this is not a fan theory, T'm currently working on, making a script for how ld do a warriors adaptation,and this is just an idea i had. Tigerstar was abandoned as a kit by his father, and received Ruthless training by thistleclaw, along with the narcissistic personality he developed, didn't exactly set him up to be an all around good person. tigerpaw was always abusing himself, never letting himself take a break or allowing himself to feel the scars he'd gained, he never let himself feel anything but anger. and then he met redtail, a character who is considered by the fans to be a trans man, tigerpaw meeting someone who was so open about who they were, and never afraid to face the gunfire of their own internal anxiety, but still one of the most formidable warriors that thunderclan has ever seen, even able to stand toe to toe with tigerclaw. he was in love with redtail, they spent just about every moment together, tigerclaw even wanting to have kits with redtail. They Were In Love. but, redtail was in the way. Tigerclaw knew the path that he'd put himself on so long ago, and so, he killed redtail, and was distraught over it. unable to balance his own pride with being in love, he becomes a victim of his own narcissism. and then rusty joins immediately after, tigerclaw sees potential in him, and he also sees a Distinctive Ginger Tail. he stops focusing on ravenpaws training, instead intrigued by how he can control and hone firepaw into the best warrior he can become. at times tigerclaw is relentlessly cruel, other times he comments on how well firepaw is learning. and after tigerstar dies, firestar in a way is grateful towards tigerstars teachings, he was cruel, but was trying to turn firestar into the best warrior he could be. and what are tigerstars faint last words as we see firstars distinctive ginger tail reflected in his eyes, what else but "'m sorry, l'm so sorry." andthen after the credits have rolled, we see tigerstar, waking up in a grass field. its completely night, yet you can see the grass and trees illuminated as if it were day, tigerstar looks ahead of him, and sees a warm looking calico near the edge of a forest, the calico gets up, and slowly starts making his way towards tigerstar, and he does the same. after a few moments they're both in a dead sprint towards each other, wev'e never seen tigerstar move Near that fast, they both crash into each others embrace tigerstar is sobbing like a kit, and redtail has a calm flow of tears running down his face. tigerstars crys sound less like emotional destraught, more like raw physical pain, as he scream im sorry, over an over and over again. hes finally dead, his long, painful is finally over, and he gets to be with redtail, he doesnt have to live with that regret anymore.

I feel like I'm losing my mind, I am constantly drained and I have lost all my desire to live, I just do it from inertia. I've read about narcissists and I started thinking that my partner may be one, but now I am so confused and I am starting to believe that maybe I am the narcissist, maybe I am the problem and I can't think straight.
I nag a lot about things that he refused to do, even if I asked him multiple times. And I'm referring to basic things for an functional adult - taking out the trash, cleaning after himself, washing his clothes. If I don't tell him to do it, he doesn't do it, if I tell him maybe he will do it but afterwards he would complain that I am always so negative (because I told him again to wipe off his piss from the bathroom floor), that I am always giving him chores (I do my part of household chores, I often do his part too). When I'm asking for help and I complain that I'm always taking care of the house on my own, and I'm so tired of repeating everyday the same things, I become this vile person -his words- who only wants to control him, who is always negative and upset, who is always nagging, who wants to destroy his mental health. He starts screaming, yelling, cursing me and my family, he tells me that he can't stand me anymore, that I should find another man, that he doesn't want me anymore and so on.
The next day he acts like nothing happened, like he did not verbally abuse me, like it is my fault and he is entitled to be mad at me. He expects me to say that I'm sorry and apologize profusely, even if he would not apologize for the things he says.
When we are in public after a fight -with friends or family, he acts very kindly towards me, and when we get home, his behavior shifts and he is giving me the silent treatment, or he is stonewalling me. It's like he is an entirely another person in public.
He often says mean things to me, and after 5-10 minutes he says no that's not the truth, I never said that. He denies all the things he does or tells and he is lying about what I do and tell. He would say that I sent him messages and called him names, and when I show him the conversations and ask him to show me when and where did I do that (because he lies), he shifts the conversation to another accusation, and he returns to the first accusation after a while (the name calling one), and then bounces back to another false accusation previously discussed, and he does that, throws false accusations at me, over and over again, until I am literally dizzy and too tired to defend myself and I give up.
He started a fight in front of his parents (after I told him that his behavior indicates that he is a narc) telling them that I am not normal, that I abuse him by saying that he is a narc, that I want to manipulate him by making kim think that he is a narc. He basically told them that I said that he is manipulative and abusing, without telling them that he doesn't allow me to speak, that he starts to yell at the slightest inconvenience, that he is cursing me and my family over the smallest things, that he sometimes wouldn't let me work, he would stay next to me and yell at me during my working hours (we both work from home), he wouldn't do anything for me, for our home, for our relationship, if I don't ask for it, and when I ask him, there's a big chance that he wouldn't do it and start a fight.
We unfortunately share a home and a mortgage. He threats me that he will leave, I says ok please do, and he doesn't do it. I want to break up with him, sell the house, pay the mortgage and split the remaining money, but he doesn't want it, even if when he is arguing to me he says ok let's sell it. When it comes to a serious discussion, he backs down. I feel stuck in this home with him, he doesn't want to leave/sell his part to me/sell the whole house. He only threats me with this because he thinks that this way I will shut up my mouth.
I think that he genuinely enjoys the conflict, the yelling the cursing. It's like fuel for him. He plays the victim card but the next day he rises and shines, he is literally unbothered by anything, he gives me the silent treatment, while I'm thinking, crying, trying to speak to him, trying to communicate, trying to find ways to talk about our relationship. Neah, nothing touches him.
I feel like everyday I'm running on a hamster wheel, everyday the same loops, nothing changes, nothing gets better. We fight, he hurts me, I cry and overthink about the fight, he acts normal, he would maaaybe buy me flowers and cook dinner, and the next time I bring up something that hurts me we start all over again. And so I began asking myself if I'm the problem, maybe all of it is in my head, I started doubting my actions and my words, I started thinking that maybe I'm mentally ill, but in the middle of the fights, when I hear how he speaks, how he curses me, how he makes fun of my parents I am convinced that this is not a normal response to my "please do the laundry". But after the fight he would deny that he said or spoke those words He would tell me that I have the blame for the way he is acting, and if I want him to be nice to me and not curse me, I shouldn't tell him negative stuff such as reminding him about house chores. After a fight I am so drained I cannot think straight, I cannot work, I cannot eat, I cannot do anything besides stare at the walls and cry.

(33yo F) I have wanted to be a mum for basically my whole life and these past few years I have been getting extra clucky. I have had my fair share of partners but I seem to only attract men that are... not great. I have had the thought of getting a sperm donor before but just recently I decided that I'm just going to go for it.
My older sister has mentioned in the past when I brought up sperm donors that I shouldn't give up on men and that it will be hard to find a partner when I'm a single mum. (I am not giving up on men, I'm just not putting my dreams of motherhood on hold while I wait for mr right) The real trouble started when I mentioned the idea at a family dinner (I was already hesitant to bring it up because I kind of knew what the response would be). My step mum brought it up by mentioning that a lot of women she knows have been having babies on their own through IVF. I decided after this comment to say that I was considering doing the same. My dad (63) starting saying that it was hard for him being a single parent (mind you he raised 4 kids and split with my mum when I was about 12), I won't get a break at all, a child needs to know who their dad is, I need a partner to bring in a second style of parenting because I won't know everything. I get single parenting will be hard and I know that I will be on the job 24/7. I can see where he is coming from, but I just think he's experience will be vastly different from my own.
My SIL (27 maybe) then chimed in saying that I need to prioritise what I want. I'm renovating my house and she said that I either need to do one or the other. She then brought up finances and said that I couldn't keep up with what I have now. This is not true. Sure, I don't earn as much as her and my brother but my lifestyle accommodates for that and is quite comfortable financially. She then asked me if I knew what having a baby would do to my body. I don't really care about stretch marks and a mum bod. I can't help thinking that she is projecting her fears into me.
I'm sorry this post is long. I really want to be a mum and I'm worried that if I keep waiting for a man then I'll run out of time. I am scared of being a single mum but I also feel like I'll do a good job of it. I work in child care and I love the bonds that I build with the children I work with.
Am I wrong for wanting to have a baby on my own?

i’ve been dating my bf for the past two years and it’s been great for the most part. in the beginning, i considered him my soulmate and i was so eager to tell him i love him first but now im not really sure what to think.
i feel like i constantly have to tip toe around him because he’s so sensitive/emotional plus he has anger issues that result in ugly tantrums (he yells, gets physical with stuff and is overall aggressive). he literally makes such a huge emotional deal over things so small and meaningless. for example i gave him @dvice to charge more on work he offers because he was lowballing himself and he went on this rant about how i think he’s stupid and how i don’t appreciate him. all i wanted to do was help him and he just completely flipped it. i didn’t smother him like he wanted me to so he faked an anxiety attack/started crying to force me to hug him….. yelling that all he wants is my “support” …. if something doesn’t go his way he either throws a fit or makes himself the victim and i end up feeling bad over something he caused.
i think a lot of it has to do him him being an only child to keep it real. he always wants to be nurtured if not him, his emotions. he wants to be babied and i think it’s extremely unattractive for a 21 year old man. he has this idea that he isn’t capable of doing wrong so his lack of self awareness is of course baffling. hes pretentious in a subtle way that it could pass off as him being smart/charming but that’s not the case… he’s seriously a completely different person when he doesn’t have it his way its almost unbelievable how someone that’s so sweet can go to THAT.
one time i was talking to him about geminis (he’s a gemini) and how my sister shits on that sign and he took it so far up the a$$ he gave me an ultimatum. “your sisters just trying to get you to break up with me, you’re over there with your sister listening to her, stay with your sister then see how much she cares, i would chose you over my family but that’s just me i guess now i know how much you care about me” and yadayada you get the gist. another example, i came back home it’s 2 am because he has to be up by 530am for a trip. he expected me to stay with him and he got upset when i said i wouldnt. we met up at 9 and once i told him i was going back home he started frowning and pouting and just RUINED the last hour of me being there with his moody self. what’s lame is that he doesn’t even say what’s wrong i have to constantly ask and he denies when it’s CLEAR as day he wants me to notice he’s bothered. it’s funny because he said we didn’t even hang out because it’s wasn’t “just us” mind you we were together … alone … playing video games. what he wanted was my attention 100% and that’s how he always wants it to be. it’s overbearing draining and just UGHHHH. he can’t take any criticism to better our relationship without him getting offended and immediately getting defensive. i’ve talked to him about this already but idk what to do anymore. everyone tells me he’s immature and emotionally abusive and SUPER manipulative but everytime i try breaking up with him he makes me the bad guy and i just stay to repeat the same old cycle

