Side effects of zoloft in teenage boys

Absolute whinge post here:
I wouldn't normally be bothered about the Portal, probably not my thing, but the reaction to this whole thing is everything that winds me up the wall about Ireland. I tend to always defend Ireland and look on the brighter side of what others find miserable, but I really hate the attitude that expects we can't have nice things.
Before it even started the fact it was on Talbot street had the nation salivating waiting for the moment it would all go wrong, even though no matter where it would be it would have attracted mad lads desperate for attention - Dublin's not that big, the mad lads get everywhere.
Then as soon as the first eejit put up a phone, it exploded on social media worse and whoever did it must have been amazed at all the attention he was getting, so it was only logical that more gobshites who also want to get the attention would come down and get up to silly stuff.
The whole country, rather than ignoring it and letting them get bored and move on, instead gave them all the oxygen they could ever have expected, constant news coverage, all over social media.
But the truth was, no one in NYC gave a shit. They've a massive city where crazy stuff happens and you just move on, but now, after faux worrying about what NY would think of us over an imagined scandal that never existed in the first place, we've become an international laughing stock in a case of pure Streisand effect.
I really wish we could just learn to ignore these eejits when they should be ignored. The portal was a great success and 99.999% of people who interacted with it had a positive experience. If there isnt' a technological solution I'm sure it will go down in lore as an "I told you so" but the "I told you so" people are the people I'd blame for getting it shut down.

I have finally had both of these to test on alternate nights, and would like to share a little experience comparison. Apologies on misspelling Ozlos, autocorrect keeps changing it.
PACKAGING:
Ozlo- Packaged like an apple product, a lot of effort was taken here. Maybe a bit wasteful on resources but for a premium pricetag I guess It’s appreciated.
Anker- Packaged well, Everything secured and very minimal resources used.
Score- Ozlo
DESIGN/QUALITY:
Ozlo- Out of the box, the case feels hefty, nice quality rubber grip to keep it from sliding and remain stationary on my nightstand. Opening the case has a smooth glide and nice presentation. The case is a bit large but these are meant for sleep, not carrying daily so For purpose reasons it’s acceptable. One flaw, my first night I placed the buds back in the case and went to put them in the following night to find the right bud at 0%. I had to nudge it a hair to get it to lock into the connectors and start charging in the case. I’m guessing the magnet wasn’t strong enough to really pull them onto the charging contacts, and now I have to be precise when returning them to the case. The silicone on the Sleepbuds is very soft and pliable. First attempt at wearing wasn’t comfortable, but I have small ears and went straight to size 0 tips, with a 100% improvement. There’s still a specific amount of pressure laying on side of my head where these become noticeable and also my jaw seems to impede on the earpiece blocking sound at some angles. I’m a stomach/side sleeper. Easy fix, I create a small crater in my pillows (down feathers) where my ear is and problem solved. Comfort score for regular wearing is 10/10, side sleeping 8/10 (still best in market to everything I have tried)
A20- This is where the price difference becomes apparent. The case is smaller, and feels of a much cheaper and thinner plastic. Better portability size and rounded to make taking in and out of pocket better than the Ozlos. Super light weight overall. Greeted by the indicator lights on the outside of the case, so I can see status without needing to open. Taking them out of the case the silicone feels more like rubber, and notable size difference. The device itself has a “hollow” feel to it unlike the Ozlos. The ozlos seem like the voids inside the buds are filled in and insulated, where the a20s seem hollow and don’t insulate sound while touching them (bad for when a blanket or pillow slides and touches it while sleeping). I was greeted with automatic Rain noise the second I put them in my ears, I do like the ear detection and the tap features where I can pause/play, adjust volume, skip, etc by double or triple tapping the earbud. Useful feature absolutely, but i’m guessing adding that tech is the reason behind the girth of the buds themselves, in which case i’d rather go without. In the ear they are very light but don’t quite fit the shape of my ear, they almost resemble the fit of the first generation airpods. comfort normal wear is 8/10, side sleeping 4/10 very distracting bulge and pressure at a specific point despite changing tip sizes. The extra girth to add some features is not welcome for a device meant for sleeping, at least for side sleepers like myself.
Score- Ozlos
FEATURES:
Ozlos- without just listing off the manual what these can do, I can only review the available features, and will only share “after the recent update.” After the update the connection is seamless, but I still feel as though the earbuds might be on even while in the case, and would like an update where the buds and the case disconnect from my phone and turn off when the case is closed with the buds inside. I still find myself putting my buds in the case, closing it, and attempting to listen to music in the other room and finding my iphone is still playing through the buds… The app is intuitive but buggy, nothing a software update can’t fix as long as the hardware is capable enough. I would like an option to just pick up the buds, put them in my ear and it start playing automatically, even though I don’t use the native sounds. Honestly the features that haven’t released yet I can probably live without, but for the price of the sleepbuds I expect everything under the kitchen sink.
A20s- These don’t have nearly the features of the Ozlos, but for less than half the price I don’t expect them to. Plane and simple controls, adjustable tapping settings, and automatic sound playing when placed in the ears is welcome.
Considering I was a kickstarter for both of these, at time of release the A20s feel less buggy and more ready for release than the Ozlos, despite the significant quality of feel of the Ozlos.
Score- A20s
SOUND QUALITY:
Ozlos- Terrific sound for such a small device. I wasn’t impressed by the native sounds, they seem very 2 dimensional, however this lower quality sound is also easier for the device to stream and use less battery so it is expected. I use Odysound for my sleep/focus sounds (Pink noise, Florida Thunderstorm, and indoor seaside) and if anyone hasn’t used this app, you’ll likely be amazed to the dolby atmos sounds and these sounds having depth is greatly emphasized by good sound quality of the Ozlos. Still has a surround sound feel and impressive bass with my thunderstorm. I’m very impressed by the sound quality as long as my jaw and side sleeping doesn’t impede on the sound.
A20s- Initially the built in sounds seem a touch higher fidelity and depth than the Ozlos, but by fractions. The audio quality is both good and bad. the depth is there but lacking due to the hollow device and poor noise insulation. But, this also adds to the effect of the bass which has more rumble to it due to that, it makes heavier low frequency sounds resonate better. overall quality feel like that of stock headphones that come with a phone when you buy it, good enough but nothing to talk about.
SCORE- Ozlos
BATTERY LIFE:
Ozlos- keeping this short, I keep the case plugged in at all times since it stays on my nightstand or the side table of the hotels I stay at, so I won’t vouch for case battery life, but the earbuds have lasted me a 7 hour sleep with 80% volume streaming either pink noise or thunderstorms from odysound, and I put them away with 15% battery remaining, so easily 8hours and that’s all I need. I don’t use phone free mode as I prefer my premium sounds, and I don’t use an alarm or a timer to turn sounds off in the app (I use the built in 8hr timer in odysound). So battery’s been all I need it to be. I tried them on a 3 hour flight but much prefer my airpods with ANR.
A20s, i’m guessing they have a larger battery because a 7 hour night playing pink noise 80% volume had me putting them away with 24% remaining. But I don’t need that 24%, I need smaller earbuds to be more comfortable for my 7-8 hours of sleep.
Score- Even
PRICE:
Ozlos- I was hesitant to send a chunk of change this size for a startup device, but I was kind of expecting Bose quality, and feel like I got it. Overall I’d say these are overpriced, considering they are nearing the price of my airpod pros, but designated only for sleep/rest. Otherwise they just don’t compare with value and should be closer to $150. They seem premium, but they’re not $200 sleepbuds.
A20s- I got these for $90 kickstarter, and can say they belong right at that price, not a dollar more. They’re cheaper feeling and less refined all around, but they do their job and are more in line with their pricetag.
Score- A20s
Overall, both these devices do as they advertise (except unreleased features of the ozlos) and are useable for sleep. The biggest difference is for sidesleepers which is where the Ozlos are the best in the business. If you sleep facing up, the ankers are a better bang for your buck. Since I live in hotels as much as my own home i’ll keep the ozlos for myself and give the ankers to my wife, she is satisfied with them. But overall the Ozlos are superior in every way.

Chapter 12
Lacy awoke in a hallway. It was similar to the hallway that she first awoke in. Only exception was that it was covered in blood. Bodies laid on the floor with multiple lacerations. Lacy was already standing up when she had first opened her eyes. She could hear grunting coming from the other side of the hallway. When Lacy moved her eyes to the end of the hallway she saw herself. Looking directly at her was Lacy. This one was covered in blood and was holding the axe that she had. Her eyes looked deranged. In an instant the other Lacy dashed towards the real Lacy. Without hesitation Lacy lifted the axe and dropped it directly onto the imposter's head. The body slumped to the floor and Lacy breathed a sigh of relief. But as she began to continue forward the thought of what she had just done hit her like a bullet. Looking down at your own body would make a sane person go mad. Lacy barely reacted. Turning around she noticed a new hole. She could continue going further. Lacy had no emotion as she stepped into the hole. The only thing on her mind being the voice that she last heard the Elk use. It was unlike no other voice. It was calm but menacing. Like it knew that Lacy could not win. She brushed the thought off and continued pushing forward. She had to face whatever else this place had in store for her. She had to.
Chapter 13
As Lacy stepped through the hole she noticed that she was no longer passing out. Instead she just appears in these new areas. This time she was in a house. The home was run down. It gave Lacy a sense of dread. Walking around the building Lacy looked at the furniture. It was furnished as a normal house. Like a place that a family would enjoy their time in. A sofa was facing a TV. On the screen was an episode of some children's show that Lacy had probably enjoyed when she was younger. Directly in front of the TV was a childrens chair. Looking at the living room gave Lacy a feeling of nostalgia that drowned out the despair of this awful place. “Hello, is anyone here?” Lacy asked but got no reply. Looking around the room Lacy saw a hallway that led into the kitchen. The paint on the walls were peeled off. Entering the room Lacy smelled the stench of death. Moving further in she saw a girl on the table. The body was almost completely decayed. Just as Lacy was about to inspect the body a loud crash erupted from the living room. Picking up the axe and holding it close to her chest Lacy walked through the hallway. In the living room the sofa was flipped upside down as well as the TV. A ghostly wail cried out and Lacy felt herself become cold. Continuing through the living room Lacy noticed a staircase that led up that she had not seen before. Clutching the axe in her hands Lacy walked towards the stairs. As Lacy approached the bottom the lights began to flicker. The steps creaked as she made her way towards the top. Each step she took made her feel colder. Her eyes met the top of the stairs. A ghostly figure appeared to walk across the doorway out of sight. Lacy felt her legs freeze at the sight. The thing she saw seemed to be transparent. Lacy knew what that meant. “How the hell do I kill a ghost?” Pushing up the stairs there was a hallway. Two doors on each side with one door at the very end. Continuing forward Lacy opened the first door on her right. Inside was the bedroom of someone older. The bed was made and aside from the cobwebs and dust everything was in order. As Lacy turned around to go through the other door, another crash could be heard. Lacy turned around to the furniture ripped to shreds. The bed was torn in half and the dresser was opened with all of the clothes spread on the floor. Another chill ran through Lacy's body. A quiet whisper entered Lacy’s ears. The words were spoken too fast to be made out. It was so quiet Lacy had to focus to hear it. Continuing forward Lacy opened the first door on the left. Inside was a bathroom. The bathroom was pristine. No dust or cobwebs. Just a white pristine bathroom. The shower curtains were closed. Lacy walked towards the curtains. The curtains shifted as if there was someone behind them. Lacy reached her hand towards the curtains. Another chill ran through her body as the whispers got slightly louder. Moving the curtains, the tub was empty. Lacy breathed a sigh of relief. As she turned around to face the door the room became a dark blood red. Lacy looked at the doorway and saw a girl. The child could not have been older than twelve. Lacy froze at the sight. The kids arm outreached and pointed towards the door at the end of the hallway.
Chapter 14
Just as fast as the kid appeared she disappeared. Lacy peaked her head out of the door and viewed the door at the end of the hallway slowly open. A red light emitted from the room. Lacy stepped towards the open door. The whispers that she had heard were getting louder the closer she got to the room. As she got closer the whispering became clearer. It was gibberish. Nothing that she heard was legible and it was loud enough for Lacy to understand. The door was fully opened by the time Lacy got to it. In the room was a red symbol on the ground surrounded by candles. The room was dark, only lit by the candles and the miniscule glow of the symbol. The image was hex. In the middle was a book. Walking towards the hex Lacy noticed a mirror. Looking into the mirror Lacy found the source of the whispering. Floating behind her with its hands on her soldiers was the ghost child. The boy's eyes were black and was whispering in her ear at an inconceivable speed. The image shocked Lacy. Turning around, the boy was not there. Looking back at the mirror Lacy could still see the child behind her. Looking back at the hex, Lacy saw the girl sitting in front of the book. As Lacy stepped closer to the book the whispering became louder. Sitting in front of the girl Lacy grabbed the book. The title of the book was Goodnight Moon. The little girl pointed to the book. Lacy opened it and began reading from the pages. “In the great green room, there was a telephone and a red balloon and a picture of a cow jumping over the moon.” As Lacy read the whispering became even louder. “And there were three little bears sitting on chairs. And two little kittens and a pair of mittens.” Lacy continued reading. Lacy turned her head around to the doorway to see a multitude of people in robes coming up the stairs. The people were making a haunting moan as they stepped towards the room. Lacy read more and more. “Good night moon, goodnight cow jumping over the moon. Good night light and the red balloon, goodnight bears, goodnight chairs.” The choir was getting closer to the door and the whispering was growing louder and louder. Lacy continued reading. Just as the choir got to the door. “Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere.” As Lacy said the last words, the noises around her went quiet. Lacy looked up and the girl was gone. The choir was no longer at the doorway. And looking into the mirror the boy was no longer whispering into her ear. The entire house was silent. Lacy looked back at where the book was. In its place was another hole. Lacy looked at it with dead eyes. Knowing what was about to happen.
Chapter 15
Lacy awoke in a study. The room was undisturbed. In front of her was a desk, multiple insect and other animal taxidermies were spread throughout the room. On the desk was a plaque that read Professor Crawford- Biology Expert. Above the desk on the wall was a quote marked in blood. The words read “Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here”.
Lacy looked behind the desk and in it was a skeleton holding a bible and a gun in his hand. Lacy looked back at the desk and found another tape recorder. Lacy grabbed it fearing what she was about to hear. Pressing the button Lacy heard a familiar voice.
Day one:
Our explorers found a mysterious hole in the middle of Israel. The men decided to not interact with it and instead immediately report it. The Overseer immediately demanded that a base should be made around the anomaly. Preparation immediately began on the base but unfortunately a couple managed to get past security and decided to step into the hole. That couple was not seen again. The building was finally made and studies on the hole began. Originally studies were done externally. The scientist discovered that it had no gravitational force, radiation, or mass. It dumbfounded them because of its existence as a hole. Then the physical tests started. At first they just threw things into the hole. The objects would just bounce off.
Day:15
Today is the day that they decided to send in a test subject. Some guy that worked in human resources. They offered him a high paying job, not telling him the gravity of the situation. They had a rope tied to him but when he stepped through the rope burned off. The man was never seen again. Later in the day they sent another man this time with a video recorder. When the man stepped into the hole the recording stopped abruptly. The scientists were confused at the entire situation. The only thing that they could do was monitor the size of it to make sure it was not growing.
Day: 23
The Overseer has lost her mind. She started kidnapping people to put into the hole. At first it was criminals, then it moved on to the homeless, then they started putting innocent people into the hole. She claimed it was to just see if someone could escape it. I have to tell the police what is going on. The people must know what has happened to their loved ones.
Day: 24
Someone found out I was going to tell the authorities. The Overseer has ordered me to go into the hole. I'm bringing this tape recorder with me. I will survive whatever this is. I will tell the world the horrors of these people.
Lacy Put down the recorder. Tears began to flow down her eyes. She didn't know if the truth made her feel better or worse than when she didn't know. She now knew that her chances of escaping were little to none. Looking at the corpse on the ground she noticed another tape recorder. Grabbing it Lacy pressed play.
Day:
I don’t know how long it has been. I don’t want to keep going. Hole after hole I can not find my way out of this place. I steppin into a place that had a lodge. I heard voices mocking me. Telling me things that I didn’t want to believe. Then an Elk appeared. In its voice I heard something that sounded malevolent. It speaked of this place referring to the holes in itself. The being was demonic. I shot it and another hole appeared. I kept going. I don’t even remember how many holes I have been through. This room will be my last. My hope is gone. That is what the Elk wanted. That is why I can feel myself rotting away. I'm sorry to those I left behind. I have given up. Hell has won.
The tape recorder ended. Lacy looked at the corpse. Looking back to the door of the room Lacy saw another hole. Tears ran down Lacy’s cheek as she stepped through the hole. Hanging on to what little hope she had left.
Chapter 16
Lacy awoke in a familiar place. The hallways were dingy. The lights were flickering. Lacy’s face was burning as her heart rate increased. “Lacy” The voice made Lacy’s blood run cold. Looking into the darkness The Smiling Man stepped into the blinking lights. Lacy’s legs could not move. She was crying so hard her eyes hurt. The Smiling Man walked towards her. His eyes widened as his smile became wider revealing the blood stained teeth. Lacy tried to move. She remembered the words on the recorder. It won't end. Lacy did not move. She looked directly at The Smiling Man. Lacy closed her eyes accepting what little mercy this place offered. The Smiling Man ran towards her plunging his teeth into her neck. Lacy felt her life fading away. Remembering her father she let out a smile.
Epilogue
Lacy awoke. She had remembered dying. “Lacy”. The same voice rang through her ears. Lacy stood up. She was holding the same kitchen knife she found in the beginning of all of this. Lacy could feel her body run cold. “It won't end.” Lacy muttered these words over and over again. The Smiling Man entered the light. Lacy raised the knife. Covered in blood, Lacy repeated the words.
“It won't end.”

