When I was 33yo I realised I was struggling to get pregnant, even if I did ovulation tests to try to increase my chances. So I did a blood test for AHM to check on egg reserve, and I got a very low result, 0.8pmol/L. We started IVF right away with my partner, and after 2 very difficult cycles, we became pregnant. Now I'm 35 years old, currently 34 weeks pregnant of a baby boy!
So about the names.. in all honesty, I don't think I'll get pregnant again, I really feel like it will take a miracle for that to happen. That's why with my partner, for our 1st baby, we want to give tribute to the important men in our lives. 1st name will be after my father-in-law that sadly passed away a few years ago. (6 letters) 2nd middle name after my uncle (mother side), he's also my godfather and has always been there for me (6 letters) 3d middle name after my granpa (mother side) because as my mother was working hard to provide, our grandparents were looking after us (4 letters). As you can tell by the names, I don't have a relationship with my father or our grandparents on his side, that's why I won't use neither of their names and I don't feel guilty about it.
My question came because most people say all the names sound good together but one time my sister (she has my nephew) mentioned that my son my struggle writing 3 names plus is surname, that it might be to much for him. My nephew has only one name, not even middle name (my sister and he partner wanted to break the mold I gues). Also, my sister went through breastcancer, chemotherapy and because of that, she won't be able to have more children. I genuily feel my sister is worried and is not envy, as some people might think over reddit. We are very close sister, she's even living with my now to help me with my upcoming baby, and we always travel, and the cancer and all of things in life as made us close, so I understand her concern.
That's why I want to ask people from reddit. Is it common to name a baby with 3 names plus the surname? Or is it like bullying your baby. I don't want to write the name in case someone recognised me on reddit. But the 3 names sound really well with the surname. I'm conflicted about if I should keep the 3 names or maybe just be like everyone else and have a first and middle name? And then maybe a miracle will happen, and I'll have another baby and use the 3d name.on that baby? What do you guys think?
----((((()))))----- For more context as to why all the trouble on 3 names is mostly because: 1. First name (6 letters). My father-in-law passed away around covid, he was a great dad for my partner, and we really wished he could have make him a granfather before he passed. Even my partner in a drunk moment confessed to me that we will love to name his first son after his father (I wasn't raise by my father, he just simply disappeared), so I really love the idea and I want to make this dream of my partners come true.

1. 1st middle name (6letters). My uncle is also my godfather, and he's always been there for me, as a father figure, a best friend, I adore him, and I'll do anything for him when he gets old because he's always been there for me. I have more sisters, but he always made me feel special and joked. I was is fav. We talk all the time, he even calls me mother than my own mother. He's like my own Sirius Black. I'm not sure if many people have experienced having the best Godfatheuncle in their life, but those who have, will probably understand why I want to include his name.
   
2. 2st middle name (4letters). My granpa was always there when I was growing up. My mother had to work hard to raise 3 girls, so her parents, my grandparents, help her raise all of us. We were raise Chatolic with good family values. My mother couldn't drop us to school and I remember vividly (I was probably 6-7yo) my grampa starting a fire and then dressing us in front of the fired so we wouldn't be cold, and then giving us breakfast, and then going to drop us to school, and making us get inside a bus that was pack with people all the way to the door, and he being just barely inside when they close the doors, to go with us and walk us to the school. In south America buses can get packed like sardines. Plus he always had energy for playing, always telling me stories from back in his day, I adored visiting my grandparents on the weekends. I lived in the city and they live in a farm outside, so I used to take a rural bus to visit them and then walk like 1K to get to their front door just because I loved spending my weekend with them. I just adored the way they raise me and that's why I want to tribute all of them with the names.
   

Also, as I mentioned before, this baby is a miracle that happened after a 2nd cycle of IVF, they barely could take 3 eggs of all the treatment and this egg was the only one that grow enough to be able to transfer. The chances of my being pregnant again when I know I have very low egg reserve and me being able to have a 2nd baby to give a name, are very very slim.
----^{----(((()))---------} Thanks to the ones that have said is normal and common to have 2 middles names. And of course I respect and understand the opinions that's explain why it might not be a good idea. And to be clear is not a Frankesteiname or anything weird to make a pun with the baby name. Most of my childhood was very good and so was my partner's. Maybe that's why we want to show love by naming our child this way ❤️

recently purchased at home in Alberta, Canada. This home had been listed by the seller's agent on the MLS as having a 'legal suite.' This was why I was interested in purchasing it. I wanted to live up, and rent down. I asked for confirmation that the suite was legal be included in the conditions. In the letter from The City, (given to me for conditions) the house was listed as 'legal non-conforming.' The term was confusing. Both agents told me that this meant that it was 'grandfathered' as it was built by the original builder and it did not require any modifications to be immediately rented (legally). I sent my lawyer the document along with links to The City's website. My lawyer stated that, 'it seems to be granfathered in and it should be okay."
Later I discovered that this was not the case. The suite had not been approved by The City's Inspections Department and needed to be brought up to currrent building codes. By this time, the sale had gone through based on advice from my realtor and my lawyer. Renovations to legalize the suite would cost tens of thousands of dollars. My realtor did not clearly understand the city's requirements and terminology for 'legal suites' vs 'legal non-conforming suites.' The other realtor kept stating that it was legal to rent.
What can I do? Are the realotors accountable? the Lawyer? I feel like none of them did their due diligence. How do you take action? I noticed that there is a disclaimer at the bottom of all MLS listings. Does this mean that realtors are not accountable for how they represent the property? I'm a little lost on how to move forward.

I recently purchased at home in Alberta, Canada. This home had been listed by the seller's agent on the MLS as having a 'legal suite.' This was why I was interested in purchasing it. I wanted to live up, and rent down. I asked for confirmation that the suite was legal be included in the conditions. In the letter from The City, (given to me for conditions) the house was listed as 'legal non-conforming.' The term was confusing. Both agents told me that this meant that it was 'grandfathered' as it was built by the original builder and it did not require any modifications to be immediately rented (legally). I sent my lawyer the document along with links to The City's website. My lawyer stated that, 'it seems to be granfathered in and it should be okay."
Later I discovered that this was not the case. The suite had not been approved by The City's Inspections Department and needed to be brought up to currrent building codes. By this time, the sale had gone through based on advice from my realtor and my lawyer. Renovations to legalize the suite would cost tens of thousands of dollars. My realtor did not clearly understand the city's requirements and terminology for 'legal suites' vs 'legal non-conforming suites.' The other realtor kept stating that it was legal to rent.
What can I do? Are the realotors accountable? the Lawyer? I feel like none of them did their due diligence. How do you take action? I noticed that there is a disclaimer at the bottom of all MLS listings. Does this mean that realtors are not accountable for how they represent the property? I'm a little lost on how to move forward.

I apologize for any grammar mistake or typo, English is my second language. I am currently in the process of gathering the documents to become a German Citizen.
Background: 1. My great granfather was born in 1901 in Nuremberg, Germany. He moved to Colombia in 1923 due to work and also he lost all his family during WW1. He married my Colombian great grandmother and never naturalized. 2. My grandmother was born in 1938 in Colombia 3. My dad was born in 1960 Colombian 4 Me, born in 1995 Colombian
I almost done with the apostille and the German translation of the documents. Hopefully next week I will be sending it to BVA.
How should I present my documents. Should I put everything in a folder with a cover letter, or just using clips/staples in an envelope?. Also do you have any tips that will help to make this process faster?
Edit:
Update: I sent all the documents on 1/23/2024 and according to the tracking information it got delivered to BVA on 1/29/2024.
I sent them an email letting them know that the package was marked as delivered. Their response was that I should wait at least 8 weeks before contacting them. Does anybody have any experience with this?

Hi everyone,
My GG-grandfather was born in Palestine in the 19th century. He was French, but grew up speaking some Arabic. I recently found a letter he wrote to his brother, where he wrote some Arabic in latin letters. Could anyone help translate?

1. Cheikh el Mamulé des Beni Sakhr
2. 'End il shallalé wal mallalé (Ramallah), ma hada baref hada. Waand Zballe ta ya habib (pour moi c'est Artasse ["for me it's Artas", the village they were from]
3. And finally Was salaam 'aleykum wa rahmet Allah wa barekati hi.

I don't understand the word Mamulé in number 1, and the two sentences in number 2. I understand number 3 is the classic greeting, but how common is this longer form?
He also mentions in it that "he gazes at Abou-Zeet" and the mountains "of Moughared Khaled". I couldn't find anything about them. Could you give me hand? I'm guessing it's not the right spelling.
Thanks!

Hello, I need help. I am doing the qb application for the match. Its practically done (my school needs to submit their materials though)
first question, my teacher writing my second rec letter said she has until October to submit it, is that true? I dont want to submit my app today and then have it to where she cant turn that req letter in.
Second, I really really want to go to USC. Its my dream school, i want to go to their cinematic school. My granfather got his masters in philosophy at USC. Will I become a finalist if I only rank USC?
Additionally, Im really confused because it says USC asks for both qb and common app for portfolio majors (which is mine)? When do I start doing that? Once the finalists are out? I don't understand that. Will USC send me information after I rank them? Because I need more clarification on this and info on their due dates. I want to use my personal essay from qb on common app for the other schools im applying to with non-binding apps, so I would be using the same one from qb (but shorter) for the common app that USC sees, is that okay? Most of the common app info will be the same, including the letters? Why do they want it? Just for their college's specific common app? I've already started their own specific common app on the common app site, but haven't finished or turned it in ofc. I hope this means I can fill in the information about being a legacy? Does USC ask for just the general common app or their school specific common app or both?
Do I even have a chance?
My demographic: White, American-born, autistic publicly transitioning (soon getting HRT) transgender male (the only out trans person at my school)
CPS: no, my school did not share that info with us :(
First gen: No
Financial situation: annual income on tax report is less than 20k, my mom has an annual salary of 40k but it has negatives from other expenses that affects our annual income. My dad is self employed, my mom is not full time, she is in healthcare. We own a valuable house, but we are paying far less than what it is worth now. My dad also is disabled with severe spinal injury. Our income is unpredictable.
Grades: UW GPA: 3.55 :/ not the best. All As and Bs (mostly As) except for 2 Cs in the online year :( W: 4.14
Course level at my school: Very high. My school requires AP classes each high school year (except senior, where we take college level capstone courses. Im currently taking 4 of those). I have taken 13 A.P. courses and all of their exams. I have taken 2D art. I have taken around 5 honors classes. My school does not have IB. I took AP electives each year except for 9th because I needed an art cred. Therefore, I took as many A.P.s as I could Im pretty sure? Maybe I could have done extra but it wasn't easy to figure that out.
My high school is #1 in the state. Its a charter school
Scores: 33 ACT (reported), 1510 SAT (reported), 1480 PSAT (unreportable, but I did report that im national merit semifinalist), 5 in AP US Gov, 3 in AP Phys 1, 5 in AP Comp sci A, 5 in AP Euro, 5 in AP Calc AB, 5 in AP lang, 5 in physics 2, 5 in AP lit, 4 in AP spanish language, 5 in AP Stats, 5 in APUSH, 5 in AP Chemistry, and 5 in AP Seminar.
Awards: idk if these all count really but: AP Scholar with distinction (reported twice for 10th and 11th grade) National merit semifinalist, National Speech and Debate honors society degree of distinction merit award, 2nd, 4th, 3rd in prose interp, 3rd, 5th in Original Oratory, and lastly our schools good character award (i said its actual name in the award)
Job: I dont have one :( I dont have time, I had no time because of family responsibilities in summer and then school.
Family: I am constantly babysitting my sister. This is like more than 26 hours a week, esp in summer. My parents had to work so I needed to watch her like every week day without having a job because no one would have been home and she is 10. I make sure she eats, make sure shes safe, help her when needed, and even play with heentertain her. This is unpaid.
ECs: I am the Stage Manager (highest leadership) for our school's theatre. I did theatre last year too as a supporting lead role and then assistant stage manager. I am a captain for speech and debate, I run PR and trained new members. I was in SnD since 10th. I do quality digital art of original characters in my own distinct style in my freetime. I added that an international animation studio owner said my work needed to be seen by the world. I am currently doing volunteer tutoring for 5-6th graders at my school (its 5-12) and I write and play music on the keyboard and can read treble clef (I added that I have potentially been offered jobs, and I was 3rd chair 1st violinist in 7th grade)
​
Is there someone who can help me? Im second guessing myself. I just want to go to USC :,)
​
​

Second part of my analysis of the Blackfyre Theory. You can find the first part at this link.