Always wanted to post this but the official AITA thread was always too intimidating so here I am. I'll try not to ramble too much but buckle up as this spans several years.
I met my BFF on an online video game when I was 14. Back then, people were rather harsh to girl gamers but he always stood up for me which caused us to grow closer. Let's call this friend B and he was a year older than me.
B and I grew to be close friends as we grew. He helped me through some really bad mental spots and I did my best for him in return despite our distance. When I was about 17, B got engaged to his GF. His GF never really liked me and made him limit his time gaming with me. This resulted in me realizing my feelings for him. I decided to tell him said feelings as we never really hid things from each other. I told him that I didn't expect him to like me back since he was engaged and that I just wanted to get it off my chest. He thanked me for not hiding it and we carried on like nothing happened. Eventually, B's engagement fell apart but we still remained as friends and nothing more. I was content with this.
At some point, I decided to move in with my ex gf and drove 20 hours with my brother to do so. I quickly regreted this as it was hell on earth. My ex would always threaten to commit unalive whenever I hinted at breaking up.
I vented to B about this one night, admitting I was at my wits end. He knew I had been trying to break up with her for a while. Suddenly, B confessed that he loved me. I was taken aback as it had been almost 4 years since my confession and we never discussed it since. I asked if he was serious and if he meant it as a friend and he said no. He meant romantically. I was over the moon. My heart felt so light. This gave me the push to finally break up with my gf and to have the police on speed dial if something happened. Thankfully, she just cried and left and her grandparents came to get her stuff.
We were 6 months into our lease at this point so my brother and I had to plan what to do next. I asked if he wanted to move to the state B lived in since neither of us wanted to turn tail and run home. He agreed. Its important to note that B and I were not dating at this point. We were being flirty but that's about it. Once we decided to move to B's state I asked him about being official and he said once we moved in together. Again, I was excited.
6 months later and we made the drive to our new apartment with B. Things were great for the first month and B was being affectionate and sweet. I was happy.
Here's where shit hits the fan:
I learned that another online friend of mine had become homeless. Let's call her S. I had only know S for a few years at this point but I was both a bleeding heart and a people pleaser so I asked them if they wanted to move in with us and share my room. She agreed. Prior to her moving in, I had her join us for some online gaming so everyone could get to know each other prior to moving in. B and S really got along but B is really good about getting along with people so I wasn't surprised. They even began to play games without me which was fine as I trusted B.
When I got home from picking up S from the airport, I saw B sleeping on the couch. I was confused and he had left her a hand written note saying stuff about how it had been a long day so he was giving up his bed for her for tonight. I thought it was sweet and left it alone.
I'll take this time to mention that we didn't have a room for S. I offered to share my room or give her the master closet. I know that sounds bad but it was big enough to fit a twin size bed in there and some. We were all early 20s and S really wanted somewhere to live so it was all we could do. Before moving in, S had actually AGREED to the closet idea so she could have her own space.
Not long after S moved in, I noticed a lot of B's attention focused on her. I was a bit hurt but said nothing. Not long later, they began sharing a room as S claimed she never agreed to the closet deal. Being the people pleaser I was, I let it go. I was in denial. B wouldn't hurt me and he still gave kisses goodbye when he left. I thought it was all fine.
That was until B's cat batted an empty box of condoms out into the hallway from B's room.
B and I never had sex. We had never even discussed it. He was a bit religious so I never brought it up. This broke me. My head finally put 2 and 2 together. I broke down. I went into B's room and destroyed 10 years worth of crafts I made for him and left the pieces on the floor. My brother did his best to console me until they got home. I demanded to know what was going on and B admitted to lying about loving me. My heart broke. I sobbed, begging to know why and he said it was to get me to break up with my ex faster. I loved this man for so long and he hurt me like this? I was inconsolable. Living there was hell after that. Little issues turned into big fights with S backing up B and my brother backing me up. Eventually, my brother forfeited his half of the deposit so we could get off the lease and move. We couldn't move far but I had to get away from him. My friends were gone.
A few months after we moved out, B contacted me, apologizing for what he did and how he acted after we found out. This contact was in the form of a hand written note inside a sketch book I had left that he dropped off at my work. He wanted to hang out and I said fine. "Offer to buy me food and I'll be there." Money was tight at the time so I wanted compensation.
Every time after that, they would buy me something to eat when we hung out. I could never get the disgust out of my mouth from being around them. Oh, and S never apologized for what she did. She knew we were dating or at least that I THOUGHT we were dating but she still went for him and never told me what was going on.
Right before the pandemic closed the world down, I moved back home. I had totaled my car and just couldn't afford to live there anymore. Once home, B asked to play games online like the good ole days. I tried but I was at my breaking point as a people pleaser and just didn't care anymore. After a couple of sessions, I told him that I couldn't do this anymore as my trust was completely gone. I told him while I accepted his apology, I didn't forgive him. He said ok. I left the voice chat and unfriended him. I haven't heard from him since.
Its been 4 years since then and it still hurts. He had been with me through my entire teenage and young adult years. What I find interesting is that when I tell this story to people, they call me a jerk. A lot of B's friends cut contact with me after it all happened too. They say he was really remorseful and that I should have given him a second chance. This incident caused me to lose all of my friends at the time, making 2020 even harder to get through. Was I wrong to drop my BFF over a lie?

TLDR; friend believes I’m being financially abused and should reach out for help. I’m unsure if that’s actually the case. Not really sure how to tell.
Context - I had been living with my ex for almost two years, above the pub/restaurant he was the manager of. Due to living there, the only thing we HAD to pay was council tax. Any other bills were what we wanted (car finance, phone bill, Netflix etc). I took this opportunity to go back to college for a year, and work two days a week. Working two days a week was enough to cover my bills, and my ex said he would pay the council tax, which was reduced by 25% due to me being a student. This is a long story.
The situation - £5,000 went missing from the pub. Apparently the bag split when it was picked up and taken to the bank (a company comes to do this). While the money was being recovered, my ex had to cover £5,000 until it was all accounted for, as apparently it was in his contract. He came to me asking to borrow £3,000 as he didn’t have enough to cover it all. I reluctant lent it to him, and got it in writing that regardless of the outcome, he would give me the £3,000 back. The money was never recovered.
At this time we were about to go abroad on holiday. The £2,000 he had to give to the pub was meant to pay for the rest of the holiday (deposit paid). He convinced me that they would get the money back and if I paid for the holiday, he would then cover what he owed for the holiday. Stupidly I agreed and paid the £2,000. AFTER I had paid and came back from holiday, he then explained to me he had absolutely no money now until payday (few weeks away). He couldn’t even buy food for his child when she stayed with us, which is something I then also covered. This was August time.
In November, we were due to take his daughter to Disney, he told me a week before we were going that we were driving. Up until this point, I was told we were flying and flights were booked. I told him we cannot drive to Disney as he has over £1,000 worth of working needing doing to his car, low break fluid, an engine malfunction, worn tyres and it was just too dangerous to even drive his child there. His daughter knew about Disney and it had already been rearranged several times. So I told him I can lend him money to take her and hire a car to drive. He agreed. During the same conversation I told him to get his banking up so we can work out where all his money is going, considering he earned over £2000 a month, had barely any outgoings, yet was always poor. He was very reluctant but finally did. Turns out he was spending a lot of money on only fans. Obviously I was devastated and didn’t lend him money for Disney.
Two days later, I received a letter stating council tax hadn’t been paid for the entire year. I then found out he has a CCJ (county court judgement) and due to this, the council sent bailiffs after me as my name was also on the council tax, and they didn’t see any point in going after him as he already had debt. This was another £1,500 (to cover the council tax and bailiff company fees).
Please don’t ask why I didn’t leave at this point, I’m kicking myself for not doing so.
In January, he had another disciplinary (first being the missing money) and lost his job. I won’t even attempt to explain what happened, I still have no idea. Regardless, we had less four weeks for him to find a new job and find us somewhere to live. He did apply for jobs, and started one about 5 weeks later. As for somewhere to live however, I ended up having to do it while working and studying for my exam, while he spent most of the time gaming until 4am, leaving me to sort out everything. It was all very last minute but I managed to find us a house, big enough for us, his child and for him to have a man cave/office. Due to the CCJ, he wasn’t accepted unless his parents were guarantors.
I told him I want no bills in my name (apart from the rent), so if he misses payments, then i want it to be his issue. Come to getting WiFi - he couldn’t because of the CCJ. He came up to me, with the WiFi person on the phone, telling me to give my consent to have it in my name. I asked him if we could have a chat about it first. He told me that the guy is on the phone ready, right now, to get it all set up, and that if I didn’t do this, then I wouldn’t have internet to study for my exam. Due to me being autistic, I heard that, panicked and agreed. Stupid, I know.
He decided to start doing Amazon flex (deliveries for Amazon), and he told me that what he made off that, he would give to me (I haven’t seen a penny). He called me one day saying he can’t get onto his monzo app to send himself money, so I had to send him money for petrol for him to do deliveries. For the first time, I said no. He told me that if I didn’t, then he couldn’t work and get paid to give me money. I still said no and told him to ask his mum. He then didn’t work.
He admitted to me in message that he was reluctant to pay me back in case I ended the relationship. I then decided to end the relationship anyway and am having to live with him until the lease is up in August. We came to an agreement that instead of me paying my half of the rent/bills, he would cover it and I would take that amount off of what he owes me.
Rent is meant to come out of his account each month, but I’ve been receiving emails and texts stating the rent hasn’t been paid. He keeps telling me it’s an issue due to the reference number and that it’s sorted. I had another email yesterday saying we’re 14 days over due on rent. I called the estate agents and they said it still hasn’t been paid. Ex is telling me it has been paid, I’ve asked him to show me on his banking app that the transaction has gone out. He is flat out refusing saying what he does with his money is not my business. I’ve tried explaining that he owes me a few thousand pound and that the rent payment is my business.
I’ve had a friend tell me that this is financial abuse and that I need to seek help before things escalate. The only time things got physical was when I had his phone trying to budget and came across the only fans payment. He tried to grab his phone off me, but I moved as I tried to see how far back the payments go, and I ended up being pushed to the floor (he’s 6foot 6inches and I’m 5foot 4inches for context). He’s very good at gaslighting and manipulating me. Am I being dumb or is this financial abuse?
Sorry for this being all over the place.

