Susan polis schutz do it now sister

So I never met my great grandpa he unfortunately died a few years before I was born but my mom and my grandma told me this story maybe once or twice while I was growing up that my great grandpa always suffered from health problems which is the reason he died in his 60s, but they told me the story that during his last few days he woke up during a nap and that he was looking around a bit confused and that my grandma asked what was wrong and that he kept asking “ where did they go?” Both my mom who was a teenager during this time, her sister and my grandma where in the room with him during this time, and they all looked confused to what he was saying and my grandma asked him what he meant and that he replied “ the twins where are they?” Which left everyone even more confused and he continued talking about how he was walking with them in a city and how small they were and that they had such beautiful green eyes and long hair and one thing in the story that really stuck out to me was he kept referring to them as his family, he kept asking where they were that there his family and he was talking care of them. The rest of the family was very much confused but just assumed it was all the medication or just a dream, since they knew no one in his family had a set of twins let alone with green eyes and they just dismissed it as a dream, he unfortunately passed away a few days after. So time went on his grandkids, my mom and her siblings all started their families and had kids non of them twins, so time went on and I completely forgot of that story I was told as a kid growing up, it wasn’t until 2 years ago this girl I was seeing (now my wife) got pregnant while we were living overseas, and yes she happened to have green eyes and wouldn’t you know it she was pregnant with twin girls who have her eyes, they were the first set of twins in our family, and it wasn’t tell a year after they were born I remembered that story and told my mom and we discussed it for a while not really knowing what to believe could it just have been coincidence or something more, it’s something I think about often and find it kinda creepy and strange but a bit beautiful I honestly don’t know what to think about it but it’s a story I wanted to share what do you guys think??

Me (37trans) and my partner Gorgeous George (49trans) have been dating for almost a year. Gorgeous George has two long-distance girlfriends who he’s out of town visiting right now. In the past I’ve struggled with feeling a drastic dropoff in communication when he’s visiting his partners, as well as getting sent videos of him doing kink scenes with other partners and his other partners texting me to cancel plans instead of him doing it.
Before this trip, he proactively reached out about negotiating communication stuffs so I wouldn’t feel negatively while he was gone. He’ll be gone for a week. I opened the conversation by saying my ideal was:
A) When texting, give me a heads up if he’s free to chat so I can manage my expectations around response time
B) Two phone calls
This is kind of when it went off the rails. He said that that was stretching him too thin, he couldn’t promise the heads up about timing, and that it was unfair to expect his other partners to be okay with the phone calls. His rationale was that I didn’t want him talking to his other partners when we’re having an evening together, my response was that if we lived together or were staying in a hotel for a week I would expect that he’d want half an hour to say hi to his other people while I was showering/going for a walk/whatever.
It ended up with him saying ‘It’s going to cause problems but if that’s what you want I’ll have to make it happen.’ I tried to see if he had a counterproposal, but he said no.
I’m pretty new to poly and now I’m doubting myself!! Were my asks way out of left field? Is it unusual to expect a partner to offer a counterproposal if your initial ask isn’t ideal for them? I feel confused, help!

First / Previous / Next
Fen... laughed.
Only, it wasn't her voice. It had odd overtones, a strange timbre. It sounded like many people speaking at once.
Y̷̆̾ͅo̸͓͕͗̑û̵̘͔͆ ̵̬̙̓c̸͎͚̔a̶̡̲̐n̷̢͖̈͊n̴͙̜̚ọ̶̋̋t̶̖̰̔ ̶̯́̾s̶͎̈́̎t̵͎̯̿̔o̸̩̓̇p̸̩̗̆ ̶̙̯̄u̶̧̺̐́s̸̲͝͠.̵̦̱̓
Gord raised an eyebrow. Chloe turned her face to look at Fen. The Empress scoffed lightly. "Oh? Okay then. Stop us." Meredith said.
Fen's brow furrowed, her mouth twisted in a snarl.
S̸t̶o̸p̸ ̵b̴r̵e̸a̴t̴h̷i̸n̶g̸.̸
This time, Gord laughed. "Friend, I don't need to breathe. That one wouldn't work anyway."
Meredith yawned, and gestured with a sweep of her hand. "Tiresome. Try again."
Ų̶̄͠m̸̹͂,̷͎͎͆̇ ̶̥̉̉j̷̬̯̚u̴̘͚̚͘s̷͓͍̈͘t̵̘͇͑ ̶̬̼̾d̵̺̕ȉ̶͔̤͠e̵̞̔͝.̸̢͋̇
Kerry leaned forward, her eyes clear and piercing. She turned to look at Meredith. "Did it sound like this when your mother or grandmother used the voice?"
Meredith nodded. "Yes, though when we were under the Nanite's thrall, it sounded much more... important."
Ẃ̷̜a̴̫̓̅î̵͔t̵͔̬̔.̴̜̀̇ Fen clears her throat. "Wait. What's going on?"
Gord is clearly relishing this. If possible, he leans even further back, becoming more relaxed. "Tell me, Nanites. Can you sense your brethren? I understand that you're more powerful in higher concentrations. What do you feel?"
The Nanites reach out. They flow from Fen, sensing, probing, detecting.
They feel nothing.
"What did you do?!" Their voice is nearly a shriek. Fen's body starts shaking.
This time, Chloe looks at Gord pointedly. She smirks slightly. "Told you."
Gord raises his shoulders and arms in an exaggerated shrug. "So you did."
"No, but really, what. Did. You. Do?" The Nanites speaking through Fen had a new tone in their voice. They sounded frightened. Fen's body went limp and she slumped to the floor, unconscious.
As she lay on the ground, a kind of grey smoke poured out of her mouth and nose and ears. It was a thick, oily, translucent thing. Gord reached into his pocket and clicked a remote, and the cloud fell to the ground and dissipated.
****
Fen opened her eyes. She was back in Meredith's bed, staring up at the ceiling. She sat up slowly, and this time, Gord and Meredith sat in the room. They were playing cards.
"Fifteen two, Fifteen four, and a pair makes eight." Gord said triumphantly as he laid the cards down. He took a small metal peg in a board and moved it a few holes.
"I still don't get this game. Why are we making 15 with the cards?"
Gord rolled his eyes. "Because that's how your score in Cribbage! I already explained it."
"Yes, but why fifteen?"
"I don't know, it's just the game." He looked over. "Oh hey, Fen's up." He put his cards down. "Might as well call it here, I was about to sunk you anyway."
"Harrumph." Meredith collected the cards and shuffled them into a deck and put it down. "Hello Fen, how are you feeling?"
Fen looked at her hands, her arms, her legs. "I feel... different."
Gord nodded. "Like yourself, I assume."
Fen smiled. "Something like that. I can't hear the Nanites either."
"We were able to purge them from your system yes. When we first learned about them, they told us that removing them from someone who had an Empress package would kill them, but Gord and his AI compatriots were able to work out a solution." Meredith said as she put the cards and Cribbage board away.
"They were lying." Gord said flatly as he turned his chair towards Fen.
"So, they're gone?"
"Gone from you, yes. Gone from the Galaxy? That's going to be harder. They are the reason the Gates work. There are lots of sapients who rely on the Gates." Gord looked up at the ceiling. "There's also... something else."
Fen felt the familiar icy pit of dread. What now? "What is it?" Fen sounded weary. Her cheeks were hollow, her hair stringy and limp, her flesh sallow. The last few weeks had been hard on her. It seemed that without the Nanites, Fen was starting to feel how tired she actually was.
Meredith leaned forward. "Fen, tell me about your biological parents."
Fen's eyes narrowed. She turned her head slightly. "I don't remember them. They died when I was a baby, and Gen'mil Line raised me."
"Did you have any photos of them? Any videos? Anything at all?"
Fen shook her head. "No, Dem'iril - my Matriarch - said that anything like that was destroyed when they escaped on Spyglass" Fen perked up, and she turned to Gord. "What happened to Spyglass?"
Gord smiled broadly. "Oh, she's doing well. Continuing the work. Still a ship. You can visit her soon if you want."
Fen returned the smile. "I'd like that. Anyway, I don't remember my parents, and there wasn't anything to rememeber them with." She touched her chest with her palm. "I feel K'laxi. I know their languages, I know their ways. I follow their ways."
Meredith nodded and got up. She went over towards Fen and sat next to her. She snuggled up close to Fen, and Fen worked very hard not to be startled. This was as close as she ever had gotten to the Empress of Sol. She felt warm and... familiar? "Gord? Do we look alike?"
Gord and Chloe stared hard. Chloe turned her head slightly, trying to get a better view. Gord took out his pad, and snapped a photo. He turned it around and showed them. "You tell me."
Fen looked at the photo.
She could see the resemblance. It was in her cheeks, and her eyes. Her hair was different, and Meredith was taller, but she had to admit, she and the Empress looked alike.
Fen looked at Meredith, and then to Gord. "Well?"
Gord sighed. "This is going to be weird."
Fen crossed her arms and glared. "Gord, it's been nothing but weird for the last year, or more."
"Fair. I'll just come out and say it. You're a clone of the first Empress, Melody Mullen."
"I'm what?" Fen's voice was flat. She expected to be a distant cousin or something not... "a Clone?"
"Yes." Chloe walks into the room, her long strides covering the distance to where Gord and Meredith are sitting. "You are one of about twenty five embryos that were created from the first Empress' DNA. The humans and K'laxi that raised you and escaped on Spyglass stole you, and fled."
"They always told me that they were being persecuted by the Empire for what they believed in. That if they went back to Sol or even Minaren they'd be hunted down."
"Not untrue." Chloe said. "But, not the whole truth."
"Is that why-"
"The Nanites chose you when you went through the Gate, yes. They recognized your DNA."
Fen looked into the distance, remembering. "They had said that they "finally" got to meet me." Her eyes focus and she stares at Gord. "Why were they made? What about the other embryos?"
Chloe shrugs and sighs. "We don't know. It was some kind of black project. Even Meredith's mother - the previous Empress - didn't know about them until you were stolen."
Meredith looked down, her face fallen. "When Mom found out about them - Chloe is right, she didn't know they even existed until you were stolen - she had the rest of them destroyed. They weren't fertilized, they were just cultured tissue. You were the only one who was fertilized and brought to term."
Fen turned to Meredith. "So, does this make us sisters or something?"
"More like you're my great to the nth aunt." Meredith chuckled. "Welcome to the family, we're a mess."
"This is... a lot." Fen laid back onto the bed. "Can I have a moment?"
Gord rose from his chair as Meredith got off the bed. "Sure, take some time. Come on out when you're ready. We can talk about what we're going to do about the Nanites. We don't have to keep you in the dark about them anymore now that they're gone."
The three of them padded out of the bedroom, and the door slid shut quietly. Fen lay on the exquisite pillow in the most comfortable bed she's ever been in. The Empress's bed. Her relative's bed. "Starlight?"
"Yes Fen?"
"What do you think of all this? I know you can hear everywhere."
"You want me opinion? Why?"
"Just" Fen turned her head to the side. The pillow was cool on her cheek. "As an external party. Other than working for Meredith, you have nothing to do with all this."
"Well Fen, I can tell that this is a stressful time for you. And, I know you're going through something that hardly any other person has gone though. I don't really have any way to empathize, but I can sympathize. I'm sorry you have to go through this, but I know you can go through this. In the end, you're still you. Where your embryo came from doesn't really change that."
Fen sniffed. Tears had been welling in the corners of her eyes. "Thanks Starlight. I am still me, aren't I?"
"Especially now that you're free of the Nanites. I'm told that they can change people."
Fen blinked. "How?"
She could hear Starlight shrug. "There is anecdotal evidence that people who got the Empress package of Nanites became more... megalomaniacal. It makes sense."
"It does?"
"Sure. If you're getting set up to run an entire empire - remember, Melody said that the original empire spanned the entire Galaxy - you have to be at least a little obsessed with power and acquiring more. But, I think that's enough for now. Why don't you rest, Fen?"
"All right, Starlight." Fen sighed and snuggled deeper into the bed. "Wake me up before dinner, would you?"
"Of course, Fen."
​

