weighing at least equivalent to a standard hardback!
“I see,” she mumbled, as much to herself as me. “I understand now …”
The baroness removed her palms from the table.
She stood up straight, a hard expression upon her face. One which calculated with each passing moment the optimal way to exploit this devastating information.
Then, she took in a deep breath–just as I began assembling the playing cards into a thick pile.
“… it must be a legendary artifact.”
As I began eyeing her temple … I blinked in non-understanding.
“Excuse me?”
She nodded, her frown harsh enough to permanently crease her skin.
“To wear such a plain, ugly and shameful ring … one which utterly demeans your history, your worth and your pride, destroying any semblance of dignity you possess–”
My hand went to my stomach, struck by as much pain as Coppelia had experienced in a single moment.
“–indeed, to wear a ring so easily mistaken as one belonging to adventurers, the vermin of the world … it must be a truly terrifying artifact.”
I blinked.
And then–
“Ohhho … ohoohho! You … You see the truth of it!”
The baroness squeezed her fists by her side.
“I knew it.”
I nodded, my bangs bouncing against my forehead.
“I-Indeed … ! This ring I carry on me … it is a masterful item of supreme quality, passed down along generations of my family! Why, its appearance matching those of rings worn by adventurers is no coincidence! Theirs are based on this very design! Although they have since tarnished it, it was forged back in the first days of the kingdom when copper was greater than gold! Poured within it is knowledge now lost to time! A power beyond compare, called upon from the depths of the Royal Vault!”
The baroness sucked in a hateful breath.
“Then that explains it,” she said with bitterness ringing throughout her voice. “You were able to defeat such a powerful adversary through the use of your family’s ancient heirlooms.”
“Indeed, this powerful ring with a rare ability I cannot disclose defeated a terrifying farmer! Therefore, there’s no need for you to relay any suggestion that I’m anything but a princess, as far removed from the Adventurer’s Guild as hygiene is to their members!”
The baroness gave no response.
A respite which lasted far too short.
“... I see, then it means the plan continues. Different, yes. But I’ll not be deterred.”
She smiled, the familiar sight of aristocratic opportunism mixed with an utter denial of facts shining within her grey eyes.
I could only react with horror.
“Plan?” I replied, convinced she was well and truly several sandwiches short of a picnic. “Do you mean the plan currently lying in a fallen heap beside us? Did you not just say I defeated your farmer? Your only plan now is to decide which part of the ground you wish to offer your forehead to.”
The baroness shook her head with renewed confidence.
“I think not. To defeat Willem of Hagel, you must have expended every effort you had available. Not a crumb of power could be spared, for to underestimate him would have resulted in your certain loss. Meaning …”
Without hesitation, she gave a multipurpose wave of her hand.
“... You’ve nothing left but a sword you cannot wield, and two retainers against all of mine. One of whom is incapacitated. The other a maid.”
She continued to keep her hand raised. Her simple call to arms.
It took several moments before she cared to even look around her.
A sad thing.
If she had, she would have realised the curiosity of her hoodlums was less than their prudence.
She would have noticed the eyes without loyalty, seeing only the fallen figure of a drunk they’d been led to believe was more than a farmer now watering the ground with his drool.
And she would have noticed the state of her dress, as dishevelled as her ambitions as those she relied upon slinked away in search of newer gutters to inhabit, following instincts she could learn as the last of their feet shuffled into the darkness.
The baroness paled.
It was far too early for that. She had no idea Apple was currently resting in her tavern, and wouldn’t be helping her haul all of the goods which needed delivering to a place less damp than here.
But I could sooth her forthcoming backache with a smile, at least for the assistance already provided.
“You have my gratitude,” I said, brushing a speck of … countryside from my lap. “For so long as the nobility continues to concoct slapdash schemes with no hope of success, the kingdom can continue to assign blame on you when all else goes wrong. When the mobs come calling and heads start rolling, it ensures a steady queue of necks can be offered before ours are reached. That is why the nobility continues to exist, you see, despite the ceaseless treason. So allow me to offer a word of advice when next you wish to survive in a position of responsibility. When fleeing, the best defence isn’t to run faster–it’s to trip the person beside you. And this means better hiring practices.”
I glanced pointedly around me.
All this empty space and not even a single eyepatched second-in-command to use as a distraction? An amateur mistake. One the baroness now realised as her mouth opened wordlessly, the realisation of her solitude only now dawning upon her.
Yet all it invited was a newly wrought defiance.
“I do not mean to flee,” she said, her fists tightly clenched. “I am Arisa Sandholt. And even should I be captured here, you would not be afforded a night’s rest. I am not alone. Whether tonight or tomorrow, this kingdom will fall. I am not alone in planning its demise.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Oh, please. Planning my kingdom’s demise is what everyone does.”
“What?”
“If it’s not being actively planned, it’s because someone’s in the middle of planning how to formulate a plan. And then once they’ve finished planning, they wonder why their plan didn’t work as planned. This is not a cause for concern. It’s a sign the world is still spinning the correct direction.”
The baroness feigned a dignified silence.
It was far too late, of course. By default, nobility had no dignity.
Still, I accepted the effort, and filled the silence with a tidy clap of my hands.
“Now, since you’ve no intention of fleeing, you can be useful instead. I’ll require a full inventory of your stock. I intend to requisition every single item you have in your possession. Every grain. Every crown. And every odd piece of tableware, carpet, candleholder and painting you might have.”
I pointed at the barn. A tragic thing to requisition. But if I was fortunate, it’d grow lacquered tiles and bay windows in the short steps between here and there.
Suddenly, the baroness’s eyes widened. The needless defiance dropped alarmingly from her face.
“Wait … what do you mean by that?”
I paused for a moment, puzzled by her reaction.
This was hardly the complicated part.
“I mean exactly what I mean. This should come as no surprise. I will be emptying every corner of the property you’ve misappropriated, including whatever manner of tunnels you’ve carved for your use. Rest assured, I’ll be employing the talents of my retainers extensively. With or without your cooperation, every single inch of your abode will be inspected by myself for the Royal Treasury’s benefit.”
She blinked between Renise and Coppelia. Although one was dressed as a maid and the other now appeared to be napping on the ground, their skills when it came to matters of unearthing valuables in my kingdom’s underbelly was not one I doubted.
Nor, from the way the baroness gulped, did she.
“I can do it,” she said suddenly.
I looked at her in confusion, uncertain what ploy this was.
“... Excuse me? Do what?”
“The items of value. I can bring them out. There’s no need to personally see to such a thing yourself.”
“While I’m in full agreement, I can hardly trust your reliability in this manner. And besides, I’ll hardly be playing the mule. I shall be supervising while closely assessing every item.”
Once more, the tonsils came out.