Varys Blackfyre

This is a point often used in the Blackfyre theories to tie Illyrio and Varys even more. Varys would be a Blackfyre, brother to Serra and brother-in-law to Illyrio. There are some circustantial proofs of him not being a Targaryen loyalist since he undermined both Aerys and Rhaegar.
Pros: there are various hints like Varys' head shaved like a Egg which parallels Egg's story, or the sorcerer's story which he tell Tyrion that could mean he's got Kingsblood.
Cons: the hints could just be red herrings since Varys doesn't need to be a Blackfyre to oppose Targaryens, or he could be a Blackfyre/Brightflame and still it wouldn't imply he's Aegon's uncle.
I won't develop this further for the moment since I feel it is an addition and not really necessary for proving or disproving the theory.

Dunk & Egg, tales of the Blackfyres

While the first D&E novella, The Hedge Knight, contained no references to the Blackfyre rebellion, The Sworn Sword and The Mistery Knight were full of it, with the latter being set during the second rebellion at the tourney at Whitewalls. Since we know some plot points of future D%E stories, we can imagine that Haegon I, Daemon III, Bittersteel and the Golden Company and Aenys Blackfyre would have appeared in some novels. So are the D&E the tie-in story of YG's ancestors? Is this the main role they have in the Asoiaf canon?
Pro: the published and projected novellas would expand and rely a lot on the Blackfyres mythos, and many fans agree it would be of little purpose if no Blackfyre ever showed up in the current time. I also love the fact that Aegon regnal number, VI, represents both him descending from the Targaryens and being Aegon VI in the Taragryen succession, and the Blackfyre, with the VI representing the fact that he's the 6th Blackfyre King.
Cons: it doesn't really prove Aegon is a Blackfyre descendant or he's not Rhaegar's son, but it's honestly a good point narratively speaking.

Jon and Daenerys' stories

Many supporters of the Blackfyre theory support it by stating that if Aegon was real, it would be too much like a second Jon's story: secret son of Rhaegar hidden for all his life and saved during Robert's Rebellion and Dany's: last heir to House Targaryen and to the Iron Throne who's going to Westeros to claim her birthright.
Pro: it's a good point narratively speaking, since having two secret princes and two "true heirs" could be an overkill. Intoducing Aegon as Rhaegar's son and Jon as a bastard could be a good inverse parallel if they are actually revealed to be a Blackfyre (Targaryen bastards) and Rhaegar's son.
Cons: this point gives for granted R+L=J, though I believe to be canon-level. It also isn't necessary to parallel Aegon and Jon since Jon's story is a parallel to Daenerys' since the very first book, it doesn't have to be in parallel to Aegon's plot. Also it could be a further twist to the story if the projected paths for Jon and Dany were both embodied by Young Griff.

Moqorro's Visions in the flames

In Tyrion VIII, ADWD, we have an interesting dialogue between Tyrion and the Red Priest Moqorro:

"Someone told me that the night is dark and full of terrors. What do you see in those flames?""Dragons," Moqorro said in the Common Tongue of Westeros. He spoke it very well, with hardly a trace of accent. No doubt that was one reason the high priest Benerro had chosen him to bring the faith of R'hllor to Daenerys Targaryen. "Dragons old and young, true and false, bright and dark. And you. A small man with a big shadow, snarling in the midst of all.""Snarling? An amiable fellow like me?" Tyrion was almost flattered. And no doubt that is just what he intends. Every fool loves to hear that he's important. "Perhaps it was Penny you saw. We're almost of a size."

I'm not going to give an interpretation of Moqorro's visions, I'm just going to highlight the "true and false" and the "bright and dark" parts. The false dragon is usually associated to a Blackfyre, as is the dark. And since Tyrion has already met YG, the dark or false dragon could be him.
Pro: a Blackfyre is no doubt a dark dragon. If the adjectives are to be read in pairs, Young, false and dark could describe YG's status as Blackfyre. Young is his own alias, false either for being the descendant of a bastard branch or for being in disguise, dark for being a black dragon.
Cons: someone calls the Blackfyres false dragons, but it's wrong in my opinion. Daemon I descended from the Dragonstone Targaryens both from his paternal grandfather Viserys II, his maternal granfather Aegon III and his maternal grandmother Queen Daenaera Velaryon. This does make him a true dragon in my opinion. Also it's worth to note that he was effectively legitimized, so the false = bastard argument is not really good. So the fact that Moqorro sees a false dragon doesn't necessarly mean he sees a Blackfyre.
There are obiously other interpretations of Moqorro's words, one for example associates Jon to the dark dragon since he's a dragon in black (the Night's Watch colour). Since this is a vision and very up to different readings, I wouldn't count it as a strong proof for one side or the other.

The Clanking Dragon

In Brienne VII, AFFC, we hear Septon Meribald telling us the story of the Crossorad Inn's black dragon:

When Podrick asked the name of the inn where they hoped to spend the night, Septon Meribald seized upon the question eagerly, perhaps to take their minds off the grisly sentinels along the roadside. "The Old Inn, some call it. There has been an inn there for many hundreds of years, though this inn was only raised during the reign of the first Jaehaerys, the king who built the kingsroad. Jaehaerys and his queen slept there during their journeys, it is said. For a time the inn was known as the Two Crowns in their honor, until one innkeep built a bell tower, and changed it to the Bellringer Inn. Later it passed to a crippled knight named Long Jon Heddle, who took up ironworking when he grew too old to fight. He forged a new sign for the yard, a three-headed dragon of black iron that he hung from a wooden post. The beast was so big it had to be made in a dozen pieces, joined with rope and wire. When the wind blew it would clank and clatter, so the inn became known far and wide as the Clanking Dragon.""Is the dragon sign still there?" asked Podrick."No," said Septon Meribald. "When the smith's son was an old man, a bastard son of the fourth Aegon rose up in rebellion against his trueborn brother and took for his sigil a black dragon. These lands belonged to Lord Darry then, and his lordship was fiercely loyal to the king. The sight of the black iron dragon made him wroth, so he cut down the post, hacked the sign into pieces, and cast them into the river. One of the dragon's heads washed up on the Quiet Isle many years later, though by that time it was red with rust. The innkeep never hung another sign, so men forgot the dragon and took to calling the place the River Inn. In those days, the Trident flowed beneath its back door, and half its rooms were built out over the water. Guests could throw a line out their window and catch trout, it's said. There was a ferry landing here as well, so travelers could cross to Lord Harroway's Town and Whitewalls."

This story tells us about a black dragon cast away and reappeared years later as a red dragon. The most common interpretation is a theory in favour of the Blackfyre theory: Aegon Blackfyre, a black dragon, is hidden and has grown out of the Golden Company for all his life, and he's now reemerged as Aegon Targaryen, a red dragon.
Pros: the black-red dragon dichotomy is quite obvious in this tale. The fact that the Clanking Dragon's story is so tied to the Blackfyres' rebellion, and the very same mentions of them by septon Meribald, is a strenghtening point for the Blackfyre interpretation, which, if correct, predicts that Aegon is a Blackfyre and also one of the three heads of the dragon.
Cons: the story could obviously be interpretated in other ways:

• Jon snow is a black dragon who is reborn free of his vows (and free of the Black clothes of the NW) and he joins the Seven Kingdom again as a red dragon.
• In the context of this chapter, it refers to the Elder Brother and the Hound, now Gravedigger (which the red with rust line symbolises better) and the bad things that happen in wars (First Blackfyre Rebellion/War of the Five Kings).
• It could refer to the Golden Company: men cast away because they're the supporters of the Black dragon, now returning as supporters of the Red Dragon.

Onyx Dragon

From The Princess in the Tower, ADWD:

Her father plucked up a cyvasse piece. "I must know how you learned that Quentyn was abroad. Your brother went with Cletus Yronwood, Maester Kedry, and three of Lord Yronwood's best young knights on a long and perilous voyage, with an uncertain welcome at its end. He has gone to bring us back our heart's desire."She narrowed her eyes. "What is our heart's desire?""Vengeance." His voice was soft, as if he were afraid that someone might be listening. "Justice." Prince Doran pressed the onyx dragon into her palm with his swollen, gouty fingers, and whispered, "Fire and blood."

and Arianne I, TWOW:

Arianne read the letter thrice, then rolled it up and tucked it back into her sleeve. A dragon has returned to Westeros, but not the dragon my father was expecting. Nowhere in the words was there a mention of Daenerys Stormborn... nor of Prince Quentyn, her brother, who had been sent to seek the dragon queen. **The princess remembered how her father had pressed the onyx cyvasse piece into her palm, his voice hoarse and low as he confessed his plan. A long and perilous voyage, with an uncertain welcome at its end, he had said. He has gone to bring us back our heart's desire. Vengeance. Justice. Fire and blood.**Fire and blood was what Jon Connington (if indeed it was him) was offering as well. Or was it? "He comes with sellswords, but no dragons," Prince Doran had told her, the night the raven came. "The Golden Company is the best and largest of the free companies, but ten thousand mercenaries cannot hope to win the Seven Kingdoms. Elia's son... I would weep for joy if some part of my sister had survived, but what proof do we have that this is Aegon?" His voice broke when he said that. "Where are the dragons?" he asked. "Where is Daenerys?" and Arianne knew that he was really saying, "Where is my son?"

From the sample chapters we have from TWOW, we can assume Dorne is going to side with Aegon in his conquest, and not Daenerys, since she may also be given the responisibility of Quentyn's death. And the one time Doran is talking about his plan to Arianne, he presses into her palm a piece of cyvasse, a onyx dragon or better, a black dragon.
Pros: since cyvasse has a high symbolic value, this argument is quite valid on the fact that Doran's dragon is a black dragon since he has a piece of cyvasse of the very same colour.
Cons: the piece is only used to represent the dragon and the colour is not important in this context. Onyx can in fact be of different colours, red included, and also Doran is skeptical of YG's claim that he's his nephew.

Circular History

There are some reference in Asoiaf to past historical events recurring in the main plot.
Tyrion X, ASOS;

"Oh, surely." It all goes back and back, Tyrion thought, to our mothers and fathers and theirs before them. We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance on in our steads. "Well, Prince Rhaegar married Elia of Dorne, not Cersei Lannister of Casterly Rock. So it would seem your mother won that tilt."

The Soiled Knight, AFFC:

"Have you ever seen the arms of House Toland of Ghost Hill?" He had to think a moment. "A dragon eating its own tail?" "The dragon is time. It has no beginning and no ending, so all things come round again. Anders Yronwood is Criston Cole reborn.

Pros: even if GRRM has said that parallels between F&B and ASOIAF are unintentional, there are tons of them so unconsciously or consciously, he does use them. Obsiously history doesn't literally repeat itself, like the Second Dance won't be the same as the first, but having the Blackfyre theme and the Blackfyre mythos tied with YG's story may parallel his conquest to others Blackfyre Rebellions.
Cons: while parallel exist, they're not literal and Aegon leading the Golden company to Westeros like Bittersteel and Maelys did doesn't really prove the fact that he's a Blackfyre.

The Ape Targaryen story

In Davos II, ADWD Ser Axell Florent tells the story of a Targaryen Prince who dressed an ape with his son's clothes after the kid's death, and proposed the ape in marriage to lords, but the ape, albeit being presented as a Targaryen Prince, is still an ape.

Queen Selyse had feasted Salla and his captains, the night before the fleet had set sail. Cotter Pyke had joined them, and four other high officers of the Night's Watch. Princess Shireen had been allowed to attend as well. As the salmon was being served, Ser Axell Florent had entertained the table with the tale of a Targaryen princeling who kept an ape as a pet. This prince liked to dress the creature in his dead son's clothes and pretend he was a child, Ser Axell claimed, and from time to time he would propose marriages for him. The lords so honored always declined politely, but of course they did decline. "Even dressed in silk and velvet, an ape remains an ape," Ser Axell said. "A wiser prince would have known that you cannot send an ape to do a man's work." The queen's men laughed, and several grinned at Davos. I am no ape, he'd thought. I am as much a lord as you, and a better man. But the memory still stung.

Pros: a subtle reading of this passage can be done by comparing the ape to Aegon, who's being dressed as a Taragryen Prince with silk clothes (the same clothes Illyrio has in his manse that belonged to a kid, presumably Young Griff) and presented as a real Prince, and also proposed in marriage to lords (like Illyrio does with Daenerys).
Cons: the context in which the story is inserted is functional, since it is a joke that obviously refers to Davos, as the man also gets. So at face value it can be considered a stretch to link it to Aegon.
That being said, it still has some fitting parallel with our Prince's story.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST

Disclaimer: in this section I'm writing pros as arguments in favour of the Targaryen theory, cons in favour of the Blackfyre theory, I hope it's not too confusing.

