Scary tictact toe gane

The world was a boozy whirl of lights and sounds. Images, broken and fragmented, came and went. Voices, laughter, screaming. The ground pitched like the deck of a tempest-tossed ship, and he felt heavy, as though the ground were pulling him to it. C’mere, Dommy. He fell, lay on the pavement, and pushed himself up again, staggering like a drunk on his way home. His head spun, his body ached, and things seemed blurry, like half-formed images glimpsed underwater.
It was the light blue hour before dawn and Dom was…somewhere. He should have recognized the stores and street signs around him, but he didn’t. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a sense of confusion gripped him so strongly that he was beginning to panic. Where was he? What happened?
The world spun away again and the next thing he knew, he was lying in a heap of garbage bags, used needles, and rubbish. He came awake with a jerk and sat up so fast that a bolt of pain jammed into his skull. He winced and pressed his hand to his forehead. He felt hot, clammy.
Something was seriously wrong.
Somehow he got to his feet again and started walking. The sun was up now and the streets were filled with people. They all sneered in disgust as he passed, and he wrapped his arms around his chest like a baby comforting itself. He was getting cold. His muscles were sore. Tears streamed down his face and he wanted to cry.
Going on instinct alone, Dom made his way back home and climbed the steps to his apartment. Exhaustion swept over him and he sagged against the door as he dug in his pocket for the keys. They shook in his hand and he had to focus really hard to get the key into the lock.
Inside, he collapsed onto the couch and his eyelids instantly drooped. He was so weary that he couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t form a single coherent thought. Dom felt himself starting to sink, and snapped his eyes open with a start. Something in his soul told him that if he slept, he would die.
He couldn’t help it, though. He was falling, tumbling, hands reaching up from hell to grab him. His eyes fluttered closed again and the world started to go dark, his heart slamming in fear. He tried to fight, but the pull of darkness was too strong, too alluring. Why was he fighting? Why not just…give up? Hadn’t he thought of killing himself before? Didn’t he hate his life and himself? What was there to fight for? A wife? Kids? A community that loved and respected him? Shit, affordable groceries?
No.
There was nothing.
He had nothing and was nothing.
A sense of peace blossomed from the darkness, and suddenly death didn’t seem so scary. In fact, it was warm…inviting.
It was life that was cold and hateful. Not death.
Death accepted you no matter who you were. It didn’t reject you…it didn’t ignore you. If you sought it, you would find it, and if you embraced it, it would embrace you.
With that thought in mind, Dom gave up.
And died.
***
Bruce Kenner, captain of the 5th Albany precinct, sat behind his desk on the morning of June 28 and lazily leafed through a stack of files as he sipped from a mug of coffee. A roughly built man with a dark goatee and graying blonde hair, he looked more like a small town southern sheriff than a low level public works functionary. In fact, he tended to act like it too. He liked to hunt, fish, and drink beer on his off time. Albany wasn’t a big city, but it was big enough that you never got a fucking break. Run here, run there, arrest this asshole, investigate that asshole. By the time Friday rolled around, he was so ready for the peace and tranquility of a fishing trip he could taste it.
Already this Monday morning, he was looking forward to another one.
Over the weekend, three kids went missing in the Pine Hills and Washington Park area, bringing the total for that summer up to eight. All were teenagers, all were troubled. Most were boys, but two were girls.
Troubled kids run away all the time. They might be gone a few days, sulking at a friend’s house over something their father or mother did, but they’d eventually come home. None of these kids had come back yet and from what he knew, a few of them weren’t the runaway types. They were shits at school and caused problems, but they had no reason to up and leave. Hell, Bruce himself raised hell as a kid, but he always found his way back home, even if he spent the previous night dying in a field from Mad Dogg 20/20 poisoning.
One or two kids going missing…okay, it happens. Eight? Over a span of four weeks?
Yeah, something was wrong here.
But what?
There was nothing on any of these kids. No one saw them, no one knew anything - one minute they were here, the next they weren’t. What could he or anyone else do with that?. The public broke cops’ balls all the time, but if you don’t have evidence, you don’t have evidence. What do you want? Door to door searches? Roadblocks? Dogs and helicopters? Yeah, then when you actually do it, they cry fascism. Guess I’ll just use my Spidey Senses.
Bruce wished he had spidey senses. He wanted to find these kids as much as anyone, and he was starting to get pissed off that he couldn’t. He took another sip from his mug and read on. The latest kids to go missing were three boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
They were all white, all thin (except for one). If there was a serial killer in town - and Bruce hoped to fuck there wasn’t - he had a type. What, black kids aren’t good enough to kill, cannibalize, and wear like a skin suit? They should charge him with a hate crime for discrimination.
That way he’d actually stay locked up.
The door opened and Vanessa Rodregiez, his deputy, came in. A tall, shapely Hispanic woman with dark eyes and a mouth poised always on the edge of a smile, she wore her black hair in a ponytail that would look stern and severe on anyone else, but on her, looked childlike. She was twenty-seven and had been on the force for three years, but you could be forgiven for thinking her much younger. “Bright and early, I see,” she said with a grin.
Bruce grumbled.
Vanessa held down the fort during the graveyard shift, acting to the night as he acted to the day. She was young and full of energy, which clashed with Bruce, who was old and just wanted to be left alone. Despite their differences, Bruce loved her like a kid sister…an annoying kid sister he wanted to throat punch sometimes.
“You missed all the fun last night,” she said and parked her butt on the edge of Bruce’s desk. He glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Good,” he said. Then: “What happened?”
“Big fight outside of Club Vlad,” she said. “It looked like a WorldStar video.”
For a moment, Bruce was lost. “Club what?”
“Club Vlad,” Vanessa said. “Where the Fuze Box used to be.”
Ah, right. The Fuze Box was an Albany landmark, a night club for punks…or goths…or someone. Certainly not for Bruce Kenner. It was small, dingy, and always had people in black waiting outside. On Friday and Saturday nights, it blasted strange music with lyrics about fighting The Man. Kids had been fighting the Man since before Bruce was even born and they hadn’t beaten him yet. Kudos to them for still trying.
Last year, The Fuze Box closed down and someone else bought it. It reopened last month and looked more or less the same: Posers, shitty music, and spiked hair. So much spiked hair. “Place is still a pain in the ass,” Bruce said.
“Yep,” Vanessa chirped. “It doesn’t know what it wants to be now. One minute they play nightcore, the next EDM. It’s all over the place.”
Bruce raised a quizzical brow.
“Not that I’ve ever been there in my free time,” Vanessa said in a tone that suggested she had,
Bruce gave a judgemental hum.
“Anyway,” Vanessa went on, “you see we have some new missing persons?”
Sighing, Bruce sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I did.”
“People are starting to ask questions,” Vanessa warned.
That brought a terse smile to Bruce’s weathered face. “Maybe they’ll solve it then.”
“Ha, fat chance,” Vanessa said. She got up and stretched. “Anyway, I’m bushed. Here’s my…” she trailed off and looked at her empty hands. “Damn, where’s my report? I just had it?” She turned in a confused circle as if she might be able to spot her report making a break for it. “Huh,” she said. She left the office and came back a moment later holding a folder. “Found it,” she grinned.
Bruce just looked at her.
“Um…here it is.”
He didn’t take it.
Her smile faltered. She carefully sat it on top of the files Bruce was looking at.
And his hands.
“I’ll just leave that right here.” She patted it for good measure.
“Thank you,” Bruce said.
“Okay. Night.”
“Goodnight,” Bruce said as she left through a shaft of morning sunlight. Alone, Bruce sat her report aside and went back to the missing kids. This case was giving him a headache and it wasn’t even nine. With a deep sigh, he slumped back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrests.
Was it Saturday yet?
He could really use a fishing trip.
***
Dom came awake in the cold purple twilight with a shocked gasp like a man coming up seconds before drowning. His eyes strained from his sweaty face and his mouth hung slack, twisted in a gruesome parody of The Scream. His mind was muddled, murky - he didn’t know where he was or even who he was, but he knew this,.
He couldn’t breathe.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but his lungs did not fill with air. A great, unseen weight seemed to bear down on his chest, and panic gripped him. He tried to move, but his arms refused to heed his brain’s command. The weight seemed heavier, all over, crushing him like a bug. Confusion filled him and he started to pant.
Without warning, his bowels and bladder loosened, and horrible wetness filled his pants. He tried to sit up, but his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. His chest rose and fell with the frantic labor of his breath, but his lungs remained inert. A cry of fear bubbled up inside of him, but escaped his mouth only as a breathy groan.
A bust of adrenaline shot through him and he tried to stand, but succeeded only in falling off the couch instead, landing face first against the cold tile floor. He felt his nose crunch, but the pain was muted.
Dom thought he lost consciousness after that, but wasn’t sure. His next memory was of shivering so violently that his teeth clacked together. A phantom chill - perhaps from the floor - had settled into his bones, and was colder than he had ever been in his life, colder even than the time he fell into a snowbank and got lost when he was two. Shudders racked his body, and though he tried to turn over, he was too fucking heavy. It was like every muscle in his body had turned to dead weight. Fragmented thoughts swirled in his head, faint colors in the dark, but he couldn’t put any of them together.
With great effort, he managed to push himself slightly up, but a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him and he lowered his head once more. He stopped trying and simply lay there. Shortly, his eyes began to burn and he realized that he wasn’t blinking. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t blinking.
For some strange reason, that brought a fresh bout of panic. He started to hyperventilate, but his lungs still wouldn’t work. He wasn’t blinking…he wasn’t breathing…what was happening to him?
A whimper burst from his throat and he started to cry.
He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke sometime later to the most intense headache he’d ever had. It felt like something was eating his brain from the inside out. He was sore all over, and could feel his muscles twitching, as though a thousand living things were burrowing through his body. A cramp shot down his right leg, and the toes of his left foot curled involuntarily. Slowly, his jaw clenched closed, and the muscles in his neck began to strain…then to burn. His panic turned to terror, and Dom wiggled across the floor like a worm, his limbs screaming in red agony and his brain filling with heat. He somehow wound up on his right side, and his arms curled slowly up to his chest, crossing at the wrists like a mummy. He tried to pull them apart, but the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain cutting through his body. His knees began to draw up to his stomach, and his fingers clenched tightly.
Cramps and spasms attacked every muscle in his body. He screamed through his teeth and shook, resembling a man in the electric chair as 40,000 volts of justice coursed through him. The pain grew gradually, getting worse and worse as minutes ticked by like hours. Higher, higher, higher - he clenched his eyes closed and shrieked as it became unbearable. Disjointed thoughts flashed through his mind - prayers, threats, curses, Jesus fucking…FUCK.
What was happening? God, what was happening to him? Was it fentanyl? He’d seen videos of people high on fentanyl, and they leaned in weird positions. He didn’t do drugs but maybe he ingested it somehow.
His panic may have returned if all of his muscles hadn’t picked that moment to contract as one. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his jaw unclenched just enough for him to utter a high. Agonized scream that echoed through his empty apartment like thunder.
A human being can only take so much before giving out. When the pain reached a crescendo, and Dom mercifully sank into consciousness once more. The sun rose and cascaded through the apartment’s sole window, falling over his huddled form. Slowly, it tracked across the sky before setting again. As the last rays disappeared behind the horizon, Dom’s eyes opened. The pain of the night before was blessedly gone, replaced by a feeling of numbness - the cool ash after the hot fire. His thoughts were slow and thick like molasses, but he could actually think again. Nightmare memories flooded back to him, but he wasn’t sure they were real. He was lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his chest as if for warmth, and his teeth lightly chattered against the icy chill. He was so cold that he didn’t want to move, but he couldn’t stay here forever. He needed help. He needed…
A shower.
Yeah, a hot shower. That would warm him up.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly sat up, ready for a burst of pain.
But none came.
He did, however, feel heavy. Getting to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against the counter. His limbs had no feeling. It’s like they weren’t even there. Head hung, Dom tried to catch his breath, but it felt like he wasn’t breathing at all. His eyelids drooped closed and he felt like he was going to fall down. Summoning all the might he could, he shuffled into the bathroom with the stiff gait of an old man. He snapped the light on, and cold, white brilliance filled the space, blinding him.
Leaning heavily against the sink, he gripped the cold porcelain. Suddenly, he was afraid of looking into the mirror. He was sure that whatever reflection he saw, it would be of something else, something monstrous.
Dom lifted his head and faced the glass.
His heart shrank.
The man in the mirror was him but different. His skin was white as milk, lacking all color whatsoever save for the ugly purple patch on the left side. IResembling a giant bruise, it started at the temple and extended down to the slope of his neck, disappearing beneath his T-shirt. He gingerly lifted the shirt, and moaned when he saw that his entire left side was discolored, the purple edged with a puffy shade of pink. His sallow skin clung tight to his ribcage, and his hip bones stuck out so much it looked painful. Back in the mirror, his cheeks were sunken, hollow, and his eyes were a hazy, dishwater gray. His skull seemed bigger, his hair longer. Dom wanted to whip his head away from the phantom before him, to never see it again, but he was transfixed.
There was no way that thing was -
Dom looked away, cutting that thought off before it could finish.
A shower.
He needed a shower.
Slowly, stiffly, Dom undressed, peeling off his shirt and his soiled pants. He dropped them in a heap on the floor and stepped under the spray. He could feel the water pounding against him, but it provided no heat. It was neither hot nor cold. It was simply there.
Dom pressed his head to the slick shower wall and stood there for a long time. He was spent, tired, and fried - he had no more emotions left to give. He got out after a little while, dried off, and put on a clean pair of shorts. He settled into bed and lay there with his hands folded over his chest and his eyes open. They felt gritty, dry. His stomach felt bloated, gassy. He was drowsy now, the weight of the past two days (or was it two weeks?) coming down on him all at once. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was still asleep - but aware - when the knocking on his door started the next morning. Time was funny in this state of being, fast and jerky but also slow and echoing. Keys rattled the knob turned. The landlord came in with a cop. They saw him on the bed, laid out like a corpse for a viewing, and the cop radioed in a code 35. Soon, cops were all around him, making noise and touching things. He had the vague sense of discomfort and embarrassment at the intrusion. A baling man in a suit stood over him, a cop who looked like a redneck beside him. “He didn’t die here,” the medical examiner said.
The cop looked at him questioningly. Dom caught the name KENNER on his name tag.
“See this?” the M.E. said and gestured to Dom’s face. “That’s livor mortis. When you die, your blood pools at the lowest point. If you’re on your left side, for example, it pools on the left.”
Kenner looked at Dom and then back to the M.E. “Someone moved him?”
“Looks like it,” the M.E. said.
“When did he die?”
The M.E. examined Dom as though he were nothing more than a side of beef. “At a glance? Three days. I won’t have a better answer until I open him up.”
Dom was still awake when they put him into a body bag and zipped it up. He felt a stirring of fear beneath the cold numbness, but he was too tired to worry about it now.
Later, he thought.
He would panic later.
For now, Dom slept.

