An hour after getting back from the Mason apartment, Bruce Kenner had the distinct misfortune of meeting Bertha Henderson.
A plump, gaudy woman with wrinkles and sun beaten skin only an alligator could love, Bertha Henderson wore bright red lipstick, bright red rouge, and way too much mascara. Her tangled hair was a dull red color and her clothes - pink pants and a white floral top - stretched tight across her bulbous frame. She looked like the kind of woman who lived in a trailer with velvet pictures of Elvis on the wall and pink flamingos in the front yard.
She acted like one too.
From the moment she stormed into his office, she hadn’t shut up once. She scolded, chided, accused, and badgered, sometimes even wagging one fat finger in his face like he was a naughty little boy. Ten minutes into the dressing down and Bruce was beginning to fantasize about police brutality.
It took him another ten minutes to find out what the hell she even wanted.
“It’s my granddaughter,” she shot back, “she’s missing in your town.”
My town? Lady, this is barely my office. I share it with three other people.
“Well, if you’ll calm down, maybe I can help.”
Jesus Christ was that the wrong thing to say. She hit the roof and didn’t come down again until Bruce was this close to arresting her for assault on a police officer. “Young man, I do not appreciate the way you’re talking to me. My tax dollars are the only reason you have a job. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be working at a car wash.”
At least I wouldn’t have to deal with you.
Bruce took a deep breath and held his tongue in check. “How can I help you?” he asked.
“I told you, my granddaughter is missing. If you listened to me, you’d know this already.”
Bertha produced a picture and slid it across the desk. Bruce studied it. A girl, roughly sixteen with black hair, blue eyes, and dimples smiled back at him. “She;’s with that Rossi man, I just know it,” she said bitterly.
“Who?” Bruce asked.
Rolling her eyes like he was stupid, the old woman told him the story. Jessie - the dimple faced girl - had the rotten luck of having to live with Grandma Bertha after her parents went to jail on drug charges. They lived in Sand Lake, a little town in the mountains outside Albany, where Bertha was no doubt loved and admired by all. One day, Jessie, who her grandmother lovingly described as “A little troublemaker”, ran off. Bruce didn’t blame her. He’d known Bertha for half an hour and he wanted to run off. Bertha did some snooping on Jessie’s laptop and found that the “little whore” had been chatting with an older man, Joe Rossi. Rossi, or so Facebook said, lived in Albany and worked at Club Vlad.
“I want him arrested for pedophilia,” Bertha said and crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. “He’s a dog just like all men. She’s probably pregnant already. Another mouth I have to feed.”
Behind the old battle ax, Vanessa appeared in the doorway and lifted her brows as if to say What a piece of work. Knowing her, she’d probably been standing just out of sight this whole time with McKenny, the elderly evidence clerk, and snickering into her hand like a little girl. LOL she called him young man.
Bertha noticed him looking over her shoulder and started to turn. Vanessa’s face went white and she ducked out of the way, narrowly avoiding detection. “I’m glad you think this is funny,” Bertha said to Bruce. “Meanwhile, if I don’t get Jessie back, the state’s going to stop sending me my checks. I need that income. I can’t work, you know. I have gout.”
Too bad being an asshole isn’t a job, you’d be world-famous
“I’ll go talk to him,” Bruce said.
“I want more than talk, young man, I want action.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When Bertha finally decided to waddle off and ruin someone else’s day, Vanessa came in and sat in the chair the old woman had so recently occupied. “Oh, my God,” she said, “that was intense. I was this close to radioing in a 1015.”
1015 was code for officer down.
“Funny,” Bruce said without a trace of humor. He had kids going missing, a dead guy someone moved around like a goddamn Barbie doll, and now this. What next, hemorrhoids?
“What do you think? Code 1 or code 2?”
Code 1 meant top priority. Code 2 meant not a top priority. Bruce thought for a moment. It didn’t sound like Jessie Henderson was in danger. It sounded like she met a guy - granted, one too old for her - and decided to hide out with him from her psycho grandma. Maybe it could be something more, but he had a gut feeling that it wasn’t…and his gut feelings were usually right. “2,” he finally said. “I got shit to do.”
By shit, he meant “Talk to the families of those missing boys again.” He’d been interviewing them for two days looking for clues, but there was nothing. It’s like they just vanished. Bruce didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Vanessa said and slapped the desk.
When she was gone, Bruce sighed.
Never a dull moment, he thought.
***
Ed Harris - no relation to the Hollywood actor - had been the medical examiner for the City of Albany since 2002, and in all that time, he had never seen anything quite like this.
It was Wednesday evening and Ed was locked away in the cold, sterile space beneath the city offices that comprised his domain. With its puke green tiles, harsh lights, and cloying smells of disinfectant, the .coroner's office creeped most people out, but not Ed. He was at home here, as comfortable surrounded by toe-tagged bodies as a cactus was surrounded by desert. A thin man in his fifties with curly, steel gray hair thinning in the middle, he wore a white smock, blood stained over his clothes that made him look like a butcher instead of a low level government functionary. He had a dark and dry sense of humor, but then again, so do all people who play with dead bodies for fun and profit.
The coroner’s office was a vast, utilitarian vault segmented into multiple different rooms. Here, where the magic happened, three stainless steel tables stood in a row; a bank of refrigerated drawers kept watch, making sure nothing funny happened. One of the cold fluorescent lights overhead flickered with a hum of electricity, and water dripped rhythmically from a faucet. It was a cold, eerie place, but to Ed, it was home.
On most nights, only one of the tables was occupied, but tonight, two were. On one lay an old lady who died of what appeared to be cyanide poisoning. On the other was Dominick Mason.
Naked save for a white cloth draped over his groin to protect his dignity, Dom was the most corpsy corpse you’d ever hope to see. In fact, if you looked up dead guy in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of him. His body was pale and sunken, one side covered in purple splotches where his blood had pooled, and his eyes were closed. His abdomen was slightly distended with the expected build up of gas, and his flesh stuck fast to the bones beneath. In other words, he was text book. A normal corpse.
Mostly normal.
As men of his trade are wont to do when strange bodies mysteriously appear, Ed had opened Dom up, making a Y shaped incision from his neck to his groin. He hummed to himself as he did so, his hands wielding his sharp and shiny tools with the deft assuredness of a seasoned surgeon. Done cutting, he dipped his gloved hands into the cavity and started removing organs. A spleen here, a liver there, nothing Dom would miss. When he got to the heart, however, he stopped.
There was something…off…about it. At first glance, it was black and withered like an oversized raisin. An odd and putrid odor emanated from it and though he was familiar with the various smells and stenches the human body produced after death, this wasn’t one of them. Try as he might, he couldn’t place it, couldn’t even compare it to anything. Plucking a magnifying glass from the metal cart next to the table, he peeled back part of Dom’s chest and examined the heart closer.
That’s when things got really weird.
Dominick Mason’s heart was, indeed, shriveled, but it was not black. Instead, it was almost entirely covered by an interlacing crisscross of what appeared to be black mold. Here and there, Ed could glimpse flashes of the heart beneath: It was wrinkled and a sickly gray color. “What is this?” Ed asked himself at length. He grabbed a pair of tweezers from the tray and carefully, very carefully, attempted to remove a piece of the mold for analysis. The moment the cold metal tips touched the heart, it gave a violent spasm that sent Ed falling back with a shocked gasp, the tweezers falling from his hand and clinking to the tiled floor.
The heart began to pulse like an alien egg sac, slowly at first, then more rapidly. For a moment, Ed was frozen in place, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Once you die, your heart ceases beating. That’s that. Only living hearts beat, and Dominick Mason was certainly dead. He was dead from the moment Ed first laid eyes on him earlier that day and he was dead now. Yet there was his heart, beating anyway.
It could be a muscle spasm. They usually aren’t that violent and consistent, but dead bodies sometimes do strange things. As he watched the blackened muscle expanding and contracting, however, Ed had the most eerie feeling. He went to rub the back of his neck, realized he was still wearing blood soaked gloves, and stripped them off. He was spooking himself out; he needed a break and a hot cup of coffee. He’d come back fresh and start over again.
With that mold.
Could you really blame him for being creeped out? That stuff wasn’t normal. He’d never seen anything like that before, not even in textbooks. Dom was scrawny and didn’t get enough vitamins in life, but overall, he was healthy; that mold…or whatever it was…had no business being there.
Going over to the coffee pot, which stood in the same room to save travel time, Ed grabbed a styrofoam cup. When he was done here, he planned to go home and -
A terrible, metallic clatter rang out, and Ed jumped. He turned around, and when he saw Dominick Mason standing next to the table, hunched slightly over and staring at him, an electric burst of fright shot up his spine and exploded in his brain, so strong it made the edges turn gray. Pale, hands hooked into talons, and the flaps of his chest hanging open to reveal the cavity beneath, Dominick Mason looked for all the world like a boy who’d been caught sneaking out to meet his girlfriend. A weak, involuntary, “Oh, God,” slipped from Ed’s trembling lips, and the spell was broken. Dom came alive and ran toward the door leading out to the parking lot. He slammed through it, and the sound of it crashing open and then falling closed again echoed through the empty chamber.
Shaking, panting for air, and soaked in piss, Ed sank to the floor in a sitting position, his eyes wide and staring like those of a soldier returning damaged from the front.
It was a long time before he composed himself enough to call the police.
***
Dazed and caught in a nightmarish twilight realm where nothing made sense, Dominick Mason limped painfully down the sidewalk, a stranger lost in a strange land filled with danger and hostile creatures. Barefoot and shrouded in a white sheet, he trembled with cold and struggled to ignore the dark, threatening shapes looming from the fog in his brain, shapes that would turn into unspeakable truths if he let them.
Passersby openly stared at him, their expressions either morbidly curious, disgusted, or alarmed. A man put his arm protectively around his girlfriend; a woman pulled her little boy to her breast, and another man sneered at him, his nose crinkling. Dom, his glazed eyes narrowed against the harsh glare of the many street lamps, headlights, and storefronts, lumbered headlong toward nowhere, his fear growing until he was shambling. He imagined he could hear every cough, every whisper; smell the odor of every unwashed body. Each car horn was deafening, every whiff of ass or armpits sent his stomach churning. The rustle of a passing pedestrian’s jacket jammed into his ears like icepicks, and the approaching globes of LED headlamps burned his eyes. He gritted his teeth and groaned against the pain.
The dense mist wrapping his brain made it hard to think. Like a frightened animal, he made his way on instinct alone. Home. He needed to get home. Out here, on the street, he was exposed. At home, locked away in his small apartment, he would be safe.
A car passed in the street, bass heavy rap music blaring from its open windows, and Dom’s brain exploded with agony. He threw himself against a street sign and held on for dear life, his legs weak. Dizziness overwhelmed him, and he almost went down. He was also cold.
So, so cold.
People around him quickened their step; they never took their eyes off him, as though he were a venomous snake that would strike at any moment. He needed to get away from them. They were going to hurt him; people always hurt him.
Pushing away from the sign, he began to hobble once more toward home, wherever home was. He looked over his shoulder several times as he made his way down Central Avenue, and each time, he saw that no one was following him as he had feared.
No one, that is, except for the man in sunglasses.
Tall and lank with curly hair, he wore dark Aviators and a leather motorcycle jacket over a button up shirt. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets and his face showed no expression. He was always there, always a few steps closer. Outside Capital Fried Chicken, a group of people openly stared at him, He heard their whispers as he passed. What’s wrong with him? Dude’s straight tweakin. And the one that struck him the most. That guy looks dead.
Dom hobbled faster, as if to outrun the realization that he was, in fact, dead. The man in sunglasses was closer now, his footsteps so loud that Dom winced. He turned around, and the man was impossibly in front of him. Dom ran into him and bounced backward, going ass over tea kettle and landing on the former. They were in front of a church on a darkened corner, the lights here either burned out or shot out - you could never tell in Albany. Even though it was dark, Dom could see everything with crystal clarity. Dom tried to scurry away, but he was too weak to escape. Right there and then, he decided to give up. Come what may, he just wanted this nightmare to be over.
The man stared down at him, emotionless, unspeaking.
Dom squirmed.
“You’re real lucky I came along,” the man said. His tone was flat, even.
Dead.
“Get up,” he said, “I’ll take you home.”
Home?
Yes.
Dom wanted to go home.
The man helped him up, and Dom followed him into the night.
***
Bruce Kenner stood in the middle of the medical examiner’s office at half past nine that evening with his hands on his hips and stared doubtfully down at Ed Harris. The lonely cavern was alive with activity as cops went over everything, all of them looking either bemused or a mused. Bruce was neither. He’d been at home, sitting in his chair and having a beer in front of AEW Dynamite when Vanessa called. “You might wanna get down here,” she said, sounding confused, “something really strange is going on.”
Ed Harris - no relation to that one guy - sat in a straight back chair beside his cluttered desk and gripped a styrofoam cup of coffee in both hands, putting Bruce - for some reason - in mind of a monkey. When Bruce came in, the old man was white as a sheet and shook like a leaf. In the last half hour, little had changed.
“Tell me again,” Bruce said.
He and Ed were pretty good friends. He knew that Ed knew standard police procedure. Cops don’t ask you to repeat your story a thousand times over because they’re forgetful fucks, they do it because telling it again and again helps to jog loose details that you might have forgotten. Ed, therefore, did not protest. “I turned my back,” he said and chopped the chair like Jackie Chan, “and I heard the noise.”
His voice was thick, unsteady, and halting. He sounded as squirrely as he looked…and he looked pretty damn squirrelly right now.
“I turned around…and he was looking at me. He was standing there and he was looking at me.”
This was the fourth time he’d had Ed go through the story, and nothing had changed. Bruce felt something stirring deep inside his gut. It was either disquiet…or he had to fart. He opened his mouth to speak, but sighed.
“You don’t believe me,” Ed said.
“I dunno, Ed. Dead bodies don’t just get up and walk away.”
Ed flashed. “I know that, goddamn it, but this one did.”
Bruce glanced at Vanessa. She looked uncomfortable.
“Are you sure he was dead?” Bruce asked.
Ed opened his mouth, closed it again, and said, “I did the autopsy.” His voice broke on the last word, and he sounded almost like he was pleading. “His fucking liver’s on the floor. He stepped on it. The man has nothing in him. I-I’m telling you, there’s no way he’s alive.”
During the autopsy, Ed had sat Dominick Mason’s organs on the little tray table where he kept his pointy things. Mason knocked it over while getting up. Indeed, there were human organs on the floor, and one of them did look kind of squished. Bare, bloody footprints led to the exit door, up a set of concrete steps, and then disappeared in the alley behind the office.
“You said you left his heart,” Bruce said.
“And his brain,” Vanessa helpfully added.
Ed pinched the bridge of his nose like a put upon professor dealing with two particularly stupid students. “Even with his heart and his brain, he’s dead. You saw the livor mortis. He was cold, he was stiff. His heart wasn’t beating, he wasn’t breathing. He was in one of those drawers for nine hours, not breathing, no blood flow - it’s impossible. It’s just…it’s impossible. I don’t care what you think, he was dead. And even if somehow he wasn’t, I cut out almost everything. I opened his stomach, I took his spleen - you don’t just get up from that. You don’t walk away from that, much less run.”
Bruce chewed the inside of his bottom lip because he didn’t have a Twix. He didn’t look like the smartest man in the world…and he wasn’t…but he knew a dead body when he saw one, and the body they took out of Dominick Mason’s apartment was D.E.A.D. And like Ed said, even if by some freak fluke of nature he wasn’t, he couldn’t just get up and go about his day with no liver, spleen, or kidneys. Hell, Bruce had his gallbladder out and he couldn’t even walk away from that.
“You said there was something funny about his heart,” Vanessa said.
Ed finished off his coffee. “Yeah. It was…moldy. I-I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Is it possible that…has something to do with it?”
“Unless the rules of biology have changed overnight, no,” Ed stated.
While Ed poured himself another cup of Joe, spilling some because he was still shaking, Vanessa took Bruce aside. “So what do you think?” she asked. “Is he telling the truth?”
For that, Bruce did not have an immediate answer. All else aside, he was a cop. He followed the evidence - and his gut instinct - wherever it led him. Ed was a sober man - he was not a drunk, insane, or stupid - and no man on earth could fake the look of trauma in his eyes. Bruce’s eyes went to the bloody footprints leading away from the exam table and his stomach roiled. It might be cliched, but there had to be a rational explanation. “Yeah,” he finally said. “The kid got up like he said, but there’s no way he was dead. Maybe…I dunno, he had a surge of adrenaline or something. I’m not a doctor.”
“That’ll only get him so far,” Vanessa said. “We’ll probably find him on the street somewhere.”
He went back to the purple splotches on Dom’s face, to his cold stiffness. There’s no way he was dead?
Bruce was confused, and he hated being confused.
“I dunno,” he said, “maybe.”
But he had the gnawing feeling that they wouldn’t. They would never find him…and Bruce would be confused forever.
Goddamn it, Mason, he thought, where are you?

An hour after getting back from the Mason apartment, Bruce Kenner had the distinct misfortune of meeting Bertha Henderson.
A plump, gaudy woman with wrinkles and sun beaten skin only an alligator could love, Bertha Henderson wore bright red lipstick, bright red rouge, and way too much mascara. Her tangled hair was a dull red color and her clothes - pink pants and a white floral top - stretched tight across her bulbous frame. She looked like the kind of woman who lived in a trailer with velvet pictures of Elvis on the wall and pink flamingos in the front yard.
She acted like one too.
From the moment she stormed into his office, she hadn’t shut up once. She scolded, chided, accused, and badgered, sometimes even wagging one fat finger in his face like he was a naughty little boy. Ten minutes into the dressing down and Bruce was beginning to fantasize about police brutality.
It took him another ten minutes to find out what the hell she even wanted.
“It’s my granddaughter,” she shot back, “she’s missing in your town.”
My town? Lady, this is barely my office. I share it with three other people.
“Well, if you’ll calm down, maybe I can help.”
Jesus Christ was that the wrong thing to say. She hit the roof and didn’t come down again until Bruce was this close to arresting her for assault on a police officer. “Young man, I do not appreciate the way you’re talking to me. My tax dollars are the only reason you have a job. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be working at a car wash.”
At least I wouldn’t have to deal with you.
Bruce took a deep breath and held his tongue in check. “How can I help you?” he asked.
“I told you, my granddaughter is missing. If you listened to me, you’d know this already.”
Bertha produced a picture and slid it across the desk. Bruce studied it. A girl, roughly sixteen with black hair, blue eyes, and dimples smiled back at him. “She;’s with that Rossi man, I just know it,” she said bitterly.
“Who?” Bruce asked.
Rolling her eyes like he was stupid, the old woman told him the story. Jessie - the dimple faced girl - had the rotten luck of having to live with Grandma Bertha after her parents went to jail on drug charges. They lived in Sand Lake, a little town in the mountains outside Albany, where Bertha was no doubt loved and admired by all. One day, Jessie, who her grandmother lovingly described as “A little troublemaker”, ran off. Bruce didn’t blame her. He’d known Bertha for half an hour and he wanted to run off. Bertha did some snooping on Jessie’s laptop and found that the “little whore” had been chatting with an older man, Joe Rossi. Rossi, or so Facebook said, lived in Albany and worked at Club Vlad.
“I want him arrested for pedophilia,” Bertha said and crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. “He’s a dog just like all men. She’s probably pregnant already. Another mouth I have to feed.”
Behind the old battle ax, Vanessa appeared in the doorway and lifted her brows as if to say What a piece of work. Knowing her, she’d probably been standing just out of sight this whole time with McKenny, the elderly evidence clerk, and snickering into her hand like a little girl. LOL she called him young man.
Bertha noticed him looking over her shoulder and started to turn. Vanessa’s face went white and she ducked out of the way, narrowly avoiding detection. “I’m glad you think this is funny,” Bertha said to Bruce. “Meanwhile, if I don’t get Jessie back, the state’s going to stop sending me my checks. I need that income. I can’t work, you know. I have gout.”
Too bad being an asshole isn’t a job, you’d be world-famous
“I’ll go talk to him,” Bruce said.
“I want more than talk, young man, I want action.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When Bertha finally decided to waddle off and ruin someone else’s day, Vanessa came in and sat in the chair the old woman had so recently occupied. “Oh, my God,” she said, “that was intense. I was this close to radioing in a 1015.”
1015 was code for officer down.
“Funny,” Bruce said without a trace of humor. He had kids going missing, a dead guy someone moved around like a goddamn Barbie doll, and now this. What next, hemorrhoids?
“What do you think? Code 1 or code 2?”
Code 1 meant top priority. Code 2 meant not a top priority. Bruce thought for a moment. It didn’t sound like Jessie Henderson was in danger. It sounded like she met a guy - granted, one too old for her - and decided to hide out with him from her psycho grandma. Maybe it could be something more, but he had a gut feeling that it wasn’t…and his gut feelings were usually right. “2,” he finally said. “I got shit to do.”
By shit, he meant “Talk to the families of those missing boys again.” He’d been interviewing them for two days looking for clues, but there was nothing. It’s like they just vanished. Bruce didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Vanessa said and slapped the desk.
When she was gone, Bruce sighed.
Never a dull moment, he thought.
***
Ed Harris - no relation to the Hollywood actor - had been the medical examiner for the City of Albany since 2002, and in all that time, he had never seen anything quite like this.
It was Wednesday evening and Ed was locked away in the cold, sterile space beneath the city offices that comprised his domain. With its puke green tiles, harsh lights, and cloying smells of disinfectant, the .coroner's office creeped most people out, but not Ed. He was at home here, as comfortable surrounded by toe-tagged bodies as a cactus was surrounded by desert. A thin man in his fifties with curly, steel gray hair thinning in the middle, he wore a white smock, blood stained over his clothes that made him look like a butcher instead of a low level government functionary. He had a dark and dry sense of humor, but then again, so do all people who play with dead bodies for fun and profit.
The coroner’s office was a vast, utilitarian vault segmented into multiple different rooms. Here, where the magic happened, three stainless steel tables stood in a row; a bank of refrigerated drawers kept watch, making sure nothing funny happened. One of the cold fluorescent lights overhead flickered with a hum of electricity, and water dripped rhythmically from a faucet. It was a cold, eerie place, but to Ed, it was home.
On most nights, only one of the tables was occupied, but tonight, two were. On one lay an old lady who died of what appeared to be cyanide poisoning. On the other was Dominick Mason.
Naked save for a white cloth draped over his groin to protect his dignity, Dom was the most corpsy corpse you’d ever hope to see. In fact, if you looked up dead guy in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of him. His body was pale and sunken, one side covered in purple splotches where his blood had pooled, and his eyes were closed. His abdomen was slightly distended with the expected build up of gas, and his flesh stuck fast to the bones beneath. In other words, he was text book. A normal corpse.
Mostly normal.
As men of his trade are wont to do when strange bodies mysteriously appear, Ed had opened Dom up, making a Y shaped incision from his neck to his groin. He hummed to himself as he did so, his hands wielding his sharp and shiny tools with the deft assuredness of a seasoned surgeon. Done cutting, he dipped his gloved hands into the cavity and started removing organs. A spleen here, a liver there, nothing Dom would miss. When he got to the heart, however, he stopped.
There was something…off…about it. At first glance, it was black and withered like an oversized raisin. An odd and putrid odor emanated from it and though he was familiar with the various smells and stenches the human body produced after death, this wasn’t one of them. Try as he might, he couldn’t place it, couldn’t even compare it to anything. Plucking a magnifying glass from the metal cart next to the table, he peeled back part of Dom’s chest and examined the heart closer.
That’s when things got really weird.
Dominick Mason’s heart was, indeed, shriveled, but it was not black. Instead, it was almost entirely covered by an interlacing crisscross of what appeared to be black mold. Here and there, Ed could glimpse flashes of the heart beneath: It was wrinkled and a sickly gray color. “What is this?” Ed asked himself at length. He grabbed a pair of tweezers from the tray and carefully, very carefully, attempted to remove a piece of the mold for analysis. The moment the cold metal tips touched the heart, it gave a violent spasm that sent Ed falling back with a shocked gasp, the tweezers falling from his hand and clinking to the tiled floor.
The heart began to pulse like an alien egg sac, slowly at first, then more rapidly. For a moment, Ed was frozen in place, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Once you die, your heart ceases beating. That’s that. Only living hearts beat, and Dominick Mason was certainly dead. He was dead from the moment Ed first laid eyes on him earlier that day and he was dead now. Yet there was his heart, beating anyway.
It could be a muscle spasm. They usually aren’t that violent and consistent, but dead bodies sometimes do strange things. As he watched the blackened muscle expanding and contracting, however, Ed had the most eerie feeling. He went to rub the back of his neck, realized he was still wearing blood soaked gloves, and stripped them off. He was spooking himself out; he needed a break and a hot cup of coffee. He’d come back fresh and start over again.
With that mold.
Could you really blame him for being creeped out? That stuff wasn’t normal. He’d never seen anything like that before, not even in textbooks. Dom was scrawny and didn’t get enough vitamins in life, but overall, he was healthy; that mold…or whatever it was…had no business being there.
Going over to the coffee pot, which stood in the same room to save travel time, Ed grabbed a styrofoam cup. When he was done here, he planned to go home and -
A terrible, metallic clatter rang out, and Ed jumped. He turned around, and when he saw Dominick Mason standing next to the table, hunched slightly over and staring at him, an electric burst of fright shot up his spine and exploded in his brain, so strong it made the edges turn gray. Pale, hands hooked into talons, and the flaps of his chest hanging open to reveal the cavity beneath, Dominick Mason looked for all the world like a boy who’d been caught sneaking out to meet his girlfriend. A weak, involuntary, “Oh, God,” slipped from Ed’s trembling lips, and the spell was broken. Dom came alive and ran toward the door leading out to the parking lot. He slammed through it, and the sound of it crashing open and then falling closed again echoed through the empty chamber.
Shaking, panting for air, and soaked in piss, Ed sank to the floor in a sitting position, his eyes wide and staring like those of a soldier returning damaged from the front.
It was a long time before he composed himself enough to call the police.
***
Dazed and caught in a nightmarish twilight realm where nothing made sense, Dominick Mason limped painfully down the sidewalk, a stranger lost in a strange land filled with danger and hostile creatures. Barefoot and shrouded in a white sheet, he trembled with cold and struggled to ignore the dark, threatening shapes looming from the fog in his brain, shapes that would turn into unspeakable truths if he let them.
Passersby openly stared at him, their expressions either morbidly curious, disgusted, or alarmed. A man put his arm protectively around his girlfriend; a woman pulled her little boy to her breast, and another man sneered at him, his nose crinkling. Dom, his glazed eyes narrowed against the harsh glare of the many street lamps, headlights, and storefronts, lumbered headlong toward nowhere, his fear growing until he was shambling. He imagined he could hear every cough, every whisper; smell the odor of every unwashed body. Each car horn was deafening, every whiff of ass or armpits sent his stomach churning. The rustle of a passing pedestrian’s jacket jammed into his ears like icepicks, and the approaching globes of LED headlamps burned his eyes. He gritted his teeth and groaned against the pain.
The dense mist wrapping his brain made it hard to think. Like a frightened animal, he made his way on instinct alone. Home. He needed to get home. Out here, on the street, he was exposed. At home, locked away in his small apartment, he would be safe.
A car passed in the street, bass heavy rap music blaring from its open windows, and Dom’s brain exploded with agony. He threw himself against a street sign and held on for dear life, his legs weak. Dizziness overwhelmed him, and he almost went down. He was also cold.
So, so cold.
People around him quickened their step; they never took their eyes off him, as though he were a venomous snake that would strike at any moment. He needed to get away from them. They were going to hurt him; people always hurt him.
Pushing away from the sign, he began to hobble once more toward home, wherever home was. He looked over his shoulder several times as he made his way down Central Avenue, and each time, he saw that no one was following him as he had feared.
No one, that is, except for the man in sunglasses.
Tall and lank with curly hair, he wore dark Aviators and a leather motorcycle jacket over a button up shirt. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets and his face showed no expression. He was always there, always a few steps closer. Outside Capital Fried Chicken, a group of people openly stared at him, He heard their whispers as he passed. What’s wrong with him? Dude’s straight tweakin. And the one that struck him the most. That guy looks dead.
Dom hobbled faster, as if to outrun the realization that he was, in fact, dead. The man in sunglasses was closer now, his footsteps so loud that Dom winced. He turned around, and the man was impossibly in front of him. Dom ran into him and bounced backward, going ass over tea kettle and landing on the former. They were in front of a church on a darkened corner, the lights here either burned out or shot out - you could never tell in Albany. Even though it was dark, Dom could see everything with crystal clarity. Dom tried to scurry away, but he was too weak to escape. Right there and then, he decided to give up. Come what may, he just wanted this nightmare to be over.
The man stared down at him, emotionless, unspeaking.
Dom squirmed.
“You’re real lucky I came along,” the man said. His tone was flat, even.
Dead.
“Get up,” he said, “I’ll take you home.”
Home?
Yes.
Dom wanted to go home.
The man helped him up, and Dom followed him into the night.
***
Bruce Kenner stood in the middle of the medical examiner’s office at half past nine that evening with his hands on his hips and stared doubtfully down at Ed Harris. The lonely cavern was alive with activity as cops went over everything, all of them looking either bemused or a mused. Bruce was neither. He’d been at home, sitting in his chair and having a beer in front of AEW Dynamite when Vanessa called. “You might wanna get down here,” she said, sounding confused, “something really strange is going on.”
Ed Harris - no relation to that one guy - sat in a straight back chair beside his cluttered desk and gripped a styrofoam cup of coffee in both hands, putting Bruce - for some reason - in mind of a monkey. When Bruce came in, the old man was white as a sheet and shook like a leaf. In the last half hour, little had changed.
“Tell me again,” Bruce said.
He and Ed were pretty good friends. He knew that Ed knew standard police procedure. Cops don’t ask you to repeat your story a thousand times over because they’re forgetful fucks, they do it because telling it again and again helps to jog loose details that you might have forgotten. Ed, therefore, did not protest. “I turned my back,” he said and chopped the chair like Jackie Chan, “and I heard the noise.”
His voice was thick, unsteady, and halting. He sounded as squirrely as he looked…and he looked pretty damn squirrelly right now.
“I turned around…and he was looking at me. He was standing there and he was looking at me.”
This was the fourth time he’d had Ed go through the story, and nothing had changed. Bruce felt something stirring deep inside his gut. It was either disquiet…or he had to fart. He opened his mouth to speak, but sighed.
“You don’t believe me,” Ed said.
“I dunno, Ed. Dead bodies don’t just get up and walk away.”
Ed flashed. “I know that, goddamn it, but this one did.”
Bruce glanced at Vanessa. She looked uncomfortable.
“Are you sure he was dead?” Bruce asked.
Ed opened his mouth, closed it again, and said, “I did the autopsy.” His voice broke on the last word, and he sounded almost like he was pleading. “His fucking liver’s on the floor. He stepped on it. The man has nothing in him. I-I’m telling you, there’s no way he’s alive.”
During the autopsy, Ed had sat Dominick Mason’s organs on the little tray table where he kept his pointy things. Mason knocked it over while getting up. Indeed, there were human organs on the floor, and one of them did look kind of squished. Bare, bloody footprints led to the exit door, up a set of concrete steps, and then disappeared in the alley behind the office.
“You said you left his heart,” Bruce said.
“And his brain,” Vanessa helpfully added.
Ed pinched the bridge of his nose like a put upon professor dealing with two particularly stupid students. “Even with his heart and his brain, he’s dead. You saw the livor mortis. He was cold, he was stiff. His heart wasn’t beating, he wasn’t breathing. He was in one of those drawers for nine hours, not breathing, no blood flow - it’s impossible. It’s just…it’s impossible. I don’t care what you think, he was dead. And even if somehow he wasn’t, I cut out almost everything. I opened his stomach, I took his spleen - you don’t just get up from that. You don’t walk away from that, much less run.”
Bruce chewed the inside of his bottom lip because he didn’t have a Twix. He didn’t look like the smartest man in the world…and he wasn’t…but he knew a dead body when he saw one, and the body they took out of Dominick Mason’s apartment was D.E.A.D. And like Ed said, even if by some freak fluke of nature he wasn’t, he couldn’t just get up and go about his day with no liver, spleen, or kidneys. Hell, Bruce had his gallbladder out and he couldn’t even walk away from that.
“You said there was something funny about his heart,” Vanessa said.
Ed finished off his coffee. “Yeah. It was…moldy. I-I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Is it possible that…has something to do with it?”
“Unless the rules of biology have changed overnight, no,” Ed stated.
While Ed poured himself another cup of Joe, spilling some because he was still shaking, Vanessa took Bruce aside. “So what do you think?” she asked. “Is he telling the truth?”
For that, Bruce did not have an immediate answer. All else aside, he was a cop. He followed the evidence - and his gut instinct - wherever it led him. Ed was a sober man - he was not a drunk, insane, or stupid - and no man on earth could fake the look of trauma in his eyes. Bruce’s eyes went to the bloody footprints leading away from the exam table and his stomach roiled. It might be cliched, but there had to be a rational explanation. “Yeah,” he finally said. “The kid got up like he said, but there’s no way he was dead. Maybe…I dunno, he had a surge of adrenaline or something. I’m not a doctor.”
“That’ll only get him so far,” Vanessa said. “We’ll probably find him on the street somewhere.”
He went back to the purple splotches on Dom’s face, to his cold stiffness. There’s no way he was dead?
Bruce was confused, and he hated being confused.
“I dunno,” he said, “maybe.”
But he had the gnawing feeling that they wouldn’t. They would never find him…and Bruce would be confused forever.
Goddamn it, Mason, he thought, where are you?

