Show the flow of blood and oxyen to the heart

Looking for advice or validation, im going to see a doctor again. Im 26 and feel like my life is over since im not recovering
Its been about 5 years after everything went downhill. Basically due to some stuff i had a panic attack and then was diagnosed with GAD later. The thing is its mental but also physical. This includes:
Bad fatigue where i feel physically cant move my body, it weighs like iron. I bedrot alot and I DONT WANT TO!!!!!! i love my bed but i dont want to spend so much time in there but at times i have no other choice. After my period i felt good so i went for an hour walk and i spent like 4-5 days in bed after that. Sometimes i have to lay down after an activity and suddenly its been 3 hours. I cry a lot due to the fatigue.
Bad brain fog/tension and depersonalization (could be from my anxiety very well)
Constantly feeling my heart rate, like being too aware no matter what, (also have flutters at times) chest is tight 24/7 sometimes so bad for weeks that it feels like my lungs are size of a tennis ball and i get dizzy. I try to stretch, got a massage, i dont have asthma btw. I just try to not care but its making me feel like im out of breath just sitting.
I recently got a bike (eletric one, you know like i dont need to do all the work and i can enjoy it more) yet my legs and hands are jelly after it. They get shaky and hurt. The same is if i run to the bus stop close by. My legs go jelly and hurt. I cant run more than max like 20 meters. Same with stairs. It feels like i dont get blood there enough ? Or something?
I have heat intolerance. Its just awful. People dont understand. I used to be able to tolerate it. I now also sweat more than i used to. I have drank electrolytes for years now to make it better and i carry cooling tower on my wrist when i go out.
What else. I must forget a lot. But i used to be a normal young woman. I cant lift up my arms for more than some seconds bc i feel the blood isnt getting up there? They go cold fast and just feel..odd.
Oh i also get lots of tingling in my legs and hands if i sleep on them or if theyre in weird position. Happens a lot.
After eating its a roulette if i will crash or not. It used to be so much worse like sugar would make me crash bad. Carbs and sugar.
And last: i used to have low b12, d and iron. I got them all up but i dont feel better. It gets worse. I barely can work. Just 12h per WEEK. If my life will be like this forever... im hopeless. I dont understand whats wrong with me. I know i have anxiety but why would it make me unable to do basic tasks like walk up the stairs without feeling my chest will explode and my legs dont have blood?

So, I’ve been trying to put my strange relationship with this game into words for quite some time now, and I guess here goes nothing, maybe someone can relate.
So first things first, I was born in 2003, I am way too young to ever truly have experienced the heights of this game first hand. But my story with WoW began pretty much as soon as I was old enough to understand what was happening on a computer screen. Growing up in the early 2000s fantasy was everywhere, Lotr was still fresh in everyone’s memory, internet was really starting to take off, and holy shit flash games were so much fun. I ate all of this up, knights, magic and dragons were everything to me and I adored virtually anything with fictional worlds.
The first person to ever show me WoW was my uncle who was a pretty serious early player (in the slim chance anyone who sees this remembers the Draenei paladin Chronos, that was him), my first look was at this new world was an animated login screen and then a roster of awesome looking characters he showed off to me and more to my older brother. We were both instantly hooked, I was probably around four or five when this happened. Next we saw a raid in progress (I think it was the Argent Tournament), and I’ve never felt more awe at a game than seeing a whole guild on dragon mounts making their way to a raid.
I begged him to make me a character, which he did, an orc warrior that he played for me while I sat on his lap. I had many more, little me was a serious altoholic.
Next it was my brother’s turn to start playing, and my fascination only deepened. Of course I had no real idea what was going on, but I just saw the massive world with people playing and interacting with it, and the idea of an ongoing story in a game was so cool to me. Azeroth never felt more real than watching over my brother’s shoulder and hearing him and his school buddies talk on shitty mics while grinding through Westfall.
This is not even mentioning the cultural phenomenon it was. It was on TV, it was in every electronic store, all the cool teens I looked up to were playing it, and in the end it wasn’t meat for me. I was always looking in from the outside, and that just made it all the cooler. I think what really cemented it in my mind was watching my brother doing a dungeon while speaking in chat and realising everyone in the group was from a different country, this was just something I had to be a part of.
It never really happened, it continued much the same the next years, watching the game from my uncles lap or behind big bro. The character I best recall having was a Tauren shaman, and Tauren are still one of my favourite races.
By the time MoP rolls around, I finally get a computer that can run games. I played the hell out of the free trials, I didn’t really care that I had to stop at level 20. I could entertain myself for hours just doing starter zones, always telling myself I would get involved more seriously when I got older and had my own money.
WoD, I get my first own credit card, and I subscribe. I level to 55 and create my dream character, a blood elf death knight. I play through the starting zone and it’s great. I get to Draenor, and, meh. The quests were decent but I just wasn’t having the same feelings as before. I’m just doing orders alone in my garrison, and in dungeons everyone is quiet in chat and rushes the bosses kitted out with full heirlooms. I eventually get bored and let my subscription expire.
Legion, I try again and was super hyped. DH was a great starter, but then same thing happens. No one interacts, move on.
And that’s more or less my actual experience with the game itself. Feeling passionate about the world and story, and falling short in the social aspect.
You see the one place that seemed untouched by wowmania was my school, I was pretty much the only nerd my age and as a result never found anyone to play with, and finding them in game is easier said than done especially now.
Every now and again I feel an itch to return, most recently with MoP remix. But I’ve always left the same way, feeling lonely. This is an MMO, but most people just seem completely asocial outside guilds. I yearn for experiences I see with people regularly raiding and talking on discord coordinating, or guilds having hijinks in Classic but I’ve never managed to find it.
All in all, I just feel the game I first witnessed as a kid passed me by while I watched. All that’s left is just a game that’s about numbers where everything is known and optimised to hell and back. I’m still hoping to make it work sometime, maybe finally meeting someone I can regularly play with and experience endgame content, Maybe trying Season of Discovery and seeing if people are more social there.
In the end I still love this game. It’s given me happy childhood memories (I know most starting zone tracks by heart) and shaped me to the massive fantasy buff I am today, but maybe I’m more in love with the idea of WoW rather than the actual game.

Hello everyone,
I'm currently 3 months post ACL surgery (reconstruction). Lately, I have been suffering from pain at the back of my knee, specifically on one side. It all started one day when I woke up with this pain, so I got worried and went back to my doctor to get checked. I got an X-ray and blood tests for infection and other issues. The results showed normal, and nothing was wrong. My doctor told me not to worry and to keep using hot compresses, stretching, and doing things normally. Now it's been almost 3 weeks; it has gotten better but still hurts a bit, especially when I try to straighten my leg.
So I'm posting here to ask for other people's experiences. Should I be worried? How long should I expect this to last?
Thank you in advance!

I (33M) will try not to make the story too long. Aproximatelly three months ago I became aware that there might be a problem with my left hand. After a workout (used to hit the gym regularly), while doing cable rows, I felt sudden paresthesias on the back of my left hand, hence I immediately stopped. That night I had the typical pins and needles in my left hand and pain shooting up my arm (immediately tought its CTS). I decided to take a break, and symptoms started going away.
Went to my colleague neurologist, he did an EMG and said everything fine. I started using Uridin monoposphate gel and pills with some extra B12 vitamins, and started wearing splints.
I could provoke Tinnel sign in the begining immediately by light percussion and second and middle fingers were responding to it, now only second finger and I feel very light paresthesias while tapping my carpal tunnel, so I can say that its improving.
Went to second neurlogist who did EMG (again negative for CTS, but positive for mild cubital tunnel syndrome also on left hand), and then he decided to do ultrasound of my left wrist where it was clear that the median nerve was flattened. EMG then showed paradoxically slightly faster conduction rate for left hand compared to right.
One and a half months later, did again ultrasound and colleague said the following- discrete edema around median nerve, without significant thickening. I quote him- it would be a shame to do surgery for this now, go to physical therapy (and i did, didnt feel worse nor better after it ).
What bothers me now is what I noticed about my thenar muscles. I dont feel that Ive lost grip strenghtm but I noticed thenar hypotrophy on the left side, and Im wondering is it a sign that I have not even felt symptoms of onerve comnpression that was there for a long time or what? Cuz muscle wasting should be a sign of severe nerve compression right? I will upload photos of both of my hands so u can obviously see the difference
https://imgur.com/a/CPpHCwu
PS: Also, noticed after a long distance run, the feeling of slight paresthesias in my 2nd and middle finger (probably due to blood vessel impigement from the carpal tunnel), which subsides after 30min or so.
I wanted to know your advice on this matter and if you think that I should do the surgery, which takes my colleague 30min to do ( it takes me 20min to do it, not bragging lol)

I'm 24F, don't smoke, don't drink. I have been having shortness of breath with pain in my left arm. It started a week ago out of the blue and I couldn't breathe properly anymore. My pulmonologist says it's nothing serious, but after googling the symptoms, I can't shake the feeling that I have something serious like pulmonary embolism. It all started out after I used big sprays extensively for a week (too many bugs due to rains) and also had a mild case of tonsilloliths. Doctor says it could be teitze syndrome, but the pain is too much and I'm terrified.
Along with this, I'm having other symptoms as well: 1. very stiff and painful upper back 2. Extreme pain in my left arm 3. pulsatile tinnitus in left ear and occasionally, a weird static noise in right ear (from past 6 months) 4. Pain in the breastbone and severe chest tightness 5. Weakness in my legs and arms 6. Occasional shaking of fingers and spasms in my legs and pain in left leg and knees. 7. Stiff neck and occasional headaches 8. Dizziness
Although I have shortness of breath, my spo2 levels are between 94-100, and I have a heart rate in the range of 65-90. I did get a venous blood gas test done, and po2 level was 33.4 and so2 level was 60%.
I got my echo and ecg done, as well as chest xray, FeNo and spirometry tests done. My ecg and chest xray is normal, and the echo test showed a trivial mitral valve regurgitation and mild tricuspid valve regurgitation. FeNo is a bit elevated (36) and results of spirometry were a bit poor. I also have anaemia (ferretin level 10) and fatty liver grade 2.
The doctor has prescribed me foracort 200, and vitamin E, iron and vitamin D supplements along with some antacid, but seems like it's not helping much. (It's been three days since I have started taking these).
I get short of breath just by walking for 5 mins and need to force myself to take deep breaths every single time because I feel like I'm not getting any oxygen at all, I get dizzy all the time. I'm terrified. What could this be and should I take a second opinion?