Varys's story to Kevan

In the Epilogue of ADWD we have an interesting dialogue between Varys and Kevan, in a chapter that culminates in the Lion and Pycelle's deaths.

"I thought the crossbow fitting. You shared so much with Lord Tywin, why not that? Your niece will think the Tyrells had you murdered, mayhaps with the connivance of the Imp. The Tyrells will suspect her. Someone somewhere will find a way to blame the Dornishmen. Doubt, division, and mistrust will eat the very ground beneath your boy king, whilst Aegon raises his banner above Storm's End and the lords of the realm gather round him.""Aegon?" For a moment he did not understand. Then he remembered. A babe swaddled in a crimson cloak, the cloth stained with his blood and brains. "Dead. He's dead.""No." The eunuch's voice seemed deeper. "He is here. Aegon has been shaped for rule since before he could walk. He has been trained in arms, as befits a knight to be, but that was not the end of his education. He reads and writes, he speaks several tongues, he has studied history and law and poetry. A septa has instructed him in the mysteries of the Faith since he was old enough to understand them. He has lived with fisherfolk, worked with his hands, swum in rivers and mended nets and learned to wash his own clothes at need. He can fish and cook and bind up a wound, he knows what it is like to be hungry, to be hunted, to be afraid. Tommen has been taught that kingship is his right. Aegon knows that kingship is his duty, that a king must put his people first, and live and rule for them."Kevan Lannister tried to cry out … to his guards, his wife, his brother … but the words would not come. Blood dribbled from his mouth. He shuddered violently."I am sorry." Varys wrung his hands. "You are suffering, I know, yet here I stand going on like some silly old woman. Time to make an end to it." The eunuch pursed his lips and gave a little whistle.

While murdering Kevan, Varys unfolds his true plans and alliagiance. He's killing Kevan "for the realm" as he's previously stated, in the sense that Kevan is doing too good of a job repairing Cersei's doings therefore he must be killed in order to clear the way for Aegon. The fact that he confesses to a dying man is seen as a very strong proof against the Blackfyre theory.
Pros: Varys knows Kevan and Pycelle aren't going to leave the room alive, so he has no reasons to lie to dying men. Why does he tell them though? Well, he may want to spite them, even though he tells the opposite when he shots Kevan:

"Varys?"The eunuch set the crossbow down. "Ser Kevan. Forgive me if you can. I bear you no ill will. This was not done from malice. It was for the realm. For the children."

Cons: could Varys be lying? What reasons does he have to lie to a dead man? Here are a couple of possible explanation:

• It's a techical linguistic truth since Aegon is alive and indeed he has undergone that training he tells about, but simply the boy called Aegon is not the Aegon Kevan was thinking about. Honestly, even though Varys often tells ambiguous truths, it's a very stretchy reading of the chapter in my opinion.
• There was a double baby swap and Varys isn't aware of it, only Illyrio who swapped the real Aegon with Young Griff, so he doesn't know he's lying. Again, a bit reaching.
• He lied because he wanted, in a very sadistic way, to throw mud on Tywin's (and the Lannisters by extension) legacy since he's saying he wasn't even capable of killing two kids in the end.
• Since there are many children in the room, Varys' little birds, he lies to prevent them from hearing the truth. This makes little sense since having the world know the boy as Aegon Targaryen is exactly what Varys is trying to do.

I agree that most of these points feel stretched, this is probably the strongest argument against the theory.

The Baby Swap

In Tyrion VI, ADWD, Young Griff tells Tyrion what happened during the sack of King's Landing and how he was supposedly saved:

"A true friend, our Lord Connington. He must be, to remain so fiercely loyal to the grandson of the king who took his lands and titles and sent him into exile. A pity about that. Elsewise Prince Rhaegar's friend might have been on hand when my father sacked King's Landing, to save Prince Rhaegar's precious little son from getting his royal brains dashed out against a wall."The lad flushed. "That was not me. I told you. That was some tanner's son from Pisswater Bend whose mother died birthing him. His father sold him to Lord Varys for a jug of Arbor gold. He had other sons but had never tasted Arbor gold. Varys gave the Pisswater boy to my lady mother and carried me away.""Aye." Tyrion moved his elephants. "And when the pisswater prince was safely dead, the eunuch smuggled you across the narrow sea to his fat friend the cheesemonger, who hid you on a poleboat and found an exile lord willing to call himself your father. It does make for a splendid story, and the singers will make much of your escape once you take the Iron Throne ... assuming that our fair Daenerys takes you for her consort."

Pros: we know for a fact that baby swaps are definitely a thing in ASoIaF, as we've previously seen with Jon swapping Dalla and Gilly's babies. Also, who better than Varys could pull something like this? He's got a wide spying network, he surely has contacts ready to smuggle the prince across the Narrow Sea, and as we can see trough the five books, he knows his way trough the secret tunnels of the Red Keep very well.
Cons: there are actually some points against this tale, which at least give the reader room for suspect:

• Tyrion himself seems skeptical when he hears the story and he's also not convinced by someone else on the Shy Maid, Septa Lemore.
• There are literally no witnesses. With the Tower of Joy and R+L=J theory for example, there is Howland Reed that's still alive and can (will) confirm it. Here we only have Varys, and he doesn't come as the most believable person.
• Why could Varys go leagues with a plan to save Aegon, when his actions clearly put him as a Targaryen's opponent? He simultaneously offers bad guidance to Aerys and fuels his paranoia and mental illness and also undermines Rhaegar's status by uncovering his plans, like Harrenhal. Why would this very man be so interested in saving Aegon? So that he one day could take the throne trough him by declaring he's Rhaegar's son? That's something half of the Lyseni boys could achieve.
• If Gregor hadn't smashed Aegon's head Varys plan would have been at risk of exposeure, so it seems a bit fortunate for someone so pragmatic (or maybe he counted in Tywin wanting to cover up the fact anyway to gain Robert's favour?).
• "Varys gave the Pisswater boy to my lady mother and carried me away." This sentence is problematic in many fans' opinion (mine too). Would Elia really not recognise her own son? Or if she knew, would she really have been ok with Varys saving Aegon and not Rhaenys? I mean, if there is possibility of smuggling out a toddler, another baby child shouldn't be that much of added difficult. Especially for the fact that Rhaenys was already at least sentient and she understood what was going on, wouldn't Elia be more inclined to have her live rather than Aegon (like Helaena with Jaehaerys and Maelor).

There is also a line that recalls Kevan's image of Aegon in Tyrion VI, ACOK:

Put them in crimson cloaks and lion helms, they'll look no different from any other guardsmen.

So once his head is smashed and he's put in the crimson cloak, the baby could be anyone, he just had the function to please Robert.
Varys hinting at Rhaenys being dead, but not Aegon
A further proof of Varys being real on Aegon's story is a sentence in Tyrion IV, ACOK:

"The only puzzle is what you might have offered for his allegiance. The prince is a sentimental man, and he still mourns his sister Elia and her sweet babe."

While talking with Tyrion about Doran, Varys says that the prince is still mourning Elia and her babe, not babes.
Pros: Varys saying babe is his subconcious making him say the truth and revealing that only one babe died with Elia, and that's Rhaenys. It's a quite strong point.
Cons: counter-arguments for this points vary from the fact that it could be a typo, an honest mistake from George or just Varys misleading. It's quite a good catch in my opinion if Aegon is in fact true.

Tommen's escape before the Battle of the Blackwaters

At the beginning of Tyrion X, ACOK, we get to know of a plot, orchestrated

"The queen intends to send Prince Tommen away." They knelt alone in the hushed dimness of the sept, surrounded by shadows and flickering candles, but even so Lancel kept his voice low. "Lord Gyles will take him to Rosby, and conceal him there in the guise of a page. They plan to darken his hair and tell everyone that he is the son of a hedge knight.""Is it the mob she fears? Or me?""Both," said Lancel."Ah." Tyrion had known nothing of this ploy. Had Varys's little birds failed him for once? Even spiders must nod, he supposed . . . or was the eunuch playing a deeper and more subtle game than he knew? "You have my thanks, ser."

This looks a lot like Young Griff's story, and we know it has actually happened successfully, so it could be a hint to Aegon's tale.
Pros: the story of Tommen leaving King's Landing in disguisa looks a lot like the tale Young Griff and Griff tell Tyrion to explain how Aegon is still alive and has been able to hide all this time.
Cons: the story could very much be a red herring, since we also know that the plot is easily stopped by Tyrion who takes the matter in his own hands, so one could doubt that Connington has been able to hide YG as his son all this time when Tyrion immediately got their identities right after boarding the Shy Maid.

Aegon's identity reveal

This is a point often brought up against the Blackfyre theory. Essentially, if Aegon was a Blackfyre, how and when would it be revealed?
Pros: The fact that this seem low probable to happen since just two characters would know his identity (Varys and Illyrio) makes for a strong point narratively, since if there is little room to expose him it's likely because there is nothing to expose.
Cons: his identity could either be revealed or never revealed and only hinted if he's a Blackfyre. In the first case it could happen when Daenerys meets Illyrio in Pentos on her way back to Westeros or with another sort of omniscient character (Bloodraven/Bran).

NEUTRAL ARGUMENT

In this section I want to highlight an evidence that is usually used in favour of this theory, but to me it's the one that is most neutral since it's very much subject to interpretation.

The Mummer's Dragon

Daenerys IV, ACOK:

Then phantoms shivered through the murk, images in indigo. Viserys screamed as the molten gold ran down his cheeks and filled his mouth. A tall lord with copper skin and silver-gold hair stood beneath the banner of a fiery stallion, a burning city behind him. Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a woman's name. . . . mother of dragons, daughter of death . . . Glowing like sunset, a red sword was raised in the hand of a blue-eyed king who cast no shadow. A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd. From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire. . . . mother of dragons, slayer of lies . . . Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . mother of dragons, bride of fire . . .

Daenerys V, ACOK:

"Perhaps," she said reluctantly. "Yet the things I saw . . .""A dead man in the prow of a ship, a blue rose, a banquet of blood . . . what does any of it mean, Khaleesi? A mummer's dragon, you said. What is a mummer's dragon, pray?""A cloth dragon on poles," Dany explained. "Mummers use them in their follies, to give the heroes something to fight."

Daenerys II, ADWD:

"Are you here?""No. Hear me, Daenerys Targaryen. The glass candles are burning. Soon comes the pale mare, and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun's son and the mummer's dragon. Trust none of them. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed seneschal.""Reznak? Why should I fear him?" Dany rose from the pool. Water trickled down her legs, and gooseflesh covered her arms in the cool night air. "If you have some warning for me, speak plainly. What do you want of me, Quaithe?"

In the House of the Undying and in Quaithe's warning, Daenerys is told of a cloth dragon/mummer's dragon. This is often used as a proof that Aegon is a fake dragon and she must reveal the lie.
Pros: a cloth dragon, a dragon controlled by a mummer during a spectacle is oviously a fake dragon, not a real flesh and blood one, as was Tanselle's dragon. The fact that Daenerys sees him in the "slayer of lies" part of the prophecy of the HotU, has convinced many that she has to slay the lie that he and Connington tell, so that he's a Targaryen when he's actually a Blackfyre.
"Mummers use them in their follies, to give the heroes something to fight." While Aegon doesn't indeed look like a villain, after he conquers the throne he's the villain in Daenery's path, but for the Westerosi she'll be the villain, and when she's defeated the mummer's dragon, it will be the realization of an inversion of themes, since in most people's eyes, here the hero (Daenerys) is the villain, and the mummer's dragon is the hero. And we know that GRRM likes to play with the classical fantasy tropes and their subversion/inversion.
Cons: the mummer's dragon, may actually just refer to the fact that Aegon is controlled by a mummer, Varys, which we know is called like that a couple of times since he previously worked with actors. The cloth dragon could have the same meaning, a cloth dragon is a dragon controlled by a mummer or it could be the Targaryen banner made of cloth.
While I think that the Mummer's Dragon argument doesn't necessarly imply that Aegon is a Targaryen or a Blackfyre, it is important in understanding Young Griff's plot.

YOUNG GRIFF'S RAISON D'ÊTRE, THE MEANING OF POWER

From Tyrion II, ACOK:

Tyrion cocked his head sideways. "Did you mean to answer your damned riddle, or only to make my head ache worse?"Varys smiled. "Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.""So power is a mummer's trick?""A shadow on the wall," Varys murmured, "yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow."