I’m a 30f and I am sad most of the time, under the surface I think. I’m diagnosed with depression, anxiety, ADHD and bipolar disorder (bro I feeeel like I’m also autistic), and yes, I understand that an underlying sense of sadness is a result of those things. I just don’t know how to overcome it.
I think this is stemming from a conversation I had with my sister recently about my relationship with art making. I went to school for game design and taught for 10 years and I can’t remember the last time I made a piece that didn’t have to do with making money or serving some purpose. As an artist, I wonder if it’s fair for me to refer to myself as such when I never make anything anymore. And I don’t really care to anymore. But I WANT to care. And I’m noticing I feel this way about more than just art. It feels like I’m giving up on myself, but I don’t have a dream or goal to pursue, I’ve just been trying to survive and I’m tired of trying. Literally exhausted.
I have a fantastic partner who is my best friend in the world that I feel safe with and happy with. In an ideal world I’d spend all my time just being with him deciding what to do next. For awhile we worked the same job on the same team with the same schedule and it was wonderful; we both reminisce about how much time we got to spend together because we like really are obsessed with each other. My partner is also an artist, but instead of being a visual artist he’s a producer and rapper and just generally talented musician. And we love discussing our crafts with one another. We end up having the “what’s it like” conversation about motivation once or twice a year, where I lament about how my brain doesn’t have the capacity to make me do something I just don’t feel, and I talk about my struggles with making art when I’m “not in the mood” and how I feel like I’m never in the mood, and how I both admire and envy his ability to try to create, no matter the circumstances, on a regular basis (at least twice a week if not almost everyday). Where as I’m lucky if I made something this year, and it makes me sad. Under the surface.
What is it like to think something and then your body just starts doing it? He’s told me as recently as last night how much it means to him that he’s able to make music, and if he lost the ability to, he might also lose his ability to live. Idk if I feel that way about art anymore. It’s been the star of my life’s show since I was 3 years old, I almost feel like I was siloed into it because of how much I was praised for it. Idk, I love art, I think I’m just burned out, and there’s not a payoff for it. I made the mistake of monetizing my favorite hobby, and not even being able to capitalize off it with any meaningful job ever, or even half way decent one. For the record he also struggles with mental illness to a similar capacity, but depression personifying for him is just in writers block or making things he actually likes, not in making things at all.
I’m almost 10 years out of college. And honestly it’s not as though I feel like I’m supposed to be somewhere else. Life takes us where it takes us. I’m struggling to understand why I don’t care about anything anymore? How do I get passion for anything? Faking it won’t work, sucking it up is not good advice. I’ve felt like this for years I think, and I’ve had some work related trauma that forced me to take 4 months + off working, now I’m back at a job that’s managerial like I wanted, and it still doesn’t pay enough, I’m still stressed, I still feel like I dislike working to the point of tears. I’m diagnosed with my conditions and I have prescribed medication for it, but I’ve been trying to get my meds refilled and I have to go see a whole new psych for that and I’ve scheduled an appointment but it’s not for months because American healthcare. I go to therapy every two weeks and I try to shift my mindset as best I can on my own, but I literally take meds that stabilize my mood for a reason, I struggle just doin it, my brain needs some intervention.
I’m cognizant and aware of the state of the world, the fact that much bigger things are going on besides my apathy, but how do you find the drive to work everyday when you hate it and you just want to give up adulting? It feels like every year on this planet in this body everything just becomes more difficult to do—I literally can’t even follow current events anymore without feeling overwhelmed by it all, and I don’t want to isolate myself. Everything costs, things are just less enjoyable (not even in a depression way, in the way of like every film studio just keeps reviving IPs from 20 years ago and nostalgia baiting us. Is there no such thing as an original idea?) and every time I cross a milestone, it feels like it never really mattered in the first place. Every goal for myself I set has been reduced to just find happiness, and I have no passion.
How do you find the space to live like you care? How do you get over the feeling of wanting to just stop everything and give up?

Just failed out of my wide bore MRI for c-spine, even with Xanax on board.
Claustrophobia is so frustrating. I'm an educated, logical human and yet I'm driven to this irrational fear that is out of my control.
I can't fly, I can't visit caves, I can - if I have absolutely no reasonable alternative - use an elevator but only if there's one or two other people in it. If they get off before my floor, I'll exit and take stairs. I can't handle any amusement park ride that involves over the shoulder restraints and can't barely deal with lap bars. I drove to see my sister who lives near Pittsburgh and we took a trip into the city and I bailed out of the car when I realized she was going to park in an underground parking garage. Even jewelry and nail polish make me lose it. And don't stand between me and the exit when we're in a small room, like a laundry room or kitchen.
What's worse is I haven't always been this way. I learned to fly in a Cessna 172 (a small 4 seater) I also traveled commercially internationally and domestically with no issues. I learned to SCUBA dive. I toured caves and took the Tube and the Metro and the Muni without a second thought. I never had an issue getting in an elevator. I was an amusement park fanatic and the crazier the roller coaster, the better. Hell, I was even a member of our volunteer fire department which involved, among actual firefighting in full turnouts with SCBA, various training scenarios such as maze trailers and learning confined space rescue.
I remember who I was before, and I see who I am now, and I'm frustrated and embarrassed and just really, really disappointed in myself. I don't really understand what combination of factors flipped in my mind in my 30s to make me this way now.
I can pinpoint certain things, like having my first ever panic attack in a Burger King drive-thru of all places, but attributed that to the stress of the new job I had recently started. The building anxiety I had over a relationship that was having difficulties. But how these incidents morphed into full blown claustrophobia, I'll never really understand. And instead of getting better, it's getting worse. And worse still, it's having a negative effect on my medical care.
Two years ago I was successful in getting a wide bore MRI with Xanax. Thirteen years ago I was able to do an open air MRI with Xanax. Looks like when my doctor reschedules this one I'll have to be IV sedated.
Sorry for the long vent. I'm just so angry at my limitations.