I have two questions

1. Has anyone come off biologics and just taking steroids as needed or mesalamine
2. Has anyone moved to a different part of the world where they saw improvements in their gut. (Europe ? Rural areas ?)

I read re population of gut bacteria is one of the reasons is beneficial. crohns exist is because in modern societies we don’t have enough diverse bacteria
I know what happens once you come off biologics etc. I’ve heard it all before and that’s not what I’m asking.
I recently was diagnosed I’ve only taken budesioned and it brought my cal protection to 16. I’m still having trouble eating some foods and very mild symptoms. But i am bad with drugs, that’s how i got my crohns is through antibiotics. And budesioned is messing up my hormones so bad i got my period twice this month. I’m so scared to be on biologics because I’m already having side effects with a mild steroid… I’m going on skyrizi soon i don’t want that to be my forever life

Hi everyone
I’m confused because I have a family member that is experiencing hallucinations and agitation out of no where.
I raised concerns about that plus other things such as hair loss to the doctor. The doctor keeps reporting memory loss concerns, but memory loss is not an issue in my opinion. The family member’s memory is good and better than some younger kids…shoot even mine.
It’s the hallucination that’s the concern.
They refuse to consider the meds being the causes of that but agreed that the med management is a little messy currently.
I contacted the pharmacist where we picked the meds up at and they review her prescription history on a quick phone call and think it can be a result of low sugar maybe, but says the meds in question wouldn’t cause that.
It confuses me because I looked up the meds in question and they have side effects of what I’m complaining about online.
I’m trying to figure out what to do. My hope was to get the medical team on the same page so we can stop the meds, monitor, test, and analyze from their. That way we can manage the meds a little better and slowly add things back as needed and safely.
I don’t understand why everyone is saying there’s no side effects or not these side effects as the side effects in question pops up on the first page of Google.
The medical team didn’t see anything that stands out on the mri but is calling the issue maybe dementia due to a memory loss test that I believe the family member did good in. I was there. It was just calculations that were not good.
I’m going to connect with a neurologist next, but I just don’t want to be quick to call something dementia when it’s might be due to medication.
It’s like they just want to give meds that have similar effects to these other diagnoses or disorders and say that person has X and when it gets worse it’s not due to X but truly secretly due to the meds.
I’m just hoping to connect and learn from others here in hopes with making the next best steps to help with what’s happening. Just hoping to hear experiences others might of had related to this.

Today was my last day of my freshman year, and possibly the last day to see two of my best friends (who are twins) at school. They are very likely to move before our sophomore year together starts.
I have been very sad about this. I met these two friends at kindergarten, and they were my best friends, until they moved away after 1st grade. We were far too young to have any way to contact each other, so we lost contact with each other for years. We never forgot each other. We had been reconnected during our 8th grade year, when they moved back to their home town. As well as I remembered them, they felt like strangers. I had no idea what had been going on in their lives for the past few years, but soon enough I discovered that they were still the same friends I had met all that time ago.
We shortly became inseparable, and were the best of friends once again. We stayed up late talking, we went through relationships, they helped me get my first boyfriend, we had sleepovers. Normal teenage girl activities.
I had on the friendship bracelet we had made at our last sleepover, because even though I thought friendship bracelets were kind of corny, I wanted something that would always make me think of them.
Like I said, today was possibly one of the last days I could see them. I was walking through the hall to my last block class, when our friendship bracelet snapped in half. I didn’t think much of it and just said I’d fix it later, but now that I think harder about it, it’s very sad. It almost symbolizes our friendship being torn, both sides separated once again.

I was told a lot of the estradiol typically doesn’t completely absorb through the skin so you’re only getting a certain percentage of the estradiol contained in the patch. Is transdermal application strong enough & sufficiently absorbable to do monotherapy? How strong would the dose need to be? Any reasons why this would work with cream or gel, but not patches?
I’m aiming for patches because I’m told it’s the most steady release of hormones, and isn’t quite as time sensitive as pills or injections. It just seems easiest. If monotherapy with patches isn’t possible, I am considering bicalutamide as an AA then… Cypro sounds awful, spiro sounds unpredictable, bica sounds… decent. Mostly because of its alleged ability to retain libido and erections. But you’re not trying to suppress the T with bica per say how you would with spiro or cypro, but rather block it’s reception? And E does the suppressing?
Apologies for being a simpleton, got lots to learn. Just trying to figure out what my body and mind will react to best with goals in mind. I am more concerned with avoiding unwanted side effects- (organ damage, losing libido/function, potential brain fog & depression, especially apparently from spiro), keeping my body & reproductive system healthy, than extreme or speedy feminization.
I am 21 with a good starting point, but I already have chronic fatigue and nasty clinical depression, poor family health history, mild erectile dysfunction. I’m okay with potentially slower or less radical initial feminization from experimenting with (hopefully transdermal) monotherapy and bicalutamide, if it means I’m able to maximize my short & long term sexual function & overall health. Am I on the right track?

Folks, Hasbara and IDF agents, and mostly people who are not even affiliated with UCSC are coordinating posts, comments, likes and dislikes, etc. in UCSC and other universities' subreddits. Do not fall for their misinformation. God has exposed these hypocrites and they'll remain exposed from now on.
The same is true for YouTube comment section, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms. They have paid agents coming up with pretend profiles and stories (as well as manipulating comment and post votes).
They're very nuanced and smart with this divide-and-conquer endeavor. They will pretend to be on the side of Palestine, humanity, and common sense (by conspicuously posting such material). They'll even condemn some factions and their actions, but you'll be able to see through their psychological manipulation attempt when they begin to question and throw a fit about pedantic issues or rather, imply that most of the movement is advocating for or directly linked with terrorism.
You all witnessed how many so-called antisemitic incidents they staged themselves.
So, they're panicking now. But they're smart about it. They'll only relinquish arguments and factions (bit by bit) once it becomes indefensible and painfully obvious.
They're amongst you. Soon, out of fear of being caught, they will chant whatever you chant, but know that they wish you nothing but death.
I ask of you kind hearted folks with a soul, to be patient and also on alert in these tough times. Wear those disingenuous dislikes and flak they give with pride. Make it apparent that being called antisemitic has no effect anymore. Make it apparent that ludicrous arguments about events that occurred millennia ago by Romans, Judea, or whoever they name, does not justify ethnic cleansing.
Folks, don't be afraid. Life will become very tough for these genocide deniers with the passage of every second. They'll not know what comfort and peace of mind is anymore. Also, please assemble your collective consciousness in unison. Pray for their demise. Pray that they be ridden with nightmares and paranoia for every beat their heart pulsates.

So about a year ago I (20M) had feelings for one of my friends, Leia (22F, not really name). Bad idea, yep. I was in a similar situation years ago and that previous girl was super abusive, she made my life hell. Not the most fun, I gotta say. Leia was really, really similar to the last abusive girl, coming down to the sinilar hair, similar personality, same height and same age. But she seemed better. I met her since my Fratenrity and her Sorority are somewhat close
So I confessed to Leia I had feelings for her, but didn’t want to date. I just wanted to get it off my head and be honest with her. She didn’t want to date either but she said she really loved our friendship, and we spent a few hours talking about it. I told her about my past stuff, and she promised she wouldn’t do the same thing to me, and she’d always be there for me since I’m one of her best friends.
3 weeks later I cut her off. She was abusive, a lot of lying, gaslighting, projecting, isolating me from friends, and so, so much blaming and stonewalling. She did everything to me that the last girl did, all the stuff I told her about, and it had such a bad effect on me that I ended up getting diagnosed with MDD, but there were a lot more issues that caused that. It’s been silent treatment since then, except for a few times she’s done things to taunt me, but I’ve just ignored her.
A year later, I’m better now. I’ve got great supportive friends, and my life is on the up and up. But I found out she decided to not graduate on time and stay another year, and that’s confused me a lot. I miss all of our happy memories, and I never really got closure. Part of me wants to talk to her again, but idk why. My therapist said it’s natural, especially since I haven’t really dated since then, after it nuked my confidence, it makes sense, but I just feel like shit thinking about her. I at least have closure than people know she’s like this and they’re on my side, even her own sorority sisters, but I still miss those happy memories.