I (33f) with secure / anxious attachments was dating my ex (38m) for 6.5 years. He has a avoidant attachment, I think fearful, but not 100% sure. We live(d) together for 5 years, in his country close to his friends.
We talked about children, moving away where I can find my circle of people etc, but it was always hard for him to put me first. I kept hearing about "loosing freedom" having to make "sacrifices", you know the drill. You also know that it was not him doing these sacrifices, but me.
He had all the freedom in the world, going on boys holidays, parties alone, and me travelling solo too. I always honoured his need for space and did the same for me (I am an introvert) and not demanding attention when away.
We were going to therapy 6 months before the break up and he was open to change. The therapy highlighted my will to work on things and his to shut down. The therapist said I am in love with the fantasy, when he is hot, but his real self is this shut down man.
Over 2 weeks ago, we had an "argument" about him not updating his CV for 6 months (needed in order for us to move) as we planned to move before summer and also him not communicating with me that he is thinking to start the process after summer. Mind you it's May already.
It resulted in him going away for 2 weeks, planning his escape from the relationship. When he came back, emotions came back, he was very loving and "unsure" again. Slowly he became more cold every day until Tuesday we had the last therapy session. I remained loving towards him to be his safe place. The therapist said maybe we can have time apart, but he said no, he is exhausted and we broke up officially.
I was giving it all until that point, but started putting all my energy into me straight after. We came home and he was sobbing a lot, I wasn't. The next day (yesterday) I started looking for new places to live and arranged a viewing on Saturday, moving in June. The apartment is everything I am looking for.
When I came home yesterday, he left me a note saying he left the house (I knew that already as we talked about him spending time with his friends since I have nowhere to go) but that he would like to give the time apart a chance and that he still loves me.
He doesn't know about my apartment lined up, he probably thinks he has time to be apart, but I don't. I would if he had told me a day before, at the therapy. I am not opposed to seeing things out later, but I don't want to "wait" for him AGAIN to make up his mind and losing this opportunity - I don't have friends I could stay with around and I am moving with a cat, which makes things harder.
I texted him I appreciate the note and can't give him any response yet, and he texted back he didn't expect any, that it will answer itself naturally.
Shall I make him aware of the apartment, that time is ticking or just go with my flow, move and deal with consequences later? We have furniture to sell, shared accounts, bill, insurances...

Someone here about a month ago asked for a summary or notes on Sheras teachings and I cant seem to find it anymore, so I will list here some of the things I have noted.
• Have a goal in mind
• Stay feminine
• Dont talk about your personal business, family/exes/private personal life heavy on the exes!
• if he tries to have sex immediately and he’s all sex sex sex just tell them ”Okay maybe this isn’t going to work out, but I have the perfect friend for you who likes your type. Her name is Alexa, I’ll send her number to you. She is soo free spirited” or just blatantly ask for money if he’s that rude.
• if he asks for your body count, ask about his bank account (only dusties ask this)
• He needs to like you more than you like him
• Spend his money
• Allow him to cheat, dont try to control any man
• All men are the same, their income isn’t
• Whatever comes out of a mans mouth, reverse it
• If you want him to love you, love yourself not him
• Men want what they cant have
• Emotions and fighting. Treat him like your boss in that sense, you dont get messy with your boss either.
• Emotions are better if you act them
• Laugh at his jokes
• Let him do the talking, and dont correct him. You want to make him feel good about himself around you.
• Tell them you dont have sex outside of relationships
• Exculisivity costs money, you’re not 3rd graders with post-it cards asking to be their girlfriend.
• If they say something you dont like give them an ugly look
• If he doesnt fix his issues within a week he’s a dusty. (E.g car breaks down etc.)
• ”I don’t deal with men who cant keep their word and are secretly broke”
• Dusties run away on their own if given a financial burden
• Always have a financial problem as a reason why you havent texted back or are unable to see them.
• Don’t be too available
• I look for what a man can do for me, offer me. I make him feel good, and elevate him
• When he makes time for you, you make time for him. And make sure that your time is being compensated, wheter it’s experience or material, or money
• Have several options
• It’s all about him stroke his ego
• You are the prize !!!!
• Ask him for help for free stuff first then he doesn’t have a problem with problems that cost
• Pay attention to details and make mental notes about him
• Dont sleep on the first date
• You cant change a dusty, a dusty will change themselves
• Be their weakness
• Say ”I’m very attracted to you” to ugly men
• Be emotionally reclusive
• Let him pick the place for the date but know in advance so you can ghost if it’s a cheap coffee shop
• Believe the red flags
• Talk slow and sensual
• Act like you dont need him at all
• Only being sexual, giving sex, talking about sex, initiating sex is being a pickmeisha. Use your other assets, such as voice, eyes, body language, humor, appearance
• If you want to be a pickmeisha, be one to a bank account
• Confidence and being the prize is in your mind, there is no tutorial for it
• Dont outshine him in gift giving
• If you’re talking and he’s not listening, ask ”Do you hear me? I want your opinion on this you’re so smart after all” you train him subconciously to listen and react to you while giving him a compliment
• Everytime you stress about a man, wheter he’s seeing other people etc. Reverse it. Why isn’t he stressed about you?
• You can be a pickmeisha to get their attention if you immediatly go back to yourself
• Dont carry the conversation
• Men tend to be seduced by looks, women by words. Be careful he’s not all talk, but actions too.
• When they give you the silent treatment, you act like they arent giving you the silent treatment because youre not talking to him anyway and that way it wont work on you
• ”Oh baby yeah I cant wait it’s just going to be so great, but I have to get to know you a little better first. It makes it more passionate for me, and I know you want to please me, right? I cant just sleep with anybody I barely know, it’s not exciting for me.”
• He should have more than 1 income
• Date dusties and for fun when young, start dating for funds at 23
• If he tries to come back, have a list of things you want and make him complete all of them.
• Play dumb
• If you playing the game correctly you shouldn’t be worried about commitment
• ”How you doing?” ”Oh I was doing bad but now that you called I’m feeling much better”
• Being unbothered holds actual power
• If a man ghosts you or has other options you dont care
• Dont approach men, but you can always pass them the ball
•In order to take things slow with a man you need to have high values
• My brain doesnt understand less
• ”It’s been a while since I met a handsome succesful man that’s not afraid to impress a woman”

And they beat down the cities, and on every good piece of land cast every man his stone, and filled it; and they stopped all the wells of water, and felled all the good trees: only in Kirharaseth left they the stones thereof; howbeit the slingers went about i , and smote it.And when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too sore for him, he took with him seven hundred men that drew swords, to break through even unto the king of Edom: but they could not