Gravediggers. Corpse Grinders. Skull Takers. Every unit that shared his profession had a name that was like that. As Corporal Brandy floated silently, his body suspended in a dense salt water based solution alongside eleven of his peers, he once again thought how he liked the name of his unit the best. Ghouls. His arms were stretched out, as were his legs, secured to four corners of the hull leaving him splayed open. His wrists were tethered, his ankles were tethered, all to keep him from drifting. The water was cold, felt even through the suit even though it didn’t touch him. It was only appropriate they called vessels like the one he was in Coffins. It was long, with seven feet between floor and ceiling when one could stand in it.
The patch of his unit was a zombified corpse, walking towards the one viewing it, with their arm outstretched, a large 17 behind the shambling figure. It was laser etched on the left shoulder guard of his SVS51 body suit, the symbol of the Terran Front of laser etched on the right. Right now, Brandy knew he was flying through the void, heading towards the wreck of a Vral Light Cruiser, his unit’s speciality. A countdown on the upper left corner of his vision was reaching the single digits. No one talked, not even the squad leader. Not even command. Brandy liked it like that. He had been selected for special operations early on in his life, as most operators were. Sure, you could volunteer to join if you joined the Fleet and decided to test yourself, but most humans were already training for something like this by the age of thirteen. Jesup, one of his squadmates, he was a joiner, one that had volunteered when he was signing up. Brandy though? Brandy was a lifer.
Lifers like him were singled out in school and made aware of their tentative selection. Lifers were trained harder, tested harder. No one really minded Jesup not going through what they had been through, but it did mark him out. Hence the term, but lifers and joiners all got the same specialized training. Five seconds left. Brandy knew his job well, knew the layout of the ship well. Four seconds. Brandy clenched his fists. He felt the liquid shift, knowing their craft had hit the hull. Suddenly he was free of his constraints, floating free in the dense salt water. There was a bright light from the front of the craft, the plasma torches already burning into the Vral light cruiser hull. Three seconds. The dense salt water solution suddenly was sucked into the floor, drawing him down. He tapped his heels together, hearing an automated voice call out ‘Maglocks Engaged’, just before his feet touched the deck. He was already yanking the protective cover off of his rifle, slinging it back over his back. Two seconds. Those in the front of the line had their rifles up and ready. Brandy on the other hand, reached to his sides and drew out two long blades from sheathes locked to his thighs.
One.
He felt the compression in his chest as the breaching charge detonated, and the segmented doors of the Coffin opened. The first four Ghouls entered, no shots fired as they cleared the room. He heard a soft whisper saying, “Depressurized.” The entire deck was without atmosphere. Brandy looked to his left, and nodded once. Jesup nodded back. The pair in front of them sprinted out. Jessup and Brandy sprinted out immediately after them, Brandy drawing his blades. The interior of the Vral ship was a dismal place, and within just seconds Brandy knew what kept their grav plates powered was already down. The difference in design priorities from the Vral to the Terran Front could be seen even from the hallway they were running down. The Terran Front fleet was designed to maximize the space they had, to deliver the most punch possible for the weight class the ship in question could hit with. The chua had lent their practicality to that level of ship design. It was why the standard Terran corvette could fight completely out of it’s weight class. Brandy knew that the standard Terran corvette was more than a match for any variety of Vral destroyer, it was even said that a light cruiser would have to go blow for blow with one.
Most who heard that wouldn’t understand until they saw what Brandy was seeing now. Terran hallways were built narrow, the space an artery for personnel to move through in a very direct way. The ceilings would be laced with piping and joists, covered by protective layers of material just in case an impact threw the crew against the ceiling. Standing shoulder to shoulder, even battleship halls on Terran ships only allowed two large humans to stand shoulder to shoulder and extend their elbows halfway to touch the walls. This hallway was broad, four, no, five times the width. You would never see such a waste of space onboard a Terran fighting ship. The only exceptions to this were the larger logistics ships, the carriers, and the Antares herself. Terran ship tonnage was dedicated purely to what the ship in question was made to do. Vral ships, on the other hand, seemed to be built to not just fight space conflicts, but carry the troops for ground assault. The Vral sacrificed tonnage meant for fighting for transport. They did not have dedicated troop ships, or even dedicated logistics ships.
Brandy guessed it made sense when you never had to worry about someone being able to really hit back.
The map of the light cruiser was laid out in wireframe in the upper right of his HUD, a pulsing arrow pointing his way. As they reached the first door it was clear that whatever powered the lights also powered the doors in this section. He sheathed the blades and raised his rifle as Jessup pulled his breach bar. A moment later Jessup applied the handheld pneumatic and nodded once to Brandy, who gave an almost imperceptible nod back. Jesseup pressed an activation stud, and Brandy breathed out as the door began to open. A brief glimpse of chitin was all it took for Brandy to immediately put two shells through the door, the only audible evidence of the shots being two ticks from the recoil traveling along his armor plate. .
“Contact.” Brandy whispered even as the shells tore through the Vral floating behind the door. The Vral flew away from the impact as the door opened further, revealing more Vral, all floating, all already dead. “KIA Vral.” He whispered into the mic within his helmet. A small tone let him know his information was received. Brandy and Jessup moved into the hallway and saw why the Vral were all already dead. There was a gash in the hull almost three meters long and a meter wide. The deck had been exposed to the vacuum, and judging by the hole further down the hall which Brandy glanced through as they passed, a railgun round from a cruiser had lanced straight through the entire hull. Brandy slung his rifle and began the halting half run, half jog of moving quickly on magnetized boots. Brandy cleared an adjoining hallway before looking back to the door. The Vral dead were everywhere, floating in the vacuum, and Brandy kept having to shove the floating corpses aside as he moved. The dead didn’t stop him. They didn’t stop Jessup either.
Jessup was already setting the breacher, and Brandy’s rifle was unslung and readied. As this door opened a forcefield came to life in front of it, and a sliver of light began to show through. Brandy’s thumb flipped his rifle from semi-automatic to full. He didn’t need to speak, Jessup was already pulling his own rifle. As the door was suddenly shoved open by the pneumatic Brandy’s entire body snapped forward. The Vral that was standing by the door, who had even watched it open, made it clear that the Vral didn’t even know they had been boarded. Brandy’s rifle butt slammed into the head of the Vral, and sound returned as he moved fully through the forcefield meant to keep atmospheric integrity but not keep him out. Beyond it, Brandy saw at least twenty milling around. A damage control team. The Vral turned to the sound of one of their own skulls caving in, chitin cracking, just to see Brandy’s barrel come down. He was already moving left to give Jessup room to enter, as he squeezed the trigger. Chitin and ichor erupted, the Vral leapt at the sound, some freezing in place, some charging. Jessup came around the corner, raising his rifle, taking single shots at individual Vral who reached for weapons even as Brandy’s fully automatic spray swept the hall. Brandy was the scythe, Jessup was the surgeon.
Brandy’s ammo counter quickly was cycling down, but he hadn’t been simply praying and spraying. As his counter read zero the last of the Vral was spasming violently on the floor. He thumbed the magazine release, the hand on his grip already having reached for his right hip to draw up a fresh magazine even as the empty one slid out and began falling to the floor. “I’m close.” He said. He slammed the new magazine into the rifle, racked the slide, then slid it behind his back. He drew his blades, then began to sprint.
“I’m far.” Jessup began sprinting behind him.
The next set of doors opened automatically this time, but to a familiar scene, but the Vral were already aware of them due to Brandy having firmly announced their presence in the previous hall. Brandy never stopped his full sprint, carving through the Vral with the edges of his monomolecular blades. Every so often a shot rang out, taking one of the Vral down just out of Brandy’s reach or one that was pulling up a weapon. Brandy used the suit’s speed and strength enhancements to their fullest, barely slowing as he tore through the group, both blades cutting. Suddenly he heard the retort of full auto and spun to decapitate one of the remaining Vral to look as Jessup was emptying his magazine into an open door. Brandy let both blades drop, popping his hip to the side and curling his waist, letting the weight of his rifle carry it around his body into his hands. As the Vral tried to come into the hall they were cut down, caught in a fatal funnel of fire by their own hatchway.
“Reload.” Jessup said, tucking himself back against the wall. “Control, need sweepers. My location.” A tone was the only reply to Jessup’s words. Twelve men, organized into six teams. That was the boarding party. Each had a part to play, and as Jessup made the call for sweepers Brandy was already preparing to move. As Jessup slapped a fresh magazine into his rifle Brandy was still covering the door. The other doors in the hall remained closed. Jessup reached to a small bandolier of grenades and pulled one of the X-04 flashbangs, throwing it hard through the door against the opposing wall. A second later a dull pop sounded. Brandy and Jessup continued their run, but now both had slung their rifles. Both had blades out.
Following the skeleton map on his HUD, Brandy led the way through the next door to find the hallway empty. He didn’t mind that state of affairs at all. A dull klaxon began to sound throughout the crippled ship, and neither Brandy nor Jessup needed to be told twice that the Vral were now more than aware they had been boarded. Brandy turned down a corridor, instinctively lashing out and taking the head off a Vral had been moving towards him. “Breaching bridge.” He said into his microphone, hearing the tone of acknowledgement from Control as he saw the large bay doors that marked the command and control center of the Vral vessel they intended to take. He sheathed a blade as he came to a stop beside the bay door, out of range of the motion sensor that would open it automatically. Jessup was right behind him, freeing a hand of his own. They both reached up, yanking X-04 grenades off their pins banded to their armor. Brandy and Jessup looked at each other and nodded. As Brandy kicked out his foot to trigger the motion sensor, the door slid open. A torrent of laser fire erupted from the doorway, painting the floor and wall beyond. Brandy snapped his arm around, exposing only his hand as he threw the flashbang around the corner. Jessup’s own flashbang flew past Brandy towards the other side of the room. They both immediately pulled a second, even as the first detonated in the room beyond. Almost instantly the weapon’s fire stopped, and wails of chittering echoed into the hallway. They threw the second set of flashbangs into the door.
As the second pair of dull crunches sounded, Brandy and Jessup breached the bridge. The bridge was arrayed like a bowl, stations arranged orbiting a center divot in the deck where the captain would stand. None of the Vral in the room were standing. While flashbangs disoriented humans, essentially stunning them into stupfication, the same flashbangs had even more pronounced effects on the Vral. Most of them were simply laid out on the ground, completely insensate, and screaming incoherently in their chittering tones. Brandy and Jessup had entered having expected at least one of them to have donned protection, perhaps even a warsuit, but their boarding had caught the Vral completely by surprise. Jessup turned to the door, tapping the control panel and closing, then locking it. Brandy had already begun moving from station to station. Jessup joined him as they quickly and methodically dispatched the crew. Brandy turned and moved down into the captain’s pit, coming to the Vral that had commanded the ship.
