Technically it's not just for children, but they're the most common category of dependent and most likely to benefit from *one* of the plans. It zeroes out tuition, it does not cover other expenses.
I just learned that California shifted its income-eligibility status (under Plan B) to a state-level poverty wage, rather than a federal-level poverty wage. This is a shift from something like a ~$15k annual limit for the child, to a ~$20k annual limit, and will increase as California's Franchise Tax Board revises.
One HUGE advantage of this program is that it does not require the VETERAN to live in California, which is a lot more flexible, than, say, Washington's. This is based on the residency of the DEPENDENT.
I told a friend about this when I was using my GI Bill, and by the next week not only did she zero out her future law school tuition, she got a refund on the amount she had already paid. She later ran into difficulties using this with an MBA program, because there was confusion over what it covers. It apparently covers "academic" programs, which includes full-time MBA studies, but does not cover "self-funded" or "professional" programs like the part-time MBA programs. So, her parent's sacrifices *only* covered a law degree.
Three useful links for you and your dependents to assess:
California College Fee Waiver, to explain in further detail (I'll copy-past the content of this here, but it may update) https://www.calvet.ca.gov/VetServices/Pages/College-Fee-Waiver.aspx
How a Dependent would to establish residency in California for Education purposes (TLDR: 366 days, intent to permanently stay):
https://www.ucop.edu/residency/establishing-residency.html
California Income Eligiblity Limits for Plan B (looks like $21,561 for 2024 based off 2023 numbers): https://www.ftb.ca.gov/file/personal/residency-status/index.html

College Fee Waiver

​​​The College Fee Waiver for Veteran Dependents benefit waives mandatory system-wide tuition and fees at any State of California Community College, California State University, or University of California campus. This program does not cover the expense of books, parking or room and board. There are four plans under which dependents of Veterans may be eligible.

Plan A

• The unmarried child of a Veteran who is totally service-connected disabled or whose death was officially rated as service-connected is eligible. The child must be over 14 years old and under 27 years old to be eligible. If the child is a Veteran, then the age limit is extended to age 30;
• The spouse of a wartime Veteran who is totally service-connected disabled is eligible. There are no age limit restrictions;
• The unmarried surviving spouse of a wartime Veteran whose death has been rated as service-connected is eligible. There are no age limit restrictions;
• Any dependent of any Veteran who has been declared missing in action, captured in the line of duty by hostile forces, or forcibly detained or interned in the line of duty by a foreign government or power is eligible.

The Veteran must have served at least one day of active duty during a period of war as declared by the U.S. Congress, or during any time in which the Veteran was awarded a campaign or expeditionary medal. Concurrent receipt of benefits under Plan A and VA Chapter 35 benefits is prohibited. To receive benefits under Plan A, a dependent must sign an "Election To Receive College Waiver Benefits" statement acknowledging this fact. There are no income restrictions under this plan. To be eligible, the event which caused basic entitlement to benefits (i.e., the date the Veteran died of service-connected causes or the date the military or United States Department of Veterans Affairs (USDVA) rated the Veteran as totally disabled as a result of service-connected disabilities) must have occurred prior to the child's 21st birthday.

Plan B

The child of a Veteran who has a service-connected disability, or had a service-connected disability at the time of death, or died of service-related causes is eligible. The child's annual income, which includes the child's adjusted gross income, plus the value of support provided by a parent, may not exceed the annual income limit. The current academic year entitlement is based upon the previous calendar year's annual income. Under Plan B, wartime service is not required and there are no specific age requirements. Children are the only dependents eligible under this plan. There is no prohibition against receiving concurrent VA Chapter 35 benefits.

Plan C

Any dependent of any member of the California National Guard, who in the line of duty while on active service to the state, was killed, died of a disability resulting from an event that occurred while in active service to the state, or is permanently disabled as a result of an event that occurred while in the service to the state is eligible. Surviving spouses who have not remarried are also eligible.
"Active service to the state," for the purpose of this benefit, means a member of the California National Guard activated pursuant to Section 146 of the Military and Veterans Code. A copy of those orders pursuant to Section 146, not Section 143, must be furnished to establish eligibility.

Plan D

Medal of Honor recipients and children of Medal of Honor recipients under the age of 27 may qualify. Benefits under Plan D are limited to undergraduate studies only, and applicants are subject to both income and age restrictions. There is no prohibition against receiving concurrent VA Chapter 35 benefits.

Notes:

• All applicants must meet California residency requirements as per the schools requirements.
• If eligibility criteria is met, use of the College Waiver for Veterans Dependents may be applied to state-support programs in the CCC, CSU, and UC systems. Some academic programs at these institutions that are considered self-supported, commonly referred to as extension courses or extended education are not required to apply the College Fee Waiver because these courses, degrees, and certificates are neither funded by the state nor are they system-wide programs. Veterans dependents using this waiver should research their academic programs thoroughly before applying to the college or university.
• Education Code, Section 66025.3 does not provide the authority to grant College Fee Waiver benefits retroactively. However, an exception exists relating to applications received under the provisions of Military and Veterans Code Section 890.3(a)(1). The law permits retroactive fee waiver benefits when an application is denied solely due to the fact that the Veteran has a claim pending with the USDVA for service connected disability or death benefits, but the claim has yet to be awarded, and in the future the USDVA adjudicates a service connected rating. The Veteran or student must have applied for the College Fee Waiver during each academic year in which they are seeking the benefit; the application will be denied due to no service connected disability. Once the Veteran has been awarded service connected disability rating, bring the VA notification letter and denial letter(s) back to the CVSO for review.
• If you are a child of a Veteran, you must attach Verification of Dependency. Acceptable verifications include, but are not limited to, a Birth Certificate, Adoption Records or Marriage Certificate. Those seeking status as an Adopted Child or as a Stepchild must have entered into such status prior to the child's 23th Birthday.
• Effective January 1, 2024 Plan B applicant income, which includes the student's adjusted gross income for the prior year plus the value of any support received from a parent, will no longer be measured against the federal poverty threshold limit when making a fee waiver eligibility determination. Instead, beginning with Academic Year 2024-25, the student's income will not be allowed to exceed the STATE poverty level as published in the resident requirement filing chart found on the Franchise Tax Board website. This change was brought about when AB 1745, Soria. Public postsecondary education: veterans: waiver of mandatory systemwide tuition and fees, was signed into law by Governor Newsom. This represents a substantial change to the program as the State poverty threshold limit is significantly higher than the federal poverty threshold limit. For example, in 2023 the State threshold was $20,913, while the federal threshold was $15,225. ​

Apparently it was one of those four way intersections where only one direction has a stop sign. She stopped but didn’t realize cars coming across didn’t have to do so. Plus, parked cars were blocking her view. So she said she actually didn’t see any cars coming at all but she took a left turn and some guy coming along must’ve barely missed her. So he gets in front of her and starts the whole brake check routine these idiots pull. When she kept trying to go around he kept moving in front of her. So eventually she’s blocked in, this clown gets out of his car and she had the window cracked enough for him to reach in and try to grab her phone (which she had out trying to call 911). She of course reflexively pulled her arm away and so the slime tried to reach in to grab her sunglasses off the dashboard. At this point she was screaming but had the presence of mind to start laying on her horn. Some guys in a passing moving truck had stopped and started shouting “we’re filming you!”. At which point the guy ran back to his car and drove off. Somehow my daughter also had the presence of mind to get a pretty good live shot of the guy that shows a pretty good profile view of him (he’d stopped to gesture at the guys in the truck) along with his license plate and enough of his car to identify the color, make and model. But I don’t know if the police would do anything at all about this. And I don’t want this guy having access to our own information, especially if the police will do little about it anyway. (My preference would be to track this MF-er down myself but I know, bad idea. If you’re a parent you’d get it for sure.) Also, she said she doesn’t think the guy actually made any physical contact with her. Not sure how much that matters because criminal assault does not require actual contact. If he’d laid a pinky on her it would then be assault and battery. But apparently he didn’t physically touch her. Anyway, I’d appreciate any advice.

Hey J, I am taking steps - one already, I do love you, I do want to see you, I can't be the guy who missed showing up last night (for someone else). I am aware that I'm responsible for my actions. I'm wrapping my mind around your feelings and how you view my effort, activities, behaviors, transparency and overall kick ass attitude again self awareness should be a given. Also applies in relation to the percentage of chance or no chance, hoping for a chance. I genuinely have no interest in manipulation or gaslighting. If I'm performing those let me know and I will knock that shit straight the fuck off and moving forward you know you can assist me in eliminating that language. If I use it much it's because I'm charming and I can be pretty persuasive.... In the good way weirdos. I still see you as beautiful as ever Even if that's more difficult for yourself to do. I have saved for retirement. I do have a plan for myself for the future, I'd love for you to be in there....nope I hafta have you in there. I Have a desire to maintain proper health and wellness and watch out for you too. And I'm going to continue to front a punk band and want to included in that part of my life as well. So I hope this reaches you because I swear like five different people are you. If you're going to communicate because communication is key then we should probably jump on it within the next couple of steps or else we're going to miss something else that one of us has got to say I imagine. So I've got no idea who's who, but I want this to answer some questions if you're not getting any questions answered and you think I'm not remaining goal oriented, well I sure am.
And I think I'm missing something.....Oh yeah and I definitely want to f√¢k, please and thank you. For those that are still wondering I'm a letter C. Tada!

I am setting up a ventilation from my lampworking studio..
I really need help with a design, I found a metal worker who would be willing to make any design, but now i need a design properly and know which fan will be ideal, also, the last ventilation i setup i went way too big, i made the whole hood out of glass and welded steel, it looked super cool but i got a fan that was too powerful and it was inside and i couldn't even listen to music when at max volume.
That was 7 years ago
Now, I have a new setup on every front, I have a mirage torch, and the last thing that is missing is my ventilation. i setup a small vent hood out of wood and played on my torch for maybe 2-3 hours at most, i am done with that as i think it would be dangerous..
But please, somebody, anybody with experience, help me, I am at a loss and I do not know what to do exactly, I dont know what fan to use, I want a hood that is not super intrusive and will be perfectly setup.
If anybody is willing to have a DM chat about it it would be greatly appreciated, I just want to get this done once and for all, I am tired of settling for a subpar setup and I refuse to damage my health.
Thank you

So say that you called out and told the SFL the reason why which is an hour and a half before your start time (which was at 1:30, pharmacy tech shift 3-7).
And the store manager call and gives you a warning and a write up. And I was wondering can they do that?
(The reason :The meeting was on zoom for other healthcare learning opportunities. Which doesn't start until 5)
I ask if I can come in a 3 and leave at 4:45 she said sure if I come back at after the meeting is over, which I explained I don't know how long the meeting will be. So they explain that this miss shift will be a write up and a warning.
(I knew about this meeting since April 25, I honestly forgot to put the time in and at the time I couldn't fully see schedule since the SM didn't publish it until 2 weeks ago)
So can they do they that and yes I know I am in the wrong.