The world was a boozy whirl of lights and sounds. Images, broken and fragmented, came and went. Voices, laughter, screaming. The ground pitched like the deck of a tempest-tossed ship, and he felt heavy, as though the ground were pulling him to it. C’mere, Dommy. He fell, lay on the pavement, and pushed himself up again, staggering like a drunk on his way home. His head spun, his body ached, and things seemed blurry, like half-formed images glimpsed underwater.
It was the light blue hour before dawn and Dom was…somewhere. He should have recognized the stores and street signs around him, but he didn’t. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a sense of confusion gripped him so strongly that he was beginning to panic. Where was he? What happened?
The world spun away again and the next thing he knew, he was lying in a heap of garbage bags, used needles, and rubbish. He came awake with a jerk and sat up so fast that a bolt of pain jammed into his skull. He winced and pressed his hand to his forehead. He felt hot, clammy.
Something was seriously wrong.
Somehow he got to his feet again and started walking. The sun was up now and the streets were filled with people. They all sneered in disgust as he passed, and he wrapped his arms around his chest like a baby comforting itself. He was getting cold. His muscles were sore. Tears streamed down his face and he wanted to cry.
Going on instinct alone, Dom made his way back home and climbed the steps to his apartment. Exhaustion swept over him and he sagged against the door as he dug in his pocket for the keys. They shook in his hand and he had to focus really hard to get the key into the lock.
Inside, he collapsed onto the couch and his eyelids instantly drooped. He was so weary that he couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t form a single coherent thought. Dom felt himself starting to sink, and snapped his eyes open with a start. Something in his soul told him that if he slept, he would die.
He couldn’t help it, though. He was falling, tumbling, hands reaching up from hell to grab him. His eyes fluttered closed again and the world started to go dark, his heart slamming in fear. He tried to fight, but the pull of darkness was too strong, too alluring. Why was he fighting? Why not just…give up? Hadn’t he thought of killing himself before? Didn’t he hate his life and himself? What was there to fight for? A wife? Kids? A community that loved and respected him? Shit, affordable groceries?
No.
There was nothing.
He had nothing and was nothing.
A sense of peace blossomed from the darkness, and suddenly death didn’t seem so scary. In fact, it was warm…inviting.
It was life that was cold and hateful. Not death.
Death accepted you no matter who you were. It didn’t reject you…it didn’t ignore you. If you sought it, you would find it, and if you embraced it, it would embrace you.
With that thought in mind, Dom gave up.
And died.
***
Bruce Kenner, captain of the 5th Albany precinct, sat behind his desk on the morning of June 28 and lazily leafed through a stack of files as he sipped from a mug of coffee. A roughly built man with a dark goatee and graying blonde hair, he looked more like a small town southern sheriff than a low level public works functionary. In fact, he tended to act like it too. He liked to hunt, fish, and drink beer on his off time. Albany wasn’t a big city, but it was big enough that you never got a fucking break. Run here, run there, arrest this asshole, investigate that asshole. By the time Friday rolled around, he was so ready for the peace and tranquility of a fishing trip he could taste it.
Already this Monday morning, he was looking forward to another one.
Over the weekend, three kids went missing in the Pine Hills and Washington Park area, bringing the total for that summer up to eight. All were teenagers, all were troubled. Most were boys, but two were girls.
Troubled kids run away all the time. They might be gone a few days, sulking at a friend’s house over something their father or mother did, but they’d eventually come home. None of these kids had come back yet and from what he knew, a few of them weren’t the runaway types. They were shits at school and caused problems, but they had no reason to up and leave. Hell, Bruce himself raised hell as a kid, but he always found his way back home, even if he spent the previous night dying in a field from Mad Dogg 20/20 poisoning.
One or two kids going missing…okay, it happens. Eight? Over a span of four weeks?
Yeah, something was wrong here.
But what?
There was nothing on any of these kids. No one saw them, no one knew anything - one minute they were here, the next they weren’t. What could he or anyone else do with that?. The public broke cops’ balls all the time, but if you don’t have evidence, you don’t have evidence. What do you want? Door to door searches? Roadblocks? Dogs and helicopters? Yeah, then when you actually do it, they cry fascism. Guess I’ll just use my Spidey Senses.
Bruce wished he had spidey senses. He wanted to find these kids as much as anyone, and he was starting to get pissed off that he couldn’t. He took another sip from his mug and read on. The latest kids to go missing were three boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
They were all white, all thin (except for one). If there was a serial killer in town - and Bruce hoped to fuck there wasn’t - he had a type. What, black kids aren’t good enough to kill, cannibalize, and wear like a skin suit? They should charge him with a hate crime for discrimination.
That way he’d actually stay locked up.
The door opened and Vanessa Rodregiez, his deputy, came in. A tall, shapely Hispanic woman with dark eyes and a mouth poised always on the edge of a smile, she wore her black hair in a ponytail that would look stern and severe on anyone else, but on her, looked childlike. She was twenty-seven and had been on the force for three years, but you could be forgiven for thinking her much younger. “Bright and early, I see,” she said with a grin.
Bruce grumbled.
Vanessa held down the fort during the graveyard shift, acting to the night as he acted to the day. She was young and full of energy, which clashed with Bruce, who was old and just wanted to be left alone. Despite their differences, Bruce loved her like a kid sister…an annoying kid sister he wanted to throat punch sometimes.
“You missed all the fun last night,” she said and parked her butt on the edge of Bruce’s desk. He glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Good,” he said. Then: “What happened?”
“Big fight outside of Club Vlad,” she said. “It looked like a WorldStar video.”
For a moment, Bruce was lost. “Club what?”
“Club Vlad,” Vanessa said. “Where the Fuze Box used to be.”
Ah, right. The Fuze Box was an Albany landmark, a night club for punks…or goths…or someone. Certainly not for Bruce Kenner. It was small, dingy, and always had people in black waiting outside. On Friday and Saturday nights, it blasted strange music with lyrics about fighting The Man. Kids had been fighting the Man since before Bruce was even born and they hadn’t beaten him yet. Kudos to them for still trying.
Last year, The Fuze Box closed down and someone else bought it. It reopened last month and looked more or less the same: Posers, shitty music, and spiked hair. So much spiked hair. “Place is still a pain in the ass,” Bruce said.
“Yep,” Vanessa chirped. “It doesn’t know what it wants to be now. One minute they play nightcore, the next EDM. It’s all over the place.”
Bruce raised a quizzical brow.
“Not that I’ve ever been there in my free time,” Vanessa said in a tone that suggested she had,
Bruce gave a judgemental hum.
“Anyway,” Vanessa went on, “you see we have some new missing persons?”
Sighing, Bruce sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I did.”
“People are starting to ask questions,” Vanessa warned.
That brought a terse smile to Bruce’s weathered face. “Maybe they’ll solve it then.”
“Ha, fat chance,” Vanessa said. She got up and stretched. “Anyway, I’m bushed. Here’s my…” she trailed off and looked at her empty hands. “Damn, where’s my report? I just had it?” She turned in a confused circle as if she might be able to spot her report making a break for it. “Huh,” she said. She left the office and came back a moment later holding a folder. “Found it,” she grinned.
Bruce just looked at her.
“Um…here it is.”
He didn’t take it.
Her smile faltered. She carefully sat it on top of the files Bruce was looking at.
And his hands.
“I’ll just leave that right here.” She patted it for good measure.
“Thank you,” Bruce said.
“Okay. Night.”
“Goodnight,” Bruce said as she left through a shaft of morning sunlight. Alone, Bruce sat her report aside and went back to the missing kids. This case was giving him a headache and it wasn’t even nine. With a deep sigh, he slumped back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrests.
Was it Saturday yet?
He could really use a fishing trip.
***
Dom came awake in the cold purple twilight with a shocked gasp like a man coming up seconds before drowning. His eyes strained from his sweaty face and his mouth hung slack, twisted in a gruesome parody of The Scream. His mind was muddled, murky - he didn’t know where he was or even who he was, but he knew this,.
He couldn’t breathe.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but his lungs did not fill with air. A great, unseen weight seemed to bear down on his chest, and panic gripped him. He tried to move, but his arms refused to heed his brain’s command. The weight seemed heavier, all over, crushing him like a bug. Confusion filled him and he started to pant.
Without warning, his bowels and bladder loosened, and horrible wetness filled his pants. He tried to sit up, but his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. His chest rose and fell with the frantic labor of his breath, but his lungs remained inert. A cry of fear bubbled up inside of him, but escaped his mouth only as a breathy groan.
A bust of adrenaline shot through him and he tried to stand, but succeeded only in falling off the couch instead, landing face first against the cold tile floor. He felt his nose crunch, but the pain was muted.
Dom thought he lost consciousness after that, but wasn’t sure. His next memory was of shivering so violently that his teeth clacked together. A phantom chill - perhaps from the floor - had settled into his bones, and was colder than he had ever been in his life, colder even than the time he fell into a snowbank and got lost when he was two. Shudders racked his body, and though he tried to turn over, he was too fucking heavy. It was like every muscle in his body had turned to dead weight. Fragmented thoughts swirled in his head, faint colors in the dark, but he couldn’t put any of them together.
With great effort, he managed to push himself slightly up, but a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him and he lowered his head once more. He stopped trying and simply lay there. Shortly, his eyes began to burn and he realized that he wasn’t blinking. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t blinking.
For some strange reason, that brought a fresh bout of panic. He started to hyperventilate, but his lungs still wouldn’t work. He wasn’t blinking…he wasn’t breathing…what was happening to him?
A whimper burst from his throat and he started to cry.
He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke sometime later to the most intense headache he’d ever had. It felt like something was eating his brain from the inside out. He was sore all over, and could feel his muscles twitching, as though a thousand living things were burrowing through his body. A cramp shot down his right leg, and the toes of his left foot curled involuntarily. Slowly, his jaw clenched closed, and the muscles in his neck began to strain…then to burn. His panic turned to terror, and Dom wiggled across the floor like a worm, his limbs screaming in red agony and his brain filling with heat. He somehow wound up on his right side, and his arms curled slowly up to his chest, crossing at the wrists like a mummy. He tried to pull them apart, but the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain cutting through his body. His knees began to draw up to his stomach, and his fingers clenched tightly.
Cramps and spasms attacked every muscle in his body. He screamed through his teeth and shook, resembling a man in the electric chair as 40,000 volts of justice coursed through him. The pain grew gradually, getting worse and worse as minutes ticked by like hours. Higher, higher, higher - he clenched his eyes closed and shrieked as it became unbearable. Disjointed thoughts flashed through his mind - prayers, threats, curses, Jesus fucking…FUCK.
What was happening? God, what was happening to him? Was it fentanyl? He’d seen videos of people high on fentanyl, and they leaned in weird positions. He didn’t do drugs but maybe he ingested it somehow.
His panic may have returned if all of his muscles hadn’t picked that moment to contract as one. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his jaw unclenched just enough for him to utter a high. Agonized scream that echoed through his empty apartment like thunder.
A human being can only take so much before giving out. When the pain reached a crescendo, and Dom mercifully sank into consciousness once more. The sun rose and cascaded through the apartment’s sole window, falling over his huddled form. Slowly, it tracked across the sky before setting again. As the last rays disappeared behind the horizon, Dom’s eyes opened. The pain of the night before was blessedly gone, replaced by a feeling of numbness - the cool ash after the hot fire. His thoughts were slow and thick like molasses, but he could actually think again. Nightmare memories flooded back to him, but he wasn’t sure they were real. He was lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his chest as if for warmth, and his teeth lightly chattered against the icy chill. He was so cold that he didn’t want to move, but he couldn’t stay here forever. He needed help. He needed…
A shower.
Yeah, a hot shower. That would warm him up.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly sat up, ready for a burst of pain.
But none came.
He did, however, feel heavy. Getting to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against the counter. His limbs had no feeling. It’s like they weren’t even there. Head hung, Dom tried to catch his breath, but it felt like he wasn’t breathing at all. His eyelids drooped closed and he felt like he was going to fall down. Summoning all the might he could, he shuffled into the bathroom with the stiff gait of an old man. He snapped the light on, and cold, white brilliance filled the space, blinding him.
Leaning heavily against the sink, he gripped the cold porcelain. Suddenly, he was afraid of looking into the mirror. He was sure that whatever reflection he saw, it would be of something else, something monstrous.
Dom lifted his head and faced the glass.
His heart shrank.
The man in the mirror was him but different. His skin was white as milk, lacking all color whatsoever save for the ugly purple patch on the left side. IResembling a giant bruise, it started at the temple and extended down to the slope of his neck, disappearing beneath his T-shirt. He gingerly lifted the shirt, and moaned when he saw that his entire left side was discolored, the purple edged with a puffy shade of pink. His sallow skin clung tight to his ribcage, and his hip bones stuck out so much it looked painful. Back in the mirror, his cheeks were sunken, hollow, and his eyes were a hazy, dishwater gray. His skull seemed bigger, his hair longer. Dom wanted to whip his head away from the phantom before him, to never see it again, but he was transfixed.
There was no way that thing was -
Dom looked away, cutting that thought off before it could finish.
A shower.
He needed a shower.
Slowly, stiffly, Dom undressed, peeling off his shirt and his soiled pants. He dropped them in a heap on the floor and stepped under the spray. He could feel the water pounding against him, but it provided no heat. It was neither hot nor cold. It was simply there.
Dom pressed his head to the slick shower wall and stood there for a long time. He was spent, tired, and fried - he had no more emotions left to give. He got out after a little while, dried off, and put on a clean pair of shorts. He settled into bed and lay there with his hands folded over his chest and his eyes open. They felt gritty, dry. His stomach felt bloated, gassy. He was drowsy now, the weight of the past two days (or was it two weeks?) coming down on him all at once. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was still asleep - but aware - when the knocking on his door started the next morning. Time was funny in this state of being, fast and jerky but also slow and echoing. Keys rattled the knob turned. The landlord came in with a cop. They saw him on the bed, laid out like a corpse for a viewing, and the cop radioed in a code 35. Soon, cops were all around him, making noise and touching things. He had the vague sense of discomfort and embarrassment at the intrusion. A baling man in a suit stood over him, a cop who looked like a redneck beside him. “He didn’t die here,” the medical examiner said.
The cop looked at him questioningly. Dom caught the name KENNER on his name tag.
“See this?” the M.E. said and gestured to Dom’s face. “That’s livor mortis. When you die, your blood pools at the lowest point. If you’re on your left side, for example, it pools on the left.”
Kenner looked at Dom and then back to the M.E. “Someone moved him?”
“Looks like it,” the M.E. said.
“When did he die?”
The M.E. examined Dom as though he were nothing more than a side of beef. “At a glance? Three days. I won’t have a better answer until I open him up.”
Dom was still awake when they put him into a body bag and zipped it up. He felt a stirring of fear beneath the cold numbness, but he was too tired to worry about it now.
Later, he thought.
He would panic later.
For now, Dom slept.

The world was a boozy whirl of lights and sounds. Images, broken and fragmented, came and went. Voices, laughter, screaming. The ground pitched like the deck of a tempest-tossed ship, and he felt heavy, as though the ground were pulling him to it. C’mere, Dommy. He fell, lay on the pavement, and pushed himself up again, staggering like a drunk on his way home. His head spun, his body ached, and things seemed blurry, like half-formed images glimpsed underwater.
It was the light blue hour before dawn and Dom was…somewhere. He should have recognized the stores and street signs around him, but he didn’t. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a sense of confusion gripped him so strongly that he was beginning to panic. Where was he? What happened?
The world spun away again and the next thing he knew, he was lying in a heap of garbage bags, used needles, and rubbish. He came awake with a jerk and sat up so fast that a bolt of pain jammed into his skull. He winced and pressed his hand to his forehead. He felt hot, clammy.
Something was seriously wrong.
Somehow he got to his feet again and started walking. The sun was up now and the streets were filled with people. They all sneered in disgust as he passed, and he wrapped his arms around his chest like a baby comforting itself. He was getting cold. His muscles were sore. Tears streamed down his face and he wanted to cry.
Going on instinct alone, Dom made his way back home and climbed the steps to his apartment. Exhaustion swept over him and he sagged against the door as he dug in his pocket for the keys. They shook in his hand and he had to focus really hard to get the key into the lock.
Inside, he collapsed onto the couch and his eyelids instantly drooped. He was so weary that he couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t form a single coherent thought. Dom felt himself starting to sink, and snapped his eyes open with a start. Something in his soul told him that if he slept, he would die.
He couldn’t help it, though. He was falling, tumbling, hands reaching up from hell to grab him. His eyes fluttered closed again and the world started to go dark, his heart slamming in fear. He tried to fight, but the pull of darkness was too strong, too alluring. Why was he fighting? Why not just…give up? Hadn’t he thought of killing himself before? Didn’t he hate his life and himself? What was there to fight for? A wife? Kids? A community that loved and respected him? Shit, affordable groceries?
No.
There was nothing.
He had nothing and was nothing.
A sense of peace blossomed from the darkness, and suddenly death didn’t seem so scary. In fact, it was warm…inviting.
It was life that was cold and hateful. Not death.
Death accepted you no matter who you were. It didn’t reject you…it didn’t ignore you. If you sought it, you would find it, and if you embraced it, it would embrace you.
With that thought in mind, Dom gave up.
And died.
***
Bruce Kenner, captain of the 5th Albany precinct, sat behind his desk on the morning of June 28 and lazily leafed through a stack of files as he sipped from a mug of coffee. A roughly built man with a dark goatee and graying blonde hair, he looked more like a small town southern sheriff than a low level public works functionary. In fact, he tended to act like it too. He liked to hunt, fish, and drink beer on his off time. Albany wasn’t a big city, but it was big enough that you never got a fucking break. Run here, run there, arrest this asshole, investigate that asshole. By the time Friday rolled around, he was so ready for the peace and tranquility of a fishing trip he could taste it.
Already this Monday morning, he was looking forward to another one.
Over the weekend, three kids went missing in the Pine Hills and Washington Park area, bringing the total for that summer up to eight. All were teenagers, all were troubled. Most were boys, but two were girls.
Troubled kids run away all the time. They might be gone a few days, sulking at a friend’s house over something their father or mother did, but they’d eventually come home. None of these kids had come back yet and from what he knew, a few of them weren’t the runaway types. They were shits at school and caused problems, but they had no reason to up and leave. Hell, Bruce himself raised hell as a kid, but he always found his way back home, even if he spent the previous night dying in a field from Mad Dogg 20/20 poisoning.
One or two kids going missing…okay, it happens. Eight? Over a span of four weeks?
Yeah, something was wrong here.
But what?
There was nothing on any of these kids. No one saw them, no one knew anything - one minute they were here, the next they weren’t. What could he or anyone else do with that?. The public broke cops’ balls all the time, but if you don’t have evidence, you don’t have evidence. What do you want? Door to door searches? Roadblocks? Dogs and helicopters? Yeah, then when you actually do it, they cry fascism. Guess I’ll just use my Spidey Senses.
Bruce wished he had spidey senses. He wanted to find these kids as much as anyone, and he was starting to get pissed off that he couldn’t. He took another sip from his mug and read on. The latest kids to go missing were three boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
They were all white, all thin (except for one). If there was a serial killer in town - and Bruce hoped to fuck there wasn’t - he had a type. What, black kids aren’t good enough to kill, cannibalize, and wear like a skin suit? They should charge him with a hate crime for discrimination.
That way he’d actually stay locked up.
The door opened and Vanessa Rodregiez, his deputy, came in. A tall, shapely Hispanic woman with dark eyes and a mouth poised always on the edge of a smile, she wore her black hair in a ponytail that would look stern and severe on anyone else, but on her, looked childlike. She was twenty-seven and had been on the force for three years, but you could be forgiven for thinking her much younger. “Bright and early, I see,” she said with a grin.
Bruce grumbled.
Vanessa held down the fort during the graveyard shift, acting to the night as he acted to the day. She was young and full of energy, which clashed with Bruce, who was old and just wanted to be left alone. Despite their differences, Bruce loved her like a kid sister…an annoying kid sister he wanted to throat punch sometimes.
“You missed all the fun last night,” she said and parked her butt on the edge of Bruce’s desk. He glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Good,” he said. Then: “What happened?”
“Big fight outside of Club Vlad,” she said. “It looked like a WorldStar video.”
For a moment, Bruce was lost. “Club what?”
“Club Vlad,” Vanessa said. “Where the Fuze Box used to be.”
Ah, right. The Fuze Box was an Albany landmark, a night club for punks…or goths…or someone. Certainly not for Bruce Kenner. It was small, dingy, and always had people in black waiting outside. On Friday and Saturday nights, it blasted strange music with lyrics about fighting The Man. Kids had been fighting the Man since before Bruce was even born and they hadn’t beaten him yet. Kudos to them for still trying.
Last year, The Fuze Box closed down and someone else bought it. It reopened last month and looked more or less the same: Posers, shitty music, and spiked hair. So much spiked hair. “Place is still a pain in the ass,” Bruce said.
“Yep,” Vanessa chirped. “It doesn’t know what it wants to be now. One minute they play nightcore, the next EDM. It’s all over the place.”
Bruce raised a quizzical brow.
“Not that I’ve ever been there in my free time,” Vanessa said in a tone that suggested she had,
Bruce gave a judgemental hum.
“Anyway,” Vanessa went on, “you see we have some new missing persons?”
Sighing, Bruce sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I did.”
“People are starting to ask questions,” Vanessa warned.
That brought a terse smile to Bruce’s weathered face. “Maybe they’ll solve it then.”
“Ha, fat chance,” Vanessa said. She got up and stretched. “Anyway, I’m bushed. Here’s my…” she trailed off and looked at her empty hands. “Damn, where’s my report? I just had it?” She turned in a confused circle as if she might be able to spot her report making a break for it. “Huh,” she said. She left the office and came back a moment later holding a folder. “Found it,” she grinned.
Bruce just looked at her.
“Um…here it is.”
He didn’t take it.
Her smile faltered. She carefully sat it on top of the files Bruce was looking at.
And his hands.
“I’ll just leave that right here.” She patted it for good measure.
“Thank you,” Bruce said.
“Okay. Night.”
“Goodnight,” Bruce said as she left through a shaft of morning sunlight. Alone, Bruce sat her report aside and went back to the missing kids. This case was giving him a headache and it wasn’t even nine. With a deep sigh, he slumped back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrests.
Was it Saturday yet?
He could really use a fishing trip.
***
Dom came awake in the cold purple twilight with a shocked gasp like a man coming up seconds before drowning. His eyes strained from his sweaty face and his mouth hung slack, twisted in a gruesome parody of The Scream. His mind was muddled, murky - he didn’t know where he was or even who he was, but he knew this,.
He couldn’t breathe.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but his lungs did not fill with air. A great, unseen weight seemed to bear down on his chest, and panic gripped him. He tried to move, but his arms refused to heed his brain’s command. The weight seemed heavier, all over, crushing him like a bug. Confusion filled him and he started to pant.
Without warning, his bowels and bladder loosened, and horrible wetness filled his pants. He tried to sit up, but his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. His chest rose and fell with the frantic labor of his breath, but his lungs remained inert. A cry of fear bubbled up inside of him, but escaped his mouth only as a breathy groan.
A bust of adrenaline shot through him and he tried to stand, but succeeded only in falling off the couch instead, landing face first against the cold tile floor. He felt his nose crunch, but the pain was muted.
Dom thought he lost consciousness after that, but wasn’t sure. His next memory was of shivering so violently that his teeth clacked together. A phantom chill - perhaps from the floor - had settled into his bones, and was colder than he had ever been in his life, colder even than the time he fell into a snowbank and got lost when he was two. Shudders racked his body, and though he tried to turn over, he was too fucking heavy. It was like every muscle in his body had turned to dead weight. Fragmented thoughts swirled in his head, faint colors in the dark, but he couldn’t put any of them together.
With great effort, he managed to push himself slightly up, but a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him and he lowered his head once more. He stopped trying and simply lay there. Shortly, his eyes began to burn and he realized that he wasn’t blinking. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t blinking.
For some strange reason, that brought a fresh bout of panic. He started to hyperventilate, but his lungs still wouldn’t work. He wasn’t blinking…he wasn’t breathing…what was happening to him?
A whimper burst from his throat and he started to cry.
He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke sometime later to the most intense headache he’d ever had. It felt like something was eating his brain from the inside out. He was sore all over, and could feel his muscles twitching, as though a thousand living things were burrowing through his body. A cramp shot down his right leg, and the toes of his left foot curled involuntarily. Slowly, his jaw clenched closed, and the muscles in his neck began to strain…then to burn. His panic turned to terror, and Dom wiggled across the floor like a worm, his limbs screaming in red agony and his brain filling with heat. He somehow wound up on his right side, and his arms curled slowly up to his chest, crossing at the wrists like a mummy. He tried to pull them apart, but the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain cutting through his body. His knees began to draw up to his stomach, and his fingers clenched tightly.
Cramps and spasms attacked every muscle in his body. He screamed through his teeth and shook, resembling a man in the electric chair as 40,000 volts of justice coursed through him. The pain grew gradually, getting worse and worse as minutes ticked by like hours. Higher, higher, higher - he clenched his eyes closed and shrieked as it became unbearable. Disjointed thoughts flashed through his mind - prayers, threats, curses, Jesus fucking…FUCK.
What was happening? God, what was happening to him? Was it fentanyl? He’d seen videos of people high on fentanyl, and they leaned in weird positions. He didn’t do drugs but maybe he ingested it somehow.
His panic may have returned if all of his muscles hadn’t picked that moment to contract as one. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his jaw unclenched just enough for him to utter a high. Agonized scream that echoed through his empty apartment like thunder.
A human being can only take so much before giving out. When the pain reached a crescendo, and Dom mercifully sank into consciousness once more. The sun rose and cascaded through the apartment’s sole window, falling over his huddled form. Slowly, it tracked across the sky before setting again. As the last rays disappeared behind the horizon, Dom’s eyes opened. The pain of the night before was blessedly gone, replaced by a feeling of numbness - the cool ash after the hot fire. His thoughts were slow and thick like molasses, but he could actually think again. Nightmare memories flooded back to him, but he wasn’t sure they were real. He was lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his chest as if for warmth, and his teeth lightly chattered against the icy chill. He was so cold that he didn’t want to move, but he couldn’t stay here forever. He needed help. He needed…
A shower.
Yeah, a hot shower. That would warm him up.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly sat up, ready for a burst of pain.
But none came.
He did, however, feel heavy. Getting to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against the counter. His limbs had no feeling. It’s like they weren’t even there. Head hung, Dom tried to catch his breath, but it felt like he wasn’t breathing at all. His eyelids drooped closed and he felt like he was going to fall down. Summoning all the might he could, he shuffled into the bathroom with the stiff gait of an old man. He snapped the light on, and cold, white brilliance filled the space, blinding him.
Leaning heavily against the sink, he gripped the cold porcelain. Suddenly, he was afraid of looking into the mirror. He was sure that whatever reflection he saw, it would be of something else, something monstrous.
Dom lifted his head and faced the glass.
His heart shrank.
The man in the mirror was him but different. His skin was white as milk, lacking all color whatsoever save for the ugly purple patch on the left side. IResembling a giant bruise, it started at the temple and extended down to the slope of his neck, disappearing beneath his T-shirt. He gingerly lifted the shirt, and moaned when he saw that his entire left side was discolored, the purple edged with a puffy shade of pink. His sallow skin clung tight to his ribcage, and his hip bones stuck out so much it looked painful. Back in the mirror, his cheeks were sunken, hollow, and his eyes were a hazy, dishwater gray. His skull seemed bigger, his hair longer. Dom wanted to whip his head away from the phantom before him, to never see it again, but he was transfixed.
There was no way that thing was -
Dom looked away, cutting that thought off before it could finish.
A shower.
He needed a shower.
Slowly, stiffly, Dom undressed, peeling off his shirt and his soiled pants. He dropped them in a heap on the floor and stepped under the spray. He could feel the water pounding against him, but it provided no heat. It was neither hot nor cold. It was simply there.
Dom pressed his head to the slick shower wall and stood there for a long time. He was spent, tired, and fried - he had no more emotions left to give. He got out after a little while, dried off, and put on a clean pair of shorts. He settled into bed and lay there with his hands folded over his chest and his eyes open. They felt gritty, dry. His stomach felt bloated, gassy. He was drowsy now, the weight of the past two days (or was it two weeks?) coming down on him all at once. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was still asleep - but aware - when the knocking on his door started the next morning. Time was funny in this state of being, fast and jerky but also slow and echoing. Keys rattled the knob turned. The landlord came in with a cop. They saw him on the bed, laid out like a corpse for a viewing, and the cop radioed in a code 35. Soon, cops were all around him, making noise and touching things. He had the vague sense of discomfort and embarrassment at the intrusion. A baling man in a suit stood over him, a cop who looked like a redneck beside him. “He didn’t die here,” the medical examiner said.
The cop looked at him questioningly. Dom caught the name KENNER on his name tag.
“See this?” the M.E. said and gestured to Dom’s face. “That’s livor mortis. When you die, your blood pools at the lowest point. If you’re on your left side, for example, it pools on the left.”
Kenner looked at Dom and then back to the M.E. “Someone moved him?”
“Looks like it,” the M.E. said.
“When did he die?”
The M.E. examined Dom as though he were nothing more than a side of beef. “At a glance? Three days. I won’t have a better answer until I open him up.”
Dom was still awake when they put him into a body bag and zipped it up. He felt a stirring of fear beneath the cold numbness, but he was too tired to worry about it now.
Later, he thought.
He would panic later.
For now, Dom slept.

