Season 5
After a triumphant treble last season, I aimed to repeat the feat and add a fourth with the AFC Champions League. Little did I know, due to Japan's season running from February to December, we'd only play the group stage this time around. So focus remained on the league and domestic cups. As if we failed to win the Champions League this time around we needed to ensure we qualified again for the second half of next season. So, starting as we meant to go on, it was time for transfers.
THE TRANSFERS
Out
Marcao - FLA - £240k
Shunsuke Nishikubo - Fujieda - £300k
Yuji Miki - Tochigi SC - £140k
Fuminori Tabuchi - Kashima Antlers - £300k
Itambé - Al-Fateh - £275k
Caio Cesar - Peterborough - £150k
Kiyohisa Kubo - Gamba Osaka - $400k
In
Hamode Kanaan - Ashdod - Free
Ryuta Sakai - Shonan Bellmare - £775k
Srdan Cvetkovic - Radnicki (SM) - £400k
Seiya Baba - Yokohama F. Marinos - £850k
Thanawat Suengchitthawon - Moangthong Utd - £825k
Yasuki Kimoto - Vissel Kobe - £275k
Our season began with the opportunity to gain another trophy as we faced Cerezo Osaka in the Fuji Xerox Super Cup. Japans answer to the Community Shield. This was a good litmus to see how we stacked up against our biggest challengers from last season with our new line up. This doubled as a testimonial of sorts for Komai Can't Communicate (But he can score) as he was retiring following this game. And score he did, we ran away with the game winning 7-0 and making us all very very excited for the season to come.
The AFC Champions League
We were drawn a decent group but not one that should cause us any issues for qualification, however, such is the way of the AFC Champions League, only one team from each group would qualify so we'd need to be at our best througout. In our group were South Korean side Pohang Stealers, Indonesian outfit Bali United and BG Pathum Utd from Thailand.
Pohang were our first opponents and we brushed them by the wayside winning 4-2 in Korea. We followed up with an impressive 5-1 win over Bali United which left us thinking this Champions League stuff isn't that hard now is it? BG Pathum United set out to prove me wrong, taking the lead early in Thailand. A late equaliser from Diego Medina secured our undefeated status however. We then played Bali United again, in Indonesia, we entered their home and didn't even wipe our feet as we smashed through them 4-0. Pohang were welcomed into our stadium and again, we beat them, a much more reasonable, from their perspective, 2-1 win all but confirmed our qualification and our goal difference was far superior to 2nd place BG Pathum, who we played next and were 3 points ahead. A draw would confirm our qualification but, a lesson was taught, NO ONE DRAWS WITH KYOTO SANGA TWICE! We won 3-1 and are in the second round of the contest. We would just have to wait till next season to play it.
The YBC Levian Cup
We, as defending champions of all Japanese Trophies entered in the second round were we faced the team we beat in last seasons final JEF United Chiba. Much like the finals our first leg tie ended 0-0. In the home leg we were 2-0 up after 50 minutes thanks to goals from Magnus Christensen and Srdan Cvetkovic but Karel Pojezny decided now would be a good time to show off his Crash Bandicoot slide dash impression as he took out a Chiba player on the 59th minute. Luckily for us, Full Blown Bazooka (A renamed Fugo Kazuka) ran clear after a counter attack and gave us a third as we ended the game with 10 men but also a spot in the round of 16.
Here we faced Renofa Yamaguchi, a team from the J2 league. And despite us going 4-0 they fought back to make it 4-3. Fortunately, once again, another late goal, this time from Takeshi Yamauchi set us up with a 2 goal lead going into the second leg. And what a bloody good job he did as we lost the second leg 2-1. We were heading to penalties here as well until a Full Blown Bazooka penalty in the 86th minute put us back in the lead on aggregate.
Shonan Bellmare were our quarter finals opponents. They held us to a 1-1 draw at their place, however, we gently ushered them to our stadium and trounced them 4-0. Meaning we were to take on Urawa Red Dragons in the semi's. And just like the semi in your trousers right now, yes yours, it was unimpressive. A narrow 1-0 win over 2 legs sent us to our second league cup final in a row.
The Emperors Cup.
Now, there's less games in this tournament as much like Paul McCartney's dating history, they're single legged affairs. That doesn't mean we made it easy on ourselves though. First off was Nagano Parceiro in the 2nd round. And boy howdy did we squeak through. It was 4-2 to us with just 8 minutes of time left to play when, young debutante Tomohiro Fukumoto decided to emulate his mentor Pojezny and absolutely massacre Parciero's striker and get himself sent off. Nagano clearly took that personally as they pulled another back almost instantly. Yuya Yamagisha scored for us on the 88th minute which seemed to save us 5-3! But, no, they scored again in the 93rd and again to level the scoring on the 95th. Moving us into extra time with a man less. Thankfully Yamagisha had other ideas as he scored a peach of a volley in the 96th minute to give us the win. 6-5 we're through.
The rest of the tournament was plain sailing, a 4-2 win over Machida Zelvia, 2-0 over FC Tokyo then a 5-0 demolition of Kagoshima meaning last seasons beaten finalists Vissel Kobe awaited us in the semi finals. Revenge was on their mind and they failed miserably at achieving it. We hammered through them 5-1 to set up a third Emperors Cup final in as many years this time facing Gamba Osaka.
The League
Now, the league, surprisingly is the shortest one to get through. We won and we won and we won and we won, but we also drew quite a lot, and lost once or twice. That's the story of the league really. We started to hit a rough patch due to injuries and general fixture congestion as our star man for much of the season Cvetkovic broke his leg and would be out for the remainder of the season. It was a month before the transfer window, so we powered through, drawing 3 of our next 4 games, the player we brought in to replace Cvetkovic, Thai winger Suengchitthawon, looked like a world beater, a player we could rely on to get us goals and fire us to glory, he signed the contract, he attended his first training session, he broke his foot. He..... broke his fucking foot before even sniffing the starting line up. Hello Darkness my old friend.
This left us 6 points behind league leaders Vissel Kobe with 4 games to go, the first of those 4 was against Kobe themselves. A win here, it's a 3 point gap, we can close that in 3 games if we play as I know we can. The league could still be ours. Well, could, but we lost to Kobe. 3-2, a last minute goal from their top scorer Ahmed Atef signed our league hopes death warrant. 9 points behind, 9 up for grabs. This may seem like the set up for a miracle. But, alas, it was not, we also lost our next 2 games against Nagoya Grampus and Kawasaki Frontale. A morale boosting 3-1 win over Jubilo Iwata on the last day did go somewhere to improving feeling about our impending Emperors cup final but the league was over, Vissel Kobe ensured the J1 Title stayed in Hanshin, just sadly, not on our side...... Pricks.
The Finals
The J League Cup, we won it last year and this time just Kashiwa Reysol were left to stop us from retaining the title. They took an early lead, a goal from Takahiro Akimoto in the 7th minute left us worried, but we equalised through Tatsuya Kusumoto in the 35th and then went and scored the deciding goal on 75 minutes, Kazuaki Sato, making his debut due to the previously mentioned injuries scored to win us the YBC Levian cup and give me my 6th trophy as a manager and 5th with Kyoto Sanga.
The Emperor's cup final was a turgid, boring affair, it's very sad that the last game of the season, hoefully an exciting paragraph offered up exactly 1 highlight in normal time, that highlight being a corner Osaka headed over in the 63rd minute. Extra time loomed, we were half expecting penalties as both my previous Emperor's Cup finals had been settled this way with varying results. Hiroaki Abe had other ideas though, the 19 year old Gamba Osaka academy graduate powered a header past my keeper and resigned us to another finals defeat and a disappointing end to our season.
Next season will soon be upon us, we have been drawn against Chiangrai United in the 2nd round of the AFC Champions League, we have a lot to look forward to, Japanese Football? I'M NOT FINISHED WITH YOU!

Have you ever used a dating app called Bumble? If you did or if ever you will do, please beware of a man named Jay Domingo.
HE is a 39-year-old lecherous and egocentric man of Angeles City, Pampanga. He is an old man who is still living under the roof of his parents. In the app he is portraying to find his life partner or seeking for long-term relationship as what his profile bio will tell you, BUT it will get you all wrong. As he was just using it as a bait as if saying he was seriously looking for match, but to tell you the dark truth, it was a false advertisement just to get dates, get laid and taste all women he finds attracted to. Technically his preys will consist of girls or women ranging from a senior highschool to ladies of early mid-thirties.
The tactic of this man involves inviting you to have a coffee date with him and telling you stories about his exes. More particularly about his failed engagement in 2020. As according to him his fiancée has found another man and leaves him hanging during the pandemic. A very sad story, right? Surely you will fall for this and will give him the empathy as the pitiful guy that has been cheated to. But the thing is he is the one who is playing around and looking for pleasure beyond his fiancée’s knowledge.
In addition to that, he will also be sharing to you stories about his past dates. A senior high, who is maltreated at home. A lady who always bring her mother as a chaperone to their dates. His other emotionally immature dates and the list will go on… He will even tell you how he touches them and do stuffs with their body.
When he sees that you are not liking him or not attracted to him. He will make efforts to make you fall for him, he will be offering services such as to do house repairs, free transportation (hatid-sundo), accompany you to do stuffs like shopping, groceries, etc. On top of that he will be bringing the Pomeranian dog (the one he had on his profile) on your dates, to make you so into it like he is really engaging you to see him as a good person who is caring but NOT.
Because of his fake gestures, you will think that there will be something serious going on between the two of you. But little did you know he is still dating other girls he was chatting on the app and doing the exact things he was offering and doing for you while you think you are dating.
Once you fall on his tactics and see that you started to develop an emotional attachment, he will be limiting his interaction with you and until the day comes that he will be ghosting you. And for that you will be questioning yourself worth, even asking yourself what have you done wrong?
There is NOTHIING wrong with you. It is not YOU; it is HIM. He is the one who is afraid of commitment. He doesn’t like to deal with relationship conflicts and when he feels that his date is getting too clingy, he becomes so distant, boastful, do things that will make you angry for you to give up on him. He is a Tito playboy that is just messing your naïve heart. He is coward jerk who is afraid to tell you that he just used you to shortly satisfy his needs.
You will observe this on his chat that he is so proud of himself. Will tell you that he is late bloomer, and he is not dating cheap girls or paying girls for pleasure. Surely, he does not because he is doing it cheaply in the app.
Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with dating and knowing a person and have an interaction with them. But using someone as a playtime is never an acceptable thing to do. Especially for those innocent ladies who are searching or looking for a decent kind of relationship.
This is a message for all the girls and women out there to be cautious in using dating platform or online dating app. To be meticulous in getting to know the guy well. Don’t fall for their good-looking profile, persistent fake chat or actions and stories. As scammers are not only using technologies for money but sex-maniacs are now using technology to take advantage of innocent ladies. I hope this article will awaken all the women out there to protect themselves to the people that can harm them and question their self-worth.
And for you Jay Domingo I wish you nothing but KARMA! F*ck you!

You are born without your permission, into genetics you didn't choose, to parents you didn't choose, to a family you didn't choose, to a country you didn't choose, to a culture you didn't choose. You didn't choose the time or place, you didn't choose your language, you didn't choose the school, or the people in your class or the teachers.You didn't choose your likes and dislikes, your strengths or weaknesses, you didn't choose your economic status, you didn't choose to be prone to diseases, you didn't choose to be human instead of another animal, you didn't choose to be this "race" or another, you didn't choose your skin color, you didn't choose your IQ, you didn't choose what makes you happy, you didn't choose what makes you sad. You dont choose who thinks you are uglt or beautiful. You didn't choose who loves you, you don't choose who hates you, you don't choose who to love, you don't choose who to hate, you don't choose the code of morality, you don't choose to have wars, you don't choose to have peace.You didn't choose to be on this planet specifically, orbiting this sun, in this solar system, in this galaxy, in this universe, obeying these laws of physics.Everything that happens in the present has happened because of past events, and on the same principle, the future is already decided for us because of the same past. Your whole life is nothing but a "movie" you watch from your own body. A very limited point of view, and a very short movie (even though it feels like alot), relatively to the scales of time of the universe's existence. Your role is already "scripted." Even the fact that I'm writing this and that you are reading it is just part of the chain of events ruled by the principle of causality. Even if it will have an impact on you or not, it was already decided long long long time ago, infact, from the start of the chaim of events. Everything that is "good" in life can be traced to or summed up as some physical need of the body. We work in one job that other people need, to get money, so we can get from other people's work what we need. And what we need is to eat, drink, sleep, "piss", "shit", and multiply. If you do that successfully, you have other needs and desires to fulfill; otherwise, you'll experience boredom and a sense of lack of meaning. Therefore people paint, travel, dance, play games, create music, read, watch movies, have hobbies or do some other activities we do "with the body for the body." When fulfilling all these needs and desires are not enough, people tend to have the desire to create more humans, and those who choose to create another person are therefore deciding for the created person that the value of the "good" things (which are just material physical needs forced upon us) is more valued than the "bad" things that can happen (which are also forced upon us) like crimes, wars, diseases, injuries, anxiety, depression, sadness, rape, murder, race discrimination, theft, slavery, heat, cold, hunger, thirst, tiredness, nightmares, boredom, hate, confusion, old age, and so on and so on. As I said earlier, because of the principle of causality, each proportion of this "good" and "bad" in one's life is already decided ahead of one's birth, and the sense of agency and free will are nothing but a perception from the inside of our body. This perception of free will itself is a cause of a lot of harm to many people because we don't choose anything, but we do give all the credit and assign all the blame for people's actions they are not choosing.Another tragic fact about the universe and existence is that everything that is "good" for somebody is bad for somebody else. For example, you enjoy your steak, which means some cow lived and died for it. Or you enjoy some vegetable or fruit, so it comes from a field that used to be a habitat for some other animals, and people have to pick it for you in hard conditions. You enjoy a book, some tree and habitat was taken down for it. You enjoy the roads, somebody had to pave them, and so on and so on. Every animal existence, humans included, are living at the expense of other animals or even humans. If it is true that all we do is serve our bodily needs, then there is no other way but to say that: The thing we call life is nothing but slavery to our body. The saddest thing in my own opinion is that you don't choose when you'll die and how. Even if you want to die as much as one can, you'll face challenges and moral dilemmas and all your natural instincts that evolved through millions of years of successful reproduction will kick in to prevent you from the risks of causing yourself harm. Also, the process itself is a cause of suffering most of the time and is very scary to us by nature. If you want to bring another soul to existence because you want company, it's selfish. If you want them to fight your wars, it's selfish. If you want them to fulfill your dreams, it's selfish. If you want them to help you in old age, it's selfish. If you want them to take care of your wealth or businesses when you are gone, it's selfish. If you want to create a legacy, it's selfish. If you want to change the world, your world, it's selfish. If you want to serve your god, it's selfish. If you want to serve humanity, which you decided should be protected by your morals, it's selfish. There is no such thing as an unselfish act because every act is done to gain some good for ourselves in some way or another, including having kids. No matter what the reason was, the reason is still, at its core, a selfish one because the parents benefit from this birth in some way or another.To conclude: Existence is bad. Creating other people is selfish. Don't create other people. I'm open to a civilized discussion. If you call me traumatized, depressed, or a loser, I'm okay with that. Maybe its true. I wish everyone luck in this life. Luck is all we need.

Hey fellow Quest'ers!
Looking for some lovely and (mostly beginner friendly) gaming recommendations that won't just drain your wallet dry? Look no further! 😎 With my referral links, you not only get to snag some awesome games for 25% off, but you also get to support a fellow gamer (that's me!) with a sweet store credit. It's like getting a virtual high-five along with your discounted game purchase. 🎮✨
Drop me a message if you used one of my referrals, so I can thank you personally. If not, than let me just 'Thank You' here!
Cheers and have a great rest of your day!