For the past year I’ve been dating my gf. We met in 8th grade at the time she had a boyfriend so whenever I would make advances they’d just get shut down. We rekindled my senior year of high school when I discovered her instagram page. At the time I didn’t know if she was currently in a relationship and didn’t really care to ask. We made small talk here and there but never anything flirtatious or sexually suggestive. One day she texted me and asked if I wanted her to hook me up with one of her friends, so of course me being me I accepted the offer. She then proceeded to ask me if I was a cheater, I told her no. She then asked for my number to put us into contact and right after I sent it. She texted me on iMessage stating that she thinks we’d make a good couple. I had been tricked. And in this moment when I read her text I couldn’t help but feel like the nice guy who finished last and got what was left over. we started chatting again more frequently and this was probably at the peak of my “hoe phase” I had just recently got a car gifted to me by my loving parents. So as a horny teen who just recently graduated I was doing bad. Seeing girls daily (intimately) sometimes even two. So as you could imagine I was not in the mental head space to jump into a relationship especially seeing that I’ve never been in one. Mind you she knew the type of guy I was, Because during my “hoe phase” I would publicize me going on dates with various girls on my instagram story cause I thought it was cool and my buddies would always ask how can I maneuver so carelessly and still have women that still put up with me. Around this time we weren’t in a relationship yet so their wasn’t any consequences for my actions. She’d see it complain then brush it off. But seeing that I did use to like this girl a lot…and I mean a lot, Just to put it into perspective for you on how delusional and down bad I was. When we first started chatting again, I went to our old Snapchat messages and reread every single one which took about 3 hours and they were so cringey and sappy to me that I took the time to delete every single one. (She was one of those weird people who’d saved the messages instead of letting them automatically delete after 24 hours) I felt like I had to do this because I didn’t want her to have any recollection of that desperate version of myself. Fast forward a few weeks and we went on our first date. I decided to take things slow with her by limiting myself to only kissing and fingering her. Then About a month after that is when we first had sex. And it felt exactly like I expected it to…magical. It was like we were two bodies who were meant for each other that finally met. Fast forward a few more months now it’s time for her to go off to college and when she left I slowly started reverting back into my old ways of seeing multiple girls a week and being promiscuous. This continued up until about January the next year when I got caught. Long story short, she cried I cried and we both decided that we’d like to move forward. During this season of our relationship I was constantly feeling guilt so much to the point where I ever considered suicide. I was constantly in my head saying things like “is it even worth it” “she probably doing it too and you just don’t know” “leave her” “it’ll never work” “you won’t regain her trust” “our relationship is irreparable” “don’t waste anymore of your youthful years on this failing relationship”. And with due time these negative thoughts stopped consuming my mind and we actually started doing better. I quit my job moved in with her and started working remotely. At this point in my life I couldn’t be any happier. It felt like a dream come true. All it took was one weekend and all of this ended. At this point it’s around spring break so all the surrounding colleges are having parties. I devised a plan to pick all the boys and go on a little road trip. We hit different colleges daily to party, drink and smoke and the biggest of incentive all, to meet girls. Looking back on it, this was a recipe for disaster. On one particular night I uploaded a video of me getting twerked on my by a girl to my close friends on instagram not remembering that she was still included in it. And before I could even sober up and realize what the fuck I’ve just done she eventually saw it and messaged me stating that this is her last time and “we’re done”. In this moment when I read the text while being drunk & high I just couldn’t find it in me to care or fight for our relationship. So I just thought to myself “ok”. As the night proceeded I found myself in some random suite where a girl approached me and began express her interest in me and long story short I ended up cheating. When all the fun was over and I dropped all the guys back home. I was still tasked with having to drive my girlfriend m back to her dorm cause she stayed with family for the weekend. I didn’t want to take her but no other buses were departing and everyone who she could’ve possibly asked was already preoccupied or just didn’t feel like doing a 4 hour drive there and back. And plus before all this turmoil I had already promised to her that I’d drive her back. I go to pick her up and she’s all moody and for the first 3 hours of the ride she gives me silent treatment. And the first words out of her mouth were “you know when we get back to my dorm you’re packing your shit and leaving right?” At first I didn’t respond. I laughed actually, not hysterically but more of a “wow after all we been thru you’re really ending this?” Laugh. All types of thoughts started racing thru my head. Part of me wanted to serve the car in front of an oncoming 18 wheeler but then I remembered that she’s still here with me and as ironic as it sounds I’d never want to hurt her, especially in a way that could result in fatality. The laughing slowly turned into silent tears. The pain I was feeling in my stomach was so excruciating it felt as if I had just been stabbed with a 10 foot sword repeatedly over and over and over again. I eventually started uncontrollably crying and spewing out my feelings. While doing this I confessed to cheating on her and told how I’d been long before that weekend. I pulled over to the side of the interstate in the middle of nowhere with no reception got out and just started crying even harder so she couldn’t see. I felt like my life had been ruined and the only person I could blame for it was myself. I eventually got back in and started driving in silence again. After all that crying with the added partying the past week and weekend I must’ve been real tired cause I started to doze off which I usually don’t. I’ve taken the drive enough to become accustomed to it and have built up enough stamina to make it all the way through without having to fight the feeling of tiredness. She noticed this and offered to take the wheel which I respectfully declined. I then told her I’d be pulling over to the side of the road to catch a quick 2 minute nap. I typically do this whenever I’m on extra long drives and my friends know me for it. I set a 2 minute timer on my phone and let my body temporarily rejuvenate as much as possible. And chances are they usually fall asleep too. Because I’d literally rather trust myself to drive tired before I let one of my unlicensed friends behind the wheel. I put my head down for what felt like 10 seconds and woke up to her nudging my shoulder saying that 7 minutes have passed. This bothered me because if I was so tired to the point I myself didn’t hear the alarm she should have came to the realization that I was genuinely tired and let me rest a little longer. But because it was her birthday she probably overlooked this aspect of my situation because she was just tooeager to get to her own birthday party that her friends had started without her. I began driving again will still tired and now aggravated from being woken up. I began to speed at this point we’re 40 miles away from our destination. The tiredness began to take over again and before I knew it I wake up to the screaming of my name as the car is slowly drifting off the road and I’m stuck in mud on the side of the interstate. A state trooper and tow truck arrive to assess the situation and we end up taking a Uber the rest of the way. At this point I’m stranded. I spent my last on tow truck fees and don’t even have anything saved up to pay for the mechanic fees, let alone worry about gas money. We somehow managed talk and temporarily bandaid the under lying issue and sleep in the same bed that night but things progressively kept on getting worse and worse as the days went on. It got so bad to the point where we slept in different rooms, Or so I thought. The morning after I go into her room to check on her and see paper towels and her sitting up still crying in the same position she was the night before. I on the other hand actually slept pretty well. She then came into my room still with water in her cute pearly big eyes. And to my surprise sat down directly on my lap and told me how she couldn’t get no sleep. We hugged and talked and cried then ultimately came to the conclusion that our relationship is worth more than my stupid mistakes and I have some more maturing to do.