TL;DR : (M18) turning 19 in August and (F20) This is our 3rd time breaking up along with our 2nd cancelled engagement with plenty of separations and rekindling throughout our entire 4+ years knowing eachother. We’ve done a lot of growing up together as well as apart and over the years we’ve both done eachother wrong but we’ve also done so so so much for eachother as well. However, it was always me who was less mature and messing up more. I recently messed up once again and in a state of high emotion on both sides, she was fed up and said We were never getting back together. Will I ever get one last chance with her?
Please, I miss her so much and I’m willing to do anything just for one final chance. I love her and I’m IN love with her with all my heart and soul bro. I am extremely attached, connected, and emotionally invested in this girl and we have been through so much together. I desire(more than anything else in the world) a future with her.
For more context:
Our first time breaking up, I had just turned 15 and she was 16. Her and I barely even dated for a couple months before I had indirectly and immaturely broken up with her by leaving it “upto her” because of me wanting to talk to other girls, but her and I still ended up talking and being flirtatious anyway. But then we had separated because of me getting my phone taken away for months. She had started talking to someone else who was MUCH MUCH older than her and was grooming hevery toxic to her but out of strange obligation, she stayed with him anyway although she really just wanted to be with me. Her and I still remained as close as ever although she had to turn me down twice when I wanted to rekindle things. Later on, I had got my phone back and as we entered into the next school year( she turned 17 and I turned 16) we grew closer and closer and feelings developed stronger and stronger meanwhile her relationship with him was getting worse and worse and they were having multiple breakups as well. She even at one point expressed to me that she was on the verge of breaking up with him and very bluntly hinted at as well as indirectly told me she wanted to leave him for me. But ultimately after she knew that my hopes were all up and everything she ended up just choosing him over me anyway and leaving me hanging. a couple months afterwards she posting vulgar things on social media with the caption “I’ll suck my man d#%k fr” or something along those lines. That’s when I fully moved on and went on to get in multiple relationships/“situationships” over the course of that year. Until fast forward to November 2023, she comes back and we very very quickly rekindle/get back together. over the course of that year, because of my porn and masturbation addiction we’ve separated as well as had many issues interfering with my attraction of her because of my skewed image of women and interfering with us having proper sex or intimacy without my fetishes being involved. Fast forward to August, I ended up falling into watching porn for almost my entire birthday week behind her back while she was working so hard to eventually bring me gifts on that day which I later confessed to the following month. We separated for 3 days and this is when I finally started taking my walk with the lord seriously.(she began months ahead of me and she was the one that even introduced me to Christianity in the first place)(her entirely family is Christian) 2 months pass and a couple days after I propose to her for the first time and posting about it? a girl I used to talk to had replied to my iG story congratulating me and as we talked and catched up, I fell to temptation once again and ended up saying more than I should have/inappropriate things but by the time I realized what I was doing and ended it. It was too late and I confessed to her immediately. after a couple of days, she took me home from work and broke up with me. We talked about it over text an hour or so later and agreed we would be going no contact for a month, but over that period we constantly broke it(I even indirectly tried killing myself with alcohol and drunk texted her to which she was very sympathetic to and when I ended up blacking out she was terrified and prayed all night over me and even reached out to friends of mine to make sure I was okay.) fast forward, she ends it early and we rekindle. Fast forward to either late March or April 2024, I fall into looking at iG couples art and ecchi aesthetic art aka softcore porn and I confess to her afterwards. She’s initially upset but she stays with me.
Later on down the line I begin to question my faith entirely and my foundation crumbles after following the teachings of fallible men/cult leaders and mainly doing it for her and because I loved hewanted to bond with her and not actually seeking the truth for myself(although I had my moments of genuinely being curious and wanting to discover it for myself.) However, she was still just as firmly rooted in her faith as ever and maturing even more. On the contrary, I grow weak and undisciplined in my flesh, I fall back into bad habits, I stop reading the word, praying, fasting, I isolate myself from fellowship. And as it gets harder and harder to resist my sexual urges and with her unwavering on her boundaries of no sex before marriage and etc. I fell back into masturbation but eventually back into porn as well(softcore stuff again mainly but I slipped into some fetish stuff too) and it was over the course of a couple days again with me feeling very guilty and being afraid to tell heI just wanted to repent of it and be done but she ended up getting dream a about it and asked me about it the very next day to which I was honest with her and confessed. Then after however many minutes go by and her breaking up with me a third time with her saying “We are done.” and “We will see” “Love you, Bye” instead of taking the advice everyone was giving me and giving her time and space from jump. I pressed her, begged/pleaded, and blew up her messages making it worse and aggravating her until she followed up with the next day with telling me “Sure I’ll let you know where we stand”We are never getting back together.”
I panicked and went into a high emotional state myself and went to her house late at night(1 or 2 am), and pressed her even more begging and pleading. But this made it worse as well and she had said “what us? there is no us” “go home” “you did what you did”and etc while pushing me out and slamming the door in my face. She originally only talked to her mother about it but because of my stupid decisions while being emotional I unintentionally involved everyone else in it. Her older sister’s husband went through a very similar situation with the older sister and had offered to talk to me about it along with everyone else. But when I followed up later on that day it created a misunderstanding and I ended up getting blocked by him and her older sister after she texts me on her older sister’s phone saying the same exact hurtful and cold/seemingly detached things and after begging and pleading to call, we did but it only made it that much worse. I tried to explain my side of things the best I could while being highly emotional but she didn’t want to hear any of it and proceeded to say even more hurtful, cold, seemingly, detached things, cussed me out, then hung up in my face and blocked me. This whole breakup was very messy and happened over the course of barely 3 days.
I’m still in contact with her mom and I recently contacted her dad as well(parents are divorced) and he had told me she never even mentioned anything to him about it which goes to show I made things worse/unnecessarily involved other people in it that otherwise might not have been involved.
Now I’m giving her proper time and space but I’m still extremely anxious/uncertain about where things will go from here.
(I ask that you be honest but also open minded/considerate in responses please, this all happened over the span of a couple of days and I’m still very fresh in the grieving process)
What do you all think about this situation? (I especially want to hear from a female perspective)

I admittedly have only recently been becoming familiar with Umineko; if there's something that I am missing in my interpretation of the story, I'll gladly listen. Thoroughout my exploration of the novel, there's one character that stood out to me in a writing lens and where they are localized between a conventional storytelling method and the meta elements, alongside their reception.
Thematically, Kyria embodies the "Without love, it cannot be seen" phrase quite well; there's no love in any of her actions, and there's no depth to her that's visible in the same way it is to other characters. Same with Rudolph-- observing Ryukishi's writing, I doubt that their apparent lack of moral intricacy when compared to the usually developed cast isn't an intentional writing choice by itself.
What catches my attention about her is how the structure of her character is an upside down version of the archetype that Umineko uses in its characters, where they often have an initially questionable presentation and then the novel elaborates on information that gives leeway for sympathizing and understanding of them. Meanwhile with Kirye, the novel almost feels as if it goes out of its way to break how she is viewed and tell the reader "this character sucks, but for real this time".
She demonstrated exceptional amability in her introduction, but she still wasn't completely obscure about her nature; you could observe there was something off about her; she was the adult who taught Battler chessboard thinking while not being particularly close to him, and she had shown proficiency over it better than anybody else at the time-- implying that it was a skill she already had way past the killing game. You can notice that her design and behavior specially intimidating and cold among the cast. She doesn't appear having any close relationships with anybody or merely expressing much strong emotions at all, and her remarks gradually gains a manipulative connotation as the game advances, culminating in the events of the few last chapters, ex.: her monologue to Eva.
In the "endgame" content, it became quite concrete who and what kind of character Kirye is supposed to be.Kirye is, then, the most prominent culprit of the Rokkenjima massacre who ruthlessly cut a 9-year-old's neck, impliedly partook in white-collar crimes of high-level, disputed any feeling that could remotely be referred to as "love", has strong familial ties to the Yakuza and I am pretty sure that there's more to say about her that I'm not remembering at the moment. This characterization makes me wonder if Kirye was supposed to be the definitive main villain of the novel, even if she isn't seen as such. Everything just screams that this woman is the one big bad of the novel, despite the novel's often giving the impression of not making room for such role in its script.
At some point, throwing the towel of moral complexity on a character won't be enough to cover their malevolence and their interpretation. Any possible defense for them on those grounds will fall short; some characters truly do work better as pure evil and main villains and it's healthy for a story to have them, even. The same goes to another character that I have a similar rant on, Chara(Undertale).
My understanding fuels the curiosity about how other readers sees her as in the story. Do you guys think she is elligible for the title of the main villain of Umineko?

Basically my father in law is dying, looking likely to happen very quickly. My husband is away helping and saying goodbye to his Dad, and I'm here with our two young children. We have very little support because my Mum died, and I'm also in a rubbish position in terms of cumulative grief and trauma since I've lost my Mum, my baby was critically ill for a long time, my Nan died suddenly a few weeks ago, and now this. I really love my FIL and will miss his presence in our lives a lot. It feels like a big loss for me, I don't have a great relationship with my own Dad. Anyway I have managed to get some friends to watch the kids so I can work at the weekend, and I just asked work whether I could work two hours at home at the end of each day and they basically said sorry you're in (yet another) crap situation but no we need you at work. This feels really crap. I know it's a massive inconvenience to them that my life is continuously going to shit, but it's more than annoying for me, it's a huge mountain to climb with no time or space to process ever. Has anyone else been gutted when their FIL has died? And, you know, the added important extra of wanting to comfort your husband?! Have work been supportive?