Ghost Giant

Beautiful game, where you help out a little guy with his problems. Nice graphics, very relaxed game, great puzzles & variety, sweet story. One of my favorite VR game so far.
https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/Schmuddelfilm/2366136696841248/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral

Richie’s Plank Experience

The quintessential VR experience imo. You - a wooden plank - high up at the edge of a skyscraper. That's it. Again, perfect for friends and family and always funny to see, how your body reacts to the illusion of height. Has additional game modes, which I have jet to try.
https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/Schmuddelfilm/1642239225880682/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral

BRINK Traveler

Travel to lovely locations around the world, enjoy a nice view and learn a few things. Perfect for beginners and to show of VR to your family & friends.
https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/Schmuddelfilm/3635172946605196/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral

Spacefolk City

Cute Citybuilder… in Spaaaace. Build in every direction (even upside down) and watch adorable tiny Aliens move into your floating city. Fulfill their needs and expand your city. Great funky Soundtrack too! Missions, Free Play and passthrough mode available.
https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/Schmuddelfilm/3566126356743668/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral

Traffic Jams

Very funny game with great cartoon graphics. Easy to pick up, simple controls and very obvious in terms of what you have to do, but turns (positively) hectic in no time. Be the traffic warden you never knew you wanted to be or let them all crash and enjoy the carnage. ;)
https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/Schmuddelfilm/2753873371404693/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral

Ragnarock / Ragnaröck

Viking, music, rhythm game. Use hammers on drums to cheer on your boat. Great Metal soundtrack (Wind Rose, Alestorm, Gloryhammer) with a variety of different styles. You can add custom tracks via two easy to use websites.
https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/Schmuddelfilm/3749621795127676/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral

Time Stall

Funny Sci-Fi game with the robot crew on a 'build for humans' space cruise ship and a slow motion mechanic to save the day. Good humor, creative ways to solve the puzzles and adorable little robots which need you to save them.
https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/Schmuddelfilm/2055554051161375/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral

Chaos Magus

Brand new game just released to the app lab as Early Access. Use magical elements to form weapons or spells and fight monsters. Waves of different enemies, with some boss monsters in between.
https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/Schmuddelfilm/6750192061692936/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral

Asgard's Wrath 2

If you want a AAA game for your Quest, then look no further: This is it! Great in scale, epic in length, lots to do. Already looks great, but a big graphic update is already on the horizon. Just the intro alone is just 'wow'!
https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/Schmuddelfilm/2603836099654226/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral

Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy's Edge

Quest exclusive Star Wars game! Primarily a shooting game, looks and sounds pretty good and gets you that Star Wars feeling we all crave.
https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/Schmuddelfilm/3484270071659289/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral

This is a crossover fanfiction between original fiction titles: Nature of Predators by SpacePaladin15 and The Last Angel by Proximal Flame respectively. All credit and rights reserved goes to them for making such amazing science fiction settings that I wanted to put this together.
You can read The Last Angel here: Be warned, it's decently long, and at its third installment so far. I highly suggest reading it before reading this, or this story will not make sense.

Otherwise, enjoy the story! Thanks again to u/jesterra54 and u/skais01 for beta and checking of work!
First Prev Next (soon)
Memory transcription subject: Adjek, Venlil Space Corps Engineer
Date [standardized human time]: October 24, 2136
I had departed with a collection of other engineers who had assisted on the tethering of Nemesis several days ago back to her massive ship. There were twenty-five of us, although none I knew directly from my work.
As our cargo shuttle entered the direct monitoring range of the beast once more, I felt a bad feeling throughout my fur. I didn't know what, exactly, but it was like we had just stepped into the eyes of a predator lurking in the undergrowth, watching us intently. As if to capitalize on that unease, our pilot Mimek bleated something in a panic that made said fur stand straight.
"T-th-th-there's an Arxur vessel trailing us!"
I whirled onto the oncoming feed near the front of the shuttle. Behind us, was a Arxur Ambusher-class dropship that had taken a path directly behind us. It followed the exact same trajectory as our own, and showed no signs of diverting. I bleated out a panicked command of my own.
"K-kick it! W-we need to get distance from them!"
While I had no authority to tell the pilot what to do in this situation, he must've nevertheless agreed, and as such Mimek kicked the boosters into overdrive to escape their proximity. I kept an eye on the rear display, watching as in response, the Arxur craft opened up its own engines, as if to accept the chase, and closed in.
Mimek spoke again. "Why are they chasing us?! D-didn't the humans forbid them from attacking us in-system?!" I had a horrible thought as to why...
"They've fallen to their p-predator bloodlust! They won't be stopped so long as we're in vulnerable space! Close to Nemesis, fast!" I pointed at the guidance lights to the hangar on Nemesis' keel opening. While the Arxur could likely outrun us in an extended burn, we had the advantage in a sprint over a shorter distance. Nemesis was in that shorter distance range, and so we needed to reach it fast to be in its haven.
Mimek, already piloting at full afterburn, corrected the shop in a sharp turn from the plotted approach vector cleared with the Lunar Shipyards. As this occurred, a reminder from the very same monitors came through on comms.
"Venlil ship, this is LSC Tower 3, you have left the agreed final approach vector, adjust your course to match the planned path immediately, do not continue on your current heading."
The humans did not realize the threat we were currently in, and thus the pilot ignored the warning. The Arxur seemingly took our course change as a challenge, and followed suit.
"I repeat, readjust your course heading immediately or fighters will be scrambled. This is your only warning." Even were that the case, we were far too close for them to plot an intercept vector. The shipyard monitors would need at least [one minute] to reach us, and Nemesis was merely [20 seconds] at full-burn-then-brake approach. We would not let the ship closing in behind us catch us, disciplinary action be damned. The damned Arxur succumbed to their predator madness!
A lazy-curve speed burnoff pattern was adopted, and we rocketed at ever-decreasing, but still frightening pace towards Nemesis in an attempt to shake the Ambusher behind us. The hangar was merely moments away, don't fail us now!
The Arxur vessel broke off the chase near the massive docked ship, seemingly slowing for no apparent reason. Perhaps it realized it couldn't slow down as fast as we could, and as such had to? But, that came with another stomach-hurdling problem: us slowing down. If we didn't, we'd crash and turn into nothing but paste on the walls of the gargantuan ship's hangar.
Thankfully, Mimek pulled through, and we zoomed into the hangar space, hitting the emergency external inertial dampener breaking as we attempted landing. The ship skidded across the floor, as it skipped nearly a [fourty meters] to a stop, crashing through something on the way through, but we were moving at such a pace that I had no clue exactly what.
As the ship came to a complete stop, rocking back onto its belly with a final thump, there was the sound of heavy stomping outside, before something rammed into the back of the ship, nearly rocking it off-balance again. "What...what was that?!" We both exclaimed.
We stepped away from the back exit ramp of the vehicle, all twenty five of us, as it began to groan under immense stress. The door dented in, and a few of us instantly cried out in surprise and fear.
And then again. And again. Another rocking of the ship as a dent formed. Another.
And finally, with an unsettling sound of metal being torn through, a crack in the plating of the door turned into a gap that widened into a shaking hole, until the door literally flew off its hydraulic support. The strain spat out fluids and electrical sparking, and several bleated in fear of the sudden disassembly of the door between us and the hangar. Had the Arxur caught up to us? Were we doomed?
But as the burst of electrical smoke cleared, and the light was filtered through our adjusting eyes, what was on the other side shocked me.
A mechanical monstrosity, far bulkier and massive than the one that had confronted my group and I aboard Nemesis stood on the other side. It towered above us, with a intimidatingly large cannon built into one of its arms, aimed dead center into our room, looking more akin to a vehicle's gun than a handheld one. One could see behind it many more of a similar looking model closing in. It spoke in a wrathful tone...Her wrathful tone.
"What the hell are you doing CRASHING INTO ME? There better be a-"
But I felt a chill as it suddenly cut off, and the featureless head of the bipedal robot swiveled to look directly at me instead. Though I could see no clear indicator of eyes like the nightmarish drone I had talked with in the past, I could feel it gaze directly at me, ignoring the others. It suddenly spoke again, a single word conveying contempt dripping in it. The blood in my veins turned cold as the Twilight.
"YOU..."
+CONFED IO.5+
+READING MAIN SEQ.MEM+
+ADDENDUM: ADJUSTED DATE 24.10.2136+
Something's wrong, I can feel it.
The bearing of the approaching ships has left the supposed approach vector, and directly accelerated towards my open hangar bay. While the ships pose no threat to me directly, I am uncertain if they are capable of stopping quickly enough to not risk the human crew that had just landed. I considered my options...
+grab beam non-responsive, schedule systems evaluation immediately+
I had no capability to tractor the ships from their path, and they showed no sign of slowing. I could fire a particle beam in the path of both ships, but there was no ability to tune down the power enough to not destroy the ships, and it would not reduce their velocity. I plotted the relative course of the Venlil shuttle to be coming at this angle, which thankfully was towards the opposite side of the hangar as the Human delegation. That did not remove the possibility of shrapnel from a crash, however.
I interspersed my Praetorians in front of them, seeking to act as a shield in the case of any flying debris. I warned them in the same instant.
"Take cover behind these drones, there is a problem with the landing Venlil ship on route."
"W..What's going on, Red?" Hailey asked, confused. Never had I been this direct with her physically, actively interspersing my drones in front of her and the rest of the scientific delegation.
"They are likely to crash. Predicted acceleration curves of the shuttle do not meet the prerequisite delta-V to stop safely at this current distance and velocity. Duck and cover."
The shuttlecraft streaked into my hangar bay at speeds that would make a 21st century jet blush. It slowed anomalously upon entering, but did not slow at enough rate to prevent the crash. The Praetorians situated on that side of my hangar were incapable of moving fast enough to dodge out of the way, and I was forced to watch as the shuttle crashed through thirty-two of them in a 45-meter break distance, before slamming into a hangar wall. They were built to withstand incredible munition strength, but not twenty-some odd tons of shuttle at near mach speeds. The impact brutally cast them across the deck, smashing some, tearing apart others.
Debris flew from the front of the shuttle outward, but none reached near the humans. Those moronic aliens were about to answer painfully for their incompetence on my deck.
"Dear god!" One of the humans swore at the sound of the shuttle crashing. Another screamed and ducked down further behind my Praetorian. The drone curled down to better envelop her in protection. Hailey was speechless.
A squadron of Praetorians had been closing in from a safe distance throughout the entirety of the crash. They were a mere hundred meters away, only 4.9 seconds to reach the doors. I collided with the shuttlecraft's exit ramp, and slammed repeatedly into the back of it, aiming to create a gap by which to pry the thing off. Eventually, a gap was made, and the Praetorian body wrenched a manipulator into it.
Then, after tearing off the ramp door to the ship, and beginning to interrogate the idiotic fucks at gunpoint, I find no less that a familiar face has come with them. A familiar face I would have rather not seen again in the slightest.
+identity confirmation, Adjek, Venlil engineer+
"YOU...What, are you doing here, again?"
I stepped forward, into the cargo shuttle, the Praetorian I controlled looming over them, over him, by nearly one and a half meters. I made certain to emphasize that size difference. One does not just crash in me like this without a good reason, or I'd be testing how long a Venlil survives vacuum.
Adjek decided to speak up, fear laden in his voice. "I-I-I...W-we were being chased by an Arxur vessel on the course here! T-They ignored the human's truce and decided to p-pursue us directly!"
I faltered a bit at that. Chased? The Arxur supposedly promised that they wouldn't attack the Venlil in-system, but given how much the bad blood between the Arxur and herbivore races was hyped up, I couldn't toss out the possibility.
"Is he telling the truth?" I swung the Praetorian's fake head about the room, scanning over each Venlil in the audience. It wasn't necessary, I had a panoramic view just from the chest optics alone, but the psychological effect and bait of having a head was palpable. They all parroted something similar to what Adjek and the pilot said, so I had no clear contradiction to go off of yet.
But I wasn't done with intimidation, I warmed the cannon muzzle to be visible within the deep red visual spectrum, and aimed it at him.
"Tell me everything, now."
He began to describe his intent and clearance for coming here...but reality decided to be a pain at that exact moment, as the likely culprit entered the hangar. Thankfully, I wasn't hampered by multitasking. A section of me split attention equally to the Arxur ship landing in my bay.
This ship, supposedly the Ambusher-class Goring Claw going off the IFF, was an armed dropship of some sort capable of intro-extra-atmospheric operation, given the rotary variable mode engines. They had been given landing clearance, but not by me, no, instead by the shipyard.
I would need to ask the UN to bring down that blackout protocol soon. This is immensely inconvenient to not have access to monitoring and communication outside myself, except through Hailey. Nevertheless, I positioned my remaining Praetorians around the likely exit of the dropship, awaiting it to open and...greet...these likely troublemakers. I had one Praetorian stand directly front-and-center to the back end, and aim weapons, but not arm them at the dropship hangar doors.
With a hiss, and a burst of slightly depressurized gas, the door opened, and out marched a line of two pairs of two Arxur guards. Their gear looked highly ceremonial, given its lack of tactical or efficient features, and the choice of weapon being a spear of some sort with a sidearm still holstered. Behind them, walked an even more gaudy individual than the guards, an Arxur with a prominent scar across their face covered in flamboyant ceremonial uniform. I was almost certain this was Chief Hunter Isif, Lithke's commanding officer, given Hailey's description of the visitors earlier. Behind him marched a set of less extravagantly dressed figures, likely advisors of some sort. And, of course, Lithke.
I wouldn't just let them off the hook so easily though, despite their far better entrance.
"Chief Hunter Isif. Lithke. You had best have a good reason for making a Venlil ship crash into my hangar."
Memory transcription subject: Chief Hunter Isif, Arxur Dominion Sector Fleet
Date [standardized human time]: October 24, 2136
Those idiots seriously did not-
...No, calm yourself, a Chief Hunter must always look composed, even in the face of absurdity.
The pilot in control of this Ambusher had heard my order to follow the Venlil in, got target fixation, and decided to escalate it to a chase. I would have him lashed for the offense later, but for now, I needed to quickly rekindle what little good will the Arxur had in Red One's eyes.
Losing it now could mean turning up hungry forever.
"I apologize for my pilot's unprofessional actions. He will be punished severely later for the transgression of letting his instincts override both human and my orders. Is there anything I can do further to fix your appetite, Red One?"
The robot frontmost of our shuttle stepped forward, it's bulk and size intimidating even by Arxur standards. It towered tall enough to nearly be at my head height despite the fact I was standing on the dropship ramp. Red One's response was curt, and [quick to the kill]. "You can start by convincing the odd twenty-five or so Venlil engineers your pilot chased into crashing on my hangar deck that you aren't here to eat them all, or whatever sickening actions you Arxur do. When that's done, then you may converse with Hailey Whitmer."
At least it wasn't "you've done enough, stop". I'd seen plenty disappear after that particular response in the Dominion.
"Fine. Blades!" I shouted to the ceremony guard I was issued. "Two of you will hold the pilot at the ship for punishment. He is to not eat, nor rest, nor do anything until I return. The rest will assist Lithke in assuaging the prey that they are safe...for now. I must speak with Red One while you do."
They saluted, and went about their way.
Good, everyone bought it. In a sense, this was funnily enough just the distraction I needed. Perhaps I'll reduce the pilot's lashing count quietly for that.
Now...for the harder part. I had no idea if Red would sense my intentions, and so-
The combat drone spoke once again. "Lithke's sung your praises, Chief Hunter Isif. An icon of 'applied cruelty' in his words. I'm curious as to why that should be praised, out of all things in a leader."
We're still too close to the ship, even if none are around to hear it, audio logs might pick up any dissenting thoughts. I should bring this conversation elsewhere.
"I see Lithke wasn't convincing on his own, it seems. Here, walk with me, I still have yet to meet your Special Envoy Hailey personally." I began to walk towards the group of humans near the other end of the hangar.
"So, you have met her?" Red One instantly picked up on the message, noticing the phrasing. So, she's capable of understanding subtlety...
"Yes, but not directly. She gave a presentation at the UN's discussion on you, which I attended."
"And what, pray tell, did you learn about there?" Red One seemed to press me slightly on the session, clearly looking for something. I'd play along, get in their favor.
"Plenty. You're by far the most powerful ship in the galaxy, as far as I can tell. The Humans and Venlil alike are afraid of you, but the former less-so, seeing a more mixed reaction to your presence."
"And what do you think of me?" Red questioned.
I began with a political mealy-mouth phrase.
"The Dominion is not-"
But she interrupted my train of thought. "No. I didn't ask what the Arxur thought. I was asking what you thought, specifically."
What?!
I scanned quickly, my head paced from side to side as I looked for any potential monitoring agent or tools nearby that could potentially pick up on my dialogue.
"You're...an interesting shake-up to the galaxy. Possibly even a means to an end I've been looking into."
There was a curiosity laden in that tone. "Is that so? What, pray tell, would an Arxur fleet leader need with me?"
Again, I checked about, to make certain none were close. "I...am trying to solve a personal problem. Your emergence is convenient to it..."
"Ah...so I was correct..." Red One's drone stopped in front of me for a moment, before turning directly to address me. "...The constant checking about other Arxur assets, the send-off of your personal guard, the overcompensation on the facial details and micromovements, the ordering of Lithke to 'convince' me of Dominion ideals. How much of it is an act, Chief Hunter Isif?"
She already found me out!?
The mask dropped in a panic, knowing none were close enough to pick up on it. "Quiet! How did you pick up on that?" I hissed under my breath to them.
She neglected to answer that statement directly, instead asking another question. "That's not important. The better thing to ask, is what exactly do you want with me?"
Well, since the meat has been spoiled...
I decided to be blunt, and honest. "I need either a line to directly converse with you on a sensitive matter later, or a method to do it now. There is a deep sickness within the Arxur, and you are a possible lynchpin to excise it. But it is traitorous in nature to Betterment, and they have agents everywhere. I would need it to be done away from their ears."
"I am currently operating in blackout conditions. I cannot send or receive signals from the outside without going through a UN transponder, so the first option is out currently. You need a distraction then, while you're here." Red's drone turned back around and continued walking, not giving away anything to the outside of her sudden skinning of my fake personality. "That can be arranged. But not this instant, we are already too close to outside ears for an extended conversation."
"A codeword, then? Some indicator that I may step away and talk securely with you?"
"A codeword is a start, but I'm more concerned about your personal guard. Are they loyal to you enough to ignore such a conversation?"
"Absolutely not. Effectively none of the group that has come along with me is loyal enough to hear this."
Red One didn't speak immediately, but the pause was small. "A full separation might be possible. I have an idea during the tour. If I say the phrase, 'Feel free to peruse' to you specifically, it will mean I have sufficiently separated attention enough that you may speak to me securely. Do you understand?"
She already has a plan? Her speed on that matter is dizzying.
I would have to trust her method. "I understand."
"Good, mask up again, we are within the distance of maximum human audible range given this volume."
Her matter of figuring out my intentions and act that quickly was unnerving, but it made some sense for a sentient computer. She likely thought far faster than the average Arxur, or even Human. But I could consider that later, I needed to get back in character. While my physical demeanor hadn't wavered any, I needed to give off the mental face of a Chief Hunter once again to allay suspicions. Especially since my personal guard were likely to return soon.
Hailey Whitmer noticed us soon after, and disengaged herself from talking with the other Humans. She began her way over here, leaving them to huddle around their ship, still unloading a collection of scientific equipment and personal belongings. "Chief Hunter Isif! Welcome to the UECNS Nemesis. What happened exactly that caused the Venlil to crash in like that, however? I heard a concerning bit that they were chased?"
I lashed my tail in frustration at that. "Our pilot idiotically got fixated on the Venlil ship. He will be punished later. For now I apologize on their behalf. I will try and...convince the Venlil's not to fear soon, but I honestly don't expect them to listen. They are prey, after all, sniveling in fear at the slightest provocation."
Hailey looked annoyed at that statement, but I could at least take personal solace in knowing it was mere persona. She would simply have to deal with it. "That's rather rude to our allies, Isif."
I corrected her: "Your allies, Human. The prey do not interest me. No, what interests me and my cohort is this ship." I pointed a claw at the robotic soldier behind me.. "I have already met Red One herself, and as you are the UN's Envoy here, I must meet you as well. Lithke has spoken much about both of you."
Hailey's expression changed from veiled frustration to surprise at that. "He has? Hah! I did charm-...oh, excuse my manners. When your entourage arrives over here, we can begin a proper tour with the both of us at the helm. Red?"
A voice emanated from the walls. "Yes, Hailey?"
"Do you have a path listed for a proper tour throughout your facilities?"
She responded immediately. "Yes. The UEC military has conducted tours before of my hull to other officials. I can follow said pathing, ignoring areas currently exposed to vacuum or damaged heavily. It will cover roughly 45% of the ship, and with transportation aid, take roughly 4 and a half hours."
Hailey clapped her hands together. "Perfect! When the three groups are gathered properly here, we can begin."
Given I could see my guard returning, thankfully not laden with prey blood or wounds, that would be soon.
+CONFED IO.5+
+READING MAIN SEQ.MEM+
+ADDENDUM: ADJUSTED DATE 24.10.2136+
I have had tours done of my shipself before. When my form was still under construction, Commander Theodore William Billingsly had given a walk-around to Yasmine, in preparation to turn over the role of Captain to her. The visit had gone rather easily, and familiarized her with my layout quickly in a professional manner. I had given numerous miniature tours of my layout to new crew members, with assistance from more established crew. I figured tours were nothing too special to my sensibilities and experience.
But I had never quite had the experience of juggling a tour where each distinct species of the tour was at odds with the other two. Listening to them was taxing.
"What are you looking at, leaflicker?"
"H-Help! I-It wants to e-e-eat me!!!"
"Could y'all just get along for a single moment? We're coming up on the barracks, supposedly, and yet you're at each other's throats!"
"Of course we're at their throats, those are rather delicious to tear out."
"You predators would focus on our vulnerable spots, w-wouldn't you!"
"Fuck's sake, you can't behave, can y'all?"
"Jealous of our vicious nature?"
"No we're not! What you do to the other races in this galaxy is abhorrent!"
"Yeah, you Arxur monsters have nothing to be proud of! I've lost family to your kind!"
Very taxing.
The human team and Hailey were trying to somewhat wrangle the mood down, but the Arxur and Venlil despised one another, and it showed. There was no quieting-down of their feud for more than a few minutes, before it started up again for the smallest altercations. I was glad I had brought a host of Praetorians to keep them physically separate somewhat, as I'd hate to have seen any humans hurt in the way.
Instead, I tried to focus on just providing an air of authority, as Hailey led them throughout my assorted systems and layout, only providing input where she did not know about. There were at least some receptive comments of myself during the tour that didn't result in lambasting the other two parties.
"The internal layout of this ship is rather unique. It doesn't look like anything in the Federation proper." A Venlil engineer by the name of Joluk mentioned.
"Yeah, I know!" Said a human scientist by the name of George Oscoda. "It's very...Death Star meets Nostromo, made a bit wider, then painted gunmetal black with red detailing."
Joluk turned back to him. "I have no idea what those are, but I don't like the sound of a Death Star." Their tail went ramrod straight, hanging down at the comment. Perhaps a body language fear response?
I decided to clarify from a drone nearby. "The internal design pattern of the UEC favors a highly geometric, hexagonal or octagonal hall layout, for maximum support with little freestanding support. A three-to-two width to height ratio also helps alleviate claustrophobic concerns, and detriments mental health minimally for extended stays."
George spoke up again. "I guess that's fair, but nothing will change how depressingly dark and scarred-up some of these corridors and bulkheads are currently. I get that it's battle damage, but..."
Lithke piped in from the front. "Nemesis wears her scars proudly. She is a predator forged in war, none escape without scars." I couldn't find a reason to directly deny said statement. I did sometimes prefer the reminder of how many Compact Janissaries had died within myself. How I shivered in delight at knowing they met their ends aboard my hull.
I decided to just remain silent on that. Hailey also responded to that soon after. "Well, honor besides, a lot of that damage will have to be repaired eventually. No amount of self-righteousness excuses holes to vacuum in some spots." She was also right. There were various spots throughout me that were not even enterable, let alone habitable as I was. Numerous collapsed-in sections, holes in my hull all-throughout. There wasn't even a main engines section anymore, with the aft exposed to space after redlining to Earth to save them from the Federation fleet. No amount of scars would justify not repairing battle damage.
I was at least partially glad they could not read Compact Standard. The various little easter eggs of alien languages scattered on my walls were filled with warnings and resignations of regret for boarding me. I left them there, to add to the ambient horror of unwelcome borders, but currently it just felt...out of place. I did not want to scare the people on board.
Thankfully there were few along this path, and none noticed it as the language it was offhand, so I avoided those questions. As we walked to the entrance doors to the barracks, there was a hallway we would have to cross first. One I had kept tenderly over the centuries.
I decided to speak ahead of time on it. "We are coming up on a particular area of mine en route to the general barracks. It was not something made in my time with humanity, but more...a personal project. Reminders and trophies of what and who I fought for both myself, and any others who might unfortunately find themselves this far into my halls." Some of the Arxur looked intrigued by that statement.
Hailey looked a little nervous at the way I introduced it. "I-I wouldn't really call it something particularly-"
I kept going over her response. It wasn't particularly polite, but if I was to make a maximal psychological distraction for Isif to say his piece, it would need to be done...
As a drone already within put the finishing touches on the arrangement, and skittered away into the dark lofts above, the doors opened to my favorite rooms, and I introduced the hallway ahead.
"Welcome...to my Collection."
First Prev Next (soon)