This is probably a longer story than it really is, but I am just trying to give as much context as I can.
In grade 11, me (F16-17) and my ex-friend (F16-17) were best friends. For some context, we both became friends fairly early in high school. In my country high school is from grade 8-grade 12. I joined the high school in grade 8 from out of city, the high school is just closer to me than the one in my city, so I was a new kid. I made some friends in grade 8 as a new kid but those friendships did end in grade 9. Grade 9 is when my best friend, we'll call her Emily, transferred to the school. And we formed a friendship. Through grade 9 we had formed our own little friend group with 2 other girls, we'll name them Clara and Sabrina. It was the 4 of us through majority of high school. We would always text each other, always hang out after school, spend any break we had at school together and had as much fun as any girls in high school could have (minus the partying because my school is not a partying school).
Emily and I were the closet in the friend group, afterall we were pretty similar and come from similar backgrounds (We're both a type of asian). We both would be described as the smart kids. We both would end up getting high grades in all of our classes. In grade 9, when we met, she told the friend group her dream was to become a doctor like her parents were, so she studied extra hard in high school to keep her grades high. I, on the other hand, did not really have any specific dreams. I wanted to become a writer or even a lawyer (but was worried because I'm not the best speaker). Due to that, I never tried that hard at school. Like i care about grades, my parents cared a lot about me getting high grades, but I wasn't studying for anything. And with that I never really studied either, I would do my homework and pay attention in class and take pretty notes but I was not spending any real time after class to do work Which is something that Emily would do. She would spend hours and hours a day just studying. If she wasn't studying she would be doing some volunterring or some club stuff.
Fast forward to grade 11. Right from the beginning of the year something just felt odd about our relationship. She seemed distant. Which I chalked up to it being we were now considered seniors at our high school so she was starting to stress about universities already, but it was still whatever. My school worked in semesters, so for half of the year we would have 4 specific classes which would then switch to different classes in second semester. During first semester I didn't have any classes with any of my friends. I was just chilling in all of my classess and getting adopted into different group friends in those classes. I was always well-liked in high school, I was not a popular kid. But compared to all the smart kids in the school, I was deemed the nicest so because of that everyone would be nice to me and friendly (even though I know for some of them it was so they could get hw answers out of me, but they were still very nice to me).
During this time, my friends and I would make up plans to hang out. We always made it a point to hang out at least once a week outside of school. It was always after school, we would usually study, walk around or go to the mall. In our gc on insta we would always double check with one another on which days to do it. Clara, Sabrina and I would always talk in the gc and were always the ones initiating the plans. Emily was also in the gc but would rarely reply to anything. Any times we would make plans to hang out, Emily would either not reply (which would then lead us to asking her during lunch the next day if she was free, where she would barely talk) or she would just say no to all plans. The few times she would say yes, she would always cancel the day of. Which would be annoying, and Clara, Sabrina and I would talk amongst ourselves that we found it odd she would always cancel and never want to hang out outside of school, but we were like it's not that big of a deal. She could just be busy.
We then just ahead to my birthday. Now i have an early birthday and it falls around the time that we come back to school after the winter break. Now during the winter break, Clara, Sabrina and I formed a seperate gc as it would just be the three of us talking and making plans. We also always took so many pictures and felt bad about sending it into the gc with the four of us in it as we didnt want Emily to feel bad about not coming. So we figured it was better if we kept it seperate. But in the main gc, I just ask when is everyone free to do something small. I'm not really a birthday person. Since high school, all my birthdays include going to some cozy restauraunt with my 4 closest friends and just having a casual dinner. So I ask and everyone leaves their responses, including Emily. We decide on a day, it would be after school just a day or two after my actual birthday and we would be going to a restuarunt and an arcade nearby (I have strict parents so I really wasn't allowed to go out late or really go out anywhere far). The plan is made and everything is set. When the day comes for the dinnearcade, we all meet up by our lockers to go take the bus together.
The 3 of us are there waiting for Emily to come and she does just a few minutes late. That is when she tells us she can't come because she has a club meeting today, and she told us it was mandatory for us to attend. Now of course my friends and I tried to convince her to blow it off just this one time, but she was adamant about going. So, whatever. We say bye to her and start walking to the bus. While walking there we bump into a mutual friend, also waiting for the bus. She is also in the same club, so we confused why she was here. We do ask her, saying "hey isn't there something happening with the club today?" That is when she tells us there was just this small meeting recapping what had happened in last weeks meeting for the people who missed it. Meaning the meeting was not madatory at all, especially when Emily had cancelled our plans last week to go to this said meeting. Meaning she did sort of lie to get out of going to my birthday party. I of course was hurt by this. When she told us she had to go to the meeting, I didn't think much of it as I knew how much school mattered to her and how much doing this club stuff mattered. But she had the choice to come, and she decided to just blow me off. We went out and had fun and didn't bring the matter up with her. We figured it was just her caring a bit too much about school.
Anyways this whole cancelling plans last minute, ghosting the main gc thing happened more and more. It also got to the point where if I wanted to talk to her, whether that was through text or in real life I would always have to approach her first. As this carried on for a while, i of course was getting a bit annoyed about where this friendship was going.
We now get to Emily's birthday a month later. Now Emily decided to plan her birthday, very last minute. I am just pointing this out as i am not a person who can do spontaneous plans, one because i have this need to plan properly and two because I do have strict parents. So i can't just spring a plan on them the day of and expect to go. Which is something Emily knows. Anyways she makes the plan and i tell my mom about it to ask if i can go and she says yes. The day before, Emily then decides to change the plan entirely. We were going to go into downtown city (for context, it's roughly 2 hours transit from our neighborhood). I obviously had to ask permission as she wanted to stay out late which is not something my parents would like, so when Emily told us at lunch the change in plans, Clara, Sabrina I told her we had to double check if we can still go as we all have strict parents, but our extended friend group were all down to go.
After school, the four of us head into the bathroom, which is a toally normal thing for high school girls to do before we headed out. While there Emily then decides to start a fight with me about not going to her birthday, which hasn't happened yet. She starts yelling at me about how Im mad that she didn't go to my birthday and am not going to hers as revenge (I'll be honest, I kinda forgot she didn't go). And starts yelling at me about how I'm being a bad friend and frankly a b*tch. And when I say she is screaming at me, I mean there is the largest echo circling our bathroom as she yells at me. Now I'm just standing there, trying to reason with her. I'm just trying to explain to her that i didn't say i wasn't coming, i just needed to get permission to go, which is something that Clara and Sarbina said as well but Emily wasn't saying anything about them. She proceeded to just yell at me for a solid 5 minutes. Another girl did walk into the bathroom, saw Emily yelling and just left, which I feel bad about. I do not do well with someone yelling at me, so I just tell her that I'm leaving now and we can talk later. I practically run out of the bathroom and out of school. Clara runs up to me and says i can't go home feeling like this. I felt horrible, i felt like throwing up. So Clara makes it her job to cheer me up as Sabrina is trying to calm Emily down. Clara takes me to Mcdonalds, where we split a meal as that became a tradition of ours and she bought me ice-cream to make me feel better. We end up spending roughly and hour and half there before starting to walk back to our houses. I did feel a lot better and I was smiling. Clara didn't really say much about what happened as she knew it would upset me. She just said that Emily was being mean and left it at that. At some point during our walk, Emily calls Clara and starts screaming at Clara over the phone about choosing "my side". I only know it was Emily because I can hear her screaming through the phone and Clara is trying to be nice to her and say she was comforting her friend like a good one would do. Emily continues screaming and Clara just hangs up on her.
We don't talk about it. Now the next day, at school, is Emily's birthday. I feel so awkward. Because i'm still upset about what happened. When I see her, I'm not sure if I should wish her a happy birthday. I feel like I am owed an apology first. so i don't really say anything to her. and we don't really talk. Now we are in the same Chemistry honours class together and are lab partners. So we have to talk. I ask her, if we're going to talk about what happened. And she just says, no, it's my birthday. I just say really but she doesn't say anything after. So Im just like, fine, whatever. We spend the entire class in awkward silence, and I do not see her again the entire day. Even at lunch because she has a club meeting or something. Clara, Sabrina and I all agree that we don't want to talk about it. Clara got an apology text last night but she was still mad about being yelled at over the phone. Sabrina asked us if we wanted to know what her and Emily talked about yesterday but i said no. I was frankly too mad and knew if anything was said, I would be upset. Emily did not end up having a birthday party. and there is now an awkward silence between the 4 of us. it's like a horror movie, where the music is playing and you just know something bad is coming and you have to wait for it.
A few days later, I know i have to say something. I can feel that our friendship is hanging by a thread and I want my best friend back. So at lunch, while we're all sitting by our lockers I bring up the topic. I do not remember the conversation that took place. All I know was that Emily was practically screaming in my face, in front of all our friends (Clara, Sabrina and 5 of our other friends). Everyone is trying to get her to stop, but she keeps yelling at me. At some point I just start crying. Now this is the first time, that someone outside of my family, has ever made me cry. Its the first time I have ever cried at school too. The tears are flowing down my face as I just say "i'm sorry i cant do this" to the rest of our friends as i had off to the bathroom to calm down. Clara and one of our other friends rush off with me to try to calm me down and stop the tears. But they keep coming. I can't stop them and am now in the bathroom splashing my face with water and doing my best to wipe them all away. Clara, this other friend and i all have the same class next. So they have to literally drag me to class as I'm sort of paralyzed about whats happening. When we get to the classroom, everyone there, which was half of the class is looking at me and seeing my red, teared-up face. Our seats are at the very back corner of the classroom, on the very opposite side from the door. So i have to walk past the entire face as they all stare at me and wonder whats happening. the entire time im not really paying any attention. during little work periods in the class, my fellow classmates would walk up to me and ask if im okay. which i would say yes, i was even though i wasnt because what else could i say. I ended up powering through the rest of the day before going home and wonderign what to do.
In the secret gc, I text with Clara and Sabrina about what my next steps should be. They suggest we have an actual therapy session as a friend group to discuss if we even want to be friends at this point. I agree to this. I even start writing up my own speech I am going to tell Emily when i see her.
So I'm just going to jump ahead to whenever this happens. It's during lunch, outside on the grass field. I am calm, I know what to say and everything. I'm sitting there with Clara and Sabrina has to literally drag Emily out of school to come and talk. I kid you not. We have like an hour for lunch. It takes 20 minutes for Emily to finally show up. And she shows up like, "ugh what are we even doing here? im kinda busy" and just acts like there is nothing at all wrong. I start to calmly explain to her how ive been feeling the entire year. I do not remmeber the conversation. But what I remember talking about is how i feel like she's distant, she's always cancelling plans, im always the one texting her first, about how she gets mad at me for small little things, how she yells at me, etc. My whole speech was about how "i don't want to feel like sh*t for trying to continue this friendship". Because even after the first time she yelled at me, I just wanted an apology and we could move on and that didn't happen. And now Im just like I don't want to cry again and don't want my tears to come from someone who's supposed to be my best friend. She does argue her case in this. Her whole thing is how "i'm being clingy and annoying and controlling".
Now for her arguement, I think it should be known more about my persoanlity type. I am not the best people person. I have social anxiety and how that manifests in me is that i can't really talk to people that well. I don't know how to converse and get incredibly nervous to talk to anyone new. So when I do become friends with someone, I do latch on to them. I talk to them all the time, when i can, and they become my person. I think that is where the clingy party comes from. For the controlling/annoying thing, I can only chalk it up to me always texting her. Like i said, i would always have to be the one initating our conversations and plans. So our chats always look like 5 bubbles of text from me (because i am the person that types in multiple bubbles rather than one large text bubble) and her short responses. When it comes to plans, as I said i do not do spontaenous plans. I need to have them properly organized for both my parents sakes and my sake. I'm not someone who plans everything out minute by minute, I just need to know times and places. And if you are actually free.
Thankfully this time, Emily isn't yelling at me however she is talkimg a bit loudly. Now at this point we have spent 25ish minutes talking about this when she suddently gets up and says "i have to go otherwise i'll be late for my class and get in trouble". Which there is still 15 minutes before lunch ends. And her classroom is across the hallway from my next class with Clara. The walk from the grass field was literally 2 minutes. Our coversation wasn;t done. There was no convlusion and no real understanding on either part. So all of us get up as Emily starts speed walking and we all chase her. We're all telling her there is still so much time left, but she doesn't listen and still carries on. So then I say, "i don't want to be friends anymore if this is what it's going to be like". and she says "fine." and walks away. and that was the end of our friendship.
It was almost spring break and our friends were doing their best to navigate the situation. I think they believed we both needed time to cool down and we can all be friends again. However that didn;t happen. Emily and i agreed to be civil as we still had the same friend group but she never really hung out with us in the next couple days, or talked during lunch and that was it.
The two of us did not talk at all. The only times we did was in our Chemistry class, where she did the most un-civil thing ever. As I said we were lab partners. Anytime we had any lab, involing the microscope, I would always be the person doing the microscope work as Emily writes down the results of what I found. I would then get the numbers or obersations from her and add them to my worksheet as our teacher wanted us to work in partners but submit our own work. This one lab went off for too long and the bell rung. So as we are packing up quickly, I ask Emily for the numbers she wrote down. She said she's late for something and will send me the numbers later today. And I'm like fine. She never did. It was also a Friday so we went into the weekend and she never sent me anything. I did text her once on Saturday and another time on Sunday if she could send it. but she never replied and i just asked another classmate if they could send me their answers. If our teacher asked why did we as partners have different answers, I was going to tell him Emily wouldn't give them to me. He never did ask and that was the last time we really talked.
We then headed into spring break which ended up turning into the pandemic lockdown. Now I feel so bad when saying this, as i know this was a difficult time for so many people. But me as a 17-year-old high school studnet, loved the first few weeks of lockdown. I saw it as a mental health break as all the stuff that went down with Emily did in fact put me into a depression phase (I actually do have depression and i do end up in mini-phases where its really bad). The lockdown gave me time to breathe as it felt like i was holding my breath for so long and i could relax. Now in the fall, our school did a hybrid for our last year. Which was fine, it was weird but managable. Emily did not talk to me, Clara or Sabrina at all during our seniour year. We graduated and my friends and I had the best time we could under pandemic restrictions.
Current day, I (21) am now in university. Clara and Sabrina and I are as close as ever and have managed to keep our friendship alive and strong even 3-4 years outside of high school and while all attending different universities. We still hang out regularly (once every week or so) and text all the time. And would you believe it, Emily goes to my university. Remember, how I said she wanted to become a doctor. Yeah so her plan was to go to university in Toronto for some medicine thing. I don't really know. She didn't do that. Instead she stayed in our city and decided to do business instead. What am I doing, you ask? Also business. Now I know I can't claim a school, or a major or anything like that. But i can't lie, im a little annoyed that she decided to swtich her career path to the same as mine. Thankfully Ive only had one class with her and it was one of those big lecture halls so i didn't have to talk with her. Just seeing her tho reminds me of high school and i can feel my blood pressure rising and me sweating as all the nerves and stress come back.
Anyways Clara and Sabrina's birthdays are coming up. Their birthdays are within the same week so since high school, they've always just done one big combined party. The two of them are both really chill people, they are friends with everyone and anyone. So as their coming up with their birthday plans, they are thinking of their guest list and Emily is on it. Now, Clara and Sabrina did ask me beforehand if they could invite her. They do want to make sure I am comfortable. They both tell me that they don't really talk to her anymore, maybe once every 3 months or something. They also haven't hung out since high school. But for their 21st birthday they are thinking of inviting everyone from our high school friend group to have sort of a mini-reuinion. I am down for it, I do think i have moved on, in the sense that I know I do not want Emily in my life. I do tell them I will probably feel awkwad but I can manage for one night for their birthday.
As I'm telling my sister (F16) about Clara and Sabrina's party and who's coming, she asks me about Emily. She basically says if Clara and Sabrina are fine with inviting her, that means they have forgiven her for high school stuff, so am I not being a bit mean for holding on to my feelings? I am a person who believes there is no expirational date on any pain caused by a person. I should not have to "forgive and forget" a person, who has not asked for it and who caused me so much pain just because that is how the world has worked. But it go me thinking, am i being a bit rude?
So, two questions: AITA for what happened in high-school? (am i in the wrong for the friendship breakup) and AITA for not wanting to forgive her?
A FEW NOTES: (i'll add more when i think of it)
I have not spoken to Emily since grade 12. Not in person, not through people, not through text. We have had no contact with one another and i am fine with that. I do not want any relationship with her.
Clara and Sabrina are two of the sweetest people in my life. It does not hurt me at all they have the odd interaction with Emily at all. Afterall they do say its very minimal contact and the few times they have made plans with Emily included, they let me know well in advance, ask if its okay to invite her and all that. Each time I say its fine because I know Im in a good place to not feel bad.
I have never yelled at Emily. Nor have I ever spoken badly about her. With our mutual friends I might complain about the situation, but I never say anything bad about her. I should also say, Emily i don't think was well-liked. As I said the two of are good students, the smart kids, whatever else you want to say. However Emily is what would be described as a "teacher's pet" and does give off an arrogant vibe at times towards others. Some of my other friends/classmates would sometimes make comments about this to me, but i would always sort of downplay it. Like, oh that's not how she really is, she just cares a lot about school. A few times I would say the comments are harsh to some of the classmates. Her, on the other hand, has called me a controlling b*tch to several people. who have all told me about it. She did bad-mouth to quite a few people.
At some point in grade 11 (not really relevant to the main story, but might be part of the reason Emily's always made at me), but I was blamed for a rumour going around that Emily had a crush on this guy in our grade. Emily and I had to go to this one teacher's class for some notes or something. And in the class was this girl who I didn;t really like. So before we walk in I whisper to her, no one can hear, that "hey there's that girl i don't like". Emily then makes it so obvious that she is looking at this girl. And next to her is one of the popular boys in our class. Emily makes it so obvious that shes looking in his direction and does it a few times, that the rumour she likes this guy becomes a huge joke in our grade. She does not like this guy, never has liked this guy, but it is a joke that him and his friends carry on. This continues for the entire year, and Emily in our therapy session does mention this fact. She says its my fault that this joke has gone around. I don't see how.