I've been catching up on the IDW series out of a desire to see what they do with issue 150 (please no spoilers or opinions on what happens post-Armageddon Game). I'll share my overall thoughts on 101-150 after I've finished, but for now I wanted to take a minute to talk about The Armageddon Game.
On the whole, it was a miss for me. There are some decent elements and ideas to it, but it doesn't come together as a satisfying story.
The Lead-up
For me, the build-up felt too brief. Particularly, the element of Shredder training the turtles and teaching them kuji-kiri. There had been elements of mysticism leading up to this (reincarnation, astral projection), but the turtles being able to wield abilities like this feels like a major shift that deserved more time to carry a fitting sense of weight. I grew up watching Dragon Ball Z. Often, there would be some sort of warning of when the next major threat would hit, so there'd be a full string of episodes depicting the characters in training. It made increases in their power feel earned and effectively set the stage so that when the conflict arrived, viewers had the sense that the last however many episodes had built to this moment. It was finally time to test whether the training had been enough. The training here just feels so quick and easy. I would've liked to see a full arc or two rooted in them having to unlock this potential within themselves. Make the breakthrough moments feel earned and satisfying so that the new status quo of their increased formidability feels like the culmination of a real journey.
The Scope
On paper, it sounds epic. A TMNT event spanning about 25 issues. A conflict with an ancient, immortal being, spanning dimensions and pulling in the turtles greatest foes and allies. But in execution, it's just unwieldy, lacking effective structure and momentum. Too much feels unrelated. The recruitment mission in Dimension Z (or was it X) feels entirely disconnected from the stake of the upheaval in Mutant Town. The Triceraton/Utrom conflict feels like an unrelated complication that just happens to coincide with and spill over into the problems in Mutant Town. Rather than one, multifaceted story, it feels like multiple truncated arcs thrown in a blender together to all of their detriment.
The "Game"...
didn't really feel like a game. Reading the title "The Armageddon Game", I was so intrigued about what the actual game would be. It's not like I expected them to play monopoly, but when I think about a contest or game, there's an objective, parameters, rules, strategy, etc. Done right, that's a pretty cool story! Stories with game-based struggles and conflicts that come to mind Die Hard with a Vengeange, Marvel's Secret Wars (original version), Jumanji, Ready Player One, and Knives Out
https://baduk.news/article/how-%E2%80%9Cknives-out%E2%80%9D-uses-go-as-a-pivotal-narrative-device
The story fails to deliver on the game element structurally or thematically. In effect, Rat King gets a few villains together and says "Do some bad stuff." And they do. But it doesn't really feel like he's manipulating the pieces on the board. In spite of referring to his allies in chess terms (his knight, his queen) Rat King never feels like the sort of crafty mastermind you'd want to be the antagonist of a deadly game.
I wanted to see a back and forth, move/countermove cerebral interplay. Give me a classic "We played right into his hand! Rat King has been two steps ahead of us this whole time!" moment.
I can imagine a version of this in which Rat King lays out the parameters, describing it as a game of both wits and brawn. Naturally everyone is like "Donnie, take the lead." Mikey tries to advise him at certain points citing his knowledge of games, but Donnie dismisses his "DnD experience." Yet Donnie's more conventional, intellectual approach is easy for Rat King to anticipate and outmaneuver. Ultimately, Donnie has to learn some humility and respect for Mikey's way of thinking, combining their strengths for a final play that outwits Rat King. It sounds a bit like someone that could happen in a 20-minute episode, but I think there's a way to do that that suits the complexity you'd want from a story like this.
The Ending
The conclusion of the story just felt awkward to me. There's so much going on that they end up having elements of climax and resolution at the same time. While the Turtles have their final showdown with Rat King, other stories are already wrapping up. April and Sally dictate the terms of how Stockman will help Mutant Town and then someone is like "Where did Shredder take the turtles?" It's just weird to have things so disjointed in terms of the level of tension.
After this whole "game" Rat King is basically like "I'm going to kill you all and destroy everything!" So what was the point of all that led up to this? Did any of what his alliance did or failed to do matter? And then it all comes down to Cherubae, who we barely know, and the turnstone, a MacGuffin that the story barely focused on. A fairly unsatisfying conclusion to a fairly unsatisfying story.
Closing Thoughts
I didn't hate this story, but it's frustrating because it felt like a major missed opportunity. I truly believe everyone involved did their best, but I don't think they had a grasp on how to handle this type of event and capitalize on the potential of this premise. It would be less irksome if it was just a regular arc, but they stretch the story out over so many issues told through multiple series to do so little narratively.

I've been with my wife for about two and a half years. Before marriage, we discussed non-monogamy. It was often a subject on the table with non-romance, and with people in mind, it became a topic with romance, and it developed while going through our wedding. Shortly after our wedding, that quad situation crashed and burned, and wife closed off (she was always anti-social, so her closing off was even more extreme). She expressed a preference for monogamy, but it became kind of set in stone that her end goal was a monogamy that could co-exist with my polyamory.
A lot happened for that to crash and burn, but my interest in polyamory didn't die with that relationship. There was a period of about 9 months of emotional work of discussions restructuring the relationship and continual renegotiation and learning alongside each other before I felt comfortable that I could offer someone a partnership I could be content with. That work missed steps for sure, in retrospect, namely that it wasn't clear enough that our old relationship was killed and in the process of being rebuilt from the ground up. I think it felt that way to both of us, but there was a strong anchoring bias that is still present to some extent to this day from her.
The relationship I had to offer (that was agreed to be within bounds) threatened her in every way. She hated not being a part of it unlike the first one where she was, but that was part of the work. I think it came as a reality check to her that I was going to be autonomous from her. We were highly codependent, and in that process I had grieved it and cut away, but she hadn't yet. It came with many primal panics and she hated her meta at the time for it. We both knew it wasn't meta's fault. My relationship to that person fell apart for a separate reason, and it nearly took my relationship with my wife with it. It felt like divorce had finally entered the conversation as an option. She said she didn't view it as one, though, and I said she has to, because how else is she supposed to be able to consent or not consent to the relationship? She made me feel like I should trust that she is expressing her agency and is consenting in her full autonomy to everything we're ironing out in agreements together while also telling me that she strips away her last resort option and made me at times feel like I was simply subjecting her to a life she didn't want. I told her there are people who are just as emotionally competent, humerous, and whatever else as me, while also matching her hobbies more, who are monogamous, and I really needed to know she wasn't damning herself to me but rather that she was choosing me the same way I was choosing her. Choosing her has limited my polyamorous expression severely, and I've done it every day.
I began dating my current longest standing girlfriend in December. She initially doesn't like any new connections whatsoever, but tends to like them after putting a name and face together and having a meal or three with them. This girlfriend is largely very okay being secondary. We've ironed out our exact relationship agreements, know exactly how much we'll talk to each other and when we see each other, and I think wife benefits heavily from our consistency and has been proactively giving in her expressed comforts (such as nights that I wouldn't have spent with girlfriend out of an assumption it wouldn't be okay, but it was expressed as okay without my asking). I found myself in this relationship realizing that I wish I had a more solo polyamorous lifestyle, but I realize this after legal marriage, cohabitation, and financial enmeshment, and don't plan to do the life shattering necessary to disentangle all of that as of this moment, but it weighs on me that I have so much friction and feel a bit as though I need permission to sleep certain places or have someone sleep in my spaces. It makes sense given the current set-up, though. YEARNING!
There are so many actions that still cause so much insecurity to arise in my wife. Every action I take with another partner is measured within myself immediately on how it will affect her. Am I spending too much time away from her? Am I doing too much cool stuff without her? But then I try actively dating her and she doesn't show much enthusiasm for much other than default time together. We get a date or two a month maybe while I date my other partner once to twice weekly. I find myself falling in love with another person and being afraid because I know that'll only hurt my relationship with her. After two and a half years am I fooling myself? Is she fooling herself? Are we fooling each other? It's stupid because I'm in the middle of it, and so is she, and I'm pretty sure neither of us want to answer that question with all sincerity. There is also the potential that I'm just way too selfish and should be okay limiting my polyamory as much as I do or even more given my commitments to her. I've struggled with polyamorous guilt with her every time I want time away from her, but then we acknowledge that this much time away from her with friends would do a similar thing anyways?
The timeline: Non-monogamy talks mid 2021, marriage December 2021, first poly relationship beginning and end spring 2022, first autonomous polyamorous relationship began January 2023, ended summer 2023, began dating current partner who she's okay with December 2023, partnered temporary long distance with someone April 2024 and have had a majorly important person come back into my life in a will they won't they way this month that is bringing up a lot of insecurities as well
Thank you to anyone who reads this and puts in any emotional labor and literal time labor producing a response to my wordy ass (and this was me trying to be concise lmao)

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Pricing is firm. I accept ZELLE, WISE or BANK WIRE ONLY. If you tell me that you’re “taking it”, I will hold it for you for 15 MINUTES before it goes to the next in line.
I have sold a lot of watches prior on and have an extensive post history on .
Standard disclaimer: I will pack the watch very securely with lots of bubble wrap. Once the package leaves my possession, I will no longer be held responsible for anything that might happen during the shipping and handling process. I also will not take the watch back if you decide you don’t like it, or that your significant other is angry at you (yes, this has happened before). I will however always do my best to ensure that you’re happy with your purchase.

In my younger years I was always a person that liked to stay at home and play video games. That kind of changed starting with age 18 and me getting to know myself better, gaining confidence and other things. I had a relationship which was nice, but lead to me not going out too much.
I somehow knew deep down I wanted to experience more from life, than the standard things, and after a long time of consideration last semester I went to study abroad for one semester. I had the time of my life. I made so many friends, had the chance to hook up with lots of girls (it's not something I would do again, but it was good for my experience) and went out a lot to parties or just to hang out. It was so exciting meeting so many new people, who are open and like to go out and see things as me.
Well I came back now, and I realize why I wanted to do this in the first place. My life home is more boring. It is not just because studying abroad is so exciting, no, it is also because I miss having so many people around me. I think in this time I really learned that what I cherish most in life and that is making human connections.
This sounds fixable as I am in college and I learned in my time abroad that I am a really open and sympathetic guy as I was friends with a looot of people, but the thing is that, as a Computer Science student, most my classes are online, and I will be honest, it is not the study with the most outgoing people. I will say I missed out on meeting new people when starting to study. It is also negative that there are not many girls, not for hooking up, but I really miss having close female friends.
The other thing is that I feel like in my country the studying is way less social, but this could also be due to my close friends group being less social. I get jealous when I hear about friends having university events, having real classes together where you have to interact with each other and going for drinks with their colleagues. I am missing that a lot, especially in my field. When I look at BeReals of people I know and see them hanging with lots of people, studying together, spending a whole day at university, I feel like I would so much prefer this lifestyle.
But I really don't know how. I'm 23 now and still living at home. I think the first step would be to move out and get a room in the city (I live really close, so I'm not sure if it is worth it). Maybe it would allow me to live more of a student life and be independent? But it also scares me a bit as most my friends wouldn't be so close anymore ... I also think maybe studying next semester I should go more often to classes. It's just stupid that my university really doesn't enable it, so I am not too optimistic about it. I can talk really easily with new people, but it is not easy to make friends here, at least for me.
I didn't try everything. I would like to dance, do more sport, go out more... So there are clubs and things I should probably sign up for, but I am not sure.