Spoilers ahead…
Dear Karthik Subbaraj,
Congratulations on yet another interesting movie, and for resisting the impulse to name this one, too, after a food item. Iraivi is an unusual feminist film, in the sense that it’s seen entirely through the prism of sympathetic male characters. Your men aren’t monsters who drink or cheat on their wives or subject them to torture. They do these things, yes, but… differently. Arul (SJ Surya) drinks, but only to drown out his sense of failure – he’s a director and his film is in the cans, being held hostage by a sadistic producer. Michael (Vijay Sethupathi) has sex with Malarvizhi (Pooja Devariya), and he continues to lust after her after his marriage to Ponni (Anjali) – I love that all your women have names that suggest classical heroines, including Arul’s wife Yazhini (Kamalini Mukherjee) – but it’s a marriage he committed to in a hurry and he still hasn’t reconciled himself to it. He’s being a bastard, certainly, but he’s not a one-note villain. And the torture they inflict isn’t the stubbing-a-cigarette-into-the-wife’s-bare-arm variety. It’s more mental than physical.
So we get women who are collateral damage – and I include Arul’s comatose mother (Vadivukkarasi), and the nurse who’s not allowed to do her duty – of men being men. They’re being babies, really. Yazhini tells Arul that he should get on with his life, write another story, make another movie. He says it’s like her trying to have another child while still pregnant with their daughter. (Yes, all these men end up with girl children.) He’s a wallower – but maybe all artists are. You like to do that, don’t you Karthik? Even in a film like this, you deliver a commentary about filmmaking and the artist. Why, even Arul’s father is a sculptor, and though we never see him ill-treating his wife (thank you for sparing us the clichés of raised hands and raised voices), we’re informed that he’s responsible for her state. His son’s following the father’s footsteps. Maybe you’re trying to say that the wives of obsessed artists are doomed to become collateral damage. Your films make us think, Karthik, so thank you for that.
All your stories have at their centre a filmmaker, or at least (in the case of your first film, Pizza) a storyteller. And through them, we seem to hear your voice. “Works of art should not be in places where they are not respected.” “Namma padam pesanum, naama pesa koodadhu.” You compare masala movies to a massage with a happy ending. (I laughed, but please don’t judge me when I say I rather like massages with happy endings – I refer to masala movies, of course.) We even get a line of dialogue about Dolby Atmos. (What will the B/C-centre audience make of this, Karthik? But then you don’t really give a shit, do you? More power to you.) And you like your insider jokes. That crass, egoistic producer who does not care about art – he reminded me of the crass producer from your earlier film, Jigarthanda. You like Rajinikanth too. You referenced Thillu Mullu in Pizza, Thalapathi in Jigarthanda, and now you have Arul singing Malayala karayoram, Michael singing Oorai therinjikitten.
Or is that more of an Ilayaraja homage? You like to keep the audience guessing, right? When the Bobby Simha character in Jigarthanda said he was a Shankar-Ganesh fan, it appeared that you were mocking the endless Ilayaraja nods in Tamil cinema, but here you are, doffing your hat to the maestro. “Raja Raja dhaan.” Arul says this… twice. (By the way, which is that nightclub which plays Maanguyile poonguyile? Do let us know.) And the reuse of Unnai thaane – first in a scene between Michael and Malarvizhi; later in a scene between Michael and Ponni – is the kind of Easter egg we come to your films for. Let me list some others, though I’ll probably need to watch the film a second (or third) time to get them all. The name of the bachelors’ quarters is Ambal Mansion – it goes with your theme and title. I didn’t get the bit about the windmills (something connected to the gust of wind that makes the row of cycles fall over in the first scene?), or why you showcased the book of Shanta Shishunala Sharif’s poems. (I confess. I Googled up that name. I can’t remember the last time a Tamil film made me Google something up. Madras, maybe.) And despite your note at the beginning that Iraivi is inspired by the works of K Balachander (he made female-centric films, but I don’t know if I’d call them feminist films), this is really more of an ode to Mani Ratnam, isn’t it? Specifically, Aayidha Ezhuthu. The three men, one of them – the impulsive one – named Michael. The film starting out as Arul’s story, then becoming Michael’s story, and finally Jagan’s (Bobby Simha) story. The finale with the woman on the train. Plus, the arc of the Madhavan-Meera Jasmine plot was essentially about being easily misled (in the case of the man) and becoming collateral damage (in the case of the woman.) And yes, the rain. All that rain. As though the skies were weeping for these women.
Am I digressing, Karthik? If I am, I’m just following your style, which is the opposite of simple and linear. As a result, I find your films longer than they need to be. (You may feel the same about my reviews.) For instance, I did not care for the scene in the nightclub where a director is felicitated. I realise it was there as a last straw for Yazhini, but it felt redundant. But I suppose they couldn’t be any other way, because you like these shaggy-dog stories that you then embellish with novelistic detail. I love the way you introduce your characters, the time you take with them. Our films lay out characters and their relationship to each other the minute we set eyes on them, but you make us wait to know how Arul is related to Jagan and where Michael fits in and so on. And when it appeared that a semblance of a plot was kicking in (something about Arul needing money to buy back his film), I dug out my phone and checked: it was a whole hour into the movie. Borrowing an image from Malarvizhi’s profession (oh wait, she’s an artist too; she’s literally an artist), it’s like daubs of paint slowly forming a bigger picture.
And you really like an expansive canvas. Not only does the crass producer have a brother, you also bring in his wife later on, to conclude a deal he began making. These segments practically form a mini-movie, with another woman left reeling by the actions of her man. Your films have this… density. They’re packed – with characters, with complications, with information doled out in bits and pieces. (A character says, “Un kitta onnu sollanum.” And instead of hearing what he has to say, we cut to someone else.) Take the scene where Michael asks Arul for money he is owed. You just need to get Michael to Arul’s antiques shop, so the next part of the plot can be staged. Arul could have told Michael to collect the money at the shop. Instead, this is what we get. Arul tells Michael to wait for a week, when he can get the 50 lakhs he is owed. Michael says he wants only 10 lakhs. Arul says he has only 8 lakhs, he’ll give the remainder later. Michael goes to Arul’s father, in the hospital. He has only 5 lakhs. And he directs Michael to the shop, to get the remaining 3 lakhs. Your signature intercutting adds to this texture, Karthik. Shots of Michael and Arul’s father in the hospital are intercut with shots of Arul hunting for booze. Shots of Michael and Jagan outside a courtroom are intercut with shots of Arul being consoled by his father. Happenings are stretched and meshed the way they would be in real life, and not compacted according to the page-per-minute requirement of screenplay-writing textbooks.
I could never predict where the film was going (win!), what these people were going to do (again, win!) –though I must admit I found this to be the weakest of your “twists.” The subplot about stealing sculptures, too, I found rather conceit-y, something half-heartedly cooked up to fit with the title and the theme, rather than something plausible, something these people would do. When Michael, here, commits murder, with a hammer, I went, “This mild-mannered chap? Really?” But then, even in Jigarthanda, I wasn’t quite convinced that the characters would do the things they did. They seemed to be puppets of a screenplay rather than credible human beings, whose actions evolve organically from who they are (or at least, who they seem to be).
But even if I am not convinced by the overall trajectory of your characters, I love how fleshed-out they are on a moment-to-moment basis. I loved the scene where Arul barges into Yazhini’s house, after their separation, on the day of her engagement to someone else. In a lesser film, she would have asked him to get out, and he’d have dug his heels in, and she’d have cooled down and… But here, she rushes straight into his arms. And you make us see why. She was frustrated, fed up with him. But she’s also confused. Was she hasty in abandoning this man? Should she move on with another man? Does she even need a man? With just this one scene, you’ve compensated for the underwritten heroine of Jigarthanda. The story arc may be Arul’s, but Yazhini registers as a fully formed character. Similarly, Michael’s arc allows for the delineation of Ponni and Malarvizhi, and through Jagan, we get glimpses of his mother, and possibly of all womanhood as viewed by a compassionate man. And then you say that women don’t need even this compassionate man (poor chap!), that they have to emancipate themselves instead of looking for a penis-wielding emancipator. What delicious irony, given that you begin the film with women talking about marriage, tying themselves to a man!
Or not, in the case of Malarvizhi, who is easily the film’s most interesting character. Her husband is dead, and she doesn’t want love anymore – only sex. When Michael buys her a diamond necklace, she gives it back to him – she can buy her own trinkets, thank you very much. But the character feels shoe-horned into the film, Karthik. I felt betrayed – and I bet she did too – that after a point, she was used simply as a plot device to get Michael and Ponni together, and also to illustrate Michael’s (who is now standing in for all of mankind) hypocrisy. I felt she deserved more. And yet, I appreciated your generosity in fleshing her out like all the others, without judging her. She gets to be the rare woman in Tamil cinema who dumps the man, and the way she lets go of Michael is echoed in the way Arul lets go of Yazhini, with a heavy heart and some playacting. A side effect of the Malarvizhi subplot is the reassurance that Vijay Sethupathi is still interested in making cinema, rather than just massy entertainers targeted at the box office.
Ponni gets a better deal (and Anjali is terrific, raw and expressive in a way she has never been). In a great scene – rather, a set of book-ending scenes – Michael tells Ponni that he was forced to marry her, and she’s going to have to “adjust” to this if she wants to be with him. Much later, she throws the “adjust” word back on his bearded face when he asks her if she slept with someone else. In a different kind of movie, we’d be invited to see this symmetry, stand up and applaud. But you’re too subtle for that, Karthik. Iraivi is your subtlest film. Which is why I winced at the melodramatic lines about men and women, most of which came towards the end. Aan, using the long-sounding vowel, versus penn, with the shorter one – for such a visual filmmaker (this is another outstandingly shot film, less showy than Jigarthanda and probably richer for that), do you really need the crutch of linguistic special effects from another era of filmmaking? Also, when the rest of your film is so allusive, isn’t there another way you can explain the twist without having a character resort to such an inelegant information dump?
And why is it that your films come together more in the head than in the heart? Why are they easier to admire than love wholeheartedly? I used to think it was because your characters are essentially deceitful, self-serving and unsympathetic, so though we were invested in what they did, we didn’t really warm up to them. But here, you have Ponni and Yazhini and Malarvizhi – and they’re still remote. But perhaps this is bound to happen when there are so many people, so many strands, when we don’t follow one person’s simplistic “you go, girl” journey like we do in, say, 36 Vayadhinile? But when the parts are so well-crafted, we don’t complain as much about their sum not adding up to a satisfying whole. I am sure that you will, one day, make that wholly satisfying film, but for now, thank you for these parts. Thank you for the ambition. I felt there were too many songs (some good work by Santhosh Narayanan), but thank you for ensuring that they don’t break character, the way songs usually do when a character speaking in his or her voice suddenly segues into the playback singer’s voice. Thank you for giving us SJ Surya, the actor – I never dreamed he had such a capacity to hold a scene, to hold the screen. Thank you for continuing not to sell out. Thank you for trying to do so much, even if not all of it needed to have been tried. And thank you for making me fight with myself, for not making it easy to decide if you’ve made a “good” film or a merely “okay” film. For now, Iraivi is a fascinating film, and that’s enough.
Sincerely, etc.

ive been mindfucked since yesterday since i found out the truth about my whole family situation. my 'grandma' isnt even my real grandma. my grandpa fucked my 'grandmas' little sister (my actual real grandma) when they were married and had a child (my mum) so my real grandma has passed away now and i had a pseudo grandma for my whole life
my grandpa then went onto have 6 more kids with my 'grandma'. the thing is my grandparents raised my mum as if she was their own, so my mum is the oldest in the 'family'
i have a large extended family but i always felt like the black sheep. my cousins and aunties/uncles have been my half cousins and half aunties/uncles this whole time. apparently none of my cousins know but all the uncles and aunties know
to give some backstory, my oldest aunty hated my mum and was a nasty bitch to her since adolescence and my mum still detest her till this day. i never got along with my cousins from that aunty, even tho they had a son just 1 year younger than me. i felt like i got the same treatment my mum got from her sister. those cousins (2 girls and 2 boys) would social media stalk me and engage in malicious gossip and spread fucked up rumours about me. and at family gatherings they would make snide comments randomly at me. my mum assumes the reason for the hostility from my aunt towards her is coz she found out she comes from another mum (her aunt)
im 30 years old now and for the last 10 years i barely went to any of the social gatherings, but went to alot of them growing up as a kid and adolescent. my other cousin would also make nasty comments at me randomly when i did attend a gathering. like purposely trying to exclude me from the tribe. even tho they dont know about this secret its like deep down unconsciously they do. some of my uncles would also frequently try to belittle me whenever they saw fit. the aunty that was a bitch to my mum was kinda cold to me too, and it feels kinda 'fake' when i did interact with her
my grandpa passed away last year and my mum eventually found out the truth by confirmations from her uncles/aunties. the twisted thing is my mum had an inkling growing up coz she said my 'grandma' abused her and was very mean to her. she thought that my grandma didnt love her growing up. growing up my 'grandma' was never really that affectionate with me, but she was with my cousins. like cuddling them and doting/kissing so that added the suspicion for my mum. my mum had a cousin that was 9 years older, and she thought it was odd when my 'grandma' never took care of my mum as a baby/kid but her aunty (real grandma) would take care of my mum and be really affectionate
the fucked up thing is my mum confronted my grandpa when she was like 35 (55 years old now) about her suspicion that her aunty is her real mother and my aunts told my grandpa to put my mum in a mental institution coz they didnt want the secret out and he went through with it. so my mum was put into the psychiatric hospital for schizophrenia. they knew it would taint my grandpas image and wanted my cousins to believe in this happy little lie
so i grew up having a 'psychotic mum' but she they just gas lit the fuck out of her. my mum had multiple suicide attempts when i was growing up as a kid/teenger
my mum and her older cousin that knew had a meeting with 1 of my aunties to talk about it after confirmation that it was all true and my aunty just told them to promise not to tell any of the kids (cousins and me/my siblings) so they dont 'taint' the image of grandpa and the drama it could ensue. my mum is obviously going to break that promise and eventually tell my other siblings (im the first to know)
my mum barely ever sees them and doesn't attend any of the gatherings. everything is clicking now why i always felt like an outsider. my other siblings are the same that we dont go to the gatherings except 1 of my sisters since shes gets along with them. but my mum doesnt know if she should tell her the truth
at the funeral 1 of the cousins that was quite cold and nasty to me gave a eulogy, and you know how when u give a eulogy u 'gas' them up (like try to make them seem like such a great person) using phrases like how he was a gentle man etc (she literally said that lol) but the point is theres alot of pretentiousness in this family and i just thought that was amusing
ive met my grandma only twice in my life when i was a teenager and she came to visit and my sisters wedding but i dont remember it. when she passed away 5 years ago in vietnam my mum was the only one to attend the funeral. apparently everyone was shocked how similar my mum looked like her but everyone just said coz shes her niece
a part of me feels sad that ill never get to experience the warmth of my grandma. whats its like to be doted on as a kid. my interactions with my 'grandma' always felt kinda distant. it was actually the same with my grandpa. its like we reminded him of how he betrayed his wife. didnt help that they could barely speak english lol, i wonder how different everything would be if we could actually talk to each other since i cant speak Vietnamese and they never bothered to learn english when they migrated to australia
now looking at some of the family photos and its like a whole new lens has been added. dont know if its a fake smile coming from my 'grandma' or not and i swear i can see the rage and bitterness in her eyes
theres only like 1 cousin that i feel like i have a 'decent' bond with, and most of the others im amicable with. but for the specific family members that treated me harshly for whatever reason it showed me the truth that i was never truly part of the family. the next time i see them i wonder whats its going to feel like since i only just know the truth now. my mum said the aunties are being more distant with her since they now know that my mum also knows the truth
i feel pretty fucked in the head growing up in that family. still deal with mental health issues and poor self esteem and i attribute a lot to growing up with them. not to say there weren't ever any good or fun times but the negative just outweighs the positive by a landslide. i really wonder what life would be like if instead of my grandpa taking care of my mum she stayed back in Vietnam with my grandma and we never knew this family
just had to rant coz my mind is going haywire about all of this and how everything has played out in my life. i dunno if im just mindfucking myself but everything just makes sense now