Here is the first chapter of a religion text I am compiling. This religion has no name. At the beginning is the chapter number and the verse number, so chapter 1 and Verse 4 will be 1:4.
I - Humanity And Beyond 1:1 It was generations upon generations ago, as the stars were young and the song of the universe were mere notes lacking melody, that our blue planet was created. Through the darkness of the void, our home was forged in light and chaos, and life did not exits upon it for many more millennia to follow. The creation of our planet, Earth, did not immediately result in the sudden population boom of humanity. Humans have been around for a mere fleeting moment in the grand scale, and even less in the scale of Detaros. She, Detaros, was the one to manifest her dreams into a reality from her slumbering existence. She is not awake nor asleep. The passage of time was endless at first, what seemed like an eternity would be spent upon an abandoned rock, forgotten by all but one. Oceans of magma crashed and burned away the land, as mountains that spewed flame and debris cascaded over the horizon in all directions. 1:2 From the heavens above, the first of many gifts - water, rained got thr first time. Over millennia, many storms would blanket the earth, filling the deepest of chasms with the cooling water. Even then said water would bubble and boil away from the heat of sub aquatic volcanoes, but from the chemical sludges and soups, what would be the precursor for all would become. 1:3 A single organism, one barley understandably small in size - a bacterium known to us as a mere single cellular organism, one probably only having a life span of the minutes, seconds or hours. Yet it held enough information to replicate itself and to feed and to produce waste. It replicated. It replicated again and again. However, our star, still rejoicing in the bounty of Fallen Gods, produced too much radioactive material for organisms to live on the surface of the land or near the light that pierced the depths of the oceans. 1:4 Over thousands of years a barrier was formed that reflected this radiation, and eventually the earth became cleanly divided between the 3 realms - Land, Water and Air. Over time, life on Earth branched out from the singular group of organisms. It was us, Humans, who learnt this. We believe ourselves masters of creation and conquest, but no, we are not. Humanity may be upon our home, Earth, and maybe we will be for a decade, a century, a millennia from now. 1:5 However, our time in “possession” of the universe is ultimately temporary. Empires of old would burn out and fizzle into dust and smoke, and new groups and armies would form from the upturned rubble. Humanity will one day die out, be it today or in a billion lifetimes from now. Our time toying with the instruments of existence is temporary. 1:6 Regardless, it is a mercy for those to partake in their dull lives, for a life of chaos and despair is much worse fate than boredom. The uninteresting lives of man will never be remembered, but they will never be forgotten for they live on through our books, and through our minds. It was us, and followers of us who have been rewarded through not health or wealth, but knowledge. 1:7 Enlightenment is not the reason to follow a god, for trying to be devoted when one seeks rewards is a transgression. Such issues can be overcome, but it is not our right to make the wicked better. It is our duty. Ownership of our lives is a fundamental human aspect, and such aspects may not be ignored. 1:8 An old man and his donkey were trapped one day in a deep muddy hole they had fallen in. The duo pleaded passers by for aid, but were met with only people throwing dirt and mud into the decline. The foolish donkey ignored such mud, crying for help as it was buried alive, whereas the man used these materials to build steps out of the ground. To be blind to the opportunities given to one is to set oneself up for failure. By the will of humanity and of our pantheon, we are destined to forge a path that will expand beyond humanity, as one day, perhaps a new species shall rise where we once did, and perhaps they will learn of our history and of our fates. 1:9 We have a history, a history any may learn about. There were no prophets, none in possession of a direct connection to the pantheon. However, our prayers have been answered by the gods. The gods, each a embodiment of an aspect, were divided between their moralities. Each god always wandered the cosmos, creating and manipulating space and matter to their will, even to a point where they consumed The Perogantos who were the direct ancestors of the gods themselves. 1:10 Upon the dawn of creation, bewildering power was unleashed upon all that was and was not, each a blob of raw energy shaping and morphing itself at a glacial speed. The Perogantos they were called. Each a barley living soup of molecules and empty space. Each had a domain. Their names, lost to all but their descendants, contained a word of unknown power. A word is not a good way to describe it, for a word would imply it was able to be comprehended by mortal minds. It was an idea attached to the being so intrinsically it couldn’t be separated. Eventually, these entities spawned their own children - the very gods themselves. 1:11 The Kreatonia, architects, built and altered the worlds as they saw fit, working in tandem to create order, or working against each other to sow chaos and discord. The Solki were those slumbering. Not awake nor asleep. The pseudo-conscious clandestine collective cared little for the matters of many, although as the dormant beings periodically became active, great changes would occur. The Destruvari were not only corrupt but worthy of contempt. Destroyers and harbingers of decay and degradation is all they were. They sought only to undo the “damage” the Kretonia has produced. Each building the children of Detaros was a blemish upon the earth, with each human simply being akin to a fly or a gnat. 1:12 Each of the Destruvari had their own ways to bring around the end of empires. Evocae froze over much of the landscape of the world numerous times, each millions of years ago before humanity could flourish and innovate. 1:13 Each deep freeze lasted millions of years until Pychos reverted her devastation upon the planet with great waves of heat and flame. The last of these states in which the planet remained in a frozen world for well over ten million years, Pychos had enough for once and for all. In doing as he had done time and time again, Pychos entombed himself within the core of the very Earth he saved, weak and fragile. Periodically, even to this day, gouts of flame and smoke erupt from the ground as the building energy tries so desperately to escape as the slumbering cacophony of heat and turmoil tries desperately to claw free from the prison of his own making. As for Egola, she was banished from Earth, doomed to wander a void as cold as she was. 1:14 Her power dwindled as a radiant species of beings clambered forth - Humans. The will of humans took centuries to make long lasting effects upon the gods, with our rapid industrial development causing damage upon the planet. Each god had their own reaction. 1:15 Yvtå, the god of blossoms and nature, recoiled in disgust at the despicable actions of man. Nūvokato found it frustrating that the beings he deemed lesser were performing his work for him. The Kreatonia were mostly indifferent or annoyed by this. The gods all collectively agreed not to punish humanity for our actions, but instead let the consequences of waste and destruction of what they made take its toll on us. 1:16 Regardless, despite all agreeing in their courts of marble and gold, not all gods were willing to accept. 1:17 Salagos, described by the gods as a twisted jester and inventor of cruel and malignant “jokes”, deceived Tevos, a wrathful spirit, into killing a fellow spirit, one who bestowed fledgling species with the most basic of knowledge such as that of using tools or the creation of fire. The spirits name was Esh, made from the will to invent and conspire. The one with a vendetta with no reason grabbed his sword. In a grassy field where Esh was laying, observing the sunrise, Tevos decapitated the ethereal maiden, her blood spilling upon the pasture doomed humanity to a stagnant age, in which crude society overwhelmed mankind, leading to war after war after war. 1:18 However, the barbaric Salagos undid their actions by reviving Esh and bestowing upon her a great burden — the burden of knowing that her precious children of man had scarcely grown, governed by lunatic kings and queens and the laws of insanity. For their crimes, Salagos was forbidden from interfering with the affairs of gods or mortals, banished into a state reminiscent of The Slumbering, lacking the ability to ever wake. 1:19 The First Humans were not free from sin, for no being was truly ever perfect within that manner. The first humans lived their lives as ordinarily as one would expect. Wake up, eat, drink, sleep. Even today, we are no different at our core than those who tread the ground years, decades and centuries ago. 1:20 These people forged their own ideas of a god, or even multiple gods. The rise of the sun, a ritual as old as the earth, was so fascinating to them that they made their own version of pantheons. Self proclaimed prophets walked the soil, no different and us now. Those who believed to understand the workings of reality yet failed to use their “knowledge” to benefit them. 1:21 Some men did benefit the world. Great scientists and mathematicians of olde invented things from numbers to fire to art and philosophy. It was the spark of emotion and creativity that set humanity apart from the rest, destined to conquer and command as well as crumble and collapse. Of course it was some who learned that the gods had existed in one form throughout human history, from the ancient Pantheons of old to more modern beliefs of a god, or in this case it was gods. 1:22 It was Nietzsche who said “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” Such quotes are true, for a person with determination and conviction can overturn the most drastic of circumstances and the most mundane inconvenience. 1:23 By the will of The Pantheon, we are one. Humanity is one group that must stand together united against the unknown lest there is nobody left to stand against disorder and anarchy. Against the forces of chaos, we must emerge victors, for the people who have truly won have reached enlightenment such the beating heart of flesh and the soul of the very essence of their mind. 1:24 No person, no matter who they may be, or who they believe they are, regardless of whether they are a slave to violence and cruelty or the most zealous and fanatic of priests, nobody is immune to sin. Sins are undeniably evil, as torturous to both the sinful and those around them. 1:25 Pride is not the celebration of something. Nor is it the promotion of something. It is a construct of arrogance and believing oneself to be superior to those over even the most minute differences. 1:26 Excess is not living comfortably or seeking things to prevent unnecessary suffering or stress, but is living wastefully and opulently and by taking from others. The waste made by one individual could have been the material used to produce the steps that two, five, ten or even one hundred or even one thousand and more people could use to climb out of destitution. By our definition, Excess prevents the sinful from learning or being reminded of the condition of others, but also prevents those others from living better lives. 1:27 Sloth is not the will to relax, take time off or simply ignore their problems. It is the ignorance that prevents people from improving, developing and evolving. By being subject to Sloth, one can not strive for greater things, but instead seek nothing but the quickest path to instant benefits rather than a long journey to excellence. 1:28 Wrath is not anger. Wrath is hate and rage. The unprovoked and unpredictable nature of the wrathful makes it difficult to understand them. They may not always use their fists to attack but instead use their words to spew hateful rhetoric and insults at their opponents. They may be angry for a variety of reasons, but wrath prevents those finding inner peace and strength among the chaos, and thus, unable to find either themselves or a better path to take, veering off the road into the darkness. 1:29 Ignorance is not the absence of knowledge or the absence of expertise, for it is instead the failure to grasp one’s responsibilities, ignoring their wrongdoings and shortcomings and ignoring the opportunity to grow and help others. If a king is given an instruction by all twenty of his wise advisors and promptly discards said guidance, he has sinned for he has rejected the possibility to save people. However, if someone discards instructed that would harm others if implemented, regardless of if this was known or not, the ignorant would not have sinned.

She is extremely rude towards everyone, she purposely trashes the house, yells at everyone and calls me heinous insults (she is 16 im 19M btw)
she is severely depressed however, she is on medication and is seeking therapy. tho its been about two months and she is just that much more disrespectful towards everyone. she is extremely hard to deal with and outright tells us that she hates all of us even though we spoil her so much me and my younger sister envy the love she is getting. of course im not saying that her depression is invalid cuz we love her. im just saying its really painful and rude for her to tell us that she despises us regardless of how much love we show her.
i will cut her slack and endure all of her exessive anger if i know it calms her down and helps her. and if i know her depression is causing it i will try my best to never be bothered by her disrespect.
i love her and i hope she feels better, her breaking my heart with heinous insults is much better than breaking my heart by leaving us.

Previous part: 8.99.
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One thing that I'm not getting here is why Vanessa is even a part of Vanny or Glitchtrap's situation since Double-V is true. I originally thought up Double-V, I was originally thinking that Vanessa and Vanny were sharing the role of "Vanny".
It's just one of them was more willing than the other to be a part of Glitcthtrap's machinations than the other. I didn't put too much thought into it, but it was something I wanted to look for until that Security Team revelation came about.
But now I'm left with this puzzle piece called Vanessa that I'm not quite sure what to do with now that I know that Vanny is an entirely separate person from her.
She has to be involved with Vanny and Gltichtrap somehow. Maybe the therapy tapes will help.

• CD 1-Therapist: — but a routine check of your online history has revealed that you spend quite a bit of time with someone in an encrypted conversation. We have transcripts, and I’ve read them, but it’s not clear what you’re talking about in these conversations. I can’t make sense of it. You must be getting something from these that I’m not getting. Right? Who are you talking to in these?

These are all things that would've pointed toward Glitchtrap if I didn't know better. So it's someone else doing this? Why and why her?

• CD 5-Therapist: — Apparently, the IT department has put together a pretty lengthy report chronicling non-job-related communications that have been coming to your computer. — what bothers me about what I read is that the messages you're getting seem very manipulative in nature. —You know who I'm talking about. What you might not know is that this person who's been sending you messages has been hacking into your personal files too.
• CD 5-Vanessa: Lots of people know more than I do. Sometimes I need to listen.

So Vanessa knows who's doing this to her. But she's been refusing to listen to them before and is now being worn down by the spamming messages sent to her. But the fact that she doesn't react to the news that they are digging into her personal life is very concerning!
Also, after going through Vanny's secret dialogue in Help Wanted, Vanessa's overall demeanor in both Security Breach and the Retro Cds clashes hard with Vanny's in both games. Where Vanny sounds and reads eager and nervous, Vanessa is defiant and reluctant with depressed undertones.
Is Vanessa really infected with Glitchtrap?
Yet now that I'm thinking about it, Glitchtrap has no need to do this as him sitting through Vanessa's therapy session with her would give him this info if she was infected. Who's ever doing this doesn't much about her, but would very much like to. Is it Vanny or Gregory...
Wait, hold on. Vanessa's first therapist mentioned that messages were encrypted and couldn't make out what the conversation was about. But the second therapist can understand these messages to know that they're manipulative in nature. Are these two different messengers?!
" I’ve read them, but it’s not clear what you’re talking about in these conversations**.** I can’t make sense of it. You must be getting something from these that I’m not getting." - The first Therapist
"but what bothers me about what I read is that the messages you're getting seem very manipulative in nature." - The second Therapist
What changed? Hmm... What exactly is an encrypted conversation? Maybe explaining that will help.
Encrypted text messaging is a method of secure communication that converts your messages into code. This means that only the recipient with the correct decryption key can read it. - Google
That sounds like what the first Therapist is referring to, but she mentions that they got the transcripts for it. Does that mean that got the code or the decryption key to read it? No, she says transcripts, which means the code itself.
But whatever the first Therapist saw in that transcript was legible enough to read and comprehend. This means the conversation wasn't in computer coding that would require someone in the tech field to decipher it, but just ordinary talk that's hard to understand what it's about.
Okay, that clears things up, they're still the same messenger.

• CD 11-Therapist: So, on your breaks, it looks like you were shopping for a costume. you purchased some fake fur material.
• CD 11- Vanessa: I can't talk about this. He said he would always be watching. He could be here or there or anywhere in between.
• CD 11-Therapist: No, that's not what I mean. You can't just ignore an issue. You have to face your memory of the experiences and process them so you can let it go. So you don't get triggered anymore. you can use this sort of self-dialogue to release these things
• CD 11-Vanessa: I don't like doing that.

This one conversation right here throws everything about Double-V out of whack. Why is Vanessa buying fake fur material? And for the very first time, we know the gender of who's messaging her along that he said that he would always be watching her.
Again the "he" here, and the "he will always be watching" part allude to Glitchtrap at first glance. And again, it can't be him because he should be within Vanessa since they merged in Help Wanted! Even if you dismissed the ending I proposed for Vanny and went with the ending where she gets locked up by Glitchtrap, it still wouldn't be him messaging her about watching here because he would be in her body!
And like I already said before, Vanessa has shown no memory problems or bodily control problems, which would've suggested Glitchtrap's control. No, this means that Gregory is doing all of this.
But why is he going after Vanessa? Geez, It's been a while since I even thought about his past before Security Breach. I forgot how much of a black hole of questions he is, regarding the lore. I'll give my updated thoughts about him after the Double-V revelation later.
For now, after going through all of Gregory's dialogue in Security Breach. It looks like he's not quite aware of the ongoings within the Pizzaplex and is shocked by the level of security can employ later in the night. There may actually be a hint of his hacker background in his dialogue if you squint. And Gregory has absolutely no idea what the rabbit laddy's name is until he gets to Fazerblast.
As for Gregory's involvement with Vanessa... Huh, that's weird. Gregory doesn't say Vanessa's name even once in Security Breach. Matter of fact, after the beginning sequence where Vanessa confronts Freddy about him, Gregory just stops talking about or even mentioning her for the rest of the game. This includes the confrontation that leads to her locking him up in Lost and Found and after it...
No matter how you slice it, Gregory's silence about her is super loud with alarm bells. Sure, he dismisses her as working with Vanny in the beginning, but it shouldn't mean that she should be an afterthought to him! Like, Gregory only talks about or mentions "the rabbit lady" after the beginning of the game.
In fact, if we were to rank every important character that Gregory talks about or mentions in his dialogue for Security Breach from most to least, it would look like this.

1. Freddy - 33 times
2. Vanny - 6 times
3. Chica - 6 times
4. Roxy - 4 times
5. Monty - 3 times
6. Moon - 3 times
7. Vanessa - 3 times
8. Burntrap - 1 time

That's absurd! Especially since she's the only other human worker in the Pizzaplex, besides Vanny, who encounters and confronts him. Like, he doesn't even try to communicate with her at all during the entire game!
Even when discovering Vanny's hideout in Fazerblast and Freddy suggests that Vanny is Vanessa due to deduceing Vanny's name being a combination of Vanessa + Bunny, Gregory remains silent about it! No, "Oh maybe you're right." or "That sounds too simple to be right", but instead there's no response to what might be the identity of your pursuer!
It's like he doesn't want to talk about her...
He knows her, he has to know Vanessa! Yet, he said, "I don't know who she is, but she's trying to get me!" to Freddy. Is he lying? No, he just knows about her.

• CD 14-Therapist: —They report that they've caught you on camera, or at least it appears to be you. — Well the techs are convinced that you've hacked into their system many times. — the electronics you like? I saw in your file that you have developed software programs that talk to you and repeat phrases, right? The program asks you questions and prompts you for responses. It's kind of like your own self therapy, isn't it? Another way of talking to yourself to work things out, right? When I saw some of your recent encrypted conversation logs, that's what I thought I was looking at. It felt like I was watching someone go back and forth in their own head, but the text found something that's different than that. When I read what they found, at first I thought I was looking at more examples of you just talking with yourself. Then I realized it was different. When I study this, it sounds like there is someone else responding to you. Who is it?

This is either hinting towards Gregory talking directly to Vanessa or Glitchtrap. But something that confuses me is why the therapist has or even be able to see Gregory's encrypted conversation logs?
I'll admit that I'm ignorant about therapy, but should your therapist have access to stuff you created outside of therapy? Unless Gregory created the program on a computer in therapy. It could explain how he's gotten access to Vanessa's files. But I'll drop that talk for now.
Something that's being made clear to me now is that Vanessa is not as connected to the villains as Gregory is, as she's more surprised by the changing of therapist than he is. In fact, Gregory knows why the therapists are disappearing, knows exactly when the therapists do something that would cause them to disappear, and doesn't seem upset when they show up mangled and dead.
But more than anything, Gregory knew Vanny long before Security Breach started. There's no reason why Gregory would know Vanny has enough control over the Pizzaplex to cut off Freddy from the network, in just one encounter. If anything, he should have assumed she was some weirdo stranger in the Pizzaplex that the security and the police needed to take care of.
But he already knew that Vanny had power in the Pizzaplex, maybe not the full scope, but enough to know that if she and he ever came into conflict with one another that ended with her wanting to hurt him then he needed to get out of the Pizzaplex.
Funnily enough, this actually lines up with the first-ever trailer for Security Breach, where Vanny says: "Gregory, I may have lost my temper earlier. But it was just a glitch!" Which implies they talking neutrally before whatever made Vanny lose her temper." Again, I'm not using this as evidence as it's been cut, instead, I'm suggesting that the idea might have merit.