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Credit to u/SpacePaladin15 for the Nature of Predators universe. Rain World is a video game developed by and property of Videocult. I claim no ownership over either.
Sorry for the wait. Life happened but I just finished my semester, so I’m hoping the next chapter will be finished sooner rather than later. Please let me know if I missed any typos or made any editing mistakes. It’s greatly appreciated.
–
Memory Transcript: Sefril, Farsul First Contact Officer
Date [Standardized Human Time]: July 15, 2136
When I came to, I just laid still. I wasn’t sure what had happened though what was certain was that I was both still alive and still in this dingy box of a room. The predators were you of sight in one of my few blindspots. Jinsul and Dornucl were still alive, with Dornucl understandably agitated and Jinsul seemingly lost in thought.
Stranger yet, no one seemed to be hurt. Maybe Jinsul had gotten them?
Careful, I sat up, only to be greeted by the predators grooming each other. They stared back at me as I froze once again.
“Finally,” Jinsul said, causing me to jump, “I need to ask you something.”
“Oh not this again,” Dornucl said, annoyed. “Ignore him, he’s gone mad.”
“What?” was my only response. The predators seemed to perk up, shifting their reclining posture slightly, ears standing on end.
“You’re supposed to be a scientist, and as such you understand the meaning of overwhelming evidence, yes?” Jinsul said.
“What you’re suggesting is not only the most unscientific conclusion I’ve heard but is also something I’d expect to come out of someone with terminal predator disease,” Dornucl interjected.
I glanced back terrified at the predators, who had not yet chosen to strike and instead decided to lay there. Menacingly.
I pressed myself against the back wall, hoping to fall straight through and away from them.
“Why haven’t you done anything about…them?” I said waving my tail toward the predators. “You’re an exterminator, so…exterminate.”
“With what?” Jinsul shot back and began waving his pistol with one paw while shaking the flamer laying beside with the other, “The handgun that won’t fire with damp ammunition or the flamer that will kill us all in this tight space? Besides, they won’t attack us.”
Dornucl groaned and rubbed his tentacles into his face, while my mouth was agape in shock.
“What do you mean ‘they won’t attack’?! Their bleating predators!”
“Gods, that’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Jinsul practically screamed in frustration. He took a breath, “OK, sorry, just listen alright? Have you been having weird dreams?”
I stiffened, “I had a dream last night where I almost drowned, but I don’t see what that has to–”
“So, you're telling me you didn’t almost drown?” he said with a knowing look.
I considered it with dawning horror, “But that’s–”
“Impossible,” Dornucl spat out, “And ludicrous.” He turned to me, “As I said, he’s snapped.”
“Then how else do you explain it? My brothers and sisters in arms have confided in me the same: dreams, visions, and inescapable feelings of familiarity in the unfamiliar. Those who heed them escape danger, while those who don’t, don’t.”
As Jinsul spoke, a true zealotry was imbued in his voice.
“I’ll give you this, by all means, these visions should be impossible and unexplainable by science.” Fervor glinted in his eyes. “But when science fails, we must turn to faith to guide us.”
A knot formed in my stomach as I got a sneaking suspicion of where he was going.
“It is my belief and that of my lieutenants and clergy that the gods have sent us these visions.” He announced this without a shadow of a doubt in his voice. “They’ve been guiding us from the moment we’ve entered the orbit. The delusions the crew had in orbit? Also the visions.”
It doesn’t make any sense, but he’s right on one thing. These premonitions are impossible, yet they happen and help us avoid danger. However, there has to be a more rational explanation. There just has to be.
“But why?” I ask. “To what end? If your gods are doing this, to what end? If they are behind everything, the visions and maybe the crash, then why what would justify so much suffering? It just doesn't make any sense.”
“That’s the nature of the divine,” he said somberly, “We can speculate why they would send the visions and make us…feel them and their pain all we want, but we are imperfect creatures, and they are things of perfection. We simply need to trust they are leading us to where we need to go.”
As I considered his words, Dornucl once again spoke up condescendingly.
“I can’t believe you even have to CONTEMPLATE what he’s saying!” He slumped down and motioned towards the predators. “Fine then, what do they have to do with your ‘gods’ plan’? Your duty as an exterminator is baked into your religion? What do you have to say to that?”
Jinsul involuntarily flicked his ears, betraying a rising irritation. “I don’t know, I don’t like it, and I don’t have to. They haven’t given us visions of them attacking us and they’ve decided to disable our best weapons. I don’t need to understand why, all I need to know is that there is a reason they would do so. Besides, they haven’t even tried to attack us. You're a biologist, do you consider that normal?”
“Do you even hear yourself? You sound like a lunatic! I could have you put away for this!”
Unlike his normally cool, level-headed, and almost jolly demeanor, Dornucl’s features were twisted in barely veiled rage. It was terrifying to see him on the verge of doing something awful. He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by the predators.
The one with the grey fur was still lying down, but the other with the dark green fur had stood up and began stomping around in exaggerated and dramatic steps. All while growling and barking.
It was terrifying. However, it was dulled by the sheer surrealness of the situation. Its entire demeanor was less intentionally threatening and more childish mocking, right down to flailing its limbs in much the same way Dornucl did unconsciously to emphasize his point. It may even be funny if we could understand what they were saying.
Wait a minute…
I paused to think about that absent-minded thought, the gears and pistons finally shaking off the shock and beginning to fire and spin. I listened closely to its vocalizations and began to pick out a form of structure in how they were articulated and gestated. I recalled the predators' behavior and came to a grim conclusion.
“We have a problem,” I said so quietly it could barely be considered a whisper.
“Oh, what tipped you off genius?” Dornucl responded sarcastically.
I stumbled a little at the insult but continued.
“No, I mean a bigger problem,” I took a deep breath, “I think they’re sapient.”
The silence was deafening. Even the predator had stopped its mockery and began exchanging words with the other grey-furred one.
Dornucl glanced at the and sighed. “In hindsight, that does explain their behavior.”
Somehow, despite this revelation, Dornucl regained his composure and his cool demeanor.
“Well, in a certain sense, this simplifies things somewhat. We just have to wait for the translators to complete processing their language, then we can hopefully negotiate with them.”
I gawked at what he just said, while Jinsul broke down into laughter.
“And I’m the crazy one!” Jinsul managed to get out between the cackles, “Do you even hear yourself? Mindless animals are one thing, but this? We have the next the Arxur right before us!”
It was at this point that Plako decided to wake up. One can only imagine what was going through his head when he was greeted by 2 predators, a hysterical exterminator, a biologist trying not to show his frustration, and an anthropologist doing her best to fall through the wall.
He began to stammer. “Wh-what h-happened? Why haven’t they eaten us?”
Dornucl leaned over to him and deadpanned. “The predators are sapient.”
Plako froze after he processed this information.
Jinsul calmed down enough to speak more coherently, “Gods, it all makes sense. They must’ve bombed themselves back in the stone age, and have only recently been reclaiming their former technology.”
I spoke up. “I don’t think that’s the case. Remember, the worm showed us an image of that other creature. These predators likely evolved sometime after the civilization's collapse.”
“Well,” Jinsul said while deep in thought, “Now I can say for certain the gods must be involved.”
“Wh-what?” Plako asked trambling.
“Think about it. This whole situation is so astronomically unlikely, from being in an uncharted system in the middle of nowhere at the same time as a single Arxur ship to surviving the crash, and then meeting these predators, and them not attacking us. The gods’ intend for us to purge these creatures before they can spread and save the remnants of this civilization from–”
“No, I’m pretty sure it was laughing at you, not with you.” A masculine said from the back of the chamber.
“Fine, but I think I’m finally getting somewhere.” A feminine voice responded.
Jinsul went quiet as our gazes fell upon the predators. The translators finished translating. No one knew what to do, so we ended up just staring.
They both stared back with their unnerving abyssal eyes.
“I do wish they’d stop staring though. It’s starting to get weird.” The female said with a tone of unease.
“Let’s bring them to the village and have Oracle translate. It’s probably just a misunderstanding,” the male responded.
“Right, there's nothing we can do about it now.” She plopped beside the male and both began to get ready to sleep the best one could on the hard floor.
I felt something poke into my side, causing me to jump. Dornucl had crawled over to me and began to speak in a whisper. “What do you want me to do?” I asked.
His frustrated look returned. “You're the first contact specialist, go first contact.”
“And their predators!” I said, raising my voice a little louder, “They’ll eat me!”
He groaned and put on a forced calm. “While I disagree with Jinsul’s reasoning, they haven’t eaten us yet and we all want it to stay that way. Now if they decide they do want to eat us, we don’t have any weapons that wouldn’t be suicidal to use. If we want to get out of this alive and well, we’ll have to at least communicate with them.”
Jinsul, who had been effortlessly eavesdropping on us, muttered something under his breath. Dornucl ignored him as he continued, “So please at least try. Even if you fail, we’re likely doomed anyway.”
As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. I just wish it wasn’t me who had to do it or that I was the only one remotely qualified to do so. Haf was still unconscious, Plako looked on the brink of tears, Dornucl was just a scientist, and Jinsul wasn’t in the mood.
I gathered my strength and began running through what I could say. After a minute of idle thought, I came up with the only thing I could say. I stood up on quivering legs, took a brave step forward, and called upon the translator’s imparted knowledge.
“J-just so yo-you know, we’re not very tasty…and we’ll give you in-indigestion, so you shouldn’t eat us.” I felt like I was about to throw up.
The predators just stared at me, jaws agape and revealing menacing fangs. Jinsul nearly collapsed in renewed laughter. Dornucl buried his eyes into his tentacles and muttered something to himself.
“What was I supposed to say?” I said to Dornucl.
“ANYTHING BUT THAT!” he shot back.
Before I could snap back in frustration, the grey predator spoke.
“You speak our tongue the entire time? Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”
We paused, and even Jinsul stopped laughing like a madman. Wordlessly, Dornucl shoved me forward.
“N-no…” I stammered, “We have an implant in our heads that translates languages in real-time while allowing us to speak stored languages. It only just figured out your language just now.”
“So it’s a Mark of Communication?” It asked.
“I don’t–”
“No no,” the green one interrupted, “If they had one, then we wouldn’t be able to understand them.”
The grey one nodded sagely.
I had been expecting an equally long-winded and terrifying conversation about the plausibility of a universal translator and whether or not it was magic, not such a matter-of-fact statement. Before I could shake off the confusion, Dornucl suddenly spoke up, “What’s a mark of communication?"
“Definitely from beyond the wall,” the green one said to the grey.
The grey one nodded and turned back to us.
“A mark is a special gift, given only to one who reaches the top of Pebbles and meets with him, wherein he provides the mark and the knowledge necessary to complete the Pilgrimage. Did you receive your ‘translator’ from another like him?” They both seemed oddly interested in the answer.
“We made them,” I said, then quickly added, “The Federation did. We didn’t build them personally. Just to reiterate, you're not going to eat us, right?”
“Of course not.” The green one said, its voice rife with disgust. “Why do you–”
Jinsul swiftly cut it off.
“Do you think you win us over with such obvious deceptions?” Jinsul stood and sized up the predators, “I know this game. You’re just keeping us around till you get hungry. When I get off this rock, I’ll ensure the god’s wishes are seen through and this entire planet is burned from orbit!”
The predators seemed confused about what was said. The green one stepped too close to me, with nowhere to go, I froze and closed my eyes.
This is it Sefril. You knew this was coming. Don’t resist and maybe it will be–
“Is he okay?” it asked, feigning concern and pointing to a still-ranting Jinsul, “In, y’know…” it said as it tapped its claw against its head.
Jinsul paused momentarily as he took in what was just said, then began fuming again. “I DON’T HAVE BRAIN DAMAGE!” he shrieked.
It took a step back at the outburst. It put its arms out, but instead of lunging toward him, it seemed as though it was trying to shield itself from him, or at the very least keep him at a comfortable distance.
“I didn’t mean to offend,” It said, the translator framing it apologetically to my confusion, “I have a cousin who fell off a pole as a pup and landed on his head. You sorta act like him.”
Jinsul reached a new, as of yet unknown level of hate. He stood there for a second, simmering not unlike a faulty water boiler. Dornucl stepped behind him, raised some robust science thingy above his head, and brought it down on Jinsul’s.
Jinsul flopped to bring like a rag doll beside Haf. Everyone, including the predators, was speechless. Everyone except Dornucl.
“Everyone shut up!”, he said in a practical growl, “This is confusing for all of us, and antagonizing each other isn’t going to make this situation any better. Here’s how this will go: We’ll have a polite conversation, get to know each other, and then figure out what to do.”
He turns to the predators. “My name is Dornucl, and this is Sefril, Plako, Jinsul, and Haf. What’s your’s?”
“My name is Stone,” The grey-furred one responded, “And this is Light.” He said pointing to the green one.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Light said, not skipping a beat, “Where are you from?”
Oh boy, getting right into it.
“So…” I began, but Plako jabbed me.
“You can’t,” he whispered in a panic, “There are predators, if they find out about the federation it’ll be the Arxur all over again.”
I look nervously at Dornucl, who nods reassuringly. I take a deep breath. “I know, but they’ll find out sooner or later. Besides, they may be predators, but they are also primitives. We have a natural advantage, if not physically than technologically and intellectually.”
I returned my attention to ‘Light’ and ‘Stone’, who did their best not to look like they were eavesdropping. “As I was saying…this is a little complicated. You know the stars, right?”
They nodd.
“We are from the stars.”
They blinked at us. They glanced around at us, trying to read our expressions.
“What do you mean?” Stone asked hesitantly.
I took a deep breath and launched into an explanation. “You know how we are currently in this world? There are others like, very, very far away. So far away that if you spent your entire life running as fast as you could you’d never even glimpse it.”
“Then how did you come here?” Light asked, “Did you use magic like the Ancients did?”
I took a mental note to inquire more about these Ancients, then resumed. “No, we, and the Federation as a whole, use large machines called ‘spaceships’. Each is equipped with a device called a subspace drive, which allows for faster-than-light travel. With this, we can travel between stars in days, weeks, or months depending on the distance between the stars.”
“Hey, I’m pretty fast, but I don’t think that going faster than me would make much of a difference if it’s that far away.”
Stone let out a good-natured snicker. “I think she meant light from a lantern or the sun.”
“Ah,” she remarked, ears pressed back in mild embarrassment. She tilted her head in confusion, “But that sounds like magic to me.”
“It’s not, ok? It’s just science.” I say with a sigh. Surprisingly, the word science seemed to translate without much of a fuss and they even nodded along. Something else to look into.
Stone asked the dreaded question: “Then how does it work?”
“I don’t know but I’m sure Plako could give you a basic…” I began to say when Plako started to make wild motions, trying to communicate he had no idea how it worked without drawing attention. He succeeded in trying to tell me that while failing to stay incognito. The predators turn their piercing eyes on him.
“Don’t worry about him,” I say hastily before they can speak, “It’s not his specialty.”
“What’s his specialty?” Stone asked. Plako visibly cringed, but this time Dornucl saved him.
“Let’s save the more technical discussions for tomorrow. It’s late, and we’re all tired.”
Light gave Stone a look before turning back to us. “Agreed. We both had a rough cycle. We even died a few times.”
They settled down while we were left to ponder the absolute bombshell they had dropped on us. Plako seemed checked, while Dornucl and I just shared a look. I recalled what Jinsul had come up with and felt a pit form in my stomach.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked dumbfounded.
Stone looked up from where she was cuddling up next to Light. “What do you mean? Was it something I said?”
“Yes, it was something you said,” I said while trying not to hyperventilate, “You said you died. What do you mean by that?”
Both predators looked confused. “You know, the Cycle. Wake up, Die, wake up. Don’t you have the Cycle where you’re from?”
“...no…” I say in an empty voice. “By any chance, you wouldn’t happen to remember these deaths as dreams?”
The predators gave me a look of confusion, before Light nodded. I stared for an eternity, and this time the predators were the ones to give us uncomfortable looks. They whispered between themselves, occasionally shooting glances back towards us though taking no other action.
Unfortunately, our solace from their gazes didn’t last, as Stone turned back to us. “I can see that there are certainly…things that need to be sorted out between us, but I think Door-Knuckle had the right idea.”
I nodded, barely registering what he was saying. The others muttered in half-hearted agreement. Satisfied, the predators continued to snuggle up beside each other. Within moments, they were fast asleep.
We stayed quiet for a long while. Plako crawled closer to Dornucl and me. “They’re lying, right? I mean, they have to be. It’s what predators do.”
I couldn’t muster myself to answer him. Dornucl seemed flustered.
“Say something…please…” Plako pleaded, raising his voice above the whisper he had it at before. Thankfully the predators didn’t wake. We just sat there, letting it all sink in.
“It’s…let’s…” Dornucl started to say, before settling on “Damn it.”
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Thought I would write what worked for me as when I was studying I really found it helpful to look at people's guides and figure out what worked for me. Let me know if anyone has any questions too!