An appalling disregard of decorum. There was only one time that nobility was permitted to look so horrified in my presence. And that’s if they were copying my own after I discovered a list of marriage suitors posing as a napkin beneath the dessert spoon again.
“E-Even so … as the one who wronged you, I insist on not troubling a princess any further. If you give me a few moments, I can acquire the most important valuables for you in a fraction of the time you’d spend on finding them.”
“A few moments to hide them, you mean. No, I’m afraid that anything you wish to stuff beneath a floorboard will need to be appropriately examined first.”
I leaned away in mild alarm as a bead of sweat ran down the baroness’s face.
A moment later–
She finally did what only someone in her position could.
Adhering to the instincts of all nobility, she swept up her dress and suddenly dashed away.
Except it wasn’t towards the dark forest, to be lost amidst the shadows and the jaws of whatever awaited her there. It was back towards the barn.
I watched as she stumbled several times before even reaching the steps.
“... A desperate sight, no?” I said, with a sad shake of my head. “To throw away all semblance of the image she’d hoped to craft. Now she flees like a frightened towngirl. She should know that escape is now impossible.”
Beside me, Renise let out a hum.
Far from chasing after the baroness, she collected the pack of cards I’d assembled for memory wiping purposes. She began to build a house of cards.
I looked at her in puzzlement. She gave a strangely pained smile in reply.
“I believe we can offer her a few moments.”
[<< First] [< Previous] [Next >] [Patreon] [Discord]

I'm a 27 yr old, who feels kinda lost. Granted I have my 2 kids, a stable job, a wonderful boyfriend, and a supportive group of wonderful people in my life. I just found out that I'm pregnant and the family is excited. However I'm currently taking my abuser to court and it's been getting stalled. Multiple times. What I mean by stalled is that they keep pushing it off for one reason or another. I wanna give you guys some background before I ask my questions.
When I was 11 my biological father signed his rights away, gave me to my biological mother and (at that time) my stepdad, and left my life. I remember, on my birthday, the school threw a wonderful party for me. Then my dad picked me up from school early and we drove to a gas station miles away and I saw my biological mother for the first time since I was 8. My stepdad gave me gifts and I saw my dad signing something on the back of his car and handing it to my biological mother. We eventually got back to my bio mom's house (after a tire flying off the car and spending a night in a hotel room) and got settled. We lived in an old house and they converted the dinning room into a bedroom for me. So in order to get into the kitchen from the front room, they had to come through my room. Every night my stepdad would come by and run my head. Tracing over my hair from the front of my head to the end of my pixie cut hair. At that time I thought that this is what a dad who loves their kid does because my bio dad wasn't that affectionate. 6 months after we got home from the gas station, my stepdad adopted me. Since he was 14 years younger than my mom and only 10 years older than me, it was easy to get along with him. I saw him more as a friend than a father and my bio mom was distant so he'd be the one interacting with me. When I was 12 my bio mom and adoptive father used to check if I brushed my teeth by smelling my breath. My bio mom stopped doing it and asked my adoptive father to do it, so he was the main one that checked my breath. Once he joked about if I were to do it again that he'd kiss me. I told my adoptive father that I wasn't scared of him and he kissed me. The adult activities followed a few days after that. When I was 13, I had a boyfriend who I told that my adoptive father and I did adult things, because I wanted him to know that I knew about that world. My bf (at that time), let's call him Tod, informed me that my aunt needed to hear my stories. So I told her. I remember her face going pale for a moment and then she was back to her normal self. Since I was only at my aunt's house because me and Tod were picking out me a homecoming dress, we got in the car shortly after I told my aunt. She drove us (me and Tod) home and there was a white car there. I got taken into foster care until I was 14 (only spending the beginning of 8th grade in care). I felt so bad for talking about what happened between me and my adoptive father that I recanted what I had said and ended up being placed back in the house with my bio mother and adoptive father. The adult activities continued just a couple weeks after I got home. When I was 16, I ran away with a new bf. That bf got scary aggressive so I messaged my bio mom and told her I needed to come home. She told me she wasn't going to be there if I came back. I didn't believe her because she's lied to me multiple times before. I broke up with him. My adoptive father came to get me and got me back to the house. My bio mom ended up not being there. So for the next couple years, I still went to school, adult activities still continued, alcohol and drugs were introduced, physical violence started, more abusive language came out, and all of that my adoptive father made sure of. I found out I was 3 months pregnant when I was 18. I got kicked out. Keep in mind it was only me and my adoptive father in the house. I ended up getting myself an apartment and was able to make a little money by selling jewelry and crafts I made. All that time, I didn't understand that what he did to me was wrong. So when he showed up to my apartment with flowers and a card for mother's day(even though the baby wasn't born yet), I let him inside. My adoptive father apologized. The cycle started all over again except for the drugs and alcohol because of the baby. I gave birth and couldn't breastfeed so he started smoking green with me. My adoptive father caused a huge fight that cost me my apartment so I moved towns away into a friend's house. We will call her Bee. Bee had dated and had a kid with my brother and we were really close. I knew Bee since early highschool and she knew a lot of what I went through. I made friends there and Bee had my kicked out of their house so me and my first born moved into another friends house. I got beat there so I call my uncle to help me find a place. Unfortunately my uncle didn't know what my adoptive father had done so they showed up to pick me up together. We (me, son, and adoptive father) moved into adoptive grandma's house. The cycle started again. This time he was the only one who was allowed to drink and it was behind doors because Grandma was against it. I didn't even know until after. It was in that house, he disclosed to me that he used to peek through the slats of the wall of the bathroom while I showered when I was 11, and that he was the one to leave the vibrator on the counter for me to find. Adoptive grandma bought me and my adoptive father a house that needed some work on. Adoptive father attacked adoptive grandma so we got evicted and moved into that house alone. The house didn't have electricity or running water, but we were able to stay clean and comfortable because we knew how to survive in that environment, but even I can admit that's no way to live. Drugs and alcohol were common. Adoptive father also gave me(I don't think I have to say in what way) to several of his friends. One night, a friend of Bee's came over and hung out with us after my son fell asleep. The friend had brought alcohol over and we all had a few drinks. Adoptive father because angered and the friend left. My son woke up because of the yelling so I picked him up to comfort him. I should have left him there because what happened next I still hold a lot of hate towards myself for even though my son is perfectly fine now. Adoptive father became more and more upset by the minute so I moved so it'd put space between us. I moved to where there was a table between me and adoptive father. I'm still holding my son at that time. Adoptive father comes rushing towards the table and throws it out of the way. He swung at me and I turned my body thinking that I had to block the blow for hitting my son. I didn't turn quick enough and my son (only 1yrs old) had a red mark on his chest. Adoptive father paused for a moment in shock that he hit the baby and gave me enough time to put the baby down and grab my phone. I started to call my closest friend at that time (who was aware of my life story and was on call whenever I needed a safe place) but adoptive father grabbed my phone, hung up, and held me down until I told him I wouldn't leave the house. I waited until he was asleep and call my friend again. Minutes later me and my baby were in a car heading to safety. The last time I spoke directly to my adoptive father was when I was 21, and that was because he called me and asked if I pressed charges against him for hitting the baby. I told him, no I didn't but his bio dad (who he hated) was the one to talk to the cops and gave them pictures of my bruises. He spent 2 years in prison for assault and that was his third strike at that time. The states attorney found out that I had a child with my adoptive father and called me on the number I gave the cops. 4 years ago they opened a case of incest against him and have filed charges. The trials and sentencing dates have been postponed multiple times and the next courtdate is in July of this year. The last one was supposed to be in April, however the defense attorney was sick. 2 years ago, while I was in a lot of counseling appointments, I finally understood what grooming was and that my childhood and teenage years weren't supposed to happen. At least in a good family, the situations I was put in wouldn't have happened. I found out that my adoptive father married Bee (the friend who had a kid with my brother) and that they had 3 kids together. My brother found out that that couple had beaten my niece and now has full custody of my niece.