Kyoshi book 1 is the epitome of ‘a meeting that could have been an email’. Its book that should have been a graphic novel. A story that should have been a wikipedia page.
SPOILERS, though I am saving you the read.
TLDR: The story telling is mediocre, and the story would have been just as compelling as a bullet pointed list of story facts. It flubs, glosses over and skips all portions of story that would have required any amount of clever writing or skill. The story is comprised of cringey tropes. This book will not sit among the original series in the annals of history. It sits below Korra and just above M Knight’s film adaption and the disgraceful Netflix reboot.
First, the idea of there being immense trouble identifying the Avatar is a good plot point. Having Kuruk’s team find and teach the next Avatar and have opposing ideals is also a good plot point. Yee also describes the martial arts okay enough, but this is an inherent obstacle when turning highly visual source material into text. This concludes my praise.
Yee tells, but doesnt show. Show more teambuilding and friendship between Kyoshi, Rangi and Yun. They only come together once in the same room to hang out before the main conflict happens, and its a superficial scene straight out of an 80s slasher movie. They come together solely to ‘show’ them being a team as they hang out and exchange banter. This is the first of Yee’s pseudo-“show, don’t tell”. It appears like the story is showing us something, but it is still telling us. It is characterized by vapid, juvenile writing in a scene that is largely inconsequential to the story.
Make the misidentification of the Avatar weigh on each of them and test friendship. Show her being found by Kelsang. The jump forward 9 years is jarring and leaves logic way behind. If she was raised by Kelsang, why didnt he finish testing her as the Avatar? Why did he take pity and raise her after traveling the world and seeing other homeless children? Why didnt she give back the clay turtle relic? Kyoshi is abandoned when she is old enough to remember being abandon, but doesn’t remember where she got the turtle. This line is another example of pseudo-show. Why don’t we dont get any insight into the moment she is abandon? We do not know any of these things. Including these scenes in the book would have made it longer, but its the juiciest piece of the character development. The length of a book is largely forgivable if it is captivating. This is like if you order a burger and they only bring you a bun and a slice of bib lettuce. Its missing the most crucile part.
Show Yun being incorrectly identified as the Avatar. This scene has to be so interesting. There is nothing in the book about this at all. This seems like another artful dodge around having to write something clever, and that tends to be difficult.
Show Kyoshi’s Avatar state. ‘Blacking out’ is not a mysterious way to tell stories. Its a cop out of writing something the author finds difficult. Also, a character can black out and not remember doing something AND the author can still describe it as it happens to the reader. Choosing to ommit more juicey story speaks more to the writers lack of confidence in their writing.
The fans and helmet of her parents are forced clumsily into the story at the height of the inciting incident. They could have been introduced any time. For example, when Kyoshi connects with her parent’s old crime ring and they could be presented to Kyoshi as relics of the group’s deceased leaders. Instead they are introduced to the reader by Kyoshi dropping her luggage and they fall out in the rain and mud. It reads like a scene that is meant to be a story board for a cartoon or comic.
We dont get any insight into Kyoshi’s parents being dead or alive. Kyoshi doesnt seem to ask anyone either. Why? Seems like a reasonable question.
Kelsang realizes Kyoshi is the Avatar when she does some improv poetry that happens to be Avatar Kuruk’s favorite poem? That was the best idea you got?
Kyoshi has a sky bison named PengPeng? Find a new method of transportation, the flying bison had been done before. Pengpeng is also only used as transportation. She doesnt have any personality like Momo and Appa. Total strikeout.
When something new develops that is supposed to surprise the reader, like Kyoshi’s mother being a disgraced airbender, Yee doesnt show this. This is explained away in a moment of dialogue like “once upon a time, this happened.” Then the plot moves on. And what motivation did she have for keeping this from Kelsang? Maybe they knew each other? They are both airbenders who have killed before, which is significant in the fiction. This could have been an opportunity to connect characters and create intrigue. But we only learn this at the end of the book for no reason.
Love between ATLA characters is subtle in the show. Katara and Aang will end up together and we know this implicitly. Sokka loves his friends, particularly Toph, because of the actions we see him take to help her. Rewatch the show, you will see what I mean. However this is not a major plot point that is touched on each episode. Zuko and Mei are together but they are pulled apart temporarily by character motivations. It skips the filler and gets right to the interesting part. However in Kyoshi book 1, love between Rangi and Kyoshi is vapid and foreshadowed from the first pages. Lets set lesbianism aside, its not the issue. The issue is that this love story is not compelling chiefly because we are told they care for each other but are only shown this in the back half of the book on a surface level. Even when we are shown these things, its not believable. The characters act like teenagers do in 2024 America, not like how teenagers would act in a world coming off the heels of a 100 year war. The characters are young, but they have roles, careers, and the responsibilities of adults. This stems from the same problem Yun has with Kyoshi and Rangi. We don’t see them becoming or being friends. We are told they are friends. Thats it.
This connects to Rangi’s character being ambivalent and emotionally indistinct. Rangi is played as a tough, no nonsense soldier that is hired as Yun’s personal bodyguard, the most important job next to being the avatar yourself. But her expressions of love are juvenile and childish. In one scene she is scolding Kyoshi on her duty toward being Avatar then in the next she acts playfully excited like an American weeb teenager when Kyoshi bends water for the first time. Rangi is poorly written and has poor motivation to her Avatar duty. She contributes nothing practical or technical to the story but love interest. If she is a child prodigy badass that earned the job of protecting the Avatar, she should act like it.
Hei Ran, Rangi’s mother, does nothing consequential to the plot. Why have this character? It is stated she knew Avatar Kuruk. The least she can do is bring it up more.
AND FINALLY, Kyoshis character is very opposite from who we see in ATLA. Obviously this is to show growth, but the timid Kyoshi inexplicably switches to confident and intimidating Kyoshi without any growth, then switches back to timid again. We know kyoshi as a tall, confident, matter of fact, powerful bender who sees no difference between murdering Chin the Conquerer and letting him fall to his death. But here we see a still tall, but petulant teen. She is afraid of her bending. She is inconsistently overconfident. She is squemish about murder. Perhaps the growth occurs in book two, but then again change is gradual. We should see some examples of change now. She grew up a homeless street urchin. She needs to act like it.
Yun struggles with his bending but also keeps smiling and acting like everything is ok. This trope is exhausted to death by anime. We do not see a human side of Yun. He is not tortured by the training or the fatique of not being able to bend fire or the pressure and expectation of being Avatar. He just smiles and flirts with Kyoshi. He also asks her to go with him to a peace treaty signing with pirates all because he wants to have her there so he feels loved. But this thinly disguises the fact the author needed a reason to have her at the signing so she can earthbend and save everyone. Take Rangi, your apointed body guard.
Yun returns at the end of the novel as a deus ex machina and kills Jianzhu in an admittedly badass way. 10/10. However, Yun is dead, reappears as a ghost, then earth bends. The possibility of this within the fiction is near zero UNLESS FC Yee is trying add to the lore of spirit magic and bending. To that I say “Learn to be a better writer first.”
Kirima is an okay character. We traditionally see water benders as good guys, but she is a tough leader of a gang of criminals. Again we are told that, not shown. 5/10. Mid teir.
Wong is a worse comedic relief than Sokka. Where Sokka learns to become a leader from a close minded sceptic and redeem this quality, Wong is indistinct from any other background earth bender. He eventually becomes Kyoshis earthbending teacher and he starts to fill out a teacher role but is still indistinct. Up until this time, he carrys no air of educator at all. Remember, he’s a pirate criminal. This turn of character seems to come from the team learning that Kyoshi is the Avatar, something she kept secret. But Wong is the only one who changes their behavior based on this. Meeting the most important person in the world doesn’t effect them, I guess. Doesn’t seem reasonable.
Lek is a kid that idolizes Kyoshi’s parents, but acts out like a toddler when she speaks poorly of them. I am left feeling disatisfied by a criminal outlaw that throws tantrums when someone speaks ill of their pseudo mommy and daddy. Lek is poorly written as a rival to Kyoshi, if if fact that was Yee’s intention. You see it in their banter and interactions. Lek is killed by a poison that only incapacitates all others effected. It was like the author needed him to die real quick and didnt know how to do it, but also didn’t want to rewrite the chapter.
Now is a good time to mention that characters can be annoying to other characters, but they should not be annoying to the reader. Doing this is a form of self sabotage. Its like serving up raw eggs for breakfast on purpose and calling it art. You just wouldn’t do it.
Lao Ge is poorly written too, despite being an interesting character idea. Lao is meant to be Kyoshi’s spiritual leader in this story. He leads her to the ancient technique of prolonging ones life with spirit magic. But this man reads like an embarassing drunk uncle that no one responds to when he speaks. He acts like he’s cool, wanders off constantly and returns covered in blood to a group thats asks no questions. Criminals still ask questions. In fact, they are more paranoid on account of being criminals. For example, there is a scene where they leave without him and realize they forgot him and have to go back. This scene amounts to nothing. Why was it in the book? Whoops, he’s also a master assassin. We are told this over and over but never see it in action. Boo. Don’t suggest violence. Show us violence.
Why is this group of criminals still together anyway? They lost their leaders, Kyoshi’s parents. Wouldn’t the find new jobs? Thin the herd. Theres too many characters.
Jianzhu acts more suspicious after he is identified as the villain which is a trope found in childrens television to remind children he is bad now. The fact it is here insults the readers intellegence. His villain motivations are not explained well. Does he care more about identifying the Avatar than his lifelong friend Kelsang or the life of the innocent? Also, a villain doesnt need to kill someone to be identified as the villain but youll find that trope here too. Clever writing can remedy this all the same. He does do cool evil guy things, but they are explained after the fact instead of showing him coniving these schemes and putting them into action. His death is awesome, but his final confrontation with Kyoshi is not spectacular. There is no final battle like one might expect. He the one that ghost Yun kills.
It is unclear if this book is meant for a YA reader audience or the adult audience that watched ATLA as kids. The story is grittier, bloodier and violent with explicit deaths and torture. All the while bearing a sheen of squeeky clean Nickelodean dialogue and unfunny humor that has an obvious limit. The book says they swear, but the exact words do not show up in dialogue. Characters are impaled and gored, but the 3rd person narration takes breaks from descriptions of this for quippy commentary on the things happening. Who says these things? Kyoshi? But its in third person. This clashes with the perspective and shows indecision on the part of the author.
The perspective is stuck between 1st and 3rd. 1st serves better for the YA audience where Kyoshi might think these quippy things to herself or have thoughts that help the reader understand context better. 3rd person would serve the adult audience better with a matter of fact telling of the story. Maybe even change between characters in some chapters and fill in some of these gaps. Instead the book strattles the line between these two perspectives and suffers greatly. You have humorous commentary and scene descriptions coming from the same source. It breaks immersion when the reader is stuck wondering who is telling the story.
YA is an oversaturatedand flawed genre anyway. Its almost designed to trick teens into thinking they are reading adult books.
Yee includes too many comparisons, similies and analogies. Each one is meant to create world building, where the text compares a creature in the ATLA world to a situation at hand. But they start coming up too often in the back half of the book. This also seems to rise in frequency as descriptions get vaguer. It felt like Yee lacked the proper lexicon to describe what was happening as the story approached the end. Analogies should be used to explain difficult things, not just thrown in recklessly.
One moment sticks out from this book that reminds me of ATLA. While Yun and Kyoshi are silently trying to meditate before Jianzhu summons a spirit to finally identify the correct Avatar, the two teens speak for a second. Eyes closed, Kyoshi whispers “You know what would be funny? If neither of us were the Avatar.” This captures elements of friendship between the two kids, character humor, and SHOWS these two still care for each other no matter what happens next. Yun’s response isn’t even remotely appropriate, memorable or clever. The opportunity is a total loss.
Another moment of total loss and tonal dissonance is when Kyoshi, Rangi and the convicts go to a hidden secret criminal town that is described as being so cut throat, you don’t even look at people in the eye. Just then the group sees two men collide after turning a blind corner and drop their stuff. Page 224. They exchange appologies, act very polite, and depart. (This is told to the reader, not shown with appropriatly funny dialogue). Lek then explains the two men will meet tonight on the challenge grounds and fight to the death. However, that night at the challenge grounds, you don’t see those characters; a total whiff on Yee’s part. Instead you read about one man bludgeoning another man to death with barehands in pure gladitorial bloodsport. This scene shows the whimsy of ATLA, the gorey violence that Yee wanted and his befuddled attempt at writing something that blends the two.
All of this leads me to conclude the book is for a YA audience, which is unfortunate because ATLA was for everyone; YA, adult and children. It is a children’s show that adults can find a surprising amount of depth and humor in. Yee’s doesn’t hold a candle to the writing of Aaron Ehasz.
The argument that this books is allowed to be bad because its for kids falls apart for the same reason. The expert writing of Aaron Ehazs in ATLA is what imortalizes it to this day; the dialogue, the characters, and the story. ATLA is a kids cartoon by which all cinema and television are compared. This is simply not on that level.
When this level of integrity is left to be followed up by an author with one previously published work, underdelivery should be expected. Kyoshi book 1 is FC Yee’s second published work and it shows. I would be interested in learning more about FC Yee’s past unpublished experiences in writing and qualifications.
So again, this book is like a meeting that should have been an email. The story is not “worth the read”. The historical facts are more valuable. For example, telling someone that Kyoshi’s dad is a pirate earthbender and her mother is a disgraced criminal airbender is a total surprise and sparks good speculative conversation. But the way the novel presents this information is clumsy and ignorant of how rare these circumstances are within the fiction. These historical facts are just as compelling when read on the Avatar wiki page, negating the necessity for a book in the first place. I think this is symptomatic of writing a prequal too. We know enough about Kyoshi to be interested in her character, so the facts about her should be presented interestingly with art and showmanship.
This book leaves me with the sneaking suspicion that most of what FC Yee knows about writing was learned from anime, a genre so polluted its not worth even sifting through to find quality content. Hot take, I know.
His other books on Genie Lo (2017, 2020) are teen dramas with ‘the chosen one’ trope, as the summaries suggest. That must be why that shows in this book. Maybe FC Yee can only write one type of book.
Yee is also not an author by trade. He said in an interview that he works in mobile gaming as the guy who makes “everything less fun by adding stuff to the game you have to pay for.” He went to college for Economics, or so I read on his wiki page.
His book publisher proposed the two book series idea to Nickelodeon, it was not a matter of the creators carefully hand picking a writer. He also only worked with Mike DiMartino. In his interview, he says he did not work with Bryan Konietzko and never even mentions Aaron Ehasz. I believe this is to the great detrement of the story.
I’ve heard that people really liked this book. However, I wonder if that is genuine affection or the same kind of denial Star Wars fans had when the Phantom Menace came out. I draw this parallel because my father was that person. He recomended this book to me and gave it high praise in the same way he did when Phantom Menace released.
The fans, my father and myself included, are starved for any canon ATLA material. Feeding the fans undercooked meals is no way to make a fanbase grow. The ATLA fanbase already got food poisoning from M Knight’s movie. It recovered, but at a cost. I hate to think what might happen after the Netflix show and the animated movie of adult Aang.
I understand that Yee was a fan of the material. In fact, he and I share the same favorite character. So know that this is not an attack on a fellow fan of ATLA, I simply believe Yee is not the man for this job. Avatar deserves better than to be relegated to a YA novel lost in a sea of overproduced assembly line YA content. Avatar deserves a better writer. Save your fine cutlery for fine dining, don’t use polished silver to eat fast food.
To end, I leave you with this: if you want more Avatar content, gather some friends and play the Avatar rpg by Magpie Games. It is the most fun I’ve had in the ATLA world since I was a kid. If you play it right, you get that same sense of magic you got back in 2005 when Book Water came out.
Below is a link to an interview with Yee.
https://thenerdsofcolor.org/2019/07/15/from-fan-to-avatar-writer-f-c-yee-on-developing-the-story-of-avatar-kyoshi/amp/