“Attempting to access.” Jessup said, stepping to one of the panels even as Brandy reached the side of the Vral commander. Brandy watched dispassionately as the Vral’s body curled and spasmed on the ground. Without replying to Jessup, Brandy was already securing the commander. He flipped the commander over on it’s back, yanking it’s limbs together and zip tying them together.
“Control. Commander secured alive. Bridge secured.” Brandy said, and he glanced over to Jessup. Jessup looked over to him and grinned, his teeth showing through the dark tint of the armored glass of his helmet. A tone of acknowledgement came into his helmet. Brandy moved to the panels, just as Jessup was moving. “Anything yet?” He asked, letting his suit’s speakers carry his voice.
Jessup moved to another panel. “Nope. Wiped.” He said.
Brandy brought the panel to live and was already moving on, and cursed silently under his breath. Several times teams like his had breached the bridge of a Vral ship only to find what they were finding now, wiped computer cores, dead panels. Brandy continued to move panel to panel, as did Jessup, moving up the bowl. Brandy heard Jessup muttering as he went, his voice carrying because of the speakers in his suit. Brandy glanced up at the other man, then continued with his work.
“Doesn’t make any sense. We still know nothing about these bastards. Nothing.” Jessup said as he was working on the last panel on the row he was on. “Aside from the fact they melt their cores down really well.” Brandy smirked behind the tinted glass of his helmet as Jessup balled up a fist. Jessup moved up a row, then started work on another panel. “I’m beginning to think the only thing they exist for is to piss off the universe.”
Brandy couldn’t argue with that, and Jessup stopped his grumbling, continuing to check the panels.
“Control, Sweep Two is down. I repeat. Sweep Two is down.” Brandy stopped in his checks and looked up, the voice of Talb in his ear from possibly the same location he had called for sweepers to come in. He hadn’t heard a call for sweepers from anywhere else.
“That’s Vlad.” Jessup said, his voice flat, having paused himself to listen in.
“Confirm.” A woman’s voice hit Brandy’s ear, and Jessup began walking across the bowl towards him. Brandy settled his hands on the panel that he had paused midway through working. The woman’s voice keyed back into his ear, their Control, and Brandy listened intently. “Prep Sweep Two for extraction. Sweep Three and Four enroute.”
Jessup reached his side and put his hand on Brandy’s shoulder. The silence in his ears now was deafening, and he knew he should be continuing on, checking the rest of the stations, but he couldn’t move his feet right now. Brandy and Vlad were close, they had gone through basic together, they had gone through Advanced Infantry, as well as Weapons and Tactics, hell, all of their advanced training schools. When orders had come through, they had both been delighted to have twin assignments to the 17th Breacher Corps “Ghouls.” Vlad had met Brandy’s family, his mother, his father, even his ice queen of a sister who was serving as a Drone Cutter pilot. Vlad was his friend, the brother that he had never had, and now Vlad was down, somewhere on this hellhole of a ship, unable to even communicate that he was injured.
Jessup stood by him, saying nothing, and Brandy’s eyes were focused on something far in the distance, something he couldn’t even see right now. Suddenly, like his mind was pulling itself from mud, he forced himself to continue working. Jessup stayed by his side. There was nothing he could do for Vlad right now, nothing at all, and he had work in front of him that needed to be finished. Jessup went back to the stations he was working through. Brandy finished the sweep of the panels on his side. Nothing, as was usual.
He walked down the bowl shape of the Vral bridge, standing next to the Vral commander, who was now very much aware and awake, not struggling as it lay on the floor of the carnal house that was the bridge of it’s ship. He ignored it, placing his hands on the hilts of the twin swords at his sides. Jessup continued his work, a little slower than Brandy was, but then again Jessup was newer than Brandy himself was to this sort of thing. Brandy had already served for nearly eight years, and had done the tear down from the sixth Vral war, alongside Vlad. Brandy grunted and pulled up his arm, opening one of the armor plates to reveal the communications controls for his suit. He set up a private channel to Control.
“Control, BT One. Status of Sweep Two?” He asked, and he heard two clicks in response. He was being transferred to another operator. Brandy felt his entire body tensing up. He didn’t know if being transferred was a good or a bad sign.
“Bridge Team One, this is Secondary. Sweep Two is stable. Sweep One is prepping him for extraction. He took an indirect hit by a plasma round to his left shoulder. His suit took the majority but he’s going to be in the burn unit.”
Brandy breathed out, and then nodded once to himself. “Thank you Secondary.” He heard a tone in response, then he set himself back to team communications. Vlad was alive. That was good enough.
“The void will take you.” He heard the chittering sound translated, and he slowly looked towards the prone form of the commander. Brandy turned and walked over, and purposefully stepped over, the Vral. He then knelt down next to the figure. “You will not survive. We will bathe in your ashes.”
“When.” Brandy said, a dark bit of amusement in his tone. “Come on. When. Daylight’s wasting.”
“The void will take you.” The vral repeated, then went silent again as Brandy stood up and stepped over the commander once more. Jessup was coming down to meet with him in the center of the bowl.
“Good news, Vlad’s going to make it.” Brandy told him, “He’ll be in the burn unit for a bit, don’t know where he got hit, but the suit saved him.”
“Good. What’s the word from the local moral officer?” Jessup said, motioning to the vral, who was laying again in silence.
“Same as normal. We’re gonna die. Void’s gonna take us. Ashes. Dancing on my grave.” Brandy shrugged. “You know, what they normally say, that friendly little conversation.” Brandy could actually feel Jessup’s eyes rolling.
“Control, Bridge Team. Secured and detailed.” Jessup said, and they both heard the click of acknowledgement. “Another two hours maybe?” Jessup asked, and Brandy nodded. “Welp, two today, that makes six boardings for me, how many for you?”
“Fourty.” Brandy replied, and Jessup whistled low. “And that’s just these types. I was actually put on a team as a standby sweep for a battleship or two, but mostly light cruisers. No corvettes or destroyers though. They normally just send the heavies to take those. The cruisers though? Heavy cruisers? Carriers? I’ve done a few of those too, but mostly this.”
Jessup leaned against the back of one of the panels that he had checked. “What kind of team do they send to a carrier?” He asked, and Brandy laughed.
“Put it to you like this. They send units of chua war machines, and what’s called a kill team. They don’t even bother sweeping like we do with these ships, they just punch holes in every room and open them to vacuum, and the kill teams go in to make sure none of them got into a warsuit.” Brandy tapped his chest, “We barely do anything. They just turn the entire ship into swiss cheese then call us in to check panels. Kill teams are just different, but it’s an experience. You don’t get to really do much though. Go in, stay behind the kill team, and check elect…”
Brandy stopped talking and both of them listened as a tone sounded from Control, then they heard her speak. “All objectives secured. Stand by in location. Prepare for tow and extraction.”
The two of them reached out and grabbed hold of a panel, and Brandy looked over at Jessup. “Well, quicker than I thought.” Just as he was finishing that sentence the entire hull seemed to shake, and he felt a small surge of negative g force before his body adjusted. “A lot quicker.”
“What do you think they’ll get out of this?” Jessup asked as he let go of the panel.
“Oh hell.” Brandy said, motioning to the ship they were in. “Three destroyers easy. Maybe a corvette added in. Couple of fighters. Ever seen the reprocessors?” Jessup shrugged at the question and Brandy pointed at him. “When we get back, if you have some downtime, just ask to watch. It’s some impressive shit. I watched one of those crews break down a corvette in two hours.” Jessup raised his eyebrow and Brandy held up two fingers. “Two. No shit. Something like this is going to take them maybe a day, probably less than that. It’s absolute magic.”
“I was raised on the Los Angeles flats.” Jessup said, and it was Brandy’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “You know, where they had one of the landfills. They said they used a reprocessor for that too.”
“Yeah, the chua know how to make the most out of everything. Did you know there used to be a floating island of plastic in the Pacific Ocean?” Brandy placed his hands on the hilts of his blades as Jessup shook his head no. “Yeah, when the chua got set up, first thing they did was clean up all of that. Tons of plastic, centuries of fuck ups, and they fixed it in barely a month. Earth was trashy, real trashy. Now we just reprocess everything.”
“I never looked into how that works.” Jessup said, then laughed when Brandy raised his fingers and wiggled them in the air. “PFM?”
“Yeap. Pure fuckin’ magic. At least that’s how it looks to me.” Brandy sighed, then he motioned to the panels. “We had the technology centuries ago but we just never refined it like the chua did. I asked how it worked and I felt like I was an ape. They felt the same way about our computers the way we feel about their reprocessors though, so I guess it evens out.”
“What do you mean?”
Brandy glanced over at him and smirked, then he motioned to his suit’s right chest pauldron, where his suit’s electronic suite for his HUD was kept. “This here has more processing power than the chua had on one of their battleships. They just didn’t focus on it like we did. The concept of a microprocessor blew their minds. We know how to store a hundred terabytes on a fingernail, they know how to break down a landfill into bars of material.” Jessup leaned back against the panel again and grunted. “Seriously, ask to watch what they do to this thing. They are going to slice it up, put the pieces into the reprocessors, and by tomorrow it’s going to be raw materials. No waste, it’s crazy.”
Brandy turned his head back to the vral laying on the floor, hearing it muttering to itself. He narrowed his eyes for a few moments, listening to the sound of the clicking, then he looked back to Jessup. “Wish that thing would just shut the hell up.” A moment later he said a bit louder, “We get it asshole. The void is coming, it’s going to take us. Ashes, death, suffering. We get it. Shut the hell up.” He pushed himself off the panel and walked to the edge of the bridge nearer to the door. “Non-stop with them.”
Jessup gestured to the commander with his head. “What are we doing with him.”
“Well, he’ll get to tell an interrogation team about the void, bet he’s got a hard on for that.” Brandy replied, then paused and glanced at the upper right of his HUD, seeing a few green dots moving in their direction. “Then they’ll just toss his ass out of an airlock. Ready to go?”
“Yeap.” Jessup pushed up from the panel he was leaning on and joined Brandy near the door and waited as they both watched the dots approaching the door. Brandy reached over and toggled the lock, and the door slid open. Four humans in construction harnesses with atmospheric suits rated for vacuum were just coming to a stop. Behind them Brandy could already see the two other members of the team coming to relieve them.
“Is that Vodka?” One of them said, a hard feminine voice coming from one of the suits. Brandy’s eyebrow perked up, and so did Jessup’s entire body. Both of them knew Janet Shippen’s voice. Janet was what Brandy’s mother would call a feral tomboy. Short, muscled, her brown hair cut in a pixie cut, who felt more at home covered in engine fluid than anything else. She was also what his father would call an absolute knockout. Jessup had met her three times and was in love. Brandy’s relationship with Janet was a private affair, but Jessup wouldn’t find out about it, no sense in breaking his heart after all. Not to mention that Brandy looked at Jessup as a friend.