I swore off horror movies a while ago because I’d always get way too scared and not go to sleep. I feel like I’m missing out, and I want to dip my toes in and see if anything’s changed. Can y’all recommend any Diet horror movies that I can watch? Something scary but not one that will probably keep me up at night. Thanks!

Yep, as the title describes it. I'm a transfem 6'4 gal that wears size 15's in men's shoes. Now, I actually measured my foot a bit and my feet don't fit these shoes well anymore. But they're still huge. I'm also publicly out, but I don't tell people I'm trans unless its a doctor or it's someone at work that I'm constantly with (because people scary and my supervisor doesn't tolerate crap from people, including if they say anything negative towards all of us).
Anyway, I went to go get my shoe measured one day at Famous Footwear and I didn't tell her what kinda shoes I wore, she didn't ask about my shoes I was currently wearing, and I just asked to measure my feet. She then proceeded to take me to the men's section and measured my foot with the scale they use for men's shoes. I asked what size this was in women's, and she kinda just ignored it and told me to have a great day.
So my shoe size (according to Famous Footwear) is 14.5. But with how shoe sizes are so drastically different, it's hard to find like a universal shoe size. My feet BARELY measure to a little bit bigger than 12 inches, but I can fit a size 12 shoe (mens) from Walmart, but my toes crunch up a little. But where can I find womens shoes that fit me that aren't heels?? I just want like boots that go up between my knee and my shin, or even just like shoes that are work-appropriate. I'm already 6'4, I don't want to be taller because I already hate being tall.
Where can I shop for shoes that fit nicely and are work appropriate? Or even just pink tennis shoes? Or even just anything with little to no heel would be amazing. Thanks for reading!
TDLR: Shoe shopping sucks, I'm 6'4, and I just want to go somewhere to buy bigger sized shoes that are for women, but don't want high heels or anything that will make me taller. I like short. Thanks!

Sorry for my bad grammar I’m not good at writing but i wanted to share. Around a year ago I (15F) at the time lived in a smallish house with my single mother, my mum is a very bubbly woman who can start a conversation with anyone and is loved by everyone. I remember one morning hearing her talk to someone outside my bedroom window just shrugging it off I eventually went downstairs to ask who she was talking too. Finding out she was talking to our new neighbour. She was very sympathetic towards him as she described him as very old (she said around 95ish) and lived by himself, a nurse coming to visit him a few times a month, my mum also found out while talking to him he had no family members as they all passed so it really was just him she also mentioned that he was a priest which I found quite creepy.
a few weeks had passed by and my mum been the kind woman she was cut our new neighbours grass for him and would usually strike up a conversation out of pity. I just want to mention that I never saw this man once I’d just heard about him from my mums daily rambling.
My house had a window at the top of my stairs that if you looked out of faces the priests house and as they were almost identically built there was a window facing right back at ours, again I never saw this man only his dim landing light on. It had now been around 3 months since I’d heard from the priest. This One night i will never forget, around 1am I’d gone downstairs to get somthing to eat and on my journey back up the stairs and too my bedroom I looked out the landing window out of just pure instinct. There on the opposite side was the old man , his hand gripping the banister as he helped himself up the stiars, the lighting was terrible but he was very skinny as old people usually are. Been nosy I stood there for a moment wanting to get a good look at him, he was hunched over slightly as he struggled to almost carry his own body weight and I swore I could see the ridges of his spine thought his shirt as he hobbled out of view of the window. Not to be mean but this freaked me the fuck out and I immediately went to my room trying to get that disturbing image out my head before I slept.
Around a week maybe two later the priests nurse showed up at our door asking if we’d seen him recently as she was unable to get into his house as it was completely locked and sealed. she hadn’t heard from him in over 4 months and was getting concerend for his well being. I wasn’t at home to tell her I’d seen him in the window as I was at school so my mother just said she hadnt heard from him either. The nurse called the police who broke down his door. I was just walking home as i reached my house, the police giving another blow at the door with like a pole thing i dont really know what it was all I do know is that when the door finally came down the smell that left that house could make anyones toes curl. All I can describe it as is when ur cat brings home a mouse and it dies under your couch without you knowing.
Rushing inside I immediately went up to my room. Peering out my bedroom window watching the police enter his house, covering their noses. I don’t really remember what happened after that except when they wheeled his body out in a black bag and into the back of a black van. It was sad really I’d never gotten to speak to him and I’d now felt guilty for been so horrified by his appearance.
My mum was also distraught by his passing and was talking to the police outside. The house took weeks to be cleaned as when he’d died all the windows and doors were shut, keeping the smell locked in.
When the police left and the street went silent again i found myself spending more time with my mum downstairs, she has always been religious so as we spoke she lit a candle for him out of respect and to help him pass into heaven. Bringing up the putrid smell I asked her what the police told her. And what she told me has stuck with me since that day. They said he’d died a few months ago and had been found, decomposing in his bed.
At first i just shrugged this off when she spoke, yeah it was disturbing but more sad nobody had noticed his disappearance. But then it clicked. If he died a few months ago, who was it that I saw through the window? I mentioned this to my mum, she also knew I’d never saw or spoke to him while he was alive so she asked me what he looked like.
Wispy white hair and a boney hunch. I still remember her face drop from a blush pink to a pale white.
We moved out a month later.
This story isn’t that interesting as I haven’t had many scary paranormal? Things happen to me but it’s a true story so I hope you enjoyed :)

I've had this subreddit account for yearssss now but have never interacted much. Nor did I really practice the law until only a few months ago. Like most of us, reason being...3d happened, lol. But that's a story for another day.
So I really dived into the law and Neville's teachings this time around. Even tried SATS to feel my wish fulfilled.
One night in April (last month) something peculiar happened to me and this is where I need you guys' input and opinion, please. I was trying to get into SATS, doing my little breathing technique to relax my body and started looping my scene. I must've fallen asleep as I awoke about 2 hours after going to bed (I checked the time afterwards).
Half asleep, half awake (maybe in SATS) I heard myself repeat, like affirmations, "I am happy, I am rich". Now please note, I wasn't in my scene, only repeating the above words once, as if I had no will over it. I never even use the word "rich" when I affirm during the day. I always use "wealthy". So for me, these affirmations were not intended (not by my conscious mind anyway). I then heard myself say "yes, it's true", actually feeling it to be true.
Now please bear with me because I struggle to find the words to best describe what I exprerienced next (and English is not my native language, lol). I suddenly felt my head being blown off, like an intense EXPLOSION, my whole body being enveloped in this electric shock, from head to toe. It was so scary yet it felt so good. I remember this feeling lasted for well over a few minutes. I then got up, sort of freaking out, so I couldn't go right back to sleep. I was still feeling this "electricity" although it started wearing off a bit. I felt the "aftermath" mostly in my tummy and my legs.
The next morning I googled and searched this sub but couldn't find anything that satified my curiosity about what happend to me. So I'm finally reaching out to you guys (btw, I just love this community 💗)!
I was wondering if any of you have experienced same and would share it please? I'm not sure if Neville ever spoke about this. If so, can someone please direct me to this specific book/lecture of his? Or a post maybe?
I continue to do SATS but haven't experienced anything like that again.
Your help is much appreciated.
Thank you guys!

2024-182 / Zedd MAP: 78.80 / MLZ MAP: 83.63 / Score Gap: 4.83
Wikipedia?wprov=sfti1#) / IMDb / Official Trailer / Saw it on HBOMax
Now, somehow - don’t ask me - somehow this particular Stephen King adaptation has escaped our grasp. There’s really no good reason either. Mrs. Lady Zedd says “it’s just very scary”…
From IMDb: Cujo, a friendly St. Bernard, contracts rabies and conducts a reign of terror on a small American town.
…and it is scary. I’ve read many of his books but only a fraction that MLZ has plowed through - and the fright in this particular story sinks in (psychologically) because it’s possible.
We’ve two large dogs - German Shepards - neither were socialized as pups, so we keep them well controlled, but man - mine isn’t the house to break into. When there’s a strange noise at night ((shakes head)), they don’t go berserk - they hunt.
Our female, Brunnhilda, stays behind and makes quiet but forceful “woof wood woof” sounds while our male, Fritz goes into stealth mode. Thing is - this will sound silly - Fritz is a “toe tapper”. He enjoys tapping his toenails as he walks -but- while he’s investigating, you’d never hear (or see) him coming. Brunnhilda is woofing to distract - Fritz, he’s doing his job - he’s gonna get you.
As we’re watching the event’s unfold, we’re under attack from above - we’re under one hell of a thunderstorm. It certainly has lent an air of menace to the atmosphere on screen. I can’t help but to lean into the terror - if there was a rabid St. Bernard coming at me… damn, I just hate only having a Ford Pinto between me and those gnashing, snarling teeth.
MLZ added, “Didn’t those Pintos blow up in accidents?”
Yes, there was a big scuttlebutt back in the day about Pintos exploding in rear-end crashes. Watching a 150lb dog head-butt the car over and over… dang - this could have ended much differently… just saying.
All things considered, it’s a film that (frankly) belongs on my shelf - not as well put together as say, The Shining or Stand By Me but certainly better than other adaptations that I do have.
Side note: in the movie, Dee Wallace’s character fends off our diseased doggo but fails to fend off the advances of local handyman / carpenter Steve Kemp - played by real life husband Christopher Stone.
That’s a whole other way to movie on

Hello! Here we are again, back for another ATLA commentary.
Before we get started I do want to point out that I’m numbering and labeling episodes according to how they appear on Netflix. Episode 12, as I understand it, is actually two episodes. However, since they’re presented as one thing here, that’s how I’m watching it.
Brief update on other projects: I thought I’d try watching the first Harry Potter movie, but realized it’s two and a half hours long. That’s, at the bare minimum, five hours of commentary writing. So… yeah, we’re gonna hold off on that lol I’m also considering watching a superhero/comic book show called The Boys, because I accidentally caught part of a trailer for it that my girlfriend was watching and it looks very interesting. I’ll be doing the new Game of Thrones commentary next, not sure when exactly.
Okay, let’s go!
Episode 12- The Secret of the Fire Nation

1. Well that’s a heck of a title! I hope we learn something juicy!

It’s nice to see Aang and Katara bending for fun, thought I’m surprised Aang is so willing to encase himself in a block of ice. You’d think he’d have some trauma from that lol But also, I love Katara’s hair when she lets it down.
Yeah… I’m kind of surprised Aang is taking Appa’s loss as well as he is, considering how he reacted last episode. Since Sokka is talking about walking to Ba Sing Se, I take it they’re not going to be spending time looking for him? But then, didn’t the sandbenders say they sold him to a merchant from Ba Sing Se? Maybe he’s there, and Aang’s banking on that hope.

1. I know I keep applying real-world logic to a cartoon show, but wouldn’t Ba Sing Se get awfully crowded if they’re constantly taking in refugees from the rest of the Earth Kingdom? Iroh put the city under siege for almost two years. What if the Fire Nation does that again? More mouths to feed makes starvation quicker!

Iroh and Zuko are refugees. I still can’t get over that irony lol Hey, it’s Jet! My goodness, he’s onscreen for less than ten seconds and he’s already planning a robbery. He and Zuko are going to get along just fine, aren’t they?
The cabbage merchant! Always a delight to see him and his cabbages! Also hilarious that a bunch of people are impersonating Aang (thought it probably would be less hilarious if any of them met Azula). If passports are necessary, how did Zuko and Iroh get tickets? Also, good on Toph for taking advantage of her privilege lol
Hey! I think that’s Suki! Her eyes are drawn really distinctively and her voice sounds familiar! Two seconds after pressing play: it is Suki! Don’t you just love my long winning streak of figuring things out right before they let us know? Lol

1. Glad to see ATLA Suki appreciates Sokka’s muscles just as much as NATLA Suki lol

Someone took the pregnant family’s tickets and belongings. Is that how Zuko and Iroh got their tickets? Zuko’s robbed families before, so I wouldn’t put it past him.
Well damn, Suki got her armor and makeup on real quick, didn’t she? Hm… Sokka’s worried about her. I think Suki’s going to interpret that as him being sexist again but he’s probably traumatized from losing Yue. He’s been through way too much to still be sexist. If he still had a misogynistic bone in his body, Toph would have beaten it out of him by now.

1. Well the Serpent’s Pass looks terrifying. Also, this pregnant lady took one look at some scratched graffiti saying “Abandon Hope” and immediately started crying, saying “How can we abandon hope? It’s all we have!” Like… come on, lady lol Just because you see graffiti telling you to do something doesn’t mean you have to, otherwise I would have called quite a few people for a good time by now.

Hope is a distraction, huh? I guess I can see the logic of that from a practical application perspective. But it’s kind of a depressing philosophy for a monk to have.
Holy shit! Nope, I would not be walking along a cliff path that narrow! I will build a rowboat and paddle my way to Ba Sing Se.
Toph is really carrying the team (and some refugees too) this episode.

1. There’s a fine line between being protective and being smothering and Sokka has hopped, jumped, and skipped right over it.

Zuko’s not wearing his blue spirit mask. Not that he needs it, he and Jet work together like cogs in a machine. Ironic lol
Ow! Geez, that rejected hug hurt me lol Katara’s right though. Bottling up emotions just makes them worse in the long run. You have to allow yourself to feel bad sometimes. Granted, you can’t fly off the handle like he did last episode, but that’s a reaction. You can control your reactions, but you can’t control your feelings.
“It’s a beautiful moon.” “Yeah, it really is.” Okay, I know Sokka said last episode that Yue is the moon, but he was tripping on peyote. Does he actually believe that Yue is the moon now? Is Yue the moon now? I interpreted her death as he sacrificing herself to bring the moon spirit back to life, not to become the new moon spirit.
“Who is this guy? Is he taller than me?” Dude, we were having a moment. Damn it, just kiss her! Well actually, the moon’s right there so if Yue really did turn into the new moon spirit, it might be a tad awkward to kiss in front of her. But what’s he gonna do, only ever show intimacy during the day?

1. Um… I’m probably reading too much into this Smellerbee scene with Iroh and Longshot and I’m almost hesitant to say what I’m thinking because I can just imagine the backlash I could get for voicing it. And it’s not like ATLA has had great LGBTQ representation up to this point, so… Yeah, I’m probably just seeing things that aren’t there.

You know, I’ve never really cared a lot about Jet as a character (in fact, I’m kind of surprised to see him again. I figured he’d be a one-off character) but I am really enjoying his scenes with Zuko and Iroh. They have so much in common, which is probably the point of this whole juxtaposition. If he only knew who they really were lol
Of course Iroh believes in second chances. He’s the best. And also, he’s living proof that some people deserve a second chance.

1. Uh… Katara parting the sea while leading refugees to safety invokes a certain comparison, doesn’t it? But can I just say that I love how her solution to crossing the gap is to literally walk through the ocean instead of making a raft out of ice and floating across. She just never misses an opportunity to flex on everyone, does she? Lol

Momo continuing his pattern of trying to kill every small animal he sees is something I’ve come to treasure.
Is that the unagi?! I think that’s what it’s called/spelled but I haven’t seen that episode in a while. It would be fitting if Suki and the sea serpent both share the same episodes lol No that’s not the unagi. It’s a different color. Um… what exactly was Sokka planning to do if the sea serpent actually accepted his offer and ate Momo? Considering how he reacted to losing Appa, I don’t think Aang would be too happy with him.
Oh, now she’s making an ice bridge. Not as much of a flex as maintaining an air bubble so they plumb the depths but it is faster. Oh, Toph can’t see on ice. And she can’t swim? An earthbender not being able to swim feels like a stereotype for some reason, even though I have absolutely no reason to think that lol
“You can go ahead and let me drown now.” That’s gonna be a favorite joke of mine, I just know it lol And I’m pretty sure this is probably a jumping point for a Sokka/Toph ship. What does the community call that? Soph? Tokka? (How old is Toph, anyway? Probably Aang’s age, right? That’s… probably not an appropriate ship then)

1. Why does Ba Sing Se’s wall remind me of The Wall from Game of Thrones? Obviously not made of ice though lol

Okay, time for ATLA’s viewers to experience the miracle of childbirth!

1. Like I said earlier, ATLA isn’t heavy on the LGBTQ representation, but I swear I’m picking up on some tension and chemistry between Jet and Zuko (Juko? Jeko? Zet?). And now half of Jet’s little group is an LGBTQ allegory for me lol Even the dialogue between Jet and Zuko in this scene is slightly suggestive.

So… can Katara waterbend the baby out or…
Baby Hope, eh? Probably not a super common name in this world.
Oh? Was that Aang’s way of telling Katara he loves her without actually saying it? Aww. And hey, he’s heading off on his own to search for Appa. Which… honestly kind of feels like he should have been doing that this whole time lol
Yes! Get some, Sokka! Wait, nevermind. I fucking hate that line. Ugh No! I’m not gonna be a bitter old lady on this watch-through! They’re kissing and it’s very sweet and I love that for them!
Um… there’s a giant metal dildo on the way to penetrate Ba Sing Se! Lol but seriously, how technologically advanced is the Fire Nation? A giant mobile drill of that scale would be a marvel of engineering even by our modern standards.

1. Well hey, there’s the title card letting me know when the next episode starts.

Woah, the way the drill moves is so cool! I’m legitimately wondering if such a thing would actually be possible in our world with our physics. I don’t know why we would want to, but still. And of course Azula’s leading this attack. She gets all the best opportunities. And she’s smart too! The war minister guy is dismissive of the earthbenders, believing his drill to be impervious to earthbending attacks. You can practically smell the hubris. But Azula leaves nothing to chance and she sends her girls out to neutralize any potential threat.
And this is why we love Azula. She’s not just a scary villain, she’s a competent villain.

1. And the Earth Kingdom general shares the War Minister’s hubris. Why are the people in charge always the worst people to be in charge? Also, I love that Toph is the one to point out that Iroh broke through the wall.