I currently live in a home with my kids and bf. I have a job. I have kept up with every court date. I have shown up for every courtdate. Even driving hours to and from the court house because I lived 2 years in a different state. I have done everything in my power to make sure my kids are safe and away from the situation. However I feel like my oldest will need to know who his bio father is eventually. He's only 8yrs old rn. He does resemble his bio father in some ways that are only shown when he's mad or trying to hide something and it scares me every time. I love my kid and I feel horrible everytime my mind sees my adoptive father in my son. My son knows that his biological father is responsible for a scar across his middle finger because his bio father turned on a industrial fan while my son's hand was on it, but that's all he knows about his biological father. How do I go about helping him not turn into the type of person his biological father is? How would I address it later when he has more questions?

First Previous Wiki
Ezeonwha was walking down a long hallway. The dry and plain painted walls and the pure white lighting of the lower levels of the 102nd Visitor Welcome Office helped to frame the dingy realities of those who could only afford these floors. Not even capable of having windows, these were for those who were the cheapest of the cheap or those who mingled with them. He'd passed several Guides on the way in, their claws echoing in the halls as a sign of authority in this lawless land.
Here, mediocrity was king, and he was a loyal servant. He drew his cloak closer about his neck, unwilling to reveal himself to those who weren't already equipped to see through it all. He was famous enough to be an abduction target if he let his guard down. This place was no exception, though Justicar tried to make them such. Too much security on the higher levels and too little on the lower levels. That was the way of things.
Another hallway, this one marked with bullet holes. Two contractors and a Guide were discussing the pricing of the fix project when he turned the corner. Their voices quieted to nothing, the stillness pressing down upon them with the same intensity as the false lighting. Ezeonwha clacked his jaws, giving them a low bow before continuing on his way. He saw the Guide's eyes light up with the sign of his implants getting a reading. It was another impromptu way of tracking via facial recognition, but it was an ancient practice.
Nothing was new about what the Guides did; only how many of them seemed to be on general patrol. Had Justicar hired more of them or actually done full conversions for all of them? Those arm cannons surely weren't cheap or ethical to insert into unwilling participants. And giving a victim a gun they couldn't be disarmed of was a very bad idea, even for Elders. And Justicar was better than most Elders when it came to abject stupidity. He'd likely only been dropped a few hundred times as a child versus the more likely Elder average of a few thousand.
Ezeonwha chuckled at his internal joke, heading deeper underground into the complex. He was going to a certain meeting, and it would be best not to be late. Even if the Guides tracked him, it wouldn't be negative. The group he had been approached by a few days ago wasn't a terror group. He'd looked them up. They dealt in 'freedom and liberation from all chains.'
The Eyes Of Liberty had focused upon Penny as their latest propaganda target and perhaps as a valuable ally in their fight against all tyranny. Though such a flowery message was likely steeped in idealism for the lower ranks, with more pragmatic and likely richer inner circle elites and leaders ensuring the pot would always simmer but never boil or grow cold. That was the way movements such as these managed to skirt the line between inaction and terrorism.
It was a dangerous thing to do. But these were dangerous times. If Penny left, he'd die. Someone with a grudge would kill him. It was a given, and he'd made peace with it now. He needed to get to work, to help others like him and those worse off, with just a small piece of the meager time he had left.
He was in the system as a friend of Penny, so little scrutiny would fall on him as he came and went. He had a new friend, one who was very interested in connecting to Penny.
The offer had come through his communicator, and he'd answered it given its interesting title. After a lengthy discussion about their goals for him and Penny, he'd agreed to at least have a meeting. He didn't tell them that he had a tracker from Phoebe, which would 'be impossible to miss' if things went badly. He knew the value he had, which was why one of the androids was also accompanying him under the guise of being a Sprilnav.
The android was 'walking' on all fours, its mechanical motion entirely silent. It was obscured by a wave of holograms and hard light holograms that would ensure that it wouldn't be considered suspicious beside him. His only guard was a capable one, and Phoebe had all the confidence of an AI who knew that the destruction of her android would only be an inconvenience for her.
Ezeonwha came to an unmarked door with a well-worn door frame. One knock. One pause. Two knocks. Another pause. Four knocks. He waited, and the door swung open. Eight Sprilnav greeted him warily but warmly, their eyes shifting to Phoebe.
The inside of the room was a dull red, coming from a pair of lights in the center of the ceiling that cast dark shadows near the edges. The whole room felt dark and dangerous, and the walls were lined with guns, computers, and several drones. Shelves and drawers were neatly stacked against the wall, as well as five couches and four double beds with ladder access to the top portions.
Bags of food rested atop a trash compactor unit, and the room service button on the inner side of the wall that Ezeonwha could see in the mirror was worn down to the raw metal. No paint jobs here, only grit and business. The room faintly smelled of body odor and assorted foods. Not entirely unpleasant, but also not what he'd expected from a group with sich a flamboyant name. Perhaps they worked in cell-based units. And that was another thing.
Minds were visible in the distance of the mindscape, but the people here were huddled together mentally. They appeared to be haphazard, but Ezeonwha recognized an old army-type defensive formation a mere step from each of their positions. They were more than they appeared. Though based on how their room looked, they probably weren't veterans, just decently trained.
As they walked through the doorway, a scanner activated. One of the Sprilnav, wearing a headset with numbers and letters swirling on the inner side of the visor, called out: "Phoebe android. Commando variant. Risk assessment: Certain Death. Ezeonwha. Carrying two pistols, one hidden in the pack on his left, and the other tucked inside a strap near the lower bottom of his chest."