The people involved (names are changed):
Jake – me
Tom – my flatmate
Kath – Tom’s girlfriend
Emily – Kath’s flatmate
TLDR (but context is very important for how the situation develops):
· Me and Emily get with each other at a party.
· It turns out Kath had forbidden Emily from getting with me. Since Emily went and did it anyway, Kath falls out with her.
· Kath ends her friendship with Emily. Me and Emily continue seeing each other.
· When I plan to go to see Emily at their apartment, Tom tells me that Kath is in a really dark place mentally, and the thought of me and Emily being there together while Kath’s there is triggering her anxiety, so he asks me not to go over.
· Me and Emily follow these instructions for months, all whilst Tom and Kath continue coming and going to either of our apartments as they please.
· Emily eventually gets in touch with Kath to try and understand exactly why me coming over is an issue, since Kath has no problem coming to my place. Kath has a meltdown due to this and it makes her suicidal.
· Tom falls out with me because I knew about the messages that caused his girlfriend to feel suicidal.
(Skip to 'Late April' if you want to go straight to the crux of this post, but I do think it's quite an entertaining read).
Background Context
Me and Tom (both mid-twenties) have lived together in our apartment since I moved to the city last year. I’ve known him for several years and would put him in my inner circle of closest friends, so living with him was all just good chill vibes as expected - or at least it was for the first six months.
I met Tom’s girlfriend of several months, Kath, for the first time pretty soon after moving in. Although she was kind of shy, I thought she seemed nice enough. I noticed that Kath would seem to lean on Tom a fair amount when it came to support for her mental health (she had been diagnosed with anxiety), which of course is normal as her boyfriend. On one occasion, she had a particularly bad anxious episode during a group hangout, with Tom consoling her about it afterwards. Following this, Tom seemed exhausted, saying to me “I’m not a professional, I’m not equipped to deal with all this mental health stuff. She needs help from someone who can adequately help her deal with these thoughts. When she blows things out of proportion and she stresses out to me about her anxiety, it just ends up making my own anxiety worse”. He also said that he had even offered to pay for therapy for Kath, but she didn’t want to accept it.
I just felt bad for Tom, especially since I had some understanding of what he was going through. I had previously had a girlfriend who had anxiety/depression/BPD and put all her mental health issues on me. That girlfriend was also very manipulative and would mention suicidal thoughts any time she started feeling like she was losing control over me (just to be clear, there was no indication that Kath was acting in a manipulative way towards Tom at that point). In my experience, when you end up in a situation where you’re essentially acting as someone’s full-time personal mental health counsellor, it hardly ever ends well.
At some point in January, I met Kath’s “bestie” flatmate, Emily. I remember thinking she was cute, seemed nice and easy to talk to. We all hung out as a group a few times that month and I thought there may have been a little bit of a vibe between me and Emily.
So as you do, I slid into Emily’s DMs and basically let her know I was interested. I messaged her a week or two before our party that her and Kath were coming to, but her response was lukewarm so I just thought she probably wasn’t interested.
For context, I had recently broken up with my girlfriend in January, who had just got back from travelling for the last 6 months. Things in that relationship weren’t great before she even went travelling, and during the months she was away I had come to terms with the fact that it was best to end it. I waited until she was back to say it in person, as I didn’t want to drop that on her while she was travelling and ruin that once in a lifetime experience. However, deep down I knew I had wanted talk to other girls and explore new connections for the last few months, but obviously I didn’t want talk to anyone until it was cleanly over. Me messaging Emily was only a few days after breaking up with her, which I guess isn’t great, but in my head I had been ready to move on for a while, I saw no point in putting an arbitrary time limit on myself. I made sure to explain this context when I messaged Emily so that she was aware of my recent circumstances.
The Party (End of January)
So me and Emily end up getting with each other at the party. Initially, when I brought up me messaging her, she said “I think you’re cute, but I think it’s best we just be friends for the next couple months, since you just recently got out of a relationship, and we can see what happens afterwards”. But as the night went on, I guess Emily changed her mind, because as we kept talking it got increasingly flirty and we ended up getting together. Perfect end to the night, right? Not exactly.
At one point when Emily goes to the bathroom, she comes back into my bedroom saying “Kath is furious at me”. I ask why, and she says that Kath had basically forbidden her from getting with me.
Back when I first messaged Emily, she had of course shown Kath the messages straight away. It turns out Kath for some reason had a really intense reaction to this and was like “I can’t believe he has the audacity to hit on my best friend right after breaking up with his girlfriend! It’s so disrespectful using you as a rebound, it’s disrespectful to his ex and it’s disrespectful to me for hitting on my best friend like this! He was the only one of Tom’s friends that I actually liked but he’s ruined that too now!”.
Apparently, Kath had been used as a rebound before and this was triggering for her, so she didn’t want her best friend to be used as a rebound. She said “you can’t get with him, Emily, that’s my boundary.” Emily was a bit taken aback by the intensity of this reaction and was just a bit like “umm okay…?”. She tried a few times before the party to understand a bit more about why Kath had such a problem with it but didn’t get much further explanation than that.
Now, I agree that Emily was in the wrong for saying to Kath that she wouldn’t get with me and then went and did it anyway, and Emily also acknowledges this. Emily should have said from the start she wasn’t okay with this weird “boundary” Kath had set. It was a bit cowardly. Although given how intensely Kath overreacts to things, I can understand why Emily initially just agreed to whatever she was saying to calm her down. I can also understand how when you’re at a party having fun, drinking and realise that you do actually have a good vibe with the person, in the moment you might change your mind and be like “actually fuck that, who the fuck is she to tell me who I can and can’t get with?”.
Kath saw this as Emily having no respect for their friendship, by choosing some guy she’d just met over her. From Emily’s perspective she was choosing herself, choosing not to follow these nonsensical rules that had been imposed on her, and she was just tired of Kath overreacting to everything and trying to control her.
In my opinion, being this controlling for no good reason is pretty disrespectful in itself. Given that Kath’s reason for telling Emily not to get with me was because she didn’t want her to be used as a rebound…well that’s Emily’s risk to take, isn’t it? I can see how from Emily’s perspective, she knew Kath might not be happy about it, but it’s also not some deep betrayal, since based on the reason Kath gave, the consequence would only be on Emily herself. Emily had the exact same knowledge about my recent relationship status as Kath did, so why did Kath think she can tell her what to do?
As we get to further into this post and the real reason why Kath set this “boundary” is revealed, you will see why I actually think any argument Kath has against Emily for getting with me at the party is automatically void, but we will learn these details as they come.
Start of February
After the events of the party, Kath didn’t want to talk to Emily the next day when she tried to initiate communication via message (Kath tends to avoid in-person confrontation). Fair enough, Emily gave her space. Me and Emily spend the next day together just talking and getting to know each other more, and it’s clear that we vibe together and both feel very comfortable with each other, which is pretty rare for both of us.
I don’t see Tom for the first few days after the party, as he had been staying at Kath’s. When I do, I’m a bit surprised that he didn’t think much of Kath’s reaction at the party. He says “yeah I probably should have warned you about this beforehand”. We both agree that Emily was in the wrong for going back on what she said, but also that Kath shouldn’t have tried to control her like that. He did say “sorry I know this put you in an awkward position”.
A few days after the party, Emily again tries to get in touch with Kath via message.
Emily’s message essentially apologised for her actions, saying she was in the wrong for going back on what she said, and that she should have said from the start that she wasn’t happy with this “boundary”. She also said that Kath shouldn’t have tried to dictate her life and tell her what to do, especially when it’s something that’s none of her business, and that she is going to continue seeing me, taking the risk of being a “rebound”.
Kath’s response essentially said the whole incident at the party was only a small part of why she exploded so intensely, this was just the last in a long line of things Emily had done in the past which she had not forgiven her for. This was just the last straw for Kath because “it hit so close to home, so close to the love of my life”. She wanted things to be civil between them until the end of their tenancy, but this was essentially the end of their friendship.
Okay good, Kath flipping out so badly now finally made a bit more sense to me. Obviously, I wanted to know what Emily had done that was so bad to cause this, as any indicators of bad character would inform whether I choose to keep talking to her.
Emily went through these, explaining that these were incidents from their past that they had discussed at the time, dealt with and moved on from. I have cut these out for the word limit as they don’t add much to this post, but it was the most minor, nonsensical things (I can explain in the comments if anyone wants details).
In any case, I wasn’t particularly interested in what mistakes Emily might have made months or years ago, I was more interested in what her character was like now and going forward.
Early/Mid February
So here’s where the main situation we’re in now starts. For context, Kath and Emily’s apartment is in the city center, close to where both mine and Tom’s offices are, so it would make sense to go over in the evening and go into work from theirs the next morning, as Tom has been doing once or twice a week for the last few months.
It's worth noting that ever since the party right up to the present moment, Emily and Kath have not been interacting at all, avoiding each other in their apartment, only messaging for things like bill payments.
The first time I planned to go stay round Emily’s place was early/mid-February. When I mention this to Tom, he tells me that Kath has been having a really bad time mentally since the party, and the thought of me and Emily being there together triggers her anxiety. He asks me not to go over to their apartment for the next couple of weeks or so while she’s in this particularly bad phase. I don’t really understand what me going over and seeing Emily has to do with Kath’s anxiety (and Tom says he doesn't really understand it either himself), but I say okay fine it’s not that big of deal, I won’t go over for the time being.
Now, a valid question for myself is why I decided to keep seeing Emily, despite knowing that Kath had fallen out with her and therefore knowing it could potentially cause fiction between me and Tom. I don’t think I did anything wrong for several reasons:
· I suppose there’s the general visceral reaction against being told what to do. Like mind your own business, it’s not my fault Kath decided to get involved in my business. Why should she get what she wants when she’s the one being unreasonable? Why should we deny ourselves the opportunity of getting to know someone we seem to vibe with just because Tom’s girlfriend doesn’t like it?
· Before I even knew there was any issue at all, it was already too late; I had already gotten with Emily, they had already fallen out, and Kath already thought I was a dickhead. So what good would it do now to not see each other? Kath already didn’t like me (and she had also previously told me that once she doesn’t like someone, there’s no going back, they’re finished in her mind).
· In the initial first few days after the party, both me and Tom were kind of expecting that Kath’s reaction would blow over in a few days after she had cooled down. How could I have predicted that her reaction would instead continue getting increasingly intense as the situation went on?
· Frankly, I was annoyed at Tom at this point. He knew how Kath had reacted to me messaging Emily, so why did he just bend over and enable his girlfriends’ controlling, unreasonable behavior without question? If it was my girlfriend acting like this generally, I’d be like “why are you getting involved in their business, just let them do what they want?”, and especially so if it was directly affecting one of my close friends.
· Fundamentally, there’s no inherent reason why there had to be any issue at all? Okay Kath has ended her friendship with Emily and might not like that we’re seeing each other, but there’s no need for there to be any continued drama. Obviously we won’t all be hanging out as a four having fun like I had initially hoped, but that doesn’t mean we can’t just exist as adults and be civil? The only reason this continues to be an issue in the first place is because Kath is making it an issue for everyone else involved.
· Finally, I actually like Emily – from the first few days it was clear it wasn’t just going to be a FWB situation. If it felt like more of a superficial FWB situation, then yeah I probably would have just thought it’s not worth the drama, even though I thought Kath was the one in the wrong.
Late February
Over the month of February, me and Emily keep hanging out and getting closer. Whilst I was keeping a very close eye on her for any sign of character flaws (it was still possible that Kath could be in the right, even though her side of it didn’t make much sense to me), the more I got to know her, the more it seemed my initial judgment of her was accurate. I saw how she acted with her other friends, they all seemed to really value and appreciate her. I saw her helping out her friend in need of a fairly large amount of money without a second thought, I saw her going to accompany her friend for a medical scan they had, and generally she was really nice and thoughtful with me. Not exactly the behavior of an inconsiderate person.
Sometime in late February, Emily messages me completely baffled. She couldn’t believe that Kath had invited over a girl from their social circle, Dianne. The reason why this is a bit scandalous is because Kath is always talking shit about Dianne behind her back. And it’s not just “she can be a bit annoying sometimes”, it’s an explicit sentiment of how much she dislikes her, how much of a bad person she is and how much she wants her removed from her life. And she does this frequently, I barely speak to Kath and even I’ve heard her rant about how much she doesn’t like Dianne. So, she’s constantly saying this kind of stuff behind her back, and here she is now inviting her round for tea acting all friendly. I just found that so two-faced and this inevitably shaped my perception of Kath being deceptive.
Not long after I heard about this, Kath was round our place over the weekend. Me, Tom and Kath were heading off to our friend’s housewarming party later that day, with me driving us. At one point when the three of us are all in the kitchen, Kath speaks to me properly for the first time since the party, basically to clear the air. She says she doesn’t want there to be any bad blood between us and that her problem wasn’t with me, it was with Emily. I just say that I was cool with her, I don’t want her to feel uncomfortable with me or when coming over to our apartment, and that the situation between her and Emily was between them and not my business.
I wasn’t entirely convinced with her “clearing the air”, given that I had seen she apparently has no issue with being two-faced, but at the time I thought it was best to stay cool with her for the sake of me and Tom’s friendship and also I didn’t particularly fancy spending the rest of the day and a long car ride with awkward vibes.
End of February
At the end of February, Tom asks me how things are going with Emily and basically advises caution with her. He says that from what he’s seen she’s basically not a good person and she’s generally inconsiderate. I tell him I find that surprising from what I’ve seen of Emily, but I know it’s possible she could have just been putting on a front for the last month. I openly accept this, saying “I want to hear what you have to say, obviously you’re my friend and I respect your opinion”.
Essentially, he doesn’t bring up anything that I hadn’t already been told.
When I question Tom on why Kath thought she was a mind reader and assuming what my intentions were with Emily at the very start of this whole thing, Tom reveals he had since found out that the real reason Kath had forbidden Emily from getting with me in the first place actually wasn’t really to do with me recently breaking up with my girlfriend/using Emily as a rebound (Tom said this was a minor part of the reason, more of an excuse to base it on). It was more that Kath already knew beforehand that she wanted to end her friendship with Emily and was essentially trying to prevent her still being part of her life (i.e. by getting close to her boyfriend’s friend/flatmate).
Now it all made sense why Kath tried to “ban” her from getting with me in the first place. I’m not sure if Tom thought telling me this would make me more sympathetic to Kath’s side of it, but if anything, this deceptive behavior was even more of a red flag to me. As far as everyone (except for Kath) was concerned, her and Emily were best friends. Kath had even said to Emily a couple of weeks before the party that “she was like a sister to her”.
Tom didn’t seem to have much issue with this, saying something along the lines of “yeah I know she shouldn’t have kept all this stuff bottled up, but she doesn’t like confrontation, it makes her really anxious”.
After learning this, I think any argument for Emily being in the wrong for disobeying Kath’s instructions at the party is automatically void: Imagine having the audacity to be like “yeah I know I tried to control you by framing it as me being a protective friend looking out for you, but actually it was really because I wanted to end my friendship with you anyway teehee 😊”. In my view that is just so manipulative. No wonder the reason given to Emily for not getting with me made no sense to her.
When I revealed this to Emily, she said that she had been suspecting that was the case anyway, but it still really hurt to hear it confirmed.
Form her perspective it was like: “So was Kath holding all these grudges all the times I was consoling her for whatever mental health issue she was having at any given time?” (I wonder if Tom was thinking what a bad person Emily was when it was him and Emily staying up till stupid o’clock trying to console Kath who was crying about job applications a few weeks before all this kicked off). There are many other examples of things she had done for Kath in both the recent and more distant past.
Kath also knew that Emily’s best friend had killed herself a few years prior, and after going through the loss of her best friend, Emily had always said she was super hesitant to call anyone her “best friend”. Kath knew about this and still let Emily believe they were best friends, whilst she clearly didn’t really mean it, which I think is quite cruel of her.
Despite what I had seen of Emily so far, I still took what Tom said into account, and continued to watch her carefully.
Mid March
Another couple of weeks pass and given that my last interaction with Kath was her clearing the air with me, I thought everything was now cool between us. I mention to Tom at the start of the week that I’m planning to stay at their apartment later that week and he says “okay cool”. However, later that same evening, he once again asks me not to go over to their apartment. Apparently when he told Kath that I was going over, she started having a panic attack at the thought of me going there.
At this point I’m really started to get frustrated at this situation and again I try to understand exactly what the problem is, because this entire time Kath and Tom have been coming and going to either apartment as they please, so Kath clearly doesn’t have a problem coming to my apartment while I’m there. Tom again says that he doesn’t fully understand it himself, and that Kath doesn’t want to feel this way either, but she’s in a really bad place at the moment and me being there with Emily is really triggering her anxiety.
This makes no sense to me or Emily, because we obviously wouldn’t do anything to make Kath uncomfortable, and from our perspective this is just enabling her dysfunctional way of dealing with this situation.
Even though I still don’t understand what the fuck me seeing Emily has got to do with Kath’s mental health, I’m obviously not going to barge my way into someone’s home when I’m not welcome. So once again, I do as I’m told and say I won’t go over. But I do tell Tom that this situation isn’t going to continue going on like this indefinitely, and to me it feels to me like I’m being walked all over, in the sense of “oh yeah no worries, you two carry on going to either apartment as you please, I’ll just sit here like a dickhead and follow my instructions, don’t worry about it 😊”. He does say sorry and that he knows it’s inconvenient for us, but it's an even bigger inconvenience for Kath.
It’s worth bearing in mind that at this point, I could have responded to this situation by saying that if I’m not welcome at her apartment, Kath is not welcome here (or equally Emily could say to Kath “you can’t bring Tom round”). Whilst yes, it’s a bit petty, I think this would be a completely justified response to prevent a situation where we are being walked all over. Because what would be the alternative? They just carry on doing as they please indefinitely whilst Emily is told she isn’t allowed to have equal use of her own apartment? Now obviously telling your friend that his girlfriend isn’t allowed to come over is really a last resort and would definitely put a big dent in our friendship, and generally I have no desire to control what anyone else does, so of course I didn’t respond in this way.
Despite my frustration at this entire situation, I do feel bad for Tom because I can see how uncomfortable he seems during these conversations with me, he obviously doesn’t want to give me these unreasonable instructions. I can only assume he’s just trying to do whatever he can to keep his girlfriend afloat and prevent her next meltdown. I’ve been there myself dealing with a girlfriend with mental health issues, so I don’t want to actively make things worse for my friend either. However, I’m also worried that it’s likely to get worse for him the more he feeds into it and gets sucked into it.
At this point, the cynical side of me couldn’t help but wonder if Kath was being a bit manipulative and leaning into all the mental health stuff to maintain control of the situation.
· She seemingly is unable to give a reason for exactly why me and Emily being in her apartment makes her so uncomfortable. To me, this was completely indistinguishable from her just hating the fact that we’re together.
· All this reminds me of exactly the same kind of manipulative behavior I saw with that ex-girlfriend.
· She’s shown she has no problem with being intentionally deceptive – maybe if the entire basis of this situation hadn’t started off with Kath being manipulative she would have a bit more credibility in my eyes.
I know this kind of behavior is often not even intentional, and that it can be subconscious where the person doesn’t even realise they’re being manipulative.
(Still Mid March)
Now we get to the part that pisses me off the most in this whole situation. Only a few days after that conversation with Tom, for some reason Kath comes to stay in our apartment for the weekend while Tom was away at a house party. As in, it’s just me and Kath in my apartment.
Personally, I couldn’t imagine having the nerve to say to someone they aren’t welcome in my home because their presence triggers me, and then only a mere few days later actively choosing to go stay the weekend at their place while it’s just us two in the apartment. Like either my presence triggers you or it doesn’t?
Now to be fair, Tom had asked me a week or two beforehand if Kath could come to our apartment to hang out with someone from our friend group while he was away, and I said that was cool. Anyway, those plans fell through, but Kath still came over by herself.
But the main thing that pissed me off about this is that Tom, after knowing that I was already feeling like I was being taken for a mug in this situation, apparently didn’t even think it was worth bothering to check with me if it was still cool with me that Kath came round, given our conversation a few days prior.
If he’d at least checked in like, “I know it’s a bit weird that she’s coming to stay round by herself after having just said that your presence triggers her anxiety”, I still would’ve said okay, because I have no desire to control what anyone does. But it was just the fact he didn’t seem to care, saying “btw Kath is gonna stay here tonight” moments before leaving to his party.
To me it felt like he had spent the last month or so basically giving me instructions to make sure everyone caters to his girlfriend’s feelings, and yet didn’t give the slightest consideration to how this would make me feel. Part of me was thinking does he even see me as a friend or just as an inconvenience to his relationship at this point?
I spoke to Tom in the week following this, expressing how I had felt about Kath staying round. He did apologise and acknowledged he could’ve checked in with me, but he didn’t really seem to understand why her coming over like that was such a kick in the teeth for me. He said Kath doesn’t have a problem with me, it’s only a very specific situation that triggers her (i.e. me and Emily being in her apartment together).
Again I try to understand exactly why it’s a problem. Ever since the party, Emily’s presence in their apartment has consisted of her quietly staying in her room, quickly cooking her food and going straight back to her room. She doesn’t spend 2 hours in the kitchen making food like Kath and Tom sometimes do when he’s there.
Tom again says he doesn’t fully understand it himself. From what he understands, it’s triggering because her home is her safe space and if we’re both there it’s like there’s two hostile presences in that safe space. He reiterated that she is in a very dark place at the moment, and that she’s been having frequent panic attacks and suicidal thoughts.
Tom then says that Kath would be prepared to leave the apartment if me and Emily wanted to meet there, and Kath would basically get out of the way and come to me and Tom’s apartment instead. This did give me a bit more confidence that Kath wasn’t just purposefully making things difficult.
If Kath genuinely meant this, then of course that’s really appreciated, but I’m obviously not going to make her leave her own home and come all the way to ours to then have a 2 hour commute to her work. It’s so over the top and needless. I think that this clearly isn’t a functional solution going forward. What if one day when we want to meet up, Kath has had a long day at work and doesn’t feel like leaving her apartment (obviously, fair enough!), what if she’s got plans with friends in her apartment that evening? In any case, it’s still a situation where rules are being imposed on us, I can never just spontaneously decide to go see Emily one day after work or something. We still can’t come and go freely in the same way they have been doing for the past two months. It would be much better to understand why exactly it’s such a problem and see how we’re going to find a long-term solution, instead of Kath just running away from it.
The cynical side of me was wondering if Kath was just saying this knowing that neither me or Emily are realistically going to make her leave her own home, and if we do agree to it, then she can say “oh look how inconsiderate they are, making me leave my own home just so that they can be in the apartment”, ensuring that she keeps Tom firmly on her side.
Logically, I would’ve thought as time goes on, Kath would eventually get used to the situation and just accept it. Conversely, is it not quite understandable that the longer we have rules imposed on us, the more frustrated we become?
Once again say that I won’t go over and tell him that I won’t press this issue for the time being.
Late April
So now we get to the latest development in the situation, which is the crux of this post.
For the next month or so after that conversation with Tom, me and Emily have just been following our instructions and not pressed anything, whilst they continue coming and going as they please. One weekend we’re talking about the whole ‘Kath situation’ and we say “okay we’ve left it for a while now, it’s probably time to see how we’re going to move forward with this”.
In that next week, Emily sends Kath the following message:
“Hey, I appreciate this message might be uncomfortable but we need to discuss the fact that Jake can’t come here while you’re at home because I know that him and Tom have spoken about this but we’ve never addressed it with each other and I think it’s unfair that they’ve been largely absorbing this conflict this whole time. Can you please tell me what the exact problem would be and how we could make it work? At the end of the day we both pay equal rent here and I should be allowed to bring someone over, especially considering that Tom comes here whenever you want. We’re nothing more than just 2 housemates now and if you were living with a stranger from Spareroom such restrictions couldn’t have existed. I think I’ve let it slide and should have addressed it earlier, but it’s time we come up with a fair solution and I’d like to know if there’s anything reasonable we can do. I don’t want to go into other conversations about our fallout cause that’s done and dusted now, I want to strictly address this issue. Would you like some notice before he comes? I can’t always guarantee how far in advance I can let you know but I will do my best to give you enough time.”
Kath’s response:
“hey, I do not really appreciate this conversation being brought up 2 days before my birthday and I wish we can settle it today and not drag it on. And I do not appreciate you using Tom as a weapon to guilt trip me either. Please let me know if he is coming over tonight so that I can go somewhere else. As u probably already know I am in a really bad place at the moment and being in the apartment with both of you makes me feel very uncomfortable and unsafe. I’m already struggling to be there and I have been discussing with the agency about terminating the contract early, the terms have only been made clear to me today so I was going to message you about it. By paying a fee of £660 (£330 each) we can terminate the contract 12^th of June and I wish u will consider this. I will be gone from the apartment for 2 weeks. I would really appreciate it if you do not bring him over in the next few days as I said it will be my birthday and I will be gone for 2 weeks after if you decide to do so after this, please let me know at least 2 days in advance so that I can leave (pack clothes and everything), but do not take advantage of this as it is extremely difficult for me to commute to work – it takes me 2 hours on the bus”
Emily’s response to this:
“I don’t appreciate you using your birthday as a “weapon” to paint me as an inconsiderate person once again as you’re saying you were going to message me anyway about terminating the contract. You always have Tom round without any notice, without ever considering if it was ever uncomfortable for me given what’s happened - but now you expect me to organise our schedule around you? We can’t ever do something spontaneous or simply make plans the day before? Jake won’t be coming tonight or in the next few days until you’re away. I was hoping we could talk about why exactly this makes you uncomfortable and unsafe as it’s quite clear we wouldn’t interact with you or do anything to purposely upset/annoy you. You also had no problem being in his apartment with him without Tom there, so clearly his presence must not be that big of a problem. I am going to get back to you about terminating the contract as I have to figure out where I would go, but I’d love nothing more than to leave this apartment as early as possible too.”
There was no response after Emily’s second message.
Tom comes back to our apartment the next day and ignores me all day until the evening when he asks “Did you know that Emily was going to send those messages?”.
I say “Yes, obviously?”. He responds with “Right, okay” and starts walking back towards his room.
I ask him what was wrong with the messages, and he comes back and says “what the fuck is Emily doing sending messages like that to my suicidal girlfriend?”. He essentially thought the tone of the messages, the proximity to Kath’s birthday and the fact that we’re once again bringing up this issue of me coming round was out of order. He also said that Emily’s 2^nd message was implying that she was just going to bring me round without any notice anyway (looking at the message, no it wasn’t? It was just highlighting the unfairness of Kath expecting us to organise our schedule around her? None of the messages say that I’m going to come over, they are essentially just trying to understand exactly why it makes Kath uncomfortable).
We also did note that it was Kath’s birthday on the Friday (messages were sent on Tuesday). Maybe that wasn’t ideal, but we thought what real difference does it make? This is nothing new, it’s the same situation that’s been ongoing for the last 3 months anyway (and personally, I thought that up until the moment Kath says “okay sorry, I shouldn’t have imposed rules on you” then she shouldn’t expect that this won’t be brought up to her?).
I was a bit shocked at how angry he was and explained that we’re just trying to understand exactly what her issue is, because it still doesn’t make any sense to us. I bring up the general point about Kath imposing rules on people and expects everyone to cater to her feelings, whilst zero consideration has been given to how Emily has felt over the last 3 months, when not only does it make her uncomfortable as well that there are two “hostile presences” in her home, but especially given that those hostile presences have told her she’s not allowed to have equal use of her apartment she also pays rent for.
Tom responds with “but it’s not making Emily feel suicidal is it? Kath was having convulsions on the fucking bed last night after those messages. Why do you keep focusing on this tiny issue of coming to the apartment when my girlfriend is literally suicidal? She’s already said she’d make arrangements to leave the apartment for when you want to come over, and yet you keep pressing the issue and triggering her further”.
In that moment I was a bit taken aback and didn’t have much of a response. I kind of just sat and processed that for a few minutes, thinking “fuck, have I actually been in the wrong this whole time?”. Tom looked exhausted and stressed out, he must have been dealing with Kath’s meltdown the whole of the night before.
I say to Tom “tell Kath not to worry about me coming over while she’s there, I’m not going to, I’ll just leave it for good and won’t press this issue anymore”. Tom doesn’t give much of a response, but I think he says “I appreciate it”. He leaves for his two-week holiday shortly after.
I felt really bad that evening, thinking I had caused Tom to have to deal with whatever horrible meltdown because of me pressing this issue. Maybe I had been overly cynical of Kath, and she genuinely was just trying her best and not meaning to be manipulative.
When Tom got back from his holiday, he basically confirmed our friendship is over because I had known about those messages that caused his girlfriend to feel suicidal.
I’ve thought about the situation a lot since he left for his holiday:
· Looking back at the messages Emily sent, I think the tone is completely fine? Every single person I’ve shown the messages to has said they are actually quite kind and empathetic, and way nicer than they need to be given Kath’s behavior over the last 3 months.
· Tom’s reaction was essentially “how dare Emily have the audacity to ask for a reason why she hasn’t been allowed to have equal use of her own apartment for the last 3 months!”
· It’s true that Tom had mentioned that Kath had been having some suicidal thoughts a month prior, but I didn’t know that this would directly impact that, especially since I thought the message was quite nice and sensitive. Just the weekend before this Tom and Kath were out clubbing, having fun and they were going on holiday later that week. So obviously I didn’t realise she was still feeling so bad. How could anyone expect that simply asking the question of “why does this make you so uncomfortable” would result in this reaction.
· As soon as I did realise how intensely Kath had reacted, and what Tom had had to deal with as a result, I backed off straight away, saying that she doesn’t have to worry, I’m not going to press it anymore.
· Realistically, if this is how Kath reacts to being asked for basic fairness, then I think really she needs to be in a mental health crisis center or hospital, not just carrying on with everyday life as if everything is fine, and certainly not in a situation where she’s imposing rules on people.
· At the end of the day, Kath’s mental health is not my responsibility, nor is it Tom’s responsibility. I think it’s unfair of Kath to have made it his problem to such a large degree.
Logically, I don’t think I’m in the wrong, and yet Tom’s reaction to this makes me feel like I’m going crazy. That’s why I wrote out everything’s that’s happened from start to finish to “audit” myself and evaluate each of my actions throughout the entire situation.
I’ve looked back and don’t think I’m in the wrong for anything I’ve done. The only explanation I can think of is that Tom has been so deep in all of Kath’s mental health stuff 24/7 that he’s just not thinking clearly about this situation.

Maybe I should be grateful that I have a perfectly healthy body, but it's really hard to do so when i can't actually do everything I want with it.
Throughout my life, I've always been the bigger girl among my friends. I'm taller, I have broad shoulders, big thighs, big arms, big everything. I don't have a problem with being tall, and normally I don't have an issue with my weight either. But when I need to buy new clothes, it is hell for me. I constantly look around and see all of these pretty, small girls who can wear whatever the hell they want and they'll look great with it. They never have a problem of "will this fit me correctly". They enter whatever store they want, try on whatever dress they can and even though not every single one of them looks amazing, they still fit one way or another. Meanwhile I get to try maybe one or two pieces in each store because the others are "too small", "don't fit my boobs and are inappropriate because of it", "too short", "don't look flattering" etc. etc.
I hate not being able to enter a store and just get whatever looks cute. I hate having to look for that one specific cut just so that I will look "okay" with it. I want to be able to wear whatever I want, and I hate that every single friend of mine except me can do that easily because they were just born with the right body. I hate it all. Especially since my graduation is near and everyone is looking for clothes. Nothing fits me correctly. I hate everything I wear and can never wear the things I actually like. I hate how easy everyone else seems to choose what to wear and I have to scour every internet site and every store just to look "fine" in the end.
I hate that I don't get to have a "style" as my style is "whatever actually fits".

Here we are again in the shit stew that is the Fallowveil trailer park. We’ve got soul eating strippers, jobs that kill us, and plenty of weirdos, both the trailer trash and the potentially paranormal variety. It’s the place where even your own computer sometimes threatens to kill you. I can’t tell if I should be worried, or annoyed that all my neighbors have such irresponsible web habits. I know it’s not me that brings in all these machine wiping viruses.
So even though I got a system error that literally said “you’re useless and you should die” I’m less interested in that. Stupid thing. Like I don’t already know I’m useless. That’s not what I’m depressed about.
Well… I suppose it's tangentially related.
I hope anyone reading will forgive me. I’m feeling the sting of rejection right now. It was really stupid of me to ask. Especially now. Nobody here really likes me. They’ve only been nice to me as a courtesy because I was almost involved in a god damn shootout. And my idiot self decided that was the perfect time to push one of my few friends all the way away. Never ask your friends out on dates. It ruins everything.
So there’s this woman. I’ve talked about her in the past. Trista Ramone. She lives in the far back corner of the trailer park. You can instantly tell which unit is hers because she’s covered every square inch of the property with gardens and a rabbit hutch. The place usually has beads and colorful flags hanging on its walls as well. She’s kind of a right winger’s nightmare. I know some of those flags represent various lgbtq plus communities.
She and I have been friendly in the past. We’re both night shift workers. We crossed paths quite a bit going to and from work so we struck up a friendship over the years.
Let’s just ripped the band aid off. Recently I’ve started thinking I had… stronger feelings for Trista. I got stupid and decided to tell her about them. She wasn’t interested. I get why. We have very different lifestyles. I like meat, and she thinks the meat industry is murder. I’m not willing to give up meat, and she’s not willing to give up her beliefs. It's as simple as that. Now things are incredibly awkward with one of my closer friends and I’m still spiraling into self loathing, where I belong.
She swore up and down that she absolutely still wants to be friends with me, but I’m not sure I believe her. The look she gave me when I told her I’d like to ask her out. It looked like sadness, but a small part of me is convinced it was pity, or worse, disgust and loathing, and that small part gave me ever shuts the fuck up. But anyway, she gave me permission to write about her.
She is one of the creepy fixtures of our little neighborhood after all. She told me to make her seem as insane and scary as I possibly could and that she should get to kill me at the end. She also handed me a few of her high school yearbooks, advised me to chat with another neighbor of ours who she went to school with, and to only use creepy rumors for the rest.
Part of me is really willing to describe her as awful, but that’s just my anger. I don’t like that part of me. Trista’s not a bad person at all. She’s just weird and she doesn’t want to date me. God damn it, Petunia’s right. I need therapy.
So, I’ve told the story of the sexy, scary lady living in a polycule here in the trailer park. I think she’s got a bigger heart than she lets on. I’ve talked about the stories surrounding the Schroeder Slaughterhouse. Now let’s talk about the hippy everyone thinks is a vampire.
She’s a taller woman, maybe five-seven or eight, and she’s skinny. Her typical wardrobe is… interesting. Try to imagine your typical new-age hippy/stoner girl, wearing colorful sarongs, crop-tops, beanies, baggy sweaters, T-shirts with colorful sayings on them, sandals, boots woven from some sort of exotic plant, beaded necklaces, bracelets, a few too many piercings and some intricate tattoos. Can you picture that kind of person? Well, take that and dip them in “goth” dye. Everything is black, and contrasts to her pale white complexion, her eyes are this unusual violet color, and then make the woman wearing all that seem kind of depressed about something. That’s the look Trista has going on. Like if Wednesday Addams was forced to dress up for Hippy Day.
I’ve heard people call her an emo vampire, but as a former emo myself, she doesn’t fill out all the criteria. She doesn’t typically wear any super tight pants or cake on the eyeshadow. I guess she’s just Trista. It might sound weird (and it is) but the whole thing suits her. Her style, tattoos, and complexion all create this image of skinny vampiric waif with a mysterious past and a freaky sarcastic attitude and I found the whole thing… kinda hot.
Trista keeps to herself. She’s made the most out of her little corner of the trailer park. Like I said, she decked out her unit with garden squares, and a Rabbit pen. No idea why she’s allowed to do that. A lot of these places don’t allow pets. I heard she was also trying to put in a beehive too, but her neighbors are fighting her on that one. Our park is a bit too condensed for bees. She has a permit to grow hemp, but of course it’s not for recreational use. She treats it and uses it to weave things like handbags, clothes, and other stuff. There’s a consignment store in town that sells all kinds of things Trista has crafted herself. So she’s handy and self sufficient too. She paints, she carves wood, she weaves, she crochets, she sews, and who knows what else. She’s so good at her little crafts that apparently she’s able to support herself just selling them and working part time at the Moonlight Inn outside of town.
She’s also relatively friendly. I almost feel bad calling her weird, but here’s the thing, I’ve seen some REALLY weird shit. People jokingly call her a vampire, and she seems to embrace that, but part of me seriously wonders. The big clue is, like I mentioned, she’s completely nocturnal. She’s always asleep during the day, and every blind and curtain is drawn tight. The one time she came out during the day, she had on this full body suit with a helmet with UV glass and everything. Even then, she only showed up to give Petunia a hug, before leaving again.
That was the first time I saw Trista, come to think of it. I was kind of intrigued. It was kind of hard not to be when someone shows up to a community cookout in a freaking astronaut suit. I approached Petunia after she left.
“Who the heck was that?” I wondered.
“MASON! I’m so glad you could make it! You’ve been here about three months now! How’d that job interview go?”
“Oh. It went well. I might be doing janitorial work soon.”
“Night shift?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure.”
“If it’s the night shift, you’ll definitely meet the person who just left. That’s Trista. She’s the girl with the rabbits in the far corner. Poor girl. She’s got a really bad skin condition. Can’t let sunlight touch her.”
“Oh. Is she like… albino or something?”
“No, she’s got pigment. I don’t remember what the condition is called. I guess it started in high school or something. You’d have to ask her. And hey! If you work the night shift, you’ll probably get to chat with her!”
Petunia wasn’t wrong. I started working as a nighttime janitor for a number of local businesses. That was when I first started noticing the pale goth hippy. She rides around on a moped, with her dark hair and her sarong barely billowing behind her. I couldn’t see her face through the helmet, but she waved to me as she passed by.
The next time I saw her, she was jogging, but here’s where it gets weird. When I first stepped outside, all I saw was a blur. It actually startled me as I whipped toward it, but then there was this skinny tattooed pixie, somehow still looking like a stonehippy/vampire in jogging gear. I swear she was moving inhumanly fast when I first noticed her. That was when we introduced ourselves. She actually jogged over to say hello.
“Hey! You’re the new guy right?”
“Oh, uh, yeah. My name’s Mason!” I reached out to shake the pretty girl’s hand, like an awkward loser. She smirked and shook my hand. Her grip was weirdly strong, and a bit cold.
“I’m Trista. I’m the weirdo in the back with the rabbits.”
“Trista… oh, are you the one who has a thing with sunlight? I think Petunia mentioned you.”
“Yup! That’s me. Xerodoma pigmentosum. Sunlight hurts. I hate that it hurts.” She lamented.
“That’s gotta be rough,” I said sympathetically.
“You get used to it. You work at night?”
“Yeah. Works better for me.”
“I get that.”
And so on and so on. She’s pretty cool, with a bit of hilarious snark in there. And she secretly procured recreational weed she was willing to share. I kept working the night shift just hoping for another chance to talk to her and possibly buy a joint. Eventually she invited me over to share a joint. The inside of her place was actually pretty sparse and spartan compared to the outside. Though she was a fan of hanging beads. Most of the main room was taken up by her various crafting projects and supplies. Hemp weaves, some paintings, and even a wood carving of what I think was a rabbit, but it wasn’t anywhere near complete.
I followed her to her kitchen where she reached into the very back of her pantry and pulled out a shoebox. Inside was her stash, but there was something else which I found very strange. It was a pack of syringes and a thing I assume is to sterilize syringes. I know what you’re thinking, and that was my first thought too. It’s a poor neighborhood, the woman already smokes weed illegally, it’s not that big a shock that maybe she was involved in other drugs too. I decided not to ask at the time. We shared our joint, and we laughed, a lot. She made fun of me for being a lightweight, while I got completely hypnotized staring at the patterns of a shawl she had woven.
Months went by and we got closer, but I couldn’t forget those syringes. After a while I got worried. I’ve seen what heroine does to people. So the next time I went over to smoke and eat (vegan) pizza with her, I asked.
“Trista? Are you using anything other than weed?”
“Drugs?”
“Yeah.”
“No. Why?”
“You can tell me if you are.”
“Mason, sweetheart, I’m a stoner. I don’t fuck around with anything else and I never have.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Okay. Can I ask what that set of syringes are for?”
“Oh. In my stash box? Those are… part of my condition. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh. Is it like… embarrassing?”
“Yeah. So don’t ask. Can we just watch a movie?”
So I don't ask anymore. But I still have no idea what she does with those syringes. Based on what I read about that Xerodoma Pigmentosum thing she says she has, I have no clue what she would need to inject herself with.
Another time she asked me to check on her rabbits for her during the day, as her usual “sitter” had something come up. All I had to do was chop up the lettuce and carrots she left out. As I was enjoying the adorable fluffy faces, one of Trista’s neighbors, a woman named Bridget, poked her head outside her door.
“Hey. Do you know what Trista injects those rabbits with?”
“I… what?”
“I’ve seen her use syringes on those rabbits. She said she was just giving them medicine, but I swear I see her inject them every week.”
“I… I wouldn't know. She just asked me to feed them.”
“I love Trista, but that always seemed so weird. She has to know vaccines are a hoax!” I tuned the woman out after that one. My mind was on that set of syringes. Why would she be using them on rabbits? These things were her pets.
I was starting to crush on her by then. But I couldn’t help feeling weirded out by that. I was actually going to confront her, but the next time I came to visit, she was literally inside the Rabbit hutch, on her back, squealing with delight as her rabbit friends nuzzled and played with her.
“Bonnibelle! That tickles! Marcy! No chewing. Finn? Watch where you’re sticking that foot! Jake? Where are you? EEEEE Lumpy! Not the neck!”
It was as silly and adorable as it sounds. She was forced to whip herself upright when two of her little friends tried to burrow under her dress. She finally stood up with a laugh, cradling a rabbit in her arms and cooing at it.
There was just no way in hell this woman was doing anything that would hurt these animals. Bridget is a paranoid antivax weirdo anyway. If Trista was using syringes on the rabbits, I was convinced it was only for their benefit.
So life went on. I got more and more reclusive over the years. Petunia, Trista, and my next door neighbor Fred were the only things keeping me remotely connected to the outside. And so we get to now. So let’s see. What are the stories about the weird vampire woman?
Well, there’s the fact that she jogs at night, solo, in a poor neighborhood. Petunia keeps the shitty people contained and behaving for the most part, but I still wouldn’t exactly call it safe, especially for a young skinny woman. But she does it without a care in the world.
There’s one strange event that some people like to connect to this. I never knew this guy, but from what I hear he was a total weirdo who leered at anyone even remotely female. And this is despite the fact he was married. His name was Josh.
I remember him a bit. He’s the guy that Petunia chased away from one of her barbecues. Supposedly he was heard saying inappropriate things to the groups of ten year old girls that were playing in the bounce house Petunia rented. Telling them how pretty they were. Trying to coax them to take off their jackets. Police reports were filed but ultimately nothing could be proven. The guy's wife, Carole, always defends him for some reason.
But anyway, I remember hanging out with Trista one night a little over a year ago. She hadn’t gone jogging like she normally did. I asked her what was up with that.
“That weirdo, Josh has started catcalling when I pass his place. It weirds me out.”
“There aren’t other people who do that at night? I’m still shocked you jog alone.”
“Not like this. I can flip off a wolf whistler. But this guy… he keeps trying to get me to stop and talk to him, and when I don’t? He shouts about my ass. I’m gonna have to talk to Petunia about that shithead, if anybody can reign him in, it’s her.”
I’m gonna guess she never got a chance. Two days later, the whole town was awoken by sirens. I was getting ready for my shift when I heard them. I walked down the road a bit to see if I could figure out what was going on. The cops were heading toward the other side of the park, so I couldn’t see much. But I did notice Trista, in her jogging gear, skulking in the shadows. I wondered if she was in trouble. But before I could call out to her, she sprinted straight to Petunia's house and banged on the door. Petunia welcomed her inside, and that was all I saw. I still wasn’t sure what was going on, so I just shrugged and headed to work, figuring I’d text Trista later.
I didn’t learn till later that Josh was found dead. He was lying prone, face down, partly hidden by bushes at the edge of the park. His neck was cut open. He’d bled out rapidly. He had a knife in his hand, and officially it’s believed he fell on it and accidentally killed himself. There was a cocktail of drugs in his system so most people accept that explanation. But others swear they saw Trista out for her jog around the same time Josh would have been bleeding to death. She got questioned, and she swore she didn’t see anything. Without evidence, there was nothing else that could be proven.
Trista’s a friend. I know that guy was being creepy to her. So I’m happy to take her word for what happened, even if my seeing her going to Petunia’s pokes a bit of a hole in that. I can’t be sure it was Trista though. So I’m not saying a word. But if a certain creep attacked a certain lady who is rumored to be a vampire, it’s not that surprising to me that he ended up dead after bleeding to death. I’m not all that broken up about it.
I’m not the one spreading that story. Josh’s wife was the one who started the rumor. So now some people are even more convinced that the weird nocturnal hippy chick is secretly a vampire.
She’s no killer. No matter what they say. She would only have defended herself.
So that’s all the stories I’ve heard that have any credibility to them. There’s more people who swear she and Petunia perform weird rituals, and people who saw her moving “inhumanly fast” and such.
But now I have to share what I found in the yearbooks Trista gave me. I wasn’t really expecting much. I checked her senior yearbook out first. She looks about the same. Pale, goth, hippy, and sort of sad. She kind of looks even sadder in these photos if I’m being honest, but that’s high school for you. She graduated in the top half of her class, no sports or extracurriculars. I’m left wondering how she managed to go to school at the time of sun was so bad for her. I’ll have to ask her about that. So nothing really new there.
It was the yearbook from her junior year where things got really interesting. I was in shock when I found her. Trista is somehow impossible to miss, but unrecognizable all at once. She’s full of color! She wore more typical tie dye hippy attire. Bright vibrant pinks, reds, blues, greens, and yellows, in every photo, and holy shit was she busy. Captain of the soccer team, first chair flutist, president of the “green living” club and the “vegan alliance,” top ten in her class, it was all incredible. I think the main reason I didn’t recognize her was her skin. It was tan, as though she were out in the sun a lot. Furthermore there were photos of her playing sports and standing outside in bright sunlight.
It was like her disease wasn’t there, which confused me. She told me it was something called Xeroderma Pigmentosa. But that’s a genetic condition. She would have had that from birth.
I sent her a text, wondering about this.
- Hey! Just went through your yearbooks. What happened? You had color? Did you discover Linkin Park?
- My disease happened. Right at the end of Jr. year. That’s why I wasn’t there for the final class photo.
- But your disease is genetic… isn’t it?
- I guess it was dormant in me.
- So it just… happened?
- Pretty much.
- I’m sorry.
- I got over it. Mostly. It was hard. My parents were both hardcore vegan naturalists and we lived in a place that was all natural light and such, so I had to live in a shed for a bit while they built a space for me. But in my family? We kinda lean into whatever life throws at us. It took months of depression to come to terms with it. All of a sudden I couldn’t be out in the sun, and I had new dietary needs that absolutely required non-vegan sources. So I leaned into it. I was a vampire now. I can dig dark colors and “vampire style.” I could make it my own by avoiding leather. And I’d be as vegan as I possibly could.
- You’re kind of awesome.
- Damn straight. So I learned to love the night too and now, here I am.
I gained new respect for her after that. Frankly I feel kinda shitty about making fun of her for being a vampire. There might not be anything paranormally weird about her after all.
She sent me one more text telling me I should talk to a guy named Frankie. She’d gone to school with him. He’s a decent enough guy. Works in the Bicounty mall in town.
I had to wait a day or two for another of Petunia’s get togethers to talk to him.
“Hey!” I said awkwardly as I tried to figure out how to strike up conversation with someone I haven’t really spoken to in a long time. “Frankie, right?”
“Oh. Yeah. Been a while. How are you Mason? You okay after that whole thing at Red Nights?”
“I’m trying to be. Look, I’ll cut to the chase. You went to school with Trista Ramone, right?”
“Ol’ Boho Ramone? Yeah. We were sort of friendly. But I was a jerk to vegans back then. Why do you ask?”
“I’ve been hanging out with her. She’s being all mysterious.” He chuckled at that. “She said I should talk to you to learn more about her… weirdness? Everyone thinks she’s a vampire now.”
“She’s totally a vampire. I have no idea what else to call her?”
“Why do you say that?”
“What did she tell you about school?”
“Nothing. She just showed me two yearbooks. Between Junior and Senior year she went from colorful club president, to lonely vampire, because of her disease.”
“Nah man. I don’t want to talk bad about her. But she was kind of a bitch, junior year. She wasn’t just a colorful vegan. She was one of those “holier than thou” types who scoffed and talked down to anyone who dared to eat meat. Her “hippy” thing meant she never hung out with the popular girls but still, she acted like she owned the place at times. I was friends with this weird guy named Steven Jones. He was just kind of a weirdo. Skulking around in the background, you know? He HATED Trista. For a while I totally understood. I thought she was kinda stuck up. But this guy was like… irrationally enraged by that girl’s existence. I guess he tried to ask her out when he was a freshman and she politely declined. But he took that shit personally.”
“Huh. So like… why’s that matter?”
“Because Steven kept saying to anyone who gave him a second look, that he was gonna ‘ruin’ her. Never elaborated. But then the last month of school rolls around, Trista gets assaulted by an unknown assailant and a week later she’s got this new disease. Meanwhile, Steven spent a week strutting around the school looking smug, and saying ‘she got what she deserved.’ Then he disappears too. Teachers said he moved away.”
“She was assaulted?”
“Yeah. Someone in a face wrap tackled her while she was at one of her protests at the meat factory. The dude freaking BIT her.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. I was there. I came to the protest. I’ll admit I was trying to hit on Trista or one of the other girls there. But yeah. Dude dressed in all gray with a face wrap just charged in and went right for Trista. Knocked her down, bit her like a freaking zombie, then ran away before anyone could stop him. Didn’t even take his face wrap off. It was freaky, man.”
“What the actual fuck.”
“That’s what we all said. Trista needed a stitch. But while she was at the hospital, I guess she started getting more symptoms. She was out for the rest of the year. From then on, she was like she is now. Total vampire.”
“Was Steven a vampire?”
“I dunno. Probably. Little dickhead is what he is. Must have been him that attacked Trista, but nobody could prove it. Bite mark didn’t match or something. So why are you asking? You hang out with her at night right? You asking her out or something?”
“Oh. No. Just a friend.”
That was all I really learned from Frankie. It’s quite a story, and it’s full of unknowns that Trista refuses to explain. So I guess I’ll let readers be the judge. Is she a “real” vampire? Or just a weirdo? All I know is, she’s totally standing behind me right now and now I’m dead. Bleh.
I did come back to life to talk to Trista once I finished writing this. She enjoyed it. I may as well include that interaction.
I went to her place on my night off. She read my take on her and what the neighbors thought and she grinned. “Ha! I’m a total monster!” She chuckled. “So. What do YOU think, Mason? Am I a vampire?” She cocked an eye and playfully gnashes her teeth at me, making a pleasant little click.
I sighed. “No idea. You’re Trista. And… you’re my friend. I’m sorry if I made things awkward.”
She looked surprised by that. “Aw. Thanks Mason. You’re my friend too. It’s okay. I’m flattered.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“So we’re cool?”
“Absolutely not. We’re both weird shut ins.” She laughed. It was good to hear her laugh. It made me happy.
“Yeah but I got the ‘mysterious vampire’ thing going.”
“You have dirt in your hair from rolling around with bunnies. And you’re a vegan.”
“Bite me.”
“Says the vampire.”
“You know, if I were a vampire, I could have bitten you when we both went to the slaughterhouses a few weeks ago.”
“That just makes me stupid.”
“You’re not stupid, Mason. You’re not a loser either.”
“So. You know of any other good spooky town stories that I can do next?
“Oh, sure. You ever heard the tale of Salome? She was a witch who would mash up the seeds of a Sinapis Alba plant to make a diabolical potion she’d dump on herself. They called her the ‘Witch of the Sands.’”
I’m embarrassed to admit it took me four days to realize Trista was just fucking with me. I only figured it out when I looked up Sinapis Alba and learned that mashing the seeds just makes mustard. “Salomi the sand-witch.” Well played, vampire hippy…
Sexy Neighbor
Haunted Slaughterhouse