Anyone have any tips on dealing with the sweating? It’s only in my underarm pits that I deal with it, I live in rural Australia so it’s hot all year round but I’m applying deodorant every two hours it seems hahaha
It’s the only negative side effect I’m having which isn’t the end of the world but it is annoying

So I love my new endo. He’s the best in the city and I waited 5 months. He’s so sweet and listens. He ran ALL the tests. He was worried about me having Cushings bc I’m 44 all my labs are good I’m healthy beside my hashimotos but. diabetes came on relatively suddenly After a majorly stressful event. He also checked me for adrenal probs bc my period suddenly got wonky. And my pcp and gyn are useless. Both said your labs look fine see you in 6 months. Meanwhile my a1c was 6.1. I convinced my pcp to give metfotmin now and not to wait until I get to 7. While I wait for endo
Any way endo discovers that my c peptide was high and I’m slightly in pcos territory. Diagnostically I’m still in pre range in terms of diabetes bc I don’t let it get in diabetes territory. but I know it would if I wasn’t on met and ate what ever I wanted. (We all know its the same pathology)
So we were discussing meds and he asked if I ever considered a glp1. He said I don’t love metfotmin bc it masks diabetes. Then I said I’m scared of the muscle waisting aspect of glp1 and the side effects. I said so far the met is working for me but I do think I need an increase. He said yea glp1 can do that you lose everything together fat and muscle..
We started to wrap up the visit and I forgot to ask him what he meant about the met masking dM. Any one have any insight. I see him in November again so hopefully I’ll remember to ask about that

Urology and reproduction
I'm a 31M and my wife is 29F. No medical history, wellbutrin daily. We are located in the US. Non smoking, and slightly elevated BMI but live healthy lifestyles.
We tried to conceive last month unsuccessfully, and are trying again this month. We know it can take upwards of 6 months to a year (or more) to conceive, and are trying to do the best we can with cycle tracking and LH test strips.
My question is since I was like 12 or 13 I've had symptomatic varicocele (self diagnosed) on the left side. Is this something that I should go get treated? Are we wasting time trying to conceive? I have no idea what my sperm count or mobility would be or how it's effected by it.
Thanks in advance!

First / Previous / Royal Road / Patreon (Read 12 Chapters Ahead)

Silently, Pale motioned for Kayla to follow her, and the two of them silently crept out of the cave. As they drew closer to the exit, Pale was finally able to make out the voices from earlier.
"-Sure they're here? The tracks faded a while back…"
"Where in the three hells else would they go? This is the only shelter around for miles. The snow may have covered their tracks, but they don't know this land like we do."
The talking soon devolved into bickering as the bandits fought among themselves. Pale shifted, pressing her weapon's stock against her shoulder, then began to carefully push out from inside the cave, Kayla following a few steps behind her. The snowfall had intensified even further from when they had sought refuge in the cave; between the falling specks of white and the steadily-encroaching dusk, visibility had dropped to near-zero. Despite this, Pale kept moving, seeking cover higher up in the mountains.
The two of them moved over the rocks as carefully as they could, taking care not to disturb any of them for fear of alerting the bandits. Pale couldn't tell how many there were; from the different voices in their group, she counted at least four, maybe five. Ballistic weapons or not, she didn't like the odds of taking on five people in open combat with just herself and Kayla to oppose them.
And so, they continued to climb the mountain. Pale shivered the entire time, the frigid air cutting her to the bone even through her thermals. The temperature had fallen in the hours since they'd set up in the cave, and now even her high-tech clothing wouldn't be enough to save them forever.
Eventually, however, they reached a flat point in the side of the mountain where they could rest. Pale helped Kayla up the edge, and the two of them laid there, panting from exertion. Despite the cold, Pale wiped sweat from her brow, hefting her weapon to her shoulder once more as she peered over the sheer expanse. Through the snow and the darkness, she was just able to make out a few faint shapes milling about.
"Is it safe down there?" Kayla whispered through chattering teeth.
Pale shook her head. "Doesn't seem like it. Hopefully, they won't find the cave – if they do, they're going to keep looking for us. Our only hope is that they'll get cold and call off the search before then."
"Unlikely…" Kayla muttered. "Berserkers like that come from the far north. They're used to cold like this, if not worse. If anything makes them leave, it won't be the weather."
Pale couldn't help but scowl. She looked over the cliff face once more, then shook her head.
"Then I guess we have a choice to make."
"Which is…?"
"We sit here and hope that they don't find anything and leave before we freeze to death, or we throw caution to the wind and take the fight directly to them in order to reclaim our impromptu shelter."
Kayla paled at that. "...I don't like either option."
"Neither do I. The weather is a problem no matter which one we take – either it kills us outright or it affects us to the point where our combat effectiveness starts to drop like a stone. In any case, we're going to need to make a decision fast."
"You're the soldier. What do you think we should do?"
Pale was about to respond, but was cut off by a sudden flurry of excited shouts and movement from down below. She cast another glance down at the cave, and listened in to what the bandits were saying as best as she could. Most of their speech was drowned out by distance and wind, but it soon became irrelevant, as one of the bandits held up the remnants of two military rations, then pointed up towards the mountain. As Pale watched, the rest of the bandits – all five of them – began to climb up towards them. Her expression narrowed as she watched the berserkers steadily claw their way up the rocks, steadily inching closer with every passing moment.
"Looks like they made my decision for me," she announced, hefting her weapon.
"Ah…! What are we doing?!" Kayla asked in a hushed voice.
Pale leaned over the side of the cliff, centering her shotgun's sights on the head of the nearest bandit. He was about thirty meters away; at this distance, she couldn't miss.
"Pick a target," she said without looking back. "Wait for my command before conjuring anything."
Kayla let out a small whimper at what she was about to do, but didn't offer any argument, instead stacking up alongside Pale. She took a breath to calm herself, then raised a hand, but held back on conjuring any magic, instead merely keeping it outstretched. Pale watched as the bandit she'd aimed at drew closer, until finally, it happened – he locked eyes with her, and his expression tightened into one of surprise. He opened his mouth to yell something to his comrades.
A shell full of buckshot silenced him before he got the chance. In that moment, Kayla opened up with a spell, sending a streak of lightning arcing across the mountain and into the chest of the nearest berserker. The man convulsed as electricity danced across his body, but then limply fell backwards, his body blackened and smoking.
For a split-second, there was silence, punctuated only by the sound of Pale racking her shotgun. She went to take aim at the next target, but a large bolt of lightning came soaring towards her from farther down the mountain. A small, surprised gasp escaped from her as she fell back, the lightning missing her by mere millimeters, passing close by enough that it made the hair on her head stand up. The spell discharged into the rock above, sending bits of stone and dirt raining down on the two of them and littering them with small cuts and bruises, but otherwise leaving them unhurt.
"Kayla, you take that side!" Pale shouted as she approached the edge of the stone. "Keep yourself safe!"
"W-what?!" Kayla called back. "What are you doing?!"
"Getting you some breathing room!" Pale said to her as she swung herself over the edge, then began to roll down the side of the snow-covered mountain. Bits of jagged rock tore at her body as she fell, but she paid it no mind. Back behind her, she heard claps of thunder echo through the mountains, a sign that Kayla was still fighting.
That wouldn't matter if Pale didn't take care of the berserker mage, however.
As that thought passed her mind, another bolt of electricity came arcing from their cave, up towards Kayla. Pale came to a stop not far away, then jumped to her feet with her weapon at the ready, a pang of pure rage barely suppressed in her mind as she surged forwards.
There were no other berserkers on this part of the mountain, at least that she could see, which had to mean that the mage was alone. Pale sprinted for the cave, double-timing it in order to get there before something could happen to Kayla. More lightning flew through the night, marking the mage's spot, and before long, she closed in on him.
Just as she got there, however, a wall of fire erupted between herself and him. She stumbled, barely managing to catch herself before running directly into the flames. Through the smoke and crimson blaze, she was able to make out a man dressed in a combination of berserker furs and a tattered gray cloak, grinning a yellowed-toothed grin at her through a shaggy salt-and-pepper beard. He went to say something, but Pale stopped him with a barrage of shotgun pellets slam-fired from her weapon as fast as she could operate the pump. To her dismay, however, a barrier of some kind sprang up between the two of them, shielding the mage from any harm.
Her shotgun clicked empty, and Pale let it dangle from her sling, instead pulling out her .45. She went to take aim at the mage, but was unprepared for him to suddenly surge forwards, a manic shout escaping him as he passed through his own flames, completely uncaring of how they lapped at him as he sprinted by. Her eyes widened in shock as she was forced backwards, her pistol barking as fast as she could pull the trigger, but to no avail – that same barrier from earlier prevented any of her shots from landing, the bullets harmlessly bouncing off onto the ground below for every round fired.
Finally, the slide locked back on her handgun, and Pale was forced to try and reload. The mage kept coming, however, even as she scrambled backwards over snow and rocks. Eventually, though, she made a mistake, tripping over a large rock and falling backwards, her handgun slipping from her grip and sliding several yards away. She made a vain attempt to fumble for it, but the mage got their first. With strength unexpected from a man his age, he wrapped one hand around her throat and hoisted her into the air, holding her face-to-face with him. Pale gasped for breath, her legs flailing uselessly as the life was choked out of her. The berserker's manic grin widened, and he tightened his one-handed grip, then brought his off-hand around, sparks already dancing across his fingertips.
Out of desperation, Pale yanked the combat knife from her belt and flailed wildly with it, hoping only to free herself. Her desperate plan worked; the man let out a loud, pained shout as a deep gash was opened in his arm, and his grip loosened just enough for Pale to shake herself free. She landed in a heap on the ground, then jumped to her feet just in time for the mage to shake off his wound. She had cut a deep gouge in the side of his arm, deep enough to expose the white of his bone to the elements, but from the sight of things, all that had really done was anger him even more. In that moment, she realized something.
That barrier, whatever it was, must have been designed to withstand projectile attacks from a distance rather than a direct close-range strike.
She didn't get much time to focus on this new discovery, however – he glared at her, gritting his teeth as the blood dripped from his arm onto the snow below; Pale, for her part, held his gaze, and dropped into a combat stance as she switched her hold on the blade to a reverse grip. The two of them began to circle each other, each waiting for the other combatant to move, both of them eyeing their opponent up and down the entire time.
Pale saw the signs of an incoming attack before it even arrived – the subtle tensing of his leg muscles gave it away before he even knew what he was doing. When he surged forwards, his hands engulfed in fire, she was ready; she sidestepped the incoming attack, then lashed out with her blade once more, scoring another deep slash through the man's arm, this time in the underside. He let out a grunt as he reeled back from the hit, his arm now dangling uselessly in front of him. Idly, Pale realized she must have just severed its tendon, preventing him from using it any further.
She didn't get a chance to dwell on this fact for long, as the mage raised his other arm and launched a bolt of lightning at her, forcing her to jump behind a nearby rock to avoid being electrocuted. She didn't stay there for long, though – he launched several more consecutive bolts of lightning towards her impromptu cover, trying to flush her out as he closed in on one side. Pale didn't take the bait, though – she rushed the side he was pushing just in time to shove the blade forwards, and for her efforts, she was rewarded with a dull thunk as steel met flush. The mage immediately froze, looking down at the knife as it jutted out of his stomach, blood blossoming out from around it and steadily staining his clothes a deep crimson. He gave a shuddering gasp, then fell to his knees, Pale merely yanked the knife out from his gut, and was about to slam the blade into his carotid artery to finish him off when someone grabbed her from behind, stopping her. Pale's heart skipped a beat, and she very nearly rounded on whoever it was before Kayla's voice met her ears.
"Don't. There's been enough death for now."
Pale paused, then chanced a look back. Kayla was standing there, her eyes wide and dull as she shivered, her outfit covered in dirt and blood, none of it her own. She pulled her hand off Pale's, bringing it around to huddle herself. Pale stared at her for a moment, then looked back up at the cliff's edge where she'd been left.
Several bodies, charred beyond the point of recognition and still smoking, marked a trail up to Kayla's side.
Reluctantly, Pale pursed her lips, then nodded, sheathing her knife. "...Fine. But if we're keeping him alive, then I'm going to find out what he knows before we turn him loose. I think it's time we got some answers from someone."
Kayla's only response was to wordlessly nod.