That made them all pause, sizing each other up. Ezeonwha smiled nervously, failing terribly to break the building tension once again. His nerves started to get to him, but finally, Phoebe spoke. "Well, friends. I, for one, am happy to talk of the business of liberty. Tell us, what do you have in mind for my friend Ezeonwha?"
"It is not about him, AI. It is about the freedom all sentient beings deserve, and which we shall bring to the galaxy no matter if we are alive or dead."
"An honorable goal to strive toward," Phoebe said.
"Thank you. Your words are quite kind for your type."
"I didn't know I had one," Phoebe replied. "But thank you."
Ezeonwha turned his head toward the Sprilnav with all the fancy equipment.
"What is the best way for me and Penny to help in the fight?"
"The best way would be for you to start killing the gang leaders you come across. Barring that, have Penny ignore the graveyards, and continue freeing the slaves as she ought to. The dead have their freedom; the living need her work more."
"I agree with my companion," another of them said. "So far, Penny has done more for the fight for justice than any other on Justicar in generations, so it is a terrible thing to ask more, but we must ask. Even knowing the terrible toll it would have if she loses the Judgment, Sprilnav are at stake."
"People are at stake, you mean," Ezeonwha said. "There is no need to bring species into this."
"There would not be, but it is still a clear factor," another of them said, a female who looked more shifty in her gaze and demeanor. The Eyes of Liberty seemed like one of those groups with too much division.
"Do you disagree with each other often?" Ezeonwha asked innocently.
"Here and there," the tech guy said. "Not often enough to be a problem, and not when what matters is at stake."
"But that is the thing. How can you agree on when something that matters is a stake?"
"Is this a test?"
"Why would it be? Think of it as a genuine concern," Ezeonwha said. "To associate with your group, I have to be certain it will be resilient to change and risks escalating in the future. If the gangs cannot strike at Penny, they will pick the next best targets. Currently, that is me. If I associate with you in a way they can find out, and I assure you they will find out eventually, you all may be at risk as well. And your group's seemingly cell-based design also means large scale mobilization is difficult, ineffective, and risks severe coordination issues which cannot be quickly or safely remedied without changing core security features of it."
"You deduced all of that from context? You are smart, Ezeonwha. And have a good brain in your head. Everlasting knows we need one of those between all of us."
They all shared a laugh.
"I am not as young as I may look," Ezeonwha said. "Penny is not properly learned of the danger that faces us here. I am. The Underground will kill me when this is over. Do you want to die alongside me, all for your beliefs?"
Silence descended again. Ezeonwha kept the pressure on them when one of them stepped forward. "For freedom and liberty? Yes. I would die for that."
"As would I."
"And I."
They all declared the rest in orders that followed the patterns Ezeonwha was noticing. There were variances in their levels of belief and faith in their purpose. Each person had a different level of value difference, which meant that their lives would be worth more or less comparatively.
Cohesion was weaker, too. Not a full defector team, but likely pieces of several. Was that by design from a higher up leader, or was that just circumstance? Another thing to figure out later, that wasn't critical yet, but he would know before he truly went on any missions with them, if he did at all.
He suspected running messages to Penny would be the majority of their tasks. The quality of intelligence the Eyes of Liberty had offered was substantial. Perhaps enough for Penny to turn herself from a major annoyance to the gangs into an actual existential threat. With Justicar's swarming protection of the Fort Court and the 102nd Visitor Welcome Office, there was a limited amount of things that even the gangs could do. And if the rumors were correct, a Progenitor would be partaking in the trial.
"To be clear, if I join up with you, Phoebe would come too."
"Why would we let an AI join us?"
Phoebe smiled. "Without me, you'll die in this fight. You have trained for around 2000 days. You're acceptable combatants, as is Ezeonwha. But you are fighting in a city, and underneath it. You need to know how to keep a low profile. You need to know how to move through a crowd, get in and out. And you need to keep collateral damage to a zero, or the gangs will use you like they have others who had your purpose and were less careful to justify their 'protection' continuing. If you march in there and kill 50 slavers, if you kill a few slaves or a single bystander in the process, your credibility will be smeared. And frankly, with me on your team, you won't get blown up by an IED when you try clearing your first room in a fortress."
"IED?" One of them asked, while the rest digested her statement, going through various levels of offended looks.
"Your translator is too cheap. Improvised explosive device. Here, that can be old engines, reused oil, cracked plastic, frictional fuel bombs, circuit extruders, sodium splash grenades, as well as the more military style attacks they can pack, from small micro rockets all the way up to lower level fission or fusion bombs. Though if you're in a fight with those things involved, you're already dead."
"Why?"
"Because unless you're Elders, or holograms, a nuke will kill you whether you're right next to it or just inside the same shield. They concentrate the thermal pulse, so your bones would be ash before the pain hit your eyes."
"And what protection could you bring against that?"
"Telling you it's there before you start the attack. That is, if you listen to me. I value your lives over that of this android, but also I value Ezeonwha over all of you combined. I will not prevent him from doing this, but I will have you all know the risks involved."
"We are prepared, Phoebe. We have done much of the training you say, though we do not believe the gangs would plant explosive devices in their own fortresses. There is too much risk around that, with betrayals so common. However, the minefields we have scouted are easy to defeat with the right tactics. Perhaps you can give us a briefing on those, too?"
A challenge.
"I can, depending on how long you wish to do this for. But I have the stamina for either hours or weeks, depending on which you choose."
"What of your batteries?"
"They are of sufficient quality," Phoebe assured.
"I hope so."
Their tech guy nodded, more numbers flashing on his visor. Ezeonwha hoped he had a different way of display, like through an implant or something, for the missions in darker areas. The Underground was, by its name, not a place where much natural light was to be found. And the gangs controlled all the power systems in their territory. It was another part of the racket.
"Why aren't you guarding Penny?"
Phoebe's back straightened, a subconscious posture change to make her seem more confident. Ezeonwha caught the tactic for what it was, though without extensive knowledge of bipedal forms, it was less likely the surrounding Sprilnav knew it.
"Penny proved before a trillion eyes she's capable of fighting Elders, Progenitors, and a Dreadnaught Captain. Not to mention her immense power. I can shoot bullets, but she can literally snatch them out of the air and eat them. She has her own way of doing things, and it is a good way."
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Penny landed in the rubble and headed for the Vaquah with a trail of survivors behind her. Many of them, she could recognize the marks of slavery on, with numbers or brands on their skin or just the trauma crouching in their eyes dulled by the pain of a long life in a work camp. Penny went through the wreckage to the shield surrounding the rubble and the defining line between the rest of the city and the destruction. Several news drones flew above her.
More were arriving from various directions. The soft footsteps grew into a constant drumming sound, like a beating heart of doom. Penny marched with them, heading to the spaceport. A large medical operation there quickly rerouted many of its various branches to the most injured freed slaves.