In this dialogue lies the meaning of Varys' character and actions. Varys thinks that power exists with belief in power, as shown by his riddle about the King, The Priest and the Rich Man in Tyrion I, ACOK:

"May I leave you with a bit of a riddle, Lord Tyrion?" He did not wait for an answer. "In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. 'Do it,' says the king, 'for I am your lawful ruler.' 'Do it,' says the priest, 'for I command you in the names of the gods.' 'Do it,' says the rich man, 'and all this gold shall be yours.' So tell me—who lives and who dies?"

So, power is a mummer's trick, it's a perception, and the one who has the more power is the one who can cast the longest shadow. Varys is going on a very big scale with his political philosophy since the shadow he wants to project is the one of the lost Targaryen prince who's back to claim the throne and has the appearance and the behaviours of the perfect King. Recalling Varys' riddle, Aegon is the King (Targaryen claimant to the throne), the Priest (symbolising the education he has received and his knowledge of the Faith thanks to Lemore, and also the fact that Targaryens are usually seen as demigods) and the Rich Man (Illyrio's wealth capable of raising armies etc). Whichever preference the sellsword has Aegon is the one who holds power in people's eyes (the sellsword here could be a parallel to Jon Connington's fake identity as the sellsword Griff who sees Aegon as his King and chance to redeem himself for failing on Rhaegar).
With this in mind, it doesn't really matter who Young Griff really is. He's a Targaryen for the narrative, the claim, those who are still hopeful in a dragon restoration. He can be a Blackfyre for Myles Toyne and the answer to his crusade. He can be a Valyrian looking boy from Lys or Pentos or Volantis who's simply grown with the idea that he has to exercise power for his people since they're in the very end the source of his power. He's a liar in Daenerys' eyes since he'd be an obstacle in her claim. He can be hope, the fulfillment of Doran's desire of "vengeance, justice, fire and blood". He's the biggest shadow on Westeros at this moment, since many could have a reason to go to him (bad ruling from Cersei, his saviour and perfect King aura, his story etc..).
What can overshadow his own shadow? The biggest shadow, the words he bears with his name. Fire and Blood, Daenerys and her dragons.
Ultimately, Young Griff may fall after succeding in conquering a good part of the Realm and being cheered by the people ("A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd" the Targaryen banner being waved during his coronation) and Varys will probably fall with him in my opinion.
In this light, I think we may actually never have an in-world confirmation of his identity. There are many hints for one side or the other (that's our choice to adhere to one of them) and others will be dropped in the future book, but I think a 100% clear confirmation is not going to happen.
Aside from this, I strongly believe he has dragonblood, trough one way (Daemon I) or the other, Daeron II) or even both for all that matters. It looks like dragonblood is in fact a very important factor for a dragonrider, and given the high symbolism existing on the Second Dance of the Dragons, I think Aegon is going to be a dragonrider for a period, even though dragonblood is not the only requirement to fly a dragon (Quentyn's inverse hero story).
So is Varys' trick effective? Is he right about the true nature of power?
In my opinion he is, and he will have a lot of success along with Aegon's conquest since he will have finally been capable of creating the perfect shadow on the Throne (isn't Aegon a very small man with a large shadow afterall?).
Why though? Does he really want the good of the realm? Couldn't he achieve that with Rhaegar?
As much as Rhaegar was promising and beloved, he wasn't Varys' creature, while Aegon has been shaped from infancy to adulthood by Illyrio and Varys, he's their puppet, the mummer's dragon. In their plans, they had to destroy all possible rivalry to Aegon, so Daenerys and Viserys, Tywin and Kevan, the stability of the realm. His doings will take revenge on him though, since Daenerys will surely want revenge for being betrayed by Illyrio and Varys in favour of Aegon.
TL;DR: various points in favour and against the Blackfyre theory. The meaning of Aegon's story in the plot of the next book.
Credits: I'd like to thank u/The_Coconut_God for this post, it's been very helpful while writing this. Also u/galanix for his Blackfyre theory.

Second part of my analysis of the Blackfyre Theory. You can find the first part at this link .

Dunk & Egg, tales of the Blackfyres

While the first D&E novella, The Hedge Knight, contained no references to the Blackfyre rebellion, The Sworn Sword and The Mistery Knight were full of it, with the latter being set during the second rebellion at the tourney at Whitewalls. Since we know some plot points of future D%E stories, we can imagine that Haegon I, Daemon III, Bittersteel and the Golden Company and Aenys Blackfyre would have appeared in some novels. So are the D&E the tie-in story of YG's ancestors? Is this the main role they have in the Asoiaf canon?
Pro: the published and projected novellas would expand and rely a lot on the Blackfyres mythos, and many fans agree it would be of little purpose if no Blackfyre ever showed up in the current time. I also love the fact that Aegon regnal number, VI, represents both him descending from the Targaryens and being Aegon VI in the Taragryen succession, and the Blackfyre, with the VI representing the fact that he's the 6th Blackfyre King.
Cons: it doesn't really prove Aegon is a Blackfyre descendant or he's not Rhaegar's son, but it's honestly a good point narratively speaking.

Jon and Daenerys' stories

Many supporters of the Blackfyre theory support it by stating that if Aegon was real, it would be too much like a second Jon's story: secret son of Rhaegar hidden for all his life and saved during Robert's Rebellion and Dany's: last heir to House Targaryen and to the Iron Throne who's going to Westeros to claim her birthright.
Pro: it's a good point narratively speaking, since having two secret princes and two "true heirs" could be an overkill. Intoducing Aegon as Rhaegar's son and Jon as a bastard could be a good inverse parallel if they are actually revealed to be a Blackfyre (Targaryen bastards) and Rhaegar's son.
Cons: this point gives for granted R+L=J, though I believe to be canon-level. It also isn't necessary to parallel Aegon and Jon since Jon's story is a parallel to Daenerys' since the very first book, it doesn't have to be in parallel to Aegon's plot. Also it could be a further twist to the story if the projected paths for Jon and Dany were both embodied by Young Griff.
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Moqorro's Visions in the flames

In Tyrion VIII, ADWD, we have an interesting dialogue between Tyrion and the Red Priest Moqorro:

"Someone told me that the night is dark and full of terrors. What do you see in those flames?"
"Dragons," Moqorro said in the Common Tongue of Westeros. He spoke it very well, with hardly a trace of accent. No doubt that was one reason the high priest Benerro had chosen him to bring the faith of R'hllor to Daenerys Targaryen. "Dragons old and young, true and false, bright and dark. And you. A small man with a big shadow, snarling in the midst of all."
"Snarling? An amiable fellow like me?" Tyrion was almost flattered. And no doubt that is just what he intends. Every fool loves to hear that he's important. "Perhaps it was Penny you saw. We're almost of a size."

I'm not going to give an interpretation of Moqorro's visions, I'm just going to highlight the "true and false" and the "bright and dark" parts. The false dragon is usually associated to a Blackfyre, as is the dark. And since Tyrion has already met YG, the dark or false dragon could be him.
Pro: a Blackfyre is no doubt a dark dragon. If the adjectives are to be read in pairs, Young, false and dark could describe YG's status as Blackfyre. Young is his own alias, false either for being the descendant of a bastard branch or for being in disguise, dark for being a black dragon.
Cons: someone calls the Blackfyres false dragons, but it's wrong in my opinion. Daemon I descended from the Dragonstone Targaryens both from his paternal grandfather Viserys II, his maternal granfather Aegon III and his maternal grandmother Queen Daenaera Velaryon. This does make him a true dragon in my opinion. Also it's worth to note that he was effectively legitimized, so the false = bastard argument is not really good. So the fact that Moqorro sees a false dragon doesn't necessarly mean he sees a Blackfyre.
There are obiously other interpretations of Moqorro's words, one for example associates Jon to the dark dragon since he's a dragon in black (the Night's Watch colour). Since this is a vision and very up to different readings, I wouldn't count it as a strong proof for one side or the other.
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The Clanking Dragon

In Brienne VII, AFFC, we hear Septon Meribald telling us the story of the Crossorad Inn's black dragon:

When Podrick asked the name of the inn where they hoped to spend the night, Septon Meribald seized upon the question eagerly, perhaps to take their minds off the grisly sentinels along the roadside. "The Old Inn, some call it. There has been an inn there for many hundreds of years, though this inn was only raised during the reign of the first Jaehaerys, the king who built the kingsroad. Jaehaerys and his queen slept there during their journeys, it is said. For a time the inn was known as the Two Crowns in their honor, until one innkeep built a bell tower, and changed it to the Bellringer Inn. Later it passed to a crippled knight named Long Jon Heddle, who took up ironworking when he grew too old to fight. He forged a new sign for the yard, a three-headed dragon of black iron that he hung from a wooden post. The beast was so big it had to be made in a dozen pieces, joined with rope and wire. When the wind blew it would clank and clatter, so the inn became known far and wide as the Clanking Dragon."
"Is the dragon sign still there?" asked Podrick.
"No," said Septon Meribald. "When the smith's son was an old man, a bastard son of the fourth Aegon rose up in rebellion against his trueborn brother and took for his sigil a black dragon. These lands belonged to Lord Darry then, and his lordship was fiercely loyal to the king. The sight of the black iron dragon made him wroth, so he cut down the post, hacked the sign into pieces, and cast them into the river. One of the dragon's heads washed up on the Quiet Isle many years later, though by that time it was red with rust. The innkeep never hung another sign, so men forgot the dragon and took to calling the place the River Inn. In those days, the Trident flowed beneath its back door, and half its rooms were built out over the water. Guests could throw a line out their window and catch trout, it's said. There was a ferry landing here as well, so travelers could cross to Lord Harroway's Town and Whitewalls."

This story tells us about a black dragon cast away and reappeared years later as a red dragon. The most common interpretation is a theory in favour of the Blackfyre theory: Aegon Blackfyre, a black dragon, is hidden and has grown out of the Golden Company for all his life, and he's now reemerged as Aegon Targaryen, a red dragon.
Pros: the black-red dragon dichotomy is quite obvious in this tale. The fact that the Clanking Dragon's story is so tied to the Blackfyres' rebellion, and the very same mentions of them by septon Meribald, is a strenghtening point for the Blackfyre interpretation, which, if correct, predicts that Aegon is a Blackfyre and also one of the three heads of the dragon.
Cons: the story could obviously be interpretated in other ways:

• Jon snow is a black dragon who is reborn free of his vows (and free of the Black clothes of the NW) and he joins the Seven Kingdom again as a red dragon.
• In the context of this chapter, it refers to the Elder Brother and the Hound, now Gravedigger (which the red with rust line symbolises better) and the bad things that happen in wars (First Blackfyre Rebellion/War of the Five Kings).
• It could refer to the Golden Company: men cast away because they're the supporters of the Black dragon, now returning as supporters of the Red Dragon.

Onyx Dragon

From The Princess in the Tower, ADWD:

Her father plucked up a cyvasse piece. "I must know how you learned that Quentyn was abroad. Your brother went with Cletus Yronwood, Maester Kedry, and three of Lord Yronwood's best young knights on a long and perilous voyage, with an uncertain welcome at its end. He has gone to bring us back our heart's desire."
She narrowed her eyes. "What is our heart's desire?"
"Vengeance." His voice was soft, as if he were afraid that someone might be listening. "Justice." Prince Doran pressed the onyx dragon into her palm with his swollen, gouty fingers, and whispered, "Fire and blood."

and Arianne I, TWOW:

Arianne read the letter thrice, then rolled it up and tucked it back into her sleeve. A dragon has returned to Westeros, but not the dragon my father was expecting. Nowhere in the words was there a mention of Daenerys Stormborn... nor of Prince Quentyn, her brother, who had been sent to seek the dragon queen. The princess remembered how her father had pressed the onyx cyvasse piece into her palm, his voice hoarse and low as he confessed his plan. A long and perilous voyage, with an uncertain welcome at its end, he had said. He has gone to bring us back our heart's desire. Vengeance. Justice. Fire and blood.
Fire and blood was what Jon Connington (if indeed it was him) was offering as well. Or was it? "He comes with sellswords, but no dragons," Prince Doran had told her, the night the raven came. "The Golden Company is the best and largest of the free companies, but ten thousand mercenaries cannot hope to win the Seven Kingdoms. Elia's son... I would weep for joy if some part of my sister had survived, but what proof do we have that this is Aegon?" His voice broke when he said that. "Where are the dragons?" he asked. "Where is Daenerys?" and Arianne knew that he was really saying, "Where is my son?"