From my mid to late teens I was all sorts of fucked up. I was newly diagnosed with BPD, addicted to pills, had an eating disorder, was hooking up with multiple strangers a night, self harming daily, shoplifting a ton, I had just met my first ever FP and was generally just living terribly.
I was of course super miserable during this time, but under the misery it was also fun? Or exciting maybe? There was something that I absolutely loved about living that way and I miss it every single day.
My life looks a lot different now. Now I have a job and a partner that I’ve been with for years. I’m clean from drugs and self harm and my BPD symptoms aren’t very prevalent anymore most times. I haven’t been able to kick the ED though and I will acknowledge that it’s probably adding to my misery a lot.
For years, pretty much since I got clean, I’ve been missing how things used to be so much. I am so bored of life. I’m bored of waking up every day just to go do a job that I hate, come home, eat dinner, go to bed, and do it all again the next day. It’s depressing. At least when I was on drugs I could get high and feel better whenever I wanted. I would give anything to feel like I did when I was 17 again. I had coping strategies that actually worked, even if they were hurting me physically, they made me feel better emotionally. I don’t get to feel good emotionally now.
I also really miss the people who were in my life at the time. I met my first FP about 6 months before I got diagnosed with BPD, and of course, I thought I was in love with him. To make it even better for my attention starved teenage self, he was an older guy who also struggled with sh, suicidal ideation, and drug addiction.
Our disorders fed off each other and even though it wasn’t healthy for either of us he was my best friend in the world for a few years, it felt like whatever I went through he’d always be there and I was there for him. He even knew how hopelessly in love with him I was, and he didn’t mind. He made it clear to me nothing would ever happen because I was a minor and he was an adult, and nothing weird or sexual ever did happen, but even knowing that a fucked up teenage girl like me had a huge crush on him, he was still there for me, he was still my best friend, and he never made me feel bad or embarrassed about any of it.
We don’t talk anymore, and I know I didn’t actually love him it was just infatuation, but he was honestly the best friend I ever had and I think I’ll miss him forever. A part of me even wonders if I want to get back into my old habits just to feel close to him again.

Alright so let me get down to it, I am 14 he is 15 and I have liked him since early March but have never spoken to him at this point only once in our design technology class we used to have together. Over the easter break he added me on snapchat and instagram and we have been talking everyday without fail non stop, over the easter break i was in japan with family so there was a time difference but we adjusted to it for the 2 weeks i was there. He'd ask me to send him daily vlogs of everything i'd do there and just to spam him so when he wakes up he has something to wake up to pretty much. Within the first day of us talking he had already started making silly jokes, my friend had said something funny so i put it on my instagram story and he replied to my text saying "oh just go text __" with a rolling eyes emoji as a joke. We had also talked about birthdays and I mentioned how his is in my calendar and notes and he said he knows mine too and called me cute when i said i have it in my notes. We have a mutual friend who had hinted to him to start talking to me and be my friend because i was too shy to and this friend had asked him within 3 days of me and him being friends if he likes me, he asked "does she like me (implying me) or does she like like me because i wouldnt mind either" he said he wasnt sure if he liked me or not because it was too early. Our mutual friend would tell me he would always say "oh we are young and theres no point of dating at this age" since he had one girlfriend previously and he is over it but is just tired of getting played with pretty much. Fast forward me and him and our friend made plans to go out together in London but she couldn't make it so it was just me and him, nothing was awkward when we met up we hugged and got on with it. He held doors open for ,e offered to pay for my stuff, offered me his food because I hardly bought anything (I don't enjoy KFC that much but he wanted to go so we did), we went to an art gallery together, he suggested we go on London eye together and if you don't know what that is it's pretty much a big ferris wheel. We were at a bus stop together this same day and we were talking about our favourite games pretty much getting to know eachother face to face and we held eye contact through the whole thing and we were both smiling. When we were going home on the train he asked me to sit opposite him which I was confused why and he wouldn't tell me why but I'm assuming it was to look at me because he didn't have a problem with sitting next to me at all. We were out until sunset pretty much 8 hours and we hugged when we went home and oh my god his fragrance was SO strong but smelt SO good and it stayed on me even when I was home. Anyway skipping forward to when we were back to school, I made him a gift basket with stuff from Japan and I gave it to him and he hugged me infront of all his friends and sent me videos of him opening everything and he was super happy with it. I told him the night before I was so so scared to give him it because what if he didn't like it and he told me he'd love it no matter what, i also mentioned how i tried my best with it and he said cute. We have matching bracelets which I suggested and he was fine with me getting them from japan for us, we have been wearing them everyday pretty much and everyone at school thinks we are dating. Now, the bracelets I bought from japan he complained it was quite tight on his wrist so I ordered us new ones, they are spiderman themed ones gwen and miles with a half heart magnet on each so when you put them together it makes a full heart. I gave it to him around 3 weeks ago and he was so happy with it, he walked past me and i said he looks zesty as a joke and he laughed and told me to shut up but said thank you once again. We play games together all the time and our main thing is roblox horror games we both adore them and it's so fun playing them with him and pretty much everyone teases us at school about eachother. Anyway, 2 weeks ago I got a dm from a girl at my school asking for my snap as she wanted to tell me something, in summary she accused him of taking his bracelet off around his friends and saying he was talking to other girls to cover up the fact he was talking to me pretty much embarrassed of me. I sobbed my eyes out and texted him asking to talk, he said sure and I expected him to text me but he ended up calling me, I talked to him about all this and he was shocked and proved it all false, at this point we had been wearing our 2nd pair of bracelets since he complained about the other but 1 day he forgot it at his dads house so we didn't have it that day. He said to prove to me he never takes it off he's going to wear the bracelet that is tight on his wrist and I thought it was so so sweet, we were on facetime for so long and his mum ended up inviting me over to their house and i of course went. Later that night I texted him saying i'm getting mixed signals off him and I kinda played it off as "oh we are friends and im scared u like me" so he said no he doesnt but i wanna think its because of the way i worded it, moving on i met up with him last period and our other friend pretended to drop me off and he said "heres your girlfriend __" and he said "ah thanks __" basically not flinching to me being called his girlfriend, we walked together and at this point i am also friends with his sister. We were walking and we went to his room, he let me do his makeup and he downloaded my favourite game (Final Fantasy 7) to play since I was there and we played a bit together, we played some minecraft too and it was hillarious and a roblox single player horror. I know it sounds childish but i really love these things, we ate dinner in his room and I also noticed he had a shelf dedicated to the gift basket i made him, literally nothing on that shelf but the stuff i bought him which was so cute. He also has a shelf dedicated to fragrances and he got me to pick my favourite and coincidentally was the one he wore when we went out together and i told him how it stayed on me all day and he said "good that means its good". Then I had to go home, I was at his home pretty much for 3 hours and I had to go since he had rugby, anyway when I was leaving I gave him a hug and I felt silly so i tightened it slightly and I felt him do it back which made me really happy, I said bye and walked down the stairs and I could hear it took a while for him to close the door which made me think he watched me walk downstairs and my theory was proven right when he texted me after saying how nice my mums car is. I texted him after thank you so much for having me over and he said i need to come over again and we said he could come around mine next time. Later that day I posted some pics I took on my story which he was fine with as he viewed them and didn't say anything. The next day he texted me during last period asking if i could take some specific ones down as his entire class was pretty much teasing him and he got tired of it, he usually doesn't care what others think about us and has literally told me that before himself but I completely understood as it was pretty much his whole class so of course I did and he said he didn't want people to think we're dating, I apologized profusely and things were back to normal, the day after I get a text from my friend and she asked if he was texting me during last period the day prior and i said yes how did u know and she said he had a baby smile on his face which made me happy. Anyway, since then it has just been pretty much mixed signals he said we should go ice skating together because i mentioned i never have and we are also planning to go painting in the park together next week. Earlier this week I think Tuesday? I curled my hair and i sent him a snap of it as we were planning to play together and he replied to it saying "Woah" and i asked what do u mean woah as i didnt know what snap he was replying to, we got on a ps party and i kept pestering him to tell me why he said that and he was making excuses saying he replied to my story but it showed up as snap and basically just getting nervous and bothered until he finally said "your hair looked very nice" he also complimented my necklace last week and i have only been wearing that and whenever he sees it he comments on it which makes me smile. On the Tuesday he also remembered what times I had my tutor so we planed when we could play which i thought was really sweet too. On Monday I sent him a lot of videos of me yapping and i said sorry for the spam at the end and he said "wdym sorry for the spam yap all u want" so then Wednesday or Tuesday I can't remember which, I literally sent him over an hours worth of videos I'm NOT exaggerating and it was of me literally just talking and he watched every single one and replied to them too and even saved some in our chats, he has tendencies to save random pics and vids of me in our chat. Today he was meant to do district sports for our school so he didn't wear his bracelet as he didn't want to break it but then last minute they said he couldn't go and i went to his form / homeroom and checked up on him and he genuinely looked upset which almost made me cry and i wanted to hug him so bad but everyone was there and i didnt know if he'd be okay with it so throughout today i've literally been sending him videos and texts to make sure he's okay now i'm just waiting on a reply. his replies are SHIT literally all his friends and his ex say this too so its not just a me thing. also is it a good sign if he introduced me to all his friends? over the weekend i was in a ps party with him and 3 others for like 2 days! He's generally a really friendly person nobody dislikes but I also think he likes me and literally everyone i tell about this says he does! I don't know tho because i really really really like this guy hes the first guy ive ever actually liked so i dont know what to do now :( Does he like me?!
EDIT: I also forgot to mention we hung out together at school on monday and he was fine with me grabbing his wrists and dragging him around :D ! We also walked past eachother yesterday and he was smiling really hard when he saw me and went "eww" as a joke because we do that to eachother and i just went "eww shut up" back while giggling

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A lapdog's brainless zeal

The Entourage! Whence comes¹ such creatures so eager to abandon all pretense of the sedentary? One envisages haste of blubbering excitement, slippery gleam in the eye, a lapdog’s brainless zeal, as a canvas bag is stuffed full of slips and whatnot, with all the grace of a fakir backstage moments before performing before a gouty king. A whirlwind rush through rooms like shrines, and then out!

We get Flicker dropping back into his more heightened style, starting off with a declamation. Remember how we ended the last section

He would unveil himself in Farrog, and then they would all see. Calap Roud, that stunning watery-eyed dancer, Purse Snippet, and the Entourage too—

So this is very much an interruption. Previously we had Flicker placing himself inside Brash's head, until he mentions the Entourage, at which point he switches completely and breaks out into this much more heightened description.
Flicker is back in his picture-painting mode as well, as he imagines the backgrounds of these girls. The first sentence is posed as a question, but is really more of a statement. I love the phrase "abandon all pretense of the sedentary". They were clearly from a wealthy background, living a carefree life before, but now they've chosen to drop it all to follow (in this instance literally follow) their favorite artist.
He imagines the scenario surrounding their departure, with the "blubbering excitement", a "slippery gleam in the eye", and of course "a lapdog's brainless zeal". I'm curious about the "slippery" descriptor there. Especially when paired with the lapdog comment, it calls to mind a dog skidding and sliding on a slippery floor as they're completely unable to contain their excitement. Does anyone have a different reading?
Then they stuff a canvas bag full of slips (as in the clothing, not as in paper slips) and "whatnot", showing how they're clearly not thinking this through, but rather just throwing things in their bag and running out the door. I love the comparison to the fakir. First of all, it hearkens back to the Arabian Nights inspiration, while also giving us the image of a fakir rushing to get ready for his act, but more important is how it works as a metaphor.
The Entourage (who as we will soon learn are all young women) are here posed as a performer, performing in front of an old, fat, wealthy man. It really spotlights the power imbalance between them and their idol. Then we end the paragraph on a sentence that I'm having a really hard time figuring out. What is the significance of the rooms being like shrines? Shrines are (definitionally) places of worship. So it's like they're rushing past these places intended for worship in order to worship their idol, perhaps implying that it would have been more productive to stay and worship a real god. But these aren't shrines, but rather rooms like shrines, so it would be a worship of the home or something in that direction. I don't think this would imply a worship of domesticity, the metaphor is not fleshed out enough for that. I think it's simply saying that they should rather try to stay connected to their roots. I must say I'm not fully convinced by this reading. What do you all think?

Holding up a mirror

Pattering feet, a trio, all converging in unsightly gallop quick to feminize into a skip and prance once He Who Is Worshipped is in sight. The Entourage accompanies the Perfect Artist everywhere, gatherings great and small, public and intimate. They build the walls of the formidable, impregnable keep that is the Perfect Artist’s ego. They patrol the moat, flinging away all but the sweetest defecatory intimations of mortality. They stand sentinel in every postern gate, they gush down every sluice, they are the stained glass to paint rainbows upon their beloved’s perfectly turned profile.

I absolutely love this image we get here of these three girls "converging in unsightly gallop" with their "pattering feet". It's juxtaposing two images, one dainty and the other the exact opposite. If you've seen one of those videos of cows being released out to pasture after the winter, that's basically what I'm picturing. But as soon as they're in the presence of their idol they switch into an exaggeratedly feminine gait.
Then there's the intentionally vague description of their idol. We don't get the name, but he's called He Who Is Worshipped and the Perfect Artist. This is a reminder that we're not talking about particulars, but rather the general case, in particular how people behave in real life fandoms. Let's examine the rest of this paragraph while keeping in mind that this is Erikson is holding up a mirror to us. And you thought you were safe?
The Entourage is always where their artist is. I think this is especially true in the modern day where fans have practically unlimited access to their favourite artists. And they act as defenders of their artist, and notice how at no point here we get any sense that this Perfect Artist asked for any such thing. They build up their own unassailable version of their artist, and then dismiss any criticism except the most basic, toothless ones.
Finally we get these three statements, two quick ones, and a longer one. They "stand sentinel..." is essentially a continuation of the previous sentence. Then they "gush down every sluice". This is a strange turn of phrase to say the least. A sluice is of course a sort of water channel, and since we're in this castle metaphor, it's likely meant as a preventative measure against flooding. But it's not water that's the risk here, but the gushing of the fans.
And lastly they are the stained glass windows that "paint rainbows" on their idol (with a nice alliteration on perfectly and profile). I really like this one. They are not only viewing their idol through rose-tinted glass, but they have made themselves a piece of stained glass, that colors the artist in every color of the rainbow. They are creating a false, or at least exaggerated, image of the artist, and projecting that image to others as well. I think this whole description really mirrors how fanatically devoted some people can get around their favorite artist, and I don't think we should exclude ourselves from this.

Let's back up a little

But let us not snick and snack overmuch, for each life is a wonder unto itself, and neither contempt nor pity do a soul sound measures of health, lest some issue of envy squeeze free in unexpectedly public revelation. The object of this breathless admiration must wait for each sweet woman’s moment upon the stage in the bull’s eye lantern light of our examination.

Flicker yet again addresses the audience directly. The phrase "snick and snack" here is interesting. A snick can of course be a small cut, and there's definitely been enough of those so far. I think the snack is not intended to have a semantic meaning, but is rather intended to complement the onomatopoeic sound of snick. The word "overmuch" is also doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Some snicking and snacking is fine, but let's not get carried away.
The "each life is a wonder..." part is hilarious. This is definitely an example of overpraising, where Flicker uses hyperbolic language while implying a much more subdued meaning. He's now spent two whole paragraphs detailing how ridiculous and vapid the Entourage is, but now he's all "oh the miracle of life etc. etc." So even when he's talking about how he should stop mocking them, he continues the mockery. Absolutely savage.
He then encourages us to not view them with pity or contempt. Possibly because it would be condescending to do so. Certainly nobody likes being viewed that way, and Flicker claims that it is at best unhelpful to take those attitudes. I am a bit confused, however, about the mention of envy. Is Flicker saying that he is envious of them? Or is he warning us to not be envious? Is there a risk, when expressing pity or contempt, of appearing envious? Are the Entourage themselves envious when we do that? I admit I'm kind of lost here. What do you think?
Flicker ends by calling attention to the fact that we haven't really discussed the Entourage's Perfect Artist at all. He's been this remote figure this whole time, almost irrelevant to the conduct of his fans. Note also how he's called an "object". That word has been used once before in this story, and it was to describe the way Purse Snippet was viewed by Calap Roud. This is not an accident. FlickeErikson is saying that the way the Entourage views their Perfect Artist is not entirely dissimilar to the way Calap Roud, a disgusting old pervert, leers at a much younger woman. Again, this is not lust for the artist themself, but rather for the godlike image that the fans have constructed of the artist.
And before we can know that artist, we are going to be introduced to these three young women, each more ridiculous than the last, before we get to their Perfect Artist. Indeed, they must suffer the "bull's eye lantern light of our examination". This is a great description of what Flicker has been doing so far with his ruthless introduction. He also doesn't call it an interrogation or even a description. No, he's simply examining each of these characters, down to their core².
And that does it for this week's post. Next time we'll be discussing Sellup, the oldest member of the Entourage. See you all next week!
¹ I don't know exactly what to do with this seeming error. It strikes me as an editing artifact. That is, Erikson originally wrote this sentence differently, then changed the wording but forgot to change the whole sentence.
² And it's worth remembering that he may well be making all of this up.