So the Earth Kingdom’s elite Terra Team force were taken out by two teenage nonbenders from the Fire Nation in about twenty seconds. How have they lasted this long? Lol (I say two, but let’s be honest. Ty Lee’s doing the heavy lifting here)
Yes! I love that they acknowledge Sokka as the “Idea Guy”!
Iroh has got rizz for days lol I’m kind of surprised he only ever had one son. Jet wants to recruit Zuko. I’m totally down for that! They’re such an interesting pair!

1. I really love that Katara, whose probably the best waterbender in the world at this point, respects Ty Lee enough to recognize how dangerous she is. And Sokka had an idea! They’re going to take down the drill from the inside. Because how the hell else are they going to stop something that big?

Again with the underestimation! I swear Azula’s the only competent person in the entire Fire Nation military since Iroh retired.
Okay, engineer Sokka figured it out. It’s all a little too easy, isn’t it?

1. Ah shit, Jet just realized the truth, because Iroh used firebending to heat up his tea lol I think he’s getting a little too relaxed.

Okay, just the fact that they slice through metal with water at all is pretty impressive. And the drill has reached the wall, and Azula still doesn’t look impressed.
Oh yeah, I guess this is a pretty high stakes battle for them, huh? If they lose Ba Sing Se, they basically lose the entire Earth Kingdom, right? Omashu’s already fallen, the smaller villages and whatnot have no real defense. Ba Sing Se is the last big puzzle piece to world domination (aside from the water tribes, but they’re so isolated they’re not really a threat).
I love that Toph’s nickname for Aang is Twinkle Toes. Also I laughed at the War Minister’s face when he was side-eyeing Azula just then. +That’s the face of a man who’s about to be punished!

1. lol Sokka’s the only one with more rizz than Iroh! Maybe a legitimate battle strategy here would be to woo Ty Lee into switching sides? Aside from Azula she seems to be the most dangerous one. No offense to Mai, but she is kind of the odd woman out here.

Oh please let me get Aang and Azula 1v1! I really badly want to see how he fares against her without everyone else helping him. He’ll probably have to use the Avatar State to defeat her.
Ty Lee dives into the slurry after Katara and Sokka while Mai refuses. Yeah, Mai is the weak link here in Ozai’s Angels (I love that name, by the way).

1. Did Aang seriously think the general was going to hear him from that high up? Lol Toph’s helping Katara bend the slurry (how convenient that it’s both water and earth!). Ty Lee’s still trapped in it and the drill is about to blow. If I hadn’t learned my lesson on the last post, I’d probably be worried she might die in the explosion. But this is a kid’s show, she’ll be fine.

Here we go! Aang vs Azula! Her fighting style is so elegant. Every move she makes feels on purpose, if that makes sense. Like, whenever Aang fought Zuko, Zhao, or NPC firebenders their style is a little more chaotic and fearsome and rawr, you know? But Azula’s totally calm. Everything she’s doing feels calculated, and it’s working! If she hadn’t had to dodge that boulder after blasting Aang back she might have been able to deliver a finishing blow!
She beat him! He’s unconscious! Okay, well not anymore lol See… that right there was hubris (actually, it was kid’s show writing but whatever)! He was out for like fifteen seconds. She should have roasted him where he lay instead of picking him up and gloating.
Another fight with Azula ends in a draw with neither one beating the other! I’m starting to get a little peeved with all this edging lol but that was great! Azula is an absolute beast!

1. Okay, the way Aang hammered that rock spike into the drill was pretty epic. Mai’s “We lost” (and thank you for your contribution to the fight, Mai lol) is interesting. It’s true, they did lose. Not in the combat sense, Aang couldn’t beat Azula, but he didn’t have to. He just had to hold her off. Maybe that’s kind of a metaphor for the Fire Nation military in general. It’s very powerful, but it’s also marred by incompetence and weaknesses. Many of its generals are prideful and blind to their own weaknesses, or just outright incompetent. Look at this fight: even Mai just kind of gave up halfway through. If Ty Lee wasn’t trapped in the slurry, she might very well have been able to beat Katara, Sokka, and Toph, especially since they don’t Appa this time to bail them out. And if Mai had been with her, she might have been to break Katara’s concentration with a thrown weapon, thus freeing Ty Lee from the slurry.

I wondered how the Earth Kingdom lasted so long and maybe that’s just it. They can’t beat the Fire Nation, but they don’t have to. They just have to hold them off and the Fire Nation’s own shortcomings will end up beating themselves. It’s a hundred year stalemate.

1. Looks like Jet’s going to be causing a problem for Iroh and Zuko. I wonder if his relationship with them is what’s going to finally let him realize that not all Fire Nation people are inherently evil?

Hey, that’s Baby Hope! And Iroh gets to fawn over her too and I love that for him. You know, if Aang defeats the Fire Nation in a timely manner, Hope might actually get to grow up in a world at peace. Well, kind of. I’m sure there’s going to be massive issues with racism from generations of propaganda painting the other side as inhuman, huge demands for reparations, not to mention the territories the Fire Nation currently occupies. It’s been so long that there must be at least two generations of Fire Nation citizens who were born in and grew up in the Earth Kingdom, and I’m sure there’s been interbreeding with the Earth Kingdom people, because that’s what always happens with colonizers. Once they become established, genocide is pretty much the only way to get rid of them, and I doubt the Avatar is going to allow that.
So Hope’s probably going to grow up in pretty interesting times!
Um… is Ba Sing Se a city or is it a little walled country? Cuz all I see are farms and plains!
Katara, I love you, but you’re wrong. Team Avatar is going to catch on because it’s awesome, and that’s that.
Episode 13- City of Walls and Secrets

1. Oh, there’s an inner wall. So Ba Sing Se is kind of like the country in Attack on Titan! Oh yeah, in all of the excitement I almost forgot about Appa. Seriously, how many episodes has he been missing now? Damn, now that’s a city!

Yeah… something’s up with Joo Dee.
Walls inside that help maintain order? You mean walls that protect the rich and elite from the dirty poors? Lol Oh, Katara just confirmed it. They pen up all the poor people into a walled ghetto.

1. lol when Iroh’s talking about someone bringing home a lady friend, does he mean himself? Or Zuko? It is really interesting how their views of Ba Sing Se differ though. Iroh’s talking about getting a home, socializing, building a life, and he’s even found them jobs! Zuko sees the same situation as a prison.

Well, I’m glad Jet’s turning over a new leaf by letting the authorities handle things. Too bad I don’t trust the authorities to be any better.
Toph knows what’s up. Joo Dee is purposefully brushing Sokka off and distracting the group. I’m not sure why at the moment, but something is clearly up.

1. Of course they’re going to work in a tea shop! Lol Zuko’s right btw, all tea is hot leaf juice. Well, except for the teas that are hot root juice.

The cultural authority of Ba Sing Se, who guard their traditions and are called the Dai Li. Yeah… maybe it’s my conservative religious upbringing but when I hear about people “guarding their traditions” I immediately think of abuse, propaganda, and oppression. Generally people who are obsessed with traditions tend to be conservatives, who by their very nature cannot allow progress or improvement.
Someone important is trying to keep them under constant surveillance and prevent them from seeing the Earth King. In NATLA, there were spies in Omashu. Since Ba Sing Se is much bigger and more important, I imagine it’s riddled with Fire Nation spies as well, and somebody high ranking might be a traitor.

1. Joo Dee is kind of scary lol and clearly the citizens are terrified of her. But what’s interesting to me is that she’s preventing them from giving information about Appa, which suggests that whoever is stopping them from seeing the Earth King also has Appa. But why? What would be the point of keeping Aang away from Appa? Is it to restrict his mobility and make him easier to capture?

So people aren’t allowed to talk about the war, and the Dai Li seem to be responsible. But why? If everyone knows there’s a war going on anyway, why keep people from talking about it?
It’s lucky that Iroh borrowed his neighbor’s spark rocks, but why would he refrain from firebending in what he assumes is privacy? Unless he knows he’s being watched.

1. Huh, is the king’s pet bear the first normal animal on the show? Lol I am digging this undercover plan though.

I love that this show lets its characters try on different looks from time to time, even if they are mostly the same outfits. Katara and Toph’s high society get-ups are gorgeous!
The lost boys- I mean, freedom fighters are turning on Peter Pa- I mean, Jet. The weird thing is… he’s right! They are firebenders! But his behavior still isn’t healthy!

1. Okay, let’s go! Jet’s hurling accusations and attacking them in public! And now Zuko’s fighting back with swords. It’s the duel of the dual-wielders! Honestly, this is probably good for Zuko. He needs to blow off some steam after everything he’s been through.

Well how about that? Security at the palace is actually competent and Toph can’t bluff her way in.
This Long Feng guy is cultural minister to the king, which means he’s probably the bad guy! And also we haven’t met any other high ranking government officials with names, so he’s currently the only option lol

1. Geez, Zuko straight up intended to decapitate Jet right there. If Jet were a little slower, he would have! Man, I hope they do this fight scene in NATLA.

Uh-oh, scary lady Joo Dee is the scared one now. But can I just say how much I like her facial expressions?
Yeah… can’t blame them for arresting Jet. He did look like a crazy person.
The Dai Li’s specific brand of earthbending is very cool! It almost doesn’t seem like bending at all, if that makes sense. The stones they use are like a part of their own body. And of course Long Feng is their leader.
Okay I get the king is just a puppet and Long Feng is the real rule of the country, but I still don’t understand why he doesn’t allow mention of the war in the city. I mean, it’s common knowledge! A significant portion of their population are literally refugees fleeing war! Who doesn’t know
Oh… is it the king? Does the king just not know there’s a war happening and Long Feng keeps it from him so he can stay in charge? I mean, that’s still a stretch but it would explain why he doesn’t want Team Avatar talking to the king.

1. Jet is being hypnotized. Also, I do want to point out that I have seen “There is no (whatever) in Ba Sing Se” many times in the wild lol it’s nice to see where it comes from!

Ah… Long Feng is holding Appa as leverage over Aang.
I didn’t think Joo Dee could be any scarier but here we are! This episode almost has horror movie vibes.
Concluding thoughts: This was a fantastic couple/throuple of episodes! I loved seeing Suki again, and I really enjoyed how the refugee subplot ties so perfectly in with Iroh and Zuko. The whole drill sequence was probably the best “action” the show has had thus far and that’s saying something. It’s also nice to have my suspicions that the Earth Kingdom has its own corruption problems and bad guys confirmed.
I have a new theory to replace my “Iroh’s going to die theory”. They’ve been showing us all season how Zuko isn’t really cut out for life on the run, whereas Iroh embraces it. I think they’re driving to a separation between Zuko and Iroh. He may not have died, but narratively speaking Zuko and Iroh have to part ways permanently or semi-permanently for his character to grow. Iroh has been propping him up and supporting him this whole time, now it’s time for Zuko to leave the nest and become his own person.
My new theory is that Iroh will enjoy his new life in Ba Sing Se so much that he elects to stay there permanently, whereas Zuko is too restless to do so. He can’t go back to the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom will not accept him, so his only choice is to join Team Avatar, where he will likely end up teaching Aang firebending.
And to expand further on a previous theory of mine, which was: Azula will kill or depose Ozai. I’ve accepted at this point that death is off the table. Kid’s show and all that. But I noticed something… lots of people were quick to say that Azula would never kill Ozai. But not one person has said she wouldn’t depose him in those refutations (unless I’m misremembering but I don’t think I am). Since you all know not to hint at things or spoil them, I think your eagerness to point out that she won’t kill Ozai is an attempt to mislead me into thinking the whole theory is wrong so I’ll be surprised when she ends up deposing (not killing) him. I mean, I could be wrong but I have a strong feeling that the final villain is going to be Fire Lord Azula, with Ozai in exile somewhere (that would be fitting! The man who banishes his own son ends up being banished himself!).
Maybe that will even be the conclusion of Zuko’s arc! While Aang goes off to save the world from Azula, Zuko splits up to confront Ozai himself! Where we are in the show right now, it really does feel like Azula is Aang’s primary antagonist whereas Ozai is Zuko’s primary antagonist.
By the way, from here on out, no confirming or denying my theories either way, okay? Let it unfold naturally, and let me figure things out on my own. I mean, where’s the fun in just giving me the answers?
And also, some of you could be a little nicer with your criticisms. I had to block someone last time I posted and I don’t want to do that anymore. It’s fine to disagree with me, it’s fine to explain why you disagree with me. Hell, most of you do! I don’t mind that, I like that we all have different views of things even if I don’t agree. It makes things interesting! But don’t talk down to me, don’t use belittling language, don’t be disrespectful. Whenever I don’t like something about ATLA (or like something about NATLA) some of you seem to take it as a personal insult or something.
Just be polite, that’s all I ask.
Okay, I’ll see you same time next week probably!

Hello! Here we are again, back for another ATLA commentary.
Before we get started I do want to point out that I’m numbering and labeling episodes according to how they appear on Netflix. Episode 12, as I understand it, is actually two episodes. However, since they’re presented as one thing here, that’s how I’m watching it.
Brief update on other projects: I thought I’d try watching the first Harry Potter movie, but realized it’s two and a half hours long. That’s, at the bare minimum, five hours of commentary writing. So… yeah, we’re gonna hold off on that lol I’m also considering watching a superhero/comic book show called The Boys, because I accidentally caught part of a trailer for it that my girlfriend was watching and it looks very interesting. I’ll be doing the new Game of Thrones commentary next, not sure when exactly.
Okay, let’s go!
Episode 12- The Secret of the Fire Nation

1. Well that’s a heck of a title! I hope we learn something juicy!

It’s nice to see Aang and Katara bending for fun, thought I’m surprised Aang is so willing to encase himself in a block of ice. You’d think he’d have some trauma from that lol But also, I love Katara’s hair when she lets it down.
Yeah… I’m kind of surprised Aang is taking Appa’s loss as well as he is, considering how he reacted last episode. Since Sokka is talking about walking to Ba Sing Se, I take it they’re not going to be spending time looking for him? But then, didn’t the sandbenders say they sold him to a merchant from Ba Sing Se? Maybe he’s there, and Aang’s banking on that hope.

1. I know I keep applying real-world logic to a cartoon show, but wouldn’t Ba Sing Se get awfully crowded if they’re constantly taking in refugees from the rest of the Earth Kingdom? Iroh put the city under siege for almost two years. What if the Fire Nation does that again? More mouths to feed makes starvation quicker!

Iroh and Zuko are refugees. I still can’t get over that irony lol Hey, it’s Jet! My goodness, he’s onscreen for less than ten seconds and he’s already planning a robbery. He and Zuko are going to get along just fine, aren’t they?
The cabbage merchant! Always a delight to see him and his cabbages! Also hilarious that a bunch of people are impersonating Aang (thought it probably would be less hilarious if any of them met Azula). If passports are necessary, how did Zuko and Iroh get tickets? Also, good on Toph for taking advantage of her privilege lol
Hey! I think that’s Suki! Her eyes are drawn really distinctively and her voice sounds familiar! Two seconds after pressing play: it is Suki! Don’t you just love my long winning streak of figuring things out right before they let us know? Lol

1. Glad to see ATLA Suki appreciates Sokka’s muscles just as much as NATLA Suki lol

Someone took the pregnant family’s tickets and belongings. Is that how Zuko and Iroh got their tickets? Zuko’s robbed families before, so I wouldn’t put it past him.
Well damn, Suki got her armor and makeup on real quick, didn’t she? Hm… Sokka’s worried about her. I think Suki’s going to interpret that as him being sexist again but he’s probably traumatized from losing Yue. He’s been through way too much to still be sexist. If he still had a misogynistic bone in his body, Toph would have beaten it out of him by now.

1. Well the Serpent’s Pass looks terrifying. Also, this pregnant lady took one look at some scratched graffiti saying “Abandon Hope” and immediately started crying, saying “How can we abandon hope? It’s all we have!” Like… come on, lady lol Just because you see graffiti telling you to do something doesn’t mean you have to, otherwise I would have called quite a few people for a good time by now.

Hope is a distraction, huh? I guess I can see the logic of that from a practical application perspective. But it’s kind of a depressing philosophy for a monk to have.
Holy shit! Nope, I would not be walking along a cliff path that narrow! I will build a rowboat and paddle my way to Ba Sing Se.
Toph is really carrying the team (and some refugees too) this episode.

1. There’s a fine line between being protective and being smothering and Sokka has hopped, jumped, and skipped right over it.

Zuko’s not wearing his blue spirit mask. Not that he needs it, he and Jet work together like cogs in a machine. Ironic lol
Ow! Geez, that rejected hug hurt me lol Katara’s right though. Bottling up emotions just makes them worse in the long run. You have to allow yourself to feel bad sometimes. Granted, you can’t fly off the handle like he did last episode, but that’s a reaction. You can control your reactions, but you can’t control your feelings.
“It’s a beautiful moon.” “Yeah, it really is.” Okay, I know Sokka said last episode that Yue is the moon, but he was tripping on peyote. Does he actually believe that Yue is the moon now? Is Yue the moon now? I interpreted her death as he sacrificing herself to bring the moon spirit back to life, not to become the new moon spirit.
“Who is this guy? Is he taller than me?” Dude, we were having a moment. Damn it, just kiss her! Well actually, the moon’s right there so if Yue really did turn into the new moon spirit, it might be a tad awkward to kiss in front of her. But what’s he gonna do, only ever show intimacy during the day?

1. Um… I’m probably reading too much into this Smellerbee scene with Iroh and Longshot and I’m almost hesitant to say what I’m thinking because I can just imagine the backlash I could get for voicing it. And it’s not like ATLA has had great LGBTQ representation up to this point, so… Yeah, I’m probably just seeing things that aren’t there.

You know, I’ve never really cared a lot about Jet as a character (in fact, I’m kind of surprised to see him again. I figured he’d be a one-off character) but I am really enjoying his scenes with Zuko and Iroh. They have so much in common, which is probably the point of this whole juxtaposition. If he only knew who they really were lol
Of course Iroh believes in second chances. He’s the best. And also, he’s living proof that some people deserve a second chance.

1. Uh… Katara parting the sea while leading refugees to safety invokes a certain comparison, doesn’t it? But can I just say that I love how her solution to crossing the gap is to literally walk through the ocean instead of making a raft out of ice and floating across. She just never misses an opportunity to flex on everyone, does she? Lol

Momo continuing his pattern of trying to kill every small animal he sees is something I’ve come to treasure.
Is that the unagi?! I think that’s what it’s called/spelled but I haven’t seen that episode in a while. It would be fitting if Suki and the sea serpent both share the same episodes lol No that’s not the unagi. It’s a different color. Um… what exactly was Sokka planning to do if the sea serpent actually accepted his offer and ate Momo? Considering how he reacted to losing Appa, I don’t think Aang would be too happy with him.
Oh, now she’s making an ice bridge. Not as much of a flex as maintaining an air bubble so they plumb the depths but it is faster. Oh, Toph can’t see on ice. And she can’t swim? An earthbender not being able to swim feels like a stereotype for some reason, even though I have absolutely no reason to think that lol
“You can go ahead and let me drown now.” That’s gonna be a favorite joke of mine, I just know it lol And I’m pretty sure this is probably a jumping point for a Sokka/Toph ship. What does the community call that? Soph? Tokka? (How old is Toph, anyway? Probably Aang’s age, right? That’s… probably not an appropriate ship then)

1. Why does Ba Sing Se’s wall remind me of The Wall from Game of Thrones? Obviously not made of ice though lol

Okay, time for ATLA’s viewers to experience the miracle of childbirth!

1. Like I said earlier, ATLA isn’t heavy on the LGBTQ representation, but I swear I’m picking up on some tension and chemistry between Jet and Zuko (Juko? Jeko? Zet?). And now half of Jet’s little group is an LGBTQ allegory for me lol Even the dialogue between Jet and Zuko in this scene is slightly suggestive.

So… can Katara waterbend the baby out or…
Baby Hope, eh? Probably not a super common name in this world.
Oh? Was that Aang’s way of telling Katara he loves her without actually saying it? Aww. And hey, he’s heading off on his own to search for Appa. Which… honestly kind of feels like he should have been doing that this whole time lol
Yes! Get some, Sokka! Wait, nevermind. I fucking hate that line. Ugh No! I’m not gonna be a bitter old lady on this watch-through! They’re kissing and it’s very sweet and I love that for them!
Um… there’s a giant metal dildo on the way to penetrate Ba Sing Se! Lol but seriously, how technologically advanced is the Fire Nation? A giant mobile drill of that scale would be a marvel of engineering even by our modern standards.

1. Well hey, there’s the title card letting me know when the next episode starts.

Woah, the way the drill moves is so cool! I’m legitimately wondering if such a thing would actually be possible in our world with our physics. I don’t know why we would want to, but still. And of course Azula’s leading this attack. She gets all the best opportunities. And she’s smart too! The war minister guy is dismissive of the earthbenders, believing his drill to be impervious to earthbending attacks. You can practically smell the hubris. But Azula leaves nothing to chance and she sends her girls out to neutralize any potential threat.
And this is why we love Azula. She’s not just a scary villain, she’s a competent villain.