From the sample chapters we have from TWOW, we can assume Dorne is going to side with Aegon in his conquest, and not Daenerys, since she may also be given the responisibility of Quentyn's death. And the one time Doran is talking about his plan to Arianne, he presses into her palm a piece of cyvasse, a onyx dragon or better, a black dragon.
Pros: since cyvasse has a high symbolic value, this argument is quite valid on the fact that Doran's dragon is a black dragon since he has a piece of cyvasse of the very same colour.
Cons: the piece is only used to represent the dragon and the colour is not important in this context. Onyx can in fact be of different colours, red included, and also Doran is skeptical of YG's claim that he's his nephew.
​

Circular History

There are some reference in Asoiaf to past historical events recurring in the main plot.
Tyrion X, ASOS;

"Oh, surely." It all goes back and back, Tyrion thought, to our mothers and fathers and theirs before them. We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance on in our steads. "Well, Prince Rhaegar married Elia of Dorne, not Cersei Lannister of Casterly Rock. So it would seem your mother won that tilt."

The Soiled Knight, AFFC:

"Have you ever seen the arms of House Toland of Ghost Hill?" He had to think a moment. "A dragon eating its own tail?" "The dragon is time. It has no beginning and no ending, so all things come round again. Anders Yronwood is Criston Cole reborn.

Pros: even if GRRM has said that parallels between F&B and ASOIAF are unintentional, there are tons of them so unconsciously or consciously, he does use them. Obsiously history doesn't literally repeat itself, like the Second Dance won't be the same as the first, but having the Blackfyre theme and the Blackfyre mythos tied with YG's story may parallel his conquest to others Blackfyre Rebellions.
Cons: while parallel exist, they're not literal and Aegon leading the Golden company to Westeros like Bittersteel and Maelys did doesn't really prove the fact that he's a Blackfyre.
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The Ape Targaryen story

In Davos II, ADWD Ser Axell Florent tells the story of a Targaryen Prince who dressed an ape with his son's clothes after the kid's death, and proposed the ape in marriage to lords, but the ape, albeit being presented as a Targaryen Prince, is still an ape.

Queen Selyse had feasted Salla and his captains, the night before the fleet had set sail. Cotter Pyke had joined them, and four other high officers of the Night's Watch. Princess Shireen had been allowed to attend as well. As the salmon was being served, Ser Axell Florent had entertained the table with the tale of a Targaryen princeling who kept an ape as a pet. This prince liked to dress the creature in his dead son's clothes and pretend he was a child, Ser Axell claimed, and from time to time he would propose marriages for him. The lords so honored always declined politely, but of course they did decline. "Even dressed in silk and velvet, an ape remains an ape," Ser Axell said. "A wiser prince would have known that you cannot send an ape to do a man's work." The queen's men laughed, and several grinned at Davos. I am no ape, he'd thought. I am as much a lord as you, and a better man. But the memory still stung.

Pros: a subtle reading of this passage can be done by comparing the ape to Aegon, who's being dressed as a Taragryen Prince with silk clothes (the same clothes Illyrio has in his manse that belonged to a kid, presumably Young Griff) and presented as a real Prince, and also proposed in marriage to lords (like Illyrio does with Daenerys).
Cons: the context in which the story is inserted is functional, since it is a joke that obviously refers to Davos, as the man also gets. So at face value it can be considered a stretch to link it to Aegon.
That being said, it still has some fitting parallel with our Prince's story.
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ARGUMENTS AGAINST

Disclaimer: in this section I'm writing pros as arguments in favour of the Targaryen theory, cons in favour of the Blackfyre theory, I hope it's not too confusing.

Varys's story to Kevan

In the Epilogue of ADWD we have an interesting dialogue between Varys and Kevan, in a chapter that culminates in the Lion and Pycelle's deaths.

"I thought the crossbow fitting. You shared so much with Lord Tywin, why not that? Your niece will think the Tyrells had you murdered, mayhaps with the connivance of the Imp. The Tyrells will suspect her. Someone somewhere will find a way to blame the Dornishmen. Doubt, division, and mistrust will eat the very ground beneath your boy king, whilst Aegon raises his banner above Storm's End and the lords of the realm gather round him."
"Aegon?" For a moment he did not understand. Then he remembered. A babe swaddled in a crimson cloak, the cloth stained with his blood and brains. "Dead. He's dead."
"No." The eunuch's voice seemed deeper. "He is here. Aegon has been shaped for rule since before he could walk. He has been trained in arms, as befits a knight to be, but that was not the end of his education. He reads and writes, he speaks several tongues, he has studied history and law and poetry. A septa has instructed him in the mysteries of the Faith since he was old enough to understand them. He has lived with fisherfolk, worked with his hands, swum in rivers and mended nets and learned to wash his own clothes at need. He can fish and cook and bind up a wound, he knows what it is like to be hungry, to be hunted, to be afraid. Tommen has been taught that kingship is his right. Aegon knows that kingship is his duty, that a king must put his people first, and live and rule for them."
Kevan Lannister tried to cry out … to his guards, his wife, his brother … but the words would not come. Blood dribbled from his mouth. He shuddered violently.
"I am sorry." Varys wrung his hands. "You are suffering, I know, yet here I stand going on like some silly old woman. Time to make an end to it." The eunuch pursed his lips and gave a little whistle.

While murdering Kevan, Varys unfolds his true plans and alliagiance. He's killing Kevan "for the realm" as he's previously stated, in the sense that Kevan is doing too good of a job repairing Cersei's doings therefore he must be killed in order to clear the way for Aegon. The fact that he confesses to a dying man is seen as a very strong proof against the Blackfyre theory.
Pros: Varys knows Kevan and Pycelle aren't going to leave the room alive, so he has no reasons to lie to dying men. Why does he tell them though? Well, he may want to spite them, even though he tells the opposite when he shots Kevan:

"Varys?"
The eunuch set the crossbow down. "Ser Kevan. Forgive me if you can. I bear you no ill will. This was not done from malice. It was for the realm. For the children."

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Cons: could Varys be lying? What reasons does he have to lie to a dead man? Here are a couple of possible explanation:

• It's a techical linguistic truth since Aegon is alive and indeed he has undergone that training he tells about, but simply the boy called Aegon is not the Aegon Kevan was thinking about. Honestly, even though Varys often tells ambiguous truths, it's a very stretchy reading of the chapter in my opinion.
• There was a double baby swap and Varys isn't aware of it, only Illyrio who swapped the real Aegon with Young Griff, so he doesn't know he's lying. Again, a bit reaching.
• He lied because he wanted, in a very sadistic way, to throw mud on Tywin's (and the Lannisters by extension) legacy since he's saying he wasn't even capable of killing two kids in the end.
• Since there are many children in the room, Varys' little birds, he lies to prevent them from hearing the truth. This makes little sense since having the world know the boy as Aegon Targaryen is exactly what Varys is trying to do.

I agree that most of these points feel stretched, this is probably the strongest argument against the theory.
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The Baby Swap

In Tyrion VI, ADWD, Young Griff tells Tyrion what happened during the sack of King's Landing and how he was supposedly saved:

"A true friend, our Lord Connington. He must be, to remain so fiercely loyal to the grandson of the king who took his lands and titles and sent him into exile. A pity about that. Elsewise Prince Rhaegar's friend might have been on hand when my father sacked King's Landing, to save Prince Rhaegar's precious little son from getting his royal brains dashed out against a wall."
The lad flushed. "That was not me. I told you. That was some tanner's son from Pisswater Bend whose mother died birthing him. His father sold him to Lord Varys for a jug of Arbor gold. He had other sons but had never tasted Arbor gold. Varys gave the Pisswater boy to my lady mother and carried me away."
"Aye." Tyrion moved his elephants. "And when the pisswater prince was safely dead, the eunuch smuggled you across the narrow sea to his fat friend the cheesemonger, who hid you on a poleboat and found an exile lord willing to call himself your father. It does make for a splendid story, and the singers will make much of your escape once you take the Iron Throne ... assuming that our fair Daenerys takes you for her consort."

Pros: we know for a fact that baby swaps are definitely a thing in ASoIaF, as we've previously seen with Jon swapping Dalla and Gilly's babies. Also, who better than Varys could pull something like this? He's got a wide spying network, he surely has contacts ready to smuggle the prince across the Narrow Sea, and as we can see trough the five books, he knows his way trough the secret tunnels of the Red Keep very well.
Cons: there are actually some points against this tale, which at least give the reader room for suspect:

• Tyrion himself seems skeptical when he hears the story and he's also not convinced by someone else on the Shy Maid, Septa Lemore.
• There are literally no witnesses. With the Tower of Joy and R+L=J theory for example, there is Howland Reed that's still alive and can (will) confirm it. Here we only have Varys, and he doesn't come as the most believable person.
• Why could Varys go leagues with a plan to save Aegon, when his actions clearly put him as a Targaryen's opponent? He simultaneously offers bad guidance to Aerys and fuels his paranoia and mental illness and also undermines Rhaegar's status by uncovering his plans, like Harrenhal. Why would this very man be so interested in saving Aegon? So that he one day could take the throne trough him by declaring he's Rhaegar's son? That's something half of the Lyseni boys could achieve.
• If Gregor hadn't smashed Aegon's head Varys plan would have been at risk of exposeure, so it seems a bit fortunate for someone so pragmatic (or maybe he counted in Tywin wanting to cover up the fact anyway to gain Robert's favour?).
• "Varys gave the Pisswater boy to my lady mother and carried me away." This sentence is problematic in many fans' opinion (mine too). Would Elia really not recognise her own son? Or if she knew, would she really have been ok with Varys saving Aegon and not Rhaenys? I mean, if there is possibility of smuggling out a toddler, another baby child shouldn't be that much of added difficult. Especially for the fact that Rhaenys was already at least sentient and she understood what was going on, wouldn't Elia be more inclined to have her live rather than Aegon (like Helaena with Jaehaerys and Maelor).

There is also a line that recalls Kevan's image of Aegon in Tyrion VI, ACOK:

Put them in crimson cloaks and lion helms, they'll look no different from any other guardsmen.

So once his head is smashed and he's put in the crimson cloak, the baby could be anyone, he just had the function to please Robert.

Varys hinting at Rhaenys being dead, but not Aegon

A further proof of Varys being real on Aegon's story is a sentence in Tyrion IV, ACOK:

"The only puzzle is what you might have offered for his allegiance. The prince is a sentimental man, and he still mourns his sister Elia and her sweet babe."

While talking with Tyrion about Doran, Varys says that the prince is still mourning Elia and her babe, not babes.
Pros: Varys saying babe is his subconcious making him say the truth and revealing that only one babe died with Elia, and that's Rhaenys. It's a quite strong point.
Cons: counter-arguments for this points vary from the fact that it could be a typo, an honest mistake from George or just Varys misleading. It's quite a good catch in my opinion if Aegon is in fact true.
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Tommen's escape before the Battle of the Blackwaters

At the beginning of Tyrion X, ACOK, we get to know of a plot, orchestrated

"The queen intends to send Prince Tommen away." They knelt alone in the hushed dimness of the sept, surrounded by shadows and flickering candles, but even so Lancel kept his voice low. "Lord Gyles will take him to Rosby, and conceal him there in the guise of a page. They plan to darken his hair and tell everyone that he is the son of a hedge knight."
"Is it the mob she fears? Or me?""Both," said Lancel.
"Ah." Tyrion had known nothing of this ploy. Had Varys's little birds failed him for once? Even spiders must nod, he supposed . . . or was the eunuch playing a deeper and more subtle game than he knew? "You have my thanks, ser."

This looks a lot like Young Griff's story, and we know it has actually happened successfully, so it could be a hint to Aegon's tale.
Pros: the story of Tommen leaving King's Landing in disguisa looks a lot like the tale Young Griff and Griff tell Tyrion to explain how Aegon is still alive and has been able to hide all this time.
Cons: the story could very much be a red herring, since we also know that the plot is easily stopped by Tyrion who takes the matter in his own hands, so one could doubt that Connington has been able to hide YG as his son all this time when Tyrion immediately got their identities right after boarding the Shy Maid.
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Aegon's identity reveal

This is a point often brought up against the Blackfyre theory. Essentially, if Aegon was a Blackfyre, how and when would it be revealed?
Pros: The fact that this seem low probable to happen since just two characters would know his identity (Varys and Illyrio) makes for a strong point narratively, since if there is little room to expose him it's likely because there is nothing to expose.
Cons: his identity could either be revealed or never revealed and only hinted if he's a Blackfyre. In the first case it could happen when Daenerys meets Illyrio in Pentos on her way back to Westeros or with another sort of omniscient character (Bloodraven/Bran).
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NEUTRAL ARGUMENT

In this section I want to highlight an evidence that is usually used in favour of this theory, but to me it's the one that is most neutral since it's very much subject to interpretation.