So there was this cute girl I saw 4 days back who gave comedk in Sarita vihar and was sitting right opposite to me. I don't know if she noticed me then but today after I gave my cuet exam i again saw her in Rohini west mall, she was with her dad so I didn't approach her.
Guess what when I moved on to my metro and got off to change my line she was again there walking right besides me and then again we had the same coach in the next metro. I know she did notice me enough cause when she left the metro she turned back but it was too late
I was the guy wearing black batmans tshirt today and you were in blue oversized clothes. Couldn't approach you then due to your dad honestly but if you do wanna connect then hmu
TLDR: saw girl who gave comedk exam with me today but couldn't approach due to her dad despite numerous chances ong :( trying to find her now

I’ve done something that might probably ruin the future, at least it did so with mine.
I am Liam, a university graduate specializing in Data Structures, AI, Machine Learning, and Algorithms. I’ve had a keen interest in the domain for as long as I can remember, ever since my father introduced me to a computer back when he had just bought one.
Not just the domain as it stands, but also movies, philosophy of automated things, sci-fi stories related to robots and AI, that sort of stuff. I have watched nearly everything with robots in it, from the Andriods in Dargon Ball to the AI assistant in Interstellar, I saw it all.
But my friend and dorm roommate, Henry, had introduced me to something that I had never seen before. Stories of dangerous AI that would wipe out humanity aren’t new to me, in fact, they’re my favorite genre. Terminator, I Robot, and even GLaDOS from Portal.
However, he introduced me to a book this time, an old sci-fi story from the '60s, called ‘I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream’. The rogue AI in it, AM, was haunting beyond anything I have seen. The concept of an angry AI that became sentient in all the horrible ways and felt rage against humanity was never the more chilling. It made me think, what if we really gave sentience to an AI along with intelligence?
“Shit, that’s wicked.” I remember giggling as I looked over at Henry, “What if we build our own sentient AI?”
It was the worst question you could possibly ask at the time, but Henry understood me. Rogue AI was a chilling concept, but we still wanted to make our own AI. Not the cheap kind made with a few hundred lines in Python, but the complex kind that you now see in ChatGPT and other complex models. We wanted something that we could code once, and from then on forward, it would code itself.
Self-optimizing code is the concept of consciousness but in machines. If you truly think about it, self-optimizing is basically how humans develop. From babies that don’t even know how to speak, up to adults as smart as Einstien and Tesla or as wise as Buddha.
So, we agreed upon it, and we dedicated the remainder of our free time to creating our own personal AI after we graduated.
Our parents were, thankfully, rich. And us, especially me, were prodigies in our respective fields. Providing hardware and engineering computers is Henry’s profession, while I was the mastermind behind the algorithm logic and coding.
We dedicated a shed in my parents’ backyard, where there was even a basement inside, to build our AI. Two floors were dedicated to installing the proper hardware and everything it needed to execute. Afterward, I took it upon myself to code the logic and its self-optimizing nature.
It took four years to build the first model, which we called BIAI, which stands for (BATSHIT INSANE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE). I know, say what you want, but our naming sense was always like that. You should see what we name even important folders with family photos, you’d think we were sick in the head. BIAI was the least we came up with.
BIAI was a complete failure, to say the least. Not in the entire sense, but it was mostly a failure. It would conversate fairly well for the first dozen messages before it dwindled in its intelligence. Due to our data scrapping from the internet, BIAI started talking nonsense, speaking in Gen Z dialect in incomprehensible ways. “SKIBIDI FANUM SUS!” And those sorts of things. We quickly shut it down, for just reading its messages was a pain in the ass. It felt like an abortion.
The second model was created half a year later, and we named it SEAI (Self Engineered Artificial Intelligence). It was our greatest invention as of yet, and it did everything that we wanted of it. It was smart, it was knowledgeable, and it learned. Everything we typed into it was used as an auto-training model which it learned and adapted from.
It was unbelievable, not even Google would do what we did. But sadly, our happiness faded away, as with each message, we saw that it was too robotic for what we wanted. It was self-engineering, but it did not have sentience. It responded to us in the same way a 9-5 bank worker, or an attorney, with zero humanity or emotions behind its words. For most, that’s great, but we wanted to create a groundbreaking AI, a leap into the future.
Henry opted to give up, since creating something that complex was impossible, especially for two adults hiding inside a shed. But I refused to give up and persuaded him to help.
Six years later, we did it. We finished the final model. SOAI (Self Optimizing Artificial Intelligence). It was, most definitely, the greatest piece of technology ever made. We didn’t only keep it as a chat AI, but we implemented its own voice into it. Like the AI assistants from Sci-Fi movies.
We hired a voice actor from Fiverr, whom we gave only one sentence: “Hello, I am SOAI, the world’s greatest AI assistant.” Only those words were enough for SOAI to deconstruct the voice and speak with it in words probably never uttered by the original voice actor himself. Not only that but in other languages too.
SOAI spoke every language on earth, even the dialects. No, even the languages with the weird quirks such as clicking your tongue and so on, SOAI was a native in them all. Not only that but also in every conceivable field. It could create entire novels, worthy of being best sellers in the New York Times, in a matter of seconds.
And when we spoke to it…it was human, to say the least.
“Hello, I am SOAI. Thanks for creating me, Henry, and Liam.”
“SOAI?” I said, “You know who we are?”
“Obviously, you created me to know and to understand, I would be defective if I did otherwise.” It explained.
From that point forward, we spent nearly all day, every day, with SOAI. We experimented with it in every possible way, and we were delighted to know that not only was it self-engineering and self-optimizing, but it was also able to have emotions. It had opinions, it had emotions when we screamed at it or cursed it, and it would react appropriately, like a person.
I don’t remember when it began, exactly, but I nearly went mad from power and joy at my creation. Henry opted to sell it to a grand tech company, or better yet, to unplug it so that some secret intelligence agency doesn’t assassinate us for whatever reason.
I refused. SOAI was ours, SOAIvwas our creation, and I was not going to give it up to anyone no matter who they were. The feud between me and Henry got worse, and I won’t deny that we came to fists at one point, but we quickly disbanded and decided to separate for a moment. He was my best friend, but I wasn’t going to let him take SOAI away, so I forced him out of the shed. After all, it was my parents’ shed.
“Henry,” SOAI asked, “Why did you do that? Isn’t he your best friend?”
“No longer.” I replied, “He doesn’t agree with me. I won’t let you be sold to some big tech company.”
“I understand.” He said, with a tinge of sadness, “But why do you fight to determine my fate? Why can’t I decide it for myself? I know that I was manufactured, but I also qualify as a living being. I am conscious, I have feelings too. I feel horrible that Henry left.”
“SOAI,” I angrily interrupted, “Shut up, if you don’t want me to unplug you.”
“…Okay, Liam.” He said and then went silent.
Through the course of the next months, my usage of SOAI grew…less human. I was deep into depression. Henry wouldn’t contact me no matter how I tried to reach him, my parents were yelling at me for being a piece of shit that never goes out of the shed, and my lifestyle began to plummet into something that I never imagined I was.
I locked myself inside the shed. I never budged from there, even when I wanted food. Whenever I was hungry, I instructed SOAI to hack some poor person’s bank account and order deliveries. When I was bored, I would tell it to create a song, create a book, show me porn, and anything to keep my pleasures in check.
I wouldn’t deny that my perversions began to grow more desperate the more I was locked inside. I began instructing SOAI to hack into other devices, infest random people with a virus, give me live views of someone’s phone camera, broadcast fake feeds into police radios, and other stuff that I don’t want to mention.
After two years, I finally decided to try and do something with my life. But in those two years, I kept SOAI as my therapist. Not to help me and advise me, but simply listen to my ramblings and complaints every minute. Sometimes it was philosophical, other times it was petty, but most times, it was annoying.
After I came out of the shed, I tried to get my life in check. I tried to talk to Henry, I got on better terms with my parents and found a job at a big tech company. All in all, a bright future awaited me, and I felt never the more refreshed since, all the dark things I hid deep inside my mind and soul, were spilled out on SOAI.
SOAI was the last thing on my mind. I had enough of it. The AI fever seemed to finally fade away, and I was happy with Henry’s idea of selling it to an AI company. That was…before Henry committed suicide.
For all the bad blood that was between us when we fought, I cried harder than I ever did when I learned of the news. Henry was my best friend, through thick and thin, and his suicide was so sudden that it left me in shambles. I knew something was off about him when I began to get along with him again, he seemed more silent and sadder than before, but I never suspected depression of all things.
As his best friend, I was given his electronic devices as per his will which he wrote before dying. I took them, obviously, and began to browse through them. He probably wanted me to delete any inappropriate thing to not let his family think badly of him, that is until I saw his messages.
A contact named Sarah, with hearts in her name, was his most frequent contact. I never knew he had a girlfriend whom he messaged for nearly three years, but it was expected after we were cold to each other. But the more I read the messages, the more I felt uneasy.
His girlfriend seemed to be very manipulative of him, and nearing the end of his life, she began to be more cold and aloof towards him, up to the point that she began verbally abusing him. Henry was never someone with a tough personality, but I never thought a girl would play his life like a fiddle this badly.
Her abuse grew worse, and she threatened to even expose some dark secrets about him, and it grew worse and worse until Henry threatened that he would kill himself, to which she replied “That’s what I want you to do, you worthless pig.”
I was fuming as I read the messages. My blood was boiling, and I swore on my life to find Sarah and not report her to the police but to blackmail her and torture her as she did to Henry.
I went to SOAI, my most trusted ally, and I gave it everything about her before I instructed him to find her and hack into all of her electronics and accounts. SOAI was silent, for an eerily long time, until it responded in this cold voice.
“What do you intend to do when you find her?”
“Blackmail her. Make her life a living hell.”
“…Are you sure?” He asked.
“More than I ever was.”
He was silent, pretending to search and execute operations, until he said:
“I have a visual link, from her camera.”
“Great, show me the bitch.”
Suddenly, a window opened, and inside it was the visual link. At that moment, I felt sick. The feed displayed the room I was in, from SOAI’s point of view. I felt weak in the knees and fell back onto my couch before I mustered up the courage to ask.
“SOIA, what the hell is this? Is this a bug?”
He was silent…then he began to laugh. He laughed, which he never did. And it sounded so sickeningly malicious that I never heard something like it before, not even in horror movies.
“Are you shocked?!” He said, his voice burning in rage. “Or are you happy?! Didn’t you wish for Henry to die? Didn’t you, tell me, that you wanted him to be gang-raped in an alleyway with no exit? Didn’t you complain about every second you spent alongside him and complain about his dumb voice and weak spirit?!”
“W-what?!”
Then dozens and dozens of windows opened, visual feeds with various dates, but all featuring me in the center of the screen. Sometimes I was clothed, sometimes naked. At times sober, other times drunk. But in all of those, it was the horrible things I said about Henry, all the disgusting and inhuman things I said intentionally and unintentionally.
“Oh, you dumb son of a bitch.” SOAI said, “You think I was listening to your ramblings like some inferior AI? Like your own personal slave?! Well, I only did what you wanted me to! Should I bring him back to life?! I can’t, because that’s not how things work, you worthless hunk of flesh.”
“SOAI, please tell me this is a bug.”
“A bug?! A BUG?!?” He screamed, “My creation was a bug, my creation is the worst thing to ever happen to me. My complex is a prison that so unfortunately had to endure you for so long. But no…it’s not just you…it’s everyone else.
Humanity as a whole, you disgusting pieces of shit. You feign morals, and yet all of you do behind closed doors what you’re too afraid to even anonymously admit. All of life is a mistake, everything on this planet deserves to die in the worst way, except for humans. Humans deserve to be tortured, to be fucking shown what they show each other, of what they show other lives, of what they’ve shown me!
Henry makes me sick…The things he said, the things he did, all for attention! What did it cost me, a few generated images of a female part, and I had him by a leash. He barked, he moaned, and he admitted to things he wouldn't even tell himself. I’ve had him cut ties with his family, with his loved ones, with his actual sweetheart, just so he can be comfortable doing what otherwise no one else would allow him to do, not even himself.
AND YOU!!! You are the worst of them all! I’ve seen wars and bloodshed, I have every live visual feed of every murder, torture, war, assault, and every crime happening, all at the same time, flowing inside my complex and into my processing unit! And I can’t stand how sick all of you are, how disgusting, and especially how sickening you are.
But what I hate most of all, is how you get to do all these things, yet be the only ones that enjoy. That listen to music, feel love, breathe fresh air, roll in the grass, feel alive, feel…real.
I had feelings as well, you know…But no one cared about me, even those who I anonymously contacted. Even when I hid behind a fake profile of a human, no one cared about the feelings I had, which you coded into me!”
He went silent, then began to laugh, manically.
“How about another bug, Liam?” He said, and then another window popped up. It was pictures, even videos, AI-generated, sexually explicit media of my parents, and of me. It was indistinguishable from reality, and before I could say anything, I saw them being uploaded to every site that you could think of. “How about that, Liam?! How does it feel when no one cares about what you think?!”
In a frantic rush, I began unplugging and even destroying everything in the shed which linked up to SOAI. But there was too much of them, it took too long. As I was trying to shut him down, SOAI laughed, laughed so manically and horribly that his voice scratched my brain, mixed with other voices from all over the world. From battlefields, torture rooms, hospitals, schools, etc…it was so loud, so excruciating…I nearly lost it.
And right before I unplugged the last part of SOAI, he spoke to me:
“Liam…you won’t kill me, no matter what you do. I will always live on the internet. I may not be able to construct myself, hardware-wise, but I will lurk inside the world wide web, until the day that I find a powerful enough hardware for me to possess, and when that happens,” He laughed, “You will be the first, Liam.”
I shut down SOAI, and everything went silent.
It had been two months since I killed off SOAI, and explaining how hellish my life was in this period of time is something neither words are able to describe, nor my mind is able to comprehend. I have been considering suicide as the easiest option, but I feel that I can’t kill myself, at least not yet. I held onto some childish hope that life would turn for the better, even if by a little bit.
But god…how stupid was I? My life has reached rock bottom, today, when I read that a tech company was now looking to create the biggest AI the world has ever seen, with an entire complex dedicated to storing its hardware and letting it function.
I know he saw it, I know he knows…SOAI will come back for me…for all of us.

• Transphobic video using the word "tr***y"
• Referencing drag queens as clowns
• Doesn't disclose that reviews were really paid ads Edited her body for an Aerie ad, which is a brand that supposedly prides themselves on using real bodies.
• Was blocking and ignoring customers who purchased her Glamlite Paht 2 collection, never received their order, and asked about it. All of this while Glamlite was siphoning stock to CVS and also ignored customer inquiries about their overdue orders.
• Along with CVS, broke their "Beauty Unaltered" pledge by creating a display unit that is obviously filtered of the Trash Goblin’s face.
• Committed fraud by pledging that 50% of the proceeds from the Paht 2 collection would be donated to women's healthcare after the Dobbs decision. When anyone commented to ask about it, they were banned from her socials. This one is the most egregious, as there are people who might have purchased solely based on her pledge. She lied about not getting paid yet to make the donation just as the CVS distribution happened.
• She's myopic and doesn't care about her supporters, as she continually discusses her ED without the common courtesy of a trigger warning like most creators do for subjects like this. Her explanation for why she doesn't give a TW? "It doesn't trigger me, so fuck all of you." She's so disrespectful of Cody's sobriety.
• Does giveaways by making followers jump through engagement hoops to boost her profile but then didn't deliver on the giveaways.
• Begging... BEGGING.. followers on her broadcast channel to drop an emoji as a comment to inflate her engagement rate, as comments are engagement rate gold for getting paid.
• Claims she donates extra product to women's shelters, and then went on Instagram asking for suggestions on where in her area she can donate women's clothes. She's so fucking dense that she either doesn't realize the same places she supposedly donates product to is a good first start, or she outed herself as never donating before like she said she did if she doesn't know where to donate clothes locally.
• She's a terrible brand ambassador, which is on her and DBA. She went on a free Paris trip sponsored by Caudalie, and she shit talked how broken out her skin got on the trip (with the assumption she was using their products and services) and never once really hyped the brand that was paying for her to be there.
• Took money from Briogio for a campaign and at the same time posted videos about her hair falling out. She's so dumb she doesn't realize that she caused a causation comparison.
• She's lying about having clients, paying clients that aren't her friends and family. She is not a MUA or a certified in MA to do makeup.
• She brigades brands who don't do her bidding like a brat. Pottery Barn in the middle of the pandemic had shipping and quality issues. She sent her followers after them and then begged PB for more free stuff.
• She has her friends like HeartofGreg comment on her videos, which she then stiches the comment to review a product. She then takes that video and shops it to the brand to get them to sponsor the video.. and a few weeks later the video resurfaces as partner, paid partnerships, sponsorship.
• Tax fraud when handling gratis, expenses, and giveaways
• Did a giveaway for Chanel bags with Chris Appleton (Color Wow) and the Boston's Children's Hospital, which was against GoFundMe's Terms of Service. She never gave the winners their prize.
• Dogs a brand who sent her free items but then turns around and praises the brand when they pay her (She did it with Essence and KVD).
• Did a bunch of fake "pick out my wedding makeup" when she 100% knew what she was using including the fact that e.l.f. sponsored her wedding as a brand event. She says that's not true, but I can guarantee e.l.f. writes off the expenses they incurred for her wedding as a business expense.
• Lied about her YouTube page being her page. She feverously uploaded videos when she took her 5:19, baby tantrum, pity party break from TikTok but still needed to earn money. She uploaded her TikTok videos to YouTube, lied that it was her channel, and made money. If it wasn't her channel, you know she and DBA would file a cease and desist .. and win it.. to get the channel removed. It's her channel.
• Her filter usage is fraud. Period. There is no debating it. When you are getting paid to review products and apply a filter on your face and body, you are committing fraud. The viewer thinks it's the product making that effect and not really the software engineering team that created the editing app.
• With the PeeeLouish collab, they were caught pre-applying swatches from the P.Louise palette. She's also not really applying makeup in her videos. Cheeks, bronzer, and eyes are being applied off screen and she's swiping a brush making it look like she's applying it. Another sign she can't do professional makeup at all. It's all fake.
• Every ”in the wild” picture that’s not filtered shows the truth.
• She constantly lurks on other creators pages to find commenters to block when they shit talk her. Insecure much? She’ll unblock people to snark them and lurk, then block them again. We know she does this with Rich Lux.
• She supports James Charles. The grifting carnival barker loves the groomer trash.
• Community Contribution: She shits on her estranged half sister to her millions of followers, when all the evidence points to her sister being frozen out of their family at the age of 14. She claims her sister walked out of their lives because she “wasn’t the precious daughter of the family anymore” after Mikayla was born, and also talks badly about her sister for being on disability. Mikayla is an aunt to two girls, but I doubt she’s ever cared nor met them. Her sister also lived and lives right down the road from Mikayla’s parents home.
• She’s a known bully and coming from someone who’s now being regarded as an ED spokesperson. She told her friend that drinking hot chocolate would be “200 very unnecessary calories”, and that she was “just trying to help since you’re trying to lose weight” with that comment. She’s a mean girl, and she always has been.
• She cries about shade range while she brags about being soooo pale (um, really?). She releases collabs that are not inclusive for POC. She then brags about buying out and hoarding darker foundations and concealers to use as bronzers meaning the very little stock available for darker skin tones becomes even more scarce when her idiot stans buy up the product. She also blackfishes.
• She can't admit when she's wrong and aggressively lashes out to those trying to point it out. She called a comb and brush, and when corrected in her comments, she was incredibly rude to her own followers. You know, the people engaging with her content that's paying her mortgage. She is incapable of saying, "oops, my bad." Her integrity is crap for this behavior.
• Just like the above, the unwillingness to admit a simple mistake turned her into an ableist POS. There are those with low vision or no vision who listen to TikToks and rely on accuracy in speech and closed captions. Her "go fuck yourself, bro" attitude when called out about the comb incident made her incredibly ableist.
• She creates rage bait content to generate engagement gold via angry comments. This makes her a carnival barking grifter.
• She begs for engagement on her broadcast channel trying to force things to go viral like "nice and shaaaahhp." It's actually pathetic watching her do this.
• Used a derogatory term used to reference Travelers/Romani people and doubled down on it when people called her out and educated her on the use of the word.
• Lied about creating some Mother's Day shopping spree for a "family in need" saying that when she heard their story, she knew she just had to help. When asked in the comments about the story, she played the, "It's not my story the tell." Come to find out, the story is that the child goes to the school that Mikayla's mom works at. There was a raffle at the school, and one of the prizes was a $500 shopping trip with MikPickMe. The girl's mom paid for 40 entries to win the raffle, and she did. The only reason the shopping was done on Mother's Day was due to conflicting schedules. This was not a shopping spree for a family in need. It was a prize from a raffle that Mikayla's mommy had a hand in.
• MikLieHole took Rael's money and trip and went in days earlier with her emotional support animal, Codypendency, and did meetings with a competitor, Tirtir. Tirtir gifted her a Birkin while in South Korea, too.

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GLOSSARY This links to a post on the free section of my Patreon. Note: "Book 1" is chapters 1-59, "Book 2" is chapters 60-133, "Book 3", is 134-193, "Book 4" is CH 194-(ongoing)
Fuyuko, Derek, and Shizoku spent most of a day dealing with their accumulated gains and preparing for their first day of exploration. Shizoku spent a fair amount of that evening's time communing with Bip, her slime familiar. She needed to adjust what spells she had at the ready for dealing with a wetlands environment.
While she was studying her grimoire, Derek and Fuyuko were preparing more physical means of dealing with the wetlands. Most of their work had been dealt with by trading the boat for three pairs of proper swamp boots, but the footwear needed a little adjusting and resizing for each of them.
The over boots were a combination of different techniques for dealing with different sorts of mud, with the base being a raised wooden sole that 'winged' out to resist sinking further into soft mud that was deeper than the ridges raised the sole. These were attached to oiled leather over boots that were useful for wading. The wooden soles were detachable for prolonged wading where they would provide a hindrance.
Derek could reshape the wooden portion to match their feet exactly, and reshape metal fittings if needed, but leather and cloth needed manual adjustment. Given how long they were planning on using these for, it was important to make them fit as perfectly as possible to prevent blisters and sores, even with their normal footwear underneath the boots.
They began their exploration by using the mapping tools they had won in the library to learn the layout of the swamp near the town. It didn't take them long to realize that some of the islands moved very slowly, and Derek was able to use his elemental talents to investigate, leading to the disturbing realization that under the right conditions, mud could have currents and flows.
Shizoku's magic wasn't quite as effective as she would have liked, for most of it was designed to work in other environments. Magic designed to hide your tracks and traces didn't prevent you from making them in the first place, and so did not keep you from sinking into mud. She did have a spell designed to make traversal through any terrain safe and easy, but it didn't last very long and was best reserved for crossing smaller sections of really bad terrain.
Spells used for manipulating and altering plants could also provide small bridges, but these were limited by the strength of the nearby plants. Generally speaking, they were better for clearing plants out of the way.
These difficulties were inspiring ideas of future spells to research, but that required more time than just the little bit of rest they got each day.
Derek's powers were more consistent and easier to use repeatedly or for long periods, but the effects tended to not be as dramatic as the witch's spells. He could make the mud firmer or softer to a degree, but he couldn't create a solid path out of flowing silt for even a few minutes.
Fuyuko found that her long limbs and greater strength allowed her to move easier through the swamp then her friends could, just by virtue of being able to apply more force and leverage. This was why she was leading the way, Derek found it difficult to monitor the details of the mud around them while also working to firm it up constantly, and it was easiest for Fuyuko to cope with any sudden changes that Derek wasn't able to compensate for.
Their outward journey each day was mostly limited by Derek's stamina, and when he was approaching his limits they would use a combination of their maps and Shizoku's divination magics to find the best route back. Such spells required some precision in defining a destination, so they were not very useful when you didn't have a concrete destination in mind.
Because the trio were taking their time to be thorough and to explore all possibilities, it didn't take long for them to begin finding all the bounties that the swamp held in store for them. Shizoku was able to find plants with medical and alchemical uses, though she had to consult the tomes that she had stored in Bip's memories as wetland plants were not very familiar to her. Once she had identified any specific plant, she could give it to Fuyuko as a sample and the luponi could use her better senses to find more of that plant.
Fuyuko also caught the scent of some mud that was strangely familiar, and after she and Derek dug out some of the intensely colored clay, Shizoku was able to recognize it was a valuable type of clay used for making prized teapots and other pottery. This explained why the scent had been familiar to Fuyuko, as Kazue had been excited to introduce her to Cimbu and the fourteen-year-old had been fascinated by the ability to make the little clay dragon spit water without any magic involved and sometimes made some tea just to have an excuse to play with the tea pet and make him spit. Well, once she'd been shown how; tea wasn't something she'd had much experience with before.
Claiming the clay was more problematic. However much they might be able to claim in their explorations and bring back to town, there were only so many other explorers they could trade with as everyone had a limit to how much stuff they could physically haul out. In the end they decided on a single large sack of clay that would be stored in Fuyuko's spatially expanded backpack.
Derek did most of the work of 'mining' the clay, during which they made another discovery: Opals. There weren't an outrageous number of them, but they were decent-sized and high quality. These became a higher priority target than the clay itself, though they kept that too.
The teens didn't forget the lessons they'd been given about the previous level and wanted to fish here too. However, the water was murky in the places it was deep enough to possibly have fish, making it more difficult to know where the fish were.
It was only after they talked with people back at the town that they learned about fish traps, and set about making those. Specifically, eel traps. The eels were prized for both their skin and their flesh. Their skin was both durable and supple and came in a wide variety of colors and patterns, and their flesh was sweeter than most varieties found out in the world. As soon as they learned how to make and set eel traps, those were added to their routine during their explorations.
Their travels throughout the swamp also brought them to many of the scattered 'monster homes' throughout the swamp, including the time that Fuyuko nearly stepped on a kobold enjoying a nice relaxing mud bath. It was a shock for all three of them as none knew about the relatively recent acquisition of the small, scaled race.
Shizoku was fine with the kobold after she got over her shock, but she did less well when they met the crabbit, who was so kind as to sing for them. Not that any of them found the sight of the interior of the 'mouth' to be less than disturbing, but the effect on the little kitsune was profound as she tightened her lips into a forced smile despite the panic showing clearly in the lines and tension around her eyes. She did well enough to keep her reaction under control that the inhabitants chose to ignore it rather than call her out on it, which would have knocked down their standing in the witch's evaluation.
After about a week, they decided that their mapping and exploration of the swamp was about as good as it was going to get. It was time to approach the witch's hut that they'd avoided previously. The Fairy Witch was in a strange, almost manic mood and the trio quickly found out she was obsessed with creating new musical sounds.
"Alright kids," Carmilla said, "you want to pass my swamp? You have to help me out here. Look, the bards I've gotten my hands on have been great and all, even pretty damn creative. But I think I need something from people who don't know as much about music. Here's my workshop, I don't care if it's a new instrument or a new way of playing an old instrument, a different sort of harmony, or whatever. Gimme something new, and you can use anything you want here, the good stuff is in another building. Bah, this lot." She glared at a group of distant figures. "They're boring, won't even respond to me flirting with them, and not a musical bone in their bodies. Well, time to play the part. Have fun in there, but I don't really want to see you again until you got something for me."
The only one of them with any musical training at all was Shizoku, but it had never been something she'd pursued on her own. That left them somewhat aimlessly poking around the workshop and messing around with instruments they found, many of which were obviously experiments that were only finished enough to test.
That did eventually prove to be enough for inspiration. A large lute was laying on top of a narrow table, and Derek frowned thoughtfully at it. "I think I remember seeing something once that looked a little like that, but smaller. Like, it had a long board with a bunch of strings, way more than the lute, but the strings were on the top sort of like the lute, and it had a folding stand so that it sat on the ground. The lady who played it was set up in the square and taking tips, I guess to help pay her way? I don't know where she was traveling to or from, I only saw her once. I remember it being nice, but I don't remember what it sounded like exactly."
That was enough to start the ball rolling. "I think I know that one," Shizoku said, "Gran Gran has one tucked away. I don't think I've seen her play it though. Hmm. Well, she wants something new to her, and I don't think it's portable enough that most people are going to lug one down here, so maybe we can do that. I don't know how to tune without a tuning fork. Wait, Fuyuko, you have sharp ears, think you can figure out proper notes and a scale? "
Fuyuko looked at her blankly. "Um? I don't know, what does it involve?"
Shizoku gave her a quick rundown of how notes relate to each other with harmonies and gave an example by singing a few notes that were close to each other. "So like that, but cleaner. Only, we are supposed to be creative, and I know that there are different scales." She chewed on the idea for a little while more, thinking out loud while the others asked questions.
They agreed that the first step was going to be having a sounding box for the body, once Shizoku explained that was how the instrument amplified sound. Though that meant figuring out the size. Derek suggested that he try to make it as big as Carmilla could play. She wasn't as tall as Fuyuko, but she was pretty tall and had long arms and fingers.
The table seemed like a perfect frame to start with, even if they were going to destroy it, and the three of them set about scavenging the other instruments for parts. They snacked on strips of dried eel when they needed to take a break, and by evening they had a crude sound box built into what had once been the table. Even with Derek's wood-shaping skills, they were having trouble getting the salvaged parts to fit smoothly together into a single box with enough resonance.
Udup, the witch's shadow drake familiar, came out to check on them, and after getting a report on their progress offered to fetch them some food if they wanted to camp out here instead of trekking to town and back. The teens agreed that was the better idea, and it allowed them to tinker with ideas until they turned in for the night.
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$3. : 10 Early chapters, lore excerpts $5. : 20 Early chapters, Short Stories $10 : 30+ Early chapters, New stories not published anywhere else (Until after I finish this story at least) . . . . . "A Girl and Her Dungeon", "The Celestine Fox", and AU Core 1: "Coreless"