Special thanks to my good friend and co-writer, Ickbard for the help with writing this story.

TLDR: stomach hurts every night. Looking for some advice, and maybe some support.
I started 30mg vyvanse 1 week ago. The symptoms have been mostly manageable. But the daily nausea has gotten progressively worse. This is my first medicated attempt at dealing with adhd, so I don’t know what is normal and will wear off, and what is problematic.
I’ve cut out all caffeine to avoid jitters, but my ability to eat during the day has almost diminished completely during the day. I’ve started to drink a meal replacement high in protein during the morning because I know there’s no way I’m going to be getting proper nutrients without it. When it starts to wear off before 5pm, I finally start to notice my hunger and then I eat as much as I can (but still can’t eat much). The nausea becomes all-consuming and makes it hard to do much at all. At the end of the day I also experience brain fog, but it’s the same feeling that I used to have all of the time.
Aside from feeling like I’m going to throw up several hours a day (lol), it has been wonderful. I finally put away 3 months worth of laundry, unpacked a suitcase from a vacation last winter, and have finished a few big work projects that I had been finding impossible to start. I don’t want to stop if I don’t have to, I feel like I’m finally seeing my potential and I’m watching the imposter syndrome disappear.
I’m wondering what you’ve done to combat your early vyvanse side effects, and is there hope for me or should I give up?

Just to make it clear, i am cheap and i wanted to profit off of doing my own tires on my project bike. Its a teeny 125cc honda CBR 125R that i fixed up. Learnt the whole maintenance thing on it before i did the tasks on my big bike. Oil, air filter, brake lights, brakes, valves, ... and now tires.
Bought tire spoons for 18€ and putting on the tires would take 20€ each. Doing one set and suffering would yield unlimited returns forever!
Cue removing the front tire and suffering the consequences of not thinking ahead leading to me waggling the cbr to its storage space on its rear wheel almost pulling something in my back trying to keep it upright. Did not buy a front paddock so its resting on its forks on some boxes like the ratty project it is.
Got the tire off easily enough, in about half an hour with 3 tire spoons and some good force i managed to get the tire on BUT I WARPED THE DAMN THREAD TO THE FOURTH DIMENSION. I'm not the strongest but i got some muscle and boy did i use it. Must've messed up the 'put your knees down on the other side' cause i muscled that spoon over the rim with the intensity of an action movie shot just before the problem gets solved. Tire obviously wouldn't hold air.
Contemplated life for a while, ordered a new one and figured id put on the old tire (15yo) as a form of practice. If that went well id give the rear tire a shot, if not ill eat the costs and lament. Got me a bucket of soapy water and focused on putting my weight on one side while spooning the other side AND THE THING NEAR FLEW ONTO THAT RIM!!!!!!!!!!!!! Did not have to apply all that much power, just some leverages, steadily bit by bit and making sure i sat my stupid ass on the other side of the damn rubber.
Had some issues getting it to inflate, got a tip from the local subreddit discord to bounce the tire and lo and behold after my 20yo compressor got up to pressure for the third time i got a pop and a second or 3 later a second pop. Tire beaded and inflated. As it laid on the 60€ tire that i destroyed literally within half the hour of being delivered i couldnt even be happy. Spending 60€ to put on a tire almost old enough to ride the bike its put on.
Mind you i was doing the whole process in my bathroom due to the soapy water and at this point it was a mess.
As that one went well i went ahead and took the rear off the bike in the garage downstairs. Somehow i put the stand that held up the bike by its axle nuts far enough away that by the time i got the rear wheel loose i stood there, supporting the bike's tail on my shoulder, hunched over without anything to put under the bike. Managed to get it leaning against the wall for long enough to put the stand under and up i went, back to my bathroom.
Suffered a good while to get the bead to break as the bead breaking machine i'd borrowed and wanted to use for the tougher rear tire HAD A SUPPORTING ROD TOO THICK FOR THE DAMN WHEEL. So back to using spoons to pop that bead and getting off the tire and putting it back on. Double and triple checked whether i put it on right, spent 15 soapy minutes to get the rear on TO FIND OUT ID STILL PUT IT ON BACKWARDS. Getting the beads to pop went well though before i noticed. Improvement!
At this point id spent a good 4 hours struggling with these tires, the mental meltdown of breaking a tire and the struggle of breaking the bead and i took a breather. Figured id take this as a lesson learnt and just pay for the damn tire installation + balancing.
Having regained my calm i took off the tire, being mindful to not tear it off the rim like the frustrated mini-hulk i felt i was ONLY TO PUT ON THE DAMN REAR tire in 5 MAGNIFICENTLY SWIFT MINUTES and figuring out how to bounce the tire well enough that the double pop came near the same instant i put the pressured air compressor to the valve. What a beautiful sound.
Now i have 3-5 days to clean up the bike and wait for the front wheel and probably forget the tricks of how to put the damn rubber on and i'm oddly enthusiastic about putting it on so swiftly making my brain think we're still saving money in the future. Not sure whether i want to put on the tires on my big bike but we'll see...
And here i am, typing it as a form of free therapy, hope someone enjoyed the read.
TLDR: stupid monkey puts on motorcycle tires only to spend 4h+ on getting it 'right' and breaking one of them. Soapy water is magic and putting the tire to warm on a radiator makes the thing malleable like clay almost. Combine that with correctly utilizing the technique of pressing down the other side of the tire with your bodyweight or something else and the whole process went smoother than my brains are.