• CD-Therapist: — I have this still shot the techs pulled from the security footage that recorded you in the pizzaplex. That's you, isn't it? I know this image is distorted but I think it looks like you. And you're not alone here. You're talking to someone, or something. it's hard to tell. What are those things? They almost look like rabbit ears. What? You find that amusing? Well I guess it is.

I had always flipped-flopped between the mysterious person being either Glamrock Bonnie or Vanny. Both are connected to Glitchtrap, so either would fit here as Glitchtrap wouldn't be captured by a camera. But with the new evidence I've discovered, Vanny fits as Gregory's mysterious rabbit correspondent in the Pizzaplex.
But what about Vanessa? Is Gregory hacking into her files or is it Vanny and Glitchtrap? Or perhaps Gregory is hacking into her files on behalf of Glitchtrap and Vanny. Either way, Vanessa is getting dragged into Gregory and the Villian's group chat.
Speaking of the therapy, if we take into account the Retro-CD's numbering system the first two numbers are the patient ID number, and the last two numbers are the number of times both Gregory and Vanessa have been to therapy, then we can uncover some invaluable information.
Gregory has been in therapy longer than Vanessa and he was also in therapy before her too. But combining this CD's numbering system with a theory from the Talesbook story, GGY, that Gregory only goes to therapy on Sunday. Then Gregory has been going to therapy for a year and a half.
And if Vanessa is following the weekly therapy session pattern, then she's only been going to it for a little more than half a year. This means she started her therapy just about after Gregory hit his half-year mark for therapy. In addition to all that, Vanessa stopped going to therapy once she was transferred to a new location and never met the fourth and final therapist of the CDs.
Just something you all should keep in mind.
But Gregory definitely knows about her at the very least. That knowledge, I guess, is the reason why he's so shocked to see her face under Vanny's mask in the "To The Rooftop" ending. He knows that Vanessa and Vanny are two different people, but doesn't know that they look alike because he never encountered Vanny before Security Breach without her mask or costume.
On the subject of costumes, I still got no answer for Vanessa's purchase of fake animal fur or what's even happening with her now.
To be honest, this would be so simple and easy if Vanessa was just Vanny. But like as I have shown many times before in both this series and the previous one, simple and easy answers are not always the correct ones.
So, instead of looking for signs of the villain's goal with Vanessa in the lore. Let's look at the similarities and differences between the double Vs.
Vanessa's characteristics are.

• Depressed
• Has anxiety issues
• Tired (It's something that has been mentioned by the first and third therapists in CD-1 and CD-10. But seems to have more to do with the messages she's getting than how she usually is.)
• Likes the blue sky
• Likes to sit outside and read
• Watchful about her calorie intake
• Likes flowers or at least the sweet smell of them
• Doesn't like dark basements
• Oh, and hates kids

Vanny's characteristics are.

• Loves Pizza, especially pepperoni (Huh, no wonder she likes Chica)
• Absolutely, does not care about her calorie intake or a healthy diet (Seriously, Girl has gone full gamer mode with the amount of Fizzy Faz, straw drinks, and pizza boxes in areas with her presence in them)
• Hobbies in painting or graffiti
• Likes or used to like Glitchtrap or maybe William Afton (I talk about this in the secret ending)
• Loves Fazbear Entertainment (Vanny uses red spray paint in Ruin and has drawn two hearts on the FAZ ENT. Logo in the main Lobby)
• Likes Toy Chica
• Likes the Daycare Attendant (She seems to be fond of Moon more)
• Likes to read, or at least, read about the World History of Fazbear Entertainment
• Likes Flowers, a specific species of them(that I can't determine right now)
• Likes summer
• Is a mechanic or roboticist or both (She making something in Ruin Fazerblast and has turned Ruin Monty into her lapdog among other things)
• Super lazy (This one may or may not be true, but unless there's a good reason why she refuses to clean up her room in Fazer Blast, this is staying right here as far as I'm concerned)

Wow, I did not realize we already knew this much about Vanny just from the environment storytelling of the games until I listed them!
Anyway, as you can see, there are some very similar likes between the two and very stark differences in traits as well. I'm not about to list them to save word space, but instead, I want to answer a question. Could Vanessa still be Vanny despite their differences? This isn't so much for me, but for the people who believe Vanny = Vanessa despite my Double-V evidence.
At first, I thought there might've been a chance for that as they both like flowers, to read, and enjoy the outside, or at least the summer in Vanny's case. But now, after listing everything out they're just too different to say they're the same.
Even if we say that Vanny's love of pizza, general bad diet, and trashy room is the result of Vanessa coping with her depression and her situation with Glitchtrap and that her graffiti is the by-product of therapy, along with her interest in growing flowers. That doesn't negate the fact that in Ruin when given the chance to express her anxiety, Vanny doesn't take it.
If you don't know, on the wall where Vanny drew her face next to a slice of pizza in the main lobby near the Superstar Daycare entrance, there is a painted graph. The artist who made the graph also wrote on the right side of it; "TAG YOURSELF".
On all four sides of the graph, the artist made the furthest sides of them represent something. The top Y-axis is Wizard, the bottom Y-axis is Cedar the left X-axis is Filled with a word that ends in a y, and the right X-axis is Filled with anxiety.
What this graph is showing, or what the artist trying to convey with it, is that each of the four points represents not quite the opposite thing but the furthest thing from each other. Of which, Vanny decided to tag herself on the furthest left X-axis, not the right.
This tells us that Vanny feels the furthest thing from anxiety. Something Vanessa, no matter if she's under Glitchtrap's control or not, would be constantly feeling as she suffers from it.
As for what she's feeling, I don't know, the word on the left graph is unreadable and covered by Vanny's face to make it almost impossible to decipher. But what I do know without a doubt, is that Vanny and Vanessa are indeed, two different people with some common likes and polar opposite traits.
So after everything I've talked about in the last three? four? However many parts I've been going over Double-V, what is the best possible answer for the "To The Rooftop" ending stinger. Why do Vanny and Vanessa look alike?
I tried, I really did. I looked for as much possible evidence for anything that doesn't just make me give up and say "She's a Fazgoo clone!" or "She's a robot!"
If Vanny was a stranger who mimicked Vanessa's face, then that's cool and horrifying, but only where it concerns Vanessa herself. (The horrifying part, not the cool part.) It doesn't give us reasons why she would do it in the first place or a way to connect it to the greater lore and Glitchtrap, besides she's a human Mimic. Basically, it lacks motivation from everyone in the Villian party.
So it leaves me with no other conclusion except for one.
Back when the marketing for Security Breach was building up to its release. Steel Wool released four old Freddy cartoon episodes on their YouTube channel. Each episode hides a teaser image for the lore, including a character from the games with words, along with a character stinger at the end.
The last carton, which is the most distorted one, just so happened to include Vanessa as the hidden teaser, and Vanny as the character stinger at the end. And before you all jump the gun, previous episodes have already established that the hidden character teasers have no correlation to the ending Character stinger.
Now, the words in the Vanessa teaser image are quite interesting. It includes "Test and Rat" in the upper right corner, "Pool" in the bottom left corner, and "Bleak Reactant".
Test and Rat could be Test rat or Laboratory rat (Lab rat) as in the species of rat that are bred and kept for scientific research. Lab rat here can also be referring to Vanessa being a lab rat for the villain's experiment for something.
Using that explanation, "Pool" would then mean group or pool of people, which means number of people available for an organization or group to use. So Pool would mean that Vanessa was chosen out of all the Fazbear employees or people in general to be used for the experiment.
This leaves us with Bleak Reactant, which the definition of reactant is a substance that takes part in and experiences change during a reaction, while the definition of bleak could mean lacking vegetation (an area of land), dreary (a room), miserable(the weather), or unfavorable (outcome.)
All of this together means that Vanessa was chosen by the villains out of a group of people to be used for an experiment. An experiment of a change in Vanessa that predicted an unfavorable outcome for the villains.
Vanessa was going to be the next Vanny or maybe something else.
That gives a reason why the villains were so interested in her, why she would be shopping for a costume, why she would be at the Pizzaplex, and why she would be still connected to the villains when someone else is Vanny.
But the reason she was chosen in the first place, why her out of a group of people that might've included Gregory in it too, is because the one who chose her was her own twin sister.
If anyone remembers my only Ruin theory then you would remember my mentioning of Glitchtrap's and Vanny's conversation from Scott's website from a Security Breach poster.
Glitchtrap: "Stay the course."
Vanny: "I will."
Glitchtrap: "Focus on my voice."
Vanny: "I will."
Glitchtrap: "Don't let anyone lead you astray."
Vanny: “I won't.”
Glitchtrap: "Have you selected one?"
Vanny: "I have."
In my theory, I proposed that Gregory was the one that Vanny mentioned selecting here. But now, with all the revelations and new information gained, I believe Vanessa works better here. Vanny would've chosen someone for an experiment that she personally knew of or gotten to know, and who better than her own sibling that she grew up with.
Remember, Vanny is just starting out in her following of Glitchtrap. So would be new to the whole evil thing. And most of the time, the people close to you are the ones that would most likely commit a crime against you.
As for the twin sister thing, it actually didn't come from the "To The Rooftop" ending, but a discussion from the GTlive stream where Mat hosted a little get-together with some of the FNAF YouTuber theorists after Security Breach. There, John Fuhnaff suggested the idea for it from the VR Sisters boss from the Security Breach game Scott made when Security Breach got delayed again.
It's something that I saw some merit in after I discovered the Vanny ≠ Vanessa and after disproving in my head that Vanny wasn't Tape Girl either. The best part of the twin sister thing is that there's no need to throw out all that we know from Vanessa's therapy sessions as they both share the divorced parent's backstory.
As for which is the order twin between the two, I believe Vanessa is the oldest since it makes sense that her father would use the oldest to testify against their mother as she would better understand his instructions. Plus it provides a potential grudge from Vanny to Vanessa for what happened to their mother and a misguided parental affection for Glitchtrap. Unless Vanny's just a fangirl of William Afton, which could be the case.
Also, this means that the reason Vanessa looks the way she does in "To The Rooftop" end credits is because she looking at her dead sister. Oof, I realized that this also means she would've been the one who finds what's left of her in the "Disassemble Vanny" ending too. No wonder Faz Ent. is temporarily closed if they find that one employee is disassembled and the other one is having a mental breakdown from it in the morning.
But what about the "Redemption" ending? We know that by beating PQ3 both Glitchtrap and Vanny are defeated in it. What happens to her then? Where did she go? Hmm... I'm not sure.
What happens when someone is unmerged after being merged for a long time? Unlike Vanessa, we know that Vanny lives in the Pizzaplex. Even by Ruin and Help Wanted 2, she's still living in the building despite its condition so she probably needs time to think and process what happened to her and what's she done. Oh, and therapy. And a house.
But I think that just about wraps everything up for— Wait, HW2's Candy Cadet story! I forgot all about it! I know some people mentioned that the second story had to do with Vanessa, Gregory, and Gltichtrap. Let me skim through that real quick for clues.
Oh. Oh, that's really interesting... But it along with the Jeremy and the Memory dolls can wait until after next time. Sorry for the little to no pictures, I needed space to fit everything in one post and wanted to get everything about Double-V out of the way before I go on hiatus.
Don't worry it has nothing to do with burnout. It won't be too long either, though knowing my track record when saying that, you probably don't believe me.
Truth is, I've been severely neglecting my YouTube channel, and should really start catching up the YouTube version of my series with the online version. Plus, I've got more "Prove it!" to work on.
But most important of all, my birthday is coming up, and I don't want to work, think, or have anything to do with my FNAF stuff on that day. So! Feel free to read and become full with these last Parts until I come back with more.

I don’t really know how to do a proper intro to this type of thing. I just want to get to the point. My cousin Peter wasn’t returning my aunt’s phone calls and texts for 2 days straight, so she went to his house and used the spare key to get inside after Peter didn’t come to the door.
What she told the officers (and my mom) was that she found all his things untouched. His car was still parked in the driveway, none of his things were taken, and there were no signs of a break-in.
Basically, it was like he vanished into thin air. The only out of place thing that was found was Peter’s phone laying face-down in the hallway upstairs.
Authorities searched his phone, but all they found was a bunch of missed voicemails and texts from friends and relatives begging him to answer. The phone was returned to my aunt, and with her too distraught to notice, I took the phone.
I know it was wrong, but I was six at the time and barely understood what had happened to my cousin anyway. I just saw a free phone and took my opportunity to take it and download some games and watch YouTube. After a while of using the phone for dumb kid stuff, I got a notification from the “notes” app telling me to pick up where I left off.
I hadn’t used the notes app since getting my hands on the phone, so I was curious as to what my cousin had been writing before he lost his phone. I didn’t understand the weight of my findings at the time, but I’ve recently heard of an internet phenomenon known as the Backrooms, and it brought back memories of what Peter had described in his final set of notes.
I’ve since grown up and moved out of my old family house, but I managed to find the old phone and get it charged up again. It took an awkward text to my aunt asking what the password to Peter’s old phone was, but I managed to unlock the phone and reread my cousins’ last few messages before he… well, you’ll know what I mean after I share them with you.
But why am I posting this here of all places? Well, for starters, the messages sound like some sick prank, so the authorities and my relatives wouldn’t believe me even if I showed them the messages. It also might cause my aunt unwanted grief over something that happened so long ago, which leads me to my final reason: it’s just been too much time. The case has been closed, and my aunt has finally recovered all that she can.
But even if I can’t tell anyone my findings, I can still make sure Peter’s last messages to the world don’t go unseen. I can’t help but feel some guilt for not telling anyone what I found, so maybe I’m also doing this to clear my conscience.
But I’ve been on about this too long. Let me just show you what I found.


July 3, 2003
I’ve tried telling my friends about the door, but they just don’t believe me. It doesn’t help that the door always disappears whenever I try to show them. It doesn't appear in pictures either, and after a quick examination of my house from the outside, there doesn’t seem to be a room behind the door. It’s just not possible. I want to see what’s behind it. I really do. I just get this feeling of… dread when I go to open it. I need some sleep

July 4, 2003 (This was written past midnight, so it’s counted as a new day)
I can’t sleep. Every time I do, I have the same dream. It starts off fine, normal, actually. I’m downstairs watching something on TV, I can’t remember what. For some reason, I can’t help but feel like I’m being watched from my staircase, but I can’t turn to look. Eventually, the power goes out, and I can move. I go upstairs to get a flashlight from my room, and the door is wide open. It’s so dark that I can’t see what’s on the other side, but I feel whatever it is calling me. My legs start to carry me towards the door, and I wake up. I’m so fucking tired.