“How the hell are ya Shipwreck.” Brandy said with a smirk, “I got you a nice one here. I even got you a local to keep you company, ask him about the void. He’ll tell you all you want to hear.” The two figures in the back, clad in all black with no identifying markers, looked to Brandy, who simply pointed towards the vral commander laying on the floor.
“By the way. Ran into Vlad before I came over here.” She said, coming closer to the two Ghouls. “They got him out of his suit before they sent us over. He’s got an ass of a burn on his shoulder, but he said he’s going to be a bitch about it so they’ll give you fuckers some down time.” Brandy smiled, knowing if Vlad was joking around he was more than ok. Janet motioned to the bridge, “Lot of nothing?” She asked, and both of the Ghouls nodded. “Figures. Fuckers.” All three of them watched for a moment as the two black clad humans knelt over the vral commander. “Alright, I’ve got to prep this bitch for breakdown, then I’m done for the day. Salvagers are just putting most of the wrecks in orbit.”
Jessup glanced to Brandy before speaking, “Think they want to move again soon?”
“Bet your ass.” Janet reached for her side and pulled out a data pad. “Way I see it we’re just topping off right now, waiting for some of the boats out there to get their shit together, then they are going to move us out. Speaking of moving out, bounce your asses, I’ve got shit to do so I can get off once we pull back into Antares.”
“Call us a cab?” Brandy asked, using the slang term for the shuttle that had delivered Janet’s team that would take his own back to Antares.
“Yeap. We made entrance right next to where you did.” Janet started moving into the bridge, towards a grouping of panels hard mounted to the wall. She stopped and glanced back at Brandy. “It’s been a hell of a day, almost eighteen hours. I’m going to get a stiff drink in my quarters.”
“You do that. I’m going to check on Vlad and get him settled in before I do anything else.” Brandy said, and she turned and went to the panel. Brandy was glad for the tint of his helmet’s visor or else his smirk would need explaining from Jessup who was none the wiser. Once he went through debrief and turned over his gear already knew what he was going to be doing. Straight to engineering deck C, where Janet would be waiting.
Kukat was miserable, or at least was acting like she was. Vicky was rigidly standing at attention, as was Jess, standing stock still beside Kukat’s bed. The loud exclamation that had brought them to their feet of, “What the chicken fried fuck?!” had come from the man standing in front of them. Vicky wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Jess was trying to keep herself from laughing. Kukat reached out a three fingered hand towards the man wearing a captain’s eagle on his flight jumper, a hand that had two small bow tie stickers on it.
“Torture. Help.” Kukat said, as weak as a newborn kitten, and Jess’s breath escaped her in a buzzing of her lips from someone desperately attempting to keep in her laughter. The small sheet containing bow ties, smiley face, stars, and other cartoonish stickers fell from her hand that was clenched firmly at her side. Kukat was wearing half of them. Captain Yang stared in an expression of one who is seeing something for the first time when they had believed they had seen it all. “Help.” Kukat said again, holding out her other arm which had a line of stars stuck to it all the way down to the back of her hand. Yang slowly brought his fingers up to squeeze the bridge of his nose, and then he turned on his heel and faced away from the trio. Vicky just wanted to die. The captain of the cruiser had visited them a few times in the past three days since they had been brought onboard by the Barrowmore. Kukat had been immediately rushed to start receiving medical care, Victoria Brandy and Jessica Anders had been by her side from the second they were allowed back, barring short periods where either woman needed to file their reports. The problem was, every time Captain Yang had come back to visit them, it was always at the most inopportune time. The first time he had walked in to Jess cuddling the small chua in a bed that was almost a meter too small for her. The second time Vicky had taped Jess’ hands and feet to her chair. The third time Jess had been singing a nursery rhyme to Kukat. Each time Yang had walked in, Vicky had felt like crawling in a hole, Jess had desperately tried not to laugh, and Kukat had acted like a prisoner of war. Vicky was getting the feeling the captain was enjoying these trips down to see her and her crew.
“Can someone explain to me why the three pilots that I’m supposed to award the Terran Star to are acting like toddlers in my medbay?” He said, then he turned back to face them. Vicky didn’t want to die anymore. Jess stopped laughing. Kukat’s hands fell to the heated blanket that covered her. All three of them were to awarded the highest honor in the Terran Fleet. Now it was the captain’s turn to laugh as he stepped forward and grabbed Vicky’s hand, which almost knocked her off balance as he began vigorously shaking it. “Congratulations.”
Vicky stared at him for a few long moments, trying to parse through the entire scenario in her head. None of them had paid much attention to news outside of the medbay, Vicky had barely even been back onboard the Thumper aside from downloading nav data to be included in her flight logs. “Captain…” She said, sounding to even her own ears a bit disjointed, “What did we find out there.”
“First off at ease.” Yang said, then he smirked as Jess began to self consciously pluck the stickers off of Kukat, her eyes on him, he turned his attention to her. “Your flight records and the reserve drone data is being sent back to Earth to be implemented into training.” His attention turned to all of them in turn. “You really don’t know do you?” All three shook their heads, and Vicky took a step back to stand side by side with her crew.
“We haven’t been paying much attention to what’s been coming in.” Vicky said, and she placed her hand on Kukat’s medical bed. Yang nodded, understanding. This crew was a very tight group, and he could see that even from the small amount of time he had been around them.
“You scouted out the entire Vral fleet, they were evacuating. I don’t think they expected us to move as fast as we did on them, so when we jumped into the system they were barely organized into battlelines.” Yang interlocked his fingers in front of his belt. “Because of what you got on those scans, we knew exactly what we were jumping into. We knew exactly what we would do the moment we landed and…” He paused for a moment, letting his words stand out. “... we eradicated their entire fleet.” Vicky looked to Jess. Jess’s mouth hung slightly open.
“I knew it was a fleet!” Jess said after a moment. When she had been asked by Vicky a few hours after they had gotten Kukat settled, Jess had insisted she had been trying to evade fire from point defense and laser batteries from at least twelve ships. What she didn’t know, and what would be reflected on the citation for the award she was yet to receive, was that she had been evading around thirty individual vessels weapons fire.
“Not a fleet.” Yang said, and Jess looked back to him. “It was ‘The’ fleet.” Jess looked at him in confusion for a few seconds, as did Vicky.
“Shit!” Kukat chirped, and all three humans looked down at the small, sticker covered chua. Kukat’s mouth hung open slightly. Jess looked up to Vicky, and both seemed to realize what was said at the same time. Jess’ hand shot to her mouth, covering it, her eyes wide as Vicky stepped back to lean against the wall.
Yang waited a few moments then stepped forward. “Well, I hope you three are ready.” He said as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Drone Cutters are supposed to cut and run the second they get in trouble. You three…” He motioned to them with a wave of his hand. “... you stuck around, and because you did, you handed us everything we needed to go after them.” Jess’ hand came down on Kukat’s small shoulder, and one of the smiley face stickers peeled off as Kukat wrapped her hand around Jess’ pointer finger. Vicky slowly pressed her back against the wall and started sliding down it. “Basically, to be blunt, now that this has broken, every news feed in the Terran Front wants pictures of you, details on your status…” He motioned to Kukut. “... and to be honest I’ve had to keep them from taking over the ship to get to you.”
Jess and Vicky exchanged a glance, and then looked back to Yang. Kukat had not looked away from him even for a moment. Yang shrugged his shoulders and turned to the display panel on the wall, and activated it. He tapped the panel for a few moments, then the sounds of cheering came through. On the display was a live news feed, and they could hear the reporter’s voice barely above the cacophony of the crowd around her.
“... action. The news of the destruction of the fleet has sparked widespread celebrations of joy. The foot of the enemy that we have all felt over us has been cut off. Thermopylae Station, for the first time in nearly a century, is standing down from Condition One to Condition Three.” The reporter was almost shouting, and Vicky breathed out, even as she heard a low tone from Kukat, and a sob coming from Jess. Yang had his back turned to them watching, and without saying another word he turned and walked out. “Once Condition Three was set at Thermopylae, the information began to pour in from the Zzisma system as well as the planet Zvitia located there. Fleet Marshal Simmons of the Antares battle fleet will be continuing to press into former Shesvie Accordance territory once consolidation is completed.” The reporter paused, the moment she had said Antares a chant had begun, and it was overwhelming. The thunder of uncountable human voices yelling, ‘We’re Still Here’ drowned her out entirely. The reporter eventually just held up her hands helplessly as the chant overwhelmed the microphone’s input threshold, turning the people’s chanting into a dull roar. The feed cut over to an image of man behind a news desk, the ticker at the bottom of the screen citing off ship names.
“Again if you’re just joining us the Vral have been soundly beaten in the Zzisma system. The enemy’s losses have been stated as total. Fleet Marshal Simmons, commander of the Antares battlegroup, will be holding a press conference at a later date to discuss the events of today, but has released a few names to us as well as their roles within the conflict.” Jess, Vicky’s, and Kukat’s individual service portraits slowly appeared on the screen while the reporter spoke.
“Holy shit.” Jess whispered. “That’s us.” Vicky stared at the screen, even as Kukat squeezed Jess’ finge
“Lieutenant Victoria Brandy, Drone Operator Second Class Jessica Anders, and Drone Operator Third Class Kukat were conducting a routine drone sweep of the Zzisma system when they sighted the Vral. The three managed to gain enough intelligence to warrant the immediate redeployment of the Antares battlegroup which had been in rescue and recovery efforts above the chua homeworld.” Vicky just stared at the man as he continued talking on the display. “From the feeds that we have managed to confirm, the crew of the scout ship stayed while exposed and under threat and under fire until such time as the information was confirmed transmitted. All three of the scout’s crew made it back safely, although Drone Operator Third Class Kukat was reported as needing medical attention, the reasons of which are unknown, but it is reported that she is in stable condition.” Their portraits fell away from the screen as another image came up, of a chua in a captain’s uniform came up, grayed out.
Vicky just stared at the screen, Jess breathed out a breath that she didn’t even know she had been holding. Kukat leaned back into her pillow.
“We famous.” Kukat chirped.
The news reporter was still speaking, something about a battleship that had engaged the Vral, some new story of heroism. The three of them sat in silence. Vicky wanted to look to Kukat and Jess, but both of them were quiet. Suddenly Vicky and Kukat flinched as Jess erupted out of her seat. “Yeah! That’s right! What do you think now Rick?” Jess said her ex-boyfriends name with vitriol. “Who’s not photogenic now huh? Galaxy wide baby!” She whooped and Kukat stared up at her in amazement as Vicky buried her head in her hands and laughed.
“You problem.” Kukat chirped low.
“I told you you suck at picking men Kukat!” Jess proclaimed. “You still suck Rick!”