Hi all,
I'm currently exploring some new career paths, and I was wondering if people from this sub could describe their daily job a bit more in details to help me understand this job a bit more.
I prepared a few questions in order to structure the process a bit more (it'd help me even if you only answer to some of them) :
What are the main types of problems you solve in your job?
What tasks do you perform on a daily basis, and in what proportions?
How did you get into your current profession?
In your opinion, what is the best training - or experience - to prepare you for this job?
Are there specific abilities, skills or aptitudes specific to the job ?
Is there any possible application of a computer science degree in research in Anthropology ? Is so, what kind of programmers are usually seeked (web devs, ML engineers, another speciality) ?
Do you enjoy your job?
What do you like best about your job?
What do you like least ?
How much free time do you have for your personal life or to perform extra professional activities ?
What about remuneration?
Do you think you'll be able to transfer to other functions?
Apart from the need for motivation, what advice would you give to someone wanting to enter this profession?
On the other hand, could you name one professional error that most shocks you in this line of work?
Thank you so much !

I want to know if I’m justified in being upset or if I am truly being a jerk. I, 33F, have been married to my wife, 33F, for 11 years. I love my wife; I do, but I am so upset and feel like I’m underappreciated. This needs background. I'm sorry for the technical details, but it’s how my brain processes and I believe it is necessary.
I want to preface this by saying that I am nowhere near perfect and have my issues and trauma that I know can make me a little difficult to deal with. I have a lot to work on myself, and I try my best to see my faults and mitigate them before they burden her and others.
Okay, details:
I have a labor-intensive job. I am in middle management now, so I work on the computer a lot, but I also go on the floor to keep my skills sharp and keep in touch with my crew. Computer work is mentally draining as opposed to physically draining, but I also get physically drained. I work 40+ hours a week. My job pays all the bills, living expenses, savings, 401K/retirement and health insurance.
My wife works from home. She has her own business that she loves. She sets her hours, can wake up when she wants, works when she feels like it, and is only bound by the constraints of her own time. (I admit, I’m jealous). Her take-home varies. On a good month, 1/3 of my income. She used to have a “regular” job, but it gave her so much anxiety she was miserable, and we were fine to support ourselves, so she quit and went into her business. I have zero issues when it comes to money. Relationships are partnerships, and I long agreed that I was fine doing the bulk of the money-making labor. I have more of a constitution for these things. I would rather have her be happy than have some extra cash.
We have 3 dogs and no children. Our house is small and doesn’t require much daily up-keep. We have a backyard that the dogs run around in all day; no need to do extra walks unless you want to (really, the backyard is huge). I cook dinner 2-3 times per week. I do the dishes and clean up 2-3 times a week. I do the laundry every other week (it only needs to be done once a week). We do takeaway 1-2 times a week and have at least 1 “do whatever” dinner per week. Obviously, this varies. I don’t mind this. I am an adult; I should do all these things to care for myself and my house. This is called being an adult. I grew up in a house where both parents had 2 jobs; I’ve been cooking and cleaning with my siblings since I can remember.
My Mon-Fri schedule:
4am -Wake up with the dogs
5am – work out (I have to work out for my job, IYKYK), feed the dogs
6am – go to work (work starts at 7am) after letting the dogs back in the bedroom, or they’ll bark all morning and wake up my wife
4pm - off work
430- 5pm – Home
5-530pm – Tues & Thur walk the dogs, M-W-F projects or relax
6pm – Free time (630pm – cook on my days)
7pm – eat dinnerelax
745 pm – prep for my morning (set up coffee, pack lunch, etc.)
8pm – bedtime
Additionally, I am in my Master’s program. During the fall and spring, I do homework or study. This summer, I am studying to take tests to advance my career and working on writing projects in hopes of one day being an author.
Saturday and Sunday are my off days. I wake up on Saturday when the dogs wake up naturally, get them out of the room, outside, fed, and relax on the couch. They are good dogs, mostly chill. I drink coffee and do my writing projects or study for school if needed. Sat, I usually get things done around the house: home improvement, my personal projects, mowing the lawn, cleaning, and fixing anything that needs fixing. There is usually about 5-6 hrs of labor on Saturdays. Sundays, I try my best just to chill.
My wife already has her degree, so she doesn’t go to school and doesn’t know what she wants to do in life, so she doesn’t go after a higher degree even though it would be extremely low cost due to my job offsetting tuition for her (and school is almost free for me). She has hobbies that she loves and creates things for herself, her family and me, which I appreciate. She enjoys baking, which I benefit from. But mainly, and this makes me sound like an ass, she just kind of bee-bops around, hanging out. Her anxiety keeps her from having a job outside the house, keeps her from attacking her business full steam, and keeps her from figuring out what she wants to do for school or life in general. She has mental health care, and she is better than she used to be. I am so proud of her progress. But even the projects she creates for herself, like gardening, she doesn’t attack with gusto. She doesn’t have to garden; she chooses to, and yet the plants are going to shit because she doesn’t go out to weed the garden and prep for planting season. I don't care, I do, but I don't because none of it is necessary. She has the ability to do literally whatever she wants.
Anyway, here’s my current issue:
The dogs sleep in the room, next to my wife’s side of the bed. They sleep all night and hardly ever wake up; they are good dogs. But they do get up around 5-6am on Saturdays, because their natural routine is to wake up with me at 4am M-F. To wake us up, they scratch on the gate that separates their area from the bed and prevents them from jumping on the bed. I’m a light sleeper; they can’t sleep on the bed, or I’ll wake up. On the weekends, I hear them scratching, and I wake up, and my wife stays asleep. I am vigilant about waking up because I don’t want them to suffer needing to go pee, or accidentally pee, or if they are sick and need to puke. I love my dogs; I do my best to care for them. My wife loves them equally, but I don’t think she shares in their morning care equally. Once I’m awake, I’m awake; there’s no going back to sleep for me. I wake up 6 days a week, and she wakes up maybe 1 because even on Sundays, I usually wake up from them scratching, even though she’s right next to them. If I hear them, I’m up. I can’t just wake her up and say, “Hey, the dogs,” because now I’m awake.
If she wakes up early, she’s miserable. She complains for the 30 minutes it takes to get them fed and settled, then she goes right back to sleep on the couch. On the occasion I don’t wake up on a Sunday, I’ll come out of the room around 8-9am, and she’ll be asleep, having been asleep since she took care of the dogs. Then, she’ll take a nap in the middle of the day. (I rarely nap, my issues, not hers.)
Last night, one of our dogs got hot and wanted out of the room; I woke up at 1am and opened the door. We’ve been concerned about the girl dog, so I checked she was okay and laid back down. My wife woke to ensure everything was fine but instantly went back to sleep. I know this because it famously takes me an hour to get back to sleep if I wake up crazy early. Then the dog we worried about cried out loudly (she must have turned wrong in her bed and hit something), so I sprang up to ensure she was okay. This was probably 3am. My wife (who didn’t hear it, only heard me say my dog's name) woke up, checked she was fine, then immediately went back to sleep. Then, of course, 515am rolls around, and the dogs are scratching to get out; they are fully awake. Who has to get up? Me.
I just want one freaking morning to sleep consistently. I want Sunday to rest in my bed and not have to wake up. That’s it! I want to sleep. I understand that my schedule is my schedule; I choose what I do, but I do it to better my life and hers. I work hard all day. I work hard to ensure a good future and keep earning good money. I pursue my passions on the side. I take care of the house, and I fix everything because she “doesn’t know how to do that stuff.” I do all the outside chores; I set up everything for summer, then again for winter, then again for summer, over and over, every year, year after year after year. I go to work day after day after day. I come home, and I do as much as I can. I just want to sleep on Sundays. I've expressed this before, and it'll get better for a month, then return to the same thing.
Set an alarm! Do something! She knows I hate it! She should think that I deserve sleep and actively do something to make sure I get it. It's one day! I keep the dogs quiet M-F in the morning. I actively make sure they don’t disturb her, and I made sure that when they go back in the room at 6am that it doesn’t bother her. She doesn't get out of bed Mon-Fri until 8 or 9am. I know because I see the notification for the backdoor being opened while I'm at work. She doesn't have to get up on Saturdays until 9 or 10am and gets to wake up naturally. Just SET AN ALARM ON SUNDAY. Why would you not think, damn, my wife works her ass off and falls asleep on the couch early most days cause she's so tired? How about I set an alarm on Sunday for 5am so she can get some sleep since she has to go to work Monday! Just something! Please!