1. Don't get bogged down in content. The content is definitely important although just as if not more important is test taking skills. I started doing problems consistently about 3 months before my exam and it is really where I started to see the greatest improvement. And then my score jumped even more when I did AAMC materials (especially the section banks!!!!). Focus on content in the beginning but try to transition to problems as quick as you feel comfortable. Once I switched to doing problems, I tended to only review content of things I was consistently missing in my practice problems and exams.
   
2. Practice CARS early and often! This is something I did not do and I wish I had. Obviously my CARS score is passable at a 127, but this was basically luck. I was consistently getting 123-125 on my practice exams on both blueprint and AAMC. Do not just assume your score will jump when you switch to AAMC materials. I would recommend doing Jack Westin at least daily starting at least like 3 months out. One thing that did help me to improve my score slightly was simply reading. I bought a new book and tried to read a few chapters every couple days. This honestly did improve comprehension but the questions were still tough.
   
3. ANKI IS KING for content. This is definitely true for psych, but even for the other sections. I was able to cram in a bunch of structures the week before the test with Anki which I feel like helped me. I used it for hormones and equations as well and just some random content stuff from the hard science sections. And may as well get used to it because so many med students use it for STEP 1 stuff!
   
4. Take practice exams. Having the stamina for test day is so important. I took around 9 exams and I think its what made me so calm on test day as just like preparing for big game, I felt like I had been here before.
   
5. Do very little if not nothing besides Anki the week leading up to the test. This I think helped me have even more stamina for test day and made it go so smoothly. I did not even really do anything the night before the test besides binge watch some Netflix and read a little. At that point the hard studying is over and you get to showcase what you've learned on test day!
   

Hope this helps!

After playing through nearly a full in-game year, I just realized you actually open the toolboxes you collect when mining/from the ruins. I've spent so much time trying to find Simple Circuits... well, there they are!
I know you also open the relic bags, furniture chests, and bird nests, but I'm curious if I'm missing anything else. Has anyone else had a moment like this?
Any other tips from your a-ha moments would be more than welcome. I'm sure there will be more to come on my end, haha.