Hi everyone, I’ve been in a relationship with a man for a year now but think I might be a lesbian. This sounds bad and I’m aware so I’m planning on breaking up but would like some advice or thoughts on the way I feel. The whole time we’ve been together I always felt a sort of attachment/liking but find myself questioning if it’s romantic love all the time. Once every month/ 2 months, I also have those moments where I start panicking about me having to stay with him forever (which I obviously shouldn’t be worried about if I loved him right?) It sounds so bad, but when I imagine myself marrying him all I think about is how unhappy I would be, not because I married him specifically, but because I didn’t marry a woman. Every time those thoughts come to my mind I think about breaking up but never actually do it, I just end up hoping that it will go away. While it does go away for a bit, it comes back all the time. To get more personal, I also don’t enjoy our physical & intimate moments. Feels like a chore that I force myself to do because that’s what I should be doing in a relationship. I am so lost and would like to hear some thoughts, am I gay? Am I in denial? What is happening in my head 🥲

KEY POINTS

• The therapeutic interactions between doctors and cannabis patients can be extremely gratifying.
• Having time to deeply explain and then followup with cannabis patients and caregivers creates a special bond.
• Working in the world of medical cannabis is provocative and challenging as more is learned about the plant.
• People's interactions with cannabis provoke a fascinating mix of medical and spiritual benefits.

Working with patients and their families for the past nine years as a medical cannabis practitioner has been extremely gratifying in many surprising ways.
After 30-plus years in the ER and urgent care setting, providing one-time, episodic interventions and rarely seeing the same patient again, I now have accrued a roster of hundreds of ongoing patients, many of whom I have continued to treat since I began as a registered cannabis practitioner in 2016.
The conversations we have, mostly about their positive responses to using medical cannabis but about so many other aspects of life, politics, and their illnesses, have become a very important part of my own life. These dialogues have brought me closer to the patients, their families, and their caregivers and have been instrumental in my ever-deepening understanding of and appreciation for the vast array of benefits that medical cannabis provides.
It’s been a tremendously important and enriching experience and, in addition, has rekindled my interest in biochemistry, neurotransmitters, and brain anatomy, subjects that I last explored during medical school.
Most remarkable has been the array of patients I’ve met who have taken me into their lives. Advising patients about medical cannabis has brought me into contact with a stratum of people I would otherwise probably never have access to. They have ranged from corporate CEOs, attorneys, and others wanting a medical cannabis card so they wouldn’t get arrested with illicit products to people with devastating and debilitating autoimmune diseases or those with terminal cancer.
Regardless of where along the health and socioeconomic spectrum my patients lie, there has been a consistent attitude that I became aware of early on when the law legalizing medical cannabis first went into effect.
I’m referring to an openness to trying cannabis. These patients, their families, and their caregivers haven’t been taken in by the nearly 90-year-old propaganda onslaught against the plant. Either they laughed at the “killer weed” characterizations, were open-minded enough to see or know others for whom it worked, or, especially in the many elderly patients I see, they’d already tried everything else before they came to me. They clearly had not gotten relief for an array of symptoms caused by their underlying diseases and were willing to give medical cannabis a shot.
As they have seen its benefits, this has formed a unique bond between many of us, an understanding and camaraderie in that we are partaking in something still considered forbidden and illegal in many corners of the globe. Yet we know that despite that condemnation, we have access to something that, as so many of them say, is “life-changing.”
I had realized early on in the ER and Urgent Care setting the need for abbreviated interactions. The conversations and observations that transpired in those settings helped my interventions there to provide the best immediate therapeutic relief. Even though they were often brief (of necessity), these experiences also led to many of the stories I wrote and were published. Now, in this late-in-life career choice, the longer conversations that I can pursue provide me incredible insights into the workings of the cannabis plant and provoke me to try to understand what I’m being told by patients or their caregivers about their observations on what taking cannabis is like.
I seem to learn the most from my “cannabis naive” patients, those who have never used the plant. They will describe the process of finding that “sweet spot,” discovering the therapeutic regimen that gives them the relief they seek, bringing them back to where they’d been before their illness struck. And, whether this happens in a day or a week or longer, the story is similar to hearing someone describe an epiphany.
I can no longer count the times I’ve been told: “I now go through the day without pain and have to remind myself that it’s from the cannabis tincture I take every morning.”
I’m reminded of a patient who’d come to me for treatment of severe chronic back pain. When I asked, with concern, how the high THC product he took every morning for that pain affected him at work, he recounted how, as a computer programmer, he was tasked with coming up with solutions to various program challenges. He told me that using cannabis allowed him to find answers he would not have seen otherwise.
Or the successful businessman with Crohn’s disease who, before using cannabis at work, would be debilitated by his flares. Now, four or five years into his involvement in the program, when he senses a flare coming on, he uses a very well-controlled dose of his high-THC cannabis, and shortly thereafter, he dives right back into caring for his customers, pain-free and focused.
I also have a patient with USHER 3 syndrome, a degenerative disease ultimately causing deafness and blindness. She has compared her taking cannabis to being in a dark room and having the lights go on.
Several patients with severe pain syndromes, overweight and out of shape (and scheduled to have surgery for resolution of their symptoms), have found that as cannabis increasingly resolved their pain, they became more active, lost weight, had even less pain, and ultimately (for several, now six or seven years into using cannabis) have been able to avoid going under the knife.
I have another patient, a writer with severe anxiety and some cognitive issues, whom I saw recently in follow-up, a year into treatment with cannabis. She is much more focused, conversant, and happy, interacting with family and caregivers in a much more positive way, and no longer abusing alcohol.
Another, a teacher with Autism Spectrum Disorder, told me he has been able to escape the destructive route older generations in his family had chosen, using alcohol to try and treat their symptoms. Instead, he has adopted a cannabis regimen to effectively control his ASD.
I also must mention the great help my colleagues and I are seeing that cannabis can provide for many of the symptoms of dementia.
It is my hope that those of us practitioners in the world of medical cannabis can continue to educate the public and break down the stigma surrounding cannabis. Hopefully, as well, governments will move forward in rescheduling (or de-scheduling) cannabis so that more patients can benefit from its therapeutic potential.
This brings me back to my last patient and the question about THC and wisdom:
I recently saw a middle-aged man, a Hasidic Jew, with inflammatory bowel disease. He found that medical cannabis could be very helpful in controlling his IBD flares. In addition, when we were on a follow-up call a few months after he began taking medical cannabis, he asked me something.
“Dr. Weinberg,” he asked, “does THC give you wisdom?”
I was intrigued by the question and asked back, “Why, what do you mean?”
“Well,” he said, “I’ve been reading Talmud all my life, and there have always been passages I don’t understand.” He paused. “But when I take my medical cannabis, and I go back to my studies, I get it! I understand the meaning of those passages. And it’s not because I’m high! Both my wife and the rabbi agree that my insights are valid and profound.”
Knowing the many references to cannabis in ancient Hebrew (and other spiritual) texts, I shouldn’t have been surprised at his question. I was delighted, however, and am eager to pass this insight along to others as we hopefully advance our knowledge of the many benefits of the cannabis plant.