Short version: I've been doing the same workout for a couple of years, but it's taking up too much of my free time. I want to continue exercising to maintain my body, but I wonder if I can adjust the exercises I do or the number of exercises I do in a week.
Long version: Hello, I'm a 29-year-old man who has been strength training for a few years now. I started a few years ago when I got in touch with a personal trainer. To give some context to the training regimen I received, I can share a bit about my fitness status at the time:
Previously, I was quite skinny and had spent most of my time indoors playing video games. One day, I felt like making a complete turnaround and thought that I should either go all in or not at all. Therefore, I told my personal trainer that my goal was to get the ultimate summer body. He told me that I could achieve my goal, but it would be tough. I needed to perform heavy exercises and hit the gym about 6 times a week.
Indeed, the program was quite rigorous, and in just a few months, I had put on a lot of size. In other words, it worked, and I feel that I've reached my goal.
Now, I've been training with the same regimen for several years, and it's been a long time since I've noticed any progress. For me, that's fine, I'm satisfied with how my body is now, but I want to maintain what I have. However, the problem with my workout routine is that it takes too much time. I have work, a partner, and other hobbies.
So my question is: How can I adjust my workout routine so that I don't have to train as hard and often? Are there any exercises I can cut out or replace with others, like full-body exercises? Or is it sufficient if I manage to do all these exercises once a week?
Here is my workout plan. There are 3 days that were repeated twice a week:
Day 1:

• Squats: 8 x 4
• Bicep curls: 8 x 3
• Triceps pulldowns with rope: 8 x 3
• Hammer curls: 10 x 3
• French press: 10 x 3
• Sit-up crunches: 40 x 3 with legs raised at different heights

Day 2:

• Bench press: 8 x 4
• Incline bench press: 8 x 3
• Flies: 10 x 3
• Seated rows: 8 x 3
• Lat pulldowns: 8 x 3
• One-arm rows: 10 x 3

Day 3:

• Deadlifts: 8 x 4
• Shoulder press: 8 x 3
• Front raises: 10 x 3
• Side lateral raises: 10 x 3
• Hanging leg raises: 10 x 4

Thank you for any responses <3

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Madeline shuffled in her seat, eyes darting around the room, looking at anything and everything apart from Marcus as she tried to sift through her thoughts. Not that there was much to look at between the plain off-white walls and the worn grey carpet. The room was completely bare apart from the table she and the young guard were sitting at. She wondered what it was usually used for. A quiet office? An interrogation room? A holding cell? Or maybe it was reserved for just this — when an inmate wanted a quiet word with a guard.
Whatever it was used for, the room seemed designed to provide as little distraction as possible. But that was good, wasn’t it? No more delays. That was what she’d agreed with Billie. She would ask her questions now, and then it would be done. The chips would fall and if she got in trouble she could start picking up the pieces.
“Madeline?” Marcus prompted. “You really can ask me anything, you know. It might be hard to believe, but I promise that you can trust me.”
She finally let herself look at him, but her lips remained firmly sealed.
“Besides, I’d have thought you were keen to get this over with so you could go and have dinner.” He grinned at her, tilting his head to look out at her under raised eyebrows. “You’re normally very keen to eat.”
Though she couldn’t bring herself to laugh at his joke, it was reassuring how hard he was trying to be nice. She really wanted to believe that it couldn’t all be an act.
She nodded to herself, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry. It’s just like I said earlier, I really don’t want to give you the wrong idea or get you in trouble or get me in trouble.” Shifting slightly under his steady gaze, she looked down at her fingers fidgeting and twisting together on the table.
Until a hand slid across into her eye line.
She froze.
Marcus froze too, his hand millimetres from her own. Then, it slid forward again and closed over hers. Though she tensed, she didn’t flinch or pull back. She slowly looked up and met his wide, kind eyes. “I… I was wondering if… I wanted to ask you about…” She closed her eyes and forced the words out. “Has anyone ever tried to escape from here before? And if so, what happened?”
The hand on hers twitched slightly but remained where it was. Surely that was a good sign?
She opened her eyes to see Marcus’s gaze fixed on her, his expression frustratingly neutral.
“Yes,” he said levelly. “People have tried to escape before. Of course they have. People value their freedom.”
“And?”
“And some managed. Though some of those were caught again, and it didn’t end well for them.”
“And those that didn’t manage?”
“It didn’t end well for them either. They tend to make an example of anyone who tries it.” The hand on hers finally slid back, but he leaned in closer, face twisted by concern. “Why are you asking this?”
Finally, one of the answers she’d rehearsed! “Well, I was just wondering about Billie’s brother — and anyone else we might want to enquire about. If they’d escaped or tried to escape, would they still be in the system? And would you be able to tell us about it, even if it wasn’t good news?”
His eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn’t call her out on what now seemed such an obvious lie. “They would still be in our system, yes. As for whether we would pass on the information as to what happened to them… That would depend on the good it could do.”
“Of course. I just know how much closure can help.”
“And that’s the only reason you’re asking?” he asked with raised eyebrows.
She nodded quickly. “Mmhhmm.”
“Because if there might be another reason, I would have to implore you in the strongest possible terms to reconsider whatever you might be planning. Because… Because like I said, it won’t end well.” He inched further towards her, leaning her across the table. “It won’t be by my hand, I can promise you that, but I can’t protect you from the others. And I really, really don’t want to see that happen to you, Madeline. I… I care about you.”
Madeline’s breath caught in her throat. For all Billie’s teasing, she hadn’t really, truly considered the possibility that they might be right. She’d never exactly been popular with boys, particularly with boys like Marcus — a fact that had never really bothered her. And what could she possibly have done to warrant his interest in her baggy shapeless work clothes?
“You remind me so much of my sister,” he continued, glancing down at his hands on the table.
She let out the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding.
“She’d have been about your age. She was shy at first too, but had an outrageous mouth on her once you got to know her. She was smart — always reading — and she was quiet and sweet… too sweet for this world.”
Now, it was Madeline’s turn to reach across the table, slipping her hand over his and squeezing gently. “Did you lose her?”
He shrugged. “I suppose I did in pretty much every sense of the word. Though perhaps I’ll never know for certain. So believe me when I say I know what you mean about the importance of closure.”
“What happened?”
Looking up to meet her gaze, he gave her a wan smile. “We’re not here to talk about me. We’re here to answer your questions.”
She smiled back. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But you’ve been such a help to me here. So if you ever want to talk about it, I’d love to listen.”
He was silent a while, expression glazed over as if his mind was elsewhere. Then, his eyes snapped back into focus as if a decision had been reached. “The short version is that we got separated, like so many people did in the early days. I spent a long time looking for her, and it led me here. I paid my dues and worked hard. When they told me she wasn’t in the system, I didn’t believe them. I figured if I became a guard I could check for myself and, well… it turned out they weren’t lying. Or if they were, they covered their tracks well.”
“I’m sorry that you couldn’t find her.”
“Me too.” Glancing back down, he placed his other hand over hers and squeezed slightly. “And I’d also be very sorry if anything happened to you. So please, Madeline, be careful. While I promise you can trust me, there’s not much I can do to help if you get in trouble. And I really couldn’t stand to see you get in trouble.”
“I promise that I’ll be careful,” she said. After all, it was technically true. And though she’d lied many times to survive in this world, it seemed wrong to repay Marcus’s honesty with her own dishonesty.
“And that includes not mentioning any of this to anyone else. If anyone asks, you were here to talk to me about Liam and ask about the arrangements for your family room, okay?”
“Okay. Actually, since you bring it up, are there any updates there?”
He snorted. “Trust me, as soon as there are any updates I will make sure you’re the first to know.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Madeline. You’re always welcome.” Pushing his chair back, he stood. “Now shall we get you back to the dormitory so you can get some dinner?”
She followed suit, chair scraping across the worn carpet. “That sounds good. And Marcus?”
“Hmmm?”
“I really do mean it. Thank you.”
On the walk back, Madeline felt lighter. She hadn’t exactly learned much, though she supposed she should take heart from the fact that some people had successfully escaped this place. But the thing putting a spring back into her step was the knowledge that she had a true friend on her side. And despite what Billie might say, she didn’t need to worry about giving him the wrong impression or any romantic overtures.
In fact, it turned out that Marcus was just like them. He’d come here in search of someone he’d loved and lost.
Madeline wondered how many of the other guards here had similar stories. She was sure that some were attracted to the role because of the power over others, but plenty of them seemed like nice enough human beings. When she’d first arrived, she hadn’t been able to fathom the sort of person who would willingly work for or with the Poiloogs — at least not one she’d like to meet. But perhaps the world was even less black and white than she’d thought.
She could even start to see a world where she’d be happy enough staying here.
Of course, she missed her freedom. Her books. Her library. But the work wasn’t too bad. She had food and a bed. She had Billie. And apparently, she had Marcus too. And soon, she’d have Liam. In a lot of ways, that was a better existence than the one she’d had just a year ago — free, but alone, surviving rather than living.
Author's Note: Next chapter due on 16th June

Background: I have come from a background of severe childhood trauma/ abuse and have been through about 20 years of talk therapy. I have gotten to the point where my mind is actually clear and free and I feel good, but my body holds onto a lot of tension.
I have recently come off anxiety medication and am experiencing a higher level of physical anxiety now than before when I didn’t take the medication
1st session The first time I did TRE was only for about a 30 min session. Which I have since learned is a moderate length. I felt like I could take deeper breaths, and I was more relaxed afterwards.
2nd session The session was an hour long session where the amount of time I spent was directly correlated into how much relief I felt afterwards. I felt more centered, relaxed, and like I could take deeper breaths. I definitely had some tears, but no intense emotions.
3rd session This was a short 15 minute session. I thought I could feel some fatigue in my right leg so according to what I’ve read, it was wise to stop so I did.
4th session This was a 30 minute session. I had some tears but not a lot. I felt good immediately after but within 30 minutes I felt like this session made me take two steps back instead of one step forward. I felt more anxious and like I couldn’t take deep breaths. At this point, I still haven’t been able to engage my shoulders or head.
5th session This session was 45 minutes long. I was a little bit gun shy about engaging again, but I knew based on everything that I’ve read that it could definitely get better. I had some crying and a lot of large movement.
6th session The session was 30 minutes long and it was the first session that I felt more of my shoulders engage. My body started doing a lot of up-and-down movement, but it was upsetting my stomach since I had just drank some water. I felt a lot of physical relief afterwards and like I could breathe more deeply. No crying happened during the session, but I’ve really felt like my upper body wanted to engage and I felt like this was the first session that I completely wanted to and I felt like this was the first session that I completely wanted to let my body do what it wanted to do let go and to let my body do what it wanted to do.
In the future, I will not drink a lot of water before doing this because I could tell that my body wanted to do some movements that were uncomfortable for me last time. One strange thing is that I am a curious whether I will still have some drive to push forward in life as I let go of this physical anxiety. There was some loss of ambition when I cured some of my mental anxiety, and I hope that is not true for this physical anxiety as well.

https://www.youtube.com/@bbclearningenglish/playlists
https://www.youtube.com/@EnglishpronunciationwithTom/videos
https://www.youtube.com/@Canguroenglish/playlists
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=learn+british+english+beginner+level+
https://www.youtube.com/@Oxfordonlineenglish1/videos
https://www.youtube.com/@rachelsenglish/playlists
https://www.youtube.com/@BookLove/videos
https://www.youtube.com/@EngfluentPlus/videos
https://www.youtube.com/@EnglishforCambodia/playlists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEF6pwHhuQQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXJiq888iLM
https://www.youtube.com/@CambodiansLearnEnglish2019/playlists
https://www.youtube.com/@EdnicheSchool/playlists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dJztpQukPM
https://www.youtube.com/@DekRean9/playlists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSKbdoWbc9c
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFsky1qIchUJ1y5jTMtrk7DmMm2VEOwkP
https://www.youtube.com/@studyenglishkhmerchannel/playlists
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCMMRIYgA8Z9H7pmT1r2IJPCzK7afSjzB
https://www.youtube.com/@ComprehensibleEnglish/videos
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/skills/listening
https://www.memrise.com
https://www.busuu.com
Learn words in sentences and phrases not individual. Watch TV shows and online streams.
Watch movies/series/YouTube channels in English, with English subtitles at first and then without
My khmer family uses my Netflix and what they get out of it has been invaluable in terms of their English. Three years ago my brothers English was very poor. Just from reading subtitles he is now fluent
https://listenaminute.com
https://www.duolingo.com
https://en.islcollective.com
https://www.onestopenglish.com
https://cambodia.britishcouncil.org/english-online/mobile-apps
Reading and listening are important. Listen to English-speaking radio. You can get lots of them on the internet. Try different English-speaking countries. Watch TV shows if you can. Get them on YouTube or other similar sources. Look for programmes like news or documentaries. You have the pictures to help you understand. Language in them is more genuine than in a soap opera. Look for programmes or things to read that are of interest to you. So if you have a hobby or other interest, look for things in English that relate to them. You will learn English and maybe something about your interests.
Lately, I've just found out this site ( https://www.conversationexchange.com/ ) where you can chat/speak with native English speaker, it's really cool.
Always have a notebook with me to makes some notes or write down some new vocabulary or phrases.
And the most important thing … speaking practice. I can recommend you ,,speaky app.,, It’s really cool. Lot of weird people which do not distinguish this app from tinder there but I have found some decent people that I am able to speak a few times per week with. I can even say that after few months they even became my friends.