The pain was the worst thing`Dominick Mason had ever known…and he knew what it felt like to die. It felt like his brain was in a blender, being chopped to liquid for a Jeffery Dahmer smoothie and though it seemed melodramatic, he imagined he could feel himself losing brain cells by the minute. The sun, Merrick told him, would not burn him, but it would decay him faster, so sleep or rest during the day. With the sick, throbbing agony in the center of his brain, however, that was impossible. He spent most of the day curled up on his side, hugging his knees, and moaning. He had flashbacks to dying in his apartment, and that made things even worse. The room became too small, too close, the air too stale. His heart, filled with the blood of last night’s meal, pounded in his chest, and he went from slightly chilly to hot and feverish as blood was forced through his circulatory system. It mixed with the embalming fluid and left him feeling full and constipated. He didn’t want to get up, but he also didn’t want to go on lying there. He was the definition of miserable.
Before long, the pain became too great and he got up to pace, pressing his hands to the sides of his head and gritting his teeth. Merrick, who slept very little if at all, sat in his chair and watched, trying his best to talk him through it. “It’ll be over soon,” Merrick said. “The pain receptors in your brain are the first to go. When they burn out, you won’t feel anything.”
“When?” Dom asked, his voice raising with the tide of pain.
“A couple days?”
“A couple days???”
“The pain will lessen gradually,” Merrick said, “this is the worst of it.”
Dom believed that this was, indeed, the worst of it, but he doubted it would lessen gradually. For the rest of the day, the pain got worse and worse until every light blinded him, every sound turned his stomach, and the smell of anything made his gorge rise. The cloying smell of the embalming fluid, the light but unmistakable odor of dead flesh, and the scent of stale blood sitting in decomposing stomachs made him want to vomit, but he was afraid to. He didn’t think he could handle the sight of blood rushing from his mouth and splattering the floor. He still possessed enough of his facilities, he believed, to go insane.
Pain has a way of darkening one’s mood, and by the time the sun began to set, Dom was in the most sour mood possible. Even Merrick’s calm, fatherly voice was beginning to get on his nerves. When he took the oath to him the day before (or was it the day before that?), he turned his faith and trust over to Merrick entirely. He was finally accepted, included, finally had the love and fellowship that, in the pit of his soul, he had always wanted. Merrick understood him, Merrick was kind to him.
But deep down, Dom realized that he didn’t fully trust him. He said that his brain didn’t rot because he was “lucky.” That sounded like some bullshit to Dom. Why wasn’t Joe a blithering idiot too? Was he lucky as well? Did lightning strike in the same place twice? In life, people had done nothing but hurt and lie to Dom. Why would death be any different? He thought back to the strange liquid that always seemed to leak from Merrick’s nose, and Joe’s. He thought it was embalming fluid, but it never leaked from his own nose, or from anyone else’s. He tried to tell himself that it was far too soon to judge, but once he began to doubt something, his mind raced away. He felt a twinge of guilt, as Merrick had done absolutely nothing to deserve his doubt, but goddamn it, his head was on fire and he wanted it to stop. Anything to make it stop.
Just after sundown, the music began as Club Vlad opened for the night. It throbbed in the center of Dom’s head and made him want to claw his eyes out. When it became too much for him, he slipped away and stumbled into the sultry summer night. He came out in the alley running behind the club, clutching his head and breathing through bared teeth. He staggered, bumped into a metal trash can, and roared at the top of his lungs, as if he could purge himself of the pain by screaming.. His voice echoed and came back to him, making the pain worse.
Merrick was lying. He knew it. People always lied to him. His brain was rotting and PEOPLE WERE LYING! Flashing with anger, he slammed his fist into the brick wall of a Chinese restaurant. He barely felt anything so he did it again and again until his hand was lumpy and shaking. He sat heavily on the ground and pressed his hands to his head. It felt like maggots were burrowing into his brain, and he was suddenly terrified that they really were. He needed to stop this awful pain, but how?
An idea came to him.
The funeral home.
Maybe there was something there.
He was on his feet and lumbering there before the thought had even finished reverberating through his mind. It was a long shot, but he was desperate. On the way there, he stuck to the shadows, staying out of the light cast by the streetlamps and avoiding people. When he passed them, he kept his head down. When he reached the funeral home, he went to the back door where he and Jessie had gone the other day. He tried it, and it opened.
Inside, he bounced off the walls like a pinball, knocking over an end table and tearing at the flesh of his head, pulling it away in long, gray strips. He panted like a wild animal, his body a raging tempest of emotions. It was reaching a crescendo, he thought, his brain was about to go supernova. The world dimmed, things got really echoy. The young man he’d picked the embalming fluid up from was there, looking scared.
Flashing, Dom grabbed him by his shirt and slammed him against the wall, knocking a painting of a flowery field to the carpet. Everything seemed to go in slow mo. “How does Merrick keep his brain from rotting?” Dom heard himself demanding from far away. “How does he keep the pain away?”
The man trembled. “I-I-”
Dom slammed him again. “Tell me or I’ll make you like me.”
“No!” the man wailed. He shook his head from side to side, his eyes wet with fear.
“How?”
“He-He uses a solution,” the man stammered. “Some kind of special thing. It preserves his brain. That’s all I know.”
An idea occurred to Dom.
Holding the man by the back of his neck, Dom dragged him into the embalming room and pushed him against the table. His head felt like it was swelling. Hot, screaming, getting ready to explode. He looked around, found the embalming machine, and grabbed the hose. There was a sharp tip on it so that you could jam it into a body. He held it in his hand, hesitating for just a moment before pressing it to his temple. The man watched in horror as Dom slowly shoved the tip into his head. It tore his flesh, broke through his skull, and sank into his brain. He felt no pain, only pressure, but cried out anyway. His eyes rolled up into his head and a shudder went through his body.
“Turn it on!” he yelled.
“That’s not what he -”
“TURN IT ON!”
Starting, the man turned the machine on. Cold embalming fluid squirted directly into Dom’s brain. Almost at once, the pain began to ebb away, replaced only by a fuzzy sense of numbness. His knees buckled and he sank to the floor, looking for all the world like an addict taking a hit of his favorite substance after a long and trying day. Fluid leaked from his nose, ears, and eyes and dripped down the back of his throat.
The man waited for a long time, then turned the machine off.
The pain was gone.
At least for now.
“Tell me again,” Dom said.
The man did. Merrick used a special preserving agent to keep his brain intact. Joe, the man suspected, got it as well. So Merrick had lied to him.
Dom felt betrayed.
And angry.
Leaving the man (Dom realized that he didn’t even know his name), he walked back to Club Vlad, his hands fisted in his pockets. All his life, he had been hurt, lied to, and ignored. All his life, people had done wrong to him. And all those years, he just took it.
He resolved not to be so accepting in death.
At last, he was going to stop being a sniveling little bitch and stand up for himself.
When he reached Club Vlad, he slammed through the back door and took the stairs two at a time. At the top, he called out Merrick’s name. The old man was sitting in his chair, being attended to by Jessie and Matt. He looked startled when Dom came in. “You lied to me,” Dom said, stalking over to his benefactor.
“What are you talking about?” Merrick asked, doing his best to sound innocent.
“You lied to me!” Dom screamed. He bent over and got so close to Merrick’s face that he could have kissed him. “You told me there was no way to save my brain, but that’s not true. You’re pumping your head full of shit and letting the rest of us rot.”
A dark shadow flickered across Merrick’s face. “Watch your tone when you talk to me,” he said. His voice was low, menacing.
“Fuck you,” Dom said. “I should k -”
Suddenly, Dom was being grabbed from behind and yanked back, an arm around his neck. He cried out in alarm as Joe swung him around and slammed him face first into the wall. He heard his nose crunch, felt his teeth shatter. Next, Joe wrestled him to the glitter-sprinkled floor and wedged his knee between his shoulder blades.
Merrick watched with a sneer of disgust, his hands gripping the arms of his chair. He wheeled himself over, Jessie holding his IV stand steady and following behind. “Listen, you son of a bitch,” Merrick said, “you’re lucky to be a part of this family.”
Cold fear filled the pit of Dom’s stomach, yet he wouldn’t back down, couldn’t back down. He had lived his entire life like a mouse in a burrow, he wasn’t about to live his entire death the same way.
“Fuck your family,” he said defiantly. “And fuck you.”
Merrick’s face darkened and he sat back in his chair. He looked at Jessie and nodded. She went away and came back a moment later holding something in her hand. Dom’s eyes widened when he saw what it was.
A wooden stake, one end honed to a razor point.
Why they had one of those lying around, Dom didn’t know; it’d be like Superman keeping a piece of kryptonite on the mantle over the fireplace. Merrick directed Max and Matt to hold Dom’s arms down/ Joe pivoted, kneeling on his head now so that Dom’s back was exposed. Dom’s heart slammed with terror and tremors raced through his body.
“Is this what you want, Dominick?” Merrick asked. “To die? To truly die?”
Dom swallowed hard. No, it wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to live, to love, to have a family one day. He wanted a happy, normal life, the life TV and social media had been promising him since he was a little boy.
But all of that went out the window the night he died in his little apartment. There was no life anymore, just a grotesque parody of life. What was there for him other than death? Clinging desperately onto life for decades like Merrick? Stuffing himself full of embalming fluid and moth balls? Grinding for one more minute just so he could sit hooked up to a machine?
Dom spoke.
“What?” Merrick asked, not having heard.
Dom licked his lips. “Just fucking do it.”
For a moment, nothing happened. Expectation hung in the air. Finally, breaking the tension, Merrick nodded to Jessie. Kneeling down, she brought the stake up, and Dom closed his eyes.
This was it.
He braced himself for death.
Jessie brought the stake down just as a shot rang out, deafening in the small space. Her head whipped back, embalming fluid, skull fragments, and gray, sickly pieces of brain showering from the back of her head. She flopped back and landed on the floor with a sickening thud.
A woman cop, her black uniform in stark contrast to the burning white light, stood in the doorway to the hall, her gun drawn. Everyone did, indeed, freeze, more out of surprise than respect for authority. They all looked at her, their dead mouths agape, resembling children who’d been caught doing something wrong.
“Everyone on the ground!” she barked.
No one knew what to do. They hadn’t expected to be raided by the police so had not prepared. She jerked her gun and everyone instinctively flinched. “On the ground!” she repeated. To Max: “You too, bone boy.”
The first one to react was Joe. He sprang at her like a big, undead frog. She brought the gun around and fired, but he was already crashing into her. The shot went wild and struck the IV bag next to Merrick; he ducked and let out a sound of fear. The others rushed her, and Dom got quickly to his feet. Jessie lay on the floor, her mouth open in a silent scream and her bony fingers frantically examining the ragged hole in the center of her forehead. For a moment, he was frozen; everything was happening too fast. Then, when Merrick saw him and cried, “Stop him!, he came alive. Jessie tried to grab at his leg, but he kicked her hand away and stomped on it like it was a giant spider. On the other side of the room, Matt, Joe, and Max had forced the cop to the ground. Perhaps excited by all the action, perhaps just hungry, they began to tear her apart. She howled in pain, and the last thing Dom saw before he fled was her open, blood-filled mouth. Her eyes were filled with pain…with terror.
After that, Dom ran.
***
When the interloper was dead, Merrick directed Joe and Matt to dispose of the body. “Get rid of it,” he said wearily and rubbed his temples, “make sure it isn’t found.”
They rolled her into a carpet from the office, and the way her feet stuck out may have been comical under other circumstances.
Goddamn it, this was bad. Merrick’s entire philosophy rested on avoiding detection. He had done well in that regard. Whereas other vampires had attacked their villages and gotten themselves dug from the ground and staked, he had made it four decades. He never shat where he ate, and there is no bigger turd than killing a cop. They might dawdle on all the boys who’d gone missing - taken because their blood was stronger and more robust than the blood of girls - but they would not take a cop dying lightly at all.
Merrick owned various businesses around the country. He and the others would simply move on. Tomorrow night, they would disappear into the night. They had done it before and they would likely do it again. Once things were settled at their new base of operations, he would have Joe killed for all the trouble he’d caused.
And Dom?
Let him go.
The little rat wouldn’t last a month on his own.
“Jessie?”
Jessie sat against the wall, gazing into space.
“Jessi…start packing. We’re leaving tomorrow.”
She didn’t move, didn’t seem to hear. The shot had all but lobotomized her.
Damn it.
Joe backed the van up to the back door of Club Vlad, and then helped Matt carry the carpet-rolled body down the stairs. They loaded it in and closed the back doors. Together, they drove around looking for a place to dump it. Merrick wanted it to go unfound, but Joe doubted there was anywhere isolated enough in the city. On a whim, he drove to Washington Park, a vast expanse of green trees and shadows. There was a large pond there. It seemed the best option. They were leaving tomorrow anyway, so did it really matter?
Joe backed the van to a railing overlooking the dark water and put it in park. He and Matt got out, fetched the body, and carried it to the railing. They lifted and heaved it over. It splashed. Thus, they rid themselves of Vanessa Rodregiez.
***
Bruce sat anxiously up in his easy chair and waited for his cell to ring.
Parked in front of the TV by warm lamplight, a beer wedged between his legs, he’d been watching the 11’o’clock news when the phone rang. He picked it up and it was Vanessa. “Hey,” she said, “I think I found our body?”
“Which one?” Bruce asked and took a drink. “We have a lot of those these days.”
“Dominick Mason.”
Bruce sat forward in his chair. “Dead Dom? Where?”
“He just came out of a funeral home, ironically enough.”
“That sounds about right,” Bruce said. “Where are you now?”
“I’m following him east on Central.”
“Are you sure it’s him?” Bruce asked.
“I think so, but I’m not sure. I’ll call you back when I’m done.”
Bruce sat the phone aside and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
At some point, he fell asleep sitting up, his head lulled to one side and his mouth open. He snorted himself awake, rubbed his eyes, and sat up. He checked his phone and was perturbed to see that it was past 2am.
Vanessa hadn’t called.
He dialed her number and let the phone ring until it went to voicemail. Sighing, he ended the call, then waited a few minutes and called again.
Still no answer.
It was possible she had forgotten. Maybe the guy turned out to not be Dead Dom after all. She followed some random guy around, realized it, and that was that. Hell, she was probably too embarrassed to call and tell him about it.
Something told him that wasn’t right, however.
There was something else going on here.
Something…darker.
Just before 3am, his phone rang. He snatched it off the end table next to the chair and answered it. It was Burt, the night sargent. “Rodriguez is missing,” he said simply.
Bruce’s heart sank. “Missing?”
“Yeah, she hasn’t checked in for hours and she isn’t answering calls.”
“I’m on my way,”
Bruce tore through the house, pulling on his uniform, socks, and shoes in less time than it took a Daytona 500 pit crew to service a car. In ten minutes he was speeding down 787, the Albany skyline rising in the distance. As he hurried to the station, he thought back to his last conversation with Vanessa. She’d found Dom the Dead Man, the “corpse” who’d scared Ed Harris out of a 20 year career. Despite all their talk about vampires and the living dead, Bruce didn’t believe it, not really. Even so, he was sure that Dominick Mason had done something to Vanessa.
He checked in at the station before doing anything else. They had triangulated Vanessa’s last known location via cell towers. Cops were already out searching the streets for her. Bruce went out as well, intending to start from her last known position and work his way east on Central. The closest funeral home was Tebbutt and Frederick on Central. There was also Lasak & Gigliotti on North Allen Street. Bruce didn’t know which one Vanessa had seen Dom come out of, so he checked both.
Both were deserted at this hour.
Undeterred, Bruce drove up and down Central Ave. At one point, he noticed a shape in an alleyway that looked human. He hit the brakes, jumped out, and pointed his gun at it. “Freeze!”