1. And the Earth Kingdom general shares the War Minister’s hubris. Why are the people in charge always the worst people to be in charge? Also, I love that Toph is the one to point out that Iroh broke through the wall.

So the Earth Kingdom’s elite Terra Team force were taken out by two teenage nonbenders from the Fire Nation in about twenty seconds. How have they lasted this long? Lol (I say two, but let’s be honest. Ty Lee’s doing the heavy lifting here)
Yes! I love that they acknowledge Sokka as the “Idea Guy”!
Iroh has got rizz for days lol I’m kind of surprised he only ever had one son. Jet wants to recruit Zuko. I’m totally down for that! They’re such an interesting pair!

1. I really love that Katara, whose probably the best waterbender in the world at this point, respects Ty Lee enough to recognize how dangerous she is. And Sokka had an idea! They’re going to take down the drill from the inside. Because how the hell else are they going to stop something that big?

Again with the underestimation! I swear Azula’s the only competent person in the entire Fire Nation military since Iroh retired.
Okay, engineer Sokka figured it out. It’s all a little too easy, isn’t it?

1. Ah shit, Jet just realized the truth, because Iroh used firebending to heat up his tea lol I think he’s getting a little too relaxed.

Okay, just the fact that they slice through metal with water at all is pretty impressive. And the drill has reached the wall, and Azula still doesn’t look impressed.
Oh yeah, I guess this is a pretty high stakes battle for them, huh? If they lose Ba Sing Se, they basically lose the entire Earth Kingdom, right? Omashu’s already fallen, the smaller villages and whatnot have no real defense. Ba Sing Se is the last big puzzle piece to world domination (aside from the water tribes, but they’re so isolated they’re not really a threat).
I love that Toph’s nickname for Aang is Twinkle Toes. Also I laughed at the War Minister’s face when he was side-eyeing Azula just then. +That’s the face of a man who’s about to be punished!

1. lol Sokka’s the only one with more rizz than Iroh! Maybe a legitimate battle strategy here would be to woo Ty Lee into switching sides? Aside from Azula she seems to be the most dangerous one. No offense to Mai, but she is kind of the odd woman out here.

Oh please let me get Aang and Azula 1v1! I really badly want to see how he fares against her without everyone else helping him. He’ll probably have to use the Avatar State to defeat her.
Ty Lee dives into the slurry after Katara and Sokka while Mai refuses. Yeah, Mai is the weak link here in Ozai’s Angels (I love that name, by the way).

1. Did Aang seriously think the general was going to hear him from that high up? Lol Toph’s helping Katara bend the slurry (how convenient that it’s both water and earth!). Ty Lee’s still trapped in it and the drill is about to blow. If I hadn’t learned my lesson on the last post, I’d probably be worried she might die in the explosion. But this is a kid’s show, she’ll be fine.

Here we go! Aang vs Azula! Her fighting style is so elegant. Every move she makes feels on purpose, if that makes sense. Like, whenever Aang fought Zuko, Zhao, or NPC firebenders their style is a little more chaotic and fearsome and rawr, you know? But Azula’s totally calm. Everything she’s doing feels calculated, and it’s working! If she hadn’t had to dodge that boulder after blasting Aang back she might have been able to deliver a finishing blow!
She beat him! He’s unconscious! Okay, well not anymore lol See… that right there was hubris (actually, it was kid’s show writing but whatever)! He was out for like fifteen seconds. She should have roasted him where he lay instead of picking him up and gloating.
Another fight with Azula ends in a draw with neither one beating the other! I’m starting to get a little peeved with all this edging lol but that was great! Azula is an absolute beast!

1. Okay, the way Aang hammered that rock spike into the drill was pretty epic. Mai’s “We lost” (and thank you for your contribution to the fight, Mai lol) is interesting. It’s true, they did lose. Not in the combat sense, Aang couldn’t beat Azula, but he didn’t have to. He just had to hold her off. Maybe that’s kind of a metaphor for the Fire Nation military in general. It’s very powerful, but it’s also marred by incompetence and weaknesses. Many of its generals are prideful and blind to their own weaknesses, or just outright incompetent. Look at this fight: even Mai just kind of gave up halfway through. If Ty Lee wasn’t trapped in the slurry, she might very well have been able to beat Katara, Sokka, and Toph, especially since they don’t Appa this time to bail them out. And if Mai had been with her, she might have been to break Katara’s concentration with a thrown weapon, thus freeing Ty Lee from the slurry.

I wondered how the Earth Kingdom lasted so long and maybe that’s just it. They can’t beat the Fire Nation, but they don’t have to. They just have to hold them off and the Fire Nation’s own shortcomings will end up beating themselves. It’s a hundred year stalemate.

1. Looks like Jet’s going to be causing a problem for Iroh and Zuko. I wonder if his relationship with them is what’s going to finally let him realize that not all Fire Nation people are inherently evil?

Hey, that’s Baby Hope! And Iroh gets to fawn over her too and I love that for him. You know, if Aang defeats the Fire Nation in a timely manner, Hope might actually get to grow up in a world at peace. Well, kind of. I’m sure there’s going to be massive issues with racism from generations of propaganda painting the other side as inhuman, huge demands for reparations, not to mention the territories the Fire Nation currently occupies. It’s been so long that there must be at least two generations of Fire Nation citizens who were born in and grew up in the Earth Kingdom, and I’m sure there’s been interbreeding with the Earth Kingdom people, because that’s what always happens with colonizers. Once they become established, genocide is pretty much the only way to get rid of them, and I doubt the Avatar is going to allow that.
So Hope’s probably going to grow up in pretty interesting times!
Um… is Ba Sing Se a city or is it a little walled country? Cuz all I see are farms and plains!
Katara, I love you, but you’re wrong. Team Avatar is going to catch on because it’s awesome, and that’s that.
Episode 13- City of Walls and Secrets

1. Oh, there’s an inner wall. So Ba Sing Se is kind of like the country in Attack on Titan! Oh yeah, in all of the excitement I almost forgot about Appa. Seriously, how many episodes has he been missing now? Damn, now that’s a city!

Yeah… something’s up with Joo Dee.
Walls inside that help maintain order? You mean walls that protect the rich and elite from the dirty poors? Lol Oh, Katara just confirmed it. They pen up all the poor people into a walled ghetto.

1. lol when Iroh’s talking about someone bringing home a lady friend, does he mean himself? Or Zuko? It is really interesting how their views of Ba Sing Se differ though. Iroh’s talking about getting a home, socializing, building a life, and he’s even found them jobs! Zuko sees the same situation as a prison.

Well, I’m glad Jet’s turning over a new leaf by letting the authorities handle things. Too bad I don’t trust the authorities to be any better.
Toph knows what’s up. Joo Dee is purposefully brushing Sokka off and distracting the group. I’m not sure why at the moment, but something is clearly up.

1. Of course they’re going to work in a tea shop! Lol Zuko’s right btw, all tea is hot leaf juice. Well, except for the teas that are hot root juice.

The cultural authority of Ba Sing Se, who guard their traditions and are called the Dai Li. Yeah… maybe it’s my conservative religious upbringing but when I hear about people “guarding their traditions” I immediately think of abuse, propaganda, and oppression. Generally people who are obsessed with traditions tend to be conservatives, who by their very nature cannot allow progress or improvement.
Someone important is trying to keep them under constant surveillance and prevent them from seeing the Earth King. In NATLA, there were spies in Omashu. Since Ba Sing Se is much bigger and more important, I imagine it’s riddled with Fire Nation spies as well, and somebody high ranking might be a traitor.

1. Joo Dee is kind of scary lol and clearly the citizens are terrified of her. But what’s interesting to me is that she’s preventing them from giving information about Appa, which suggests that whoever is stopping them from seeing the Earth King also has Appa. But why? What would be the point of keeping Aang away from Appa? Is it to restrict his mobility and make him easier to capture?

So people aren’t allowed to talk about the war, and the Dai Li seem to be responsible. But why? If everyone knows there’s a war going on anyway, why keep people from talking about it?
It’s lucky that Iroh borrowed his neighbor’s spark rocks, but why would he refrain from firebending in what he assumes is privacy? Unless he knows he’s being watched.

1. Huh, is the king’s pet bear the first normal animal on the show? Lol I am digging this undercover plan though.

I love that this show lets its characters try on different looks from time to time, even if they are mostly the same outfits. Katara and Toph’s high society get-ups are gorgeous!
The lost boys- I mean, freedom fighters are turning on Peter Pa- I mean, Jet. The weird thing is… he’s right! They are firebenders! But his behavior still isn’t healthy!

1. Okay, let’s go! Jet’s hurling accusations and attacking them in public! And now Zuko’s fighting back with swords. It’s the duel of the dual-wielders! Honestly, this is probably good for Zuko. He needs to blow off some steam after everything he’s been through.

Well how about that? Security at the palace is actually competent and Toph can’t bluff her way in.
This Long Feng guy is cultural minister to the king, which means he’s probably the bad guy! And also we haven’t met any other high ranking government officials with names, so he’s currently the only option lol

1. Geez, Zuko straight up intended to decapitate Jet right there. If Jet were a little slower, he would have! Man, I hope they do this fight scene in NATLA.

Uh-oh, scary lady Joo Dee is the scared one now. But can I just say how much I like her facial expressions?
Yeah… can’t blame them for arresting Jet. He did look like a crazy person.
The Dai Li’s specific brand of earthbending is very cool! It almost doesn’t seem like bending at all, if that makes sense. The stones they use are like a part of their own body. And of course Long Feng is their leader.
Okay I get the king is just a puppet and Long Feng is the real rule of the country, but I still don’t understand why he doesn’t allow mention of the war in the city. I mean, it’s common knowledge! A significant portion of their population are literally refugees fleeing war! Who doesn’t know
Oh… is it the king? Does the king just not know there’s a war happening and Long Feng keeps it from him so he can stay in charge? I mean, that’s still a stretch but it would explain why he doesn’t want Team Avatar talking to the king.

1. Jet is being hypnotized. Also, I do want to point out that I have seen “There is no (whatever) in Ba Sing Se” many times in the wild lol it’s nice to see where it comes from!

Ah… Long Feng is holding Appa as leverage over Aang.
I didn’t think Joo Dee could be any scarier but here we are! This episode almost has horror movie vibes.
Concluding thoughts: This was a fantastic couple/throuple of episodes! I loved seeing Suki again, and I really enjoyed how the refugee subplot ties so perfectly in with Iroh and Zuko. The whole drill sequence was probably the best “action” the show has had thus far and that’s saying something. It’s also nice to have my suspicions that the Earth Kingdom has its own corruption problems and bad guys confirmed.
I have a new theory to replace my “Iroh’s going to die theory”. They’ve been showing us all season how Zuko isn’t really cut out for life on the run, whereas Iroh embraces it. I think they’re driving to a separation between Zuko and Iroh. He may not have died, but narratively speaking Zuko and Iroh have to part ways permanently or semi-permanently for his character to grow. Iroh has been propping him up and supporting him this whole time, now it’s time for Zuko to leave the nest and become his own person.
My new theory is that Iroh will enjoy his new life in Ba Sing Se so much that he elects to stay there permanently, whereas Zuko is too restless to do so. He can’t go back to the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom will not accept him, so his only choice is to join Team Avatar, where he will likely end up teaching Aang firebending.
And to expand further on a previous theory of mine, which was: Azula will kill or depose Ozai. I’ve accepted at this point that death is off the table. Kid’s show and all that. But I noticed something… lots of people were quick to say that Azula would never kill Ozai. But not one person has said she wouldn’t depose him in those refutations (unless I’m misremembering but I don’t think I am). Since you all know not to hint at things or spoil them, I think your eagerness to point out that she won’t kill Ozai is an attempt to mislead me into thinking the whole theory is wrong so I’ll be surprised when she ends up deposing (not killing) him. I mean, I could be wrong but I have a strong feeling that the final villain is going to be Fire Lord Azula, with Ozai in exile somewhere (that would be fitting! The man who banishes his own son ends up being banished himself!).
Maybe that will even be the conclusion of Zuko’s arc! While Aang goes off to save the world from Azula, Zuko splits up to confront Ozai himself! Where we are in the show right now, it really does feel like Azula is Aang’s primary antagonist whereas Ozai is Zuko’s primary antagonist.
By the way, from here on out, no confirming or denying my theories either way, okay? Let it unfold naturally, and let me figure things out on my own. I mean, where’s the fun in just giving me the answers?
And also, some of you could be a little nicer with your criticisms. I had to block someone last time I posted and I don’t want to do that anymore. It’s fine to disagree with me, it’s fine to explain why you disagree with me. Hell, most of you do! I don’t mind that, I like that we all have different views of things even if I don’t agree. It makes things interesting! But don’t talk down to me, don’t use belittling language, don’t be disrespectful. Whenever I don’t like something about ATLA (or like something about NATLA) some of you seem to take it as a personal insult or something.
Just be polite, that’s all I ask.
Okay, I’ll see you same time next week probably!

Location: United States of America Date of possible exposure: 05/03/24 Type of exposure: other Animal Species: wild mice My Vaccination status: unvaccinated Animal’s vaccination statues: unvaccinated
About a week ago, I had to kill two mice that were caught in a glue trap. I don’t want to get into too much detail, but I had to do it quickly which involved a rock to the head.
I was wearing gardening gloves at the time and I made sure not to touch the area of the rock that made contact to the mice or glue trap (the rich was about the size of an adult males hand, and weighed about 2 pounds). While this was going on, I thought I felt something on my toe, since I was wearing slides with no socks. I felt more like a sharp pain rather than a drop of liquid. Something you may occasionally get on your body, but nothing that warrants a huge reaction. Anyways, I look at my toe and I didn’t see anything on it at all. I suspect I suffer from ocd, so doing something like this, is enough to make me shower. And I did, but before that, I removed my gardening gloves and put them, along with a rag, in a bucket in my basement to be washed or thrown out later.
I took a shower and I stupidly forgot about the gloves. Well 2 days ago, Saturday morning, my mom used those same gloves to garden, and I told her that I wore them to kill the mice a week earlier and forgot to wash them, but at that point, she already had them on and was using them. She had the gloves on when she was entering and exiting the house, meaning my other family members would touch the same door knob. I’m scared that we might contract rabies because of this.
I haven’t even told them that I have fear of rabies. I wasn’t even bit by the mice, and I know that mice to typically give humans rabies, but I can’t shake the thought of it someone getting saliva on the glove, then somehow infecting us. I don’t even know if a doctor would vaccinate us since I didn’t make complete contact with the mice at all. I feel as though everything in our house is covered in the virus, and what’s scary is that you won’t even know something is up until you get symptoms up to 3 months later which by then, it’s too late.
Can I still get rabies if I wore gloves and didn’t make contact with mice after being exposed to them, but I felt something on my toe that turns out nothing was there? I live in Chicago specifically.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve returned from my trip to NYC, and I think I’ve finally gathered some of my thoughts about my stay at the legendary and notoriously haunted Chelsea Hotel. Apologies if this is a bit all over the place. Mostly just wanted to share my thoughts and hear others thoughts.
A little background info for you, I’ve always had a huge fascination with this building and its history so 5 years ago (while the building was still being remodeled) I dragged along some friends to to see the outside of the building. I will never forget the wave of emotion and energy that hit me as I turned the corner and first saw it. I started crying and just felt a great sense of contentment. The following months and even years I started having these bizarre dreams about the building, despite never having them before. Some were scary, some were just….weird. As this isn’t what this post is necessarily about, I’ll skip detailing those for now unless someone asks. Anyway, anytime I described that first encounter with The Chelsea, I would explain it as a sort of energy trade off. I’m not sure exactly what it would actually be called, but it always seemed like there was some sort of exchange of energy that day. Parts of me were terrified of the building because it felt very dark and heavy, there was another part of me that felt very protected and like it was balanced by the artistic and historical energy there as well. Point being, I ultimately decided that at some point, whenever the opportunity arose, I would spend a night there, no matter the cost. It seemed necessary in my head for whatever reason.
The hotel reopened a few years ago and I saw the cost and gave up at any chances of staying there anytime soon. A few months back, I was planning a trip to NYC for a different occasion and talked with a friend (who was equally interested in the hotel’s history) about the chances of us splitting the cost of a room at The Chelsea…long story short, it worked out.
And, before I get into these notes from my actual stay I would just like to state that after my last experience with the hotel, I was expecting some huge experience, and to be a little scared the whole time even. I haven’t dove into it much but there’s always been sort of connection with myself and the spiritual/supernatural. I am very impacted by the energy of places, and I’ve had a good amount of encounters with spirits in my life. All of this to say, there was no huge encounter. There was nothing visually that I saw. I even at times felt a lack of energy, but back to that later. Calling it lackluster wouldn’t be fair, but after years of building it up in my head, I felt…mostly fine. And sometimes it just happens like that.
So on to the things I noticed:

• I was in a 6th floor balcony room. The room itself felt sort of energetically empty, most of the time anyway. I didn’t feel overwhelmed by any specific emotion or energy, it just felt like a fancy hotel room. Which is nice. But not what I expected, given its history. As I mentioned earlier, the hotel has undergone significant renovations over the years. Walls torn down, lots of the inside of the building gutted and renovated to fit more of a luxury bohemian hotel of sorts. Which as a history buff always kills me a little, seeing the drastic changes in places over time. All of this renovation made me feel like maybe, the lack of energy in the rooms themselves came from the renovations causing the spirits or whatever is there to feel confused and lack a sense of place. Which leads me to the next thing….
  
• The hallways and the staircase. While my friend napped, I decided to take the steps from my floor to the rooftop. I really wanted to get a sense of the vibe of each floor and just take it all in. The walls of the the stairway are decorated with Chelsea Hotel related art, some of which I believe is from former and even current residents. So it was at the very least worth a gander. But something I noticed was how full the hall and staircase felt, despite being empty. I really felt more on my toes, and like at any moment I’d be approached by someone behind me. I wondered if the halls and staircase remaining mostly the same as it’s always been played a part in this. I think this is when I started to really get a feel for the energy of the hotel, the one I’ve heard and read so much. It was honestly a little overwhelming. And until typing this I hadn’t made this connection but now seems like the right time to mention one of the dreams I had involved me walking the halls of the hotel and for some reason everyone was sitting outside their rooms, lining the hall and stating at me, almost waiting for me to talk. At the time this seemed really confusing to me, but as I type this, it seems like the perfect description to what I actually felt.
  

We ended up testing out a spirit box which resulted in a few interesting interactions. A lot of activity, but much fewer clear words and phrases….
-One of the clearest things that was said was “skin color” (note: friend and I are white, if that is relevant). This was really interesting to me, but I haven’t been able to place this into a bigger picture.
-other words that I could make out (at the time) included: Hair-pick, My name is (?), Leap (multiple times, and I was wondering if this was connected to a woman who jumped to near death at the hotel), Be nice(?), Bailey , and Bitch leave (there was a spirit or two that seemed irritated with the contact, and others that seemed to want to talk, but we did take a break after that)
-at some point I heard my name so clearly through the box, my name is extremely uncommon so this freaked me out.
-at some point we poured some wine and whoever we were speaking to was insistently saying “drink”. I think they just wanted to be included in a way, so we made a toast to the former residents and the hotels history. This seemed to please the spirit(s)
-I revised some audio when I got home and found some more things we missed at the time…. stuff like “listen”, “believe”, etc.

• something very clearly said “blue/blew”, I heard this at time time and asked to confirm, which was followed by two more “blue/blew” (which I did not hear at the time)

-As a literature nerd I was curious if any of my favorite writers were around, obviously interacting with dead celebrities is way less common than the average person. However, for what it’s worth, when I was talking about writer Herbert Huncke something came through and said “I’m here” and “hello”, which I thought was sort of amazing regardless of who it was.
-The names “Anna” (or maybe Hannah) and a possible “Emma”, although I’m wondering if this was possibly just one woman with one of those names.
-Anytime I would try to talk to anyone about the Titanic survivors who stayed at the Hotel upon docking in NY, there seemed to be an agitated or even angry energy, so I tried to leave that be.
-there was definitely at least one child present, but I couldn’t make out anything specific
-towards the end of our final session in the room, there was a shift in energy that felt negative, which I can deal with, however this felt beyond that so I chose to end that there
Upon checking out I tried the spirit box briefly in the lobby and there was far less activity. I also checked it out at my other hotel later and there was virtually no activity.
I at some point ran to the hotels bathroom after checkout, which is in the basement. The energy down there was similar to what I felt with the dark energy at the end of that session, so I’m thinking this could be connected in some way. I also heard the door to the bathroom open but no one walked out, and no one walked in. This could be explained though, but worth mentioning.
And that’s basically it. I’m really curious to hear if anyone can make any sense of this, find connections maybe I haven’t, maybe have had their own experiences at the hotel…etc etc.
Sorry for such a long winded post.