July 6, 2003
I can’t. I just can’t. I want to cover the door, but I’m scared to get close to it. I keep having the same dream, but when I wake up I’m in my hallway in front of the door. One time, I woke up with my hand moving towards the handle. I told my mom about it, but I couldn’t show her any pictures. I’m scared.

July 9, 2003
No one can help me. No one believes me. I’ve been staying in a motel for the past few days. I can’t be in the same house as that door, but I see it in my dreams. Now the dream doesn’t even start off fine, It’s just me standing in front of the door in a dark hallway. I’m fucking done. I’m opening the door, and I’m ending this shit.


July 10, 2003
I’m in a new place now. The rooms keep repeating. How is this even possible? There is no time in this place. My only way of measuring time is my phone’s clock. No one can help.

July 10, 2003 (All his new messages are written on the same day, but he writes them like it’s been days since the last)
Every door leads to a new room. There are kitchens, bedrooms, living rooms and bathrooms. There are no clocks, but there is food and water. There is no windows, but there are places to sleep and use the bathroom. Hell, there’s even toothbrushes and toothpaste here. Someone could get lost in here forever.

July 10, 2003
I’ve mapped out as many rooms as I can. I’ve got a bit more knowledge on the layout of this place. It’s an infinite place. It provides for those inside it. But it never lets them leave.


July 10, 2003
Something is wrong. I know now which rooms I’ve already been in, but things have been moved around. Beds that I’ve slept in already have been made, fridges have been left open with food missing. Someone is here with me. I need to find them.

July 10, 2003
I saw them. I chased them. I lost my way. I’m lost again, but this time it’s different. The rooms are cold. The carpets are damp. The lights are dim. The fridges are empty. The shower curtains are filled with mold. I’m being watched.

July 10, 2003
This place isn’t the same. The rooms are entirely different. They are dark concrete chambers with barely any light. I’m going to die here. Im going to die here Im going to die here Im going to die


July 10, 2003
They keep scratching at the walls. Their screams ring in my ears. Im so cold. Their hands grab at my arms, my feet, my neck, they want to keep me here with them.

July 10, 2003
Something has changed. They seem more desperate to keep me here. They tell me to turn back, that Im going to get hurt. But I think I’m getting close to the end. God help me.

July 10, 2003
I found my way back to the door. Not the one from my house, but the one from my dream. And I know now what’s on the other side. It’s… horrifying. Their bodies writhe in agony, their cries for mercy echo into the void. They yell as if anyone can hear them. And on top of his throne of mangled flesh and bone, there he sits. The one who’s been calling me back to the door. I can barely even describe him. He almost looks like

July 10, 2003
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I don’t even know what to think. I don’t remember the messages sounding like that. I don’t know what even happened to Peter anymore. I think he must’ve had some kind of mental breakdown, unless I want to believe what he wrote about in his final messages is really true. I just don’t know anymore.
My findings have only reinforced my decision not to tell anyone in my family about this. This is my weight to carry, since maybe we could’ve tracked him down in time to stop him from disappearing completely if I had just told my family about what I found all those years ago.
I don’t even think it matters much now anyway. As much as I want to believe that everything Peter described wasn’t true, I just can’t convince myself anymore. It may have been coincidence, but last night I fell asleep and had one of the worst nightmares I’ve had in a while.
I’m standing in front of a blood red door, with darkness all around me. It’s cold in this place, so cold I want to shiver, but I can’t. I’m paralyzed. I’m helpless to do anything but watch as the door swings open, and I gaze into what’s beyond. A swirling void of madness and tortured souls, begging me to turn back.
And in the center of it all, there he sits.

Hey! So my parents and I are headed to Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge next week for about 7 days. We're staying in the heart of Gatlinburg and none of us have been in a very long time. We're looking to use our time well and only spend money on worthwhile attractions. It's difficult to determine which attractions are overpriced vs. which ones are actually unique and worth spending time/money on. We've already budgeted for Dollywood and plan to attend a dinner show that's not the Stampede. Any idea what other attractions are less expensive? We're all over 18 as well so we should be able to do mostly everything. Anything helps, thanks!

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Wall of text + massive spoilers here. Don't read on unless you've completed Returnal.
--
Have you ever scrolled reddit in an attempt to understand Returnal's lore?
Have you ever watched a YouTuber break down their interpretation of the nuances? Maybe you crawled the scout logs, audio files, xenoglyphs and Helios logs looking for your own answers to understand Selene's experience?
In your search, did you ever find concrete story fragments - or read them in the comments - that directly contradicted what you thought was an otherwise sound, logical and thoughtful interpretation of the game?
You're not alone my friend!
Returnal is a game full of paradoxes. How are you ever going to make sense of a single one of them when the paradoxical nature of Returnal is the whole point?
--
Within Returnal lies a series of paradoxes, contradictions and oxymorons within a larger paradox.
Spend a few minutes digging into the narrative breadcrumbs and you're bound to find something that doesn't add up, or is just proper-unsatisfying.
I'll start with smaller examples; these feel more poetic than outright contradictory in any way that would harm the story's cohesion, yet they set the stage for something larger to be built on top of them -

• "My end is waiting at the beginning..." (AST-AL-002)
• "...on the edge of my sight I see a black sunrise beneath the ocean, when will it break through the surface?" (AST-AL-046)
• "Myriad eyes beholding in the longing dark sunlight as it rains like pitch... (AST-AX-002)
• "I've had... visions? And headaches that fracture into future events I've already experienced..." (AST-AL-044)
• The CreatoDestroyer
  • The simple presence in the Sentient lore of a CreatoDestroyer creates a contradiction due to the opposing natures of both descriptors. Is this person a protagonist or an antagonist? How can they be both at the same time?

These are contradictory, but maybe not outright paradoxical if you want to be really particular. Let's go a little deeper then, because it isn't just text and collectibles that conflict with themselves, it's much larger strokes of the game's story.
We also see that...

• Selene is alive, yet finds her own dead corpses throughout the game
• Selene must first ascend the mountain in the desert in order to descend into the depths. Her descent into the depths is what's required for her to mentally ascend beyond her trauma.
• Theia is the Astronaut. Selene is the Astronaut.
• The more Selene descends into madness & insanity during her time on Atropos, the more she truly unravels the truth of what's happening to her and gains an understanding of why she is there
• Selene is at the heart of Sentient culture despite her arriving on Atropos long, long after Sentient civilization collapsed
  • She is the CreatoDestroyer and is depicted in their Xeno-Archives

What does all this contradiction do to those of us trying to piece together the game's narrative?
--
It makes it impossible to do.
If you've delved into the lore, I bet you came out with a great interpretation of Returnal... that almost worked. It almost clicked, almost tied up all all loose ends, and was almost good enough to warrant a Reddit post, if not for that one indisputable thing.
Maybe it was...

• Are there two car crashes in Selene's life, or one?
• Is Helios Selene's brother, or son? Or both?
• In the cutscene at the end of Act I, do we seen Selene driving Helios, or Theia driving Selene?
• Is Atropos real? Or does it only exist in Selene's head?
• Is the Astronaut Theia or Selene?
• Was Theia pregnant? Did Selene have a brother? Was Helios abused? Did Selene have an abortion? Did Selene kill her mother?

Pick one of the above to fit your interpretation of Returnal and you're bound to find another that contradicts it. You'll always find one logical leap you have to take or one plot point you have to omit to make the story make sense.
If Atropos is real, then you're going to have a hard time explaining how Selene is at the center of the Sentient's culture or why Selene shot down her own spaceship. If Atropos is in Selene's head, those things can now make sense, but instead you have to contend with her escape from the planet after defeating Nemesis or the suggestions the game gives that Selene was found mentally unstable and not permitted to join Astra.
If Theia is driving the car and Selene is in the backseat, then why is Selene wearing the same wristwatch that Helios wears in House segment 5? If Selene is driving the car and Helios is in the backseat, then why does the news broadcast in House segment 3 name Theia as the driver and mention her spinal injuries (which are corroborated by the hospital visions)?
And so on, and so forth.
Returnal's story is a puzzle that no matter how hard you work to assemble it, there's always going to be one piece that doesn't fit. Explain Returnal one way, and you're bound to hit a roadblock that sends you derailing into a lake.
--
Don't misunderstand me, though! The building blocks that make up Returnal's narrative are beautifully layered and intricately weaved throughout our experience with the game; they ebb and flow with Selene's own confusion, they crescendo as Selene's madness does - it's all so expertly done.
But they're also just a series of impossible paradoxes that should serve to snap the story's cohesiveness in half.
And yet they don't. But why's that?
--
If you aren't aware, Returnal's developers have outright stated that there never was an agreed upon narrative for the game.
Big shoutout to u/RepulsiveWeather4592, whose countless copy/pasted comments I encountered on various threads while diving into this sub's lore posts (you have a vendetta, dude, and I respect it).
Here's Game Director Harry Krueger on the topic in this video:

Harry Krueger: I would often get asked, so you know what's really the mystery of Atropos? Is this all in Selene's head? Is she really there? Did this happen? And I'm like, those are exactly the kind of questions we want players to be asking. Mikael Haveri: So the answer would be yes. Harry Krueger: So the answer would be all of the above, yes.

And here's Senior Narrative Designer, Eevi Korhonen admitting there was no agreed upon version of the story - even internally.

One thing Harry was adamant about was there would be no agreed upon story even internally... When I talk with my team sometimes internally we still find [that we all have different understandings of Selene's actions and the story as a whole]. We are still internally at-odds sometimes about what the story means.

Remember the bullet points from above? All the paradoxes, contradictions and contrasts we outlined earlier? They're all impossible to be true at the same time.
And yet, from the mouths of the game's very creators, they are all true at the same time.
--
I think one reasonably valid reaction to the above would be frustration in the direction of the developers for just mindlessly throwing some paint splatters at the wall and calling it art.
One could read those statements and apply them to Returnal and see it as a careless, unfinished and pointless mess with no ability to teach, show, or tell us anything due to its creators offhanded attitude towards crafting a connected narrative.
While I believe one can react in that manner, I worry it would be fairly reductive.
You see, Returnal leaves its narrative disconnected and bewilders its player with paradox on purpose. The game makes use of its vague and ambiguous storytelling and world to create an effect on the player and it is this very effect that ratchets up the experience of playing Returnal at all.
I’d argue that you can reconcile Returnal’s incoherent story fragments and paradoxes by squaring your own experience as a player with that of Selene’s. Let’s look.
This game’s narrative and its paradoxes are a mindfuck. Players must face all of the above discussed paradoxes as well as plenty more confounding, impossible situations, drip-fed to them slowly over time incoherently, erratically and seemingly randomly. Returnal’s story is in part difficult to consume and understand because of the nature of its diffusion to the player; flashbacks are short and lacking context, clues are presented outside of chronological order (consider the audio logs) and discoveries that would link everything together are not made until deep into the game. When the player does receive story bits, they come in the form of paradoxes, or as the musings of a madwoman.
As our Selene speaks more and more worried nonsense in the game’s second act, so too does our confusion compound based on what we are finding around us. Returnal’s worldbuilding and setting enhance the experience of confusion and uncertainty by creating paradoxical and impossible situations — What is this music and why is Selene obsessed with it? The Crimson Wastes have somehow become frozen? Atropos’ moon is repaired? How can the Sentients know about The Astronaut?
From the get-go, our experience playing Returnal is much like Selene’s living in it — a constant state of disarray, of confusion, of uncertainty. What’s happening to us? What is real and what is not?
Returnal layers paradox on top of ambiguity in its worldbuilding and narrative diffusion to simulate a mirrored experience between the player and Selene in which both are stuck in a cycle of constantly questioning reality.
This, in a sense, syncs the player and Selene. Both are confused. Both want answers. Both feel a need to plunge themselves deeper into the endless, unknown abyss.
The player, now more connected and able to easily identify with their avatar in this manner, must at the game’s conclusion take part in a form of moral gymnastics upon discovering that their avatar — someone they grew to understand, trust and relate to — was likely an abusive, selfish killer.
When the player understands this, the experience of engaging with Returnal shifts powerfully. Players now have additional context with which to grapple with Atropos, its inhabitants, Selene’s past and her mental or physical fate.
We can see now how the paradoxical nature of Returnal brought us here and how it was the point all along.
With a new lens to peer through, Returnal takes on new shapes and forms. It almost begs for a second playthrough to view the game’s previous experiences through this newly earned understanding.
Good thing Act III exists.
--
So, Returnal’s narrative isn’t concrete on purpose.
It’s completely against my usual nature to say this, but I love that about this game. The blurriness of the story dovetails brilliantly with the ambiguity of Selene’s mental health and the confusion of the player.
The story does not need a concreteness to it because the narrative and worldbuilding themselves have have used paradox and impossibility to establish a confusion & uncertainty, even hinting that it is a confusion and uncertainty that is unsolvable.
Somehow, understanding that — for me — ended up solving it.
Huh. What a paradox.
--
You can't answer Returnal's narrative non-continuities because the game's story creates a paradox. It's disparate cues, incidents and plot points are all true at the same time, even though they cannot be.
In the swirling, disorienting whirlpool of Returnal's lore, the fates of The Severed, The CreatoDestroyer and The Astronaut disconnect, unravel and spiral into one tapestry..." (AST-AX-017)
And it's beautiful.

Wall of text + massive spoilers here. Don't read on unless you've completed Returnal.
--
Have you ever scrolled reddit in an attempt to understand Returnal's lore?
Have you ever watched a YouTuber break down their interpretation of the nuances? Maybe you crawled the scout logs, audio files, xenoglyphs and Helios logs looking for your own answers to understand Selene's experience?
In your search, did you ever find concrete story fragments - or read them in the comments - that directly contradicted what you thought was an otherwise sound, logical and thoughtful interpretation of the game?
You're not alone my friend!
Returnal is a game full of paradoxes. How are you ever going to make sense of a single one of them when the paradoxical nature of Returnal is the whole point?
--
Within Returnal lies a series of paradoxes, contradictions and oxymorons within a larger paradox.
Spend a few minutes digging into the narrative breadcrumbs and you're bound to find something that doesn't add up, or is just proper-unsatisfying.
I'll start with smaller examples; these feel more poetic than outright contradictory in any way that would harm the story's cohesion, yet they set the stage for something larger to be built on top of them -

• "My end is waiting at the beginning..." (AST-AL-002)
• "...on the edge of my sight I see a black sunrise beneath the ocean, when will it break through the surface?" (AST-AL-046)
• "Myriad eyes beholding in the longing dark sunlight as it rains like pitch... (AST-AX-002)
• "I've had... visions? And headaches that fracture into future events I've already experienced..." (AST-AL-044)
• The CreatoDestroyer
  • The simple presence in the Sentient lore of a CreatoDestroyer creates a contradiction due to the opposing natures of both descriptors. Is this person a protagonist or an antagonist? How can they be both at the same time?