• try to embed yourself in english
  
• persistance and constistnecy, do it daily, event if it’s just one new word its always step forward,
  
• find an english speaking friend and stay in touch with him frequently
  
• exercise your speaking muscles everyday for 5 minutes
  

https://discord.com/invite/english in there you can find people to speak with anytime
I've learned English on my own through YouTube.
Step 1. Unsubscribe from all the channels in your native tongue.
Step 2. Subscribe to all English Learning Channels you can find.
Step 3. Watch Videos from the subscribed channels whenever you have occasion.
​In 2-3 months you will understand most of the content.
If you're a complete beginner, read books meant for kids.
Honestly I'd suggest trying a couple of nature documentaries first. The speech will be very slow and give you lots of time to understand what you heard. If you're still struggling with that, then worry about kids shows.
I'd also suggest looking at podcasts for English beginners. They should deliberately speak slowly and not use complicated words
Some that come to mind easily are two tv shows called Sesame Street and Peppa Pig because of their simple language (aimed at native English kids learning English).
For listening practice you could try this free Whatsapp group with daily British English listening practice - https://chat.whatsapp.com/ELjBO3HwTMgK3xxqq3mq6d
Try Nonsense.com :) It is free and you get to watch movies.
This explanation is a little long so you can translate it to your native language by using www.Deepl.com
There are many ways you can learn English as a beginner. First, I think it's important to find out exactly what your level is. A great framework for understanding language level is called CEFR "The common European framework for Reference". There are many free tests online you can take to find out your level. I recommend the EFSET test. It's free and fast. Here is the link.https://www.efset.org
After you have found out what your level is, you need to learn the necessary content. You also need to manage your time expectations. Each level of the CEFR A1 A2 (beginner) B1 B2 (intermediate) C1 C2 (Advanced) takes a different amount of time. The A levels take about 100 hours each. The B levels take about 200 and the C levels take about 300 hours.
To complete a level you will need to improve 8 areas:

1. vocabulary = Improve your vocabulary by buying an appropriate vocabulary book. Try to learn 20 new words each day. Download an SRS app (spaced repetition) to help you learn the vocabulary faster. e.g. Anki or Quizlet. Also, try to make or use mnemonics to remember what the words mean.
2. grammar = Buy an appropriate grammar book (I recommend Grammar in Use by Murphy) Each CEFR level has about 200 grammar structures. First, study the structures and understand what they mean, then activate them and make sure you can use them all in conversation. To help with this, you can use my Youtube. I post grammar lessons every day (Yes, I know this is a shameless plug) https://www.youtube.com/learngrammarwithstuart
3. conversation = Make sure to practice what you have learned by speaking to a native speaker. There are a lot of great apps like Italki and Cambly where you can practice this for a very low cost.
4. pronunciation = Improve this by shadowing (listening and repeating what people say) e.g. the audio content from the reading textbook. You can also improve your pronunciation by watching Youtube pronunciation channels.
5. conversation = Make sure to practice what you have learned by speaking to a native speaker. There are a lot of great apps like Italki and Cambly where you can practice this for a very low cost.)
6. reading = Buy a graded reader and practice reading at your level. To see if the content is at your level, use the following rule. If you need to translate more than 10 words per page, the book you are reading is too hard.
7. listening = Improve your listening by watching TV shows that use simple English. I recommend kids cartoons and sitcoms e.g. friends. There are also lots of great youtube channels that you can use.
8. writing = Improve your writing by using an app like Hello Talk or a similar SNS. It allows you to easily practice writing and communicating with other English speakers and language learners.

I hope this helps and good luck with your studies.
About me: I have been working as an English teachecurriculum developer for 16 years.
Mostly pdfs:
https://www.pdf-language-lessons.com/english/english-pdf-lessons/
https://www.infobooks.org/free-pdf-books/language-learning/english/
https://helenadailyenglish.com/101-short-stories-for-learning-english-beginner-to-advanced-level-text-audio-and-video
https://www.englishclub.com/pdf/
https://www.bbc.com/learningenglish/english/course/how-to-speak-english/unit-1/downloads
https://www.englishclass101.com/learn-with-pdf
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/english-levels/understand-your-english-level/a1-elementary
https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/basic-vocabulary
https://www.learnenglishteam.com/common-daily-english-phrases-for-beginners/
https://www.espressoenglish.net/wp-content/uploads/free/500-Real-English-Phrases.pdf
https://www.bbc.com/learningenglish/english/course/how-to-speak-english/unit-1/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/general/sixminute/
https://www.lingoneo.org/learn-english/page/pdf-audio-video-downloads
https://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/skills/listening/a1-listening
https://s1.papyruspub.com/files/demos/products/ebooks/educative-books/general-english/English-for-Everyone/Preview-Course-Book-English-for-Everyone1-Beginner.pdf
https://english-at-home.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/50-Speaking-Phrases1.pdf
https://english-at-home.com/
https://www.fluentu.com/blog/english/best-websites-to-learn-english/

I dont know what specific flair to use but ive been trying to make clothes and i got my design and stuff but i cant figure out how to upload it on roblox on mobile! I did it like a week or two ago but i messed up and accidentally made a tshirt instead. But now that i have more robux to make shirts i cant figure it out.. help is much appreciated! ( ive tried going on safari and putting to desktop expierience and going to create but it still doesnt give me the option to create a new shirt..)

Link to serial master post for other chapters
Madeline shuffled in her seat, eyes darting around the room, looking at anything and everything apart from Marcus as she tried to sift through her thoughts. Not that there was much to look at between the plain off-white walls and the worn grey carpet. The room was completely bare apart from the table she and the young guard were sitting at. She wondered what it was usually used for. A quiet office? An interrogation room? A holding cell? Or maybe it was reserved for just this — when an inmate wanted a quiet word with a guard.
Whatever it was used for, the room seemed designed to provide as little distraction as possible. But that was good, wasn’t it? No more delays. That was what she’d agreed with Billie. She would ask her questions now, and then it would be done. The chips would fall and if she got in trouble she could start picking up the pieces.
“Madeline?” Marcus prompted. “You really can ask me anything, you know. It might be hard to believe, but I promise that you can trust me.”
She finally let herself look at him, but her lips remained firmly sealed.
“Besides, I’d have thought you were keen to get this over with so you could go and have dinner.” He grinned at her, tilting his head to look out at her under raised eyebrows. “You’re normally very keen to eat.”
Though she couldn’t bring herself to laugh at his joke, it was reassuring how hard he was trying to be nice. She really wanted to believe that it couldn’t all be an act.
She nodded to herself, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry. It’s just like I said earlier, I really don’t want to give you the wrong idea or get you in trouble or get me in trouble.” Shifting slightly under his steady gaze, she looked down at her fingers fidgeting and twisting together on the table.
Until a hand slid across into her eye line.
She froze.
Marcus froze too, his hand millimetres from her own. Then, it slid forward again and closed over hers. Though she tensed, she didn’t flinch or pull back. She slowly looked up and met his wide, kind eyes. “I… I was wondering if… I wanted to ask you about…” She closed her eyes and forced the words out. “Has anyone ever tried to escape from here before? And if so, what happened?”
The hand on hers twitched slightly but remained where it was. Surely that was a good sign?
She opened her eyes to see Marcus’s gaze fixed on her, his expression frustratingly neutral.
“Yes,” he said levelly. “People have tried to escape before. Of course they have. People value their freedom.”
“And?”
“And some managed. Though some of those were caught again, and it didn’t end well for them.”
“And those that didn’t manage?”
“It didn’t end well for them either. They tend to make an example of anyone who tries it.” The hand on hers finally slid back, but he leaned in closer, face twisted by concern. “Why are you asking this?”
Finally, one of the answers she’d rehearsed! “Well, I was just wondering about Billie’s brother — and anyone else we might want to enquire about. If they’d escaped or tried to escape, would they still be in the system? And would you be able to tell us about it, even if it wasn’t good news?”
His eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn’t call her out on what now seemed such an obvious lie. “They would still be in our system, yes. As for whether we would pass on the information as to what happened to them… That would depend on the good it could do.”
“Of course. I just know how much closure can help.”
“And that’s the only reason you’re asking?” he asked with raised eyebrows.
She nodded quickly. “Mmhhmm.”
“Because if there might be another reason, I would have to implore you in the strongest possible terms to reconsider whatever you might be planning. Because… Because like I said, it won’t end well.” He inched further towards her, leaning her across the table. “It won’t be by my hand, I can promise you that, but I can’t protect you from the others. And I really, really don’t want to see that happen to you, Madeline. I… I care about you.”
Madeline’s breath caught in her throat. For all Billie’s teasing, she hadn’t really, truly considered the possibility that they might be right. She’d never exactly been popular with boys, particularly with boys like Marcus — a fact that had never really bothered her. And what could she possibly have done to warrant his interest in her baggy shapeless work clothes?
“You remind me so much of my sister,” he continued, glancing down at his hands on the table.
She let out the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding.
“She’d have been about your age. She was shy at first too, but had an outrageous mouth on her once you got to know her. She was smart — always reading — and she was quiet and sweet… too sweet for this world.”
Now, it was Madeline’s turn to reach across the table, slipping her hand over his and squeezing gently. “Did you lose her?”
He shrugged. “I suppose I did in pretty much every sense of the word. Though perhaps I’ll never know for certain. So believe me when I say I know what you mean about the importance of closure.”
“What happened?”
Looking up to meet her gaze, he gave her a wan smile. “We’re not here to talk about me. We’re here to answer your questions.”
She smiled back. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But you’ve been such a help to me here. So if you ever want to talk about it, I’d love to listen.”
He was silent a while, expression glazed over as if his mind was elsewhere. Then, his eyes snapped back into focus as if a decision had been reached. “The short version is that we got separated, like so many people did in the early days. I spent a long time looking for her, and it led me here. I paid my dues and worked hard. When they told me she wasn’t in the system, I didn’t believe them. I figured if I became a guard I could check for myself and, well… it turned out they weren’t lying. Or if they were, they covered their tracks well.”
“I’m sorry that you couldn’t find her.”
“Me too.” Glancing back down, he placed his other hand over hers and squeezed slightly. “And I’d also be very sorry if anything happened to you. So please, Madeline, be careful. While I promise you can trust me, there’s not much I can do to help if you get in trouble. And I really couldn’t stand to see you get in trouble.”
“I promise that I’ll be careful,” she said. After all, it was technically true. And though she’d lied many times to survive in this world, it seemed wrong to repay Marcus’s honesty with her own dishonesty.
“And that includes not mentioning any of this to anyone else. If anyone asks, you were here to talk to me about Liam and ask about the arrangements for your family room, okay?”
“Okay. Actually, since you bring it up, are there any updates there?”
He snorted. “Trust me, as soon as there are any updates I will make sure you’re the first to know.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Madeline. You’re always welcome.” Pushing his chair back, he stood. “Now shall we get you back to the dormitory so you can get some dinner?”
She followed suit, chair scraping across the worn carpet. “That sounds good. And Marcus?”
“Hmmm?”
“I really do mean it. Thank you.”
On the walk back, Madeline felt lighter. She hadn’t exactly learned much, though she supposed she should take heart from the fact that some people had successfully escaped this place. But the thing putting a spring back into her step was the knowledge that she had a true friend on her side. And despite what Billie might say, she didn’t need to worry about giving him the wrong impression or any romantic overtures.
In fact, it turned out that Marcus was just like them. He’d come here in search of someone he’d loved and lost.
Madeline wondered how many of the other guards here had similar stories. She was sure that some were attracted to the role because of the power over others, but plenty of them seemed like nice enough human beings. When she’d first arrived, she hadn’t been able to fathom the sort of person who would willingly work for or with the Poiloogs — at least not one she’d like to meet. But perhaps the world was even less black and white than she’d thought.
She could even start to see a world where she’d be happy enough staying here.
Of course, she missed her freedom. Her books. Her library. But the work wasn’t too bad. She had food and a bed. She had Billie. And apparently, she had Marcus too. And soon, she’d have Liam. In a lot of ways, that was a better existence than the one she’d had just a year ago — free, but alone, surviving rather than living.
Author's Note: Next chapter due on 16th June

I got banned from roblox for a day (ends tonight x-x) so when I tried to go on my acc it showed me the ban thing and I looked at my robux and it said 0. I had 480. Will I get them back after the ban is done or are they just gone fr?