Hi, I’ve been reading through some old posts after this forum came up when I googled “mother in law wants to suck my baby’s toes”. I’m kind of in disbelief that this is what I’m here googling in the middle of the night but here we are.
For context: my first baby was born 13 weeks ago. I lost a tonne of blood during an emergency c-section and was very close to developing sepsis. OH is an only child, so this is his parents’ first grandchild. My mum has dementia sadly and so hasn’t been able to be with me as I’d like, and as my relationship with MiL previously has been good, I was really happy to have her involved.
Things started to turn when she announced her and FiL had rented a house opposite us for 8 weeks around my due date (further context we have been staying in her holiday home whilst waiting for completion on our own place the last 6 months). I was in shock tbh but thought perhaps they just wanted to help out. I sent a gentle message to her to say how grateful we were that they wanted to help, but to flag that once baby was here we would need time alone with her etc. MiL said she agreed and just wanted to be on hand.
When I was in labour and transferred to hospital she came to get our dog. Great. First day back from hospital, in extreme pain and not having slept for 5 days, she turned up at 9.30pm to deliver the dog back saying she couldn’t sleep because he flaps his ears. This was very frightening and stressful and not the way we planned to introduce him to the baby. I feel it put us all at risk (he’s fine with her now, was just terrified and stressed that night).
OH delivered dog back next morning. Mil and FiL decide to come round later that day with the dog for a visit, she immediately puts her feet up asks me to get her a cup of tea and demands the baby (saying how much she looks like OH, not me). I am trying to keep dog under control and make tea, when she starts saying OH’s ex girlfriend’s mother would be an extended grandma to our baby (ex is not in my life and he barely sees her. We’ve been together 7 years). The entire time she was here she kept undermining what I’d been through - “oh you’ll be driving again in a week” etc.
Naturally I’m hugely upset after this visit, my blood pressure goes scary high and I’m almost readmitted to hospital. OH says no more visits that week, my brother and SiL come at the weekend to check us out and give some support (he’s a GP). Said no more stress or I’d be back in hospital.
Mil manages to tame her behaviour a bit after this and is much more respectful for the few weeks they were still around.
Anyway, fast forward to now and she has started spontaneously turning up to stay in “her house” as she has “things to do”… she constantly pushes at my boundaries around showing up with a cold sore, head cold, etc and although she accepts no holding, she makes it clear it’s because she doesn’t want to “set me off”. She constantly talks about wanting to suck my baby’s toes, she shoved her face into her stomach when I was changing her and grabbed her out of my arms/lap twice (second time I was very direct and said “give her back now”). She constantly says we should be feeding her solid foods and whenever we’re eating she says to our 12 week old daughter “want a bit of this?”. She constantly disagrees with medical guidance we quote to back up our choices and is behaving as if I’m mentally unwell as the reason she grudgingly doesn’t kiss her when she eg has an active cold sore (but insists on touching her hair / feet - I was unable to speak up when she did it, I was alone with her and hadn’t slept for 2 days when this happened).
She has told OH that I’m not taking care of myself properly and it’ll affect our baby’s wellbeing (she’s exclusively breastfed).
I get standing up to her when she breaks a boundary but what do I do when she teases around them? I said eg “no one is going to be sucking anyone’s toes around here” and she replied it was just a sweet joke (it was not). When I have handed baby to her she says things like “let’s get that silly mummy out of the way shall we” and walks off.. she says she’s joking if I raise it and makes out that it’s my anxiety?! It’s much worse when just her and I as she behaves herself better when OH is around.
We’re moving out of her holiday home soon, so won’t have to deal with unwelcome extended stays, but she makes me want to crawl out of my skin when she says those gross things to my beautiful precious baby and I’m not sure how to stand up to her to make it stop each time we see her in future.
HAAALP

Just finished Point Lookout and I couldn't help but compare it to Honest Hearts in several categories.
To start off, I have to say that I enjoyed Honest Hearts a lot more than most and enjoyed Point Lookout less than most so this might have some sort of bias towards HH.
Location/Setting: I think this is the BEST part of both DLCs. Honest Hearts was a breath of fresh air for me since the setting felt so different than from what I was used to in the Mojave (I'm not from the US so forgive me if the grand canyon/summer camp-ish aesthetic isn't all that special to Americans). Point Lookout was definitely very interesting as well as a sort of haunted swamp and a carnival was definitely an interesting place to explore compared to most DLCs in FO3. My verdict here is a TIE. (1-1)
NPCs: PL obviously had very limited NPCs but the way you interact with these NPCs is even more limited. HH had Joshua and even the companions had interesting backgrounds and conflicts (personally liked FC's dilemma). HH wins (1-2)
Enemies: While I enjoyed the whole reasoning why the White Legs use tommy guns, Point Lookout definitely has better enemies despite being unbalanced. I always felt like I had to be on my toes when traversing PL due to how the swamp people strike fear into me from their appearance alone. PL wins (2-2)
Quests: I think both lack compared to my favourite DLC so far (OWB) in terms of quests. While I like the outcomes of the HH main quest, the rest of the DLC feels pretty boring. PL also had disappointing side quests like the soil collection side quest and the Obadiah quest (to be honest I was so amazed at the start thinking how this could be a really scary DLC but it just fell short as it went on. I was expecting Obadiah to turn into a demonic creature RE style but oh well). However, PL's main quest feels a lot better and I was impressed with the passing out and hallucination sequence. As a bonus, I love the ferryman unmarked quest that feels perfect once you're about to leave Point Lookout got good. PL wins (3-2)
Goodies: I think HH is the easy answer here. PL did introduce a bunch of interesting weapons like the Backwater Rifle and my favourite, the Double Barrel Shotgun, but come on HH has the Survivalist's Rifle, Joshua's armor, the desert ranger armour, Light in Shining Darkness, +++. HH wins (3-3)
Explorability: My biggest gripe for both DLCs. I'm someone who likes exploring the entire map and all its locations. HH felt very short and empty, leaving a lot to be desired. I was shocked when I felt that way even more with PL. In HH, one of the best feelings in the blind playthrough is strumbling across a location and discovering something important there like Randall Clark's stories or even unique items. It wasn't a very explorable world but you felt like you would be rewarded if you spent enough time going around. In PL, I discovered all locations and I barely found anything useful. Oh there is a trapper basement that had caged creatures? Cool but nah no special loot for you. Oh you found a holotape of some guy's voice that will open the bank for you? Guess what the contents are common loot. Oh you did the soil research? Lmao after doing all of that, here are some items you already have hundreds of. There was little to no point in exploring and the only saving grace was the Chinese spy subquest. I really hated how I spent extra time going around for nothing whereas in HH at least I got the Survivalist's Rifle and found out about the father in the caves and the Vault 21 residents. Both needed so much more but HH wins it for me (3-4)
Bonus category - Potential: Both DLCs at their current state are very flawed and feel incomplete. But which could be better if we improved both of them? In HH for example, I think that it's weaker as a whole even if they improved the Daniel path and diversified quests instead of mostly fetch quests. The plot relies too much on the few NPCs so unless they added more branches to the main quest, I think HH will forever be "the Joshua Graham DLC" or the "good starting items DLC". PL on the other hand had so much promise. A few better quests (making the Blackhall quest much scariesupernatural), possibly adding in more NPCs (like what about a Chinese ghoul that is also trying to find out about Agent Jiang), more weapons (like cursed weapon from Obadiah vs a blessed weapon from the girl that would deal more damage to humans/abominations) and adding more depth to the main story (so we both get to know more about both of them and let us choose better instead of "Desmond is a prick" and "the brain betrays you") and Point Lookout could be a much better DLC. PL wins here (4-4)
The thing is, I'm pretty sure my comparison isn't the best as I have only played both once so I really would like to know your thoughts on these two DLCs. As lacking as they are, both are very memorable and left me wanting more. Please comment below what you think!
(Also from what I heard, the FO4 Point Lookout mod added some new things, can anyone comment their thoughts and if they recommend that mod?)

Basically the title. I've never ever had a friend who would come to my aid me when I'm struggling or listen to me when I need to talk about my struggles. I do my best to make my struggles my problem alone so that im not putting my weight on others or causing them to feel reponsible for my well-being and most of the friends I've had or currently have don't care to put in much effort to really get to know me beyond a surface level. It's partially my own fault for keeping a tight lock on anything that is really vulnerable or scary to share but there's still little questioning or interest in me as a living person from them. I'm incredibly happy to have found one of the first friendships i can say i feel completely safe and secure with. I tell them about my problems without judgement and Everytime i ask for help they've given it the best they can and i have been able to help them in turn. I just wanted to share a little hope for others who don't have many friends who care about them enough to listen and Help There's amazing helpful people out there still and you will eventually cross paths. Don't be afraid to dip your toes in the waves and start trying to build a better real honest friendship. I wish everyone on here good luck on their journey to heal.

So I am currently making my first VR Game but I need some advice from people who actually play it more than I do.
So my game has a lot of stress moments, really dark environment and monsters that can come out of everywhere... But I am wondering if my monsters should be detailed or not ! I don't want to make people quit because it is too scary.. Or am I wrong ?
Do you like games that puts you on your toes ? Games that are challenging but scary at the same time ? Maybe even some jumpscares ? But the question remains, are detailed models of monsters just too much for the VR Community ?

This week I wrote an autobiographical account of my history with sleep paralysis, RLS, and hypnagogic hallucinations.
I was not sure where to share it. I added it and deleted it from a few subs. The only place it ended up was the creative writing sub, though.
And this appears to be the right spot! There are several themes but the hypnagogia is the focus. So it's quite long and probably no one reads it and that's fine. I just wanted to find somewhere to put it in case my experience could benefit someone.
⚠️ ⚠️ WARNING first part is scary and a bit gory... ⚠️ ⚠️

Childhood

The first time that I encountered sleep paralysis was when I was nine or ten. I woke up screaming, my mind gripped with the sensation of searing pain radiating from my left big toe. Though my mouth wasn't moving, I could hear my own blood-curdling cries, echoing through the darkness. An eerie orange glow spilled into the room, illuminating a sinister cauldron at the base of my bed, around which stood three squat witches. Their dark, smoky faces shifted and morphed constantly, eyes glowing red like embers recessed deeply into the shadows of their crawling flesh, jagged teeth gnashing along with their discordant laughter as roaches crawled from their mouths and disappeared into their black straw hair.
Each witch held their own dainty knife and fork, shaking along with their trembling bony hands, and one was slicing expertly down the center of my big toe with the impossibly sharp blade of their knife. I struggled to move my arms and legs, feeling as though I had freedom of movement, but my physical body remained paralyzed. Unfathomable terror washed over me as I realized that I couldn't scream for help; my mom wouldn't hear me, and I was powerless to stop these witches from feasting on my toes.
I lay there, unable to break free from the oppressive paralysis, forced to endure the excruciating pain as my toes were sliced off and consumed. The air buzzed with the witches' terrifying, joyous laughter, as if they delighted in my agony more than the taste of my flesh. Eventually, my body in a full state of terror jarred itself awake, heart beating more wildly than I had ever experienced, my lungs struggling to gasp more than the tiniest breath. After perhaps a full minute of gathering myself, I drew a deep breath and screamed into the night.
My mother came, of course, but was unable to understand the depth and terror of my experience. Her own reality did not include anything close; for her, it was an exaggeration born of childhood fear, and she became exasperated after a time with my refusal to admit that it was a dream, despite being an extremely caring parent.
The witches appeared to me several times between the ages of 10 and 15, their ghastly faces returning to torment me with each episode of sleep paralysis. Every time, I would be trapped in that terrifying limbo, my body frozen while my mind drowned itself in screams of agony and horror. I knew that they would feast on my toes, the slicing of their knives relentless, inexorable. They would smack their lips and toast each other with my blood-covered flesh as I watched.
During those years, restless legs syndrome (RLS) also began to plague my nights. As soon as I began to drift off to sleep, a discomfort would arise in my legs, like there was a swarm of fat round beetles exploring, searching for an exit. A quick kick would settle it down, but it would rise again in a cycle of building tension, acutely uncomfortable climax, and brief relief of a second or two would follow before it began again. My mother, again meaning well but busy and unfamiliar with RLS, told me it was leg cramps and made me eat more banannas. This didn't help.
It became an increasing problem, stealing precious sleep that my young body needed to thrive. The frustration of RLS merged with the terror of a potential visit from the witches. Without medication, I would lose entire nights to the relentless discomfort.
By the age of 15, the sleep paralysis episodes had occurred at least 10 times, each leaving me with the gut-wrenching memory of being eaten alive that I would carry all the next day in my gut like a sack of bricks. As I lay sleeping, every single night, I wondered if they would visit, and braced myself for an encounter.

Early adulthood:

I can't remember how many times the witches visited before I finally stopped panicking. It was after countless God awful nights when I finally accepted that no matter how terrifying or painful the ordeal felt, I would be whole once it was over. I had survived the agony a hundred times before and could endure it again. One night, when the eerie glow of the cauldron illuminated their shifting faces, I felt a calm settle over me. I saw the witches, but for the first time, I wasn't afraid.
They noticed my defiance, their laughter fading into an uneasy silence. Without fanfare, they stood up, collected their cauldron, and retreated into the darkness of my room. Though I still saw them occasionally at the foot of my bed, they became more present than threatening. Sometimes, at the start of an episode, they'd appear briefly before disappearing altogether. They had become inconsequential, and I couldn't even be sure if they were there half the time.
In my early 20s, I discovered that I could almost guarantee a bout of sleep paralysis simply by sleeping during the day. At first, nothing particularly unusual happened, but the paralysis always returned whenever I dozed off, particularly between the hours of 11am and 2pm. I was often sleeping during the day because by then, the restless legs syndrome (RLS) had grown so severe that many nights passed without sleep at all. My body felt like it was full of angry snakes now instead of beetles, desperate to escape. The sensation soon crept upward from my legs to my arms. The cycles of build up, climax, and agonizly brief relief increased in frequency and magnitude. I would often resort to sitting in the shower, flipping the water from icy cold to scalding hot all night, simply to keep myself alert enough to avoid the twitching and spasming until the blessed relief of dawn arrived.
With the daytime paralysis came a variety of hallucinations. Sometimes the witches stood at the foot of my bed, other times they'd disappear, leaving behind benign apparitions like tickling gnomes. There was nothing threatening about these visions, and I began to find a strange sense of comfort in them. I would relax into a dark place where I felt my own energy burning like a sun, present but without physical form. In this state, I felt euphoric, fully aware yet separate from myself. I started taking naps during the day and eagerly anticipated this odd experience.
Yet at night, my sleep remained troubled as RLS tormented me. Eventually, I began taking ropinirole to manage the symptoms, and it brought much-needed relief, helping me reclaim my nights and giving me several years of mostly not worrying about RLS unless I forgot to take my medicine, or the odd night where it bothered me but was still less severe.

New experiences:

I spent several years relishing those euphoric moments of peace, where I could feel the pure energy of being alive without a personal history or identity. In those moments, everything else faded away, and all that remained was a brilliant, infinite energy. My waking life was absorbed by study of comtemporary and historical teachings of non-duality, and with my family and progressing my career as a software developer. I was absorbing Eckhart Tolle and Gautama, Meister Eckhart and Seuhn Sang and integrating their teachings into my daily life. The feeling inside of me that reality ultimately made no sense had found an expression, and I dug in every waking moment for a clue as to the true nature of experience. Given this context, I especially looked forward to and found solace in the experience of being impersonal, boundless energy.
In my late 20s, I also experienced a new type of sleep paralysis hallucination. One day it began that there were no visions or hallucinations; instead, I simply lay in a state of paralysis, aware of the room as a darkened and monochrome version of itself. I entertained myself by trying to move my arms and legs against the paralysis, and developed the idea that I had two bodies; my physical body lay on the bed, while my energetic body struggled and flailed. It was like my energy body could move separately, creating a phantom limb sensation. I felt my energy arms and legs extend out, yet my physical body lay still. As my energy body reached further from my physical self, it would snap back as if held by a rubber band.
Intrigued, I began experimenting with this phenomenon, managing to build enough momentum to "pop" out of my body one afternoon. Suddenly, I found myself looking down at my own sleeping form, resting on my back and breathing gently beside my wife, who was playing a game (probably Candy Crush) on her phone in the bed. It was surreal, and I wasn't sure whether I was hallucinating or truly perceiving my own body from a different perspective. Regardless, it was a revelation, and I felt a new sense of exploration as I gazed down at myself.
That first time, I found myself drifting through the house, checking on my two young stepdaughters as they slept. I had recently married, and it was a quiet weekend afternoon with everyone napping peacefully. Once satisfied, I ventured outside, where I took to the sky and flew around the neighborhood, spying on my neighbors. Though it felt like I was limited in speed, I seemingly had no constraints on the continuity of this hallucination. Everything appeared as a perfect physical representation of Earth, and I could travel without interruption.
The landscape was strikingly accurate, but it appeared in monochrome hues — grays, blacks, and whites — with no bright colors. Letters and numbers were unreadable, reduced to blurred nonsense. Despite these distortions, the sensation of soaring above the rolling hills and rooftops was pure euphoria. I sped along at hundreds of miles per hour, basking in the freedom of movement, and immersed in the stunning view that stretched out below me. There did seem to be some sort of very generous limit to how far I could travel, but I thoroughly explored within the boundaries for hundreds of miles around my home.
Over the years into my early 30s, I tried to pursue this opportunity of flight and exploration every chance I could. But during that time, my restless legs syndrome also became more relentless. In the past, no matter how agonizing the night had been, dawn would bring relief like a cold bath washing over me. I would sit outside and watch the sunrise, and the sensation of snakes slithering through my body would finally calm down, perhaps due to circadian rhythms and dopamine regulation. The cycles now began to climax in totally involuntary movement, spasms that caused me to tense my whole body and draw in a sharp breath every time. It would be 5 seconds of rapid buildup, spasm, a second or two of relief, repeat.
Eventually, even the dawn failed to provide respite, and I struggled during night or day whenever I relaxed too long or became even a bit drowsy. Napping became impossible, depriving me of the euphoric dreams I had learned to look forward to. I switched from ropinirole to pramipexole, hoping for relief. The medication helped me sleep five or six hours a night on good nights, but I still missed one or two nights of sleep entirely each week and rarely could nap during the day, because I took the medicine only a couple hours before bed.
Even though my restless legs syndrome worsened, one out of every ten times, I'd still manage to avoid twitching and drift into that state of peaceful paralysis during the day when I dozed off involuntarily. I gradually lost interest in pursuing out-of-body travel and instead sought every time the burning energy of the sun inside of me — the sensation of being infinitely powerful and formless simultaneously. I would retreat into this boundless feeling whenever I had the opportunity.
During these rare occasions when I could sleep during the day, I stumbled across a third type of experience. It felt like I was being sucked into space at impossible speeds, zooming past the planets of our solar system and beyond until I reached a darker patch of space. This spot seemed like a vast, corrugated sewer pipe that swallowed me whole. I rocketed through the universe, traveling at what could only be the speed of light. Eventually, I would break into the atmosphere of some unknown world, drifting down to its surface sometimes, others crashing painfully into terrain. Sometimes, I would hear a loud sound like an explosion in mid travel, and suddenly aterialize on another distant world without any sort of entrace.
These journeys were exhilarating, and each new landscape presented a mystery, revealing worlds unlike anything I'd ever seen.

The Traveling Years:

One of the first journeys I had involved zipping through space before drifting down through a hole in the top of a greenhouse. The world was painted in shades of orange and brown, its dirt swirling in powerful winds like clay cyclones. The greenhouse itself was dirty and grimy, almost opaque with crusted dirt, and filled with dense green plants — ivy and other dark green foliage that covered every inch inside. Outside, the orange sky churned with the swirling clay, making visibility nearly impossible.
I made my way down a ladder and emerged outside, where I found a man and a boy standing beside a white pinto horse. They both wore hardened leather over rough potato sack-like clothing, their long hair dotted with bone jewelry, their noses and eyebrows profusely pierced with other fragments of bone adorned with feathers. The man seemed to be instructing the boy on something to do with the horse. I approached them cautiously, fully aware of my lucid dreaming state and retaining all my memories, reasoning, and thoughts. Everything about the scene was vivid, from the clay dust swirling around to the squinting struggle to see in the wind.
Unlike the man and the boy, I had no long hair, no mouth covering, and no leather visor shielding my face from the swirling clay-dust. As I tried to speak, it seemed like they couldn’t hear me, and I wondered if I might be invisible to them. Unconcerned, I reached out to pat the horse on its nose, but before I could make contact, the man swiftly drew a long knife from his belt and stabbed me. He struck again, and the intense pain and feeling of my own scalding hot blood streaming down my pants legs snapped me awake.
Not long after my experience in the greenhouse, I found myself learning more about the worlds I could explore, though the opportunities remained rare. One day, I was transported to a beautiful blue tropical world, crashing into the dunes of a pristine white beach. There, I encountered three women, each towering over me at seven or eight feet tall. Their long black hair framed their pale faces, with blood-red lips striking against their alabaster skin. But what stood out most were their fingernails — long and crimson, curling back upon themselves dozens of times like spiraling ribbons. They were two or three feet in length and added a surreal menace to their presence.
They asked me my name and the name of my father, along with other odd questions, and seemed absolutely intriqued with me. There was a certain sort of heavy molasses quality to their voices that was more than sound and impossible to describe. It had the effect of making me feel drowsy and stupid and slow to move.
As I stood there, they began touching me with their nails, tracing them across my body in elaborate, almost ritualistic patterns. I felt my energy drain with every stroke, a profound exhaustion seeping into my core. The sensation was so intense that I woke up feeling completely drained, my limbs heavy and my spirit sapped.
Another time, I appeared without explanation after my space travel in a cavern brimming with glowing fungi and luminescent crystals. I wasn't myself in this world but instead had taken the place of someone else. My father stood beside me, guiding me through the luminous landscape. He taught me how to identify the bizarre and fascinating flora surrounding us — lessons that etched themselves into my mind and last to this day despite the surreal, made-up nature of this world. The glowing crystals and fungi cast eerie shadows across the cavern walls as my father explained the properties and uses of each.
In real life, these experiences would last for about five to eight minutes, but in the dream realm, the passage of time was different. What seemed like mere minutes could stretch into hours or even days, and in rare cases, the dreams spanned much longer.