Let us start by dispelling the 'two consenting adults mean everything is fine' argument. Firstly, it's generally accepted that a 25 year old who begins talking to a 10 year old as a friend and then begins dating them at 33 and 18 respectively is morally incorrect despite both adults consenting. In addition, we know that it is morally incorrect to have relations under duress or coercion despite receiving consent. Lastly, consent achieved through emotional manipulation is generally also not considered moral. Thusly, consent between two adults is NOT enough to determine morality, we need to examine the context.
I will say, there is a massive consideration here to the time at which the people become siblings/step siblings and what their living situation is. If a person is adopted/married in past 18 and is living alone, it is very difficult to find any moral issues with such a relationship.
From here on, I'm going to lump in adoption with step sibling, lets just call them steppies. I want to talk about steppies that began living together at 6 years old, and why I believe that to be problematic.

1. The steppies just have too much access to each other as children. There are so many times as children where you will find yourself in your siblings bed, wrestle with them, sit on their lap, etc. The problem with this is that your relationship is just going to be INCREDIBLY conducive to grooming, you just have so much access to manipulate this person emotionally and physically. I think a major problem with incestuous relationships is that the partners have played such an integral role in the other's development that they have literally shaped them, and in this case into someone that loves them. This is problematic.
   
2. This goes along with #1, but basically the person has not chosen from a pool of people, but instead they have just chosen the person closest. This is problematic in my opinion for the same reason corporate monopolies are problematic, competition leads to good outcomes and if you settle for the first person you meet, they have very little incentive to grow and get good behaviors.
   
3. No proof for this but I think you'd be FAR more likely to be in an abusive relationship since you grew up with this person. Say you grow up with a sister that scratches you when she's mad. You fall in love, live together forever - All you've ever known about relationships is that this behavior is ok (this also goes along with 1 & 2. Really most of the problem is that you're limiting the mating pool).
   
4. In most families, siblings are forced to be in close quarters and respect each other, while with outside interactions respect and good behavior has to be gained. Some siblings are even forced to say they love each other, or at minimum heavily discouraged from saying they hate each other. This is useful when fostering a healthy family dynamic but if the siblings end up together, the parents have effectively groomed the siblings.
   

Now, some will say that potential for abuse is not abuse, that's true. It is POSSIBLE to have a relationship with a step sibling that is morally clean (and like I said, the older you are the more likely this becomes), just like it's possible for a 58 year old to have a moral relationship with an 18 year old, or a boss with a subordinate, or a famous person and a fan. We could conjure a theoretical where even a 30 year old and a 14 year old COULD be morally okay, but as a society it's much more useful to just lump all of these as immoral because they have such a propensity for abuse and we should dissuade people from doing this.
By the way, if you don't agree with what I've said above, then what moral issues do you have with actual sibling incest between two boys, two girls, or a boy and a girl that cannot procreate? Or maybe you're pro-incest as long as it's two consenting adults?

I’m 21 and my sister is 13. She tells me absolutely everything about her life. I know all her friends names, people she hates, what she ate for breakfast, what she did on her way to school, whether she brushed her teeth in the morning etc etc etc.
When she talks to me it’s about the most mundane things and I listen of course but it’s tiring on my behalf. I’m going to sound very terrible now and say that I could not care less and would really prefer she stop talking to me so much. But thats probably rude to tell her. I listen, I react how I guess she’d want me to react but we’re not the same age and I feel like she thinks we are.
Sometimes I do tell her that I don’t feel like talking to her at that time but if she remembers later I’ll listen. Or that she can write it down and we can go through it at night when I’m not so busy but I feel like such a piece of shit for asking that from her too. But I’m sick of it. When she starts talking she won’t stop, even if I say something like I’ve got some work to do or I just need some quiet right now. Our mother died when she was 3 so I feel like as the only other older female she knows, she’s just substituted me with that kind of role? I don’t know.
It’s not her fault I know but is there any way around this?

So I moved in with my sister who has two female cats, Jamie (3) and Lily (2). Within a month of moving in, I got a male kitten named Turnip who was 3 months old when I got him, and slowly introduced them but maybe not slow enough. But Jaime who already has some behavioral issues (chasing cats, peeing outside the litterbox even tho the vet said no medical issues) obviously did not like Turnip, but she tolerated it enough. Lily also tolerated him, they would even lay together sometimes.
The problems started happening when Turnip was closer to turning 1. Jamie would terrorize him, to the point he would have his ears pinned back and yowl. The sight of her would make him let out a low yowl and he'd like vibrate. He also started to fight Lily, never badly just pawing and jumping on her back. But the scuffles with Jaime would leave hair sometimes. But sometimes they have moments of co existing.
Now I have tried Feliway, treat time together, feeding together, playing together, redirection. I am going to reintroduce as a last ditch effort. Right now I have Turnip in my room with the girls having the rest of the house. I would love advice on how to do this since these cats have been together for almost a year. How long should he be in my room no contact? At what point do I scent swap, and then let them eat while seeing through a gate? Also any advice would be much appreciated.

I (25F) have been estranged from my sister (23F) for nearly a year and a half now.
The conflict that instigated the estrangement happened Thanksgiving night, where we had a blow up fight. Without getting into the details, it lasted about four hours and at one point she was trying to find a BB gun to threaten me with (obviously this is not as serious as a real gun, but I truly believe if there was a real gun available she would’ve tried to use that). She sent me a series of texts afterwards where she tried to force me into having a relationship with her and “apologized.” Her exact apology said “could you please say something I understand I’m the last person you want to talk to but I’m not really in a great place mentally and I’m sorry.” That’s not a real apology, and all I said was I needed time to think. Now it’s been a year and a half.
Essentially we’ve been at odds for our entire childhood. As the older sibling I was told by my parents to “suck it up” and be the example for her. She was never forced to apologize to me or receive any kind of punishment for her actions, despite constantly physically and verbally berating me. Maybe that seems weird, that as the younger sibling she was the aggressor, but it’s the truth. Sure, I was an annoying older sister sometimes, but nothing to the level of how she would hurt me. I remember one time when we were in middle school or maybe early high school, she chased me around the kitchen with a knife. I have also been a witness to her physically abusing her boyfriend, so it’s pretty clear to say she has a violence problem. The point is, the relationship has been strained for a long time.
Some people close to me have pointed out that around her, I’m completely stone-faced and devoid of emotion, and that probably triggers her to try to get some sort of response out of me. I guess maybe that’s true, but the lack of emotion was my defense mechanism. I’m a very emotional person and I always leaned into that growing up, but was punished for it by her and my parents.
Our parents are unfortunately very unhelpful for this entire conflict. I feel that most of my life, they took her side in any conflicts, forcing me to “let it go.” After this 1.5 year of reflection, I think this deeply wounded me and stunted my relationship with her. She never learned how to deescalate conflict, and I was forced to shove down my resentment, and it never really went away.
About five years ago, me and her went on a trip by ourselves to London and Paris. I had begged my mom to go with us, knowing that something bad would happen. And sure enough, it did. Without going into too much detail, it was the worst trip of my life. She picked a fight with me at least once a day, forced me to be her personal assistant, berated me in public, and screamed that “she didn’t care if I fucking died here.” When we got home, I didn’t speak to her for a month, but after that month, my dad yelled at me and told me to forget what happened and move on.
So now that I’ve been estranged from her for this long, my parents are no longer on my side. They see her pretty regularly, at least once a week I think because they live close together and she’s still financially dependent on them. Now that so much time has passed and she’s victimized herself, I’m the villain. It was really hurtful for my mom yell at me and blame me for “our family falling apart,” but I’ve continued to stand my ground. My parents both keep throwing barbs at me and trying to force me to “fix” the problem though.
Recently I have been exploring a path to reconciliation. Partially motivated by a family vacation that I’m being forced to go on where I will be unable to avoid her. I’ve been trying to do a lot of reflecting, and I’ve read some really helpful books. But my problem is, I’m torn on what I really want. What I think I’ve discovered is that I do not like her at all as a person, but if she was committed to changing and growing I could see us having a relationship. So I’m trying to decide what to do next, she says she wants a relationship with me, but I don’t really feel that, I just think she wants people to see she’s close with her sister. And she doesn’t have any friends really, so I think she just wants someone (me) who’s “obligated” to be in her life to be her pseudo-therapist/bestie so she feels better about herself. I’m not sure what to really do next, what to say to her that will even be received well, and how to cease no-contact while still keeping my boundaries.

I need reassurance...
My baby is going to be 10 months old on May 6th and he still isn't crawling. He crawls on the floor pulling with his hands and pushing with his legs, but if I put him in a crawling position, he only rocks for a few seconds and gets into a tummy time position. He can stay happy in tummy time for 20 minutes playing, he can play sitting without support and without falling for more than 15 minutes as well, but I can't get him to crawl.
Looking for tips on the internet I discovered that he is also supposed to be throwing things on the floor, especially when he eats and he doesn't do that, he just eats and when he finishes eating he complains until I take him out of his high chair.
He took a while to roll, he rolled until he was 7 months old, although he rolled for the first time at 4 months, he refused to roll on his own until he was 7 months old, his doctor said he knew how to do it, thar he just didn't want to do it.
Well, now I have a lot of anxiety because I don't know if he lacks stimulation, if he has a contracture, stiff muscles, if the gross motor is simply not his strong point or what is happening 😭
For context, and although babies should not be compared, his sister began to roll at 5 months, crawl at 7 and a half months, and at 10 months she was already standing up and throwing anything and everything that was in her hands.
I think I'm having an anxiety attack because I'm very worried and my almost 3 year old toddler won't stop screaming while I'm writing this, please someone tell me that my LO is healthy and that I shouldn't be this alarmed.