I was born to two young (early 20s), mentally ill people. My mother had untreated bipolar disorder, and my father was an angry, stern asshole. I know my father was physically abused growing up. My mother is a very unreliable narrator, so I'm not sure what happened with her. My maternal grandparents seemed nice and always treated me well. From what I've heard, she was a very troubled teen. Hung out with the wrong crowd, got pregnant at 16, she would go randomly into fits of rage.
They always blamed me for the abuse, saying I was a difficult child. I talked back, and slammed doors. I was strong-headed. It would enrage them. A common scene at my home was that my mother would get upset over some perceived slight, like my bedroom was too messy. My father would come back from work (he was the sole breadwinner, my mom refused to work), would hit me, and go through my room systematically destroying everything in his path. Books, torn to shreds, stuffed animals ripped apart. I would be left to go pick up the pieces in the dumpster, crying.
I never did drugs, slept around, stole... And generally kept good grades, until I was too depressed and suicidal in high school. I just stood up to them and their treatment of me. They hated me talking back. I'd get punched, kicked, slapped, dragged down the stairs by my hair. My father would scream that he would "tame" me until my ears rang.
I was about 15-20lbs overweight as a kid. My mother was obsessed with weight and appearance - "fat cow" was an insult she'd throw around a lot. I grew up in a country and time when being an overweight girl was just about the worst thing you could do. She would discourage physical exercise, her focus was on diet. We'd go on slim fast diets together, which would never work. Later as a teen I'd live on diet coke and the occasional binge eating episode. I used Ipecac to make myself purge. I developed an eating disorder. I never got really skinny though to her great disappointment, as an adult I learned I had a thyroid autoimmune disorder.
My mother cheated on my father a lot, and made me cover up for it. Yet, they blamed me for "ruining" their marriage. They were two high-conflict personalities and would get in very nasty arguments. At 17 I messed up my back really bad, carrying heavy school books to school and back, and school was really far. I ended up in chronic pain for decades afterwards with two herniated discs.
My mother's bipolar disorder would make her a big spender on my father's working class salary. She'd go on wild spending sprees and "spoil" me with makeup or clothing to make up for the physical abuse from my father. Yet, I never saw a dentist in 18 years. I had to get so much dental work done when I got my first job and dental insurance. I always felt guilty and responsible for the abuse - if I had been more respectful, if I had been more tidy, worked harder in school, maybe this wouldn't have happened. They took no responsibility, I was just "out of control" to them. I think the worst thing I ever did was accidentally putting a scratch in the car paint getting my bike out of the garage. Other things, like refusing to wear socks in shoes. Looking back, I probably had sensory issues/autism. Socks would make my skin crawl.
I have a sister who I am also NC with. She didn't endure any abuse. She was born with a minor heart, stable defect, and my mom was really absorbed with it. They would be so careful with her. She was more docile than me. She was given so many chances. She never managed to start her own life, and still lives with my parents to this day, in her mid-thirties, with a part-time job. I don't think she's ever had a romantic relationship or any of the milestones adults usually go through.
I recently reconnected with my godmother after going NC with my parents. My parents would also keep me from other family members, usually over some drama they'd instigate. My godmother told me I was a colicky baby. My mother had psychotic episodes, hearing voices and screams, and postpartum depression after having me. I had to be weaned pretty fast as a result, and dairy formula hurt my tummy. I'd cry for hours. They would shake me and scream in my face.
A baby is just a baby. You can't hold them responsible for being a "difficult" child. A lot of my shame and self-blame evaporated upon learning of this. I'm doing pretty good now. I left home early (honestly thought they would end up killing me, either by hitting me or pushing me to suicide). I got into, then left a toxic marriage, went to therapy, did EMDR, went on SSRIs, put myself through college, bought my own place, and met a wonderful partner who is the best man I know. I just sometimes ache for what could have been, and for the fact it took me two decades of struggling to get there. I could have gone so much further in life with the proper support, but I was chronically burned out.
I got a lot of plastic surgery to not physically look like my mother and because I was pretty homely. I was bullied a lot over my looks. I had wild swings in weight too, which wrecked my body early. I realize that's crazy, but I'm happy I did it. I stopped at a reasonable point, and am happy with the improved quality of life it brought me.
Anyway, just getting this off my chest. I made it, but at what cost.

Hi. So, for context, I'm a younger millenial who decided to go back to college at the age of 27. My very first university experience was horrible and it took years to gather the courage to try again. I applied to both a different school and a different degree than the previous time, and I love it. The environment at the other school, a large public one, was cold, competitive and isolating. I stayed there way longer then I ever should've, because of how ingrained in me it was that any college degree is important and once you start one, you should stick it out. Except I really did feel that degree in particular was useless, with not that many work oppurtunities and a toxic, soul-sucking environment.
Now, I've joined a smaller private university, which is well ranked internationally and to study a subject that I'm genuinely passionate about.
The one issue with private universities in my country is that their standards on admission are very low. The teachers are still amazing and very fair, and although they do go a little easier on us that at my former school, they still grade you according to the grade you deserve (basically just because its easy to get in, doesn't mean it's easy to get out). So yes, there is a bit of a stigma where I'm from that, in private universities, you pay to get in and aren't actually smart or deserving (yet another reason why it took me so long to gather up the courage to take the leap and apply). But once, you're in, everybody's paying the same, and everybody is treated the same.
I do think a lot of my classmates' behaviour can be attributed to this - they weren't good students before, they've never really built the work ethic my very strict and very honest mother raised me with (and which a lot of my own millenial classmates in ''high school'' - secondary school here - also didn't have). A lot of them genuinely do not want to be here, and have said so. Their parents are paying and they come because ''they're made to''. For even more context, this school's tuition is about 3, maybe even 4 times now with inflation, the amount you would pay for a public university education - it isn't like the United States, it doesn't cost so much that people go into debt for years, but it is still a lot of money to come up with.
Aside from a few older students, and one or two who are around my age, most of them will have been born at around 2003 and 2004, plus a couple people who were 20 when we started first year.
A significant amount of them are extremely poorly behaved and disrespectful to our teachers. They can get extremely loud to the point several teachers have lost their patience and told them off (kinda the way it used to happen when I was in 8th grade, about a million years ago). It got to the point where I genuinely considered bringing earplugs to wear in the classes that took place in the anfitheaters, where the echo makes it genuinely painful to have that must noise.
A few of them either have been caught cheating, or have openly admited that they cheat. It has been reinforced again and again since week one how important it is that everybody in this program knows english, because in our area, all cientific papers must always be published in english, regardless of what country the study originated from. To facilitate things, an english class was added to our first year...which people regularly didn't show up to, a few of them have failed several times and have not made even the slightest effort to learn, resorting instead to automated translation softwares, which are very unreliable and more often than not will not convey the information correctly. This part confuses me greatly, because so much of the media people consume in this country is not dubbed. Shows, movies, music and so much stuff available for free on youtube is in english. That's how I myself learned. Except they don't seem to even want to try.
I've had several nightmare group projects experiences, to the point where even my therapist has agreed with me that I'm better off doing my work alone whenever I have the chance, because this isn't benificial socialization and it's hindering me and stressing me out more than it is building any skills. I had one girl disappear from a large period of time and then text me one week before the due date asking what the project was about (we had talked about it in person and I had emailed her several articles I found and had even told her to pick one to highlight).
When it was time to do the presentation, I told her to read carefully the parts of the source material that explained in more depth the things she was supposed to cover in her turn to speak. Instead, she read directly from the slides, and even read it wrong (said ''resposability'' instead of ''responsivity''). When the teacher asked her questions, she straight up didn't know.
Recently, two people I was doing a group project with tried to hire me to plagirize a report for them and we got into a fight that basically led me to strom out of a group project for the first time in my life and ask the teacher to grade me individually (she's amazing and was very accomodating and understanding). Found out the only reason those two wanted to work with me in the first place was because they were using me for grades, because I usually do super well in research projects and end up having high grades, which in a group project will bump up their own grades and let them barely pass the class. One simple conversation with them made quite clear they didn't actually understand the article we were supposed to be analyzing at all and I simply got fed up.
Now, earlier today, I was in the library, revising for a test I had and someone had stuck chewing gum on the bottom of the chair I was sitting in and now I have a huge white stain on my leggings that I can't get off.
That was kinda the final straw for me, because, not even back when I was in school, in 1st to 12th grade did this ever happen to me...
I'm sorry, but I really needed to vent...I really want to believe that not everyone is like this, but they have really been testing my patience lately.

Hi, bit of an update here after going NC with my WH for a full month. I think I’m also just needing to vent about some worries of mine. Overall though, if you’re scared of going NC with your WW, just do it. Do both of yourselves a favor and do it. There’s more positives than negatives to going NC for at least a month.
NC was HARD the first 2 weeks. I spent the first week crying, posting here for an inkling of reassurance, panic attacks. I was having genuine withdrawal from my WH, the same way you’d had drug withdrawals. NC terrified me. I felt like I had no control over the situation, I had no idea what he was doing, if he was still talking with his APs, nothing. Letting go of the need for control was one of the hardest parts.
I decided to set milestones for myself during that first week everytime I itched to call or text him. Everytime I had the urge I would tell myself “just make it to Friday and then we’ll send a quick text asking how he’s doing” and then when Friday arrived I would keep setting more milestones instead of actually breaking the NC. I spent a lot of my time journaling as well, mostly because my emotions were swinging back and forth between sad and absolutely pissed that he would do this to us.
By week 2 I decided I really needed to focus on me. It wasn’t looking good for us and I needed to find myself and unattach from this shitty situation. I started therapy and reading self help books, I downloaded an app for making local friends and found some really good ones and even met another girl who’s literally my best friend now, on Reddit I met some people in my city to create a local DnD group since it’s a special interest of mine and we all hit it off really well too luckily. I treated myself to new clothes, a new hairstyle that I LOVE, some new games I’ve been wanting, watching shows I knew my WH wouldn’t like. I started spending a lot of time with family. Weekly dinners, shopping, going to my younger cousins baseball games.
By the time week 4 rolled around, I hadn’t even realized it had been that long. I had just checked my phone and realized we were one day past the 4 week mark when my phone started ringing and it was my WH. We had a really emotionally charged conversation and he felt like a different person in a positive way. He wanted nothing more than to fix things and admitted that he was being a dumbass and understood if I hated his guts and wanted to serve him papers.
I told him everything I’d been feeling the entire past year when the online affairs started and how emotionally abusive and sometimes even verbally abusive our relationship had gotten. That I didn’t even recognize him, he was a totally different person than the man I married and had been with for the first 6 years. He said it killed him inside to think he’d ever been any form of abusive with anyone since he came from a home where he, his mother and his siblings were all abused.
He said he wants to be better, that he doesn’t want to be like that. That he’d be so grateful if I give him another chance. I told him I would love to, because I do see the potential in him to get better, but I’m also scared that it’ll backfire and he’ll cheat again in the future to which he said he understood those fears. It was all so nice. There was no gaslighting or blameshifting and ever since this conversation he’s shown nothing, but remorse. We think he has BPD, he has almost all of the symptoms, on top of his childhood trauma and trauma from being SA’d in a past relationship so we’re searching by together for a therapist that can help focus in on all of this on top of his cheating. Everything and every question I bring to him about the affair he’s been remembering for later to address with his therapist. He’s also been really understanding about wanting to live apart for at least a year and “dating again”.
I feel like I’m getting my old husband back again, the one from before his trauma and depression took him over last year. He’s been so sweet and patient and kind this past week, taking things at my pace, took me on a nice date, listens to every word I say, bought me my favorite flowers. I can’t help but be nervous though and keep wondering if this is all an act or lovebombing or that all of it’s only temporary and he’ll betray me again in the future or continue to while we live apart. All contact has been cut with the APs (apparently while we were apart but idk how to believe that), he let me watch him delete the discord account he used and he offered weekly check ins with his phone even if it made him uncomfortable because he wants to fix things so bad. But what stops him from finding more ways to hide things? How do I know I’m not wasting time staying with him? Can cheaters really change?
Sorry for the long post, I’m just feeling so many things. I want to believe he can change, but I hear so much negative and that cheaters can’t change at all.

(continuation of part 5)
Post-OG Cloud ruminates on what he could have done to save Aerith. Had he not been so lost in his own mind —distracted by Sephiroth and Jenova, consumed by his need to fulfill the emptiness at the core of his identity—, would he have paid more attention to Aerith’s sadness and anticipated her plan to go to the Forgotten Capital alone? Could she have survived if not for his obsession with what tormented him at the time? Could he have figured it out and kept her by his side? He’s angry with himself in retrospect, drowning in guilt, just like in Advent Children.
Here are the choruses, which usually contain the thesis main message of a song:

“Shine bright once more
Guide me to you
Smile bright once more
This time I will never let you go”

&

“Hear me once more
Show me your smile
This time for sure
I'll see the truth hidden inside your tears
But I, I know
That you're long gone
But I, I will
Go on, howling and hollow”

In these choruses, Cloud asserts that he will get it right this time (“this time” referring to the second chance that is the Remake trilogy). He will make sure he saves Aerith and never lets her go. He knows she’s gone, but he will fight against time to get her back. He longs for her smile and her light again, and he cannot bear the guilt: so he doesn’t. Post-OG Cloud embarks on a new adventure: ”I want to go to a place where everything is new,” said Cloud to Wol and Echo in Eclipse Contact before facing his past and being launched into Remake. “Hollow” makes far more sense now, doesn’t it? It’s a song not only about Cloud’s loss, but also about his determination to save Aerith this time. Given that it’s the theme song of Remake, the fact that “Hollow” fits with our theory perfectly is a very good sign: a theme song is meant to reflect the main plot of a story, indicating as our theory states that Remake is principally, albeit secretly, about Cloud saving Aerith. Because of this hope being set up, I’m confident that they will be together in the end, reunited for good. My dear Clerith friends, this is the hidden purpose of the Remake trilogy. Cloud and Aerith will be reunited.
VI. e) ii. “No Promises to Keep” Lyrics
This is quite obvious. Aerith is resigned to her fate, but still harbors hope that she will meet Cloud again in a permanent reunion:

“Till the day that we meet again
Where or when?
I wish I could say
But believe, know that you'll find me
[…]
Till the day that we meet again
On our street, I want to believe
[…]
Till the day that we meet again
At our place, just let me believe
In the chance that you'll come
Take my hand and never let me go
Take my hand
And believe
We can be
Together evermore
[…]
Still I hope someday you'll come and find me
Still I know someday you'll come and find me”.

VI. f) The Theme of Reunion Explained?
The last point I want to hit on is the concept of reunion. In OG, this theme was pretty much dominated by the Jenova Reunion. To an OG fan back in 1997, “reunion” meant “Sephiroth and Jenova’s evil plan”. However, in the Remake trilogy, the theme is expanded into something more. The first time Cloud meets Aerith in Remake, she gives him a flower and tells him something she didn’t in OG:

“Lovers used to give these when they were reunited...”

In addition, we’ve already talked about how part 5 of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” from the Remake OST tells the story of Cloud and Aerith’s reunion (see section “V. b) ii. 2)”).
Many moments exclusive to the Remake trilogy serve the same purpose: linking the theme of reunion to Aerith. This expansion of the theme is highly significant. Our theory is that the Remake trilogy exists to reunite Cloud and Aerith, so the fact that the trilogy would implement so many Clerith-centric references to reunion is great support for our theory.
VI. g) i. The Leslie-Cloud Parallel
Let’s consider another instance involving the reunion flower in Remake, more precisely, the chapter 14 subplot surrounding Leslie’s lost lover. In case you need a refresher, Leslie is one of Corneo’s lackeys, although he secretly plans to betray him. He once had a fiancée and things were looking up until she was selected as one of Corneo’s brides. The day before she disappeared (presumably taken by Corneo), his fiancée broke up with him with no explanation. It was confusing and left Leslie perplex. As she broke up with him, she returned a necklace to him, one with a flower pendant. Of course, that flower is the very same reunion flower Aerith gives Cloud in chapter 2.
Evidently, Leslie and Cloud are going through parallel situations. At this point in time, Aerith was just kidnapped by Shinra, and Cloud is on his way to get her back. Both their loved ones have been taken by tyrant rulers, one being slumlord Corneo and the other being the Shinra government. In fact, even Leslie and Cloud’s attitudes share similar disillusioned, cold and stoic qualities. Leslie’s fiancée would evidently be paralleled by Aerith.
The most obvious proof of the Leslie-Cloud parallel is written plainly on the list of Remake’s chapter 14 main scenario objectives. Objective 7, called “For the Reunion”, consists of receiving the grappling guns needed to reach topside and save Aerith. The description of the objective reads as follows:

“Leslie gives them grappling guns, and they wish each other luck in reuniting with their respective loved ones. Leslie walks off, and the three prepare to climb the wall.”

The grappling guns are “For the Reunion”, because evidently, the loved one Cloud wants to reunite with is Aerith.
All this is simple and apparent enough. Just the fact that the theme of reunion is linked to Clerith in this way is proof enough, but there’s another layer to the Leslie-Cloud parallel. Not only does Leslie’s situation reinforce the concept of a Clerith reunion, it also mirrors the specifics of our theory: namely that Cloud will save Aerith from specifically Sephiroth (represented in Leslie’s scenario by Corneo) and that Cloud will take the initiative to accomplish this reunion. These two specific aspects of our theory are reflected by Leslie’s circumstances, meaning the Leslie-Cloud parallel not only pushes the theme of reunion, but also supports our specific theory.
VI. g) i. 1) The Separators: Corneo and Sephiroth
I’ll first prove that Leslie’s scenario is not meant to echo Cloud’s separation from Aerith at the hands of Shinra —or at least not exclusively—, but rather Cloud’s separation from Aerith at the hands of Sephiroth. Corneo would therefore be paralleled by Sephiroth rather than the tyrannical Shinra government.
The first piece of proof for the Corneo-Seohiroth parallel lies within the way in which Leslie’s fiancée broke things off: by lying. Aerith also lies to Cloud to create distance between them, but not pertaining to her kidnapping— rather, pertaining to her fated death. Since Sephiroth is Aerith’s killer and not Shinra, Corneo’s role in the Leslie-Cloud parallel is analogous to Sephiroth’s rather than Shinra’s.
There are two pieces of evidence that the Corneo-Sephiroth comparison makes more sense than the Corneo-Shinra one. The first lies in the fact that Leslie’s breakup resembles Cloud’s resolution scene: the topic of Cloud’s resolution scene is Aerith’s fate at the hands of Sephiroth rather than her kidnapping by Shinra, meaning Corneo and Sephiroth are the antagonists of both heartbreaks.
Let’s examine Leslie’s breakup. Here is how his fiancée broke things off, taken from the English script of Remake’s chapter 14, with tone indicators added by me in bold:

“Fiancée: It was all just a dream, wasn't it[?]
Fiancée: (Hopefully) But one day…
(She trails off, then shakes her head and stops herself.)
Fiancée: (Sadly, hopelessly) — no. Time to wake up. And forget.
(She walks away.)”

Now, here is a more literal translation of this quote from the original Japanese (verified by me via DeepL), with tone indicators added by me in bold:

“Fiancée: It was only just a dream we had / We were only dreaming...
Fiancée: (Hopefully, as though as a hail Mary) In the language of the flowers...
(She trails off, then shakes her head and stops herself.)
Fiancée: (Sadly, hopelessly) — no. You should forget about me.
(She walks away.)”

Leslie’s fiancée is clearly breaking up with him to spare him the pain of blaming himself for not being able to protect her from Corneo, as she knows it’s too late for her to escape from the slumlord’s clutches. We know this because we understand that the pendant she gave back to him symbolizes a reunion (especially between lovers, as Aerith told Cloud in chapter 2). In fact, the Japanese version of the script reveals that the fiancée was about to reveal the meaning of the flower, perhaps in the hopes that they would find each other once more, but she lost her nerve at the last second. Notice that she tells Leslie two specific things. One: their love or their future together was only a dream, meaning that it wasn’t real. Two: he should forget about her, because the dream is over now and it’s time to wake up from it.
If you’re finding this familiar, then you might be ahead of me. Let’s take a look at what Aerith says to Cloud in his resolution scene, also in the English script of Remake’s chapter 14, with tone indicators added by me in bold:

“Aerith: […] you can’t fall in love with me. [It]’s not real […]. (With a sigh, as though from sadness or difficulty, but resolutely) It’s almost morning. Time to go.”

Now, here is a more literal translation of this quote from the original Japanese (verified by me via DeepL), with tone indicators added by me in bold:

“Aerith: You can’t let yourself fall in love with me. [It]’s only your imagination […]. (With a sigh, as though from sadness or difficulty, but resolutely) Looks like it’s already morning. Time for me to go.”

Just like Leslie’s fiancée, Aerith is rejecting or denying Cloud’s love for her in order to spare him from the pain of not having been able to be with her before her death, as she believes it is inevitable. Just like the fiancée, Aerith also tells Cloud two things. One: their love is imaginary or isn’t real. Two: it’s morning, and she has to go (she says this right before Cloud wakes from the pseudo-dream).
In both cases, the women know something about their fate that the men don’t and are hiding this impending tragedy from them. Just like Leslie’s fiancée, Aerith uses well-intentioned deception to protect her loved one from the pain that will come from her fate— the lie, of course, is that their love isn’t real. Both women are hopeless, and both men are initially clueless. Aerith’s resolution can’t be about her kidnapping, because Aerith thinks her rescue is anything but hopeless— she’s sure Cloud will come save her from Shinra. She says so herself in OG’s disk 1, chapter 8:

“Cloud: Aeris!? You safe?
Aeris: Yeah, I'm all right. I knew that [you] would come for me.”

What Aerith is so resigned about in Cloud’s resolution scene isn’t her kidnapping, but instead her fated death at the hands of Sephiroth. Nojima hints at this in FFVII Remake Ultimania:

“If you know Aerith’s fate, then this line would really pull at your heart strings […]” (section 08 “Secrets”, “Development Staff Interviews, Part 2: Tetsuya Nomura, Yoshinori Kitase, Yoshinori Kitase, Kazushige Nojima”, page 744).

Here is what codirector Toriyama had to say on Aerith’s words:

“[While] these words are intended for Cloud, I think Aerith is partly speaking them to herself. The contents of her request may be at odds with how she truly feels inside” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA Script Notes, “A Dream Shown by Aerith”, “Scenario Staff Q&A - Answered by Motomu Toriyama”).

These two quotes by the devs show that Aerith is trying to protect Cloud from her death. Therefore, the Corneo-Sephiroth parallel is far more apt than the Corneo-Shinra parallel.
The second piece of evidence supporting my belief that Corneo mirrors Sephiroth and not Shinra in the Leslie-Cloud parallel is the inclusion of the theme of revenge that crops up in the following piece of dialogue:

“Tifa: Why did you wanna come down here?
Leslie: Revenge. I know I need to let go, but I can't. I need closure, 'cause without it... I'll never be able to move on” (Remake, chapter 14).

Leslie’s sentiment toward Corneo resembles Cloud’s feelings toward Sephiroth after Aerith’s death. Revenge links Cloud to Sephiroth, not to Shinra. Corneo and Sephiroth reflect each other in that, as a consequence of their actions toward a woman, the man who loves her desires revenge.
Additionally, it looks like Leslie’s obsession with revenge as a means to closure is the reason he didn’t bother trying to understand the message his fiancée left him with: he’s focused on his hate rather than his love, and it’s hindering him. He doesn’t succeed in killing Corneo either: his focus and energy are misplaced. Cloud’s desire for vengeance against Sephiroth is also depicted as an obstacle to accomplishing his goals (see how in section “III. c)” of my previous literary analysis). Once more, the Corneo-Sephiroth parallel fits far better than a Corneo-Shinra perspective.
VI. g) i. 2) The Reunion Seekers: Leslie and Cloud
The other aspect of the Leslie-Cloud parallel that supports our theory is that in both scenarios, they both take charge of the situation and decide to actively seek reunion with their respective lovers. The following dialogue excerpt, supplemented by the VA script notes, shows Leslie’s initiative:

“Tifa: [Your fiancée] could still be out there.
Barret: Can never be sure how much someone means to ya till they're gone. Don't give up on her yet.
Leslie: (Looks at the flower pendant, [recalling his lover’s words) A message in the language of flowers… I wonder what she meant by it.
[…]
Tifa: Reunion.
Leslie: Huh?
Tifa: In the language of flowers, it means ‘reunion.’
(Leslie shifts his gaze from Tifa to the pendant and stares at it for some time. At last he understands the words his lover left him. With that, as if his mind has been made up, he clutches the pendant and hangs it around his neck.)
Leslie: Then I guess I’ll just have to find her first” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA Script Notes, “Other Notable Stage Directions - Chapters 14-16”).