Penny pressed her considerable psychic energy on the entire group, accelerating their healing, slowing bleeding, and generally repairing their bodies and cells from the trauma they'd suffered. But the cloud over their heads did not brighten. The atmosphere remained tense and mournful. Many of them had lost friends, family, and more. She had no right to ask them to feel any different.
She had freed them, that was all. They were not her servants. She was not their ruler.
Several of them came up to her, offering thanks in the small ways they could. Kind words. Attempts at hugs. Even offers of devout prayer and worship, which Penny respectfully declined. She knew, as did most of them, that veneration for her deeds was inevitable. She didn't want to be seen encouraging it at all, since this was a public place where many eyes were upon her.
She knew that it would be misconstrued as a threat if she did. Religions were some of the most major threats entrenched powers could face if not properly co-opted by the state to suit their needs. And here, the 'state' was a military dictatorship billions of years old, ripened with corruption, money, and the immortality of Elders sporting technology beyond any other in the galaxy.
The sky was blue with shields overhead. The Vaquah hung in the distance, its thrusters gently burning to keep it aloft. A trail of shuttles linked the massive ship with several spaceports, including this one. Penny watched the freed Sprilnav get on it one by one, promising themselves to a new life aboard her ship. Technically, they were citizens of the Autonomous Peoples' Stars.
That protection, Penny knew, was why the Vaquah and its innocent inhabitants were still intact. Elders already had hired mercenaries to attack it. They'd failed, thanks to Rimiaha and Penny, but also the defenses of Kashaunta's Grand Fleet when it was in higher orbit. Kashaunta, despite her willingness to use Penny as she would, also had a certain intelligence and empathy. It was highly selective, and only money and power seemed to flip that switch.
But Penny needed the Elder, and Kashaunta only had use for her as an asset. She palmed the new communicator Kashaunta had issued her after the last one's destruction. Kashaunta's hologram appeared. It looked around, noticing the news drones in the air.
"Not here."
"Where?"
"You will know."
In the mindscape, a Sprilnav appeared on Penny's layer. They felt odd to her, almost like the minds of certain humans high up in the hivemind's network. Penny greeted the Sprilnav warmly.
"Hello."
"Queen and Elder Kashaunta requests your presence on her flagship."
"Very well."
In reality, Penny looked around at the crowd. She waited until it dwindled to nothing, and then spoke.
"Displace."
Conceptual energy twisted, and she stood on Kashaunta's flagship, though nearer to the edge than she'd expected. The Elder was waiting for her in an outfit that looked much like pajamas, though they were under a few armor pieces that appeared anything but decorative. Now that Penny noticed it, it was the same sort of armor that Yasihaut had worn to their last encounter, which interfered with conceptual energy. The Sprilnav were highly advanced. She wondered just how far their technology could go. She'd heard mentions of some ships having artificial gravity, and of nanites and programmable matter. But nothing certain.
"Hmm," Kashaunta said, giving Penny a once over. "You have come back. Shall I assume you are still my ally?"
"Nervous, are we?"
"Nervous is what you should be, Penny. The Judgment is coming. Ten days. Indrafabar and Justicar will both be on the court as High Judges. That is not good for us at all. So I figured a bit of prudence was in order. I have thought long and hard about this, and with the great battles of our time so fast approaching, I figure it is time to mend our relationship before the chasm grows any wider."
Kashaunta motioned to a special looking sword sheath on her back. Slowly, she drew a sword. A Soul Blade. Penny began to draw up her armor.
"Oh, I am not wishing for a fight, Penny. I know the damage you could do, even in my sanctum in the sky. Tell me, do you know how Soul Blades are forged?"
"No."
"Good. And tell me, do you know why they draw so much power to swing, even for Elders and beings as capable as us?"
"I have a few theories."
"I am sure you do," Kashaunta said. "But here is the thing. Soul Blades are typically weapons assigned to highly promising Elders, or even Progenitors. Filnatra, undisputed sword master that she is, can wield them as easily as breathing. If I were to swing this blade, there would be no drawback. Why?"
"Because you own that Soul Blade."
"Because this Soul Blade is mine. It is not just something I own. I own around seven or so more Soul Blades, with some weapons nearing their quality lying in my various vaults even now. You did not detect them, because I willed that not to be. I need you to understand this, Penny. You have power. You have might. But you are not invincible. My Soul Blade, if it struck you, would not cutely separate Nilnacrawla or Cardinality from you. Nor would your speeding space entity be able to block this blade with his flesh. If this cut you, it would release unending agony upon you before you exploded in a burst of burnt gore."
Penny sighed. "There is no need to threaten me. Allies do not threaten each other."
"But you do not see me as an ally. You see me as your means to get through the Judgment. You believe I see you as nothing more but a linear singularity maker, and perhaps a passing curiosity I'm backing on a whim. You neglect to imagine that there might be firmer reasons why I back you, and why more Elders are getting drawn into this conflict. You believe I am comfortable with showing you my more pragmatic and ruthless sides because I am comfortable with the fact that you cannot harm me. That you would not dare to do so, when you need my assistance so badly. That I might even be aiming to normalize my 'new' self with you."
"That is hardly my belief alone."
"Is it now."
Kashaunta grinned. There was no warmth in her gaze.
"Nilnacrawla," Kashaunta said. "Cardinality. Exile. Come out and show yourselves. You are being rude as guests."
Exile detached from Penny's head. He grew into the shifting array of fractals and shapes she was more familiar with. What had once grated on her eyes did so no longer. Kashaunta stared at the speeding space entity for ten seconds, then looked back up at Penny.
"He will not work on us. I will cover his form with holograms if he walks through my ship out of courtesy for my workers and crew, if he cannot."
"I am capable, Queen Kashaunta."
"You are quite knowledgable, aren't you?" Kashaunta mused, looking at him hungrily. "Oh, how I wonder what secrets you have in your head. How many of ours do you know?"
"I will not be taken as a hostage," Exile said.
"You will not because I decide not to," Kashaunta said. "Formally, our species are still at war. There is no treaty."
"The Sp'rkial'nova no longer exist."
"Yes, they do," Kashaunta said. "The name was discontinued for use regarding the lesser specimens we created. But I can assure you, Exile, if you wish to go by that name here, that we still do exist. I am a Sp'rkial'nova in the flesh. In the blood. In the mind. In the soul."
"Say what you will, Sprilnav. It changes nothing."
"On that I agree. Though our views on how things are may differ, and yours is wrong, your opinion is not valuable enough to matter."
She turned to Penny. She would have defended Exile, but he gave her a simple shake of his head area.
Nilnacrawla formed out of psychic energy in front of Penny. Cardi did the same beside her. Kashaunta tapped a claw on the ground. Tables and chairs appeared. A chef brought in food that looked passable and a few decent attempts at human cuisine.