^{you always were special
always special to me
all of you
every
last
one
of
you}
[First Contact] [Dark Ages] [First] [Prev] [Next] [wiki]
Sacajawea leaned back, staring at the hologram in the middle of the table.
"I fled the Glassing. I asked Luke to rebirth my people, help me get the colony ships working, then ran for it," she said. "Twelve ships lifted off, escorted by light attack and defense craft," she closed her eyes. "Only four made it. The Mantid boarded two of the ships," she swallowed thickly. "I could hear them scream as the Mantid killed them."
Legion squeezed her hand gently.
N'Skrek could see the pain in her features.
For her, it may be thousands of years ago, but it still brings pain, he thought to himself. For me, for all of us at this table, this is an event tens of thousands of years ago. Barely remembered history.
"We stayed in jumpspace for months, years, pushing at the upper bands," she shook her head. "We eventually hit the point where the ships were pushed back down by the pressure."
N'Skrek nodded. The upper jumpspace bands required specialized engines and jumpcores.
"We used cryogenics to make the trips," she said. "We would exit jumpspace, refuel at a far orbit gas giant that was not frozen, then jump again," she shook her head. "All I could think of was to run as far and as fast as I could, and bring my people with me."
She began drawing lines.
"Hundreds of years passed while we slept, a dreamless sleep," Sacajawea said. "We ran until the ships could run no more. Two of them failed exiting jumpspace, but we were lucky. By that time I understood that each jump could be our last, so I ensured that we headed toward stellar systems that had a high probability of a planet we could survive on."
She shook her head.
"I never entered cryo-sleep. I stayed awake, guiding our path," she inhaled sharply and exhaled slowly. "I could feel our path. I knew which way to go."
Luke held up one finger, getting everyone's attention.
"The Digital Omnimessiah, he changed us with his touch. Each of us with our own part to play to save humanity," he said. He glanced at Sacajawea. "She can see, feel probabilities and adjust to a shifting situation with nearly precognizant accuracy."
Sacajawea rolled her eyes and sniffed, pursing her lips. "You make it sound so pedestrian."
Luke just smiled.
"For hundreds of years I stood on the bridge of a damaged colony ship, my pointing finger our only guide," she said.
N'Skrek noted that her voice had fallen into a sing-song cadence.
"Finally I saw the six suns, arranged in the shape of an eagle," she said. "I knew, at that moment, that this would be as far as we could go. Our ships were failing, but they could make this last leg of our journey. I chose the best one for my people. It was nearly paradise, just needing a little bit of tweaking. No life higher than plant life and simple insects, perfect to live away from hatred, war, and slaughter."
She looked down.
"I led them to their doom," she said softly. "We had to rely on high technology at first. Terraformers, the gene banks that Luke had acquired, orbital lift capacity."
She shook her head. "Little did we know that the technology would attract what you call the Mar-gite."
N'Skrek shook his head. "No. You were just in the way," he said.
She looked startled.
"If the planet had carbon based life or an oxygen heavy atmosphere, they would have devoured it," N'Skrek said. He shrugged. "It's what they do. Before recently, we thought they were some kind of locust that just denuded planets and moved on."
"Now we know that they're a weapon, being driven in front of another species," Admiral Breakheader said.
She blinked several times, then turned to Luke.
"True story," Luke shrugged.
Sacajawea was silent for a long moment, then she shivered and touched the hologram again.
"I guided my people along the True Path, the one that promised the most happiness and most reward," she said. She glanced at Luke. "Those who wished to embrace more technology had their own spaces, although I did not dwell with them."
She looked down at where Luke was still holding her hand.
"For thousands of years, six thousand of our years," she said. "Then the Outsiders came."
"How long Confederate Standard?" Admiral Breakheader asked, rubbing his chin.
N'Skrek could hear the rustle of bristles from the Vice-Admiral's five-o-clock shadow.
Sacajawea closed her eyes. "Almost six thousand to the day."
Breakheader nodded, making a note.
"At first, they just appeared in out of the way locations. Someone would see them and they'd flee, move away, and eventually they started to show up more and more near the technological enclaves," Sacajawea shook her head. "It was the technology that they were attracted to."
N'Skrek just nodded.
"Then came the attacks. Our superluminal communication links went first, but not before we learned that we were being attacked on all six worlds simultaneously. We held them off for years, protecting ourselves. No matter what path I looked at, I could see no path that had a statistically viable path to victory, I could only minimize their victories," she closed her eyes. "They began capturing my people, abducting whole villages."
"Then came the Devouring Ones," she said. "Two years later, and we were gone."
Breakheader nodded.
"Initial scouting, followed by an assault, then research, then finished with an extermination attack," he said. He looked up. "Standard xenocide tactics."
Sacajawea looked way.
"He's right," Luke said. She looked at him, surprised. "You put up too stiff of a fight so they brought in their heavy hitters after getting a good look at how we worked."
There was silence for a moment, then Commander Hentrill looked up from her datapad. "How did you die?" she asked.
"What difference does it make?" Sacajawea asked.
Hentrill looked unfazed by the glare that Sacajawea aimed down her nose at her. "It makes a lot of difference, Ma'am," she said cooly.
N'Skrek could feel that Hentrill had developed a dislike for the Immortal over the course of the conversation.
"When they came for me, when I was the last, I stepped from the cliff and fell to the rocks below, where the waves washed against the shore. By the time they reached me, I had died from my injuries," Sacajawea said. "I sang as I fell so that..."
"Suicide. They gathered your lifeless corpse," Hentrill said. She narrowed her eyes. "You have a standard datalink for the Glassing Era. Did you have one when you fell?"
Sacajawea nodded. "It was on piece of technology that I felt was necessary to embrace," she said.
"So, you killed yourself and the enemy obtained your datalink and your brain," Hentrill said. "What about your leaders? You did have military leaders, yes?"
Sacajawea glanced at Luke, who nodded. "Yes. I convinced Luke to bring back great leaders of my people and I nurtured their spirits as I raised them during the trip."
"Did they have datalinks?" Hentrill asked.
Sacajawea nodded. "Yes. I had been told, repeatedly, that effective communication was vital to winning a war."
"Daxin," Luke interjected.
Sacajawea sniffed. "Yes."
Hentrill made a note. "Were your leaders targeted early in the conflict?" she asked.
"Of course," Sacajawea said. "Many were killed, but the technology we had allowed them to return within days, only missing a few days of their previous life. Luke had convinced Peter to ensure we had a version of the SUDS, which we only used for critically important people."
N'Skrek saw a muscle twitch next to Luke's eye, but he stayed smiling.
"But it was destroyed before the Devourers came," Sacajawea said. "It could not be helped. There was almost no path I could take that would prevent it from being destroyed, so I chose the path that would result in the least casualties for my people."
N'Skrek was not that familiar with Terrans, but he could tell that Commander Hentrill was rubbed the wrong way by that statement.
"I think we should take a break," N'Skrek said. He nodded toward Luke. "I am sure both of you are fatigued from being brought back from the dead."
"Yes," Sacajawea said before Luke could do much more than open his mouth. "I would prefer to have privacy to rest and perform necessary rites."
N'Skrek just nodded. "I'll be sure you get privacy."
0-0-0-0-0
Legion stood next to the tank, one hand on the heavily armored skirt, staring at the black metal the tank was made from.
"Warsteel Mark-IV," he whispered to himself. He shook his head. "We are old friends, you and I," he said softly, running one hand across the metal. "Later superseded by arcanochromium for the Mark-V."
He didn't care if anyone heard him talking to the tank. There was just a single Telkan in the vehicle bay, running diagnostic checks on one of the big Telkan armored transports used for power armor troops.
^{your name is luke}
He shook his head, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. He kept hearing slight buzzing whispers.
He felt her before he could see her. Felt her leave the lift, the warsteel doors pulling open and letting her presence roll out to fill the vehicle bay.
He heard her shoes clicking and closed his eyes, sighing.
It's not her. Not the one you knew. It's Tiffany, not Sacajawea, he thought to himself.
^{your name is luke}
He looked up just in time to see a green mantid wave shyly at him.
He smiled at it and waved back just as Sacajawea stopped next to him.
"A green mantid?" she said, her voice slightly fearful.
"Engineer caste," Luke said. "They like me."
"They are Mantid," Sacajawea said, her voice cold and hard.
"The war was thousands of years ago, and even if it wasn't, he is blameless in it," Luke said.
"But it is a Mantid," Sacajawea said. She watched coldly as the little green mantid waved and rushed away.
"I have more in common with him than I do with the majority of humanity," Luke said softly.
Sacajawea scoffed. "Surely not."
Luke nodded. "His kind was trapped inside their own minds. Capable of thought, artistic expression, fear, love, affection, all of it," he ran one finger along the armored track skirt of the tank, a fat purple spark jumping from between his finger and the black armor. "The whole war, until the Mechakrautlanders killed that Overqueen, they were inside their own little heads, screaming endlessly."
He ran his finger again, watching another spark jump out.
"When green mantids cluster up, their intelligence increases. Not by leaps and bounds, just slightly, but the bigger part is, they could feel the ones around them screaming but were unable to reach out and touch them," he said. He was silent a moment. "I understand them, they understand me. Both of us, bred and created to merely serve, without any thought as to our souls."
He turned arounds, looking at Sacajawea.
"They are among the Digital Omnimessiah's most fervent believers, and one of humanity's staunchest allies," he said. He motioned at the tanks around them. "You have been gone a long time, little sister."
"And you, did you live through the forty-thousand years? What did you do?" Sacajawea asked.
Luke shook his head. "I retreated. After the War in Heaven and in Hell, after the Flashbang, I retreated," he said. "I spent most of my time at Atlantis, which led to me being more or less imprisoned, away from the galaxy."
He flashed a smile.
"At least I had the Detainee for company. She's an interesting conversationalist."
Sacajawea just sniffed, looking around. "What is that?" she asked, pointing at the lone Telkan, who had just straightened up from the tracks and was wiping his hands off with a rag.
"A Telkan. An full member species of the Confederacy, an ally to humanity, who took part in the War in Heaven," Luke said. He waved at the Telkan, who waved back, and went back to inspecting the vehicle.
"It looks like a fox," Sacajawea said.
Luke cut her off with a motion of his hand. "I swear to God, you start talking to me about how they obviously embody the trickster spirit of the fox and thus are untrustworthy I'll put you right back where I found you," he said sharply.
Sacajawea pursed her lips in irritation.
"You have to let go. Let go of your preconceived notions. Let go of all the old hurts. It's been eight-thousand years for you and forty-thousand for the universe," Luke said softly, turning back to running his hand over the armor on the tank. "Even Daxin could see that."
Sacajawea snorted. "Like Daxin ever saw anything that wasn't in the sights of his guns."
Luke turned around, his jaw clenched. "You don't speak bad about him in my presence again," he snapped, drawing himself up to full height. "Not now, not ever again," he leaned forward slightly. "You weren't here. You left us, the Digital Omnimessiah was dead, and we were all bereft," sparks jumped out from under his boots and under the palm that rested on the tank's armor. "True, I spent over a thousand years running from him, but he was still my brother. It hurt more than anything not to be at his side when he died."
Sacajawea looked around at the tanks and armored vehicles. "He fell on some battlefield," she said. It was less a question and more a statement.
Luke shook his head. "No. He died, in his sleep, surrounded by his family. His children, grand-children, and great-grand children. He was finally at peace," he sighed. "When he arrived in Afterlife, he waited patiently for his wife and even though I wanted to spend time with him," he sighed again. "It was time to let the Walking War Crime rest."
Luke turned and faced Sacajawea. "In your mind, we are still the same as we were," he said gently. He reached out and took her hand in his. "But that is no longer true. We grew, we set aside old differences, we set aside old hatreds, and we moved forward rather than holding tight to the past."
She sniffed, looking away, but not pulling her hand away. "I have seen the history. A history of lies that glosses over the crimes and bloodshed."
"Temporal warfare counter-measures," Luke said. "After The Glassing, history and culture was lost. It was rebuilt from oral tales and fragmented records."
"Lies," she said again.
"Weaponized," Luke said. He pulled his hand free, jamming both hands into his pockets. "It's protected Terra, protected everyone, even your people, more than once. When the Atrekna came, that was probably the only thing that saved our people," he stared at her. "Saved humanity."
"So they don't care about the truth?" she asked.
"What truth? That thousands of years ago an aggressive Mantid hive wrecked up Earth? Nobody cares any more," he said. "That's the thing about them. They aren't like us. We can easily remember the Glassing. For them, it's a few paragraphs in a history book they read in school. Maybe some scholars look at that era," he looked up at the lights. "For the majority of humanity, the Glassing is as far and remote as the light of the stars in the sky," he looked back down. "And that's a good thing."
"I do not understand you," Sacajawea said.
^{she never did
not like i do
luke}
"You never did," Luke said. "You never did. She eventually understood me."
^{that's right
i understand you}
"You cloned me without my consent," she accused. She crossed her arms. "I await your justifications."
Luke just smiled. "I did. I cloned you without your consent. I told your clone that it was a clone," he looked up. "Then the Imperium caught us, turned us into the Immortals. Used her as a seer to determine how to reach victory, but she held information back and Daxin, at the head of the Martial Orders of Terra, broke the Imperium over his knee."
He looked back down. "Afterwards, she worked tirelessly on the Terra Restoration Project. While I was busy running, she returned to Terra, sought out the survivors of her people, and helped them restore their lands and way of life."
Sacajawea looked away. "As did I."
Luke chuckled. "She used temporal lensing to look back into the past, see the reality of the old ways, watch the rituals and daily life of the ancestors, and restored them."
"Yet, the history books are full of lies," Sacajawea sniffed.
"After the Second Temporal War, she understood and embraced the counter-warfare protocols. She helped interweave your people into the tales," Luke said. "Was it all lies? Partly. Like the best ones, it had good heaping helping of truth hidden inside the metaphors and personifications of events."
"And where is she now?" Sacajawea asked, watching the Telkan inspect the running gears of the armored vehicle.
"She led the Sky Nebula Alignment fleet. She led our peoples, all our peoples, to someplace where our enemies would not find us," Luke said. He turned and ran his hand over the armor again. "I stayed behind. I never lost faith that the Digital Omnimessiah would return."
He lifted his palm and made small figure eights on the armor with his fingertips.
"I loved her, so I let her go," he said softly. "She had seen it was the only way our people would survive a coming darkness."
He looked at Sacajawea. "She was right."
Sacajawea looked at where Luke was making small figure eights with his fingers on the armor. "There is no good path for me to take. All of them are risky, most of them I will perish," she said. She reached out and took his hand. "My best chances for survival is to flee," she lifted his hand and grasped it with both of hers.
"Come with me. Let us leave. You can take us elsewhere, where we have a chance of survival," she tilted her head to encompass the vehicle bay. "Too many of these paths lead to both our deaths. There are too few that lead to a place where we both survive."
Luke delicately removed his hand from hers, using one hand to lift her fingers from her grip on his hand one by one.
"No."
Sacajawea frowned. "No? Together, we can go somewhere else where we have a better chance to stand up to whatever comes and have a possibility of triumphing at a later date," she waved at the armored vehicles. "This way, the way that Treana'ad commander is taking us, is rife with nothing but death and destruction."
Luke stared at her for a long moment.
"You never understood," he said softly. "Your desire, your drive, to save your people, and yourself, blind you to the things that must be done," he put one hand on the tank again. "That sometimes the only path forward to success is the one fraught with the most danger, hardship, and suffering."
He turned away and started walking deeper into the vehicle bay.
"She understood," he said softly.
"I am not her," Sacajawea said.
"Obviously."
Sacajawea just sniffed and turned away, leaving the bay.
^{your name is luke}
By the tank, Jaskel wondered why the hell they'd chosen that particular bay for their little spat.
He looked at 8814, who was still practially hopping from foot to foot with happiness.
"I'm glad you got to meet him," Jaskel said honestly.
--yes ┏(＾0＾)┛┗(＾0＾) ┓ yes--
0-0-0-0-0
Dhruv sat in the shadowy room, wearing a pair of exercise shorts, waiting.
Finally, he could smell cigarette smoke and a presence filled the room.
"What?" a voice asked from the shadows. The end of a cigarette brightened as a drag was taken off of it, briefly illuminating gun-metal gray eyes and severe cheekbones.
"I want a favor," Dhruv said.
He could feel the smile even if he couldn't see it.
"People in my care want ice water," the woman's voice commanded.
"I want you to look up SUDS records for me. I need you to process some of them so I can either talk to them or see their last moments," Luke said. He looked away from the glow of the cigarette. "Records from a long time ago."
"If I decide to do this, I'll need specifics," the woman said, exhaling smoke that curled into the figure of a man on his knees, face in his hand, sobbing.
"I'll provide them. They should be easy to find via their x, y, z, q coordinates," Luke said.
"Now for the big question," the woman said, chuckling.
"What?" Luke asked.
"Why should I help you?" the woman asked.
"Because I'm willing to make a deal with the Devil," Legion said.
This time he could see the glint of teeth in the smile.
^{your name is legion}
[First Contact] [Dark Ages] [First] [Prev] [Next] [wiki]

I've been having trouble getting my newborn to sleep, so my step-MIL gave me a next to me crib she'd found on facebook marketplace. But it smells strongly of stale cigarette smoke. I don't know if this is from being stored in her house (she's a smoker) or if the previous owners were smokers. Is there any way to salvage it? The bedding I can obviously wash, and I'd buy a new mattress for it anyway, but the fabric sides smell of smoke and they won't come off. My other MIL suggested just leaving the crib outside during the day to air it, but I don't know if this will really be enough. I don't want to turn down a kind present, and also next to me cribs are expensive, but I just don't know how to effectively clean it. Has anyone got any suggestions or experience with cleaning the fabric sides of cots?