Hodadenon: The Last One Left and the Chestnut Tree
Long ago a boy and his uncle lived together in an elm bark lodge.
The boy’s name was Hodadenon, which means “The Last One Left.”
All of the rest of his family had disappeared over the years and it was thought they had been killed by those who were ‘otgont’, possessed of wicked powers.
Each morning the uncle would feed Hodadenon and then go out of the lodge to hunt, leaving the boy by himself. Each evening he would return, again feed the boy, and then go to sleep.
One day Hodadenon was playing by himself in the lodge.
He began to think. “Enh,” he said, “why is it that I never see my uncle eat?”
Then he took a bone awl and made a small hole in the deerskin he used as a blanket each night.
“Tonight,” said Hodadenon, “I shall see what happens after we go to bed.”
That evening as always the uncle returned. He fed the boy and told him to go to sleep. Hodadenon lay down on one side of the fire and on the other side the uncle lay down on his couch, which was made of saplings and covered with many animal skins.
Pulling the deerskin over his head, Hodadenon pretended to sleep, but he could still see his uncle through the small hole he had made.
After a time, the uncle stood up and went over to the fire.
“Hodadenon,” said the uncle in a soft voice, but the boy did not answer.
Three times more the uncle called his name, but Hodadenon still pretended to sleep. Coming closer to the fire, the uncle blew very hard into it.
Sparks flew out, landing on the boy’s legs.
“Hodadenon,” said the uncle, “be careful. You are going to be burned.”
But even though some of the sparks fell on his bare skin and burned him Hodadenon did not move.
“Nyoh,” said the uncle, “the boy is indeed asleep.”
He went over to his couch and removed the skins.
He lifted off the top of the couch and took out a box made of birch bark.
All of this Hodadenon watched through the hole in his blanket.
Opening the box made of birch bark, the uncle took out a small pot.
It was so small that it fit easily in the palm of his hand.
From inside the pot he took out another object which the boy could not clearly see though it looked to be smaller than an acorn.
Using a little knife, the uncle scraped tiny shavings from the thing into the pot.
Then, putting the tiny pot over the fire, he blew on it and sang this song:
Grow, pot, grow in size
Grow, pot, grow in size
And as Hodadenon watched, the pot grew in size as the uncle sang his song and blew on it. Finally the pot was as large as a normal cooking pot and the odour of something delicious came from it.
Before long the food was ready and the uncle ate it all.
When he was through, he blew once more on the pot and sang this song:
Shrink, pot, shrink in size
Shrink, pot, shrink in size
And once again the pot became small enough to hold in the palm of his hand.
Replacing the thing he had scraped in the tiny pot, Hodadenon’s uncle replaced the pot in the birch bark box and again hid everything in the secret compartment under his couch. Then he went to sleep.
The next morning, as always, the uncle went out hunting and left the boy alone in the lodge. For a time Hodadenon played around the lodge.
He shot his small bow and arrow at a target and did other things, but the song his uncle sang to the pot kept going through his head.
Finally he could stand it no longer.
“My uncle will be back soon from his hunting,” he said. “He will be very hungry. I should prepare a meal for him.”
Hodadenon went over to his uncle’s couch, pulled off the skins and opened the compartment.
Taking out the box of birch bark, he opened it and found the tiny pot.
Within it was half of a small dry nut.
“So this is my uncle’s food,” said Hodadenon, “but it is almost gone.
If I want to make enough for him to eat, I must use it all.
I am sure he can get more.” So Hodadenon took a knife and scraped all that was left of the nut into the tiny pot.
Then, placing the pot over the fire, he blew on it and sang:
Grow, pot, grow in size
Grow, pot, grow in size
Sure enough, just as it had done for his uncle, the pot became larger.
Now it was the size of a normal cooking pot and it was boiling and boiling.
But Hodadenon was not satisfied, “surely my uncle will be more hungry than this when he comes home.
I must make more.”
Then he blew on the pot and again sang:
Grow, pot, grow in size
Grow, pot, grow in size
Now the pot was so large and bubbling so fast that Hodadenon had to stretch to stir the contents, which smelled very good indeed.
“Neh,” said Hodadenon, “this isn’t enough. What if my uncle wishes to share this good food with me.
After all, he will be grateful that I prepared it.
I must make more.”
So, once more, he blew on the kettle and sang the song.
Again the pot grew and now it was so large that Hodadenon had to stand on top of his uncle’s couch and use a canoe paddle to stir the contents, but he was so excited that he did not want to stop.
“This is almost enough for us,” he said, “but what if we should have visitors?
We should have enough to offer them as well.”
So, for a fourth time, Hodadenon blew on the pot and sang the magic song.
The pot grew so big that Hodadenon had to get out of the lodge because it filled the whole place from side to side! It was so big that the only way the boy could stir it was by taking a long pole up to the roof and reaching down to stir it through the smoke hole!
When Hodadenon’s uncle came back from hunting, the first thing he saw was the pudding bubbling out of the door of the lodge.
He heard someone singing above him and looked up.
There was Hodadenon, swinging his legs in the smoke hole, still stirring the pudding and singing happily:
What a good cook I am
What a good cook I am
We all will eat well now
What a good cook I am
“Nephew,” called the old man, “come down from there.
What you have done has killed me.”
Then Hodadenon’s uncle blew on the pot through the door of the lodge and sang the song to make it grow small.
When it was down to the size it had been at the beginning, he entered the lodge, lay down on his couch and began to weep.
Hodadenon, who had come down from the smoke hole, walked over to where the old man lay.
“Uncle,” said Hodadenon, “what is wrong?”
“Hodadenon,” said the uncle, “you have used up all of the only food I can eat.
Now I will starve to death.
This is why I never allowed you to see me eat.
I knew that you would do this.”
“Uncle,” said the boy, “things can’t be that bad.
Just go and get another of those little nuts.”
“Neh,” said the uncle, “that is the kind of food called a chestnut.
Long ago, though it was very dangerous, I obtained that one.
All these years I have eaten it and it would have lasted for many more.
Now I am too old to get another one.”
“Wah-ah,” said Hodadenon, “this is my doing.
I shall go and bring back many chestnuts.”
“It is not possible,” said the old man.
“The way is long and guarded by many terrible creatures.
Others of your family have gone there but none have ever returned.”
Yet Hodadenon would not give up. Finally the uncle agreed to tell him the way.
“Go straight to the north, the uncle said. “There you will find a narrow path.
At its first turn it is guarded by two great rattle snakes, slaves to the evil ones who own the chestnut trees.
No one can get past them.”
“But what if I do, Uncle?” asked Hodadenon.
If anyone by good luck passes the great snakes, he will next encounter two huge hears.
They guard a passageway between the rocks.
They too are slaves of the evil ones.
They will tear apart anyone who tries to pass.
“Further on down the path are two giant Panthers which leap upon anyone who attempts to get by them. Hodadeno, it cannot be done.”
“Is that all, Uncle?” Hodadenon said.
“Is it not enough?” said the old man.
“Neh, that is only the beginning. Next is the place where the chestnut trees grow.
There live the seven sisters who own the trees.
All of them are strong in ‘otgont’ power.
If anyone comes to steal the chestnuts, they run from their long lodge and beat the person to death with their clubs.
No one can hope to go undetected, for a flayed human skin hangs in the top of a tree looking down on the chestnut grove and it sings a warning when anyone comes close.”
“Nyah-weh, Uncle,” said Hodadenon, “I thank you for your good advice.
Now I must he on my way. I shall return with the food you need if all goes well.”
Taking two sticks, he tied them together and placed them standing near the fire.
“Watch these sticks, Uncle,” said the boy. “If all is well with me they will not move, but if I am killed they will break apart.”
Now Hodadenon set out on his way.
He went straight to the north and found a narrow path.
“This must be the road my uncle told me of,” said Hodadenon. “It looks easy enough to travel.”
The boy continued along and soon the path began to twist and wind.
Ahead, it turned sharply to the left. Hodadenon stopped, crept off the path, went through the trees, and peered out cautiously.
There on either side of the path, were two great rattlesnakes, coiled and ready to strike.
“Uncle,” said Hodadenon, “you know this road well.” He went and caught two chipmunks. Holding one in each hand he again began to walk the path.
When he came to the two rattlesnakes he threw a chipmunk into the mouth of each before they could strike him.
“Tca,” he said, “you seem to be in need of food.
Now I have given you that which you should hunt for yourselves.
Hawenio, our Creator, did not make any of his beings to be slaves. Go from this place.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the two rattlesnakes uncoiled and crawled off in different directions, leaving the road unguarded as Hodadenon went along his way.
Meanwhile, back at the lodge, the two tied sticks which had been quivering now stood still as Hodadenon’s uncle watched them intently.
Now the path entered a rocky place.
Again Hodadenon left the trail to scout ahead.
There, where the way dipped between two big boulders, were a pair of giant bears, crouched and ready to tear apart anybody who tried to go by.
“Uncle,” said Hodadenon, “you have travelled this road before.”
He climbed a tree where he heard the buzzing of many bees, pulled out two combs of honey and went back onto the path.
When he came to the bears, he hurled the combs of honey into their mouths before they could grab him.
“Hunh,” the boy said, “it looks to me as if you were hungry.
Now I have given you that which you like best of all.
The one who gave us breath, Hawenio, did not make us to be the slaves of anyone.
Go from this place.”
At his words, the two bears turned and went away,each in a different direction as Hodadenon continued down the trail.
Meanwhile, back at the uncle’s lodge, the two tied sticks stopped quivering and Hodadenon’s uncle breathed a sigh of relief.
Now the path entered a deep forest and wound between large trees.
Leaving the trail, Hodadenon crept along till he could see the place where two huge panthers, eyes glowing like green flames, hid behind a pair of giant pines on either side of the path.
“Uncle,” Hodadenon said, “you remember your travels well.”
Taking his bow and arrows, he killed two deer.
Carrying them over his shoulders, he went down the trail once more.
Before the panthers could leap upon him, he threw each of them a deer.
“Ee-yah,” he said, “I see that you were in need of food.
Now I have given you that which you are supposed to hunt.
Know that the one who gave us strength to walk around, Hawenio, did not intend that any living creature should serve another as a slave.
Go from this place.”
In two different directions away into the trees slunk the panthers and the boy continued along his way.
Meanwhile, back at the lodge, the two sticks which had been shaking as if struck by a strong wind once more stood still as Hodadenon’s uncle watched them.
The path in front of Hodadenon was very straight and wide. It looked to have been travelled by many feet.
The boy listened very carefully and soon he began to hear a very faint song coming from the treetops.
Crawling forward through the brush, he peered up and saw the one who was singing.
It was the skin of a woman tied in the top of a tree.
This was her song:
Gi-nu, gi-nu, gi-nu
I am the one who sees all,
I see you
The song was very soft.
Hodadenon could barely hear it, but he knew it would grow loud indeed if she caught a glimpse of him.
Below her was a grove of trees.
They were covered with a fruit which had burrs all over it.
These, Hodadenon knew, must be the chestnuts.
Beyond the skin woman and the trees was a great pile of human bones and just to the other side of them was the long lodge of the seven witches.
“Tcu,” said Hodadenon, “now I shall need some help.”
Going to a basswood tree, he peeled a long strip of bark.
With a burned stick and the juice of berries, he decorated the piece of bark until it looked just like a long wampum belt.
Slinging it over his shoulder, he knelt down and tapped four times on the earth.
“My friend,” he said, “I am in need of help.”
Up out of the ground poked the nose and then the head of a female mole.
“Nyoh, Hodadenon! How can I help you?” asked the mole.
“Grandmother,” said the boy, “if I make myself very small, will you carry me under the earth with you?”
“That’s too easy,” said the mole. “Let’s go!”
Then Hodadenon began to rub himself with his hands.
As he did so he grew smaller and smaller until he was small enough to travel with the mole under the earth.
Down into the ground they went, coming up beneath the very tree where the Skin Woman was swaying back and forth.
Once again Hodadenon rubbed himself with his hands until he was back to normal.
Then he called up to Skin Woman.
“Sister,” he called, “I have seen you first.
Do not tell the others I am here and I will give you this fine belt of wampum.”
“Wah-ah!” said Skin Woman, “I did not see you, Hodadenon.
Give me the belt and I will not warn them you are here.”
Hodadenon tossed the belt up to Skin Woman.
She put it on and immediately it wrapped itself so tightly about her she could not speak. Under the tree, Hodadenon quickly filled his pouch with chestnuts.
Then, making himself small once more, he called for his friend, Mole, to take him back under the earth.
Up in the tree, Skin Woman finally got her breath. She began to sing:
Gi-nu, gi-nu, gi-nu
Someone has bribed me
I cannot say who
Out from the long lodge ran the seven witches.
Each of them carried a long club.
They ran to the place where Skin Woman hung, but they saw no one.
“Someone has been here,” said one of the witches.
“Some of our chestnuts are gone,” said another.
“Skin Woman,” said a third witch, “you are our slave.
Speak and tell us who has been here.”
But Skin Woman did not answer the question.
All she did was swing back and forth in the wind, singing this song:
Gi-nu, gi-nu, gi-nu
I’ve been given a wampum belt
Shining and new
“You are a fool,” said another of the witches.
“That is only the bark from a tree.”
“It must have been The Last One Left.” said the fifth witch, “the boy whose uncle stole from us long ago.”
“If he comes back,” said the sixth witch, “we will catch him and kill him.”
“Nyoh,” said the last witch, “now we must punish our slave.”
She took her club and struck Skin Woman a heavy blow.
Each of the others did the same.
Then the seven witches went back into the long lodge, leaving the Skin Woman covered with bruises, but still singing softly of her fine new belt of wampum.
Meanwhile, back in the lodge of Hodadenon’s uncle, the two sticks had fallen over on the floor.
Picking them up and standing them upright once more, the old man watched them with great concern.
From his hiding place in the earth, Hodadenon had listened to all that was said by the seven sisters. “It is not right,” he said “that those terrible creatures should go on like this.
Friend Mole, we must go back there.”
The mole dove deeper into the earth.
She carried Hodadenon under the long lodge and came up beneath the couch where the sisters slept.
There, tied to a string of sinew, were seven hearts.
Quick as a spark leaping from the fire, Hodadenon grabbed the string of hearts and ran from the lodge.
Seeing him, the seven witches grabbed their clubs and gave chase.
Now back in the lodge of Hodadenon’s uncle the two sticks fell over once more.
The old man was so disheartened that he did not stand them up again.
He lay there staring at them, certain that his nephew would now never return alive.
From the top of her tree, Skin Woman sang as the seven witches chased Hodadenon:
Gi-nu, gi-nu, gi-nu
Hodadenon has your hearts
This will be the end of you
Now the first witch had almost caught up with the boy and raised her club to strike him.
As she did so, Hodadenon squeezed one of the hearts on the sinew string and the witch fell dead.
Now the second witch was about to strike.
Again Hodadenon squeezed a heart and the second witch died also.
In the end, he had squeezed all seven of the hearts and all seven of the evil sisters had fallen dead.
Climbing to the top of the tree, Hodadenon cut loose the cords which held Skin Woman.
He brought her down and placed her on top of the pile of human bones.
Then he began to push against a great dead hickory tree which was near the pile.
“Get yourselves up, my relatives!” he shouted. “A tree is about to fall on you!”
Immediately Skin Woman and all of the people whose bones were piled there leaped up and came back to life.
Skin Woman was, indeed, the sister of Hodadenon.
Long ago the evil witches had caught her and the others of his family whose bones lay in that pile.
There before him were his parents, his brothers, and all his relations.
All were very happy to be alive and thanked the boy again and again.
Taking the chestnuts from the ground, Hodadenon passed them out to all his relatives.
“Plant these all over,” he said. “Food will be shared with everyone from now on.”
Finally, his pouch filled with chestnuts, Hodadenon went back to the lodge of his uncle.
The old man lay there on his couch, thin as a skeleton, his eyes fixed on the two tied sticks.
“Uncle,” said Hodadenon, “I have returned.”
The old man jumped up and embraced the nephew.
To this day he still sits in that lodge, making chestnut pudding in his pot.
And from that time on, the chestnuts, like all the other good things given to us by Hawenio, our Creator, no longer belong to just one family, no matter how powerful they are, but are shared by all.