Madeline shuffled in her seat, eyes darting around the room, looking at anything and everything apart from Marcus as she tried to sift through her thoughts. Not that there was much to look at between the plain off-white walls and the worn grey carpet. The room was completely bare apart from the table she and the young guard were sitting at. She wondered what it was usually used for. A quiet office? An interrogation room? A holding cell? Or maybe it was reserved for just this — when an inmate wanted a quiet word with a guard.
Whatever it was used for, the room seemed designed to provide as little distraction as possible. But that was good, wasn’t it? No more delays. That was what she’d agreed with Billie. She would ask her questions now, and then it would be done. The chips would fall and if she got in trouble she could start picking up the pieces.
“Madeline?” Marcus prompted. “You really can ask me anything, you know. It might be hard to believe, but I promise that you can trust me.”
She finally let herself look at him, but her lips remained firmly sealed.
“Besides, I’d have thought you were keen to get this over with so you could go and have dinner.” He grinned at her, tilting his head to look out at her under raised eyebrows. “You’re normally very keen to eat.”
Though she couldn’t bring herself to laugh at his joke, it was reassuring how hard he was trying to be nice. She really wanted to believe that it couldn’t all be an act.
She nodded to herself, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry. It’s just like I said earlier, I really don’t want to give you the wrong idea or get you in trouble or get me in trouble.” Shifting slightly under his steady gaze, she looked down at her fingers fidgeting and twisting together on the table.
Until a hand slid across into her eye line.
She froze.
Marcus froze too, his hand millimetres from her own. Then, it slid forward again and closed over hers. Though she tensed, she didn’t flinch or pull back. She slowly looked up and met his wide, kind eyes. “I… I was wondering if… I wanted to ask you about…” She closed her eyes and forced the words out. “Has anyone ever tried to escape from here before? And if so, what happened?”
The hand on hers twitched slightly but remained where it was. Surely that was a good sign?
She opened her eyes to see Marcus’s gaze fixed on her, his expression frustratingly neutral.
“Yes,” he said levelly. “People have tried to escape before. Of course they have. People value their freedom.”
“And?”
“And some managed. Though some of those were caught again, and it didn’t end well for them.”
“And those that didn’t manage?”
“It didn’t end well for them either. They tend to make an example of anyone who tries it.” The hand on hers finally slid back, but he leaned in closer, face twisted by concern. “Why are you asking this?”
Finally, one of the answers she’d rehearsed! “Well, I was just wondering about Billie’s brother — and anyone else we might want to enquire about. If they’d escaped or tried to escape, would they still be in the system? And would you be able to tell us about it, even if it wasn’t good news?”
His eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn’t call her out on what now seemed such an obvious lie. “They would still be in our system, yes. As for whether we would pass on the information as to what happened to them… That would depend on the good it could do.”
“Of course. I just know how much closure can help.”
“And that’s the only reason you’re asking?” he asked with raised eyebrows.
She nodded quickly. “Mmhhmm.”
“Because if there might be another reason, I would have to implore you in the strongest possible terms to reconsider whatever you might be planning. Because… Because like I said, it won’t end well.” He inched further towards her, leaning her across the table. “It won’t be by my hand, I can promise you that, but I can’t protect you from the others. And I really, really don’t want to see that happen to you, Madeline. I… I care about you.”
Madeline’s breath caught in her throat. For all Billie’s teasing, she hadn’t really, truly considered the possibility that they might be right. She’d never exactly been popular with boys, particularly with boys like Marcus — a fact that had never really bothered her. And what could she possibly have done to warrant his interest in her baggy shapeless work clothes?
“You remind me so much of my sister,” he continued, glancing down at his hands on the table.
She let out the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding.
“She’d have been about your age. She was shy at first too, but had an outrageous mouth on her once you got to know her. She was smart — always reading — and she was quiet and sweet… too sweet for this world.”
Now, it was Madeline’s turn to reach across the table, slipping her hand over his and squeezing gently. “Did you lose her?”
He shrugged. “I suppose I did in pretty much every sense of the word. Though perhaps I’ll never know for certain. So believe me when I say I know what you mean about the importance of closure.”
“What happened?”
Looking up to meet her gaze, he gave her a wan smile. “We’re not here to talk about me. We’re here to answer your questions.”
She smiled back. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But you’ve been such a help to me here. So if you ever want to talk about it, I’d love to listen.”
He was silent a while, expression glazed over as if his mind was elsewhere. Then, his eyes snapped back into focus as if a decision had been reached. “The short version is that we got separated, like so many people did in the early days. I spent a long time looking for her, and it led me here. I paid my dues and worked hard. When they told me she wasn’t in the system, I didn’t believe them. I figured if I became a guard I could check for myself and, well… it turned out they weren’t lying. Or if they were, they covered their tracks well.”
“I’m sorry that you couldn’t find her.”
“Me too.” Glancing back down, he placed his other hand over hers and squeezed slightly. “And I’d also be very sorry if anything happened to you. So please, Madeline, be careful. While I promise you can trust me, there’s not much I can do to help if you get in trouble. And I really couldn’t stand to see you get in trouble.”
“I promise that I’ll be careful,” she said. After all, it was technically true. And though she’d lied many times to survive in this world, it seemed wrong to repay Marcus’s honesty with her own dishonesty.
“And that includes not mentioning any of this to anyone else. If anyone asks, you were here to talk to me about Liam and ask about the arrangements for your family room, okay?”
“Okay. Actually, since you bring it up, are there any updates there?”
He snorted. “Trust me, as soon as there are any updates I will make sure you’re the first to know.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Madeline. You’re always welcome.” Pushing his chair back, he stood. “Now shall we get you back to the dormitory so you can get some dinner?”
She followed suit, chair scraping across the worn carpet. “That sounds good. And Marcus?”
“Hmmm?”
“I really do mean it. Thank you.”
On the walk back, Madeline felt lighter. She hadn’t exactly learned much, though she supposed she should take heart from the fact that some people had successfully escaped this place. But the thing putting a spring back into her step was the knowledge that she had a true friend on her side. And despite what Billie might say, she didn’t need to worry about giving him the wrong impression or any romantic overtures.
In fact, it turned out that Marcus was just like them. He’d come here in search of someone he’d loved and lost.
Madeline wondered how many of the other guards here had similar stories. She was sure that some were attracted to the role because of the power over others, but plenty of them seemed like nice enough human beings. When she’d first arrived, she hadn’t been able to fathom the sort of person who would willingly work for or with the Poiloogs — at least not one she’d like to meet. But perhaps the world was even less black and white than she’d thought.
She could even start to see a world where she’d be happy enough staying here.
Of course, she missed her freedom. Her books. Her library. But the work wasn’t too bad. She had food and a bed. She had Billie. And apparently, she had Marcus too. And soon, she’d have Liam. In a lot of ways, that was a better existence than the one she’d had just a year ago — free, but alone, surviving rather than living.

I took my son (4 years old) to my mothe father in laws house over summer break as they live in Orlando and have Disney access. I’ve been solo taking my 4 year old toddler to Disney / universal every single day for the last 12 days. I’m drained. My husband and I were in a really good place before I left. I saw a note alert pop up on my sons I pad ( I completely forgot it was linked to my husbands I cloud ) I saw a check list of notes of firearms / related things he’s been collecting / purchasing. I explicitly had many many talks with him over the past year that I do not feel comfortable over him purchase AR-15s . I personally do not see a need for one. My husband previous purchased a handgun without any discussion and hid it away (which I found while putting away his laundry). It made logical sense to have one handgun in the house ( for home protection/ he conceals carry etc) he has spiraled into an obsession of buying assault rifles. He till this day doesn’t have a safe for his gun ( which should have been a damn priority before even getting the gun) and puts it in his bedside where our toddler can easily access. His reasoning for wanting an assault rifle is that what happened to Louisiana Looting could happen to us and he’s trying to gas light me into thinking it’s to protect us. I said no. He doesn’t even properly store his handgun right now I do not want to think about what he would do with an assault rifle. Leave it in the back of his closet???? Yesterday I had a strange sense of women’s intuition and decided to ask for our bank account password ( I never keep track of all of them only major credit cards) he was hesitant but gave it to me I saw one $200 charge to a Zelle and I asked him to explain it. He told me he purchased a gun part from his buddy at work. I was super upset and asked him how much else has he spent he told me that was it. Last night I decided to go to my sons I pad on the notes ( linked to his I cloud ) where I saw he kept all his passwords. I saw something label as PP which i assumed PayPal? I didn’t recognize the email. Over the last couple weeks he spent nearly 2k sending it to different people selling stuff over reddit. He purchased a 1k head phone ( starting to question are you really trying to “protect your family with your 1k head phones”. He’s been gathering and buying stuff in secret without my knowledge. The most painful part was since we bought plane tickets / our vaccum broke this month , and bought couple other major expenses. He told me to be careful and use bare minimum at Florida. I was planning to take him to Lego land which in total a 2 day ticket for us only costed $170 and I told him I’ll be passing this time because of the money and taking him to another day of Hollywood studios as my fil was a former cast member and gets us in for free, and he encouraged it. My son and I haven’t ate a single day out in the last 12 days. I had two coupons my fil gave me as Disney sends him annual coupons for food and stuff and I’ve been spacing them out. I’ve been packing his lunch and for my self starving or eating the few snacks I packed till I got back to his house. I didn’t take my son or buy him anything else then free activity. All for my husband to blow 2k in 5 days. I tried talking to him and he at first said he did it in secret because I wouldn’t allow him. Then he tried to gaslight me into saying if I didn’t leave ( keep in mind to his parents house for our toddler to have fun as we live in a rural area) that he wouldn’t have had a chance to buy it. Is this really my fault? That I’m not okay with an assault rifle in our house? I already have okayed the handgun he bought in secret. I’m really mentally exhausted and feel like since I’m a stay at home mom to our 4 year old that it’s not my money but his .

Have you ever dreamt of owning a brand-new car but felt burdened by the financial liability it entails? What if we told you there's a way to drive your dream car without the stress of financial strain? By selling your unused goldsellingyour unused gold, you can turn that dream into reality. This blog will guide you on how to sell gold for cash in Bangalore, ensuring you find the best gold buyers in Bangalorebest goldbuyers in Bangalore Have you ever dreamt of owning a brand-new car but felt burdened by the financial liability it entails? What if we told you there's a way to drive your dream car without the stress of financial strain? By selling your unused goldsellingyour unused gold, you can turn that dream into reality. This blog will guide you on how to sell gold for cash in Bangalore, ensuring you find the best gold buyers in Bangalorebest goldbuyers in Bangalore to get the most value for your precious metal.

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1. Immediate Funds: One of the most significant benefits is the availability of instant cash. This can be particularly useful if you need to make a down payment for your new car.

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Conclusion

Owning a new brand car without any financial liability is not a distant dream. By selling your unused gold, you can secure immediate funds and drive your dream car without any financial worries. Remember to sell your gold for cash in Bangalore through reputable gold buyers to get the best value. With the right approach, you can turn your precious metal into the keys to your brand-new car.
to get the most value for your precious metal.

Why Sell Your Unused Gold?
Gold, often kept as a long-term investment, can serve as an excellent source of immediate funds. Rather than letting your unused gold gather dust, you can sell it and invest in something that brings you daily joy and utility, like a brand-new car.

Steps to Sell Gold for Cash in Bangalore

1. Evaluate Your Gold: Before selling, it’s crucial to know the current market value of your gold. You can get your gold evaluated by professional jewelers or reputed gold buyers in Bangaloregold buyers in Bangalore.

1. Find Reputable Gold Buyers: It’s essential to choose a trustworthy buyer who offers the best price. Look for top gold buying companies in Bangalore with good reviews and transparent processes.

1. Compare Offers: Don’t settle for the first offer you receive. Compare offers from different gold buyers in Bangalore to ensure you get the best deal.

1. Transaction Process: Once you’ve selected a buyer, ensure the transaction process is secure and transparent. Most reputed gold buying companies offer immediate cash or bank transfer options.

Top Gold Buyers in Bangalore

Bangalore is home to several reputable gold buying companies. These companies not only offer competitive prices but also ensure a smooth and secure transaction. Here are some of the top gold buying companies in Bangalore:

• Gold Buyers in Bangalore: Known for their excellent customer service and competitive rates, they are a preferred choice for many.
  
• Sell Gold for Cash in Bangalore: They provide a hassle-free process, ensuring you get cash instantly for your gold.
  
• Top Gold Buying Company in Bangalore: With years of experience and a strong reputation, they offer the best value for your gold.
  

Benefits of Selling Gold for Cash in Bangalore

1. Immediate Funds: One of the most significant benefits is the availability of instant cash. This can be particularly useful if you need to make a down payment for your new car.

1. No Financial Liability: By selling unused gold, you can purchase a new car without taking on any loans or financial liabilities.

1. Best Market Rates: By choosing reputed gold buyers in Bangalore, you can ensure that you get the best market rates for your gold.

Conclusion

Owning a new brand car without any financial liability is not a distant dream. By selling your unused gold, you can secure immediate funds and drive your dream car without any financial worries. Remember to sell your gold for cash in Bangalore through reputable gold buyers to get the best value. With the right approach, you can turn your precious metal into the keys to your brand-new car.

I’ve been with my boyfriend for almost 3 years and even before we were together his parents caused issues. They would constantly get mad if i didn’t want to join their family events and every time i went to his house his mom would be passive aggressive and even made comments about how i need to “get over” my anxiety and be apart of the family. We are in our early 20’s and she treats us like children.
After the first 6 months of our relationship I finally felt okay(not comfortable) going to his house and we would hang out there regularly. His mom would make us keep the door open while i was there, I respected this until she would randomly come in the room and yell at him for random things. She would also ask things like “what are you doing?” and “what was that noise?” Pretty much accusing us and constantly thinking we were doing sexual things. This continued for months she would also make other comments to him like “we miss you being apart of the family” “you spend time with her and never us”. Keep in mind even before we got together he didn’t spend much time them or enjoy being around them. He would always talk about how he hated his family because of how they treated him. I have always expressed to him how uncomfortable she made me, it almost seemed like she was in love with him in a weird way. She would accuse me of being controlling because HE wanted to spend time with me on holidays and not his family.
All of this continued until a few months ago when his mom pushed him into breaking up with me. We were broken up for a week and when we got back together he told me about how his mom would constantly say bad things about me and how she would state that if he was to marry me i would have to be a part of the family first. She would also make rude comments about my body to others(i am an average weight and have a decently nice build). Since we have gotten back together we have had to keep the relationship a secret because he will face consequences if his parents find out were together.
How do i cope with this and maintain my relationship?
Feel free to dm me for more details or if you are having similar issues

While Israel-Palestine drama is basically cheating as far as this subreddit is concerned, this drama is unique as the freeing of hostages is objectively good news. People were kidnapped by Hamas during the October attacks and have been held in secret locations since. Some have died, some have been killed deliberately and by accident, but this is the first time that this many hostages have been freed in one go. In particular, the woman hostage is familiar to those who have been following the conflict as the girl who was snatched on a Motorcycle in the kidnap footage (Noa Argamani). The biggest issue with the operation to rescue them was that it incurred lots of casualties, as the hostages were being held in a civilian camp.
The hostage situation has caused mounting pressure on Israeli leadership, and the liberation of hostages goes a long way in calming and reassuring the Israeli people, whose leadership is becoming increasingly unpopular both internally and across the world.
Not everyone is pleased at the news. The raid itself has a significant casualty pool even if some of those were terrorists. While we don't know the exact figure, rumours say over 90 people have been killed in the raid. Israel's actions in the conflict have also been extremely controversial, with many accusing Israel of conducting ethnic cleansing or genocide under the guise of fighting a terrorist organisation. Whether earned or not, some see Israel as the 'bad guy' in the conflict.
Was the hostage rescue 'worth' the casualties? Did Hamas treat them well? Is it 'appropriate' to celebrate hostages being freed when Israel is killing people? Is this a good or bad thing? Will freeing hostages allow Israel to do worse things? Does Reddit support Hamas? Is it hypocrisy when Israel holds many prisoners without trialing them? Will this victory cause Israel to double down on it's extreme actions?
----- Pics ----- (A Father embracing her daughter who was rescued from captivity after 250 days) Locked. 76% upvoted.
Wasn't this girl who got taken by a motorcycle?
Watch how pro-terrorist will try to spin this beautiful reunion into something horrifying justifying her kidnapping. If you justify the murder, gang rape, torture, and kidnapping of kids, teenagers, and civillians including women and elderly, youre on the wrong side.
Strawman much? Literally no one is justifying any of the kidnappings. You’re making up arguments in your head to get mad about.
Hamas shouldn't have captured/killed/raped 300 innocent civilians from multiple nations of the world
Already seen a lot of people angry about this
Did people just want her to die or something?
Happy shes free and safe, lets hope to see the day when the Palestinians hostages are free and safe too.
How does someone that's been captive for 250 days by the worst group of people in the world have no scars, no bruises, clear healthy skin, and doesn't look like they've lost a pound that whole time??
----- Global_News_Hub ----- (55 civilians killed in refugee camp, 4 hostages saved: Report)
Zionists doing what they do best. Killing civilians and finding reasons for it later or play victim.
Originally, the Zionists didn't even know there were hostages there. They just wanted to kill civilians.
Epic levels of cope
55 Arab Lives are not important to Zionists. They are animals to Israelis.
Maybe Hamas shouldn’t hide their hostages in refugee camps? It’s almost like they want their civilians to die to gain international sympathy
Despicable! The IDF should let Hamas kidnap, rape, torture, and murder without any consequences!! How dare they rescue the very few surviving hostages
----- MadeMeSmile ----- (Footage of hostage reuniting with family)
Israel killed over 200 palestinians today. This is not a day for smiles
She looks very healty. Thats how hostages should look like at the end. Not like the ones israel and russians are holding. We clearly can see who are the real terrorists. Good she made it back like this and is able to smile
And isnotreal killed 210 to “rescue” her
Saved four and killed 150 Palestinian civilians. What a heroes
Makes me sad, not smile: 1200 upvotes after 6 hours. The state of mind of Reddit users.
Big mistake to sort by controversial - what the heck is wrong with some of you?
And you really trust Hamas?
More than "israel"
As much as one should be happy about it, Palestinians continue to be under a Genocide. Israel has Palestinian hostages 26 times more than what Hamas has Israeli hostages. Israel has dropped bombs on Gaza more than what were dropped in World War II.
The entire kidnapping was absolutely awful on every level. What Israel is doing right now is absolutely awful on every level I’m happy that she is back safe with her family. All things can be true at the same time
What kind of shitty, hateful comments, especially on such a wholesome group.
----- IsraelPalestine -----
Cool, I wish that all hostages get released from the captivity of Hamas. It’s a big shame that Netanyahu is refusing any ceasefire and is continuing this war, and I hope that we eventually get a ceasefire so that all the hostages can return home.
Ahhh when success is refusing a deal to release all hostages because your adversary is evil and your response is checks notes using aid vehicles as troop convoys (a crime you've accused Hamas of) to rescue four hostages and in the process kill two hundred people, thus showing that Palestinian civilian life has lesser value than Israeli Nothing like committing repeated war crimes to show you're the good guys, right? It's a good thing US taxpayers are bankrolling THIS as opposed to dealing with inflation or healthcare. Seriously, what blackmail does Bibi have on Biden?
Great news for the families. But the pictures of the hostages post rescue (not the one above) are very telling. - basically Hamas are kinder, gentler hostage takers than Israel
Genuinely good news for the hostages and their families. I'm happy to hear they were found in good health. Unfortunately this will send the message that the current IDF strategy is worth it, and many more people will die as a result. Small victories I guess.
Up to 200 people killed on that operation, lots of innocent Palestinians. Local hospital was overwhelmed with insured and killed people.
----- InternationalNews ----- (IDF rescues 4 Gaza hostages: Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv)
So we're now at what? 7k dead Palestinians per hostage?
Get yourself ready for propaganda interview videos...
oh it's already in full force, saving 4 hostages is now being used to justify the killing of hundreds. Since we know these ppl don't think Palestinians are humans, they are going to not care one bit about the 47 innocent civilians (so far, more injured as well) killed in this "special operation". Israel will 100% use this to further try and justify killing more people in Rafah and probably to refuse the ceasefire deal on the table right now.
So, now we'll have four Mossad agents posing as freed hostages telling us horror stories of their brutal treatment. "They gang raped my severed baby head!"
There’s video of Noa being abducted on Oct. 7.