Link to earlier post.
Before getting into the meat of this post, it needs to be remembered that the ex-Scientologists named here are actual victims of the Church of Scientology. Nothing in this post is meant to deny that fact.
However, let's remember too, those being attacked by Aaron Smith-Levin and their new brand of Scientology-style attacks, are also victims of Scientology.
The cruelty directed at Mike Rinder, Claire Headley, Tony Ortega, Chris Shelton, Leah Remini, Stefani Hutchinson, the Aftermath Foundation and those who speak out against SPTV's excesses are not justified. There has been a strain of "both sides" about this. Defending oneself against slander is not the same thing as initiating slander, which is how this all started. Telling the truth in response to SPTV creator attacks is not the same thing as a Fair Game campaign against them.
It doesn't bring me any joy to write these posts, but these things need to be known because the number of distortions and fabrications coming out of the SPTV creators is reaching a fever pitch and it needs to stop.
My earlier two posts focused mainly on Chrissie Bixler, Jane Doe 1 (from the Masterson trials) and Aaron Smith-Levin, all of whom have been working together in a tight, hidden conspiracy to attack anyone who could expose them or their agendas, and/or anyone who opposes their slanderous and vicious attacks. They are in fact acting as Scientology does, following L. Ron's directions to hunt those people down and attempt to ruin them.
Unfortunately, the SPTV cabal is not just these three mentioned above. There are others who have also jumped on this bandwagon of Scientology-like attacks. From the outside, none of these people's "content" is any different from what the Church of Scientology produces through its STAND League and other OSA-front group social media accounts. If OSA had a video channel, it would look almost exactly like SPTV.
So let's take a look at Serge Del Mar, formerly known as Serge Gil. If you Google "Serge Gil" you will find photos of him hanging around with the Mastersons and other VIP Scientologists as recently as November of 2014 at an art exhibit Serge participated in. This was while he was still in the cult, of course, but it sure is odd that he never mentions this.
Funny too that this group of "innocents" all have taken to going after whistle blowers who are out, and not admitting to anything they did while they were Scientologists and Sea Organisation members. Serge becomes visibly and loudly unhinged over the idea that Mike Rinder was once the head of OSA and therefore "must know" every single secret and crime ever perpetrated in Scientology. Yet he claims perfect innocence when it comes to his Scientology history. But how is that possible when he perpetuated Scientology's abuse on children in a much more direct and forceful way than Mike Rinder ever could: Serge audited children and was apparently paid handsomely for it. Auditing is, of course, Scientology's warped and twisted idea of counselling.
In this article from Tony Ortega, it reads: "In his Facebook post, Serge talked about the horror of having men admit to having sex with children, and being instructed to get even more information from such confessors, who were then simply charged even more [money] to 'handle' their paedophilia.
"We were made to sit in that Fort Harrison hotel day in and day out interrogating people to see what they had done. Our interviews were always closely watched [and] monitored by several ‘terminals.’ All the CSes [case supervisors] and tech ‘executives’ became willing in colluding and becoming 100 percent complicit with this sexually inappropriate environment for any one under the age of 18."
"Self-confessed paedophiles could just magically ‘address’ this behavior with auditing — all the while you were looking at ways to monetize at every opportunity' he says, accusing Scientology executives of looking for ways to turn confessions into more auditing and more money."
So who were these paedophiles and why aren't they being reported to the police? Why is Serge not talking about them? Why is he instead negating what he did and laughing about it in live streams with Nora, where they forgive and forget easily when it comes to their own bad behaviour in the cult. How come they get a free pass but no one else outside of SPTV does?
Serge engages in hypocrisy at a level that would put politicians and cult leaders to shame.
Recently, Serge added Leah Remini's name to his hit list by claiming Remini told him that she wanted nothing to do with helping children of the Sea Organisation. He actually said that about the woman who produced an the documentary series which gave Serge and the other "Scientology children" a voice on an international stage, something none of them were able to accomplish on their own.
Some facts from the past need to be brought forward.
First, it was Leah Remini who was trying to help all of the ex-Scientology "kids" to help find legal representation. This was the group Serge Del MaSerge Gil proclaimed he was the leader of, saying he was the "voice of many." He claimed he would be bringing the clients and the documentation to Kent's law firm.
Remini was introduced to Brian Kent by A&E. Right after the end of the Aftermath's finale, Kent's law firm was the only one willing to take on this massive case. Is A&E now going to be attacked by this group? Where are the tweets directed at A&E? Not that I am suggesting that. It is just to prove the facts here are consistently twisted to suit this group’s goal and it has nothing to do with exposing the crimes committed by Scientologists and Scientology.
This is about getting anyone who isn’t them.
Second and more importantly, it was Serge who then ran with this and gathered claimants for this case, and it was Serge that then introduced them all to Kent's firm. Christi Gordon was also working on this case. It was a noble effort. Leah, Serge and Christi did not do anything wrong,but somehow now Leah is a bad person for having tried to help.
Obviously, no one was aware at that time of what the future would hold for Jane Doe and Kent. No one still knows what happened with these cases - because Serge Del Mar was the ringleader. No mention of this from Alex the silly Wabbit. No mention of this from anyone. And obviously once Kent's law firm was hired, Leah and Mike would not have been privy to any privileged information about the cases.
Then Aaron and crew claim they uncovered this alleged crime committed by Kent? Kent isn’t being accused of crimes of child molestation, or of rape. He is being accused of unethical behaviour with an adult victim - and yes, that is bad enough. But it was Jane Doe in this case that had to summon the courage to file a confidential complaint. Aaron and his gang didn’t uncover and report anything. What they did do was compromise a bar investigation; they took credit for something they had nothing to do with. This is simply despicable behaviour. How this group has completely fabricated the facts of the investigation is beyond me.
They didn't even talk to the person who filed the complaint against Brian Kent. They were too busy stabbing her in the back, compromising her identity and forwarding a confidential document. Aaron conveniently didn’t mention this was a confidential investigation and document when he read it out to his audience. That's how Aaron makes a living.
Anyone continuing this story and celebrating these people are only doing so for other reasons that have nothing to do with the Jane Doe in this case. It is not only unfortunate that Jane Doe in this case had been harmed by Kent, but now these SPTV creators are harming her and her investigation too.
As a Scientology "activist," every action Serge claims he has taken against Scientology has been a major failure. If you step back and look at his track record, Serge has not accomplished a single thing against his former “church” of any significance, unless you count minutes of time shouting into a microphone at highest-ever decibels as 'activism.' It's not. It's just shouting into a microphone. He constantly claims that he has receipts, lawsuits are imminent, but with nothing forthcoming it sure seems as though Serge Del MaSerge Gil is nothing more than a con man looking for clicks for which he can profit.
Even more strangely, Serge's first attempt at fame was spending many years attacking former high-ranking Sea Organisation member Debbie Cook. Remember her? She was the one who got more people out of Scientology with her blistering 2011 New Year email than any former member before her. Debbie Cook was a whistle blower. And Serge seems to be going after those who did/do the work and are OUT of Scientology - excluding himself of course. Why not expose the crimes they covered up while they were in the cult? Aaron tearfully admitted to committing his own heinous crimes once, but somehow he is instantly forgiven.
Serge's criminal complaint against Scientology in Florida went nowhere and the investigation was dropped due to a lack of evidence. In fact, Serge told lies in his police filing, such as claiming that there are tunnels underneath The Fort Harrison Hotel (Scientology’s Clearwater Florida location) which are used to traffic Scientology children.
These days he goes on and on about "the hotels" where supposedly children are kept as sex slaves, a claim so preposterous even ex-Scientologists are fed up with hearing it.
Serge Del MaSerge Gil has promised to bring lawsuits against Scientology and continues to disseminate that he "has receipts" but again, not once has he ever been able to produce a shred of evidence or anything real. His incompetence and ineffectiveness are obvious, which is why the only way he can remain in the spotlight is to attack inwardly against the people who are getting the real work done.
For Serge (and the rest), it's the spotlight that is important, not the actual work.
Serge, Aaron, Chrissie Bixler, Jane Doe 1, Mike Brown, Miriam Francis, Nora Aames and the following are on a campaign to destroy their own credibility in the real world. One can only wonder if they are also getting a kick-back from Scientology.
Liz Gale has seemingly banished herself after being exposed and has all but disappeared, which of course is being blamed on RindeRemini/Hutchinson.
Christie Gordon too has disappeared from the SPTV Foundation board. Why hasn't she spoken up? Isn't she part of the crew demanding others own what they did? Why hasn't she done so when it comes to her own group's activities?
Joey Chait who was on board for the SPTV fake foundation, is now off too and no one knows why.
What has the Aftermath done? Helped people to get out of Scientology. That is the work.
What has SPTV Inc. done to help victims of Scientology? How about showing it? I have previously asked for evidence of any effective work and have yet to receive a response.
It's time for Serge (and the rest) to put up or shut up. If he or anyone in this group has real evidence of Scientology crimes, he has a solicitor and he can file a lawsuit in civil court or he can go back to the Clearwater Police and show them evidence of the crimes committed against him.
I'm not saying that crimes were not committed against Serge by others when he was in the Sea Org. But screaming into a microphone for hours isn't how to bring Scientology to justice. Screaming at law enforcement who have no idea what he is talking about with Flag and children is not helping anyone, nor is stalking and harassing Scientology's attorneys while Leah Remini's hearings are going on.
It looks an awful lot like the SPTV crew are trapped in some kind of victim complex and are high-conflict personalities.
So instead of more name calling, if Serge (or anyone in this group), "has receipts" that show that Mike Rinder is a criminal who is knowingly covering up his crimes in Scientology, produce them or shut up already. Rinder handed over his OSA documents. Aaron, by the way, took those documents under false pretenses, promised not to forward them and then did with the intent to harm Rinder and others. So instead of attacking Mike Rinder (the whistleblower here), where are the questions to the FBI for not acting on them? Where is the outrage for the documents that are authored by OSA personnel that are still in Scientology?
Personally, I'm sick of watching this crazy train go on and on without end just so some former Scientologists can try to appear altruist and inflate their egos for profit. Aren’t you all sick of the noise?
More to come.

I developed a spot on my stomach first in early 2023. At least that’s when I noticed. Then a spot near my chin in my beard and now it’s a bit scattered on my beard. Doctor referred me to a dermatologist who gave me a cream and said try that for a month or two. Nothing happened, not even the side effects. Fast forward, I’ve done two treatments of the injections and it’s helped in the area of my chin but I’m starting to see light areas and it’s still a bit patchy. I’ve done blood work and my doctor has ruled out any serious issues. So, what other avenues can one take to really pin point what the autoimmune issues is? One thing to note. I had a small spot on my head but it grew back on its own. Biggest issue is my heard right now. I just really wanna know what the autoimmune issue is and tackle that. Thoughts? Suggestions? Thanks!

This is honestly a bit of a sad story, as my friend was in a hostile relationship. Let’s call her Gem.
Leading up to my wedding Gem (who was a bridesmaid and my best friend of 20+ years) disappeared because she had a new boyfriend. From day one of her telling me about him he was jealous and accusatory of her talking to other men. They had known each other for years but reconnected and immediately got serious. He immediately made her delete friends that were men and insinuated that she was being slutty before she was with him. I saw this as a red flag right away and tried to tell her that he had no business knowing anything about her past if she didn’t want to tell him specially so soon into a relationship.
Over the months leading up to my wedding there were many more red flags but I tried hard to be ok with it. My fianće and I went to dinner with them and her bf seemed funny. But Gem blew me off a lot. We barely talked and I didn’t have much help with wedding stuff. I did mostly on my own. I tried not to hold this against her. At dinner I had asked if he wanted to come to the reception. But I specified that Gem would be busy and sitting at the head table. He laughed it off and said it was fine. He didn’t need to come.
On the day before my wedding, her bf was nowhere to be found in the morning when he was supposed to be giving her a ride to my city an hour away. She called me crying causing a bunch of stress. She told me that her boyfriend said he was going to call ME the bride and tell me that Gem was being a bitch. My shudders went closed on him in that moment. I told her to just get here when she can. My fiancé and I had errands to run.
She made it to my house after a bunch of drama and guilt tripping from her boyfriend. He was insinuating that she would be hanging out with other men at my wedding. (This is just the tip of the iceberg, this guy was seriously paranoid and abusive). She spent the day bitching about him while I told her she should end it. We had a rehearsal dinner that night and then my mom was spending the night with me and Gem and my daughter at our house, while my fianće and the boys were at his dad’s.
All night Gem was distraught. Leaving the house to go talk to her bf, while I pretended not to care. I was determined to not let her ruin anything but it was hard. My feelings were deeply hurt that she couldn’t just mute him for the night. Especially when he was being so abusive. Then she had the audacity to ask if could come after all. I said NO. My mom was flabbergasted. She left again to go talk to him and that’s when he messaged ME.
He was cruel, rude and disrespectful, saying that I should’ve let him come. I honestly barely remember the details of the message because I was so angry and heartbroken and it was all such insane bullshit. Still I pushed these feelings down so the night wouldn’t be ruined, even though it kind of was. I lost it on him and called him sick in the head and an abuser. He said “you don’t know my side” unbelievable. I blocked him.
Gem came back in and said “what did you say to him?” In an accusatory way and this is honestly the part that haunts me. It was the night before my wedding. This one night and day were supposed to be about me and I had this horrible man reaming me out and my friend not focused on me one bit. Not even a sorry for his actions. I don’t remember what I said and I again, just blocked it out. I was honestly scared for her as she couldn’t see how crazy he was being and seemed to have no idea how awful she was being herself.
The wedding day was wonderful. I put the stuff from the night before in the back of my brain and enjoyed myself. Though I was a bit cold to her throughout the day.
The next day I sent her a huge message telling her how awful it was and that she needed to end it with him. My husband and I went on our honeymoon and didn’t talk to anyone for a week. Gem did not end it with him and it took many more months. She eventually apologized to me. It’s been 10 months and I’m not over it. We’ve been friends for 20+ years and I’m not sure I even like her anymore. I’ve been struggling to even want to talk to her. Not sure where to go from here but it feels good to share this story. I honestly think some people are not capable of being selfless for their friends in their wedding day. Choose your bridesmaids wisely.