So I was dabbling in some shadow work with my protections in place. As I was folding laundry a little fairy slipped in through vents. I was very cordial and firm with him.
“Here let me get the door for ya” ”there’s the door”
I even showed him out the back door and gave him a smoke for the road.
The fucker tried to slip in my pockets and stay in my house.
He was being a nasty little cunt and wouldn’t leave so I told him
“hey look man get out. Last chance.”
His energy switched up so fast. He left immediately.
Like bro I’ll feed you to my cat. I’ll put you in a shot glass for the next foreseeable future.
I spent the next 20 minutes laughing at the whole situation and brewed some coffee.
The little shit turned my coffee into tea from the window as he fucked off into the night. What a guy. Thanks for the tea I guess
Update: This guy wouldn’t quit fucking with my stove so I tried putting him down a jar. Little shit slipped out at the last second.

The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.
This is not a drill.
If you have any experience or interest in portraying a military man or woman in a realistic, apocalyptic depiction of the near future in North America— you're in the right place.
We will dive head first into the minds of the soldiers and survivors. Our characters will navigate a realistic setting and find themselves in extreme situations. Their metal will be brutally tested.
https://imgur.com/6ONRU7T
I seek all the dedicated rookies and people who hold the insider knowledge of the bowels of the military machinery. You can rp as a professional or a recently recruited civilian, a good or bad guy, any gender and backstory works. Whoever our characters were before the world ended won't matter. It's who they become that will be their savior or their downfall—their legacy.
There are people to save. Bonds to strengthen. Hearts to break. Redeem or betray yourself. This is it. No-holds barred. Are you in?
If you're interested, make sure to match the following guidelines. There's a catch to this roleplay but that's classified so just hit my inbox.
// Guidelines //
— respect and common sense in a relaxed atmosphere
— please be an adult, experienced, open minded and long-term co-creator not looking for a quick fix, a dice game, or to be led by the hand; it's going to be a collaborative effort (I can elaborate)
— multi paragraph, proofed replies please, but no need for flowery novellas unless that's your style
— this story will contain dark, controversial, and triggering topics so please don't show interest unless you're positive they will not affect you during hopefully very realistic and immersive scenes!
Don't be shy, come say Hi in my chat/PMs. I’ll be happy to share all the basic lore info and answer any questions you might have. I'm looking forward to meeting you so don’t worry if I take a while to respond, cheers.

The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.
This is not a drill.
If you have any experience or interest in portraying a military man or woman in a realistic, apocalyptic depiction of the near future in North America— you're in the right place.
We will dive head first into the minds of the soldiers and survivors. Our characters will navigate a realistic setting and find themselves in extreme situations. Their metal will be brutally tested.
https://imgur.com/6ONRU7T
I seek all the dedicated rookies and people who hold the insider knowledge of the bowels of the military machinery. You can rp as a professional or a recently recruited civilian, a good or bad guy, any gender and backstory works. Whoever our characters were before the world ended won't matter. It's who they become that will be their savior or their downfall—their legacy.
There are people to save. Bonds to strengthen. Hearts to break. Redeem or betray yourself. This is it. No-holds barred. Are you in?
If you're interested, make sure to match the following guidelines. There's a catch to this roleplay but that's classified so just hit my inbox.
// Guidelines //
— respect and common sense in a relaxed atmosphere
— please be an adult, experienced, open minded and long-term co-creator not looking for a quick fix, a dice game, or to be led by the hand; it's going to be a collaborative effort (I can elaborate)
— multi paragraph, proofed replies please, but no need for flowery novellas unless that's your style
— this story will contain dark, controversial, and triggering topics so please don't show interest unless you're positive they will not affect you during hopefully very realistic and immersive scenes!
Don't be shy, come say Hi in my chat/PMs. I’ll be happy to share all the basic lore info and answer any questions you might have. I'm looking forward to meeting you so don’t worry if I take a while to respond, cheers.

The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.
This is not a drill.
If you have any experience or interest in portraying a military man or woman in a realistic, apocalyptic depiction of the near future in North America— you're in the right place.
We will dive head first into the minds of the soldiers and survivors. Our characters will navigate a realistic setting and find themselves in extreme situations. Their metal will be brutally tested.
https://imgur.com/6ONRU7T
I seek all the dedicated rookies and people who hold the insider knowledge of the bowels of the military machinery. You can rp as a professional or a recently recruited civilian, a good or bad guy, any gender and backstory works. Whoever our characters were before the world ended won't matter. It's who they become that will be their savior or their downfall—their legacy.
There are people to save. Bonds to strengthen. Hearts to break. Redeem or betray yourself. This is it. No-holds barred. Are you in?
If you're interested, make sure to match the following guidelines. There's a catch to this roleplay but that's classified so just hit my inbox.
// Guidelines //
— respect and common sense in a relaxed atmosphere
— please be an adult, experienced, open minded and long-term co-creator not looking for a quick fix, a dice game, or to be led by the hand; it's going to be a collaborative effort (I can elaborate)
— multi paragraph, proofed replies please, but no need for flowery novellas unless that's your style
— this story will contain dark, controversial, and triggering topics so please don't show interest unless you're positive they will not affect you during hopefully very realistic and immersive scenes!
Don't be shy, come say Hi in my chat/PMs. I’ll be happy to share all the basic lore info and answer any questions you might have. I'm looking forward to meeting you so don’t worry if I take a while to respond, cheers.