"We do not have to eat, though I would expect that all of you at least sit at the table. We will discuss our grievances, and how to solve them before we proceed with the future. We shall first go to the matter of the Alliance. Penny, many in their number wish to establish contact with you. Do you agree to this? If so, I will add their communicator numbers to the translation program I have reserved for your personal use, in case your own device needs another sudden replacement."
"I agree."
"Good. A first step of diplomacy, I would say. Agreement. Now, Nilnacrawla, you look like you have something to say to me. What is it?"
"Free Meridia."
"Meridia was detonated by planet cracker during the 139th Sector 9 Border War. I am sorry more could not be done."
A cold draft of air rushed out of Nilnacrawla's nose. He glared at her. "You let them die."
"I did not. A Grand Fleet was defending that star system, and three came to lay siege. I am many things. A tactician, a queen, an Elder. But I am not a god. I cannot perform miracles. I evacuated 30 billion people from that world and its surrounding stations before the planet crackers hit it. 4 trillion more souls died in that blast. The best I can do is to offer an apology."
"That will never be enough for what you did. If you had never established your nation, they would still be alive."
"They would be slaves. Chattel slaves, not that cute little 'wage slavery' concept privileged people throw around. Perhaps I should remind you just how much darker that reality would have been for your female descendents, specifically. I am a brutal warlord, a dictator with an iron fist. But my claws do not squeeze nearly as tightly as I could. Metrics say that I could extract at least 370% more profit from my people if I simply enslaved them. But despite the shock this may bring to you all, I do have principles. The Autonomous Peoples' Stars are my people. My nation. My empire, if you think I'm imperialist. But I protect them as best I can."
Nilnacrawla's cold anger didn't lessen. Penny placed a calming hand on his front left thigh. He blinked. He let out a long, pained sigh. And he bowed his head to her. Not to Kashaunta, but to Penny.
"There is no need to be cruel."
"My language was accurate, Penny. He is a strong Elder. Everlasting knows he's stronger than most of these fools. Nilnacrawla was and is a hero of the Source war. I respect him enough not to mince words, or to give platitudes. Coddling is for babies. Nilnacrawla is far more mature."
Kashaunta turned to Cardi. "You have been remarkably silent in this, concept."
"I have."
"A wonderfully succinct statement. Perhaps you can shorten it further. But nevertheless, you and I will be working together with Penny much more in the near future. Rest assured, if you refuse to become more independent, you will be nothing more than a crutch for her to rely on before leaving her to fall when you are ripped away."
"When, Elder? I would like to think your protection is sufficient."
"I am sure the truth is quite the opposite, dear. I will now get to the point. Penny needs to move faster, and needs to break out of her shell. She needs to be pushed to do more. She has signed a binding treaty, which shows she is capable of more than barbarian aliens, as some Elders would call her. You, Cardinality, will help her be a high achiever. To do this, you need to learn more about your own history.
That is the theme of the year, after all. History. My history, Penny's history, Sprilnav history, and even Gaia's history, it would seem."
"Gaia? What do they have to do with all of this?" Penny asked.
"Oh, you don't need to worry about that."
"Excuse me? You don't get to decide that, Kashaunta. You will tell me. I refuse to be coddled, like you say. I demand the respect I am owed."
"You forget yourself, Penny."
"I remember myself, actually. I am all I need to be. I can become all I need if I must. You can hold your backing against me all you want, but you won't withdraw it. As you said, more binds you and I than mere money and ideology."
"And if you're wrong?"
"Then I've doomed my species and my nation to war, and this planet to the full power of my wrath."
"Wrath, Penny. Wrath. The Sprilnav have many words for anger, rage, hatred. There is the desire for vengeance, in varying degrees. There is that for justice, which does differ. And that for belonging. I know you believe you are standing up to me as a way to assert your own authority in this relationship of ours. You believe I see you as inferior, and will pull back my help when it is profitable for me. I will not offer you the consequences of what your words could mean.
You already know them, and that argument is as stale as your view on us Elders. I will say this once, Penny. You are the Champion of Humanity. The apex predator of your planet, the only one mostly in charge of an Alliance that does more than merely dream of overthrowing us. It is easy for me to say you are not a threat, though I do not ignore the threat you and your nation are trying to become. Gaia will be a part of your movement, but even my information is not entirely complete. I will not mislead you by claiming I know Gaia's link to this, just that there likely is one.
And I am not unreasonably petty. I am willing to put all our animosity behind us and start anew. Even if you are not willing to do the same, I am willing to make this work for us. You have more people to care for than just the Alliance, now. Do not forget them."
"A lot of words that mean nothing."
"Because you heard, but did not listen. Perhaps it will be easier this way, Penny. I want you to win."
"Explain."
"You wish to overthrow the current Sprilnav led order of the galaxy. Your path to that will likely be through mass slave revolt. A viable strategy that I could spread far beyond just this planet. And I actually agree with you. This Judgment, this utter insanity around the Alliance and your species has shown me the truth. The Elders as a class and a species cannot be trusted to rule any longer. We need new leaders. Better leaders."
"And yourself?"
"As the hypocrite that I am, and the power-hungry ruler of the Sprilnav, I would obviously exclude myself from that number. Let's be realistic. The Sprilnav will never accept a non-Elder ruler. If you wish to see what our insurgencies would be like, imagine the 2090s Struggles of Asia. Expand that to billions of planets, large and small. Countless ships and space stations. We have more collective ships than you have people. And as your military planners know, there is no such thing as an unarmed ship. Without us, without me, your plans are stillborn. Your galactic Alliance or whatever you make will fall to pieces without proper counseling. In essence, my offer to you, and you alone, is this. The galaxy, for the Sprilnav."
"Who backs your offer, with the power to give it?"
Progenitors Lecalicus and Nova appeared in the room.
"I back Kashaunta," Lecalicus wheezed.
"I observe her offer, and wish it a proper outcome," Nova said.
"Thank you, esteemed Progenitors," Kashaunta said, standing just to bow to them. Penny stared at Nova, balling her fists.
"There will be time for battle later," he said. "But not now. Hear out her request. She does not make it lightly."
The Progenitors disappeared.
"If I accept your offer, it will be on a written record."
"No. It will not be, because if that record is written, my nation will be facing war on all sides. A better idea would be for us to keep this under wraps."
"Perfect for betrayal," Nilnacrawla muttered.
"It would be, yes. But consider the second part of this situation, Nilncrawla. If word of this galactic offer, not just the Pact, were to get out, which is why two Progenitors who know the price of interference were called here, it would mean the deaths of Penny and all her kind. Or do you forget what rapidly approaches us?"
Nilnacrawla frowned. "I did. I apologize, Penny."
Kashaunta spoke up again.
"Penny. You believe I will betray you. So I make an offer of collateral. An offer so unbelievably sacred for us Elders that many would recoil at the mere thought of it. Now that you have signed a backed treaty, you are fully qualified."