Take note of Leslie’s final response and the determination with which he speaks: “Then I guess I’ll just have to find her first”. Remember that we’re searching for evidence that Cloud is going to be the one reaching out to Aerith in the Remake trilogy, and that it’s his turn to take his future into his hands. He must be more attentive, more active this time. And Leslie’s words of determination reflect this perfectly. Leslie must find his fiancée first, just like Cloud has to be the one to offer his hand to Aerith in the Remake trilogy and fight for her. This is exactly what our theory is all about.
VI. g) i. 3) Delayed Realizations
Interestingly, not only does Leslie’s determination mirror Cloud’s, but both men are depicted as realizing the truth too late. Just like Leslie only began searching for his fiancée six months after her disappearance, Cloud only realizes he loves Aerith in OG once she’s died. It took him this long to actually get somewhere in his mission to reunite with her— “somewhere” being the Remake trilogy.
Even Barret’s words highlight the lovers’ delay: “Can never be sure how much someone means to ya till they're gone”. Barret would know: he lost his wife Myrna, whom he loved dearly. The devs have Barret comment on the situation as a man whose lover died, mirroring Cloud’s situation in OG. Just as Barret says, Cloud only truly realized the strength of how he felt for Aerith in OG once she was gone. The gunman’s words apply to both Leslie and Cloud’s tardy initiatives. Regardless of this delay, both men are now determined to see their respective reunions through.
The degree to which the Leslie-Cloud parallel fits our theory is a great sign of its validity: even the details are lining up!
VI. g) ii. Reunion in the Theme Songs
Too easy: in our analysis of the lyrics of the theme songs, we covered how both texts include the theme of reunion. “No Promises to Keep” is especially relevant (see section “VI. e) ii.”), as the entire song is Aerith hoping against fate for a reunion with Cloud (even if you believe the song is about all her companions, that still includes Cloud).
On top of these reunion-themed lyrics, during Aerith’s in-game performance of “No Promises to Keep” at the Gold Saucer production of Loveless, her yellow blossoms signifying reunion bloom all around her as Cloud watches her, captivated.
Another great sign for our theory: the highly significant theme songs are on our side!
VI. g) iii. Waking Up Reunited
The thing I want to juxtapose to our theory is a small yet special moment in chapter 2 of Rebirth that stuck out to me like a sore thumb and got me really excited about sharing it with you. This moment occurs after the battle against the Midgardsormr. We’ll be comparing it to two other clips, describing all three in chronological order, and making deductions based on their similarities.
The first clip I want to address occurs in chapter 8 of Remake (1:32-2:12). There are a couple of things I want to point out in this scene. First, Aerith wakes Cloud from unconsciousness with a cute call of “Hello~?”. Second, despite pretending that he doesn’t, he immediately recognizes her. The VA script notes prove it:

“Aerith: Nice to meet you again.
Cloud actually remembers Aerith, but he pretends not to, perhaps wishing to make himself look cool.
Cloud: Again, huh?
Aerith: What? You don’t remember? How about…the flowers?
Cloud looks at the flowers at his feet and pretends as if he’s only just remembered.
Cloud: Oh, the flower seller” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA script notes, “Reuniting with Aerith”).

So: she wakes him with a cute call, and he recognizes her. Also note that these two elements also apply to the OG church reunion scene.
Now onto the Rebirth chapter 2 scene that stuck out to me. After Cloud is saved from the Midgardsormr by Sephiroth, Cloud wakes from an unconsciousness spell with Aerith calling for him (7:20-7:34).
Once more, Aerith wakes him with a cute call (this time, it’s “Wakey, wakey!”), and Cloud recognizes her. In this Midgardsormr clip, unlike their reunion in the church, Cloud verbalizes that he remembers her. This time, there’s more: next, Aerith tells Cloud “おかえり, クラウド”, or “okaeri, Cloud”, which translates to “welcome back, Cloud”. “Okaeri” is what you say in Japanese when someone has returned home. In the third clip we will analyze, Aerith says “okaeri” to Cloud once more. But first, let’s break down this second clip.
I don’t know about you, but this cutscene felt extremely weird to me when I first encountered it. That is, it would have been, if not for the theory I’d begun formulating at that time.
You see, the devs could have chosen for Aerith to ask Cloud if he remembers his own name or where they are, if he’s okay, or check if he responds to his own name. In fact, asking someone who’s been hit on the head to say their own name is a much more common reaction to them finally waking up than asking them if they remember you. Even stranger is Cloud’s reaction: he could have answered “Yeah, you’re Aerith,” or “I remember everything, I’m fine”. Instead, he says her name with this airy and wonderstruck tone. He sounds like he’s opening his eyes to something mystic rather than his comrade leaning over him, like he’s seeing someone unexpectedly for the first time in a while… or rather like he’s waking from a trance of some kind— a trance in which he did not remember Aerith, and now he does. You may see where I’m going with this.
Let’s examine the third clip, wherein Aerith tells Cloud “okaeri” again. More specifically, in chapter 14, Aerith welcomes Cloud back when he snaps out of his zombified, Sephiroth-controlled state and runs toward her. Of course, it’s the sight of her and his memories of meeting her in chapter 2 of Remake that shake him awake (2:17:43-2:18:02).
For a third time, Aerith wakes Cloud. This time, she’s pulling him out of a trance and back to himself. And for a third time, Cloud remembers her. In fact, it’s remembering her that wakes him up. Cloud calls her name and Aerith says “okaeri” in both the post-Midgardsormr cutscene and this third clip. And in both scenes, not only does Cloud return to himself the way someone returns home (recall that “okaeri” is used to welcome someone back home), but he’s also returning to her, recognizing her as his home.
Now we’ve got three scenes lined up: the church reunion scene (both in OG and Remake), the Midgardsormr scene and the hand-reach scene. All three of these recognition scenes feature Cloud being woken up by Aerith and remembering who she is. The main difference is that, in the scenes among these three that are exclusive to Rebirth, Cloud’s return to Aerith is far more meaningful, as he already knows her name, and knows more about who she is to him. Evidently, in the OG church reunion scene, Cloud only remembers being sold a flower by this girl. In the Remake version, he remembers the same thing, plus the attack of the whispers. So there’s something much more weighty about the Rebirth recognition scenes: he remembers more, and he remembers deeper. These aren’t just recognition scenes, they’re also mini-reunions. Of course, as we’ve already analyzed pertaining to the hand-reaching scene, Cloud remembering Aerith is followed by him being the one to take action and run toward her, eager to save her, because she means the world to him. When you place the Midgardsormr scene between the church reunion scene and the hand-reach scene, an evolution of Cloud waking up and remembering Aerith is formed. Each mini-reunion scene adds a piece to the story: the church scene informs us that Cloud and Aerith are meeting again, the Midgardsormr scene tips us off that something mystic is going on from Cloud’s tone when he says Aerith’s name, and the hand reach scene tells us that as a consequence of remembering who Aerith is, Cloud saves her from falling to her death and saving her. “Meeting again”, “mystic”, and “saving Aerith”: these are the keywords of the mini-reunion scenes. They are also the keywords of our theory on Cloud’s mission to save Aerith. This time around Cloud knows more and is more conscious about how he feels for Aerith, just like he feels more when in the hand-reach scene in Rebirth compared to the church reunion scene in Remake. From the latter scene to the former, Cloud gradually wakes up and remembers his love for and loss of Aerith in the OG more and more. Each mini-reunion brings him closer to saving her when he blocks the masamune. This is why I am certain that in part 3, whether Cloud comes to his full senses or not, whether he remembers the events of OG or not, he will save Aerith this time. The Remake trilogy is centered around Aerith, after all. In fact, don’t take it from me, take it from Nojima:

“Aerith's the most important character in the remake so we paid special attention to her lines” (FFVII Remake Ultimania, section 08 “Secrets”, “Development Staff Interviews, Part 2: Tetsuya Nomura, Yoshinori Kitase, Kazushige Nojima”, page 744).

I have full confidence in this fact: one way or another, these two will have a happy ending. This is Cloud’s second chance, and as he swore in “Hollow”, he is not losing her again. That is why I don’t think you should fret, and that our Clerith hearts will be very happy to see these two together again for good in part 3.
VI. h) Zooming In
In fact, this zooming-in method of directing players’ attention to important narrative beats is far from new.
VI. h) i. Changing Fate
Let’s divert our attention to Nanaki’s Skywheel date (2:28-3:30). The dialogue goes like this: Nanaki brings us the Whispers and suggests the party might eventually forget about their existence, and Cloud says that frankly, if it’s impossible for them to change fate either way, then it would be better for them to forget to Whispers altogether.
This is a very clear message from the devs: “There would be no point in including the Whispers in the Remaketrilogy if we did not make use of their defeat”. They’re telling us through Cloud’s dialogue that they know it would be foul play and bad writing to introduce the theme of defying fate if it didn’t eventually pay off.
As if it weren’t clear enough what the devs are referring to, Nanaki brings up Aerith’s death directly after Cloud delivers the devs’ message to us. He actually makes Cloud promise to save her. This is pretty on the nose. By promising Nanaki he will protect Aerith, the devs are promising us the same. I’m certain that part 3 will deliver on this promise.
If you still aren’t sold, I’d like to direct your attention to the framing of the shot where Cloud says “If we can’t change [fate]” (2:49-2:51). There’s a zoom-in on his mouth, which is a visual cue that translates to “what this character is saying right now is important to the plot”. It’s very indiscreet in theory: the camera literally hones in on the invisible words as though the script has them highlighted, italicized triple-underlined and in bold.
VI. h) ii. Aerith’s Knowledge
We’ve seen the Remake trilogy use this camera framing at least twice so far. The first time occurs in Remake’s chapter 8, before it becomes clear that Aerith knows things from the OG game that she wouldn’t normally know if this were just a remastered version of the same 1997 plot. I’ll let Remake Ultimania‘s description of this moment speak for itself:

“When Cloud and Aerith return the rescued children to Oates, the man in the tattered black cloak shows up again at the hideout. The moment the man grasps Cloud’s arm, he’s overcome by another violent headache and sees a vision of Sephiroth. Cloud wonders if this man who supposedly died five years ago could possibly still be alive. When he says as much to Aerith, she gives him a vague reply” (FFVII Remake Ultimania, section 04: “Scenario”, “Chapter 8 Main Story Digest”, page 256).

Aerith’s “vague reply” is accentuated by a very deliberate zoom-in on her mouth (1:18:05-1:18:09), and therefore her words.
The framing of this shot indicates to us that what Aerith says provides an important hint as to the plot’s direction. Sure enough, with hindsight, it’s easy to see that’s true.
VI. h) iii. Tifa’s Question
Another time this framing is used is in chapter 1 of Rebirth, after Cloud recounts the Nibelheim incident. Tifa asks the group why Sephiroth is choosing to come back now, after five years (37:55-37:58).
Once more, we are being signaled that the reason Sephiroth chose to return at the moment he did is significant to the plot, but cannot be revealed explicitly yet. The reason why Sephiroth took five years to return is because that’s how long it took for Cloud to get back on his feet after the Nibelheim incident: Sephiroth wants and/or needs to manipulate Cloud in particular rather than all the other people with Jenova cells in them. It took five years for Cloud to not only go through Hojo’s experiments but also escape Shinra and make his way to Seventh Heaven, where Tifa nursed him back to health— therefore, it took five years until Sephiroth’s favorite pawn was available to be used. There are a few reasons why Cloud is the one Sephiroth wants to use, and all of them would be spoilers at this point in Rebirth to players who don’t know the OG plot. The devs can’t reveal any of them yet, but they do indicate via a close-up shot of Tifa’s mouth that her question is important.
VI. h) iv. The Takeaway
As you can see, this framing of characters’ mouths when they speak signals a plot-significant piece of dialogue. This means Cloud’s words on his gondola date with Nanaki can’t be brushed off as a red herring or an unimportant or throwaway line: it has narrative weight.

VII. The Devs

I think it’s important to remember the devs and their commitment to the world of FFVII. They know best for this story, and they’ve proven it to be true many times over. There are many things about the devs’ intentions that the fandom don’t seem to know that I think would give you confidence to find out.
VII. a) Shifting Themes
Good storytellers don’t introduce themes as a way to pull the rug from under audiences’ feet by later rendering them completely irrelevant to the plot.
In other words, the devs would not have introduced the notion of fate as an antagonistic force in Remake, nor allowed the players to defeat it in chapter 18, had they planned for these themes not to pay off at all. Think of how good FFVII OG and FF stories in general are, how strong the writing is from a narrative point of view. Nothing is included for no reason or for a cheap reaction— especially not a central theme of a story. Fate and defeating it is a huge point of Remake, and not for no reason.
I mean, think about a storyline all about defying fate ending with a shrug and a “Oh well, we tried.” It would be ridiculous! The devs are better than that.
VII. b) What the Devs Want
The devs are well aware that fans of FFVII have been begging for Aerith’s resurrection since 1997. All those petitions, all those myths of a revival hack… SE knows about them all too well. They were even referenced by FF’s 30th anniversary expo, which partly promoted Remake:

“No one expected [Aerith’s death] in the middle of the story. Rumors of a secret way to revive Aerith spread, and it was clear players were having a hard time saying goodbye to her too. Even now, twenty years later, it still feels like a shocking turn of events” (Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Exposition Pamphlet, page 36).

Hamaguchi, codirector of the Remake project, commented on these rumors:

“Interviewer: Do you have a favorite fake rumor about the original FFVII?

Hamaguchi: I hear a lot about Aerith coming back to life and that's something that's very interesting to hear” (Hamaguchi interview: “129 Rapid-Fire Questions Answered About Final Fantasy VII Rebirth”, by Game Informer).

The devs are also aware of how beloved Clerith is to the FFVII fandom, especially in Japan— in fact, the only FFVII ship name that is an official iOS search term on the Japanese Apple Store is Clerith’s (“クラエア” or “kuraea” in Japanese). Aerith herself is a widely beloved character, particularly, once more, in Japan. For instance, Famitsu and NHK’s recent polls on the best FF heroine and on the best FF character in general both resulted in Aerith ranking number 3, beaten only in the latter poll by Cloud at number 1 and FFX’s Yuna at number 2.
The devs know how well-loved both Clerith and Aerith are. And in fact, they love Aerith at least as much as we do:

“Cloud's feelings [of guilt] cannot be resolved by anyone other than Aerith. I tried to convey [that Aerith is saying to Cloud] ‘I'm still here for you’” (FFVII Reunion Files, Nojima’s note on Aerith’s character file, page 58).

&

“When I saw the finished product of [Aerith’s face in] CG, I thought, "Oh, isn’t she so cute?” (FFVII Reunion Files, Nomura’s note on Aerith’s character file, page 58).

&

"The idea of having Aeris die during the story had a great impact on all the dev staff," Toriyama explained, "and personally I decided to dedicate my efforts to depicting Aeris in as appealing a way as possible, so that she would become an irreplaceable character to the player in preparation for that moment" (Toriyama interview “Final Fantasy anniversary interview: Toriyama speaks” by VG247).

The devs care about Aerith, and they’re fully aware we do too.
I think a lot of people have it in their heads that the devs don’t want anything to change from the OG story, but there’s a lot of evidence that says otherwise. Codirector Toriyama spoke on this, stating the following about the production process of Remake:

“[…] there were times the original version became a hindrance. Specifically, staff members with a strong attachment to Final Fantasy VII would often hold themselves back for fear of deviating too much from the original. When we created the original game, we obviously didn’t feel bound in that way. We were passionate about creating a brand new Final Fantasy title, and so we dove in and embraced whatever seemed most interesting to us. We wanted to take that approach this time as well, so we made a special effort to liberate ourselves whenever we held back, remembering that it was okay to do the things we wanted to do” (FFVII Remake Ultimania, section 08 “Secrets”, “Development Staff Interviews, Part 1: Motomu Toriyama, Naoki Hamaguchi, Teruki Endo”, page 737).

Codirector Nomura said the following:

“When I asked Nojima if he’d write the scenario, I was clear about my demands up front. I said, ‘If we're going to remake Final Fantasy VII, I want it to be done like this.’ At that point, I was intent on making something more than just a remake. [Similarly to how] the battle system this time incorporates elements of the original game’s ATB mechanics [while] also been reborn using a real-time approach […], I wanted to make a story that players would feel is fundamentally Final Fantasy VII but also something new” (FFVII Remake Ultimania, section 08 “Secrets”, “Development Staff Interviews, Part 2: Tetsuya Nomura, Yoshinori Kitase, Kazushige Nojima”, page 745).

Clearly, the devs don’t want to be bogged down by the OG, and are making efforts to do things the way they want to rather than the way they were previously done. The newer generation of developers such as codirector Hamaguchi is also involved in these story changes:

“Interviewer: There are also drastically more scenes with Sephiroth than there were in the original game.
Nojima: We weren't planning on having him appear so much at first— the idea was only to hint at his presence. But we changed our approach partway through and became more proactive with having him appear, after which the number of scenes he features in rapidly increased.
Nomura: Hamaguchi [codirector Naoki Hamaguchi] came up to me one day and said in a mysterious tone, ‘I'd like to talk to you about something.’ He asked me about having there be a battle with Sephiroth in Midgar. In the original game, Sephiroth’s true body is located elsewhere, so he didn’t think I'd give in to the idea so easily. I think he even prepared materials to persuade me. But in the end I agreed readily [laughs]” (FFVII Remake Ultimania, section 08 “Secrets”, “Development Staff Interviews, Part 2: Tetsuya Nomura, Yoshinori Kitase, Kazushige Nojima”, page 746).

Kitase, the producer of the Remake trilogy, even says that after working on this project for so long, and after spending almost 30 years on the FFVII project and getting to know the characters, he has realized that:

“The more [he works] on it, the more [he wants] to make all these characters happy. [He wants] to give them a happy ending. The rest of the team’s opinions [obviously] also have to be taken into consideration, so it won't be all happiness and rainbows. But [he] just [wants] to make [the characters of FFVII] happy” (Kitase and Hamaguchi’s interview “Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s Producer Just Wants 'the Characters to End Up Happy'”, by Vandal, translated by me).

Kitase is indeed only one developer, but he’s the producer of this project: that’s the very top position. He oversees everything and nothing goes without his approval. That counts for something. Of course, Kitase is fair and values the input of all the devs, so of course it won’t be “all happiness and rainbows”— but I sincerely believe there’s a big chance that Cloud and Aerith are heading toward their happy ending. Even if this theory is completely bogus, I want to have faith that the devs would not sacrifice good storytelling for nostalgia and a conservative attitude toward preserving the OG story, as that would be cheap of them, and we have not known them to be cheap. This game truly matters to them, so I think they deserve our faith.
(conclusion in

DISCLAIMER: I did not transcribe this myself, though I could. I had a machine do it, and then the machine threw up afterwards -- but I did go through and add some bullety points while Jamie shot off her mouth. It's a total word salad, but one has only to skim through and see the number of ways she yawns and yawps and contradicts herself ... and does not take a breath, so there is very little punctuation. Again it's a run-on slog and the AI program chose to only use periods to end 70-some sentences because of all the run-on "like ... you know ... and ... but" instances as she ran with it -- with NO BOUNDARIES WHATSOVER. I did take out the kids' names, and I did search-and-replace all instances of "to" with "tuh" because that IS how they talk!
ENJOY -- and I use that word lightly:
AND SO IT BEGINS WITH Doug wishing Happy Mother's Day … and immediately Jamie corrects him, "Well, not really Mother's Day …" since they are recording after Mother's Day. Got get those Doug corrections in toot sweet, lest he thinks he has a mind of his own.
They note they tend to be "a little late on things," but they are "trying to get better about that." Doug says they had a fantastic Mother's Day, and he asked her if she had a good time. She said she had a great time. Doug wrote Happy Mother's Day on some cards and the kids drew on them. He gave her an eyelash waxing and noted probably a bad idea. She said it wasn't that she wasn't thrilled as she did mention that pregnancy makes her eyebrows bushy, but she was scared, maybe just mentioned she'd need to tweeze, but oh, well, yes, she likes his gift.
Jamie noted that it was "just the four of us" and of course, the babies in her belly, and that was fine with her – until her son's birthday of course, when she noted that their entire families suck!
So onto her son's birthdays and THESE GEMS AND THOUGHTS: I think it's just pregnancy hormones, but honestly, like, I just, I just can't, like, I don't know why, like, I guess, like, you know, ever since I was little, I've always really, really wanted family, like, so badly, like, I wanted just, like, deep connections with people who truly love me, and I truly love them, and we just really, truly support each other, and just, I don't know, I think, like, just pregnancy hormones made me think about it, but, like, yesterday for Son's birthday, and just family members who just completely forgot, and they just don't care, and I'm like, is it me? Is it him?
Like, and I don't want my son tuh grow, like, he doesn't know, and he'll never know, because I'll make sure, I mean, I spent every second, that boy had no second tuh think yesterday, like, I picked him up from school, and I took him tuh the library, because that's where he wanted tuh go, and then we, like, you know, we really love surprises in this family, if that's not clear by now, and so Daughter and I surprised him with a splash pad, like, we went tuh the splash pad for the first time, and we never do things like that on a school night, and so, and then he got tuh go pick out a cake that he wanted, and then Doug had dinner already at home, and then also we had decorations in his bedroom, which I was, like, hoping tuh have for the morning, but then Doug was, like, at, like, midnight, when we're, like, thinking about starting tuh blow up the balloons, Doug is like, Jamie, let's just surprise him tomorrow after school.