These are contradictory, but maybe not outright paradoxical if you want to be really particular. Let's go a little deeper then, because it isn't just text and collectibles that conflict with themselves, it's much larger strokes of the game's story.
We also see that...

• Selene is alive, yet finds her own dead corpses throughout the game
• Selene must first ascend the mountain in the desert in order to descend into the depths. Her descent into the depths is what's required for her to mentally ascend beyond her trauma.
• Theia is the Astronaut. Selene is the Astronaut.
• The more Selene descends into madness & insanity during her time on Atropos, the more she truly unravels the truth of what's happening to her and gains an understanding of why she is there
• Selene is at the heart of Sentient culture despite her arriving on Atropos long, long after Sentient civilization collapsed
  • She is the CreatoDestroyer and is depicted in their Xeno-Archives

What does all this contradiction do to those of us trying to piece together the game's narrative?
--
It makes it impossible to do.
If you've delved into the lore, I bet you came out with a great interpretation of Returnal... that almost worked. It almost clicked, almost tied up all all loose ends, and was almost good enough to warrant a Reddit post, if not for that one indisputable thing.
Maybe it was...

• Are there two car crashes in Selene's life, or one?
• Is Helios Selene's brother, or son? Or both?
• In the cutscene at the end of Act I, do we seen Selene driving Helios, or Theia driving Selene?
• Is Atropos real? Or does it only exist in Selene's head?
• Is the Astronaut Theia or Selene?
• Was Theia pregnant? Did Selene have a brother? Was Helios abused? Did Selene have an abortion? Did Selene kill her mother?

Pick one of the above to fit your interpretation of Returnal and you're bound to find another that contradicts it. You'll always find one logical leap you have to take or one plot point you have to omit to make the story make sense.
If Atropos is real, then you're going to have a hard time explaining how Selene is at the center of the Sentient's culture or why Selene shot down her own spaceship. If Atropos is in Selene's head, those things can now make sense, but instead you have to contend with her escape from the planet after defeating Nemesis or the suggestions the game gives that Selene was found mentally unstable and not permitted to join Astra.
If Theia is driving the car and Selene is in the backseat, then why is Selene wearing the same wristwatch that Helios wears in House segment 5? If Selene is driving the car and Helios is in the backseat, then why does the news broadcast in House segment 3 name Theia as the driver and mention her spinal injuries (which are corroborated by the hospital visions)?
And so on, and so forth.
Returnal's story is a puzzle that no matter how hard you work to assemble it, there's always going to be one piece that doesn't fit. Explain Returnal one way, and you're bound to hit a roadblock that sends you derailing into a lake.
--
Don't misunderstand me, though! The building blocks that make up Returnal's narrative are beautifully layered and intricately weaved throughout our experience with the game; they ebb and flow with Selene's own confusion, they crescendo as Selene's madness does - it's all so expertly done.
But they're also just a series of impossible paradoxes that should serve to snap the story's cohesiveness in half.
And yet they don't. But why's that?
--
If you aren't aware, Returnal's developers have outright stated that there never was an agreed upon narrative for the game.
Big shoutout to u/RepulsiveWeather4592, whose countless copy/pasted comments I encountered on various threads while diving into this sub's lore posts (you have a vendetta, dude, and I respect it).
Here's Game Director Harry Krueger on the topic in this video:

Harry Krueger: I would often get asked, so you know what's really the mystery of Atropos? Is this all in Selene's head? Is she really there? Did this happen? And I'm like, those are exactly the kind of questions we want players to be asking. Mikael Haveri: So the answer would be yes. Harry Krueger: So the answer would be all of the above, yes.

And here's Senior Narrative Designer, Eevi Korhonen admitting there was no agreed upon version of the story - even internally.

One thing Harry was adamant about was there would be no agreed upon story even internally... When I talk with my team sometimes internally we still find [that we all have different understandings of Selene's actions and the story as a whole]. We are still internally at-odds sometimes about what the story means.

Remember the bullet points from above? All the paradoxes, contradictions and contrasts we outlined earlier? They're all impossible to be true at the same time.
And yet, from the mouths of the game's very creators, they are all true at the same time.
--
I think one reasonably valid reaction to the above would be frustration in the direction of the developers for just mindlessly throwing some paint splatters at the wall and calling it art.
One could read those statements and apply them to Returnal and see it as a careless, unfinished and pointless mess with no ability to teach, show, or tell us anything due to its creators offhanded attitude towards crafting a connected narrative.
While I believe one can react in that manner, I worry it would be fairly reductive.
You see, Returnal leaves its narrative disconnected and bewilders its player with paradox on purpose. The game makes use of its vague and ambiguous storytelling and world to create an effect on the player and it is this very effect that ratchets up the experience of playing Returnal at all.
I’d argue that you can reconcile Returnal’s incoherent story fragments and paradoxes by squaring your own experience as a player with that of Selene’s. Let’s look.
This game’s narrative and its paradoxes are a mindfuck. Players must face all of the above discussed paradoxes as well as plenty more confounding, impossible situations, drip-fed to them slowly over time incoherently, erratically and seemingly randomly. Returnal’s story is in part difficult to consume and understand because of the nature of its diffusion to the player; flashbacks are short and lacking context, clues are presented outside of chronological order (consider the audio logs) and discoveries that would link everything together are not made until deep into the game. When the player does receive story bits, they come in the form of paradoxes, or as the musings of a madwoman.
As our Selene speaks more and more worried nonsense in the game’s second act, so too does our confusion compound based on what we are finding around us. Returnal’s worldbuilding and setting enhance the experience of confusion and uncertainty by creating paradoxical and impossible situations — What is this music and why is Selene obsessed with it? The Crimson Wastes have somehow become frozen? Atropos’ moon is repaired? How can the Sentients know about The Astronaut?
From the get-go, our experience playing Returnal is much like Selene’s living in it — a constant state of disarray, of confusion, of uncertainty. What’s happening to us? What is real and what is not?
Returnal layers paradox on top of ambiguity in its worldbuilding and narrative diffusion to simulate a mirrored experience between the player and Selene in which both are stuck in a cycle of constantly questioning reality.
This, in a sense, syncs the player and Selene. Both are confused. Both want answers. Both feel a need to plunge themselves deeper into the endless, unknown abyss.
The player, now more connected and able to easily identify with their avatar in this manner, must at the game’s conclusion take part in a form of moral gymnastics upon discovering that their avatar — someone they grew to understand, trust and relate to — was likely an abusive, selfish killer.
When the player understands this, the experience of engaging with Returnal shifts powerfully. Players now have additional context with which to grapple with Atropos, its inhabitants, Selene’s past and her mental or physical fate.
We can see now how the paradoxical nature of Returnal brought us here and how it was the point all along.
With a new lens to peer through, Returnal takes on new shapes and forms. It almost begs for a second playthrough to view the game’s previous experiences through this newly earned understanding.
Good thing Act III exists.
--
So, Returnal’s narrative isn’t concrete on purpose.
It’s completely against my usual nature to say this, but I love that about this game. The blurriness of the story dovetails brilliantly with the ambiguity of Selene’s mental health and the confusion of the player.
The story does not need a concreteness to it because the narrative and worldbuilding themselves have have used paradox and impossibility to establish a confusion & uncertainty, even hinting that it is a confusion and uncertainty that is unsolvable.
Somehow, understanding that — for me — ended up solving it.
Huh. What a paradox.
--
You can't answer Returnal's narrative non-continuities because the game's story creates a paradox. It's disparate cues, incidents and plot points are all true at the same time, even though they cannot be.
In the swirling, disorienting whirlpool of Returnal's lore, the fates of The Severed, The CreatoDestroyer and The Astronaut disconnect, unravel and spiral into one tapestry..." (AST-AX-017)
And it's beautiful.

"Damn it!" Subaltern Gallos cursed. "Remind me to shoot that signals tech when we get back. Four lights my ass - that DropShip was carrying an Awesome and a Catapult!" He spoke into the TDF's general channel, alerting his lance mates to the situation they found themselves in. His Wolverine 6K was commanding the TDF force protecting this planet - a light weight lance consisting of a Phoenix Hawk that was currently down for repairs, a Wasp 5D, and a Grasshopper 5H. The three units up and running were alerted by the space port control tower that an unknown DropShip had appeared in scope, and was burning hard for the river deltas with an estimated 145 tons of BattleMech. The intelligence indicated an unknown Mercenary force consisting mostly of lights on a raid of the chemical plants.
That was not the case.
Gallos scanned the broken terrain he was quickly racing towards. Ahead of them, the 80 ton Awesome was cresting a large hill, dominating the landscape, and his battle computer indicated that a Catapult was off to the west of the Awesome. They seemed to be maneuvering to cover each other. He opened a general channel, "Unknown Awesome, you are intruding on the Taurian Concordat. Identify yourself and power down your BattleMech."
"You realize that won't work right?" Amanda drawled over the line, as she wove her Wasp deftly through the trees and foliage. The lonely static on the general line proved her right. Gallos decided not to respond to her inquiry. She was not expecting a reply.
"We've got this!" Thomas was a gun ho MechWarrior, and his Grasshopper had been his father's, and before that his grandmothers. Legend had it she had taken it from a pirate after pinning his hand to a wall with a machete and convincing him that his other hand was worth the activation passcodes. Thomas could be equally convincing when needed.
Both seemed eager, so Gallos raised his Mech's hand to signal engagement. This was met with the Awesome firing at extreme range to boil armor off his left leg. Gallos stumbled forward while he and Thomas responded with their large lasers. "Amanda, go around get in his rear!"
"On it boss!" Amanda sounded almost cheerful, as her Wasp leapt over the rough terrain, it's powerful Jump Jets letting it easily cross everything.
"Okay, we're going to force our way forward, keeping the Catapult on the other side of these hills."
"Sounds good!" Thomas advanced forward, his missiles following his laser. They were landing occasional hits on the Awesome.
The return fire was devastating, stripping armor off of the Grasshopper followed by LRMs from the Catapult. "Oh crap! I'm losing armor quick!" Thomas called out.
Gallos made a decision. The Catapult had to go down. "Break away Thomas! Fall back and circle around. Amanda, back him up!"
Both machines turned on a dime and shot off to north west. The Awesome was struggling to advance forward over the rough terrain, and Gallos bee lined around a large hill. His plan was to keep the Awesome interested and aware he was a threat. Thanks to the long range of the engagement, his heat was beyond manageable. Clouds of steam rising over the hills indicated the Awesome was also dealing with it's own heat. Gallos observed his two MechWarriors engage with the Catapult.
Amanda was leaping from cover to cover, expertly dancing her away over the terrain firing occasionally with her medium laser. Landing on a hill, she turned to fire her laser at the Catapult as it struggled through the water, and it fired all four of his back, as well as three PPC shots from the Awesome. Twisting and leaning to the side, Gallos knew that she grinned as every shot missed her and their attention caused them to ignore the Grasshopper. The two of them managed to get the Catapult out of the water, and their firing and maneuvering caused him to ignore the rough terrain and trip.
Gallos knew that the Catapult would be finished so he moved forward to engage the Awesome, who had anticipated this and had turned to face him. Swearing quietly he lifted his laser and fired, followed by medium lasers and SRMs - to be met with a brutal two PPCs. Pounded back on his heel, he lost his balance and fell, stripping armor from his left arm and smashing his head into the neurohelmet.
A few seconds later, as he struggled to fall back through the forest, PPC shots tearing up the terrain around him, the blasts stopped and the general channel opened up, "Subaltern Gallos, we are offering to end hostilities and withdraw if you wish." An unknown and gravely voice asked. They did not identify themselves, and Gallos struggled to identify the accent. He checked his computer, and saw that the Catapult had been savaged - the left arm completely destroyed, and the LRM with it. No BattleMech was worth missile propellant.
Gallos spit the blood out of his mouth and opened the channel. "Granted. Withdraw. And don't come back."
The Awesome said nothing. It just turned and marched away, the Catapult limping behind it, left torso a gaping wound from Amanda's surgical precision with her lasers. He switched back to the TDF channel, "Alright, let's get home."
***
This was a fun game, but it wasn't Alpha Strike! No one played it who showed up! So what I was hoping was going to be an Alpha Strike game was a regular CBT game! My opponent was new, but had two helpers. He had an Awesome (3/5) and a Catapult (4/5). I had all 4/5 pilots in a Wasp (medium laser, two small lasers, 1 flamer variant), a Wolverine 6k (Large laser, no jumps), and a stock Grasshopper.
This was a rough fight. That Awesome had range and accuracy, even when calling indirect attacks for the Catapult. My armor was being stripped away for most of the game, which was about eight turns.
He was absolutely afraid of my Wasp getting behind him, however, and that ended up giving me an advantage. He kept his Awesome back and moved his Catapult forward by turn 4. That allowed me to maneuver my Wasp across the board with the Grasshopper (now missing a huge amount of armor) and beat down his Catapult. I couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with my Grasshopper, but I was able to land some powerful hits with my Wasp, stripping away rear armor, taking out their LRM, and a Jump Jet.
To do that I had to push my Wolverine into a man-to-man knife fight with the Awesome, which was brutal on the Wolverine. I lost a ton of armor, but no crits, fell down, and managed to take a pilot hit. Thankfully I was able to stumble back into shelter.
Out of time, and with his Catapult facing certain destruction, he requested a retreat which the Taurians were willing to grant.
This battle came down to two factors: 1) initiative. I won more than I lost, allowing me to better control the terrain; 2) Maneuvering. This was a terrible map for both of us, but my two jumpers gave me an advantage here. I could respond to their movement, and choose my terrain. I lost initiative four turns in a row and had to retreat backwards for a while, but that actually worked in my favor as he moved his Catapult into a bad position - expecting to win initiative again. I knew where he was going to go, moved appropriately and was able to savage his catapult.
Amazing game. All introtech. CBT is so much fun even at the introtech level.

I had a miscarriage at 6 weeks and 1 days.
I got a positive pregnancy test at exactly 4 weeks. I could tell my body felt different so I ended up doing the test before I missed my period. My husband and I told our parents and everything was good. My mother had shared details of her pregnancy with me before. She had period-like bleeding for the whole 9 months when she was pregnant with me and she had heavy bleeding during the first trimester when she was pregnant with my brother. My brother and I were born healthy with no issue. Almost every woman I know had some kind of bleeding and/or spotting either in their first trimester or throughout the pregnancy (like my mother). So when I started spotting (brownish color), I thought it was normal. I tried to keep my anxiety under control the best I could. It started around 4 weeks and 3 days and stopped right before 5 weeks. Around 5 weeks and 4 days, I started spotting again. It was still brown so I wasn’t too concerned. The next day the spotting increased in amount. I needed a pad this time. It continued for a couple of days. Each day the volume increased but the color was still brown. At exactly 6 weeks, my brown spotting became red. My husband’s friend (who is a doctor) told us to go to the emergency room just to confirm everything was okay and get an ultrasound if possible. They did a blood test at the ER, and my hcg was too low (151) to get an ultrasound. They told me to come back after 48 hours. However, the next morning I bled enough to know I had miscarried. There was clotting and A LOT OF BLOOD. We rushed to the ER, and the blood test showed my hcg was at 99 now. Ultrasound showed my endometrial lining was too thin and we had definitely miscarried.
At the follow-up with my OB, I asked if I could have done anything to change the outcome. There was nothing I could have done that would have changed anything. But my doctor also told me sometimes they prescribe progesterone at 4 weeks for spotting. If your progesterone levels are too low, your uterus might not be able to carry the baby.
So I’m sharing this hoping it helps someone out there.