Kashaunta grabbed her Soul Blade and presented it to Penny.
"What does this mean?"
"Nilnacrawla, tell her," Kashaunta said. "She will trust your mouth more than mine."
"Bonded Soul Blades are priceless artifacts," Nilnacrawla said. "To offer one to another is the ultimate gesture of trust and respect among many martial Sprilnav cultures. It can also allow for a mind bridge, a soul pact, or a proposal for marriage between two great houses, martial families, or Elders of great wealth and power. To offer this to a human... to anyone... is an ultimate sign of backing, and one of trust.
It is a sacrosanct honor, the absolute agreement of speaking truth and respect. The words I can use in any human language are insufficient to describe the weight of this honor. This gesture is one of absolute truth. Family lines with hatred going back millions of years would never dare to violate this honor."
"Only one Elder in history did so, one who once led a group known as the Stannic Resistance. He does so no longer. Penny Balica, Champion of Humanity... if there is nothing else I can give you to prove that I do really back you, there is this."
"...Just how low are my chances in the Judgment for you to resort to this?" Penny asked.
"They are not zero, but your battle with be incredibly difficult even with this boon of mine. The future of the galaxy, I now realize, hinges on the outcome of this. If we do not have enough trust, they will sniff it out, and we will fail."
So she had no choice. But as Nilncrawla continued to explain in her mind, Kashaunta was getting the worse side of the deal. Which meant she was throwing her backing behind Penny for real, beyond all reproach and retraction. Kashaunta, the most powerful Elder in the galaxy.
"And if I reject this gift, or your reasons for it?"
"Circumstances would demand that I kill you and then myself using this blade as a way to cut apart the dishonor, before my remains are dumped into a black hole to be forgotten forever. I would not do this."
"A dark and archaic custom," Penny said. She would have said more, but she looked at Nilnacrawla's face. He was clearly deeply uncomfortable. Her five words had shaken him more than anything she'd ever said to him before.
"You do not understand," Nilnacrawla said. "This is not something to joke or lie about. With a Soul Blade Pact in play, all else must cease. Right now, there is you, and there is her. Accept or decline. The choice, your only choice, is yours."
"How will this look to the Elders in the court? To the Sprilnav, and the people who back me?"
She could see how it would be a boon and a curse.
"You, and I," Kashaunta said. "The whole of the universe between us right now is you and I. No others exist until this one act is done. There will be trust or there will be death. No in between. No middle ground. The nature of this bond will be a Pact of Blades."
Conceptual energy swirled between them. Penny's natural translation, as part of the hivemind, failed for the first time ever. Her communicator likewise did not translate the words Kashaunta spoke.
"Eis nama kaste Penny Balica, sun lanci Dorima Kashaunta. Ko'ri, lanci nupa bes na Dorima'Pecunyanova. Sp'rkial'nova. Sun. Homo Sapiens."
The air grew thick with tension. It was not just emotional, either. Psychic and conceptual energy gathered. The mindscape started to distort as more and more eyes began to view Kashaunta and Penny. But all of them were Sprilnav eyes. All of them were Progenitors. Nova's appeared brightest and largest, nearly six times the size of the next largest pair. They stared at her, sending psychic and conceptual energy down upon her in waves that forced her and Kashaunta to kneel to the ground.
"I apologize for my earlier words," Penny said. "I should not have denigrated this."
Penny stood for an hour, deeply contemplating the Pact. If it was as Nilnacrawla was describing to her, it was a promise that Kashaunta would not break. If she was offering it at all, especially to Penny, it meant she had a level of trust in Penny's capability far above what Penny had previously thought. Apparently, there were even higher agreements than this that were possible, with this Pact being the lowest level of bond and considered unbreakable with the enforcement of consequences coming from the Progenitors themselves.
She thought of her place in Justicar and the wider universe. Hours passed like water. And then, by the end of it, after nearly 19 hours, Penny finally had decided. She gave a short nod to Kashaunta, who had been kneeling to Nova all this time.
Kashaunta gestured at the sword. "Tol, nopa shikai."
Nilnacrawla fed her a few suggestions on what she would need to say.
"I come to this Pact seeking peace, justice, and hope," Penny said. "And a promise not to betray one another, by lies or by treachery."
Nilnacrawla translated Kashaunta's next words to her.
"I come to this seeking trust, understanding, respect, and peace," Kashaunta said. "And a promise not to betray one another, by lies or by treachery. I make this Pact before the gods, those who equal them, and those who surpass them. I bind them to an oath of silence regarding this event, until I directly instruct them otherwise, in a state of a sound mind, body, and soul. Here, we shall step into a future that needs both of us, casting aside that which is unimportant to focus on the ultimate goals we have. I offer my Blade to Penny Balica, of species Homo Sapiens. In this way, we forge a new future, and walk a new path. I accept the Pact."
"I accept the Pact."
Nova and a hundred Progenitors descended. Nova grew larger, and Kashaunta knelt to him. Penny remained standing. His sharp teeth glittered in the light. He pressed his claws to Penny's chest, and to Kashaunta's chest.
"The Pact of Blades is made before the Progenitors. We agree to your vow of silence. The penalty of breaking it will be dismemberment and disposal into a black hole. Penny Balica, Engineer Kashaunta. To break this Pact without mutual agreement is to call down our collective wrath upon yourselves. You both have agreed, and are of sound mind, body, and soul. The Pact is forged. By sword, by word, by action. I, Nova, Everlasting, Lord of the Progenitors, King of all Sp'rkial'nova, Heir to the Mantle of Power, Heir to Narvravarana, Progenitor, Elder, and Sprilnav, declare the deed done, etched in time, space, and Reality."
They winked out of existence one by one, leaving Penny and Kashaunta alone, to ponder the future. Penny's thoughts turned to the Judgment, and her confidence she could win it began to waver. How much worse was this Judgment going to be than before?
Penny stared at Kashaunta's Soul Blade. With careful fingers, she took it. Kashaunta sat up, satisfied.
"Now we can begin. I shall compile all the news about you I can find, and we shall see how to address the questions the High Judges will ask. Now that you trust me, I cannot betray you."

Chips of rock flew away, taking the weapon’s edge with them. Ginendertha cursed the fact right before knocking away a spear thrust. For the first time in centuries she was well matched. For the first time, she could actually lose.
The thought of losing spurred her on, taking each of his strikes in stride. Realizing he had the greater strength, she weaved around them trying to make his spear obsolete.
Yet he recognized this and backed off. Every time she slid closer, he moved further away and jabbed at the woman. Packing more power to his attacks each time.
His surging thrust knocked her off balance, this time making her back away from his reach but he suddenly became as fast as her and flew at her with a leopard’s speed. The ax dropped from her numbing fingers, deftly snatching it with her other hand.