The Mummer's Dragon

Daenerys IV, ACOK:

Then phantoms shivered through the murk, images in indigo. Viserys screamed as the molten gold ran down his cheeks and filled his mouth. A tall lord with copper skin and silver-gold hair stood beneath the banner of a fiery stallion, a burning city behind him. Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a woman's name. . . . mother of dragons, daughter of death . . . Glowing like sunset, a red sword was raised in the hand of a blue-eyed king who cast no shadow. A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd. From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire. . . . mother of dragons, slayer of lies . . . Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . mother of dragons, bride of fire . . .

Daenerys V, ACOK:

"Perhaps," she said reluctantly. "Yet the things I saw . . ."
"A dead man in the prow of a ship, a blue rose, a banquet of blood . . . what does any of it mean, Khaleesi? A mummer's dragon, you said. What is a mummer's dragon, pray?"
"A cloth dragon on poles," Dany explained. "Mummers use them in their follies, to give the heroes something to fight."

Daenerys II, ADWD:

"Are you here?"
"No. Hear me, Daenerys Targaryen. The glass candles are burning. Soon comes the pale mare, and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun's son and the mummer's dragon. Trust none of them. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed seneschal."
"Reznak? Why should I fear him?" Dany rose from the pool. Water trickled down her legs, and gooseflesh covered her arms in the cool night air. "If you have some warning for me, speak plainly. What do you want of me, Quaithe?"

In the House of the Undying and in Quaithe's warning, Daenerys is told of a cloth dragon/mummer's dragon. This is often used as a proof that Aegon is a fake dragon and she must reveal the lie.
Pros: a cloth dragon, a dragon controlled by a mummer during a spectacle is oviously a fake dragon, not a real flesh and blood one, as was Tanselle's dragon. The fact that Daenerys sees him in the "slayer of lies" part of the prophecy of the HotU, has convinced many that she has to slay the lie that he and Connington tell, so that he's a Targaryen when he's actually a Blackfyre.
"Mummers use them in their follies, to give the heroes something to fight." While Aegon doesn't indeed look like a villain, after he conquers the throne he's the villain in Daenery's path, but for the Westerosi she'll be the villain, and when she's defeated the mummer's dragon, it will be the realization of an inversion of themes, since in most people's eyes, here the hero (Daenerys) is the villain, and the mummer's dragon is the hero. And we know that GRRM likes to play with the classical fantasy tropes and their subversion/inversion.
Cons: the mummer's dragon, may actually just refer to the fact that Aegon is controlled by a mummer, Varys, which we know is called like that a couple of times since he previously worked with actors. The cloth dragon could have the same meaning, a cloth dragon is a dragon controlled by a mummer or it could be the Targaryen banner made of cloth.
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While I think that the Mummer's Dragon argument doesn't necessarly imply that Aegon is a Targaryen or a Blackfyre, it is important in understanding Young Griff's plot.

YOUNG GRIFF'S RAISON D'ÊTRE, THE MEANING OF POWER

From Tyrion II, ACOK:

Tyrion cocked his head sideways. "Did you mean to answer your damned riddle, or only to make my head ache worse?"
Varys smiled. "Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less."
"So power is a mummer's trick?"
"A shadow on the wall," Varys murmured, "yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow."

In this dialogue lies the meaning of Varys' character and actions. Varys thinks that power exists with belief in power, as shown by his riddle about the King, The Priest and the Rich Man in Tyrion I, ACOK:

"May I leave you with a bit of a riddle, Lord Tyrion?" He did not wait for an answer. "In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. 'Do it,' says the king, 'for I am your lawful ruler.' 'Do it,' says the priest, 'for I command you in the names of the gods.' 'Do it,' says the rich man, 'and all this gold shall be yours.' So tell me—who lives and who dies?"

So, power is a mummer's trick, it's a perception, and the one who has the more power is the one who can cast the longest shadow. Varys is going on a very big scale with his political philosophy since the shadow he wants to project is the one of the lost Targaryen prince who's back to claim the throne and has the appearance and the behaviours of the perfect King. Recalling Varys' riddle, Aegon is the King (Targaryen claimant to the throne), the Priest (symbolising the education he has received and his knowledge of the Faith thanks to Lemore, and also the fact that Targaryens are usually seen as demigods) and the Rich Man (Illyrio's wealth capable of raising armies etc). Whichever preference the sellsword has Aegon is the one who holds power in people's eyes (the sellsword here could be a parallel to Jon Connington's fake identity as the sellsword Griff who sees Aegon as his King and chance to redeem himself for failing on Rhaegar).
With this in mind, it doesn't really matter who Young Griff really is. He's a Targaryen for the narrative, the claim, those who are still hopeful in a dragon restoration. He can be a Blackfyre for Myles Toyne and the answer to his crusade. He can be a Valyrian looking boy from Lys or Pentos or Volantis who's simply grown with the idea that he has to exercise power for his people since they're in the very end the source of his power. He's a liar in Daenerys' eyes since he'd be an obstacle in her claim. He can be hope, the fulfillment of Doran's desire of "vengeance, justice, fire and blood". He's the biggest shadow on Westeros at this moment, since many could have a reason to go to him (bad ruling from Cersei, his saviour and perfect King aura, his story etc..).
What can overshadow his own shadow? The biggest shadow, the words he bears with his name. Fire and Blood, Daenerys and her dragons.
Ultimately, Young Griff may fall after succeding in conquering a good part of the Realm and being cheered by the people ("A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd" the Targaryen banner being waved during his coronation) and Varys will probably fall with him in my opinion.
In this light, I think we may actually never have an in-world confirmation of his identity. There are many hints for one side or the other (that's our choice to adhere to one of them) and others will be dropped in the future book, but I think a 100% clear confirmation is not going to happen.
Aside from this, I strongly believe he has dragonblood, trough one way (Daemon I) or the other, Daeron II) or even both for all that matters. It looks like dragonblood is in fact a very important factor for a dragonrider, and given the high symbolism existing on the Second Dance of the Dragons, I think Aegon is going to be a dragonrider for a period, even though dragonblood is not the only requirement to fly a dragon (Quentyn's inverse hero story).
So is Varys' trick effective? Is he right about the true nature of power?
In my opinion he is, and he will have a lot of success along with Aegon's conquest since he will have finally been capable of creating the perfect shadow on the Throne (isn't Aegon a very small man with a large shadow afterall?).
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Why though? Does he really want the good of the realm? Couldn't he achieve that with Rhaegar?
As much as Rhaegar was promising and beloved, he wasn't Varys' creature, while Aegon has been shaped from infancy to adulthood by Illyrio and Varys, he's their puppet, the mummer's dragon. In their plans, they had to destroy all possible rivalry to Aegon, so Daenerys and Viserys, Tywin and Kevan, the stability of the realm. His doings will take revenge on him though, since Daenerys will surely want revenge for being betrayed by Illyrio and Varys in favour of Aegon.
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TL;DR: various points in favour and against the Blackfyre theory.
In favour:

• Symbolism in the statues in Vaes Dothrak and in the architecture in Qarth, early clues of the existence of Connington/Aegon
• Reference to the male line of House Blackfyre
• Illyrio and his wife Serra as YG's parents
• Young Griff's age and the difference with Rhaegar's eyes noted by Connington
• Original draft of ADWD containing a hint at Illyrio having the sword Blackfyre
• Blackheart Toyne, the Golden Company support of Aegon and the contracts written in blood
• The conversation between Varys and Illyrio overheard by Arya in King's Landing
• Varys Blackfyre and the implaications on the theory
• The point of having Dunk & Egg telling us about Blackfyre's history
• The overlay on Jon and Dany's story that a real Aegon would have
• Moqorro's visions about fake and dark dragons
• Septon Meribald's Clanking Dragon story
• Reference to Onyx (black) dragon in relation with Aegon's future supporter Arianne
• The circularity of time in Asoiaf, history repeating with the Blackfyre rebellions and the Dance
• The Targaryen Ape story told by Axell Florent could be a hint to YG's condition

Against:

• Varys' confession to Kevan
• The possibility of the baby swap
• Varys hinting at Rhaenys being dead but not Aegon in ACOK
• Tommen's smuggling being the copy of Aegon's
• Aegon's fake identity reveal isn't very probable

Neutral:

• The Mummer's dragon vision in the House of the Undying and possible interpretations

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The meaning of Aegon's story in the plot of the next book. The true nature of power, the shadow on the wall, the perfect King both if he's a Targaryen or a Blackfyre. Why Aegon's identity may not matter in the end. Brief analysis of Varys' philosophy and plan from the Mad King's time to TWOW.
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Credits: I'd like to thank u/The_Coconut_God for this post, it's been very helpful while writing this. Also u/galanix for his Blackfyre theory.

BLUF: VA took payment twice, need help unfucking my situation with USAA and the VA.
Hey folks.
In 2015 my Granfather (Army MACV in Vietnam) passed away. Only had a simple life insurance policy which paid for funeral with not much leftover. The VA sent a letter to my mother, requested a payment of ~$5,000 as he owed some medical expenses. Mom wrote a check to the VA.
Not long after the check cleared, the VA had taken ~$5,000 digitally from the same bank account with USAA.
In short; the VA withdrew the money owed twice; Once from the check my mother wrote, and once via ACH transfer.
Last year I discovered my USAA account had some money in it, and I was unable to withdraw. USAA locked both my mother's account, and my own. USAA is holding us responsible for the ~$5,000.
The money has not been sent to collections. It does not appear on either of our credit scores.
I have a few questions:

1. How can I go about resolving this issue?
   
2. Is it possible to convince USAA that the VA is responsible, as they withdrew the money after cashing the check?
   
3. Would this prevent me from using USAA's Renters or Auto insurance in the future?
   

BLUF: VA took payment twice, need help unfucking my situation with USAA and the VA.
Hey folks.
In 2015 my Granfather (Army MACV in Vietnam) passed away. Only had a simple life insurance policy which paid for funeral with not much leftover. The VA sent a letter to my mother, requested a payment of ~$5,000 as he owed some medical expenses. Mom wrote a check to the VA.
Not long after the check cleared, the VA had taken ~$5,000 digitally from the same bank account with USAA.
In short; the VA withdrew the money owed twice; Once from the check my mother wrote, and once via ACH transfer.
Last year I discovered my USAA account had some money in it, and I was unable to withdraw. USAA locked both my mother's account, and my own. USAA is holding us responsible for the ~$5,000.
The money has not been sent to collections. It does not appear on either of our credit scores.
I have a few questions:

1. How can I go about resolving this issue?
   
2. Is it possible to convince USAA that the VA is responsible, as they withdrew the money after cashing the check?
   
3. Would this prevent me from using USAA's Renters or Auto insurance in the future?
   

Appendix 1:
Grandfather died. 7/21/15.
VA mailed a letter to my mother saying "hey, since he died before the end of the month, pay back what we paid him."
She paid it back via check.
Two weeks later, the VA called back the money from USAA as ACH, after the check cashed - making the account overdrawn.
VA agents said to get with USAA and cancel the check. USAA said VA financial office hadnto handle it. It went in a complete circle.