An old wino stepped out of the darkness. “Alright, you got me,” he said, hands up. “I started COVID. It was an accident, I swear.”
Bruce sighed and put his gun away.
For two more hours, Bruce searched the streets of Albany for Vanessa. At 4am, he spotted a squad car abandoned in the rear parking lot of an abandoned gas station on lower Lark Street. He called it in and the desk sergeant confirmed that it was the one Vanessa had signed out that night.
Still there was no sign of Vanessa herself.
Just after dawn, as the city came alive and CDTA buses began lumbering up and down the streets, Bruce got a call on his cell. “A jogger found a body in Washington Park.”
Bruce was in his personal car. He had no bubble light, no siren. Even so, he sped through the streets like he did, blowing through red lights and stop signs with little care to himself or anyone else. When he got to Washington Park, he found an army cops by the pond, the scene cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape. He slammed on the brakes, threw open the door, and jumped out without even turning off the engine.
The body was rolled up in a carpet and lying on the bank. Two beat cops unrolled it at Bruce’s direction. “We should wait for -” one of them started, but Bruce cut him off.
“Do it.”
They compiled, and at the carpet’s center, like a rotten cream filling, was the body of Vanessa Rodregiuez. Her head was tilted to one side, her eyes wide and staring. Her throat had been mangled and ripped away, her head nearly severed. Even in the black and red mess, Bruce could make out the teeth marks and puncture wounds. They may have looked like something else to anyone else who saw them, but he knew, in that moment, what they were dealing with.
A sharp pang of horror sliced through him, and his knees went weak.
“Jesus Christ,” one of the beat cops drew.
Bruce fell to, rather than knelt on, one knee. He bent over the body, a mixture of horror and grief welling his throat. He wanted to reach out, to comfort her in death, but he stayed his hand. Instead, he visually examined the body. She had bruises on her face, defensive wounds on her hands, and her gun was gone. Whoever had attacked her, she put up a fight.
Something glinted on her pants.
“What’s that?” one of the cops asked.
“I dunno,” the other replied, “but it’s all over the carpet.”
Indeed, there were glinty little specks all over it, winking like mocking eyes. Nice work, eh? We really fucked her up, didn’t we? Wink wink.
“It looks like…”
The other cop cut him off. “Glitter.”
Bruce flashed back to his visit to Club Vlad the other day.
There had been glitter everywhere.
Bruce stood up.
He had work to do.
***
Instead of going back to the station to start his shift, Bruce went to Lowes. There, he bought a mallet, a gas can, and a dozen sticks of wood. An employee in a blue vest used a machine to sharpen them to a wicked point and he took his purchases to the car. Next, he drove over to the Mobil station and filled the gas can. He was so hellbent on revenge that he sprang for premium, the good stuff. No expense shall be spared.
His final stop was at a Catholic church. He filled a canteen with holy water from the marble font by the door, then swiped a crucifix from the wall. He stopped by the station, went inside, and grabbed a black duffle bag with POLICE written across the front in yellow. He opened the gun cabinet in his office, took out a shotgun, and loaded it with shells. He grabbed a handful from the box and stuffed them into his pocket.
He was just finishing up when Bertha came in. “There you are,” she spat, “I’ve waited long enough for you to do something. I demand -”
Bruce shoved the duffle bag into her arms. “Make yourself useful.”
“What?” she demanded.
“We’re going to get your granddaughter,” Bruice lied. Kind of.
Bertha’s demeanor changed. “Good. It’s about time. I was starting to think you were a complete incompetent.”
Bruce didn’t answer. Outside, he plucked the bag out of Bertha’s hands and tossed it into the backseat. He slipped behind the wheel and Bertha sat in the passenger seat. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“Club Vlad,” Bruce said and started the engine.
“I want all of them arrested.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bruce said.
She barked orders the entire way there. Bruce was so deep in his thoughts that he barely heard her. The image of Vanessa’s ruined throat and terror-twisted face haunted him, and he felt a lump forming in his throat. Hot tears filled his eyes but he blinked them back and forced himself to calm down.
I’ll cry when I’m done killing, he thought.
A few minutes later, he pulled to the curb in front of Club Vlad. It was a hot and sunny day and the place seemed even more ominous because of it. The windows were black, the front cast in perpetual shadows by the old marquee from when it used to be a theater. The place was surely closed, but Bruce could hear music still playing from inside, some techno dance bullshit. “Alright,” he said, “let’s go.”
Getting out, he slung the dufflebag over his shoulder and carried the shotgun, the canteen full of holy water clasped to his belt. Bertha carried the gas can, looking confused. “Why do we need this?” she asked.
“We’re burning the place down.”
Bertha blinked in surprise…then an evil grin carved across her face. “That’ll show the bastards.”
Unlike last time, the door was locked. Bruce used the butt of the shotgun to break the glass, then reached inside and unlocked the door, being careful not to cut himself. This was the point of no return. What he had in mind would probably get him kicked off the force or even thrown in jail - and we all know how tough jail can be for a former barnaclehead. The memory of Vanessa’s contorted face pushed him on, however.
He’d suffer any consequences he needed to just so long as he got the sons of bitches who did this to her.
Inside, the club was cool and cave-like. Strobe lights flashed, on and off, black and white, dazzling Bruce’s eyes. The bartender was at his station, cleaning up from the night before. When he saw Bruce and Bertha come in, he started. Bruce pointed the shotgun at him. “Don’t fucking move,” he commanded.
The bartender hesitated, then reached for something under the bar.
The shotgun kicked in Bruce’s hands, and the bartender flew back, turning as he crashed into the barback. Bottles, glasses, and mugs crashed to the floor along with the bartender. Bruce racked the gun, and the shell flew out. He moved low and fast now, expecting to be swarmed by vampires, living thugs who worked for vampires, or vampire thugs who worked for themselves.
Though the shot had been like thunder, no one came.
Bruce had no idea where to go, but he imagined that vampires were naturally gravitate to the lowest part of the building. Was there a basement? Shit, he should have looked up the building plans at city hall. Damn, this is what happens when you go off half-cocked. He searched around a bit, opening doors and sweeping the rooms beyond with the shotgun. He found no basement, only stairs leading up. “Stay close,” he said to Bertha.
In the lead, Bruce crept up the stairs, the flashlight on the shotgun providing a cone of clean, white light. At the top of the stairs, he went right, and came to an office and a store room. Backtracking, and bumping into a bungling Bertha, he went into the next room. It was large and open with a vaulted ceiling, almost like a ballroom. Here the same strobe lights throbbed on and off, making him dizzy. Was this to dazzle prospective vampire hunters?
Either way, this was the place. Bodies lay strewn across the floor, some curled up on their sides and others in the classic vampire pose: Flat on their backs with their hands laced over their chests. In the center, like the sun to the planets, Merrick Garvis lay slumped back in his wheelchair, his neck exposed for any potential assassin to come and cut. Not that it would kill him. At least Bruce didn’t think it would.
“They’re all dead,” Bertha whispered. She looked around and gasped. “There’s Jessie.”
Jessie lay on her back, her hands folded on her chest. She had a ragged bullet hole in the center of her forehead. “Oh, God,” Bertha wavered, “someone shot her.”
He hoped it was Vanessa. And he hoped it fucking hurt.
Looking around, Bruce couldn’t find Dominick Mason. Was he the one who killed Vanessa? Was it a group effort? He wanted the little son of a bitch bad, but it looked like he’d have to go on without him. They didn’t have much time.
Unshouldering the duffle bag, he knelt down and rummaged around. “Start splashing that gas on the bodies,” he said.
“But -”
“Just do it,” he snapped.
There must have been a harder edge in his voice than normal, because Bertha jumped and did as she was told. She upended the can and began to splash gasoline onto the sleeping forms, the smell of it acrid and strong.
Taking out a stake and the mallet, Bruce went over to Merrick and knelt down. He gripped the stake in one hand and placed it firmly against Merrick’s chest. He brought the mallet up and hesitated, the gravity of what he was doing finally reaching him. What if he was wrong? What if -
Merrick’s head whipped up and their eyes locked.
Too late.
Bruce brought the mallet down as hard as he could. The stake drove deep into Merrick’s heart, and the vampire let out a howling screech that rang through the chamber like the cry of a banshee. His bony fingers clawed at the stake and his head whipped from side to side, his back arching and his robe coming open. In the quick strobe pattern, Bruce was shocked to see that his body was little more than a wood frame, chicken wire, and cotton balls. His blacked heart was hidden behind a screen of mesh that the stake had easily torn through. It throbbed, seemingly in time with the strobe lights, and Merrick let out another wail.
Bertha screamed, and Bruce jumped to his feet.
The vampires, drawn by their master’s cries of distress, were rising to their feet. Two, four, six of them, pale and ethereal like ghosts in a gothic mansion. They came toward Merrick, and Bruice fell back a step. The old man had gone still and lay slumped to one side, his eyes open and his mouth slack, embalming fluid leaking from the corner of his lips. Jessie bent over him and touched his face. Though she moved like a zombie, with no human emotion, Bruce was crazily sure that it was a touch of tenderness and love. Merrick didn’t stir.
He was dead.
Jessie looked at him. Yellow liquid leaked from her eyes like tears. Instead of attacking him, she turned on her grandmother and slammed her against the wall. Bertha screamed and dropped the can. It landed on its side, its contents sloshing out onto the floor. A man that resembled the pictures Bruce had seen of Joe Rossi only deader rushed him, slamming into him and knocking the shotgun aside. It hit the floor and skidded away. Joe grabbed Bruce around the throat and squeezed. Still the lights flashed, off and on, off and on. The walls thrummed with the mechanized beat of dance music, pierced only by Bertha’s screams as Jessie ripped out her throat.
Joe leaned in, his fangs wicked and glowing in the light. Bruce clawed at the monster’s face, tearing away strips of dead flesh. Joe turned his head to the side, and Bruce kneed him in the groin. Even dead, getting kicked in the balls hurt like hell, apparently. Joe’s grip loosened and Bruce was able to shove him off. Bruce unclasped the canteen and frantically screwed the cap off as Joe recovered. Joe sprang at him again, and Bruce splashed him in the face.
A sound like sizzling meat filled the air, and Joe screamed at the top of his lungs. He pressed his hands to his face and danced around the room, his skin liquifying and oozing between his fingers. The others were coming now, led by a terrible skeletal thing. Bruce scooped the shotgun off the floor, brought it around, and fired. The blast hit the thing dead center, tearing it literally in half. The top half flew back, an all too human look of surprise on its face, and the bottom half fell over with a wet thud. Another vampire came at, and Bruce slammed it across the face with the butt of the gun. He heard its jaw crack, saw teeth flying.
Bertha lay dead on the floor, Jessie bent over her. The smell of Bertha’s blood attracted the others, who seemed to forget about Bruce, Merrick, and everything else. Joe was on his knees, wailing in pain, and the skeletal thing was pulling itself toward Bertha. A feeding frenzy broke out as vampires fought to get a piece of her the way piglets might fight over their mother’s teat. Bruce watched in a mixture of horror and fascination, but recovered himself. He grabbed the gas can from the floor and dumped the rest of its contents on Merrick’s body, the feeding vampires’ backs, and the floor, using the last of it to make a little trail to the door. He tossed the can aside, bent down, and stuck a match.
A huge, fiery whump filled the room, and fire streaked along the trail. The vampires all went up in a huge ball of flames, and fire shot up Merrick’s body, catching his robe, his hair, and the wooden frame that had kept him semi upright for God knows how long. Letting out inhuman screams, the vampires broke from Bertha’s corpse. One stumbled around, bounced off the wall, and fell; another toddled toward Bruce before falling to its knees. The half skeleton kept drinking from Bertha’s neck even as it burned.
The heat was enormous, baking. Bruce backed away, and the last thing he saw before smoke obscured his vision was Merrick Garvis.
He was literally melting.
***
Dominick Mason tried to go home, but he no longer had a home. All of his worldly possessions sat on the sidewalk in front of his building, discarded coldly as easily. His key didn’t work in his door and there was a FOR RENT sign on it. Why would it be any other way? He was dead. Sooner or later, everyone forgets you when you’re dead, and all the things you held so dear wind up in the trash. It was a hard pill to swallow, but most people aren’t around to see it after they die.
He was.
From his building, he walked east toward Washington Park. In the distance, thick, black smoke billowed into the air, and sirens rose. He barely noticed and wouldn’t have cared even if he did. No more rubbernecking for him. That was for the living.
The pain that had plagued him so the previous day came back, only less this time. Maybe he was imagining it, but it was getting harder to think. Not that he cared, really. What was there to think about anyway? How he had no one to mourn or miss him? How he died and not one single person, except for maybe his mother, cared, or even noticed? How he had done nothing with his life? Even to the women he’d slept with, what was he? Just another dating app hookup. They probably didn’t even remember his name.
Merrick had been right about one thing. Death was easy. It was life that was hard…life that hurt.
With that in mind, Dominick made his way to Washington Park. It was a vast and deep place with many small caves and thickets. Kids played on the playground, their cries of laughter scenting the still air. It had grown cloudy and began to rain. Still, smoke poured into the sky in the direction of Club Vlad. Dom didn’t wish ill on Merrick and the others, didn’t hope it was them burning. He didn’t care anymore. Not about them, not about anyone. For better or worse (and he would argue it was worse), his life was over. His time came days ago, he just missed the boat.
Picking out an isolated little area, Dom sat against a tree with his legs splayed out in front of him. He titled his head back and closed his eyes. Yes, thinking was hard now. His mind felt sluggish, cold. He was thirsty…so, so thirsty, but he ignored it.
Slowly, the bugs found him. Flies buzzed around him and laid their eggs in his skin. Beetles scuttled over him, followed by worms.
Next, it was the birds. They ate out his eyes and nibbled at his blue, bloated skin.
The animals came last.
Their appetites were bigger.
And they left little remaining of poor, outcast Dominick Mason.
***
That night, Bruce sat alone in his little trailer, a bottle of whiskey wedged between his legs and unshed tears in his eyes. He stared at his reflection in the darkened TV set and took long swallows from the bottle. He planned to drink until he forgot or passed out, whichever came first. He tried to not think about Vanessa, but in his addled state, he couldn’t control himself, and began to cry. When that storm passed, like the others before it, he chugged from the bottle.
As distant church bells clanged the hour - midnight - a feeble knock came at the door. Bruce took another drink and it came again. Getting up, he stumbled, nearly fell, and gripped the bottle tightly. He didn’t want to lose one precious drop.
Again, the knock.
“I’m coming,” Bruce slurred. He staggered to the door and fought with the lock. He was dizzy and seeing double.
When he got it, he opened the door.
The bottle dropped from his hand and clanked onto the floor.
Vanessa, clad in a puke green hospital gown, stood on the step, her hands pressed to her chest and a look of anguish on her milk white face. Her head tilted to one side, the wounds on her neck cleaned but open, gaping. Her dark eyes shone with tears. “I’m dead,” she said.
Breaking down in tears, she collapsed against him and they sank to the floor. She was cold and smelled. Bruce wrapped his arms around her and held her to his chest anyway. “Shhh, it’s alright,” he said drunkenly. “Hey, it’s alright.
“I’m dead,” she repeated, and her voice broke. “I don’t want to die.”
Bruce held her close, trying to warm her icy skin. He didn’t know what to say, so he cried with her.
“You’re safe now,” he said, “it’s going to be okay.”
“I want blood,” she said and sobbed harder, “I want to hurt people.”
“Shhh,” Bruce said again. “It’s okay.”
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a utility knife. He flicked the blade across his wrist and searing pain shot up his arm. “Here,” he said and offered her his blood, “drink this.”
He did this without care and without thought. She needed him, and one barnaclehead always backs up another.
Vanessa hesitated, looking from his face to the oozing blood, unsure.
“Go ahead,” he told her.
Vanessa brought his wrist to her mouth.
And began to drink.