Since childhood, I had an aversion to magic.
I was taught from an early age that it was something dangerous and violent. Something that cannot be controlled, that cannot be wielded by human hands. Something that cannot be explained. And that aversion persisted into my adulthood.
I was taught that yes... But what put the nail in the coffin of my childhood curiosity was that day when my parents were laid to rest.
I remember it much more vividly now. Slowly but steadily, I feel like I am digging something out from the depths of my mind. And the peculiar thing is... It started happening when I met Kye. Sometimes when I look at her I feel a sense of deja vu which I cannot explain. A nostalgic feeling that is almost comforting... Maybe that's one of the reasons I hadn't left in these weeks. I had many chances.
Without much conversation, she helped me dig out some of my memories. By what method or means... I do not know. She awoke something I had hidden inside of me, my essence which I had inherited.
And that same child-like wonder for magic which now pushes me ever forward like a moth to a flame. Dangerous and violent, but endlessly fascinating and useful all the same.
A force of nature.
A force that can be studied through a scientific lens.
And study with scientific vigor I shall.

#
„Hold your concentration.“ Kye whispered to me.
We stood in the depths of the forest unmoving, camouflaged in green cloaks. In the distance just beyond the shrubbery stood a deer that was drinking from a small stream.
I held my hand out palm stretched wide open. Centimeters away from it was a medium-sized pebble, it was smooth and oval in shape. It levitated, though its levitation was far from stable. It bobbed like a ship at sea. I had difficulty holding it still in mid-air.
„Shoot before it notices us.“ Kye whispered once more.
I took a deep breath.
I felt the surge of energy concentrate in my palm. I imagine a pressurized tank of air...
Then I let go...
The pebble shook violently for a second then with a whoosh it flew at great speed, missing the target completely. Instead of hitting the water beside it spooking the animal. The deer raised its head abruptly in the direction where the pebble hit. Then subsequently ran off into the forest.
Kye sighed.
„Better than before, but you still can't aim precisely. You need to hold it steady in the air.“ She said standing up with her crossbow.
„Will we follow it?“ I asked.
„No, let it go. We have to check the traps, they ought to have caught something by now.“ She replied. I stood up as well, dusting myself off and picking up the rifle I had from the ground.
Kye says it only weighs me down... But I feel safer with it
Kye started walking back to where she set the traps, maybe a 30-minute trek back.
„We went pretty deep in today.“ I commented.
„Yes, that's why we're going back earlier. We don't want to be caught in the forest after sundown.“ She had a point. And I was pretty tired from walking through the damn forest all day. Hunting is no easy matter.
„Once we get back I'll get one grimoire we have in the library. It might help you with levitating objects steadily.“ She added.
„May I ask in what language is it?“ I inquired. She remained silent for a few moments.
„Kye you know I can't speak or read Elvish. Of all the books in that library you took out two are in a human language. One in Weserian surprisingly enough, which I can read... The other is Turian which I can probably get a few words here and there.“ I explained. I couldn't see Kye's face but I could guess it expressed mild annoyance.
„Alright, I'll read it to you again. But I'll have to teach you Almaganda at some point. You'll need it.“ She said, however much I did not look forward to it. I still needed to learn the language and script to learn on my own. Because it was frankly embarrassing that she needed to read it to me out loud like she would a child... Well, I am still a child in Elven years I guess.
I had to give her props she learned to speak Weserian with native fluency. She has my grandfather to thank for that... And I thank him as well. Because I would've probably had a bolt in my skull if she didn't know Weserian.

#
I realized the forest during the day was a tranquil and peaceful place. It held within it an ancient beauty that I was thankful to be able to witness and experience. However, after some time you get used to it and it simply fades into the background.
Kye and I chit-chatted during our walk briefly. Mostly about what were going to eat for dinner. But also she reiterated her points where I had to improve with my magic. Nothing new to my ears.
Finally, we arrived at the first trap, which was unfortunately empty. But we had set a few more of them so we continued. The second and third were also empty, I saw Kye was a bit perplexed at this, but she didn't comment on it. Once you are around her enough you can catch the small expressions she does as subtle as they are.
The fourth trap caught something.
„Finally!“ I said happily. We approached the trap and saw it caught a rabbit. Enough to feed us for the night. But we would need something bigger to sustain us during the week.
„We're going back to the house. We will go hunting first thing tomorrow to catch something bigger.“ Kye said, now this was something that raised a question mark above my head. Every previous time she was insistent we don't go back empty-handed, or with something too small.
„Kye, can you share your thoughts, please? I think you're not telling me something.“ I asked her.
She bit her lip.
„I think there might be something scaring off the animals.“
I felt a pit in my stomach form.
„Mages? Bandits?“ I asked.
„No... I'd know if it were either of those. A monster.“ She picked up the dead rabbit by its ears and put it in a large pouch. „And it is probably close by...“ She added.
I remember that Owen told of that the wildlife tends to be aggressive in these parts. Up until this point, I saw that the fauna was more or less the same as back home.
„What's the difference between a normal animal and a monster exactly?“ I asked Kye. I have heard of monsters before... But I didn't look too much into them. I knew they mostly lived in the east.
„A monster has a large amount of essence usually. They tend to be large and aggressive. However, there are exceptions to the rule. There is a species of large herd animals native to the plains of the east called Mulson. They have essence and are considered monsters, but are quite docile unless provoked. Some tribes even domesticated them and used them as pack animals.“ She explained. She looked deeper into the forest, but her gaze lingered before she continued. „I didn't suspect a monster at first because they usually go in small groups. I would've seen evidence of such a group... That only leaves one option left.“ She paused.
„A lone monster.“ She looked back at me. „We should get going now.“
She began walking and I followed her once again.
„A lone monster is more dangerous than a pack?“ I asked.
„Yes and no. If one were to attack us we could deal with it, but it is best to avoid it. Most of the time lone monsters are outcasts from their groups. They tend to be a lot more violent and unpredictable. That's what makes them a bigger risk than an entire group.“ She answered. I looked out into the forest as I walked. It didn't seem as tranquil and peaceful anymore. It was scarily quiet and still.


The same lingering feeling crept up as we continued to walk through the forest. I knew we were nearing the house, shelter. But with each step we took I felt as if we were being watched... The same feeling I had back in the wagon.
I kept my head on a swivel, looking around constantly, the sun was slowly starting to set and visibility became ever so scarce a resource. Kye was silent most of the trek. She was concentrating as well, but not in the same way as I. She told me she could 'sense' if there was an increase of essence in the area. It takes a lot of practice, of course, as she said. But she can do it.
She was a few paces in front of me when I turned my head back to face what was in front. I saw she stopped.
„What is it?“ I asked her in a whisper.
„Can you smell that?“ She asked right back. I made a few steps forward and then it hit me. A foul stench of rot. Before I could locate where it was coming from I felt something wet drop on my head. I instinctively went to touch it with my hand, and when I lowered it to inspect the wet substance, I realized what it was.
It was blood.
Looking up into the thick tree branches that blocked most of the sunlight I couldn't see much, but there were obvious shapes in there that didn't look natural. Kye manifested one of her light orbs and somehow managed to concentrate the light on the tree branches above us.
When she shone the light we finally saw them... Two horses strung up on the tree branches. They were disemboweled and had half their limbs missing.
They were half-eaten.
„How... That's...“ I muttered.
„Not our horses... Whose?“ Kye replied.
„Owen's“ I replied.
„We have to move, quickly.“ Kye said, de-manifesting the orb and beginning to walk at an increased pace. I followed, but that jog soon turned into a full-out sprint.
We ran through the forest with no regard for the sound we made. I could barely keep up, then I heard it. Shuffling behind us, it sounded rhythmic and slow... But it was quick enough to keep up with us. At that moment the only thought in my mind was that it wasn't something small most certainly.
Adrenaline kicked in and I ran as fast as my legs could let me while also trying not to trip.
I then made a foolish decision.
I looked back.
I saw something, but I couldn't quite make it out... But it towered over the both of us. And the thing was as agile as Kye.
When I turned my head back, I didn't see Kye.
Panic set in, but I couldn't stop, I knew if I made a turn I would quickly get lost.
I ran straight for as long as I could, but I heard the thing behind me quickly close the distance. I heard it panting. It sounded... human. But at the same time, it didn't. It sounded too deep to be that of a human or elf for that matter. No, this was something entirely different.
And it was big.
My legs started to give in, I felt them sting. I felt my lungs burn from the exertion. Soon enough I needed to stop, I needed to catch my breath. I heard the thumps behind me get closer and closer, I heard the thing roar... Gods, it was deafening. I heard it knock down trees as it began running even faster toward me.
And just as I thought I was doomed, something grabbed me and yanked me hard into a large hollowed-out tree. I tried to scream, but a hand was firmly placed over my mouth. Then I heard someone speak.
„Don't make a sound“ I heard a demanding whisper. It was Kye.
I stared wide-eyed as the thing passed by running. I saw its feet pass us. The ground shook slightly, and pieces of wood fell on our heads.
„Ju Mo...“ Kye said, I didn't understand what she said.
She released my mouth, and I peeked behind me to see her face.
Even though it was dark and hard to see, I could see her red eyes were wide open.
Terror.
She was afraid.
Shit, I thought to myself, I never saw her show a hint of fear, even when she face three goddamn mages by herself.
„Why is it here...“ She muttered to herself.
She looked at me with a terrified expression.
„You don't have any blood on you? Any scent?“ She whispered.
„No, I...“ Then I remembered. Horse blood. „Shit.“ I muttered as I started to go through my hair, I felt the blood stick to my fingers.
Kye looked at me like she saw a ghost.
Then we heard it come back with a quick pace. We heard it sniff the air.
Kye and I huddled in the hollowed tree, I saw her extend her arm. Her breath was quick and erratic.
Then the monster stepped right in front of the opening, it growled so deep I could feel it in my chest. I saw the monster was standing on two feet, its legs were hairy. And I could smell it, a foul stench of rot and Gods know what else. It was overpowering.
The monster started to crouch, and the moment it showed its face, I felt a strong force pull us to the back with such force we broke through the tree and flew right into the one behind it. Both of us hit the tree at the same time.
My spine felt like it snapped from the impact, but I couldn't grovel in pain just yet. Kye quickly stood up and grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet.
„Get up!“ She yelled, I could hear the monster release another deafening roar, I looked back and saw it was holding its face. Whatever Kye did hurt it, and us...
We ran again through the forest, each moment the sun set farther and farther down below the horizon. And the forest was getting darker by the minute.
I heard the monster kept at it, it was behind us again. Kye stopped abruptly at a small open patch where trees weren't as densely packed together. She extended both her hands and broke of dozens of thick branches of the trees. In mere moments she managed to straighten all the branches into spears. I could see she was using all her strength to do that. I know how hard it is to hold a single small damn pebble still in the air, let alone dozens of heavy branches.
I saw the creature emerge from between the trees.
Right then Kye jabbed the air with her fist, the branches went flying straight at the monster.
When they hit, I thought for a moment everything was over. But then that thing... This monstrosity raised its damn hand, and with a flick of its wrist, all the spears flew out of it, some of them right back at us. Thankfully all of them missed.
But I could see the thing was now even more pissed than before. But it was staggered, but only for a short while. And it could use magic.
I had to think of something. We could use magic... Fire magic.
„Kye will fire hurt it?“ I asked quickly.
„Probably, but it won't kill it. If we use it then we'll have to deal with it and a forest fire!“ She replied.
Goddamn it - I thought to myself. I looked around, maybe there is something we can use. But it was futile, I couldn't see shit. We had to run.
Kye was already doing the same, I caught up to her. The thing was still tailing us. I saw she tried everything to hamper the monster's advance. She fell smaller trees as we ran, I could hear her grunt under the strain of each action she did.
I was in no better position, I couldn't feel my legs anymore. And I was on the verge of suffocating from exertion.
We managed to make some distance between it and us. Kye stopped, grabbing her knees, and panting heavily. I did the same.
I heard it in the distance charging forward still.
„Any bright ideas, Wyatt?“ She asked between pants.
Then I remembered... I still had the rifle. Though it would probably do jack shit to the thing...
I had to think rationally. The monster, though it possesses essence and magic is still a living being. It needs food, water, and air to survive.
My mind raced... Then I had it.
Air!
„Kye, for how long can you distract the thing?“ I asked her.
„Not long.“ She replied.
„I'll need 10 seconds, tops. Can you get a shield up? The same one as last time?“ I said.
„I can... What are you thinking?!“ She yelled back at me.
Just then we saw the monster emerge from the beyond the trees, charging right at us.
„DO IT!“ I yelled at her. Without missing a beat she turned around and erected the same transparent wall in front of us. A much larger one.
I grabbed the rifle from my shoulder and fiddled with it for a second to check if the round is chambered. It was, I closed it back up and aimed.
I was aiming for the jugular. The thing had thick fur, so any other part of the body was out of the question. Head, the skull is probably too thick. Chest, fur, and bone are in the way. Limbs are out of the question.
I was no marksman, but I had to make it work.
My hands shook, my breath uneven and erratic, I struggled to keep the rifle steady. I took a deep breath in and held it.
My hands calmed ever so slightly. The sights lined up with my eye.
I saw the thing hit the wall, Kye grunted. She felt it.
The monster was confused for a moment but then it started hitting the wall, with each hit I heard Kye was struggling to keep the barrier up. I heard her cough and wheeze.
I lined up my shot.
The monster roared.
My eardrums felt like they would burst at any moment.
„LIFT IT!“ I yelled. That moment the wall disappeared and the creature started running toward us again, I felt the ground shake. The monster roared.
My heart pounded like cannons mid-siege.
I felt sweat pour down my face.
I saw the thing open its mouth and extend its arms, ready to devour us.
Then I pulled the trigger.