Greetings fellow inmates from the Front Desk, today is a tale of 100% authentic (because everything on the internet is true) interaction that actually happened. Obligatory several months passed since the end, which was several endings further than initially planned. Let's begin...
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So, the story starts off with myself working from a 4-star hotel as a day-and-night front desk clerk. Basically we're a small hotel with a skeleton-team front desk, compromised of ONE night auditor (more of a night janitor), myself covering all missing shifts, a front desk/HK clerk, a FOM and AFOM. As said, skeleton crew with little wiggle room for crazy things like oh I dunno, paid vacation and whatnot. So yours truly was looking to move, but nothing too dramatic because work was good and even if things could be better (grass is always greener elsewhere), it was managable.
Entre Fancy Brand (New) Hotel. I get a call from the AGM. Oh, I don't remember sending my CV to this place. Oh, I didn't? That's certainly pleasing. So what's the deal? Well, this place opened recently-ish, a sort of failed opening (their words) with many of the initial team that bailed. They need an AFOM and they need one fast. They need someone dumb enough to see a mountain on fire and think "Yup, that's my game!". Well that's fortunate, I am that idiot.
So I get there. FOM has left in between my hiring and my arrival. Oh, that's surprising, guess he's part of the initial team that just didn't make the cut. Right? My new colleagues inform me it's a great place to work, "but it's a little like Game of Thrones here, heads roll". You know how they say hindsight is 20-20? Well, for the time being we're still in 2019, and the pandemic is yet to come. There is where the GM from Hell enters the picture. Clearly, he's pretty useless and clueless, but overall seems like an ok guy and is more than content to leave the Front Desk the hell alone. He tells me things would run a lot more smoothely if we could just get rid of the bad elements in the hotel he was forced to take when the place opened. Well, you do you, I'll do me. I'm not a firm believer of pushing people to exit "by the bottom" as I call it. Leave because you're going to some place better? Great! (aka "leave by the top" as I call it - bad translation, I know.) But no leaving by the bottom in MY department as far as I'm concerned.
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Fast forward close to a year. The Front Desk has done a 180. I'm now FOM. We've nailed everything down. Procedures? We got them. Client satisfaction? We mastered that. Everything's doing good, in our deparment. I've even implemented a front desk challenge to reach corporate's target goals. It's a basic excel graph that takes the daily's reports to plot rates to objectives. Keep this in mind for the end - I myself pretty much forgot about it other than updating it (litterally 15 seconds) at the start of a shift. The other departments however have been a shitshow. Game of Thrones gonna thrones. Pretty much everyone in the kitchen and half the waiters are new. GM still believes we'd hit our targets (which we are hitting) if "only we'd manage to weed out the bad elements".
Remember I mentionned hindishgt was 20-20? Well, now we're in it. Corporate doesn't know what to do. GM doesn't know or want to do anything. Other hotels have plexiglass protections? Pussies! Can you imagine the GM got manhandled out of public transport because he didn't want to obstruct his airways with a mask? People are crazy! Oh, and the Front Desk is whining and minging because they want masks. The nerve! I had both night auditors quit without notice because our GM refused to understand safety measures (some of which imposed by the government and corporate). Finally, he accepts to get the bloody masks. Until he realized we went through them fast - what do you mean you use a new one at each shift?! (I had a surreal conversation trying to explain that back when I was working in a lab, we'd change mask at the least every 4-hours, so a full shift with only one mask was *already* not ideal.)
Anyway, government decision comes down, we're finally closing. GM litteraly bails from one day to the next. Had to figure out how to close the hotel with just the AGM and what was left of the Front Desk. Fortunately, we're a team - we figure things out. We even make a plan to fix-up the Front Desk, we now have the time to "do the things that would be great but we just don't have the time to". Good stuff. Yes it was a hard time, yes clients weren't all that understanding, but we were a team. Reopening comes, no GM in sight. He basically went full remote before remote working was a thing. And by full-remote, I don't mean he was "working from home", I mean "he'd be in his garden angry you brought something to his attention". In the meantime, seen as he's the only one authorised by corporate to hire, me and the AFOM are stuck doing the night shifts between us. Until my AFOM bails. Finally, I send a courteous letter (proof-read by AGM because I'm a known hothead) explaining that either corporate find a solution for night shifts or I'm bailing as well. Cue a vile phone call at 9am, my last shift having ended at 7am where he lambasts me explaining his door was always open and he couldn't understand the issue.
​
Time moves on, Corporate's now got their eye on us. Most hotels of the brand have bounced back, but not us. Why? Well, "because the bad elements are weighing us down". Ah, so it's not because our kitchen is still closed, that we're serving microwaved dishes and breakfast is now just a doggybag at the same price as the full continental breakfast? No, clearly not. Cue second and third lockdown. GM is making the rounds of the hotel. His new brilliant plan is he's going to stay at the hotel 24/7 for insurances purposes, everyone else can go on furlough "enjoy their paid vacation" (at 70% of your usual wage, thanks boss). While doing the rounds, he starts talking. Though I have my disagreements, work is work, you stay cordial, you answer politely. Until.... "you know, what's great is now there's many people angry and they call on their neighbours who lie about their taxes". I can understand the sentiment, you're not supposed to cheat the government, but.... and I know now this was a mistake to say... it's a slippery slope because it's starts off with "he's stealing" and can quickly becomes "he's jewish", and that's problematic. Cue a direct quote which obviously is real because this is the internet : "Ah, but I'd have gotten along swell with Vichy's Government!" (for those outside France, Vichy was the government during the occupation in WWII that deported jews and others to foreign concentration camps). It took me by such a surprise I just blurted out "Welp, guess my granfather would have died then." I know, I know, shouldn't have said that.
Anyway, fast forward a little, it's now clear we all know one of the bad elements that needs final solution-ing. I find out my new AFOM was actually promised my job if she could dig up some dirt. Joke's on her, she had a burnout before me. But don't worry, ever since the confession, I'm looking to bail asap. The pandemic recedes, the cases diminish, business flourishes and so do job oppportunities. I finally bail. It's over. It's finally fucking over.
​
Or is it? Fast forward a few months, it's almost the New Year. I still haven't received or my final paycheck, or my papers. So I send the letter to corporate inquiring about the delay. I know that the pandemic has slowed things down, but could I have an estimation of the time? Corporate didn't know I had left - again months ago. Cue another epic and vile call from my now former GM lambasting that he's quite sad, my papers have been sent this day by mail (three times now he says it's in the mail) and he has no more means of pressure on me. What do you mean pressure? Well you see, he now claims I've emptied my files when I left and pretty much stolen information from the hotel and if I don't give it back he'll hang me up in court. At this point I'll admit, I lose it on him. Tell him his 4 truths as we say here, ending the call with the promise that if his lawyers don't contact me, mine will contact him because "The North remembers and knows were to find Nazi-sympathisers" (edited for epicness of 100% real reply). I contact my previous union, oh they're already enjoying this and going to have a field day. Side-note to my post-atlantic fellow inmates, unions sound terrible but they're great when it comes to protecting worker's rights - fight for them. See, it turns out there's actually laws that need to be followed, even in the hotel industry, even by GM's.
We did indeed have a field day. What should have been an easy run of the mill "worker leaves job, everyone was happy" turned into Corporate having to shill a nice Excuse Me package, move the useless GM into a different hotel outside the country, and basically have the worker's union take a massive foothold in their prized hotel of the area. All in all, it was a good day. And thank you for the long read.
​
TLDR : Deporting-friendly GM thinks he's untouchable, ends up deported himself for his troubles

Hey everyone! Hope you’re having a great weekend! I’ve got an interesting sale for y’all today.
I came across a very interesting set of medals while helping sort through my grandfather’s stack. He inherited all of them from a friend of his in the early 90’s who was an Olympic athlete in the 80’s and 90’s, so while I don’t have anything like a COA for each item, I don’t doubt their authenticity. Unfortunate my grandfather is going through another bout of medical treatments and is considering liquidating his stack, but wanted to start with these rarities.
Proof: https://imgur.com/gallery/0EZX6go
I’ll start off by saying that I’m not 100% sure of the composition of each metal. I can only go off what I’ve researched online. What I can say is that there are some comparable items listed on ebay and I’m going off those sales for my pricing structure. I’m flexible on the prices, but I’m trying to raise money for my Granfather, so please only serious offers.
If you check these out and feel items are worth a trade or outright purchase, please reach out via DMs not Chat. Primarily I’d like cash, or almost any PM, so send me an offer!
I am happy to see these individuals or as a lot.
For Payment I can take Venmo, Zelle, and PayPal. Please no notes. Shipping is $5 USPS First Class or $9 Priority.
Here are the medals:
Proof: https://imgur.com/gallery/zhQ1KDa
(1x) 1980 US Summer Olympic Team Gold (Plated) Medal - $OLD
The 1980 Summer Olympic Team was unable to participate in that year’s Moscow Olympics due to the US led protest and boycott of those games because of the Russian-Afghan military conflict. The US Congress decided to award all 461 US Olympians gold medals in honor of their sacrifice of training for games in which they would never compete. The U.S. Mint produced the medals, but because they were expensive, financial constraints forced them to be gold-plated bronze medals instead of solid gold. Because of that difference,the Olympians were never officially documented as having receivedCongressional Gold Medals until December of 2007 after swimmer Ron Neugent, Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., andUSOC CEO Jim Scherr contacted the clerk of the House to point outthe omission and get the record corrected. This is one of those 461 medals.
——Set of 1983 12th Hapoel Games Medals—- $40 Each ( or buy the Set for $150)
Proof: https://imgur.com/gallery/WiPHiOf
(2x) Gold (Plated) Medals (1x) Silver (unknown Composition) Medal (1x) Bronze Participation Medal
All Medals have “Israel - Zechovoy - Israel ( Hebrew ) minted on the side. Not sure if that’s the athlete who won the medals or maybe the location of the games.
This set is interesting as I’ve only found one of the Bronze Participation Medals online for a little under $50. They seem to be pretty rare individually, so having a complete set is probably unheard of outside the original participants and the Hapoel Sports Association itself. I’d be willing to sell them individually, but I’d rather someone take the whole set and keep them together.
Details on the The Hapoel Sports Association: Started in Israel in 1926 the competitor of the more widely know Maccabi Sports Association would join together and put on Olympic style games staring in 1951.
————
(1x) 1990 Moscow 45th ISSF World Shooting Championship Medal - $45
Proof: https://imgur.com/gallery/JoQQiHL
This one took some really diligent research. I have not be able to find another of this medal anywhere on the internet after a month of looking. I was able to find a collector stamp from the same event with the same lettering on it which led me to find some info on that event. That event was the 45th World Shooting Championship in Moscow, put on by the International Shooting and Sport Federation (ISSF). This would seem to be a participation medal from those games. I’m not sure of the composition of the medal, but it appears to be a bronze alloy.
——-
(1x) 1986 Cuba 25th Anniversary FCT International Shooting Competition Copper Medal - $40 (obo)
Proof: https://imgur.com/gallery/SS4RsJn
I was unable to find the particulars of the event this medal was from, so I went off the translation of the medal’s words and the context of the other medals in the group. This copper medal comes with a Cuban style Copper link chain.
And that’s it! I hope I filled your time with some fun and oddball items for your consideration.

Dear all,
​
I'm here to ask for your help. I'm new to tattoos, and i would like to make a tattoo that includes the first letter from my granfather's name (V, from victor) with an animal. For a 26M, to tattoo on the arm, do you think it would blend nicely with a Lion or Owl? Would it have any bad meanings?

Fred 1942 https://imgur.com/gallery/PgON4iA
Our familly is trying to figure out if my granfather could have been back from the Alaska highway construction by January 1943. We found this photo of him on a ship dated December 18 1942. We also have a letter from his brother Gene dated September 1st (assume year must be 1942). Here is the letter transcribed:
Sept. 1st Dear brother, I was very glad to get your letter a few minutes ago, but I was very sorry to hear about your accident, don’t take it too hard, I’m sure it won’t get you into trouble. I am vey busy, I am taking an instructor’s course and I haven’t any spare time, will be here for another six weeks, after which I may go back to (P??). I’m glad you didn’t come to see me for I wasn’t there. I left there the same Tuesday night you got to Dawson Creek. I got here Saturday 22 Aug. Answer soon and next time I’ll write a long letter I hope. Cheer up now and goodbye. Brother Gene.
End of letter
My first problem is I can't find that ship name at that time. According to the letter from his brother he was at Dawson Creek in August 1942. I reason that if Fred is on that ship in December he was on is way back home (Sudbury, Ontario). Can I get some opinions? The key may be to find that ship. Or is it a meuseum ship that he was visiting? Why is he alone in pic?

I got my car stolen and recovered in phoenix AZ. They found the dude with heroin on him. He's being taken to court by the state.
However, he also stole a bunch of stuff from me (makeup, fur coats, personal letters, granfather's hunting knife etc). I called the cops and they said they couldn't search his house and he probably didn't have the stuff because he most likely sold it all for heroin. They said they couldn't search bc they didn't have probably cause... but he stole my car... so wtf.
Can i sue this guy and at least try to get some $$ for my stolen stuff?