I usually post here because I'm struggling and looking for advice or relatability but today is different. Well, I am looking for relatability but this is a happy post.
I've had multiple therapists over the last 7ish years and been with my current therapist for ~3 of those years. I felt like we always had 'okay' sessions but nothing great and I usually left feeling just 'okay' about the session, sometimes even disappointed. However, compared to the other therapists I'd seen, this seemed like the best experience of them all so I stayed.
However, for the first time EVER my session was amazing and despite not even having enough time to discuss everything I wanted to, I left feeling great about the session even though my mental health is a dumpster fire.
I'm in the process of making notes on what I think was different this time so that I can (hopefully) share my feelings with my therapist and we can keep this energy going. In thinking about the session, I've pinpointed that the conversation seemed to flow much more freely than normal and that we went into greater depth about the things we were talking about. Although that's probably what left me feeling so good about the session, now I'm trying to figure out just what it was that allowed those things to happen.
I guess I just want to say that:

1. If you are experiencing this in therapy regularly, I am so happy for you (and also a little jealous)
2. If you are not experiencing this in therapy, it is possible. I honestly thought maybe it was just me and I just wasn't able to have this sort of experience but here I am!
3. I know I got lucky and for some reason today's session just hit differently but for all of you who are wondering if you should tell your therapist that you're feeling like somethings missing or your sessions just aren't as helpful as you'd hope, maybe this will motivate you to say something. After my session I definitely think it's possible for little things to be changed (and painlessly) to make a session more beneficial.

Hey guys I’m new here.
I’ve been playing Sins of a Solar Empire for many years and before that homeworld so I love space strategy games. I also love playing the total war series, I started with Rome when it came out and have played every game since.
Now one thing I will say as why I have never played stellaris before is I thought it was turn based not real time and I’ve always hated turn based games. I know total war has turn based gameplay too but I hate that part I just like the battles. I also tried games like Civ in the past and I just hated turn based games. So now so many years after the stellaris release I just found out it’s real time.
So from my own research I see that it’s similar to sins of a solar empire but with less focus on the completely unique factions and combat but more focused and sandbox experiences and freedom to make loads of choices.
I’m looking at getting Stellaris while it’s on sale but I’m just wondering if you guys would recommend it to me? Am I missing out or do you think I should wait for the full release of Sins of a Solar Empire 2 instead?

So I've noticed it's about the same 10 people and all of the breakup type subs you know letters, unsent, EXNC And hell they all sound kind of familiar when you want them to don't they? So here we go... For all the ones that I see that say their people aren't contacting at all or aren't making any effort at all they haven't heard from them here or there they can't tell who's who so here we go: Hey J, I am taking steps - one already, I do love you, I do want to see you, I can't be the guy who missed showing up last night (for someone else). I am aware that I'm responsible for my actions. I'm wrapping my mind around your feelings and how you view my effort, activities, behaviors, transparency and overall kick ass attitude again self awareness should be a given. Also applies in relation to the percentage of chance or no chance, hoping for a chance. I genuinely have no interest in manipulation or gaslighting. If I'm performing those let me know and I will knock that shit straight the fuck off and moving forward you know you can assist me in eliminating that language. If I use it much it's because I'm charming and I can be pretty persuasive.... In the good way weirdos. I still see you as beautiful as ever Even if that's more difficult for yourself to do. I have saved for retirement. I do have a plan for myself for the future, I'd love for you to be in there....nope I hafta have you in there. I Have a desire to maintain proper health and wellness and watch out for you too. And I'm going to continue to front a punk band and want to included in that part of my life as well. So I hope this reaches you because I swear like five different people are you. If you're going to communicate because communication is key then we should probably jump on it within the next couple of steps or else we're going to miss something else that one of us has got to say I imagine. So I've got no idea who's who, but I want this to answer some questions if you're not getting any questions answered and you think I'm not remaining goal oriented, well I sure am.
And I think I'm missing something.....Oh yeah and I definitely want to f√¢k, please and thank you. For those that are still wondering I'm a letter C. Tada!