RLS becomes terrible:

I had a new busy career, an infant daughter, two active growing stepdaughters, and a wife with a hectic job, and I struggled hard through the years between 35 and 39. Each night was pure torture, as restless leg syndrome robbed me of sleep. Days of sleep deprivation left me barely functioning, often teetering on the edge of collapse while the disease gnawed away. The unrelenting discomfort made it impossible to fall asleep, even as my body craved rest. I had no choice but to continue, as I had yet to find a doctor that knew how to move past the ropinirole and pramipexole stage of treatment, and these medicines had almost entirely ceased to be effective for me. My love for my family drove me to conceal the intense effort that day to day living had become. I managed to keep up with my career by farming a prescription for Adderall. I don't have ADHD, so it had the effect on me of methamphetamine and allowed me to push through the God awful existence that life had become.
The toll became overwhelming. I couldn't escape the agony, even after days of desperate attempts to sleep. More than once, I ended up in the emergency room after going four or five nights without sleep. For some people, this will seem like an exaggeration; I assure you, it is not. I would be nonsensical, having conversations with people tha weren't in the room, drifting in and out of intense 1 second dreams before snapping awake with painful spasms. At the hospital, they would give me percocet, and the painkillers provided brief reprieve from RLS for some reason, allowing me one solid night’s sleep, but the relentless cycle quickly resumed, leaving me struggling once again.
Eventually, I found a neurologist who prescribed Neupro patches that provided temporary relief. For a few months, I managed to sleep more consistently, but the patches quickly lost their effectiveness. It wasn't until I added methadone to the treatment that I finally found more lasting relief.
During those difficult years, I immersed myself in non-dual philosophy. In that crucible of suffering, my conviction solidified: my true nature was more aligned with the energy hallucinations I experienced than with a body made of skin, bone, and brain. That transcendent energy, more real and enduring than the physical form I occupied, became my identity in daily life, watching peacefully as my body and brain navigated the situational complexity of life.
Approaching my 40th birthday, I found that I could sleep at night and dream during the day. My life was in good shape, I lost 60 pounds without effort, and I felt fundamentally and imperturbably peaceful. Suddenly, life was in the palm of my hands, every moment pristine and still and perfect. I felt weightless without the burden of needing to endure trauma every night.
Most importantly to this story, I worked from home and could nap on my lunch breaks.

Rapid learning through iteration:

Rarely, I would fail to nap at all due to RLS. Sometimes I would simply doze off and wake up 10 minutes later to my cell phone alarm. But three out of five times, I would travel.
I visited dozens of worlds in a matter of a few short months and quickly was able to confirm some rules that I had suspected were true from my previous adventures.
One rule is that no one I know in real life ever shows up in the travelling dreams. No matter the place or circumstance or strange beings that I encountered, there was never a familiar face.
Another rule was that no dream person ever had a name or a father. The absence of both seemed to be an unspoken universal truth among these dream world inhabitants. Once I had internalized the significance of this, I began introducing myself to most beings that I encountered as "John, son of Michael." It left a strong impression. My name and lineage seemed to set me apart, bestowing an almost mythical quality upon me that earned me a peculiar reverence among all that I met. This knowledge became the key to navigating the dream worlds with confidence and a consistent purpose of discovery.
I learned accidentally of a unique ability during my travels: a form of telekenesis that allowed me to project force from the palms of my hands. This development led to many episodes of paralysis spent ignoring exploration and instead hilariously and painfully attempting to master this ability for the purpose of travel. Over time, I refined my skill, learning to fly much like Iron Man, but solely through the focused propulsion from my hands. Without stabilization from my feet, I had to carefully control the angle of projection and the amount of force applied to control my trajectory and speed.
Mastering this ability took significant practice, but eventually, I could navigate obstacles with ease and travel great distances in short amounts of time. I also no longer crash landed, thankfully. Importantly, I could harness this power to overcome any threatening beings that I encountered. Previously, my best option was to hide or flee, and that did not always work out. Now I had this amazing sense of fearlessness and confidence that simply cannot be rivaled by real world experience. Every time I heard the buzzing sounds and felt the WUM WUM WUM of energy as I prepared to launch into space, I embraced the journey with eager anticipation, confident in my ability to protect myself and learn about whatever strange world awaited me.

To Present Day:

As I grew more confident in my ability to travel almost at will, I began to incorporate spirituality into my experimentation. One day, on a whim, I expressed to the universe that if there were a being that had my best interests at heart and loved me fully, then I gave them permission to guide my dreams and lead me to greater truths, even if they were uncomfortable. This openness led to a new experience immediately, and I began to preface many of my journeys with a similar, simple prayer.
That first time, I fell down instead of up -- into myself, into the infinite dimensionless darkness where I could spin and burn and bathe in the euphoric sense of my own eternal nature. But my peace was quickly interrupted by an intense feeling of pressure at the base of my spine, though I couldn't have pinpointed where the body was that the spine inhabited. Very, very slowly, with a CRUNCHA CRUNCHA CRUNCHA noise for every milimeter of ground gained, it crawled upwards towards my head.
As it climbed, the energy below it intensified, growing exponenentially as the surface area covered grew. It wasn't painful, exactly, but it was terrifyingly intense. That first time, I managed to stay calm long enough for it to reach my shoulder blades before it became unbearably frightening and I jerked myself out of it, sure that I would die if I allowed it to continue upward. Over the last few months I have vowed to myself that I would endure any level of discomfort to see what happens at the end, but I keep chickening out. I have let it go as far as the base of my skull, at which time my head started vibrating so much that I could feel my teeth chattering violently even in my paralysis.
Another time recently when I made this prayer, I went to space as usual, but when I entered the atmosphere of a lush Earth-like world, my telekenesis failed me for the first time ever. Instead, I was pulled like in a slow tractor beam down beneath the perfectly round canopy of a giant, unfamiliar kind of tree. I felt a great sense of calm and peace and simply meditated there for quite some time, maybe 9 or 10 hours of relative time, before I heard a voice from behind the tree.
The man who stepped out from there had his face hidden in shadows. He wore a long dusty leather coat and a huge cowboy hat that shrouded him. As I write this, I find that I am not yet prepared to write about what he said to me, or how I responded. But when we had spoken, he walked solemnly over to me and lay his hand upon my head, and I jerked awake in a state of perfect bliss, despite some conflicting emotions surrounding our conversation. I call him Cowboy Hat Man, and maybe I will write more about him later.
A third time with the prayer, right before I sped off to my normal adventures, I felt a cat jump onto my bed and snuggle against my left leg, purring. It curled up there, and I assumed that it was my actual cat in real life, although it would be very uncharacteristic for him. I actually thought to myself, "Wow, I guess Buddy Socks is my spirit guide today." However, when I awoke, I realized that my door was shut and the cat was not in the room. On that trip, I went to a world that was reminiscent in quality perhaps to 15th century Europe, except on a world where the surface was far more underneath water than on Earth.
I followed the invisible cat to an old man and asked him, "Do you know the truth?" He answered, "No." I followed the invisble cat to young boy and asked him, "Do you know the truth?" He also answered, "No." It was an odd one, really.
Every time I do this, I am setting an alarm for ten minutes. Sometimes the dreams last days in relative time, but I have never yet failed to wake up before that alarm goes off.

Present Day (like seriously earlier this week is what me want to write this):

I lay down eagerly for my lunch break nap, hoping to avoid the disappointment of an off-day. I flew into the atmosphere of a world that seemed to made of rock, with nothing growing on the surface. However, I caught glimpse on the surface of a bright spot, and when I descended, I found that somehow there was a relatively thin crust of sorts around a hollow inside-world.
I lowered myself slowly through a great opening in that crust, down into a lush jungle. It was beautiful but uncomfortably humid, and I quickly found a cool and dry cavern complex to explore rather than dealing with sweat and unfamiliar insects.
As I navigated through the cavern system, able to see somehow with dim light despite no obvious light source at times, I broke out into a very large open cave with a huge exit out into the jungle. I saw that it was dawn and realized that I had spent the night, however long it was on this world, in the caves.
Suddenly, my four year old daughter, Curly, with her naturally bleach-highlighted rings of long blonde hair and bright blue eyes, drifted slowly over my left shoulder and out towards the exit. She moved at a brisk adult walking pace, her back to the cave opening, her expression curious yet slightly concerned. She called out, "Dada?" in a tone that suggested wonder and slight confusion, but no real alarm in the presence of her father.
Reacting instantly, feeling my gut clench solid into a fist of rock, I used my telekinesis to close the gap between us and gathered her into my arms. She wrapped her legs around my waist and settled her butt onto my forearm, a ritual that we have practiced every day of her life. The force gripping her evaporated instantly, and suddenly, my darling girl was there in my arms, as real as any physical embrace. I could feel the tickle of her hair on my neck, the beautiful warmth of her skin, and was enveloped in her familiar scent.
Initially, I was filled with white hot rage, fueled by my instinctive reaction to the thought that some idiotic dream world inhabitant had decided to mess with my family and harm or kidnap her. But as I held her and she nuzzled her nose into my neck, the anger gave way to sheer amazement. For the first time in a decade of navigating these dreamscapes, someone that I knew from my waking life had entered the dream. This was a rule-defying moment that really rocked me, a serious breach of the established norms of these experiences.
A group of maybe 8 or 10 small winged goblins flew down from out of sight above the top lip of the exit and fluttered into the room, laughing in a very non-threatening way. They radiated a sense of innocent mischief, and my fear and anger subsided and gave way to annoyance. I whipped my right hand out and blasted a huge hole in the cavern wall to my right, startling Curly into a yelp. Unphased, I raised my voice and demanded, "Who is your King? I am John, son of Michael, and this is my daughter and she WILL NOT BE TOUCHED AGAIN."
The goblins scattered, their merriment giving way to concern that I might blast them into dust. Behind me, a deep chuckle seemed to rise from the ground itself. A voice echoed in the cavern, neither kind or cruel, full of what felt like wisdom, though that doesn't make sense in the waking world.
It spoke: "I am Eloxman, and I am their King." At hearing him announce his name, my head whipped around in the dream and in real life so hard that I woke immediately with a sprained neck that is still bothering me. I looked at my phone and saw that there were two minutes and fourteen seconds remaining in my ten minute window. I lay on the couch in shocked disbelief: Curly was in my dream, and someone had a name. As I replayed it over and over in my head, I realized that Eloxman was still speaking. I think he may have been preparing to provide the name of his father.

The End:

Sorry, that's actually it. I am going to just see if this continues somehow, but if it does not, then I might get creative with it and make up my own ending. I hope that you enjoyed this if you read this far!