Blood flowed from her leg. She had forgotten the fact as she was still adjusting to her new body and became evident when she tried to move again. The longer she stayed in control the more she felt her wounds and fatigue. Not having a body in many years made it feel as new to her as if she had been a newborn.
Before his spear could connect with her flesh, a sonic boom blasted them both from their feet and crash down onto the cold, hard floor. ‘Why was it cold?’, she would’ve thought if she had the time. Pain flooded her leg. A single nudge brought down the dam she built in her mind.
Galakni got up quickly. He strained his eyes to see better in the dark but the darkness was impenetrable. Then he closed them and trained his ears to his surroundings. Apart from his opponent’s heavy breathing, there was the faint whistle of the wind indicating the way out and the withering tree that had not so long ago ascended him to godhood. There was a second voice, this one a shadow of the woman that it had been. This one breathed as heavily as Volra, but more out of hate than exhaustion.
Volra’s body was reaching its limit. Her muscles, already worn out from the constant fighting, pulsed from Galakni’s heavy pounding and cuts and scrapes from the many rocks in the floor. Ginendertha moved one arm and struggled against the overwhelming clubs of pain that slid in like molten magma. It was as if the body weighed as much as a thousand worlds. Nevertheless, she moved, slowly but surely, with one hand pushing down. Then the other. Pushing up, lifting the thousand worlds at her back. She heard his footsteps. She grabbed the broken ax and willed her aching feet towards him, slowly but surely.
Galakni braced himself when he sensed the other woman’s tension. Despite his quickness, the attack came out of nowhere, like a boulder rolling down from a steep hill the force of her charge knocked him to the ground. He knew this was not the assassin, so who was it?
With both bone and scaled fists gripping the haft, he fought hard to not let go, kicking desperately with all his strength at this opponent’s newfound power. The enemy avoided some kicks but slightly reeling from the others, pouring all her willpower into snapping teeth and raking against the stone haft imbued with the power of the gelatinous vortex once contained within the old tree. Neither tooth nor claw managed to disfigure the smooth surface of the Spear of Mof, for once it proved to be the spear of that great sorcerer.
Volra fought for control of her body. The Senerjai attacked her senses, the side effects warping her view of reality. An outsider would see that she was just struggling to get up from the stony ground but inside was so much more. Each breath took centuries, each heartbeat a decade, it seemed worlds would be born, then wither, then die as they both struggled for freedom.
‘This is my body! Leave me alone!’, she yelled within her at the ghost.
Ginendertha clogged her stomach and a purple cloud would spread across her intestines and take over her legs, ‘You’re too weak to survive. I have what it takes. You are but a speck of dust in this world but I can turn you to a shining gold’.
The Senerjai injected Volra’s mind with visions of her promises. Images of battles won, people crying out her name in glee, an army of leather clad men singing her praises in a foreign tongue while a tall, muscular man in bronze armor lifts a helmet from his head and mutters words of adoration and a proposal of marriage.
Volra did not know who the man was but could sense the ideas of world conquest and godhood that infected Galakni’s already venomous mind. Then she rejected it, knowing that it would mean betrayal of her own ruler, Tithra, and were so far beyond anything she ever wanted. Ginendertha tried everything. Showing her Tithra’s head on a platter, a bloody sword before the corpses of enemy tribesmen from the Kynha people, statues raised in her likeness, and her brother’s skull given to the shamans of the Overmountain. Ginendertha tapped into every memory she could reach to convince Volra to let her take control, yet a twinge of despair colored every attempt.
When the body recovered and dusted off her legs, carefully avoiding her wound, it was Volra who did it. Ginendertha said no more.
The assassin limped towards the sounds of Galakni fighting off Kiral. Ax in hand, she lifted it up and brought it down. When it loudly cracked she decided to slam it down a second time. Then a third. The blows grew weak until the very last one missed completely and hit the floor. An intense shudder felt up her arm.
She dropped the ax and fell down and felt no more.
When next she opened her eyes, she saw nothing but trees and singing birds. Reckoning that she was just outside the vicinity of the Overmountain, she breathed a sigh of relief despite the deep aching of her whole body. Pain lanced up at even the slightest movements and her limbs were too heavy to lift. Where was Kiral? Surely she was the one who dragged her out of the Path of Faith?
“Kiral?”, she said in a thin whisper. When there was no response she spoke out a little louder this time, “Kiral!?”, birds chirped and the susurrations of the winds rolled over her, “Kiraaaaal!”, she yelled after preparing for a few minutes.
She yelled three more times but to no avail. Giving no care as to whether surviving cultists or predators prowled nearby. Hoping against hope that her friend was not dead.
‘She isn’t dead. It only could’ve been her who took me out of that place’, she thought.
‘It was her, you fool. But the tree had changed her’, said Ginendertha inside her, ‘Don’t worry, it was common for new initiates to our order to run away once they saw how the powers changed them. It is a hard thing to adjust to the changes in your body especially when the changes are so significant’.
Volra willed her to shut up but it was no use. Though the Senerjai no longer had control over her body, her voice could still plague the assassin’s mind.
It was a trial to move but Volra managed it. First her arms then her legs. Wiggling them to get used to the pain and then increasing the movements by grabbing on to a nearby trunk and pulling herself up. Standing was the greatest challenge then for it meant an even more intense agony, the kind that she had not felt since first training under Noseraph. Without thinking, she took a direction and started walking. She was still breathing, and she had killed Galakni.

I noticed that all the women seem to have at least their upper arms covered, and sometimes much more. I was curious about the dress code and cultural norms, and tried to find info online. It mostly detailed how the northern part of Nigeria was more heavily Muslim, and there some people wear full hijab and other cultural adaptations of hijab style but with looser Nigerian fabrics. Most of the travel advisories I saw said long dresses with flowing material and modest cuts were appropriate for Nigeria. It said that while casual wear may be OK, shorts should be knee length or longer and in Moslum areas and the coast things like shorts and t-shirts would be frowned upon.
At the women in leadership event , I was surprised to see her and what looked like a red evening gown, whereas the other two presenters on the day we're clearly wearing modest dress past the ankles and have their arms mostly covered (past the elbow for both).
At the Nigeria Unconquered event, all the other women in the photos were long sleeves to the wrist, and gowns to the ankle, and aleo covered their hair. MM wore a strapless column gown
Wt the State Govors House visit in Lagos, she again went completely sleeveless in the yellow Carolina Herrera.
At the Lightway Academy event, it also looked like every other woman there had some sort of sleeves, but MM went sleeveless AND backless....
I have never been to Nigeria, but if I was faking an "official visit" I provably would have read the room and tried to observe the standard of modesty for women that is advertised/ suggested.... but as I have never been to Nigeria myself, perhaps someone with more knowledge than I could shed light on whether this was appropriate attire or not?