BANG
I felt the rifle kick into my shoulder. The recoil was stronger than I'd anticipated.
The sound reverberated through the forest but it was drowned out by the monster's roar.
Then abruptly it stopped.
The monster slowed down to a jog, then to a slow walk. It grabbed its neck, I heard it gurgling.
I stepped back, it was getting closer.
Then mere feet from us it collapsed to its knees. It was in that position there, staring at us for a moment before I saw the flicker in its eyes disappear.
Then it collapsed to the ground with a resounding thump. Two mere steps from where I stood.
I stared at it, panting heavily I kicked its head.
It didn't react.
It was dead.
It was dead!
I turned around to look at Kye, she collapsed to her knees. She looked like she was bleeding from somewhere on her face, trails of blood were coming from her eyes and nose. But she was alive.
She looked at me.
The horrified expression quickly turned into a neutral one. Then, for the first time since I met her.
I saw her smile.
And I couldn't help but smile back. Letting out a small laugh.
Then she collapsed to the ground.

Vampirism Superhuman Strength (of 1000 strong men) Super human Speed(of a falling star) Superhuman Stamina (infinity) Superhuman Agility Superhuman Durability Superhuman Senses Healing Factor mind control Shapeshifting (animal/wind) Animal ControlTrue Form Telepathy Atmokinesis (weather control) Flight Necromancy not to mention they are immortal and probably rich because of that. They can hunt anyone in there dreams most have night vision and thermal vision image sensing some one from there heart beats sound there telepathy can be drive some one insane. Weakness- you die instantly form a wooden stake if your wearing armour it will disappear magically. Garlics are not tolerable beuse of there smell rest sliver effects them and holy things are not to be looked at. About the sunlight "thing" you have a insane healing factor and super speed so you probably won't die and as a vampire gets older they get stronger so healing would eventually stop the suns damage and you can turn to mist. I hate these movies showing vampires as a step above zombies in reality a vampre(elder) could topple the world's economy take control of leader destroy the best millttrys in the world and not even be know

Trigger warning: medical stuff & the death process. I do not give permission for this to be on any other platform.
I met him on fb dating. We chatted for a while and then for 2 or 3 weeks did 2-4 hour phone calls every night. We met 2 days after Christmas, and were taken with each other. He swept me in his arms and crooned “can’t help falling in love” by Elvis in my ear while we danced. I was head over heels and remained that way for the 2.5 years we were together. He went to detox, it worked, and he stayed clean for 27 months. Hadn’t been sober that long since he was an early teen.
My boyfriend and I were “on a break” while I was in the psych ward, then a step down to find me temporary housing. I spent 2 months in the hospital. While I was in there he would call and tell me he was going to come rescue me, take me to the beach, how he needed me to get him through detox again, told me he loved me dozens of times. Then silence for a month, followed by texts during the hour “phone time” at the step down where we were allowed on our phones. He texted me Saturday night, told me he loved me, there was another girl, he’d always be there for me. I found out it was the last text he sent.
That night, the Saturday before I got out, he fell and they found hard drugs in his system (he was only a pot head & sober, but started drinking and whatever again the week I went in). He had gone back to hanging out with an old unsavory crowd.
I was upset on Sunday when I saw the texts and sent some angry responses. I got out Wednesday, didn’t hear from him and thought he was ghosting me. Found out after contacting his enmeshed mom on Thursday night that he had been on life support with irreversible brain damage among other things. They kept him on life support due to his checking the donor box on the drivers license form.
The family respected his and my relationship a lot and let me come visit the next day, then the next, then they let me be there for when life support was pulled Sunday. They couldn’t handle being in the room with him.
I saw the nurses come, open his eyelids, and watch his eyes not respond. He only jerked when there was pain applied but didn’t respond to anything else. They had him on versed and morphine and fentanyl and another one prior to removal of life support. I reattached his air tubes when they would fall out, wiped the saliva that he was soaked in, and wiped sweat off his face. Sat next to him in bed and held him, talked to him, all of it.
I was in the OR when they pulled life support and expected him to pass, to stop breathing on his own. He kept breathing and I laid down in the bed with my head on his chest next to him and told him I loved him over and over, sobbing over this gorgeous man for almost the whole 90 minutes. He kept breathing.
They took him out of the OR after 90 minutes as he no longer qualified for donor status. I couldn’t leave him though. He kept going through the night and the next. I spent a lot of time in the bed next to him, sucking secretions from his lungs with a tool they gave me and asking for pain medicine at the right intervals (they stopped the flow of pain meds and were only giving him pain meds as needed). He would exhibit pain symptoms, his jaw would clench so hard his teeth were jammed out of place and his tongue would get stuck between his teeth. Massaging his jaw would get it to calm a bit. His eyelids would open but his eyes were rolled back in his head. His chest and heart were visibly working so hard in his 160 lb 6 foot frame.
His older brother was in a major fight with him, and that first night he went though my BF’s phone and found other women he was talking to over the last 2 months. He used my bf’s phone to text-yell at me about staying with my bf, telling me he had found all this evidence that the bf was “cheating” on me, telling other women he loved them. Then got mad I wasn’t leaving his side. It hurt. I knew that he was dating, so not cheating, but to love so quickly? I was out of the bed for a few hours, angry, sad.. and that’s when he had the most tooth movement and pain. I felt immediately bad and wouldn’t leave him the rest of the time. Everyone called me the girlfriend and I was still the girlfriend. I was the one there who could help him. Drunk bf did some shitty things. Doesn’t mean I didn’t love every inch of that man and his amazing brain.
We stayed in the ICU for a day and then we were moved to a different floor. Every nurse, assistant, even the doctor that came to see him got shown pictures of the man he was, all dressed up as his favourite superhero for Halloween (he was the Spider-Man of his neighborhood for years).
The second room we were in Monday night was a holding floor, awaiting people going home or going to hospice. Getting the ICU clear. They were kind to us, until the night nurses came around. He was prescribed morphine as needed every 15 minutes but he clearly couldn’t ask for it. I pressed that call button as much as they would let me. He would squeeze my hand when he was in pain, I don’t know if that was an automatic response or not but that’s how I knew he was in pain. Still I laid by him in the hospital bed, trying to keep him calm.
After 51 hours, with only 2 15 -30 minute naps he allowed me to take, I desperately needed to get back to my house 2 hours away and get my medications. I’m a week out of the psych ward at this point and shaky as fuck. His parents both came to visit separately, and for a max of 10 minutes. They couldn’t handle what was going on.
The people in charge found room at the hospice and moved him there Tuesday afternoon. I made sure he was comfortable, kissed his head and hands and told him I loved him. I played a few of his favourite songs to let him sleep to and left to go back and get my meds.
Wednesday I slept in my own bed, took my meds and felt too woozy to go back and thought I’d take a day to make sure I could do more to help through the next week.
He passed Wednesday afternoon while his dad was sitting by him.
The last few weeks have been a numb blur. What was supposed to be me working to get a job and move from the temporary living space turned into trying to heal from everything. Cleaning the porn off his laptop & phone (both were given to his niece) His parents elected to get him cremated. I made them a Shutterfly book (while intensely applying for work so I don’t lose my temporary living space) with memories of him and it will be delivered this Friday, his birthday, along with the urn they ordered.
The 2 alcoholic sons both lived with their parents and my bf’s room is full of trinkets and books and things that he would do instead of working, instead of drinking.
Yesterday I held the box of his ashes in his room and played can’t help falling in love and other songs and swayed with him, crying. I showed his dad different treasures in his room and stories behind them. Some of his favourite books, and why. Showed him his son’s favourite boots and told him the story of how we found them and how they would change the whole way he walked. I discreetly took his sex toys out of his room so his family wouldn’t have to deal with them.
I hope a small part of him was comforted not being alone, being helped in the hospital. Knowing I’d take care of stuff.
My bf may not have considered me his boo anymore. He’s always going to be mine. I wasn’t ever able to erase the feeling that I wasn’t who he would have preferred by his side, but the girl he was with was an ex who had done some despicable things to the family. She was invited to see him for a short time before life support was pulled to say goodbye but wasn’t allowed any other time. All of this sent her from drinking a bottle of vodka a day to more, she couldn’t and still can’t keep it together. She’s even told me he told her how much I love him and how much he still loved me. She sent me selfies with presents he made for me that she was given. With duck face. That bitch.
All I kept and keep repeating in my head was all the times he said I love you to me the last few weeks of his life. The plans he made for us to go to the movies and cuddle. The plans to go on vacation.
I’m having trouble forgiving him, while still being in head over heels in love with him. I know I took on a lot of responsibility for keeping him sober that weren’t mine to feel.
Today I am drinking for the first time in a while. I wasn’t necessarily sober, just didn’t drink around him. I took Lunesta because I didn’t sleep last night.
Our relationship was so cocooned that I’ve lost a lot of my friends in the last while. I don’t know where to go, who to talk to about all this. He was my best friend, my cheerleader, my wailing wall.
That’s what’s going on. I’m lost without him. One of the last things he told me was how he admired me for my strength. I think I’m sapped.

So, my (30M) tonsillectomy experience.
Always had a bit of an issue with throat infections and viruses getting stuck in the crypts giving me fevers and pain. Spoke with my GP, decided on referral for a tonsillectomy. When I showed up at the ENT they did a quick scope through my nose to look at the tonsils and pretty much after 2 minutes decided that they needed to go.
Day 0 (27.05.2024)
Surgery scheduled for 09:00, got in at about 10:40. Quick talk with anesthetician, gave me a few pills including OxyContin. They put me under, woke up about 2 hrs later in recovery relatively annoyed that they interrupted my good sleep. Feeling okay, a bit of pain, got a lot of water and a few ice creams.
14:30 I messaged my dad saying I was getting ready to go. The nurses helped me out but i ended up throwing up in a bag in the reception area. Back up to recovery. I just kept getting woozy every single time they tried to move me. Another attempt at leaving (in a wheelchair this time) resulted in another episode of vomiting. Spoke with the surgeon and decision was made to keep me overnight to allow the OxyContin to disappear from my system. OxyNorm was perfectly fine.
I got scripts for painkillers (paracetamol and OxyNorm), inflammation reducing medication and nausea reducing medication.
Day 1
Woke up feeling a bit better, still pain, but completely manageable. Dad picked me up at about 09:00, went straight home and into bed.
Day 2 - Day 6
Still a bit of pain, mostly at night and when waking up since my throat was getting quite dry after sleeping. Most nights I ended up taking a OxyNorm and drinking water to soften my throat and the scabs. My throat was gradually getting itchy and looked like the apocalypse. Ended up eating mostly soups, noodles, broth, smoothies etc.
Day 7
By this day I could start eating a bit more solid food, so had spaghetti.
Yawned early in the day, and could feel the tightness in the back of my throat. Apparently I yawned a bit too big, so I started bleeding a small bit. It stopped after a few mins which was according to the documents I got from the doctor (if it stops within 5 mins you are OK). I was a bit scared, so decided to go to lie down. I could feel myself bleeding more when I laid down. Long story short I called the emergency services, they told me to ice my neck and eat ice chips until the ambulance arrived. Very calm throughout the entire thing. Arrived at the hospital, they anesthetized my throat and then cauterized 6-7 spots along the wound where the tonsils had been on the left side of my throat. Total blood loss was approx 0.7L, but I never felt woozy or close to passing out. I did swallow a lot more blood than I thought, so if you experience the same thing, call early rather than later. Had to spend the night at the hospital for observation, and also had to wait for food since the doc ordered me to fast until they were sure they didnt have to put me under and operate to control any further bleeding.
Day 8 - Day 14
Very little pain, have now stopped using painkillers and OxyNorm alltogether. The hospital extended my sick leave with an additional week since the cauterization is essentially a surgical procedure, so will be relaxing and healing until the 18th of June. The left side of my throat which was cauterized is still quite sore and stiff, preventing me from yawning fully. The right side is mostly fine.
I'm expecting the pain to go away quite soon and for my throat to return to normal. My sense of taste is still very strange, a lot of sweets taste really bitter and most food will taste quite metallic as soon as I swallow. Going to talk to my doctor about it tomorrow. I've been reading a bit, and this is apparently not that uncommon?
Any questions/queries, do reply below or DM :-)