Warning: WALL OF TEXT
• Control (2013): Kendrick addresses Drake, along with 10 other rappers, in his verse, prompting passive-aggressive reactions from Drake. Drake downplayed the verse in interviews and seemed genuinely annoyed he had to constantly discuss Kendrick during the rollout for his next album, Nothing Was the Same.
"And that goes for; Jermaine Cole, Big K.R.I.T., Wale, Pusha T, Meek Mills, A$AP Rocky, DRAKE, Big Sean, Jay Electron, Tyler, Mac Miller."
"I got love for you all but I'm trynna murder you niggas, trynna make sure your core fans never heard of you niggas. They don't want to hear not one more noun or verb from you niggas."
• The Language (2013): After months of hating in interviews, Drake finally addresses "Control" on wax, albeit subliminally. He makes it clear he doesn't view Kendrick in the same light as critics do and believes Kendrick is only doing this to get a reaction out of him. Both points would end up common themes whenever Drake addresses Kendrick.
"I don't know why they been lying but your shit is not that inspiring."
"Fuck anybody that's talking that shit just to get a reaction."
"I am the one with the motormouth I am the one you should worry bout."
• BET Awards Cypher (2013): Drake's subliminals on "The Language" prompt Kendrick to make the most direct shots so far, during TDE's cypher at the 2013 BET Awards. Directly referencing Drake's latest album "Nothing Was the Same" only 3 weeks after it released, calling Drake a sensitive rapper, a trend that would continue through this beef.
"And nothing's been the same since they dropped Control and tucked a sensitive rapper back in his pajama clothes."
"I got my thumb on hip-hop, and my foot in the back of your ass."
• Sh!t REMIX (2013): Drake takes the position of Kendrick's big homie, a trend that would also continue in this beef. He makes multiple mentions of helping Kendrick out by giving him a feature and bringing his tour to Los Angeles in 2011 when Kendrick was a much smaller artist.
"Took niggas out the hood like I'm from there, so you know it's all good when I come there."
"I hear you talking about you're city like you run there, then I brought my tour to you're city, you my son there."
• 0 to 100 / The Catch Up (2014): On "The Catch Up," Drake vents to a woman about rappers mentioning him in verses and coming to terms with the fact he's top dog now and the problems that come with that. An obvious reaction to the quick back and forth they had after "Control," he's framing Kendrick, and other rappers, as clout-hungry envious haters that just want his spot.
"Imagine how it feel to watch another nigga at the top, you know that if you wasn't you you would be dissing you dawg?"
• Pay for It (2014): Kendrick goes on the offensive for the first time since the BET Cypher. He directly responds to Drake's "motormouth" lyric from "The Language" and lets Drake know this isn't a warning shot, it's war now.
"Been dissecting your motormouth, til' I break down the engine."
"This ain't no warning shot, this a relevant henchman."
"Ending our friendship, baby I'd rather die alone."
• Used To (2015): Drake references a 2013 interview with Elliot Wilson, where he alleged he saw Kendrick days after the "Control" verse, and his demeanor was quite friendly.
"They gone say you're name on them airwaves, they gone hit you up right after like it's only rap."
• 6PM In New York (2015): On one of Drake's classic timestamp records, he takes shots at a bunch of artists, most notably Tyga. But towards the end of the track, he takes subliminal shots at BOTH Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar. Mentioning "Money Trees" and "Blood On the Leaves" making it clear he's ready to go there with artists of any caliber.
"Why you rapping like you come from the streets? I got a backyard where money seems to come from the trees, and I'm never ever scared to get some blood on my leaves."
• King Kunta (2015): Kendrick subliminally addresses rappers trying to sit on his throne. Most notably though, are the bars about rappers with ghostwriters. When this song first released nobody knew who Kendrick was referring to. But months later, after Meek Mill exposed Drake for using ghostwriters, it became obvious who King Kunta was referencing. It was at this exact point the entire dynamic of the beef began to change.
"I got a bone to pick. I don't want you monkey mouth motherfuckers sitting at my throne again."
"I can dig rapping, but a rapper with a ghostwriter? What the fuck happened?"
"I swore I wouldn't tell, but most of y'all sharing bars like you got the bottom bunk in a 2-man cell."
• Hood Politics (2015): While there are no direct shots at Drake, Kendrick does make reference to reactions to the "Control" verse. He talks about people in our culture being too sensitive and that further dissing could lead to violence because of that. But makes it clear he can press the "red button" and get the West Coast involved if it has to go there. More directed towards East Coast vs. West Coast than Drake, but still relevant to the lore.
"Unless you talking about power, yeah I got a lot of it. I'm the only rapper next to Snoop that can press the button."
"Had the coast on standby, 'K Dot what's up? I heard they opened up Pandora's box, I'll box 'em all in by a landslide."
"I resolved inside that private hall while sitting down with JAY (JAY-Z), he said 'It's funny how one verse can fuck up the game.'"
• 100 (2015): Drake makes another big bro maneuver. Featuring on a Compton legends song (The Game), while filming the music video in Compton. The verse seems to be a reaction to the praise Kendrick received for "To Pimp a Butterfly" he wants Kendrick to know that if he felt like it, he could make an album just as great as TPAB. He also claims Kendrick's recent music gets no play in the club and when it does, the reaction is lackluster.
"I would have all of your fans if I didn't go pop and I stayed on some conscious shit."
"I'm in the club every time they play the competition, if they even play the competition, and I seen the response they get."
• Darkside/Gone (2015): Kendrick one ups Drake. Likely upset a Compton legend allowed Drake to diss him on a song, Kendrick teams up with THE Compton legend on an album named "Compton" to respond to Drake. Directly referencing Drake's song "Enemies" and pokes fun at the constant subliminals Drake continues to send.
"But I still got enemies giving me energy I want to fight now."
"Subliminal sent to me all of this hate, I thought I was holding the mic down."
• Deep Water (2015): The more direct of the Compton soundtrack disses. He again references a Drake song, this time "Started From the Bottom," asserting that unlike Drake, he really started from the bottom. There are also references to the number "6" which Drake has a known affinity for.
"Motherfucker know I started from the bottom."
"They liable to bury him, they nominate six to carry him. They worry him to death but he no vegetarian."
"The beef is on his breathe, inheriting the drama better than a great white, this is life in my aquarium."
• Summer Sixteen (2016): Phase two of the beef begins here. In 2015 President Barack Obama was asked who would win in a beef between Kendrick Lamar & Drake. Barack Obama picked Kendrick, and obviously, Drake doesn't agree. A quick sub to Kendrick on a song mostly focused on the Meek Mill beef.
"Tell Obama that my verses are just like the whips that he in, they bulletproof."
• Untitled 02 (2016): Kendrick pokes fun at Drake, parodying his "If You're Reading This" flow on the last verse. No real direct shots but some possible subs.
"I can put a rapper on life support, guarantee that's something none of you want."
• Untitled 07 (2016): On the penultimate song from Untitled Unmastered, Kendrick addresses a few artists who sent shots at him after TPAB. Though the Jay Electronica shots are most notable, he does take a second to remind Drake that he's not ready for war. Essentially calling Drake a bitch.
"You niggas fear me like y'all fear God."
"Before you poke out your chest, loosen your bra."
"The mastemind, and til' my next album, more power to you."
• Grammys (2016): While there are no obvious shots at Kendrick, this is an important song in the lore. On this song Drake starts the "Top 5" discussion in hip-hop, and saying his spot there is not for debate. This would be referenced on many disses moving forward.
"Most niggas with a deal, couldn't make a greatest hits."
"Y'all a whole lot of things, but you still ain't this."
"Whole city going crazy, top 5 no debating. Top 5, top 5, top 5."
• For Free (2016): One of the more weird instances in this beef. Drake makes a sly reference to Kendrick's 2015 song, For Free? (Interlude). It's not clear if this was an attempt at being friendly again, or a petty pot shot. Although seeing how things played out after, I'd assume this reference was VERY tongue in cheek.
"And like your boy from Compton said "You know this dick ain't free."
•4PM In Calabasas (2016): On another of Drake's classic timestamps records, he shouts out Kendrick once again. This song reads as a post-Views victory lap. But Drake is still clearly taking the position as Kendrick's big homie, the guy that took him on tour when he was a starving artist. Also the first time Drake ever mentioned Kendrick's name on wax.
"When they told me take an R&B nigga on the road (Chris Brown), and I told 'em no and drew for Kendrick and Rocky"
• Gyalchester (2017): Drake makes a direct reference to Grammys. Asserting that's he's no longer just top 5, he's top 2 and he's not #2. Kendrick would obviously take exception. The artist he's been compared to for the last 4 years just claimed the #1 spot on record.
"I know I said top 5 but I'm top 2, and I'm not 2, and I got one, thought you had one, but it's not one, nigga nah."
• The Heart Part 4 (2017): Kendrick becomes the big dog. In the two years since TPAB, Kendrick received a ton of criticism from other artists. Downplaying the impact of the record, downplaying Kendricks skill as an MC. He was being boxed in as the "Black Power" rapper and artists not named Drake (Big Sean, Jay Electronica, Lupe Fiasco) were beginning to feel very comfortable shooting at Kendrick. Then comes The Heart Part 4. This was almost like Kendrick's 5AM in Toronto. He's now established as a top dog in the game, and he let's everybody, including Drake, know. A lot of bars on here could be interpreted as Big Sean disses, but Kendrick counting up to 5 and proclaiming himself as the greatest rapper alive was clearly a response to Gyalchester. Kendrick also name drops JAY-Z, referring to him as Hall of Fame. This could be interpreted as a shot at Big Sean, who has an album of the same name, or Drake, who had just had a public feud with JAY-Z the year before.
"My fans can't wait for me to son you're punk ass and crush you're whole lil shit. I'll big pun your punk ass, you a scared little bitch."
"Tip toeing around my name nigga you lame, and when I get at you homie don't you tell me you was just playing."
"Yelling one, two, three, four five. I am, the greatest rapper alive."
"Hoe JAY-Z hall of fame, sit yo punk ass down."
"Go celebrate with your team and let victory vouch you, just know the next game played I might slap the shit out' you."
"A difference between accomplishments and astonishments."
• ELEMENT. (2017): Much like The Heart Part 4, this song is also seen as a Big Sean diss primarily. But the 2023 leaked version shows Kendrick was prepared to use this song to kick off the Drake beef officially. Obviously, things changed and he went with a more commercial version, but still had shots. The most direct shot to Drake being a reference to Drake being in Compton shooting the "100" music video, and another call back to the Top 5 lyrics from Grammys. This was also the beginning of the "Bogeyman" narrative surrounding Kendrick, as he begs any rapper to say his name on wax.
"I don't do it for the gram, I do it for Compton."
"If I gotta slap a pussy ass nigga, I'ma make it look sexy."
"Mr. one through five, that's the only logic."
"Niggas want to flex on me and be in LA for free huh? Next time they hit the 10 freeway, we need receipts huh?"
"Most of y'all throw rocks and try to hide your hand. Just say his name and I promise that you'll see candy man."
"Last LP, I tried to lift the black artist, but it's a difference between black artists and wack artists."
• GOD.* (2017): Kendrick once again trolls Drake's flow. This time copying the flow from Drake & Kanye's song "Glow" no direct shots or subliminal's really.
• Mask Off Remix (2017): Kendrick's post-DAMN. Victory lap. After years of Drake being able to big bro him in the beef, Kendrick outsells and outperforms Drake in 2017. Kendrick now takes the position of being just as commercial as Drake, while still being true to himself. The gap had finally been closed, authenticity and artistry begin to play an even bigger role in the beef.
"Platinum, platinum, platinum, gotta look at yourself and ask what happened."
"How y'all let a conscious nigga go commercial while only makin' conscious albums?"
"How y'all let the braids on the TV? How y'all let the hood at the table?"
•Family feud (2017): Interestingly enough, at this point it had been 2 years since Drake sent any direct shots at Kendrick. And honestly at this point there wasn't much he could say. Kendrick was still active, moving the culture, and just as relevant as Drake. These bars are seen as a warning to Meek in case he wanted to start the beef again, but I think it's more directed at Kendrick. Drake sees the gap closing, but makes it clear he can still go there with Kendrick if need be. Possibly the biggest reach of this list, but it tracks.
"But this ain't all about calling truce I'm, still dishin' out verbal abuse. That shit could get reintroduced if somebody got something they urging to prove nigga"
•All the stars (2018): Kendrick had a monster 2017 with the release of DAMN. So monster even Drake had to recognize it. I can't find an exact link to the article, but Drake congratulated Kendrick on his success during an interview. Possibly another olive branch like For Free, but Kendrick clearly wasn't feeling it. He tells Drake to keep his fake praise to himself. And even just plain out states he doesn't like Drake.
"Fuck you and all your expectations, I don't even want your congratulations"
"I recognize your false confidence and calculated promises. All in your conversation"
"You endorsin'? Motherfucker, I don't even like you"
"I want the credit if I'm losing or I'm winning"
•Diplomatic immunity (2018): Possibly a little upset at Kendrick dismissing his congratulations, Drake goes back on the offensive for the first time since "100". He reaffirms his position as Kendrick's big homie by referencing songs from To Pimp a Butterfly, U and I. Essentially telling Kendrick he got too much dip on his chip after 2017, and to remember where he came from.
"They try to compare us but, like a job straight out of high school there's no U and I"
"I taught you everything you know now you got student pride"
•Sandra's rose (2018): In 2018 Drake had a lot more to worry about than Kendrick Lamar. He spends the majority of Scorpion going at Kanye West & Pusha T, but made sure Cornrow Kenny caught a stray too with a reference to "Mortal Man" from TPAB. After this we would see Kendrick withdraw from the game for a while due to personal reasons and the 2020 pandemic, essentially surrendering the throne to Drake. At least for the time being.
"I walk in godly form amongst the mortal men"
•Family ties (2021): In the 3 years since Sandra's rose, Drake has continued to run the score up. Going on an insane run of #1 hits, and establishing himself as not only the biggest act in rap, but arguably the biggest in the world. With the change in sound hip-hop was going through, some wondered if Kendrick still had a place in this game as a top rapper. Could he still make hits and be relevant to the culture? Or was he going the André 3000 route? This banger with Baby Keem answered all those questions. Kendrick comes with a refreshed energy, addressing his absence, and making it very clear he still sees himself as the best rapper in the world. He once again references the Drake "Top 5" line from Grammys, and makes allegations that Drake's numbers have been falsified. Baby Keem even gets a shot in towards the end as he alleged Drake or, Number 2, was messaging his girl. Reaffirming to Drake they still see him as #2, and insinuating Drake is a thirst god.
"Smoking on your top 5 tonight" "Don't you address me unless it's with four letters"
"Last year, y'all fucked up all the listener, who went platinum? I call that a visor. Who the fuck backin' 'em? All been falsified"
"#2 DM'ing my bitch, that's cool, I don't ask why"
•No friends in the industry (2021): Drake's responds to Family Ties with his most direct shot since Sandra's rose. Much like Scorpion, Drake was pretty preoccupied with Kanye West for this project, but made sure to let Kendrick know he can't touch him in the numbers game anymore.
"Fuck debating who the GOAT. Better not make this shit about the numbers all I know, better not make this shit about the summers all I know"
•Father time (2022): After Kanye and Drake got back together in 2021 for a Larry Hoover concert, a lot of fans were confused, Kendrick being no different. He likely saw some of himself in Kanye, and wonders how somebody with a mind like Kanye links back up with somebody who's taunted him and his family for years. You can literally hear the disappointment in Kendrick's voice, but he uses it as an opportunity to self-reflect and wonder if he's going about his issues with Drake the wrong way. This was also Kendrick's first time saying Drake's name on wax since "Control".
"When Kanye got back with Drake, I was slightly confused. Guess I'm not mature as I think, got some healing to do"
•Churchill Downs (2022): Drake finds a new angle. With Kendrick returning to the game with Mr. Morale and The Big Steppers, not everybody was so impressed. Drake begins to poke at Kendrick's height, and his lack of presence in the game since 2017. He almost seemed offended that somebody who took 5 years off could still be mentioned in the same breath as him.
"All I hear is tall tales coming from little men"
"Same ones that say they run the game when they not even in it"
•The hillbillies (2023): A hilarious parody of "Sticky" from Honestly, Nevermind. No direct shots or subs, but Kendrick and Keem are clearly poking fun at Drake for making a mediocre dance album.
•AMERICA HAS A PROBLEM (2023): Scary foreshadowing. Kendrick admits that the spirituality he's showcased since Mr. Morale has been a little inauthentic, because there's somebody out there he still REALLY wants to slap the shit out of. He also warns this artist's day one fans to have some facts on them. Just insane, and makes you wonder how long Kendrick has really been scheming.
"Truthfully I be lying in my rap songs, cause I always fail to mention I'll slap homie"
"His career didn't come with no life insurance, hope his day one fans got some facts on them"
•First person shooter (2023): This is an interesting one, because Drake doesn't really send any shots. Besides calling himself the GOAT, and comparing himself to Michael Jackson, not much on here can track back to Kendrick. J. Cole does mention Kendrick as a member of the Big 3, but then says the Spiderman meme is me looking at Drake. Likely asserting Kendrick's lack of activity puts Cole in that #2 spot officially. It feels like a narrative was being pushed that Drake & Cole were the top 2. Kendrick once again takes exception to this, wondering how these guys are BFF's all of a sudden. Wondering how somebody like Cole aligns himself with somebody like Drake. Hearing Drake flex beating a Michael Jackson record, while giving Cole his first #1. Cole and Drake claiming the top 2 spots? This was the moment Kendrick decided to go nuclear.
"Who the GOAT? Tell me who you really rooting for. Like a kid who act bad from January to November, nigga it's just you and Cole."
"Love when they argue the hardest MC. Is it K-Dot, is if Aubrey or me? We the Big Three like we started a league, but right now I feel like Muhammad Ali."
"Rhyming with me is the biggest mistake, the Spiderman meme is me looking at Drake."
"Everybody steppers, well fuck it, then everybody breakfast and I'm bout to clean up my plate."
"Niggas steady talking 'bout when this gonna be repeated, what the fuck bro? I'm one away from Michael, nigga beat it."
"Stories About My Brother (2023): Once again some insane foreshadowing. This song is Drake once again reaffirming his status as top dog, and shouting out the shooters he keeps around him. He also talks about artists banding together to put a dent in his armor. He then addresses Kendrick, telling him Mr. Morale was 'buns'. He also wants Kendrick to know nobody would care if he retired, saying he's not 'Kobe Bryant' to us, possibly a reference to Kendrick & Kobe's 2017 interview. Though some argue these are Kanye West shots, the Kobe reference swings it towards Kendrick in my opinion. The final chapter of subliminals. Clearly Kendrick had enough.
"Your last album was buns, you niggas Hawaiian as fuck."
"I can't wait for the day you choose to retire your stuff, takin' off the sneakers cause you tired of lacing 'em up."
"That's how you gonna find out you not Kobe Bryant to us."

~First~ (I did a stupid and titled it 999 not 998, that's why there was another alert. Sorry)
HHH/Herbert’s Hundred Harem
Same dull, stupid routine. Even with all the spires going crazy due to the council deciding they really, really needed everyone good and angry at them, she was still at work. Still forwarding messages like a rube. Still doing the things that a basic logic tree could replace. Still the same boring, dull busywork.
And she would remain with the stupid dull busywork for decades to come because she was still on parole. Fifty more years of this nonsense, and she was lucky to have avoided prison time for her involvement. No, she would stick to groups where they had clearly defined goals and methods. No more of that, ‘I’ll make you richer than rich and more powerful than powerful’ nonsense.
She yawns mightily and rubs at the base of her horns. She’s exhausted and needs to stop. Yes, there’s ten minutes on the clock, but if her horns feel like someone’s balancing on them then she’s not going to get anything done.
She tilts her head back and then opens her tired eyes as a strange shadow crosses over them. Then she shrieks when she realizes that the reason her horns feel like someone’s standing on them is because someone is!
The flail is fair from dignified and she falls off the chair and onto the floor. The entire time the little man stays perfectly balanced and it leaves her pinned down as he suddenly weighs so much she can feel the pressure starting to crush the horns and press the back of her head into the cheap office carpet.
“Gina Bleat?” The Metak asks in a cheerful tone.
“Who are you!? What do you want?” She demands.
“To ask you a few questions. Something’s come up, it’s dangerous, it’s a problem and it leads to you! Lucky you eh?”
“I haven’t done anything since the court hearing! I’m barely halfway through my parole and my assets are gone! I can’t afford to get up to things!”
“I know. The trail that leads back to you predates the court hearing.” The Metak Stream says and her mouth hangs open. “Come on, time for you to have a talk with the nice, but on edge ladies who are trying to stop themselves from panicking.”
“Why would they panic!? I’m the one about to be interrogated!”
“We’ve found something scary, and you’re part of it. Fun right?” The Metak asks before suddenly pausing and holding a finger to his ear. “Stream here.”
She holds her breath as his expression shifts roughly ten times in five seconds. “Fine. Fine. How soon will he...”
“I’m here.” A downright angelic voice says and The Metak steps off her horns and lets her roll over to see...
The most adorable little boy she’s ever seen. Right at that age where he’s still got the huggy innocence of a small child and just becoming aware enough of what the soft parts up front are for to be embarrassed when he hugs. His eyes have the shinning innocence that you only see on the covers of those big sister romances where an arranged marriage has a woman find herself as the ‘first wife’ of a barely of age little boy she has to raise into a husband...
“Miss? Miss Bleat I need you in the here and now please.” The boy says, his tone polite but oddly firm.
“Oh! I... what’s going on?”
“I’m Operative Jameson of Undaunted Intelligence. I’m sorry for what my Agent did to pin you, but we weren’t totally sure about you until he had engaged.” Jameson says and she pauses. This boy is a higher up? Not an actual child then.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re following the money trail of a very dangerous conspiracy. It leads back to you. Before your assets were passed over to an unknown party and then automated at any rate.” He says.
“That!” She pauses, considers. Thinks and tries to remember. “That was fifty years ago...”
“Anything you can remember will be helpful. We have a lot of people on edge.”
“Am I going to get in further trouble?”
“Not to my knowledge, but if things go very well we should be able to return your old assets and stocks to you. They’re still strong and they’ve been paying for an entire automated conspiracy.” He says before looking around and waving to her inquisitive co-workers even as numerous very large women bristling with high ranking uniforms, powerful weapons and fierce looks enter the level. “Anyways, it won’t be enough for a top level mansion or a ten bedroom estate on a plate. But you’ll be able to live a much more comfortable life with them back and the more we know the quicker we can close this nonsense and release your possessions from evidence and back to your control.”
“Am I being bribed with my own stolen money?” She asks incredulously.
“No! You’re getting it back no matter what. But the more we know the faster we can do that. So I’m bribing you with expedience. You want it back fast? Work with me.” He says and she blinks.
“You’re admitting to bribing me?”
“Bribing has a bad reputation, I’m paying you for a service without a formal contract. Mothers do that to get their children to do their chores and that’s fine, waitresses work faster if you promise a better tip. Are those wrong?”
“Not at all.”
“Exactly, now please come with me I...” Herbert begins before turning around as The Manager arrives.
“... Miss Bleat, I don’t know what disgusting fetishes you have, but I will not tolerate them being indulged in my...”
“Are you stupid?” Herbert asks her.
“What did you say to me you streetwalking...”
“That’s a yes. Take her away ladies.” Herbert says as the approaching officer grabs The Manager around the shoulders and then forcibly marches the protesting woman back into her own office. Gina smiles at the sight and turns back to Herbert with it firmly affixed.
“Well, seeing that absolute pain in my behind get put in her place like that is worth almost anything. Although I must ask, how serious is this?”
“The Trytite Lady is contemplating the initiation of a Holy Crusade.” Hebert says and EVERYONE goes quiet as the entire office stops even pretending to not listen in and poke their heads up to stare.
“Oh.”
“Yes.”
“And I’m involved.”
“The funds and assets you were scammed out of before being slammed for insider trading to try and recoup them? They’re still being used now to continue a conspiracy that has everyone in the know treading lightly when they’re not flailing around to try and get some kind of answer.”
“That’s bad.”
“It was tied into the massive scan of Centris that had every organization it swept over going insane. I’m honestly surprised you’re here and not defending some kind of secret society headquarters.”
“I learned my damn lesson is what happened! Unless I can be told straight up what something is about and confirm it with my own two eyes I do NOT commit to anything anymore!”
“As they say, once burned twice shy.”
“Weird saying, but accurate.” She says. “So... what do you want out of me.”
“Just a friendly recorded interview, do you have any favourite snacks or drinks? I find having treats makes them go by smoother.” Herbert says and she smiles.
•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•
“Okay, it is One Thousand and Ninety Four Current Epoch. Eleventh Month, Eighteenth Day at Seventeen Hundred Hours and Thirteen Minutes Centris Unified Time. Can you confirm the time for me ma’am?” Herbert asks as he sits across from her at the high table. The fact that he was given a high bar stool rather than a comfortable plush seat like she had was something that gave everything a nice absurdist touch.
“I can confirm it is Five Thirteen... now Five Fourteen in the evening.” Gina says.
“Fantastic, I am Operative Herbert Jameson of The Undaunted Intelligence Division. My species is pure Human, I am a recognized Huntsman in the Dzedin and Yauya Traditions and Grand Patriarch to the Jallick Birds. Please state your name, species, occupation and titles for the record.”
“I am Gina Bleat. A Muffis with Panseros Ancestry that manifests in enhanced vision in dark areas. I am the one hundredth and thirty ninth Heiress of the Xorian Conglomeration Fortune. Currently a low level administrator for Refraction Finances Centris, Branch Five Hundred and Eighty Seven.”
“Very good. This interview is in relation to the events occurring on or before year One thousand and Forty Four Current Epoch in relation to The Darnaxion Concurrence as they are currently known. More specifically we are undertaking this interview to have a better understanding of the employer that seized control of your assets and placed you in a position where you would later commit Insider Trading to recoup your losses to them. Is this understood?”
“It is.”
“Very good. Do you also understand that you posses the right to remain silent, but if the needs of this case grow into a legal battle that anything you say, or do not say can affect your legal defence?” Herbert asks.
“I know how the right to silence works.”
“Yes or no please.” He says.
“Yes.” She replies.
“Very good! Now we can properly begin with that out of the way. Really quick though, is the Taras Fruit Juice the right type? It all just takes like apple to me but I’m told there’s a lot of variance by some people.”
“They’re called snobs. Taras fruit juice of any kind is wonderful. To say nothing of these pastries.” She says holding up a berry filled muffin she then proceeds to borderline inhale.
“Excellent! We’re friends here, so it’s only fair you get fed and watered during all this, not to mention hot apple cider and muffins is a perfect choice.” Herbert says with a charming smile. “Now then, fifty years ago you ran around with The Darnaxion Concurrence before losing contact with them. You believed in them so much that you signed over control of your assets to an anonymous party that was in control of the Darnaxion Concurrence. Is this accurate?”
“Mostly, I did believe in them, but I believed more in the sales pitch they offered me. They promised to make me a much richer woman, they just needed some steady startup assets and in return I’d be getting Axiom Ride hand over fist. It seemed too good to be true at first and well... it was! But they wore me down and talked me around to it. Then I quickly lost contact with them and couldn’t find them again.”
“After which you got desperate, tried to make quick money in a less than legal way and just barely avoided jail time in exchange for a long parole, correct?”
“Correct.” She agrees and he nods.
“Perfect! Now, what can you tell me about the Darnaxion Concurrence around that time? What were they like? Do you have faces? Or better yet, names?”
“I’m afraid that I have nothing for either of those. I can tell you general species in that it was a Tret woman in charge and she had an Alfar with a very flowery Axiom tattoo in dark purple around her left side for her direct underling. But the rules of the Concurrence then, I’m not sure about now, was that anyone that wasn’t a basic employee like a janitor or security needed to have a mask at all times.”
“Do you still have yours?”
“I threw it away in frustration. Then I nearly got hit with a fine for littering.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, your run in with these women seems to have been nothing but bad news from start to finish.” Herbert says his voice full of sympathy. “Still though, what did it look like? Was it a spooky mask to scare people? Some kind of party mask? Or was it more minimalist? Or even better! Was it a parody of someone? Where you going around looking like the Speaker of the Council?”
“No! It wasn’t a parody mask!” Gina says around a laugh. “I might have kept it as it was. It was a festival mask. Do you know about the Reformist Gravid Church?”
“A bit, I’m a human and while I fulfill the requirements of the Gravid belief, I’m still on my toes around them. Mostly because most of my coworkers end up not fulfilling what they see as a moral life.”
“Oh. Well the Reformist Gravid Church has the Starlight Fertility Festival four times a year. There are embellished masks for the role of Mother, Midwife and Daughter for women and the Son, Husband and Father for men. I won’t go into details. But the Tret had the Mother Mask on, The Alfar the Midwife and my own was a Daughter mask. I don’t know about theirs, but I bought mine from a festival, right off a little pushcart.”
“So they kept their features hidden and you could only make out races and that the Alfar’s tattoo was purple, a very commonly used colour for the Alfar.”
“That’s right, I’m sorry.”
“Oh don’t worry, I’m sure you know something useful. If the easy stuff is covered, that just means the harder stuff will be an even harder hit.”
“Harder stuff like what?”
“Okay, so you don’t know who they are, but do you know who they did not like? Who were their rivals and enemies?”
“They had several. Competitors and rivals in the business space. They knew I didn’t care, so they weren’t shy about talking about it around me. But I did hear that several nearby groups were being pests.”
“Fantastic! Do these groups have names?” Herbert asks eagerly. “Also, do you remember the times when you met with them. When they were definitely with you?”
~First~ Last Next