Harry looked over at his mentor sitting up at the position of Headmaster and gave him a nod.
"There will be no interference from anyone. That goes for staff, too. Is that understood?" the Headmaster said with force.
"Yes Professor Tsung," came back the chorus of replies.
Across the Great Hall, Harry faced off with his nemesis. The Dark Lord Voldemort stood with a sneer on his face, wand drawn. "It is foolish of you to send Potter to face me alone. But I will certainly not object. My loyal Death Eaters, you will do nothing until the boy is dead at my hand."
The masked and robed wizards gave their acknowledgments with nods and a few scattered, "Yes, my lord's"
The Headmaster stood and yelled out, "Begin!"
There was a flurry of activity as Harry and Voldemort exchanged a dozen spells in quick succession. It started with bone breaking curses and cutting curses, then got much darker from there.
After a few seconds of being surprised by the fury and skill displayed by the seventeen year old, Voldemort began drawing from his repertoire of magic which he usually reserved for powerful opponents. He conjured a massive snake made of Fiendfyre.
A small smirk tugged at Harry's mouth upon seeing that spell. It was time for him to step up his own game.
In an instant, Harry's form blurred and warped, becoming a bit taller, a bit larger, a whole lot older, and exceedingly more flamboyant. Voldemort looked in shock as Albus Dumbledore stood before him.
'Albus' wasted no time in banter. He quickly twirled his wand, whistling all the while, and a flood of water sprang up from where he alone knew and overwhelmed the fire spell, dousing it before it could gain too much strength. Then the long-bearded wizard began transfiguring the tables and chairs into deadly soldiers, animated suits of armor, and turned the debris around him into deadly spears that hurled themselves at Voldemort unerringly.
The dark wizard screamed in anger, sending a shockwave of raw magic out to destroy the transfigured and conjured threats.
"No, this cannot be! You are dead!"
The form of the deceased Headmaster blurred and shifted, leaving Harry Potter standing there again. "So, he is, but he sends you his regards. He says he'll be seeing you soon."
The self-styled Dark Lord could not take that taunt. He jabbed his wand forward. "AVADA KEDAVRA!"
The green bolt flew towards Harry at an incredible speed, but the younger wizard side-stepped it. Then his form shifted again, this time into the form of his old, hated potions teacher. From his dark, billowing robes 'Severus Snape' pulled a few potions and downed them. He would need every advantage if he wanted to defeat this enemy.
But Voldemort laughed. "Snape? You should have chosen more wisely, Harry. You may have found my old faithful servant to be intimidating, but for me he was just a tool."
Having obtained the benefit he wanted from that form, Harry was all too glad to shed it. While Harry had not found the Potions Master intimidating since he had been training with his mentor, he did continue to loathe the man and being in his form was not at all enjoyable, despite what had happened at the end.
Harry shot off a few curses and dodged a few more, but this was getting him nowhere. He needed an edge. And there was one form he knew would give it to him.
A sudden blurring and Harry stood in a form sure to freak his opponent out. Voldemort's own evil red eyes stared back at the Dark Lord.
"Avada Kedavra!" "Avada Kedavra!"
The two cast at the same time, both barely dodging out of the way at the last second.
"You dare use my own form against me! I will destroy you the way I destroyed your parents you little--"
Harry's form blurred once--but faded into nothing immediately after. Appearing behind Voldemort he stretched out both of his hands and fired off a succession of flaming projectiles that caught the dark wizard mid-sentence.
The Dark Lord tried to rise, but he found it impossible. The attack had ruined him. Voldemort watched as Harry summoned his wand to him and snapped it in half as he strode over to him.
"Fool, you should not have started monologuing in the middle of Kombat," Headmaster Tsang Tsung said as Harry approached his fallen opponent.
Harry glanced up at the head table, careful to keep an eye on his enemy. That had been drilled into his head by his teacher.
"FINISH HIM!" the sorcerer commanded.
Harry grabbed the snaked-faced wizard with one hand, the other he raised above his head. "Your soul is mine!" Harry declared.
Sickly green magic poured from his hands into the man formerly known as Tom Marvolo Riddle, and then the energy poured back towards Harry, with what was left of Voldemort's soul along with it, back into Harry through his eyes and mouth. A ruined husk of withered and greyed flesh was all that was left of Voldemort's final body.
Gasps of shock and revulsion came from the Hogwarts teachers.
Harry rolled his eyes. "What?" he asked with a shrug of his shoulders.

Rent-A-Center Dilemma
I signed up for a rental agreement with Rent A Center back in November 2023. They were very unorganized but moving forward, I had my delivery set up. One of the managers Stephon and a driver delivered my washer and dryer set. The manager was friendly and I was just ready for his ass to get out of my house. So moving forward, I receive a text and it’s from an out of state number saying that it was him. The damn manager! 1.) I did not give you my number at anytime inside my home so why would you feel comfortable texting me!!? This manager had gotten my number off of my paperwork. I was so confused and pissed THE F**K off that I said my dryer is missing a component just to try and not overthink that he was overstepping boundaries. He stated that he would check in the back of their warehouse to see if they had the piece I needed and he would come put it on. Well they didn’t have the piece. So I ordered it and told him I think I can manage putting it on myself. Y’all !!! Why did this man come over on his launch break that he gets like 45 mins to an hour break. He took every bit of 5 minutes to put the part on but would not LEAVE ! He was asking about my cooking. Asking me was I single. Told me what type of man I deserve. Told me he scanned the parking lot and knew which car was mine. He was very weird. He basically stayed his entire break. I was so weirded out and tried not to overreact because of the business contract. Not knowing what to do. I also was home alone with my 22 month old son at the time. He was sleeping upstairs. So I ended up telling my boyfriend and he’s like why did this manager try and pull this mess while not there. Here’s the kicker you guys: I have a ring doorbell camera and it has record of all of this and the time stamps and days. Fast forward to January 2024, the manager texted me happy new years !! Like what? Why would you do that and I haven’t shown any interest in you!!? So moving forward I got behind like a few days on my weekly payment actually because I forgot and called to try and work a payment date out with them. Tell me why he went off on me, told me he was not going to help me and that they were coming to get my stuff and that the manager I needed to speak with was not in and ended up hanging up the phone in my face. I tried calling back and no answer. So I called the headquarters and told them what happened. They acted like they were going to do something and I told them about his personal number and area code which I shouldn’t have known and also where he told me he was from which why would I know. I also mentioned other things. Do you they didn’t offer anything for the hassle and weirdness. Nothing at all. So my job closed down and they started calling me from a new number. I had old them I would come in to pay cash. So I get up there and the credit manager had already given me the amount I needed to pay and was like yea I’ll work with you cause you always pay on time. I get up there like 10 mins later. Tell me why I pay for both weeks and they do not give me my change back and say we credited it. I’m like I didn’t ask you all to do that. Then it’s 3 men in the store (including the manager I had originally had an issue with texting me) all employees only and they are discussing my biz and the one who had given me the phone call with the amount I owed was right there as well. And I’m like why would you all not return my change. That’s not how it works. Ya’ll didn’t state that beforehand. So I walked out and the manager that I had to deal with months before who still has his job was like what’s wrong as I’m walking out. I was just disgusted. It was doggish and I’m just going to sue them at this point because you’re not going to take my money and then think it’s cool to harass me and I’m a paying customer. I was wanting to hear some feedback to see if I’m tripping or what… I’m also wanting to see if maybe I had a possible case. Because I believe so wholeheartedly !

I (19M) met my best friend (19F) about 4 years ago during the end of my Freshman Year in High School. In that time, she was dating someone and I was dating someone and eventually, both of our relationships went to crap because of very immature reasons that were common with kids our age. I was afraid to be alone after my break up so I ended up getting closer to her and it got to the point where we began to talk every single day, and that streak hasn’t ended since. I had a feeling about her even during that time but went on to enter a situation-ship that turned into an actual relationship for about a month until that too ended unceremoniously. She was there for all of it and even gave me the confidence to end the relationship with my ex after my ex said that I “wasn’t a priority,” something I’ll never forget. That line hurt like hell after putting so much energy into caring for her.
My second ex, the situation-ship one, would joke around with my feelings afterward and try to talk to me months after our breakup. For context, I told her never to speak to me again after she claimed she loved me then went on to date another guy as reported by my best friend. So this behavior was very detrimental to my mental health and made things a lot worse for me. My best friend however, protected and defended me from her actions. My ex let it slip that she was afraid for my bff to find out we were talking because she had scolded her before.
Eventually, that ended and up until this point, my bff was someone who was scarily similar to me and sorta brought me out of my shell. I changed a lot of my “loner” ways for her and would walk to class with her, not even speaking sometimes, just enjoying her presence. We’d have these little moments between each other and got mistaken for a couple a few times too. She had an affinity towards me but it was nothing romantic.
Fast forward to last year and I’m starting to take notice of some strange feelings for her and through subtle prodding, it was still clear she wasn’t into me in that way. There’d be little clues of something brewing within her heart but not enough to act.
Now this is where it gets interesting. 2024 has probably been our best year yet and the crazy part is that we haven’t seen each other in-person since our mutual friend’s graduation party which was last year. We have plans to travel across the world, live in some apartment together, own a dog together, dress up for halloween as Agnes and Kristofferson from Fantastic Mr. Fox, and a bunch more like me cooking for her and us doing each other’s hair. We text and talk to each other like we’ve been married for 20 years. She’ll tell me when something’s wrong and never takes out her frustration on me, called me when she was having cramps and stuff, will occasionally take some photos of herself for me.
The photos of her is where I find myself realizing how deep I’ve fallen because this woman is just gorgeous. I legitimately can’t see myself with anybody else but her. Her smile, her hair, her cute glasses, and her entire body is simply STUNNING. Don’t even get me started on personality because that’s what has me so starstruck. I was looking at her photos tonight and man, I wonder how I lived without her for 15 years…
I never run out of things to talk about with her and unlike the past few years, all of her plans seem to include me in them. Driving together, napping together, just being around each other always. I mentioned her being my partner a few times and she gladly accepted that title. I EVEN KNOW WHAT WEDDING RING SHE WANTS. It’s not the look that matters but the engraving, which is the timestamp for Harry’s love confession to Sally in “When Harry Met Sally.”
My relationship/friendship with her is completely unlike the ones where I was actively dating them, I am so completely invested in her life and what’s she doing and what she likes. It’s borderline obsession with loving every aspect of her and the world she sees. My friends are always talking about flirting with girls and all that but as long as my best friend exists, I feel as though I’m taken.
And I know some people would question why I haven’t confessed and that’s because I’m waiting until I can see her face-to-face and know for sure if she loves me back in that way. We say I love you quite a bit but with everything going on between us, I have a feeling that I’ll get my true answer by getting to look into her eyes again. Part of me thinks I’m dreaming all this up and that she truly does see us as just friends but there’s too many coincidences for me to ignore it. We’re too close, I believe. Too close for either of us to enter a relationship with someone else, at least.
Let me know what you guys think.