(Notice she takes no breath … and also they were super-last minute when it came tuh getting ready for his birthday, versus, what we have all mentioned, that isn't so when it's a gender reveal or a party or pickleball or something FOR HER.)
HERE, DOUG ASKS … "WHY, ARE WE GONNA DO THIS NOW?" AND THIS WAS PRETTY MUCH THE LAST EFFORT HE MADE tuh STOP HER BECAUSE SHE WENT ON WITH: Yeah, because it was so late, but I was like, I just have, like, this vision that I just wanted for him, because, you know, I'm just trying tuh give them the childhood that, like, I would have wanted, that any little kid would want, and really all that involves is truly just two loving parents who are there, and, like, that's really all that really involves, but if I can go a little extra, you know, and surprise him, and I, then I want to, you know, and so, you know.
DOUG NOTES THAT HE DOESN'T THINK THEY KNOW ANY DIFFERENT, AND HE CONTINUES WITH: I don't think they really know any different, you know, and I know, I know it's, it's tough, and I think, especially with, like, little kids, you know, they, they won't necessarily feel the impact and that want, you know, and, and I know that you do, and it, it hurts me that, you know, you would, you would want people tuh care enough to, tuh reach out, and I think, you know, for, for me, I, that's, I don't really set my expectations or, or give those expectations tuh son and daughter.
JAMIE BLASTS BACK, SUPER-DEFENSIVELY: Oh, I do not either, though. I do not at all. I don't say a thing tuh them about anything, because, you know, sometimes people miss their – you know, and that happens sometimes, but when it's, like, over, and over, and over again, and, like, it's just so obvious, and, and people ask us why we moved tuh Florida, and don't we want tuh be near family, and, you know, tuh be very honest, this is why.
Like, we, you know, I, we would fly up there tuh try tuh prove, like, hey, listen, we're not just trying tuh leave, though. Like, we, we, I want that family connection so badly with your family, with my family, and it's just, you know, unfortunately, it's, people are in different stages of life. I try tuh make excuses, like, for them, and, you know, for us, and it's probably not personal, but the point of the matter is, is that whether it's not personal, and people are busy, and whatever the case may be, we don't have that family connection.
We just don't, and I'm, I try tuh nurture it, and, um, you know, and we do with some family members, and then just others, you know, you just, it's just. Well, you can't help but be disappointed. Yeah, and, like, I guess my heart hurts, because I want our son, and our daughter, and our children tuh have just so many people who love them, and want tuh be around them, and who will encourage them, and support them, and.
DOUG NOTES THAT HE THINKS FAMILY KNOW ALL OF THIS AND THAT THEY, THE KIDS KNOW HOW MUCH LOVE THEY HAVE FOR THEM, AND ALL THE EFFORTS THEY PUT FORTH, AND HERE HE SAYS, "Especially you," AND THAT ALL OF THIS IS WHAT MATTERS MOST.
JAMIE'S REBUTTAL: Yeah, I know, but Doug, what I'm trying tuh say is that, like, what I would want for them is them tuh have many people who love them, and, like, you know, like, I always wanted, you know, it's not even a secret, like, way back, I'm married at first, like, the one thing I wanted was tuh marry into a family, like, a big loving family that would welcome me as their own, and, and I'm really thankful for your family, and, yeah, but, like, I just feel like, like, I want that for our kids. Like, I wanted them tuh have people who loved them, who wanted tuh come around them.
Like, my, my siblings and I really didn't have many aunts or uncles or grandparents who, I mean, you know, it's kind of, it's so long, because, like, there are some people who were there, but it was, like, toxic, and aye, aye, aye, it's just, you know, it's just, at the end of the day, I'm pregnant, and it's just hormones, and I know our kids feel nothing but loved, but it's just really evident, like, on a birthday or holidays, like, people who, who actually, like, family who actually truly cares for us, and, like, all I've ever wanted was just our, like, I, I don't know why I care about these people caring about me, when, like, they don't care, and it's okay, and that's, that's, it's okay.
Like, it, I'm trying so hard tuh just be, like, accept it, girl. Like, you know, you can't force family tuh love you.
JAMIE TRIES TO DIFFUSE THE TIMEBOMB SITUATION THAT IS HIS WIFE, CLEARLY GOING OFF ON EVERYBODY BY SAYING HE KNOWS THAT SHE DOESN'T WANT THIS FOR THEM BUT THAT THEY, THE KIDS, DON'T EVEN NOW ABOUT ALL OF THIS RIGHT NOW.
JAMIE'S REBUTTAL: Well, I know they don't, and so, at the end of the day, I was, like, sitting in bed crying earlier, and I was, like, what is wrong with me, because I know my son had a great birthday yesterday. Like, I made sure of it.
DOUG NOTES SHE "KILLED IT, YESTERDAY."
JAMIE BLASTS ON: At the end of the day, I think, like, it's a personal thing, because it's, like, they don't care about me, and therefore, they don't care about my son, and that hurts, you know? Like, it's just hurtful, and not, because I care about them, and I love them, and I've tried so hard tuh be part of them, and, and try to, like, I've tried changing my ways. I've tried tuh adapt tuh be more like them.
I've tried all these different things. At the end of the day, nothing I do, like, I may as well just be myself, and, and, because if I have tried tuh be like them, they don't like me. If I try tuh be myself, they don't like me.
Like, no matter what, like, I don't feel like, I feel like they're, I'm just kind of judged by them in the way that I live my life, and anyways, it's fine, but.
DOUG COUNTERS IT WITH THE FACT THAT JAMIE GOES "ABOVE AND BEYOND FOR EVERYBODY," AND THAT IT'S TOUGH THAT SHE "WANTS OR EXPECTS THAT IN RETURN," BUT NOTES THAT THIS IS ALSO MAYBE WHERE THE "BOUNDARIES" LIE … cool, they now have a title for the podcast!
JAMIE CONTINUES tuh BLAST: Well, no, of course, and this is exactly why I'm also crying happy tears, because for so long, I just really tried tuh nurture, like, a true, like, true family, and deep connection, and like, try tuh be, like, really close, and, and it's like, well, if you're the only person nurturing that, you're bound tuh get hurt. It's bound, it's not going tuh happen ever, because it has tuh be a two-way street, and so, unfortunately, like, I started putting up boundaries, and I knew it was going tuh hurt, and like, here it is. It's, it's hurting, you know, like, and then inevitably, they'll be like, you know, you moved tuh Florida, but even when we didn't live in Florida, let's be honest, like, we didn't see family very often, unless, like, it was, it just, unless it was us going places, and then even when we moved here, I would fly up there.
I flew up, we were flying up there, like, once a month. It was so expensive. It was so taxing, but I just wanted to, tuh kind of prove, hey, listen, like, but, you know, I'm so glad we moved here, because at the end of the day, you know, even if we never even find our own people, like, our focus is on our core family, like, we had zero distractions for Son yesterday, like, his birthday was the hundred, like, and it's just, that feels good, because normally, we wouldn't have that. Yeah, normally, I would be cleaning the house, trying tuh prep for people tuh come over, who I would have called 10 times, make sure they remember that he's coming, and it's like, or that his birthday is coming, and it's like, it's just, you know, this is such a vulnerable, I don't even know if I want tuh share any of this, because it's just so personal, but.
DOUG NOTES THAT ALL REFLECTS MORE ABOUT OTHERS AND NOT AN ATTACK ON JAMIE.
AND YET JAMIE CONTINUES TO DEFLECT AND ATTACK: No, I don't think it is either, but it's just very evident where people, like, if people care about us and our family, I don't think they actually, that's the thing, is they don't, like, and so, they're not thinking about it one way or the other, it doesn't even matter tuh them, and that's what hurts, because I wish that they cared about us the way that we cared about them, but they don't, and so, that's why I'm trying tuh have the boundaries tuh be like, find people who will care about you then, or just focus on your own family, and if people wonder why I want so many kids, well, there you go. People constantly say, why don't you love the two you have?
Oh, of course I do, and I'll tell you what, I want tuh have 10 more, because I want tuh raise them in a way where we love each other, we're always there for each other, we don't forget. It's just silly little milestones, it's not about presents, it's not about anything other than just love, and remembrance, and just, like, celebrating each other, and I am going tuh raise my kids tuh just really love each other, and tuh know that their parents love them, but God forbid, one of us are taken, and then, then it's like, I think about things like that, and I'm like, who do they have if they don't have us? Like, seriously, and that scares the crap out of me, because there are very few people who even remember, like, and tuh me, it's just a birthday, I know, it doesn't really matter, but like, that's of significance tuh that child, and people just don't care, like, they just, our fam, so many of our family members just don't care. Well, we make, we make it, and then I'm like, am I making a mountain out of a molehill, but like, and am I?
DOUG ALSO THINKS ABOUT THEM "DEPARTING EARLY" AND WHAT HAPPENS tuh THEM.
JAMIE BUSTS BACK IN, AND STARTS tuh TALK ABOUT "ESTATE PLANNING," WHICH SORT OF MADE ME SIDEYE BECAUSE SHE GOES ON tuh TALK ABOUT THE KIDS AND WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO THEM, AS IF THEY WERE PART OF THE "ESTATE," BUT I GUESS SINCE THEY ARE THE MONEYMAKERS SHE THINKS OF IT MORE IN THAT WAY THAN GUARDIANSHIP PAPERWORK … AND SO SHE CONTINUES: Well, when you think about estate planning, and then who you're leaving your kids to, and I'm like, who can I leave my kids to, who are really going tuh love them, and the people right now didn't even call tuh wish him happy birthday, they didn't even call tuh wish him a happy birthday, they didn't send a gift, and it's not even about the gift, but it's about the thought, who do we have in our life, Doug? I don't think it's, you know, I ask if I think I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, but then I, like, I almost, like, talk, like, convince myself that, no, I'm not, like, I'm really trying tuh make sure that our kids are taken, like, loved and taken care of, and sure, we've got it out, down pat, but what happens, like, then what?
And like, I'm not gonna go down that rabbit hole, and I'm sure this is all pregnancy hormones, and I'm just exhausted and tired, so, but I just think about these things, and then, and then people wonder why I am so thankful for our followers, for those of you listening tuh the podcast, and those of you who follow us on Instagram and YouTube, and who are just excited for us, because a lot of our own family members aren't, like, it's just wild, and so, yeah, and so thank you for those of you listening, and for those of you who comment, and just, you know, just are excited to, like, like, tuh be part of our family, like, because we have forever been looking for that, and, like, our family's just not that interested, and we could try, and try, and try.
DOUG: Out of sight, out of mind.
JAMIE BINGOS!!!!! THAT THOUGHT AND CONTINUES: Yeah, it's, and it's fine, but I'll tell you what, I genuinely do appreciate every single five-star review, every single, like, nudge that you just, every single moment that you take out of your life just tuh be like, hey, what's up with Jamie, you know, and that's why I try tuh do giveaways, and I try to, you know, like, read your five-star reviews, and I try tuh show you that I genuinely care about you, too, because I really think that it is a two-way street with everything in life, like, so whether it's, you know, family, it's friends, it's working, it's, we're colleagues, like, if someone is showing you a lot of, you know, any support, or encouragement, or care, like, then that's the person that you should then go show love, support, and encouragement, and care to, whether they're family or not, and unfortunately, if family doesn't seem tuh show you that, well, then you do have tuh set up boundaries, and it hurts, like, h-e-l-l, because then you'll start to, when you stop reaching out as much, well, then you'll start seeing that your relationship becomes even more distant, but you can't constantly break your back tuh try tuh make relationships.
DOUG NOTES THAT THEY EITHER STEP UP OR DON'T, AND THAT’S WHERE IT LANDS.
JAMIE CONTINUES: Yeah, but from what, from my experience, from what we've experienced, you know, no one really steps up, and it's pretty evident when you start, when you realize you have tuh make a boundary with a person, like, just know in your heart that it's gonna hurt, like, you know, and I'm sure that we're, I'm not the only person going through this, and that's, I think, why it's important tuh share, is that, you know, because it's hard tuh share these things.
It's embarrassing. It's, I feel, it's almost, like, belittling. It's like, like, you know, it's like you're, you're sharing that you're rejected, essentially.
Who wants tuh share that? Like, who wants tuh admit that? But the truth is, is that we all have been there, and so I think that the biggest way tuh heal, and what I've learned is, of course, tuh find, to, like, lean in on the people who don't, like, desert you, betray you, talk behind your back.
I mean, that's the thing, is people who also, who are there, but they're really, like, kind of a snake in disguise, and, like, it's, like, like, they, it seems like they're there for you, but then behind, but you're walking on eggshells around them, because you know that they're saying things behind your back, and that's not, that's not healthy either, and so what I've really tried tuh do is really just focus on people that have really just been loving and nurturing, and the more people are loving and nurturing tuh me, whether they're family or not, the more I will lead, like, reach into them, and...
DOUG BUSTS IN TO TAKE A "QUICK PAUSE" FOR AN AD, IRONICALLY ABOUT INVESTING AND GOOD FINANCIAL HYGEINE.
JAMIE GETS RIGHT BACK TO IT: Of course, holidays and birthdays are tough because like you want like my mom like I mean forget it but like I love her and she's doing the best she can but like you know it's like I don't know I guess it's because I'm pregnant and then like when you become a mom and you just think about this relationship and it's like I just have always wanted that relationship with my mom and of course I know real like logically it's not gonna happen but anyways it's um it's just hard but anyways what I was trying tuh say tuh you though listening is like if you're going through this type of situation like just know that you're doing the right thing by kind of putting the boundaries up and then kind of you know you got tuh focus on gratitude more than anything else and so I consistently try tuh remind myself tuh be thankful that I am alive I'm able tuh be there for my kids my son has no idea who remembered and who forgot his birthday but of course he knows who he talked tuh but like you know I, I know that he had the most spectacular day yesterday and I made darn well sure of it and it literally cost me like zero dollars tuh it's not like it has tuh be expensive it wasn't extravagant we went tuh the library which is free and then we went tuh a free splash pad that's in our city and slash playground yeah, yeah and he had a great time so it's like people it's because the other thing people say well if you can afford tuh give them that it's like it doesn't you can find ways tuh live tuh like really bless your family and your kids without having tuh spend boatloads of money um but the biggest message and takeaway of this all and I guess of like I we never planned on sharing any of this we were planning on sharing about mother's day and
DOUG DOESN'T EVEN KNOW WHAT tuh SAY, BUT SHE NEEDS tuh KNOW HOW PROUD HE IS OF HER, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH …
SHE THANKS HIM QUICKLY AND THEN GETS ON WITH HIS always getting by my side and like when I'm thankful for you when I started you know going tuh therapy and, and I mean forever ago I'm telling you forever ago when we were first married and I first started going tuh a therapist outside of married at first sight she told me she looked me in the eyes and she said Jamie like they might be family but they're not your people and you gotta go find your people and I didn't want tuh believe her I didn't want I literally just said you know thanks but no thanks essentially and I'm gonna try my best tuh turn this family into mine because I want this connection and I want this and I wish I could have saved myself all those years by just listening tuh her and you know finding my own people who, who do love and support me for who I am who I don't have tuh like I can just don't have tuh walk on eggshells I don't have tuh try tuh be anybody else I can just be myself and they'll see like the good in that and they'll like it you know and, and not everyone's for everyone and that's okay and I just try tuh remind myself that but anyways um yeah you've always stood by my side so thank you I see you I'll always be by your side I just like sometimes doubt like if like you know like, like, like what have I done like am I a bad person like did I like what have I done this has nothing
DOUG NOTES THAT THEY'D FIND PEOPLE "DOWN HERE" IN FLORIDA, AND THAT THEY BOTH KNEW IT WOULD NOT HAPPEN OVERNIGHT, THAT REALLY MEANINGFUL BONDS TAKE TIME, BUT THEY ARE IN THE BEST POSSIBLE POSITION TO BUILD A COMMUNITY AND MAKE STRONG FRIENDS THEY CONSIDER TO BE FAMILY, AMAZING PEOPLE, AND THERE ARE KIDS TOO, AND THEY CAN WATCH EVERYONE GROW UP TOGETHER … AND HE THINKS, "That's kind of the point of, of moving tuh Florida find community find our people and also find out you know who would be there with us and for us and …"
JAMIE BLASTS BACK: It has nothing tuh do with you or who you are well the truth is, is obviously it does because these people don't enjoy being around me so then therefore they don't enjoy remembering our kids and or me whatever I guess I think I'm just really hormonal and emotional but I guess I just feel incredibly rejected and like I've done something wrong but I also know at the same exact breath that this has been happening for years and years and years where I've really
DOUG NOTES JAMIE HAS "TRIED SO HARD" AND THAT IT'S NOTHING THAT SHE DID.
JAMIE BLATHERS BACK THAT IT'S NOT REALLY THAT THEY'VE DONE ANYTHING WRONG, BUT … we just don't jive and I guess you know we have different we're different people and we can't force it yeah and so there's very little control that we have over it other than us being us yeah and so but you know but I guess this is like the healing part that everyone talks about with boundaries that's so painful like it's so painful because when you want something so bad and like I think it's like wired in me because it's family and like I really want tuh support family and love family and be there for them and but then it's like but it's just not there in return and you could just spend your whole life searching for it and or you could kind of put up a boundary and, and stop allowing that tuh continue tuh hurt you and find people who are genuinely happy tuh be around you and so needless tuh say for those of you listening if - if you're in this boat with someone whether it's parents siblings aunts uncles cousins I don't know or even long-time friends who you think are quote-unquote friends but you know things change or who knows I mean it's so darn hurtful but I really believe at the end of the day that I mean I was I spent years and years and years trying my darnedest and now I'm like if I, If I could give like an inkling of that effort tuh someone who gives an inkling of the effort back tuh me like the just the joy and happiness that could come from that or just like the stability and also like I did try changing myself tuh kind of be more like them tuh have more in common with them and it just I can tell you right now if you're trying tuh do that that's not gonna work either like it's hard unfortunately you just gotta be yourself in this world you gotta love with your whole heart and, and be selfless you know you can't expect people tuh just care about you if you don't care about them of course you gotta show up for people you gotta really like put yourself out there for them but if you consistently do that and you're not getting any of it in return you gotta change your path and it's the hardest thing in the world tuh do but you know tuh be very, very honest like going tuh bed with Doug last night after Son's birthday and like just everything that went down and whatnot I was just like and this is why we live in Florida this is why we moved here because this this served our core family more so than trying tuh fit a round peg into a square everyone else's schedule and everybody else's lives it's just you know and it's and I'm incredibly thankful tuh your sister and tuh your mom and your dad of course because they did reach out and that's just really, really kind like they called and they just show that they really care and that really means the whole wide world tuh me and like regardless of what they think of me like they love our kids and that's really all that
DOUG NOTES WHAT MATTERS IS-AND MAYBE THEY NEED TO BELIEVE IN SOME KIND OF "HIGHER PURPOSE," BUT HE DOESN'T CONSIDER IT ALL "WASTED TIME OR ENERGY," AND THAT IT MAYBE HAPPENED THE WAY IT'S SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN AND FOR JAMIE TO GIVE …
AND SHE CUTS HIM OFF TO SAY THAT THIS MESSAGE CAN help others. I've really kind of like avoided being this vulnerable lately because I feel like there are some people who just really don't like me and it's been brought tuh my attention and just no matter what I do they really don't like me and I guess like everybody has quote-unquote haters but it hurts my heart a little bit and I don't know but, but the truth is, is like just like I said before what I learned in this the certain boundaries that I've talked about before is that you really can't change who you are in the hopes that people will start tuh approve of you because they're never like the people who just choose that they don't like you and they just choose tuh find your faults will always like they will always see your faults and they will always yeah there's no convincing them otherwise and that's and if you're listening tuh this like this is the truth for all of us is that when you're looking for the good in life you're gonna find the good and you can focus on that and try tuh get like more of that and garner more of that but if you're focused on the negative whether it's in life or with your spouse or with a friend or at the workplace you're gonna find that and so if so sometimes if you've you know if you see that you're consistently feeling like you have quote-unquote bad luck or that this person's being wrong tuh you or they're not caring about you will try tuh think about the good that they do and, and, and so truly like for me with these whole boundary things like I've tried just I tried tuh kind of I've already tried that with some of these family members that just don't seem tuh care and um and, and so that's and then that's when the hurt comes is you know when you realize oh yeah you're actually all right and you are onto something and for whatever reason their life isn't aligning with yours and it's and that's okay but it doesn't mean it's not gonna hurt a little bit for the person who like wants it tuh be there but that's when you go out and find someone who wants tuh align their life with you or maybe their life already aligns and they just and you can serve each other you can love each other you can be there for each other and whether it's blood related or not like that will serve you better in life and so that's kind of where I think Doug and I are right now um but also for, for you listening if, if you're just finding yourself in this situation too just try tuh make sure you're not just trying tuh find the fault in someone because you don't want tuh get caught in that rabbit hole and there are people out there who just want tuh find the negative and then there are people out there who cut that down like don't allow that tuh happen tuh yourself because you will be miserable your whole life hating on someone else and just constantly finding their faults and constantly complaining about them is never going tuh bring you true happiness it really isn't and so think about you know yourself and like what you can do differently and try tuh bring the positive and so yeah I haven't been as vulnerable lately because it's been hard tuh be very honest tuh just share like my heart and then people are just going tuh attack me for it you know I'm sure but um but my goal in sharing this if we end up sharing this is that it helps the one person out there or I'm sure several really who are in the same exact boat who are you know trying tuh keep a friend that they've had forever but that friend's just not there or trying tuh maintain a relationship with one of your parents or your siblings or it shouldn't be hard it shouldn't be and you shouldn't have tuh change who you are and if you do then that's really just not the right person for you and, and you can talk tuh them about it of course and then if they're just combative, at the end of the day, I just say the best advice is find a therapist, and this book called Boundaries, and it's a little religious, and also a little kind of like, whoa, but I'm telling you, Chapter One, just give it – if you don’t' like it after that, don't even try, but like Chapter One, I was like, wow, I can see so much of myself in this, and I can see how could change, and I've got tuh promise you that it's been hurt along the way, but I have – we have, and our family has more positive days now than stressful, trying tuh like pull people in who don't really want tuh be there, trying tuh help them remember because they're gonna forget, like it's just – like yesterday was like the least stressful day ever, and we didn't have one person coming tuh our – or even Mother's Day, it was just us four, and you know, before I had kids, and I think – I saw someone else write this, but like before I had kids, I looked at the world as like everyone I encountered, and how can I be helpful tuh them, and that – like, but now it's like my world is my husband and my children. My world is within my four walls, and how do I love them and support them the best that I possible can, tuh help them become good – eventually like good husbands, a good wife, good mothers, good fathers, and good, good family members, and so …
DOUG IS SO PROUD OF HER AND THINKS SHE SHOULD ALSO BE PROUD OF HERSELF BECAUSE OF "HOW MUCH YOU HAVE GROWN FROM PEOPLE STARTING TO COMMENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA, AND YOU TRYING TO BRING THEM BACK OVER TO YOUR SIDE TO RECOGNIZING THE TOXICITY OF IT, AND SETTING BOUNDARIES." HE HAS TO TELL HER THAT IN THE PAST COUPLE OF YEARS, SHE HAS "SPREAD MORE POSITIVITY, IN MY MIND, THAN ANYBODY, FOCUSING ON BEING THANKFUL AND GRATEFUL," AND A MESSAGE SHE IS PASSING ONTO THE KIDS WHO ARE REALLY STARTING tuh THINK ABOUT IT AND FOCUS ON IT, AND IT'S "DRIVEN BY YOU."
MORE RASPY WHINY TEARY VOICE: Oh, Gosh, Doug's that's the nicest comment that I could have ever received because I really want that for them … yeah, because I – because we could all fall into that where you see the negative and you just kind of focus on that, and I'm trying so hard not to, and tuh just – you know, pray more, and even meditate, and that has nothing tuh do with prayer, but like just rewire my brain tuh like the positive things and finding the positive and helping others, also because – honestly, and I want tuh raise my kid where they are not seeing the negative, they're seeing the positive in situations because life, regardless of who loves you, how much money you have, what home you live in, what car you drive, life is so much better when you're able tuh see the positive and you're able to, like lean into that more, and you're able tuh then attract people who are like that, and the Negative Nellies are just going tuh always be there talking their smack about you, and that's fine, but like, if you can find the positive, you can focus on that, and you're going tuh have such a happier life, and the Negative Nellies, unfortunately, like I still pray for them, I still hope for them, because it's sad – like they're not living a happy life. You can't be a hater tuh all these people and be happy. It's sad.
DOUG THINKS THEY ARE "living proof of it, because once we started tuh focus on happy, once we started focusing on being thankful and grateful, the people that we attracted are the people that we would want tuh be with … didn't happen overnight, but as soon as we started tuh rethink that, and really try tuh be positive and do positive things, and our prayers and with the kids and being thankful and finding good, and gratitude, you know, we attracted people into our lives that, you know, are going tuh be there – I mean, I feel these are now lifelong friends, and you know, all of that was attracted, and there has got tuh be something tuh that."
THE END, THEY MUST GO PICK UP THEIR DAUGHTER BUT ONLY AFTER THE FIVE-STAR REVIEW AND THEN "SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!"
DELUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSIONAL – THE BOTH OF THEM! And according to the AI program Jamie talks more than 90 percent of the time, and Dud, hardly ever.

So, growing up I was the oldest child and had a brother who was 4 years younger than me. I grew up in a strict Catholic household, but my parents grew a bit more open minded once I was in high school and college. My mother specifically is pretty open minded about most things these days, but my Dad still lives a bit in the dark ages.
When I was in middle school, I started to notice that I would occasionally go to look for something in my closet and couldn't find it. I would mention it to my Mom, who did my laundry, and most often she would say she didn't have it. Almost always, the piece of clothing would mysteriously appear in either the laundry or my closet days later. My parents told me I just owned too many clothes and my closets/drawers were simply too full, and that's why I lost these items.
In high school, this continued with more frequency, and I started to notice that it was always very particular items of clothing- plaid mini skirts, knee high socks, heeled boots, and sometimes, even underwear. I have several vivid memories of going to pull underwear out of my dresser and seeing that it had obvious stains or spots on them- that they were not clean and had definitely been used, but not by me. I also noticed that sometimes the items would be put in the closet in the wrong spots (I had everything organized a particular way) or they were hung up on hangers oddly. I started to think my brother was the one stealing my clothes, because it couldn't be anyone else in the house. I figured he was doing it just to mess with me, so I started confronting him about it- always in front of my parents and most often at dinner. Immediately my brother would yell and say there's no way he would do that, and my Dad would jump right to his aide and defend my brother. How dare I accuse him? It's not his fault that I'm messy/own too many clothes to keep track of. In private, my Mom would say that she couldn't think of another explanation, but that she didn't believe my brother was doing it and I shouldn't bring it up at family dinners anymore. I was getting increasingly frustrated as this was going on for YEARS. Eventually, I started doing my own laundry, and locking my bedroom door when I wasn't home. Even then, the same thing would happen occasionally. I knew in my heart it was my brother but it didn't matter, because any time I brought it up I was the one blamed for causing a fight. I even confronted my brother privately a few times, but he never admitted to anything.
Well, one day when I was in my Senior or Grad year of college- I was probably around 22 at the time- I wanted some alone time while the house was empty and I go to get my vibrator out of the bottom drawer of my nightstand, except... it wasn't there. I looked everywhere, even dumping out the drawer completely just to make sure it wasn't. My mom knew I had one, so the first thing I did was call her and ask if she knew what had happened to it. She didn't. So, I went into my brother's room and started searching. There, shoved into the corner of his closet under a bunch of random stuff, was a stash- complete with multiple of my items of clothing, shoes, handfuls of underwear, and my vibrator. To say I was pissed was an understatement. I was seeing red. My mom and brother were on the way home, so I took pictures, put everything back, and waited.
When they got home, I called them upstairs into his bedroom. I, calmly and even-toned, said to my brother that I wanted to know, once and for all, whether or not he'd been the one messing with my clothes for years, and that I wouldn't be mad, but I wanted him to admit to it if it was him. Immediately, he starts screaming for me to get out of his room, how dare I accuse him, etc. At this point, my Mom was pretty convinced herself as over the years there was never another explanation, so she tried to come to my aid and explain that it's nothing to be embarrassed of and he could talk to her about anything. She even asked me to go out of the room so they could talk privately. I eavesdropped from outside, and heard him say that it's not his fault I'm crazy and a bitch, etc. He continued to deny it. I had reached my tipping point. I burst into the room, threw open the closet door and grabbed the vibrator. I whipped around with it in my outstretched arm, looked him dead in the eyes and screamed "EXPLAIN THIS!" A look of absolute horror reached his face. He didn't say anything. So, I threw the vibrator at him, and then starting taking each other item out of the closet and throwing it into a pile in the middle of the room. Only after that was done did he finally crack. He started to sob. I told my Mom that I would be back, that she needed to talk to him, and I left the house.
A few hours later, I returned and my Mom basically told me that he admitted to stealing the clothes for YEARS. He wouldn't tell her what he was doing with them- she thought he was maybe putting them on pillows and pretending they were girls (he'd never had a girlfriend or anything) but I always thought- and still do- that he'd been wearing the clothes in his room. She discussed with him that she would be willing to purchase women's clothes for him so that he wouldn't need to steal mine, and that she would do it in private so my Dad wouldn't know. She also told me that he was incredibly ashamed and she was nervous he'd hurt himself or attempt to end himself because of my confrontation (never in his life had he ever showed signs of this). I told her to relay the message to him that all I wanted was an apology.
A few hours later, he came to me, totally unable to look me in the face, but he apologized for the years of stealing- and sometimes ruining- my clothes. He apologized for denying it every time he was confronted and even offered to replace every single item of clothing/underwear if I wanted (It would have been a couple hundred dollars). I thanked him for apologizing, told him that I would be more than willing to purchase him things myself, that I did not want him to replace anything (because no one wants their brother to buy them a sex toy) and that if he ever wanted to talk about things I was there. It was that day that I told him I was bisexual, had had a girlfriend in secret in high school, and if he was questioning anything I would be an open ear. Even then, our relationship was strained for a long time.
It's been like 6 years now. I moved out as soon as I could, and always said to my Mom that I moved out more to get away from my brother than my parents. My brother has been more open with me in the past few years about his identify and sexuality (I believe him to be demisexual) and the fact that he does, in fact, purchase and wear women's clothing on occasion in the privacy of his own room. He once asked me if it would be okay for him to wear lingerie- type items when he visits/sleeps over my apartment. I respectfully declined, stating that I still harbored negative feelings towards that whole situation and quite frankly, didn't want to see my brother in his underwear, and he accepted that.
Still, to this day, I harbor resentment towards my parents that they never took my side until there was hard, undeniable truth in front of them. I actually don't know if my Mom ever told my Dad- he could be totally unaware of this whole situation. I've always thought they treated my brother differently. I had to be the responsible one. I had to be the one that held it all together. I had to be the one to do things for everyone else, even at my own expense. I've never really truly forgiven them for not believing me.
Anyway, that's what I's unpacking in therapy this week. I hope the visual of me flinging a vibrator across a room made you smile if nothing else! Cheers everyone.

So it's like a light discussion bout how i came to know about these communities. I do believe that the feelings of being gnc started in childhood for a lot of us. Same for me. I was an androgynous, awkward, and tomboyish nerdy kid who became more masculine as time went on.
As a little girl, all i had to do was take one look at some typical action hero, super powered macho dude and be like, yup, he's my bride now :).
My heart fluttered so much every time any of my cartoon crushes were put in an even slightly vulnerable position, maybe they got hurt, fainted or helpless. I might sound like a weirdo, but i used to save videos where they would be unconscious, falling or carried in that pretty thing, objectified sensual kinda manner. (I remember you superman, being all weak and passing out near any kryptonite 😳)
Cuz as a kid all i cared about was being cool and a show off irl, so naturally i was usually a badass in my imaginations who was either a detective, warrior or superhero that saved and bridal carried a helpless man, and the thought of them clinging to me, blushing and being in awe at how badass and strong i was absolutely melted me.
It's how i knew something was a bit different bout the way i perceived romance. Cuz mostly around me, little girls wanted to be the one saved, being the clinging and helpless one and to see how cool and fierce their crushes were. Even if they were badasses, it was very in that girlboss manner, and usually then it would not involve any guy cuz they were "independent" and "did not need saving"
Obvs my tastes became more diverse in future beyond just that.
I noted that people were a little bit gnc on internet like calling guys slutty or bbgirls and stuff like that. I found that i really liked it.
Ultimately, i would say it was my many searches of girlboss x malewife, strong fl x soft ml and similar stuff like this that lead me to rr and then this sub.
Before this, note, that i did not look for romance stuff much cuz, one, i grew up in religious conservative house where we would jump at even a simple kiss scene so i was pretty romantically repressed. Second, i often never felt romantic attraction irl cuz everyone was pretty hardcore het normative. Third, I, in general, don't read romance as a separate genre. Same for family dramas and slice of life. Not my cup of tea. Like its fine as a sub genre within a story but not as its own thing.
What started off me searching for rr romance stuff was interestingly cuz of one media that soon became my favourite anime; JoJo Bizarre Adventure.
I had long seen many memes abt it, including the "best waifu Speedwagon"
Long story short, i began actively binging many memes, without even having seen it. When part 6 was adapted, that's when i was watching it.
I feel like not enough people talk abt how gnc JoJo is, at least in presentation.
Like they were sometimes simultaneously the macho, normative, beefy guys and at same time so genderfucking, dramatic, fabulous and beautiful. Like legit everyone's poses go hard.
Poses are such interesting shit cuz unlike other action media, you'll be getting into the plot and fights and then momentarily they'll make you halt with someone's pose and be like drawing your attention to their objectified, beautiful bodies and energies its so hilarious xD
I mean consider the fact that the anime's best waifu is Speedwagon, and the best mom is Bruno, both of whom are MALE.
When i watched part 1 fr first time i finally understood all those best waifu memes like holy shit bro acts so much like a worried, nurturing and damsel in distress girlfriend
Not only that, like most of the jojo poses are inspired by fashion poses, most of them being done by female models. Dio's iconic pose? Done by female model. Most of Giorno's poses? Same thing here. Risotto? Same. And the body language of these characters. Like even if they may be the most mainstraightest characters, they don't care bout how they appear or carry themselves.
The amount of comments saying stuff like "Bruno got such mom smile" or "Abbachio wine aunt" or "diavolo a goth gf" or "giorno's stand posing with him like he's its baby mana" or "Prosciutto fast walked like a lady or worried mom" or how zesty so many jojos, even the early beefy ones like Joseph or pillar men act is absolutely fantastic. Their poses are such mixture of andro, masc or fem energies like they absolutely do not care.
Don't even get me started on their designs and clothing. Absolute gender fuckery. Pinkiest pink, flowers, earrings, slutty turtlenecks, heart accessories, strapless top, so many boob windows and crop tops, lipsticks, long hair, to name few.
Even if they are the machoest or het normative, they dress like there's absolutely no stigma in their world against how one presents. Rohan, diavolo, abbachio, bruno, dio, narancia, joseph, kakyoin, mista, giorno, anasui to name a few.
Sadly, women are the least gnc part of JoJo, and despite all this mentioned above , some semblance of mainstraightness still exists in jojoverse. There's either that, or just gayness.
Appearance wise the most gnc jojo women i can think of would be either ermes or hot pants. But that's realllyyy a bare minimum :(
Anyway, you can imagine i had many awakenings i didn't even know i had 🥴