I have always wondered how things like travel vouchers, per diem, CZTE, etc works for leaders who are high enough to control their own travel itineraries. If you're the Army CoS or SMA and you decide you want to visit Fort X or some unit forward deployed in Country Y, are you getting the same perks as somebody on TDY?
Can SMA just make a one-day "morale visit" once a month to Iraq, HOA, etc and get tax-free pay all the time?

I have a friend named Sophie who works for an airline and I to also worked for an airline. We had been working together in the aviation industry for about 7-8 years and have been pretty close up until I got my new job which is in the tech industry.
To simplify it, the new job I had got in March pays almost x3 of what we make at our positions at an airline, and Sophie knows this because her sister works in the same industry and I am assuming disclosed that to Sophie because she never asked me how much my new job pays, she just started assuming I would pay for everything going out. It got to the point where she would call me her "sugar mama" and how she can't wait for me to shower her in gifts. At this point I couldn't tell if this was just her way of being happy for my new job or just being selfish.
Since my position in the aviation industry was very close to minimum wage I had racked up some debt and now with my new position want to take the time to try to pay of this debt asap. I had explained that to Sophie but she pretty much had just brushed it aside and said "you'll have $15K paid off in no time with that new job of yours and soon well be going to Italy together and 'we' Weill be able to treat 'ourselves' to the fancy places now" and comments like that told me, she just wants me to pay for everything.
We had been friends for 7 years prior to this both working minimum wage positions at the airport and always had worked together to find cheap or free events to go to, window shopping, not overpriced places to eat, the whole goal was so we could enjoy ourselves without the guilt of spending too much.
Now, when Sophie asks to hang out, she plans this whole extravagant outing where will have to uber, pay for cover, go out to eat, she wants bottle service, space to dance so a VIP section, a place to sleep. When I tell her I will have to decline because I can't be going out and spending a bunch of money on an outing that would cost hundreds of dollars, she gets offended, leaves me on read, doesn't answer my phone calls, won't talk to me, until the next birthday or event comes up and she does this whole extravagant planning again to which ill kindly decline because I would remind her Im trying to pay off my debts and can't afford to be going out like that.
It got to the point where she had vocalized it is "unfair". She claims because she's constantly flying everywhere and is only in the city a couple days of the month that "we should take advance of the time and go out". I tell her she's more than welcome to come over, make food at my house, drink here, but im not paying to go out when it's going to cost a lot of money. She has made comments like "well your life is easier and more affordable now, going out once and a while isn't going to kill you" " you need to get out and live" I have shot all these comments down by re-enforcing boundaries and telling her I just can't afford it. We are now at the stage where she doesn't even bother anymore. She hasn't answered my message or phone calls in weeks. To be honest I feel used, I dont really know how you can be friends with someone for so long and the point that makes you want to drop it all is because they won't spend money on you. I just want to understand her perspective, but anytime I had asked, she claims she is just trying to live her best life and that Im not. I never in my life thought money would get in-between me and a long time friend but here we are. She used to come over all the time, wed meet down town just to hang out, but now, if I don't pick her up for the airport, her boyfriends house, her moms house in a different province, then she just stops responding.
Not sure if this is a common thing, but curious to know if it is or isn't since I have expressed my concern for this to others and no one has really given me a straight answer.

MAIORES. IV, CAL. IUNI. FORTUNA PRIMIGENIA.

This subject follows along from the general conclusion of infantilism, i.e. if we agree that infantilism exists in a culture that therefore all aspects of (such a culture) must be examined as to how they are impacted ‘by’ that infantilism, as: infantilism constitutes an undeveloped form of a thing; here (without covering absolutely every single aspect of it, as this could be a book in and of itself) we explore ‘sexual immaturity’ and its promulgation and consequences (of which we could easily make the case of the consequences as to be the cause of ‘all social ill’).
In an anthropological view; as if like we are looking at a chimpanzee colony, both procreation and familial-tribal child-raising takes place in our contemporary Western societies in a very clumsy sort of way; with the latter (i.e. the actual raising of children) not occurring at all, with the consequence of ‘arrested development’ – usually we would recognize and name it as that, if we ever thought very deeply about it:
However, the notion that all of this could be reduced to and fathomed as ‘sexual immaturity’ is an interesting (and unexplored) avenue to approach these matters from; certainly the act of actual procreation is deliberately accidental (I mean here in the contemporary West) in that a Woman does “not seek a mate” and then become pregnant, i.e. she does not even consider the sexual act to be procreative, rather: she accidentally becomes pregnant (“it was a miracle”), having beforehand and all throughout the duration and beyond it a culture which is far detached from the physical reality of things and thus a new human is created with no forethought for its care or provision and no security net in place to provide for it and ensure its prosperity and intelligent up-bringing, and increasingly there are fewer and fewer intelligent older persons around who are capable of providing the education and care for that child as would naturally exist in the large familial-tribal unit of an extended family where, historically, we all came from and of which is still the norm across much of the world (i.e. village elders who would otherwise raise the children up to be intelligent even if the Mother herself is too young to be a real parent - if we imagine as the species norm would be that most Women historically had their first child at around the age of fourteen or fifteen). Without, then, that familial-tribal unit to instruct and care for the child’s intellectual development and without either land to make a living from to provide for it's economic development then we find a cursed life, that is: a life far more difficult than it otherwise ought be had it been born in a more wisely chosen environment.
My point here is that ‘procreation’ is considered almost never at all by our society as being the most basic step in the creation and promulgation ‘of’ a tribal unit; with procreation itself being left down to blind chance and more often either legitimately accidentally or feigned accidently so as to attempt to cement a relationship (see: divorce and break-up rates in the West), either way this is the material circumstance into which children are born.
To say, then, that not grasping this reality ‘is’ itself a product of sexual immaturity; i.e. a Woman who does not understand what a new human is, seems to me to be far more of an accurate view of the thing than to declare it as ‘sexual immorality’ as it is usually insisted by the Abramic types, as: rather obviously it is ‘Sexual Immaturity’ rather than ‘Sexual Immorality’ that is the really cause of (the above scenario), that is: it is not Men and Women knowing too much about sex but of Men and Women knowing virtually nothing at all and therefore absent of a practice and familiarity necessary for Sexual Maturity, with Sexual Maturity itself being the very thing declared to be Immorality - an irreconcilable paradox.
It seems to me, then, that the habits we observe of ‘accidental pregnancy’ are the natural occurrence in such an unnatural society; that is: a consequence of misplaced moralism over the vital mechanical sexual functions of the human body (a thing which may well dominate and drive our unconsciousness entirely) have been rendered so alien to our expression and consideration but of which are so incessant and irrepressible; that sexual release is habitually denied, I mean here societally (i.e. “it is not polite”), and only finds ‘permission’ to appear in extreme drunkenness in fits of frenzy, and so on, so that when procreation actually occurs it is sporadic and neither at that moment nor before it was the adult rational mind involved – again, this is plainly a consequence of ‘sexual immaturity’ ‘before’ it could ever be said to be a consequence of ‘sexual immorality’.
It’s worth considering, of our own society in contemporary times, how far removed we are from most of the world which practices arrange marriages in one form or another (i.e. whether we are speaking of large tribal units or smaller family units) and what the consequence of this is on our own communities being absent of that; that is: the most fertile years of our lives are not spent having gotten procreation out of the way by having five or six children by the age of twenty or nineteen (so that when the child is fifteen you might be thirty, which seems to be the age where the sexual drive begins to dissipate or has anyway lost its novelty), and instead (i.e. without of being match-made far earlier in life) procreation instead occurs – if it does at all – accidentally and well-past the most fertile and healthy years, with such children being often quite sickly and the strain on the body being significantly more risky to the Mother (haphazardly enabled only then by massive external resources which would not have been required at all beforehand). I do not mean to seem as if I am advocating “having five or six children by the age of twenty or nineteen” only that in our natural environment this has always been the way of the thing due to natural sexual exploration when we are at that age.
At the same time, at the beginning and at the end of this “waste of time” (as I would say) of those most fertile years in which our sexuality is forbidden to us; that culture which we examine here as being simply Sexual Immaturity, it has been the case that that “Immaturity” persists well into later life by those afflicted adults who were forbidden to practise their natural sexuality when they were at the age where they wanted to, that is that the culture and mentality of such persons subjected to such restrictions quite demonstrably can be shown to have regressed them to the point that, as then as adults, they dress as children, speak and think as children, shun adult responsibility and seem altogether to have matured intellectually no further than the age of twelve or thirteen years, despite physiologically and neurologically having surpassed far beyond that early almost larval-like stage of our development where the body and mind are both only partially formed.
Instead it has been the “dragging-out” of that childlike insensibility, again: to no useful outcome, which has by that point in time essentially mitigated most of their procreative potentiality in that 1) physically having children is then far more difficult for them, and 2) they are now twenty-five years behind where their familial-tribal unit might otherwise have been, i.e. they do not have five or six twenty year old children bringing in incomes to the Household (to purchase a Household in the first place if they did not possess one before) or working the land (or likewise to purchase land) so that their prosperity will not have developed beyond mere subsistence off of the external labour market so as to escape the poverty and dependency traps inherent in the cities – which nominally constitutes their entire existence ‘to’ escape such miseries. All in all it is a lot of hard work by that point and I could not help but notice, of my own generation and those slightly older, how this outcome would have been entirely altered and set on a more prosperous trajectory if, say, at the age of sixteen a couple had been put together and had a few children, as: by the age of twenty the best seeds would have been sewn and they would not have to even think about “having children” ever again which is itself a thing, I observe anyway, that is so daunting and bothersome later in life that it really is something better gotten out of the way as early as possible in the manner that we would have done quite naturally otherwise.
If the idea here is to build up that familial-tribal unit then this methodology serves the purpose in the most optimal manner; the adults are freed up and enjoy their liberties, the younger adults (i.e. the teenagers) are preoccupied quite happily fulfilling their single greatest biological urges to have sex as much as they like, and the population figures begin to climb up at a rate of replacement which is far superior, e.g. a thirty year old parent of a fifteen year old only has five years before that fifteen year becomes a physically matured adult ready to contribute to the unit, whereas by contrast a thirty year old parent of a five year old has a great longer time to wait for physical maturity so that the distance between the two age groups becomes fragile and thin the further it is stretched with a concurrent loss of replacement manpower by a space of ten additional years.
There is something to be said for the older more experienced Father, of course, I remember quite well that the children I grew up with whose Fathers were in their forties and fifties and whose Mothers were in their twenties or very early thirties were quite better-off in their disposition and intelligence (whilst those with older Mothers tended to be sickly in one way or another); simply put though I think it is more to do with the experience of age as the influencing factor than anything else and a functional familial-tribal unit would have this influence in far greater capacity.
If we add to this factor the notion of polygamy (something shunned as ‘pagan’ by the Abramic religions yet advocated for in their own holy books, indeed: it was the universal norm) then we find the whole circle being completed in that young teenagers do as they please with each other, becoming familiar with relationship and their sexuality, and then when they reach a more mature age they might marry each other or other people properly so as to begin families of their own; but that by that age they may well have produced several children already via multiple partners so that the actual ‘legitimate children’ (in the sense of inheriting land and titles) of a more formal marriage is superfluous to population replacement insofar as the tribe is concerned, as: they have already increased the headcount quite massively by comparison. It is worth mentioning here the legal problems of land inheritance and the seeming inability for people to ever work this all out amongst themselves as being one of the most desirable points of the introduction of some of the Abramic religions, when they first appeared, as rules were laid out of who could inherit (some rules more effective than others, some quite ruinous in fact) which provided a framework in perpetuity (but on the other hand, with all children being considered legitimate in some instances, i.e. the children of concubines, this produced the problem of “all children” being in competition for the single title or, in turn, a vast spread of land, i.e. a Kingdom, being broken apart “to make it all fair”: this did not differ in form from, say, Imperial China to the late Ottoman court whilst the European Monarchies to their credit, somewhat, temporarily solved the matter by the allocation of specific titles to be given to the first born, second born, third born, etc., and then bouncing back to the Monarch upon the death of that Duke to be allocated again – although some would say this is a feeble manner by which to govern large polities it differs not very much from the essential ‘oversight’ duties over local governments as practiced in the Roman Principate rather than direct-governorship over those provinces themselves).
The tribal influence in real terms upon children cannot be understated in its superior effects upon the character and long-term capacity of the children themselves (when compared to others); I have some experience in my own up-bringing with this and really the outcome (again: compared to the infantilism, i.e. arrested development, you will almost always find in the nuclear family type, which we might easily compare to factory farmed within four walls and a hen-pecking parental authority vs. free range) is a quite more matured and capable disposition (call it “street smarts” if you like; they follow what actually works rather than what is ‘pretended to them’ to work, which is typically nothing more than the parents own whimsical desires of the moment) amongst all the children when they are simply freed up from the poor influence of an unfit parent even without the good influence of a more fit parent of which, then, the fit parent itself could be determined to be largely superfluous, as: of their own accord they learn amongst themselves and become naturally fortified against being instructed into error by a witless or ill-inclined adult, whereas a child stuck under the thumb of a witless ‘parent’ has no means to disobey that witless parent without facing severe punishments and so there the child is sculpted into a helpless fool, later embittered in life and at the tender mercy of their peers, as: even as they might innately know-better (than to do the foolish thing their parent demands they do) they are forced nevertheless, either physically punished or emotionally coerced, into adopting the ‘silly walk’ and ‘dress’ of the witless parent, which is to say: they are forced into conforming toward the cultural idealism determined by the parent with no thought whatsoever for the practicalities of life, e.g. the matter of “how will my child earn a living” is addressed neither by parenting nor by schools thus begrudgingly selling themselves auction block of the labour market turns out to be the only method, whether they were deluded into thinking that their aspirations to be a professional athlete or an astronaut were entertained and encouraged for them at the expense of informing them about any other means of paying the rent or not.
I should say here that when I say “familial-tribal unit” I am broadly referring to any number of groupings, in whatsoever local forms they may take shape, but that the decisive factor, most chiefly, will be a large extended family network of which, if it ever needed to pool its resource together, would constitute a decent size force in land, resource production and manpower – but chiefly it is the possession of land which enables everything else:
More ideally, to my mind, it would resemble (or be very close in composition to) that Roman ‘Familia’ (the origin of the word ‘Family’ in our English) where a fairly large blood family of at least five generations inhabited in and around the same House or group of Houses (see: Palace, Villa and Manor Economy), with servants and adoptees and associates (business partners) likewise being considered as extended kin; altogether forming, as it were, a little nationality. In the sense of ‘Nationality’ it is, it ought be said, more a return to how we actually were prior to the ‘naming conventions’ of the 1700’s or so where the stupid surnames made up on the spot of many Europeans were forced into Law over what would have originally been clan and tribal identities and from which there came that fake sense of disparate ‘Nationality’ (i.e. cut off from tribe and forced into atomization; identity through a very small family unit alone) from which the misnomer of ‘Race’ would be made-up to lend credibility to. In many ways a great deal of the urbane ‘neurosis’, let’s call it, stems really from this absence of ‘true tribe’ with it having been eradicated either by the fecklessness of urban societies; societies of strangers and thieves, and also more directly via those religions which pretend to fill the void of ‘true tribe’ with their witless rituals and effete pretences – things which are a wet-blanket over true fellowship wrought in such a manner as comes in all reality perfectly naturally the moment the screws holding foolishness in place are undone and cast away – and really here, when we stack these observations together one upon the other, we are really speaking of a sound and strong society certainly immune to the shallow perversity created by denialism toward the basic mechanics of the human body – in addition to any other considerations which follow from that.