CONTEXT: Me, F 19. Him, M 19 turning 20.
My boyfriend and I recently broke up and we decided to try to be friends. Because of our past, which was successful in being friends, I wanted him to be my date for my sorority formal. Just as friends, not alternative motives. I bought his suit, dressed him, and we went to a pregame one of my sisters was hosting. Very quickly, he was approached by a drunk girl, one of my sister's dates, and they began talking. No biggie... I thought. Very quickly, I realized she was HEAVILY flirting with him and he, in my interpretation, was heavily flirting back. I, being extremely uncomfortable and honestly kinda pissed, walked away cause I felt icky.
Although not my boyfriend anymore, I still expect him to respect my presence and to know not to flirt with other girls when I'm present, especially at my sorority formal. The flirting became so bad that my sister, who brought the drunk girl, came up to me and asked if she should stop it, I said yes. NOT out of jealousy but rather, I was simply very uncomfortable.
Following the formal, which was quite fun and filled with dancing, I saw he was TEXTING HIS MOTHER about the situation on the bus ride back... right in front of me. He is turning twenty and was texting his mother about how crazy I was acting. Which again, makes me SO uncomfortable with the fact that his MOTHER knows my business. Also, they exchanged phone numbers and snapchats.
After, I waited in his dorm lobby for uber. It said my uber arrived and expected him to walk me to the car, as he normally does even when we were just friends. Instead, he high-fived me and walked away. Turns out, the uber was NOT there and I waited in the dark at 2 am for twenty minutes. I was at my breaking point and started to break down. After getting back to my house, I sent him texts about how I felt and that his actions were NOT okay.
THIS MORNING, I received a LONG text from him defending himself.
Key Points (This is VIA text):
-"You didn't introduce me to anyone at the party"
-That is true and that does fall on me. He didn't know anyone at the party so that is 100000% my fault.
-"Did you expect me to follow you like a puppy dog"
-No. BUT I expect you to stick by me and to mingle with my sisters and the dates. NOT flirt with girls at MY FORMAL and not IN FRONT OF ME.
-"I thought your uber was here. It's not my fault it wasn't there"
-TBH, it's not his fault BUT I am a very petite girl who can't protect myself if someone were to attack me. I was alone. Before, he would wait with me to make sure I got home safe. In fact, almost ALL of my guy friends wait for me because that's the gentleman-like thing to do.
There are a ton more quotes I can pull but I genuinely feel like I'm crazy. I'm positive in the things I see, even though I was intoxicated but how he speaks to me makes me feel like I'm always in the wrong. I just need to know if my feelings and reactions were justified.
PS: We broke up because I cried to him about feeling insecure in comparison to other girls at my college (they all look like the stereotypical "soft look". I have very strong features and look older than most my age). He then lost feelings.
Mind you, we have broken up twice. The first time, we went completely back to normal and stayed friends. Now, most likely due to the fact we become intimate, he has taken a full 180. I to have things I need to work on, but I have distanced myself in order to work on it.
Was it the best idea to bring my ex to my formal? No. But all of my other guy friends have girlfriends and that would be weird for me to take them. However, although my ex and us not being together, I still expected him to have respect for me in MY space (a sorority function). And sadly, I can't cut him out of my life because we are all in the same friend group and that's not fair for everyone else fo me to completely leave.
PLEASE someone tell me if I am rational in my actions.

My dad got married 3 years ago to Josie. My sisters (15f and 13f) and I live with full time because our mom died. I (17m) kind of stepped up because dad was never the most involved parent and after mom died he still wasn't great with parenting stuff. He got married again 4 years after mom died. Josie and her daughter (15f) moved in with us.
So Josie is basically the same as dad. Not that involved. Actually, she seems less involved than my dad. But what I didn't know is she expected me to take on her daughter as a sister and be there for her like I am my sisters which didn't happen. I don't hate her but I see Josie's daughter as someone I'm in a forced roommate situation with. Not family. I see Josie the same way.
I don't do stuff for Josie's daughter like I do my sisters. Sometimes I'll buy them something I know they'll like as a treat. Normally one at a time since I'm only working weekends.
My dad and Josie never checked on her daughter or that we'd all gotten close. Then Josie got a call from the school that her daughter was being bullied and going through a rough time. Josie decided to spoil her daughter and asked me what stuff her daughter liked/was into. I didn't know and I told her. She called dad in and she asked me again and I said I didn't know, I don't spend time with her daughter.
They brought up the stuff I do for my sisters and I said yeah, I do them for my sisters, not the random girl who lives with us. I said I don't do stuff for either of them, meaning dad or Josie, either. Josie freaked out and said I was supposed to treat them all the same and she asked me why I hadn't taken her daughter on as my sister. I said because I already had two and didn't need to worry about anyone else. I said they were the adults and they didn't make a family, they just thought they could get me to basically adopt Josie's daughter.
Josie called me names, dad was like why wouldn't you embrace the girl, we really thought you'd do everything to make sure she felt wanted. I told them it wasn't my job.
Josie still doesn't know what her daughter likes and I'm getting glared at every day now.
AITA?

I (18 genderfluid) have a sister (16) when I was around 11-15 I was struggling greatly with my gender, I wasn’t sure who I was and started identifying as a boy at school. I never told my family as I knew it was an unsafe environment. (More so at my mom and stepdads house)
My sister and I went to the same school and it didn’t take long for word to get around that I was identifying as a boy. Eventually it got back to my sister who has always been known for wanting to please my parents and get as much attention as she can, this applied for school as well where she would constantly act out to get laughs out of people or she’d do crazy things to get attention.
My sister told my parents right away knowing that they were transphobic. I’d come home and get bullied constantly not only by my mom and stepdad but by my sister as well who was actually the main instigator of it all. Luckily my dad didn’t say much about anything. She also would bully me at school and tell my mom whenever she’d hear someone call me a boy at school. It made my life hell. Once again this took place from the age of 11-15 (my sister found out when I was roughly 13-14)
Eventually it got so bad that I just suppressed my feelings around my gender completely, hiding away and feeling miserable. I began identifying as a girl again until about a week ago because I couldn’t stand how miserable it made me.
Within the past year my sister began identifying as a boy….she cut her hair short and changed her pronouns and whatever else. The thing I found odd about all of this is that to me, it seems like an attention thing she makes it her whole personality and the only thing she will talk about and as I mentioned earlier she does ANYTHING to get attention. She chose THREE different names…all based off famous people. What weirds me out the most is that she doesn’t just use their names but she literally tries to be these people….for example one of the names she chose is a famous musician so she started playing instruments…one of her names is from a horror movie which she became obsessed with and she has photos without exaggeration all over her room of this guy, and hundreds of photos of him on her phone. The other name she chose is a character from a tv show that she dresses up as all the time to the point it’s creepy.
Anyways, she came out to my mom and stepdad who bully her in the same way I was bullied but she also came out to my dads family who supports all of this 10000% however I refuse to call her these names and pronouns, I don’t bully her but I cannot stand to see her do this for attention after bullying me for years. I call her my sister and I call her the name I’ve always known her as.
AITA for refusing to support and use her pronouns?
Edit: I was worried about my post being too long but I’d like to include a further reason to why I think this is an attention thing…the first thing being is she makes it her whole personality….im not even exaggerating when I say I can’t have a conversation with her without her trying to make it about her gender. The second being is it seems more like she’s trying to BECOME these famous people she’s obsessed with than actually just be seen as a boy, the third being there were never any signs to suggest she’d maybe even feel like a boy, she would wear pink dresses and headbands with pigtails and play with Barbie’s and whatever….her gender was almost like a light switch and completely changed over night.
Previously she’s been known to fake a lot of illnesses online in discord servers for attention such as telling people she had an ED when she in fact didn’t, she told people she was a victim of CSA which again…she wasn’t, she also told people that she was family members with a very famous serial killer….SHE WASNT. A few months ago she went to the hospital for an attempt to take her life and she said she swallowed a whole bottle of pills, when the doctors ran tests they estimated she probably took about 2-3 Tylenol. She’s been known to act out in school doing things like ripping up tampons and throwing them around the bathroom to cause a mess or drawing on the walls or being disruptive during class. There’s a lot more that I just can’t think of right now but everyday it seems like anything she does is cries for someone to pay attention to her.

So things got rough yesterday… I apologize I’m not good with Reddit. But my mother is now trying to threaten me through my sister. It is getting ridiculous and if I wasn’t living this I’d think it’s all bs. So a little context before the update. I added my mother and both siblings to my phone plan 4 years ago to help them with better coverage. Originally it was just me and my bf on it. Well I added my mom as an authorized user because I wasn’t going to be responsible for their portion when my mom was covering it and wasn’t reliable at getting me the money. She put her credit card on the account and I’d pay her our portion every month. Well without my knowledge she adds my sister’s friend on our plan as she was living with them. I didn’t like this friend and was pretty pissed when she did it. Girl signed for a brand new iPhone. Then a little less than a year later ghosted my mom. Moved out and wasn’t replying to anyone. Mom was mad as she was paying the bill but told me to handle it. Annoyed as my mom did a lot for this chick and helped her through college, even more than she did for me, I told the girl she had an ultimatum pay the phone off or transfer it off my plan, or return the phone as legally all the phones were my property. Girl mailed the phone back to my mom and mom was frustrated cause she didn’t want the phone but we were stuck in a contract due to them being stupid. A bunch more mess happened and my middle sister ended up with the phone. Well my mom had changed how she wanted the phone bill paid to her and she wanted it in checks and I told her I can’t as we had an emergency move and I have no clue when they are. I offered cash app, cash, what’re else have you. Then she spends one week at her bf’s house and my brother’s week at her house and sometimes works in her office and home but no set days.
So fast forward to these past weeks. She isn’t talking to me and wants the phone bill and is trying to get my sister to be her gopher. I told her I will pay her when she tells me how she wants it and we’re to give it to her as I am not going through my sister. They went to go get off my plan but ended up needing me as I am the only authorized rep on the plan. I help my sister out as they are paying off the stupid iPhone and getting their own plan. Well yesterday apparently my mother told my sister she was going to press charges if the phone bill she owes on her last month charges her card. Now she hasn’t told me to remove her credit card or anything, she is still not talking to me at all. But this is just escalating completely out of hand. I know I won’t be charged cause I never added her card and she has nor asked me to remove it but I’m just fucking flabbergasted. I am stressed and cried for like 3 hours yesterday. I know my mom is not good for me and I need to cut her out but I had only her almost my entire life. We had good times in between the bad, but ever since she got custody of my sisters I failed to matter to her at all. I was thrown out of her house because my bf at the time told her husband he had to stop treating me so poorly (in a more asshole way), he was emotionally and verbally abusive towards me. I stopped caring as it became white noise but my bf at the time was tired of him mistreating me. My mom told me I needed to get along with him or leave even though I was working 2 jobs and going to school full time in college I was never really around. I ended up at my bf’s house with his mom and we split I was homeless living out of my car.
I am just so tired of the fighting I didn’t instigate I haven’t messaged her. I haven’t gotten to talk to a lawyer as my bf fell through our ceiling trying to fix out AC as our landlord apparently blocked me by “accident” and wasn’t responding to our messages and it got to 82 in our house. My insurance ha fucked me over so I may not get to see my therapist for another month or so. I’m an emotional wreck and I feel like I’m losing the only family I have had. I’m not in a good mental state, but my dogs and my bf have been helping me stay afloat. If it wasn’t for my bf I wouldn’t have even had to be put on boundaries with my mom. He’s the only support I have, my sisters love me and still talk to me but they live at home and can’t do much as of support. I suffer from IBS and this is messing me up really bad.