Is there such a thing as finding too much treasure?
Previous part: 8.9.
​
The new room could only be described as unfinished, you thought to yourself. You were passing under an arch of a building on your way through here and saw that hanging from it were supposed to be two drooping ropes with flags(or whatever this is supposed to be), but instead, you saw a purple digital polygonal imitation of it.
Other purple digital polygonal objects took the appearance of other real things in the area, but they lacked the what?-factor of the digital floating purple particles or what was going on with the ceiling of the room as it was a just purple grid. (Welcome to the AR world Jeremy. Glitchtrap's twisted wonderland.)
But this was all a distraction from the newly introduced threat in the form of Moon, as now you sought targets that prevent his deadly approach to your ride, all while you heard his chuckles.
In the next room, the situation was the same, except you saw different varieties of purple digital things pouring into the area. (Nice! it's the Princess Quest 3 purple pattern from Vanny's room and the purple arching energy from the wrecking ball in Roxy Raceway! I didn't notice them on the first watchthrough of the game, so it's nice to see and know what that connection is. Though now that I'm thinking about it, it's so weird that Princess Quest 4 shows no connection to anything, unlike its prequel.
Is it because the FNAF6's Pizzeria is so digitally distorted by Glitchtrap in the network that it doesn't show the tell-tale signs of the AR world or is it because the Pizzeria's sub-network isn't as connected to the greater network. Hmm... Something to look into later.)
As you continued to move through the area you saw more and more purple things just crawling throughout as you kept alert for specific targets to stall Moon. (Where in the world is this place? There's no such location we visit in Ruin that has this much wrecking ball energy flowing through it.)
But as you gazed about, you immediately spotted a blue blast-shaped button ahead and above on an arch. It's just like what the "message" depicted! Quickly you pointed your hand cannon at it and shot a couple times until you hit it. You were definitely on the right track now.
Passing under it, you were getting close to the double doors that lead to the next area, though curiously you saw purple digital particles that unlike before, were dripping from the ceiling like the floor above you was flooded.
(Okay, the only place that had to drip purple particles like this was the Upper East Server. That in addition to the purple grid on the ceiling above us, tells me we're directly under it, or really near to it. That sorta makes sense, because Foxy Log Ride is in/next to Glamrock Salon which is right next to the Upper East Server. It's so cool to be able to piece that together!)
But surprisingly, after going through those double doors, you were right back on the track heading towards a familiar area you had been to the first time you did this. Did the alternate paths weave in and out of the standard path? That must be it, you thought as you got all of the targets and headed to the next area where the train robbery scene takes place.
Immediately, after the lights flickered back on from the transitional darkness but before you enter the train robbery. You spotted another Helpy cutout and quickly shot it before you passed it.
Passed the train robbery scene is where you expected the path to diverge to the glitched route as you had taken to calling them, and lo and behold, as soon as you had gone through the train and through the double door at the end of it, you found yourself in a new area.
You heard Captain Foxy's voice once again as you entered the new route. "We be not responsible for any maimings that might happen on this here path." If you haven't already had a trip through an alternate path before, you're sure you'll be questioning how you would be maimed during the ride.
Your ride strolled ahead and entered chambers where you now had to shoot the targets to closed doors and block the Moon, rather than to earn points. However, as you did this, you heard people's laughter replacing the general ambiance of the ride. (I wonder if there's something with this.)
In these chambers, you shot another blue blast-shape button that you saw above near the ceiling, while you defended yourself from Moon's relentless drive to get to you on the ride.
But you eventually persevered through it all and made it back to the normal track again where you collected yourself by shooting at targets without worrying about the threat of Moon. But too soon to you, you found another Helpy cutout, which you shot of course, and was once again heading towards the dangerous alternate path. (Oh, I forgot to mention that these specific Helpy cutouts can be found in the original Pirate Ride in Help Wanted. And in Monty Golf and Superstar Daycare in Ruin. I wonder if Vanny had moved them there after the Help Wanted 2?)
This time noted by Captain Foxt with a simple "Overboard!"
The alternate path this time had no laughing ambiance and had you getting up close and personal with a dancing Moon unless you shot all the targets to make him go away from the platforms near where your ride gets the closest to them by turning on the lights. (Hmm... could this be a point against 1983 Moon? Why would 83 Moon be affected by light still? Also, is the laughing important? A hint to something?)
Another blue blast-shaped button was found and shot while on this path of constant danger, but with skill, awareness, and luck, you managed to get through it all. (Yeah I know there are gravestones in this specific area, but I'm not sure if it's referencing the missing 5 plus Charlie gravestone or if it's just props.)
Now you were back on the normal track, and as went through the next two areas you knew that the ride was coming to an end as you came upon the familiar comforting scene of Foxy and Chica along with other animals surrounding a cake and celebrating as you heard Captain Foxy say, "And the real treasure was friendship along."
(Both the scene and Captain Foxy's exact words are a call back to the original Pirate Ride in the first Help Wanted)
But as you stared at the scene, you finally realized that the cake itself had a blue blast-shaped button on it and proceeded to shoot it. To think that you were looking at it and didn't even realize it the first time you came through here. But now it's all over and you can finally see your improved score and get back to the restaurant.
Yet, as the lights flickered off and you moved forward in the darkness, you noticed something was wrong. The western-theme ambiance that was always there on the normal path came to an abrupt halt and left only silence and the everpresent noise of shifting water in its departure.
Suddenly the three spotlights lit up the path ahead of you, revealing to you a treasure chest on a miniscule island under the third one. As your ride got close to it, you noticed a couple of broken wooden boards on the side of the island, next to a crumple Pirate Foxy Flag.
As your ride came to a stop right next to the wooden box, it unexpectedly opened. (waaaaaaaait a minute! ITS THE CORN MAZE BOX!!! It's redesigned, but it's definitely it! Coincidently or is it Intentional? It has to be, they could have used an actual treasure chest for this, so it has to be intentional. Why? Memory Dolls... memories... William's Mask! It's the key to Glitchtrap!)
Gently, softly, the box's lid came open and a green costumed hand came out from the darkness within. The hand smoothly snaked out of the box until it was outstretched to you, revealing to you the treasure that it held in its palm. It was a doll, an unusual one at that, as it looked to be made by crocheting some wool into a human figure plushie. But stranger than that was the fact that it was wearing a Foxy mask.
You didn't know why, but you reached out to the hand, and hesitantly, grabbed the doll and watched as it poofed into purple smoke. The hand, with no doll in its grasp, sleeked backed into the box as the lid closed itself and your surroundings plunged into darkness.
Next thing you knew, the sound of celebrating cries filled your ears as you were back into the GAME WON! void. Stunned by the sudden change in your surroundings, you automatically hit the button for the crane machine to receive your prize with no thought. Your prize this time was a poster for Ballora titled DANCE!
Yet even though it was something new and interesting, your mind refused to be distracted from the bizarre event that just happened seconds ago. But no matter how much you tried to wrap your head around it, no matter how many times you tried to make sense of it, all you could blankly think is, what?
You felt strange, but you knew you had to keep moving forward. So you pressed the RETURN TO HUB button and returned to darkness to go back to the restaurant. Still, the sight of the Foxy doll never once left your mind.
Remember Jeremy? (the achievement for collecting the memory doll)
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The achievement has twisted this Help Wanted phrase into a question. And finally, an answer was given to another. Everything is starting to make sense, but joy am I finding too much stuff! I reached my limit a couple Parts ago and now I'm beyond that!
But thankfully. Thankfully! we reached the end of Foxy Log Ride and now I can talk about Vanny, Vanessa, Jeremy, the Memory dolls, and even Glitchtrap now, because why not. What other discoveries while mentally exhausted from this stuff!
Don't worry, I know not to burn myself and take breaks. But still, I eventually have to come back to finish this, and that in itself creates mental fatigue. So let's finish this by starting with the long overdue conclusion of Double-V!
The last time we talked about this, I ended it by saying we'll go through the contradictions of Vanny's and Vanessa's character hinted in Ruin and Help Wanted 2. However, I want to go back a bit to when we were first introduced to Vanny as a character in Help Wanted the Curse of Dreabear.
It's only a few lines of dialogue, so it won't be long. Besides, Vanny apparently being a different person than Vanessa, means we can't exactly apply one's characteristics to the other. With Vanny only having so few lines and cameos in Security Breach, she is basically, completely unknown to us.
So what dialogue we know comes from her, needs to be under even heavy scrutiny for any hints of the personality and characteristics of our new villain.
Before we even start with her dialogue, something interesting has already happened in the preceding events. By finding and resembling the secret tapes and doing exactly what Tape Girl says in the final tape we attain the glitchy Glitchtrap plushie
"There is a way to kill it. It wants to escape. To escape through someone. Someone plugged into this game. That's you now. You have to let it begin the process of leaving through you, then use the disconnect switch that I've embedded by the main stage. Let it approach you. Let it begin to merge with you. Play the music and flip the switch*.* That will cause a hard restart of the game and flush the memory, effectively killing it, I hope. I don't know when it will come for you." -Tape 16
Now, we already know that this does not work at all in the slightest, as this method instead has Glitchtrap trapping and locking you up as he is let out of the game through the player's body that he now has control of. Digital Consciousness Transfer.
Next with the installment of the DLC, we acquire William Afton's old mask from the Corn Maze minigame after finding all four keys and the secret glitchy fifth key and head to the cellar where we discover the mask on a table on a candle.
With both of the items together worn and held respectively, we can hear the secret dialogue and the voice of Vanny for the very first time.
“Yes, I hear you. I know... No. There's no miscommunication... I understand... Yes, I have it. I made it myself. I think you would like it... No, no one suspects anything... Don't worry, I'll be ready, and I won't let you down. It will be fun.”
This means that the event that Vanny met Glitchtrap was, in fact, the ending of Help Wanted where you follow through on Tape Girl's deceptive instructions on digital transferring with Glitchtrap!
But right here, is where a slight problem occurs in the narrative of Vanny's story in the games. Vanny still has control of her body, she's still capable of defying Glitchtrap. Something that's been made clear to me through both Ruin and Help Wanted 2, is that Glitchtrap doesn't control Vanny at all.
Does he influence her? Yes. We see that in the way her costume is directly referencing him and the way she moves and dances.
Does he control her, however, that is where things get shaky. Because at this point in time, there hasn't been a single instance where Vanny is seen as someone being controlled.
Remember, we can't use anything that has to do with Vanessa to show that Vanny is being manipulated or controlled. So where in the new era games can you find Glitchtrap controlling Vanny?
You can't.
Does this mean she's doing this out of her own will? That is something that might've been more nuanced than what we all had perceived. Because I did it again, I've found more stuff! This time it's something important that everyone has missed in Help Wanted and it might well be the true origins of Vanny.
You see the base game of Help Wanted actually has a third ending to it. Or at least something that should be an ending. Besides, just completing all the minigames to get stuffed inside Freddy and following Tape Girl's 16th tape instruction, there's something else you can do that involves Glitchtrap.
That is let Glitchtrap complete the process of leaving through you.
I'm sure some of you are confused by what I'm talking about, but it's the sequence where you press the button and flip the switch, leading to the ending where Glitchtrap locks you up. I'm saying instead of doing that, do nothing and watch what happens next.
A blaring noise could be heard asGlitchtrap stretched his hand out to you. He spoke distortedly and unintelligible, while green cones of energy flowed out from him and toward you. In seconds, Glitchtrap's eyes turned red, the blaring noise increased its volume, and the energy cones became purple while your view became clouded in a purple haze. Soon purple spots began to appear on Glitchtrap's body, as the noise became too loud to your ears, and the energy cones became red as your vision was almost nothing but purple. Soon even Glitchtrap started to disappear into the purple as his body became pixelated by the purple, leaving only his general outline until even that became purple.
Finally, after your purple vision grew flickering bright and the blaring noise ceased, your vision slowly returned to you, accompanied by music and the sound of static from a monitor. (That's the same music that plays if you press the button on the side of the monitor and the static sound you're hearing is specifically from FNAF's 2 game over static.)
At first, your purple view distorted itself with pixels before the purple started to fade slightly as you could see the hub world. But your perspective was wrong, you were staring from the opposite side of where you were sitting, while the place you once stood at was empty.
Your vision, still overlayed with purple while distorted and pixelated, looked down as you brought your hands up. Your hands which were always outlined and seethrough, now looked solid and were covered by gloves of a familiar costume that you were just staring at a couple seconds ago.
As the purple started to overwhelm your distorted and pixelated vision again as you stared at your— Glitchtrap's hands, your mind was finally able to recognize the words that were being spoken to you by him.
"Can you hear me?"
If you want to see this for yourself, then I have two Youtubers that I managed to find, that did this. 99TH VR and 8-bitRyan.
After this, you're taken to the GAME OVER void. But what's unique about this void is that the monitor here never displays any quotes, no matter how many times you do this.
This ending that should've been, along with what "Tape Girl" said before finally reveal what exactly Vanny is.
"—Let it approach you. Let it begin to merge with you. —." -Tape 16
A merger, a fusion of two different beings, that's what Vanny is! This is why I was having so much trouble trying to figure out how Vanny came to be from the two "endings" we get from Help Wanted. The answer is neither of the two. She mostly came from the failed Tape Girl instructions scenario where Glitchtrap completes his merger with someone to get out of the game.
It also explains why we see gigantic Vanny in Help Wanted 2's consequences ending and adds even more reason why an altered EnemyBasic appears on her wall in the AR world! Vanny herself is not infected as we first believed, but rather a fused entity between Glitchtrap and someone else.
With this origin, she would still be able to traverse and interact with things connected to the network if she's plunged into it.
And considering what she's wearing in Security Breach and that the Security Mask and the occipital transponder are a technology that exists now in the current FNAF lore. She has every way she needs to stay connected to the Pizzaplex's network. But let's get back to her dialogue and dissect it.
"Yes, I hear you. I know... No. There's no miscommunication... I understand... Yes, I have it. I made it myself. I think you would like it... No, no one suspects anything... Don't worry, I'll be ready, and I won't let you down. It will be fun.”
We can immediately pinpoint a characteristic of Vanny with the entirety of this dialogue, willing and eager to please. I would also put young in that description, but I don't if it's because she's actually young here or that the voice actress has a bit of a youth tone to their voice.
Anyway, the "Yes, I have it. I made it myself. I think you would like it" part of her dialogue was already analyzed by me before, but let me elaborate on something I've been thinking about.
William's Mask has to be in the current Fazbear Entertainment's possession because the pizzaplex hasn't been built yet or is in the middle of being constructed by the time of Help Wanted's development or release since Cassie herself refers to it as an "old headset game", so the Security Mask isn't around just yet.
What I'm thinking here is that Vanny had come across it sometime to use as a reference for her costume. And make no mistake, Vanny's mask is making a callback to it as it's only a slight redesign and recolor to make it her own. Even Cassie makes notes of Vanny's mask being similar to the Security Mask by how she mistakes them for being the same.
But that doesn't sound right. Vanny wasn't working with Fazbear Entertainment when she met Glitchtrap, just under them through the second development team. Plus, most of the game was developed under a different team until it was in its beta version while Vanny's team had just come in to finish it to release it.
We have already seen what an object created solely by Glitchtrap looks like in Help Wanted in the form of his plushies, so we already know that he didn't recreate the mask in the game.
So maybe I'm thinking about this the wrong way. Both the mask and Grimm Foxy show up in Princess Quest, and we have already established how both important relate to William and Glitchtrap. And both are what are needed to destroy Glitchtrap.
Where did we first see that Mask? Not in the Help Wanted base game but in the Halloween DLC. That means the game was still being worked on even after its release, so Vanny would've had time to model this mask into the game. But why? I think these game-over quotes that show up only in Dreadbear are a clue.

• Report glitches before they spread.
• Don't look behind you.
• It's only a dream.
• Where am I?
• Purging system...

The report glitches quote, easily fits with what Vanny is talking about in with the "No, no one suspects anything." The "Where am I" part is intriguing, but I don't think I can pin that to Vanny. Hmm... I wonder if this is where our Golden Princess comes to be. It's something to look into later.
It's the "Purging system" part that is what I want to focus on here. This provides the needed explanation for things being the way they are now. Glitchtrap, the one that's not merged into Vanny, might've started running rampant during the DLC development, causing either Fazbear Entertainment or Vanny's development team to focus entirely on shutting him down.
The purging of the system might've been their solution for him. This might've worked too if Vanny wasn't already created by the time of the purging. And since Vanny is working under Glitchtrap here, she would've been in the perfect position to take Glitchtrap and everything he contains out of Help Wanted and into a developing game called Princess Quest(Working Title). Though, Vanny might've rushed the job under such circumstances, taking part of The Curse of Dreadbear's code along with Glitchtraps into the new game.
But that's all for now, I'll talk about that more when we get Princess Quest 4.
"I'll be ready, and I won't let you down. It will be fun.” This right here, more than anything, tells us that Vanny is not so much reluctant but more following in the Glitchtrap's order than we all first believed. But we shouldn't be so surprised about it.
Vanny's previous alias, "Reluctant Follwer", didn't come from any of the games, books, or even Scott's website but instead came from voices.com, a website Scott uses to find voice actors. The name is used as a guide for the actor and a descriptor for how the voice should be toned and acted.
The name is an oversimplification of a character for how they're going to sound in the one game they appear in, not all. So the name "Reluctant Follwer" would've only applied to Vanny in this game.
And as we see from Security Breach, Vanny is anything but reluctant to follow Glitchtrap's order. Yet after that game and as of Ruin and HW2, that name might been more appropriate now than it was back then as there appears to be a rift now between the two. But more on that at a later.
One last thing. With this origin in place, we now have another explanation for why we only hear Vanny's side of the conversation and not Glitchtrap's. We are hearing Glitchtrap's side of that conversation, he is her. It's the reason why her voice becomes echoey in her final word, fun.
Now let's finally get into the ties between Vanessa and the villains. Though...
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Shoot! I made it too big again! Continue on here Part 8.999