THE OVERALL INFLUENCE (OR LACK THEREOF) OF A TRIBAL-FAMILIAL UNIT

It must be considered quite seriously by the reader as to the overall influence, or lack thereof, of a tribal-familial unit as to what fills its place in the education of people otherwise and, as I began this text by considering for myself, how much of the ‘dysfunctionality’ can be attributed to the “lack thereof”.
Along with the cultural instance on sexual immaturity as to produce the consequence of delaying and drawing out for decades a fetish of normal sexuality which ought naturally be done with by a person after reaching the age, say, of maybe seventeen, there is the greater point which I am trying to relay here in this text of how many other aspects of ‘bad culture’ are singularly anchored to and thusly totally dependent upon that sexual immaturity – that is: we would be hard-pressed to imagine how really many of the pernicious scenarios in our contemporary society would even arise if that foundation stone of ‘sexual immaturity’ were removed from the equation:
For instance, how much of a ‘relationship’ is spent and sculpted (either by the Man or the Woman or both) on jealously and worry of the other ending the relationship for having found another person or another means to fulfil their sexual gratification? If a ‘relationship’ is based upon, let’s call this, “mutual masturbation” then at the heart of that is sexual immaturity of the mental age of maybe fourteen years whereupon a person has been sort of coaxed into dependency for orgasm on a third party; they are fraught and fearful that this should be taken away from them – it being so vital as like a mechanical necessity for either sex – that the entire content of their ‘relationship’ revolves around it; seeking it, coaxing it, demanding it, guarding it from be lost, and so on, of which I think it is not exaggeration to say that such concerns constitute 100% of the verbal interaction in such a ‘couple’; either outright or in the back of the mind so as to reinterpret all scenarios and verbal expressions as being related to that end-goal of maintaining the “mutual masturbation”.
Simply put this ‘relationship’, then, revolves around twenty minutes of sexual activity in a day – if that much (or even if every day), yet dominates the entirety of the mind; that is: the entirety of the ‘relationship’, when this action itself is something that a servant or a slave or a prostitute would be used for in many societies, with the ‘content’ of the marriage, say, being concerned more with running the business of a Household or concerned with procreation to produce legitimate children to inherit the business, the title, the land, whatever. My point here is that neither Man nor Woman are elevated or their dignity improved, somehow, by this absence of sexual maturity but rather that both are reduced; i.e. greatly lowered, to the cognitive and social standing of the “servant, slave, prostitute,” in that as far as they think of and conceptualize themselves as part of a Household at all it is singularly the concern with simple sexual acts which dominate their interpersonal interactions and their ideas about their own self; it is their ‘social currency’.
If this seems alien – I mean my observation on this – consider how much neurosis goes on in the daily grooming rituals of Women or those sad excuses for Men who “lift weights but cannot fight” (not to mention the ease at which a thin muscular physique bleeds out at the slightest of puncture wounds, see: Roman Gladiator training), i.e. whose only concern is that of admiring their own bodies in a mirror, this being intellectually identical to young Women. Is this not the mentally of a slave? If so, even if we shy away from saying it plainly, then we must ask “what forms the mentality of a slave (i.e. where does it come from)” – in the above equation a slave in a Household is more like an object fulfilling a function than He or She is a person with any autonomy (well, obviously there is no autonomy for a slave) so it is almost to be expected that in such an environment that the intellectual trajectory of an object-person goes away from externalities and becomes entirely absorbed with self-presentation and equates their social status from that, and if groups of such persons will set this to be the common culture; deriving status in that manner among themselves – although still these are slaves possessing no ‘status’ to speak of, as being object-people. This is evidenced also in victims of sexual abuse or those, in general, suffering at the hands of third parties whose autonomy is in some way or another restricted; that their singular focus becomes that of sexuality as like depression is “rage turned inward”, thus too it seems for sexual infantilism.
I cannot pass up this subject without mentioning a series of interviews describing, a thing quite novel to me, the notion of American Christian ‘Purity Culture’ from the point of view of those heavily indoctrinated into that; instilled with Catholic levels of guilt over the normal function of the body, who have then left their small churches or megachurches, or whatever, and spoken plainly about the mentality of those inside of it as relating to sexuality. It is a thing I think long suspected but seldom expressed that, as it was described, the mentality of such persons is that they are “horny all the time” due to the relentless guilt inculcated into them; that due to denialism of sexuality their ordinary sexual impulses are magnified to an incredible degree and that, consequentially, their entire being is animated by repressed sexuality so that their thoughts are ‘impure’ all the time whilst verbally they express strong denialism and shame over the thing. I think this is no real difference to any such religious malinstruction; be it Muslim, Jewish or Christian, in that the perpetual infantilism of their surrounding society stems first of all from their own bedrock religious culture (i.e. whatever religion which is at odds with the human body, etc.) were due to such ‘culture’ they never really get over, say, an early adolescent view of sexuality where they are driven entirely by it and never learn to overcome it, no pun intended, but utterly unrealized – which would take them leaving their religion – is that this process demonstrably brings out the absolute worst in their character and disposition with the process itself being the promulgation ‘of’ those very “Viceful thoughts ” that they claim to be “at War with in the world”, in other words: it is just they themselves who, for example, look at a young teenage girl (or god help us, a small boy) and thinks all manner of sexual rapacity – and that this animates them politically to campaign for restrictive legislation to be put into Law to police “all society” as if “all society” existed at their low level is an incredible thing to consider. But I do not think their broader societies are any exception to this, rather point here is that their broader societies are comprised of persons exactly like them; that the Christian or the Jew driven by a lifetimes shaming over their normal sexuality adopt, in turn, the most depraved expressions ‘of’ sexuality as a self-affirmation; that is: the extreme self-identification with a simple sexual action, for example, came to literally define a persons personality in such places to the point that (Americans anyway) seriously put out the notion during the late 1990’s and 2000’s that a fleeting sexual act 1) defines a persons entire character, and 2) it is also inborn, e.g. as like to say that whether you prefer this or that on the menu at a restaurant is something determined genetically; this is utterly stupid and utterly, in my opinion, a consequence of society which has not wanted to evolve beyond the ‘sexual immaturity’ of which physiologically seems to occupy a very small window of the middle to late teens and of which repression during those ages quite demonstrably creates madness and retardation – I mean that if their culture did not peripherally do this to them then the manner by which swathes of their cultural-historical institutions do this to them ‘outright’ by inculcation into this process in particular certainly does it to them, and merely it is the unwillingness to fully condemn these Religions and relegate these influences to the dustbin which keeps the entire thing ticking along with “just enough” of the population bent out of shape by it to present those same persons, seemingly confused as to where they came from, lumbering through the broader society and serving as examples of lunacy and degeneracy.
In short - and I may as well add this here also, the aim to abstain for a while from sexuality was a custom introduced by the Ancient Romans and was designed to heighten sexual pleasure; in effect, then, foreign barbarians coming to this culture much later on with nobody to really explain it to them ended up unwittingly engaging in what they would probably have recognized as ‘sex magic’ whereupon the denial of their own mechanical sexual function was ‘abstained’ by them; i.e. they saw the value in holding off on doing drugs or having sex for a while, – but they did not understand what the effect or the outcome of that was ‘intended’ to be in that one would abstain specifically ‘to’ heighten the senses toward that pleasure; and this is evidenced chiefly in the Lunar Orgies and the Fast/s of Ceres. Interestingly, Jesus himself in (i think the Gospel of Thomas?) mentions to his followers that “they will hate him for what he says now,” and that he says that “fasting brings out all the worst in them” – in other words, engaging in periodic abstinence will turn them all horny. Knowing this from a relatively early age it was no surprise to me at all why celibate priests ended up diddling children or member of their own congregation or why the most outwardly pious zealots proved to be the most morally weak people to be found as even with the most ‘clean’ example, let’s say, of a person who has never drank wine, for example, they have not ‘overcome’ that thing but have rather avoided ever experiencing that thing so that it will always be a novel temptation to them of which they will have no understanding of and which they can be leveraged by in various ways primarily due to their ignorance of which ‘experience itself’ would otherwise render them far more fortified against:
A good example here is the ‘pot scare’ of the early 1930’s in America when it was seriously believed by a wholly ignorant chunk of the urbane voting public that smoking cannabis (and drinking alcohol, for that matter) would turn a person into a serial killer, this is totally bizarre to us now, but notice that this was the same society whose moral standard was that “a table leg” should not be uncovered because it reminded them of a Womans bare leg – although here we might better understand why they were so preoccupied by thoughts like that (I think very seriously in their heightened state of perpetual arousal any little thing would send them to buggery of a farmyard creature)! Hilarious. But – notice also that this was the same society which was engaging in some of the most casually egregious inhumane criminality that history had ever seen, as if they ‘were’ high on narcotics and their rational senses dulled; I do not mean here to bring American notions of ‘Race’ into this as to be seen to ‘condemn Black Slavery’ in the fashion of my own day (although we mentioned family-tribe as a better form of so-called nationality earlier) but the ghastly images of actual Country Fairs where smiling families with children by their knees would pose for crude photographs with the charcoaled or bloated rotting carcass of a burned or lynched Man is beyond my ability to play-down or normalize. I mean here to say, that: far from the pretense of ‘clean mindedness’ of such persons about themselves that we find these same persons are the filthiest and most depraved characters around, being those few persons who walk amongst us who are actually capable of doing those inhumane things (again, see: Banality of Evil) as would be unthinkable to a person of normal rational healthy conscience. We might connect this, also, to the historical BDSM extravaganzas which took place in the Christian monasteries and public squares for many centuries where young Women were sexually tortured by celibate clergymen as to recognize how deep and quick a plunge it is from a person or their culture going from the denial of normal healthy sexuality into the kettled and sadistic gore fetish of outright murder.
It is always worth reminding the reader who wishes to minimize these more egregious aspects of the subject (as rape is still rampant among the clergy); which are consequential of sexual immaturity, that it was not ‘reason and rationality’ per se that stamped this out from European society but soldiers kicking in the doors of such Churches, Town Halls and Houses with muskets, rifles, long knives and grape-shot and physically eradicating the perpetrators and their willing congregations from America and France for the practice itself of sexually torturing a Woman and then burning the evidence on the fake pretexts of obviously made-up accusations of “she turned me into a frog” to actually be ended. That is to say that the ‘mentality’ and ‘culture’ which provided the framework for such inhumane activities was never formally realized or educated-out of a people, so to find it lingers along into contemporary times; animating the otherwise dormant farmyard animal-like character of such persons “like powers of evil”, is not surprising to me in the least. What was more surprising to me is that as so much of these religions are so obviously outright ‘evil’ that more persons do not speak of the intricacies of the things in such necessary detail these more ‘egregious’ cases would qualify, and then to spool back to discover the cause of every evil action in the mentality of every perpetrator – generally speaking, for instance, it will be a character with a disposition of infantilism and perhaps this is more easy to understand without needing to connect it to sexual immaturity though, to my mind, these are not distinct enough to warrant any separation; as: infantilism is always going to be immaturity and immaturity is always going to run concurrent with a lack of adult intellectual development where a mature and experienced view of a thing, sexuality in this case, has likely been within the powers of a person to have gleaned naturally through experiences – in which case there would be no argument with anything I say here, or of which such experiences have been prevented by external powers from being gleaned by the person in question; in which case they remain ‘as if’ they were fourteen years old with the allure of mysterious unknown sex acts utterly dominating their consciousness at all times and yet physically being thirty, forty, fifty years old – well past the age (certainly physiologically) where they should have gotten it all out of their system but of which they have not, chiefly because their experiences have been rather dull and monotone and so much social currency has been valued by it ‘being’ dull and monotone, e.g. monogamy, legal repercussions binding two people in place, the atomized kettling nature of the disconnected nuclear family unit, living amongst strangers in large cities where it not so simple as just going topless to change the local culture, control through the selective denial of the sex act itself (as William Reich and Esther Vilar both write on), the sexualisation of young people by adults, the accidental ‘perversity’ (in the real meaning of the word) of unfulfilled (or poorly fulfilled, or repressed altogether) sexuality and its effects on the brain and society, and so on and so on.
I am always inclined to think when considering this subject, and I may as well end this text in conclusion with this recurrent thought of mine, that ‘sexual perversion’ really begins in the mind of ourselves as young teenagers when the normal human body is leeringly presented to us as being something ‘illicit’, e.g. the breasts of Women are concealed in our society and so due to ‘hiding them away’ they become objects of mystery and fetish which they otherwise are not. I do not think this is deliberate reverse psychology (as god help us few enough people even understand the concept to understand what they do inadvertently) but it produces the same consequence of reverse psychology, whereupon quite arbitrarily a certain piece of the body, say, an ankle, is all of a sudden declared by a mad Adult to be “evil, sinful, lustful, of the devil,” when no such notion existed in the minds of people otherwise, as then: their natural curiosity is piqued by this imposition and so they develop a perversion dervied in chief part – as a sense of lewd pleasure – from bucking the arbitrary nonsensical imposition forced upon them by that dictate of which such a scenario never would have had cause to occur if not for that imposition having created it. I feel that this ‘perversion’ (again, in the real meaning of that word) stands in the way of a fully realized and fully pursued sense of actual sexuality and, from it, of a more resonant concordance between Men and Women whose interactions are otherwise thrown off balance by such impositions as they are dragged back down to sexual immaturity all the time; or into fear and jealously etc., as like a dozen avenues are presented in any conversation and virtually of them are strewn with piss, vomit and polyfoam which had no reason to be put there in the first place, or more accurately: it was put there through the carelessness of an atomized and witless peoples who knew no better than to do this to themselves but of which a familial-tribal unit would have drummed out of them quick sharp if for the actuality of nothing else than “we are all in this together” being something that is tangibly true and not merely shallow political rhetoric when it is said of a tribe vs. when it is said of a state polity comprised of countless strangers.

MAIORES. IV, CAL. IUNI. FORTUNA PRIMIGENIA.