Or illegally maybe? She is the sole executor of my dads will. He is still alive but he refuses to change the will. He wants to spite me as he doesn’t care that much about me.
My mom is mentally incapacitated, so she can’t do anything to help me. The will is extremely vague.
He didn’t mention anything about who gets what & how much from whatever is left in the bank, how his mothers jewelry will be split or any other assets that he might have.
The house is paid off. Things are supposed to be divided between myself, my mom & my sister.
I have a bad feeling that the following things will end up happening:
1) My sister will end up selling the house w/o my knowledge & move to a sanctuary state like FL. or disappear to Mexico.
2) That she’ll refuse to move out of the house especially since she is broke & she can’t afford her own place despite having a job.
My mom will need to be taken care of too, so she might either use my mom as an excuse to not move or she might just take whatever she can from my extremely gullible mom & ditch her.
My mom doesn’t have any friends & I’m not sure if her relatives & her brother woukd ne willing to take care of her or not.
She has no savings & was extremely dependent on my dad for everything. She hasn’t worjed in years too & she’s 80 years old now. I doubt anyone will hire her for anything as she has a paranoid delusional disorder.
I don’t think that she’s on disability btw. She is getting social security that my dad takes from her.
My sister blocked me since 2016 &!banned me from my parents house because she is very jealous of me. She manipulated my parents into cutting me out of everything.
She is very materialistic & she has to drive a newly leased luxury car every year & go out to expensive restaurants & trips to Vegas often.
She is greedy & selfish. She had her ex husband commit identity fraud years ago. He was caught & deported as he was an illegal alien at the time. They got married after he was caught to try to save him from getting deported.
My husband & I know that she used him to commit identity theft. She denied everything though of course.
My dad said that she’d need me to sign documents to sell the house. She thinks that I’m very stupid & she knows that I can’t afford to hire a lawyer. My credit is very bad now.
My husband won’t help me fight her probably. I live in Ca. Long story short, we’re having severe financial issues & my husband doesn’t think she’d just disappear on me, but I know what she’s really like & she despises me too.
What can I do to stop her from trying to screw me over?
What can she do legally & illegally? If she sells the house & diapoears somewhere, then there would probably be nothing that I can do about things.
If anyone has any advice, then please share it with me. What can I do if my sister steals everything from my mom too?
My mom is like a child, extremely naieve & very dependent on her. She’ll sign anything my sister gives her w/o question. I’ll probably be expected to take care if her then.
My mom & I don’t talk to each other anymore. She would never listen to anything that I say anyways. She no longer answers the phone & I think my sister blocked me on my moms phone too.
I’d appreciate any advice.

For a little background, I recently got back into a (long distance/online) relationship with an ex. We were forced to break up because my dad found out about us, and he doesn't really understand online dating. Understandably, because I've had multiple bad experiences that he knows of.
Anyways, like an hour after me and him "officially" got back together he explained he was poly. I have extremely bad jealousy and trust issues, so I was uncomfortable with this. I didn't say that though- and now I feel stuck in this relationship. I honestly don't think I have the mental stability to be in a relationship at all right now.
I feel guilty for not telling her, as I feel like I'm leading them on. I don't think it has anything to do with me not loving her, as I do. I've been led on before and I don't wanna end up breaking his heart. Am I the asshole?
(Side note: My partner is gender fluid, which is why I'm using mixed pronouns. This is also my first post so I don't really know if I wrote this right. Also don't know if I posted this to the right subreddit because there are multiple this could fit in.)

As much as I wish this vent was me trolling it really isn’t, it is my real life current situation and would start off by making sure you guys understand that before continuing to read this.
Breakdown of my relationship with her: She is incredibly weird… in the sense that you can never tell when she is doing something for your reaction or just so you can pity her in your mind. My whole family baby talks her as she is the youngest out of all of my siblings but she doesn’t notice that at all or at least she pretends not to. Although we may live under the same roof I stopped talking to her years ago for my own mental health sake. I don’t talk to my other sister either as she on the same spectrum of weird in my books but that’s a whole other story for a different day.
Vent: She’s been back home for 2 weeks after failing to attend her college classes somewhere earlier this year. I refused to ask for details from my parents because I want 0 involvement because of how much they blame her behaviours on me, for example me not being bestie-bestie with her as we were little kids “is the reason she is not okay in the head anymore”.
At first she was still portraying the same odd behaviours she did in the past where she would sing to herself late at night, in the morning, practically whatever the time of day was. She would also squeak her metal bed repeatedly by rocking herself back and forth on her bed intentionally hoping to raise more noise and create disturbance especially at night when I would be going to bed and so would the entire neighbourhood. These are the usual things she immediately started doing once she came back. Her poor hygiene is still a behaviour she has kept too, now that I can turn a blind eye to because I know to hold my breath when walking past her room or anywhere in the corridor.
She has started a new behaviour of peeing in a flask and dumping it out of her bedroom window. She has been doing this for 3 days now and only just got caught and told off by my parents since I managed to piece things up and realise I wasn’t going crazy by seeing or hearing things. The scent was so foul it could knock someone out into a coma, I just knew there was no way it was my neighbours cat who has never pooped closely to the windows in our garden the few years we’ve moved and lived here.
I think she has reached a point where it is a competition for herself to see how low she can stoop to feeding her depression to whine up my parents who again baby her and frown upon her lack of self-care and awareness.
I used to share a bedroom with her and can confirm she has always been “messy” but actually more severely hoarder like keeping things that genuinely hold no value but would throw temper tantrums if that were voiced out loud or implied. She would also claim the reason she had so much junk lying and piling around on her side, was because her sharing a room with me was leaving her with “no space” especially because I was the only one using our shared desk. Which she would pretend she didn’t care for but would secretly go to my parents and cry about and then sit back in a corner and watch them harass me for being “selfish” if I was caught leaving my backpack on the floor leaning on the desk or a box beside the desk temporarily.
I am so fed up and disgusted by how much smothering she receives when she is genuinely so insufferable to live with. Nobody can have mental health struggles because she is and that makes the home environment so toxic.

my boyfriend and I have been together for one year now. we made plans to leave in july as we have always disliked the area we live and it doesn’t seem to work for us together aswell. we both live with our parents and work full time so we barely see each other and if we do we have no privacy really. I’ve had a rough last year and i’m improving a lot compared to how I was before and I wanna be prepared for how it’s gonna be somewhere else “alone”.
Now I work at a restaurant where my boss is the father of my sisters friend and got hired in march to do summers. I had a conversation with my boss about if I wanted to leave in july already, he told me that if that was the case that he had to let me go immediately, and that I wouldnt have been hired in the first place. OctobeSeptember wouldn’t be a problem. I told him in the job interview that I was planning to leave in october. So I’d be breaking the promise and letting them down.
I see this job as self improvement and opportunity’s to learn from, I like the atmosphere and the colleagues are nice. I meet inspiring people everyday. I respect my boss and I also learn a lot from him. I wanna leave on good terms ofcourse. so theres not much I can do about it.
my boyfriend on the other hand is pissed, he says that im choosing my minimum wage job over our dreams of moving abroad and that he wouldn’t wait and leave alone. I said that he’s letting me down and that it’s fine if he wants to leave but that I don’t wanna see or hear from him again. I think thats very fair because why would I want to wait until he leaves, rather immediately so I can “grieve” now rather in summer and unknown of what we’re doing. now he’s saying that all he wants is just for us to be happy and together and that he doesn’t want to lose me and just go with him.
I want to, but I can’t really let them down. I understand that its also wrong of me to make plans before summer as that isnt what I told in the interview but cant he just wait 2 more months?

so for background info, i just got out of my first year of college and im back home. i have to share a rotting house with my two siblings and my recently alcoholic and divorced dad. my bathroom has black mold and water leaks through the cabinets every time i take a shower and i know for a fact there is black mold because it smells like rotting fruit in there for the past few years. my bedroom barely fits a queen and it has a bunk bed that i share with my 11 year old sister. the bedroom is pink and full of toys and drawings everywhere and i have nowhere to put my stuff. i have no space of my own here. for jobs, i do have one coming up may 15th, but barely any hours and only pays on average $15 an hour after tips. i cant get any other job because i live in the suburbs and you cant go anywhere without a car. the only car we have is my dads car, but he quit his bar job because he got caught drinking and driving lots of times. so now he has to work even more at a lower paying job. he works like 7-5 everyday so i cant get a ride to work ever. i want to move out so badly and focus on my mental health but its hard with my situation. and to make it worse, my dad doesnt support me. i told him i wanna get an apartment and start my life but he says "i love the positivity, keep it up" in a rude and sarcastic way. why would he have a child and not support it. he is telling me to live at home for years. but why would i wanna live with him when he doesnt take care of anything but himself??? i dont have my own space, and my black mold bathroom can harm me and we barely ever have food in the house!!! hes so emotionally immature as well. I just dont know what to do and im stuck and i feel like giving up.

I got back into creating art about 3 years ago and I have been really working on finding my style and painting what I think is cool. Over a year ago I was able to sell some of my prints locally and picked up one commission. My sister is an artist that is quite successful on Etsy, so I thought I might give Etsy a try or create my own website, and I gave each a shot for about a year. However, both have been dead in the water. It’s has been extremely frustrating to put so much time and energy into both with little results and not much feedback on what I am doing wrong.
I am trying to get website traffic from Instagram (~650 followers) and the linked Facebook account keeps showing 0 reach. I saw a big boost in traffic with a Pinterest ad but no sales 😑
I am discouraged right now, but I’m not giving up. I know that art festivals and in-person would be best and I plan to participate in some this fall. I am looking for ANY feedback with my website (moon-reef.com) or even with my art style. I was told today that I just haven’t found my niche 🤷‍♂️ So any help with that would be greatly appreciated!