I am a 25 year old female. For the purpose of anonimity I will refer to myself as Sabrina. I am from Romania. English is not my native language but I shall try my best to make the story easy to be understood.
My stories contain what you would call angels, spirits, demons, archangels, satanic people doing forbidden sessions of vodoo and everything but for this particular story, I sort of believe, this is not necessarily a bad encounter, or so I lie to myself, sometimes.
There are many stories that I would love to share with you (you can either decide to share them, I don't mind, but mainly I just wish to talk with someone who has went through what I did and can understand and empathize with it based on your personal experiences)
The one story that I can and will share with you for now ( I need time to think if I'm ready to share the less fortunate experiences for now)
I live in Romania (our country has orthodox religion - basically very similar to Christianity, we believe in God and Jesus Christ, with small certain similarities and differences) For example, idk if it's the same as catholics do, we keep the deceased for a night (we call it the Sleeping Duty or Guard Night). We do not take that body out of it's house he/she has lived in for their entire life in order to help the spirit find it's way to Heaven easier. The next two days (as we bury the bodies after 3 days) we take the body to the church where loved ones (but not relatives) to the deceased may come and pay respects to that person. After this process concluded, we bury the body at the cemetery where the priest will chant prayers helping the spirit of the deceased understand that he/she is no longer among the living as Romanians are very spiritual people and believe in the after life, spirits and even in bad spirits that linger the world unable to move on.
Understanding this is important as the story is pretty detailed itself. I had 5 grandparents (3 grandmothers and 2 grandfathers) My first grandfather, we shall call him Michael, died when I was 6 years old due to a heart attack in august 2007. He raised me and his death marked my life ever since because I couldn't grasp the significance of death. I would frequently dream about him, his messages, his signs, I would hear him in my dreams as he would "guide" me to be a good person and so on. But even then, as a child, I knew what was a dream and what was reality. His wife, whom we shall call Anna, was my adoptive grandmother as my REAL "by-blood" grandmother, name Margareth, has died when my mom was 2 years old due to an abortion (I'm not sure if she was trying to abort my mother or a third child, since my mother has a brother and she was the second child) - during the communist years (1946-1989), Romania had a strict law regarding abortions and women would abort the fetuses on their own, in the privacy of their homes by themselves as no medics would agree to help with the procedure due to fear of being sentenced to life in prison...she died of septycemy and my mother grew up without a mother until the age of 6 years old. Needless to say I never met her or knew anything about Margareth, my blood grandmother)
But this story is about my grandmother (adoptive one) named Anna. She was a very spiritual, wise, kind hearted and intelligent woman. She never had children of her own, she adopted my mom and uncle (their names aren't important for the story). My granfather, Michael, was only dating my grandmother but after my mother had met her on a family visit on her side in Iasi, Moldova (it's a town in Romania) they got married soon after. My grandfather was a military general and raising two children of 6 years and 13 years was hard. How they decided to get married? Well, it was thanks to my mother because as soon as she first saw grandma Anna, she went straight to her, at the age of 6, raised her both arms up at her and asked, in a jolly child voice: "Hi, my name is Cristina, would you like to be my mommy?".
My grandmother burst in tears, picked her up and immediately created a connection with my mother whom she raised and loved as her own. It was not the same for my uncle, as he was 13 at that time and knew his own mother, Margareth had died and why. He denounced her and made her life much much harder. After raising my mom and uncle, my uncle had two children of her own, a boy and a girl. She raised the girl, and when the boy was born she had a calcium crisis that made her faint and hit her head. She refused to raise my cousin afterwards as she was afraid she would drop holding the baby. My uncle never forgave her for that and hated her even more. When I was born, I was the light of their life as she loved my mother from moment one and my grandfather Michael adored my mother. Because I am a replica of my mother, same eyes, same face, same body shape, they immediately took me in and raised me as my father worked in 3 different jobs and my mom was a pediatric nurse and worked in shifts.
I loved growing up with her, like I said, she was an extremely spiritual person. She loved to meditate, she would tell me about her dreams, she taught me how to decode them and what it meant. She told me about ghost encounters she had in her life and always told me not to fear any spirit that comes close to me in my life because ghosts see us a beams of light guiding them to God when they are confused. Yes, that was my grandmother Anna for you. She did this until I was 18 y/o. We were very close, and I was living 5 minutes away from her so I would visit her daily, sometimes still sleep at her place.
Her hobby was to read the future in some cards she had owned (not tarot cards, but normal cards with some inscriptions she had such as "Encounter with mysterious man" , "Beware, crying child", "Careful, dangerous woman" - I can give you photos of the pack, it's just that the words are in Romanian but I can translate them for you if you wish. Also, I would have to go to my parent's house since I have moved from there and the cards deck remained there.
On the new year morning of 2017 (at 3:15 am) I called my grandma Anna to wish her a happy new year and to let her know how much I and my family loved her and appreciated her. I'd like to mention that Romanians rarely express their love by saying "I love you" to our mothers, fathers, grandparents. We consider that you show your love by what you do in your life and how you respect them rather than just say the words. But that night, for the first time in 23 years (at that time, in 2017) I FELT the need to tell her that, I still don't know why. Her voice changed, you could hear her chuckle in soft happy tears as she would hear that and said she loves us all back and forever will. Nothing seemed suspicious as I am a very sensitive and emotional woman myself so the night went on normally. She was at a party, I was with my fiancee's house.
The next day (1 January 2017 at 17:30 pm) I receive a phone call from my father who told me that grandma Anna had died the previous night. I couldn't express in words how my heart simply left my body, as if my own existence stopped...refusing to aknowledge that she was dead. I rushed home, the police was there, the ambulance was there. They say she died of a heart attack due to the climate change, same as my grandfather Michael did 11 years before her by the same cause (outside it was cold, inside the house it was too hot and as she was rushing to change her clothes, her heart couldn't handle the temperature change, her body couldn't balance the heat...it and she died).
But what I found particularly weird is the TOD (time of death) I still had her last phone call (3:15am). The police men and ambulance staff analised her and declared her TOD was around midnight...they said there was no way I could have talked to her at 3:15 am as for by that time the body would have already began the rigor mortis stage...Who did I talk to? Because it was her phone number, it was her voice, and she seemed incredibly fine. Call it a sick joke or just medical staff TOD error...creepy.
During her funeral, I decided to write her a goodbye letter as I am very spiritual and even though no one will read it, I like to consider she took the message I had for her in Heaven to pass it down to my other grandmother, Margareth and 2 grandfathers (Michael and Peter)
I wrote in that letter that I do love her a lot, that I thank her for every sacrifice she has done for me and that I wish to tell Margareth (the real grandmother which I have never met because she died from an abortion long before I was born) that I love her too although I have never met her.
I put that letter in my grandmother's coffin, kissed her forehead and watched her go on her last road. My mom knows about the letter, she yet has asked me about what I wrote in it.
After her funeral, I get a phone call from my grandmother (yes, my nana ANNA!). At first I thought it was my father as he would still use her phone to let all our relatives from other countries that she has died. So normally, I answer the phone, and I hear something unimaginable...impossible, formidable....I hear my nana Anna...I hear her voice clearly, I hear her laughly voice, with intermitence and static occuring whenever she would pause. It was a soft, fading voice, but nothing scary, nothing fierceful or intimidating. It made me feel like she was indeed there, but I will admit the whole situation did freak me out.
She said to me: "Hello dear, I called to let you know I passed the message and I love you too". I couldn't reply, as the phone call hung up right after....It left me feel so vulnerable as I thought maybe someone is playing a sick joke, but it couldn't be that. I saw my nana be burried myself, I saw the coffin be sealed, I saw the letter EXIST INSIDE the coffin until the very last second. No one took it out to read it. She had 3 sisters, but they were all dead and none of them had her voice. No one could have repeated her voice that perfectly.
But the even scarier part comes after that first phone call. After another week (I remember it was during another day of Monday, right 1 week after the first phone call) my phone starts ringing again under the same number. I answer, already have forgotten about what has happened and I hear an old lady, a voice I couldn't feel familiar, I did not know who that lady was. It was a pretty soft but strong voice, it felt like a relatively young woman...but an experienced? I would say around 30-40 years or so.
I would like to mention that this time I was in the same room with my father (who owned her phone still), and I receive the call...Her phone is in front of me on the table and NOT ringing, I open her phone as I speak on my phone. Her phone had no battery and it was dead closed...but I still get her phone call. I answer..I hear this weird lady, and she goes like this: "Hello sweetheart. You don't know me but I do. I received you message and I love you too" Then the phone call hangs up again...Needless to say I started screaming and panicking so hard that my dad immediately went to the telephone service to find out who is playing pranks on us.
They went through her profile, numbers dialed and received...my number was not in her agenda of calls...So we decided to disable her number. Ever since then we do not receive calls anymore. But I do go to the cemetery more often and talk to them. This year is the first year from her death so we are sort of "celebrating" her memory.
But for me, personally, I do not celebrate her memory as I feel she is constantly physically with me. I often have dreams of her, she would often visit me at nights (I'm saying dreams because I feel like I am going insane if I ever conclude on these situations being something other than dreams)
I guess I am trying to thank you for giving me the possibility to share this with you. If you wanna share my story further, To all the people out there who encounter ghosts or paranormal activity, I am going to say what my grandmother Anna taught me all my life: Do not be afraid of them as they are just confused lost souls, who see you as beams of light helping them to find God. The way YOU feel about them, will conclude in the way they react (and afterwards end up scaring you)

I am a 25 year old female. For the purpose of anonimity I will refer to myself as Sabrina. I am from Romania. English is not my native language but I shall try my best to make the story easy to be understood.
My stories contain what you would call angels, spirits, demons, archangels, satanic people doing forbidden sessions of vodoo and everything but for this particular story, I sort of believe, this is not necessarily a bad encounter, or so I lie to myself, sometimes.
There are many stories that I would love to share with you (you can either decide to share them, I don't mind, but mainly I just wish to talk with someone who has went through what I did and can understand and empathize with it based on your personal experiences)
The one story that I can and will share with you for now ( I need time to think if I'm ready to share the less fortunate experiences for now)
I live in Romania (our country has orthodox religion - basically very similar to Christianity, we believe in God and Jesus Christ, with small certain similarities and differences) For example, idk if it's the same as catholics do, we keep the deceased for a night (we call it the Sleeping Duty or Guard Night). We do not take that body out of it's house he/she has lived in for their entire life in order to help the spirit find it's way to Heaven easier. The next two days (as we bury the bodies after 3 days) we take the body to the church where loved ones (but not relatives) to the deceased may come and pay respects to that person. After this process concluded, we bury the body at the cemetery where the priest will chant prayers helping the spirit of the deceased understand that he/she is no longer among the living as Romanians are very spiritual people and believe in the after life, spirits and even in bad spirits that linger the world unable to move on.
Understanding this is important as the story is pretty detailed itself. I had 5 grandparents (3 grandmothers and 2 grandfathers) My first grandfather, we shall call him Michael, died when I was 6 years old due to a heart attack in august 2007. He raised me and his death marked my life ever since because I couldn't grasp the significance of death. I would frequently dream about him, his messages, his signs, I would hear him in my dreams as he would "guide" me to be a good person and so on. But even then, as a child, I knew what was a dream and what was reality. His wife, whom we shall call Anna, was my adoptive grandmother as my REAL "by-blood" grandmother, name Margareth, has died when my mom was 2 years old due to an abortion (I'm not sure if she was trying to abort my mother or a third child, since my mother has a brother and she was the second child) - during the communist years (1946-1989), Romania had a strict law regarding abortions and women would abort the fetuses on their own, in the privacy of their homes by themselves as no medics would agree to help with the procedure due to fear of being sentenced to life in prison...she died of septycemy and my mother grew up without a mother until the age of 6 years old. Needless to say I never met her or knew anything about Margareth, my blood grandmother)
But this story is about my grandmother (adoptive one) named Anna. She was a very spiritual, wise, kind hearted and intelligent woman. She never had children of her own, she adopted my mom and uncle (their names aren't important for the story). My granfather, Michael, was only dating my grandmother but after my mother had met her on a family visit on her side in Iasi, Moldova (it's a town in Romania) they got married soon after. My grandfather was a military general and raising two children of 6 years and 13 years was hard. How they decided to get married? Well, it was thanks to my mother because as soon as she first saw grandma Anna, she went straight to her, at the age of 6, raised her both arms up at her and asked, in a jolly child voice: "Hi, my name is Cristina, would you like to be my mommy?".
My grandmother burst in tears, picked her up and immediately created a connection with my mother whom she raised and loved as her own. It was not the same for my uncle, as he was 13 at that time and knew his own mother, Margareth had died and why. He denounced her and made her life much much harder. After raising my mom and uncle, my uncle had two children of her own, a boy and a girl. She raised the girl, and when the boy was born she had a calcium crisis that made her faint and hit her head. She refused to raise my cousin afterwards as she was afraid she would drop holding the baby. My uncle never forgave her for that and hated her even more. When I was born, I was the light of their life as she loved my mother from moment one and my grandfather Michael adored my mother. Because I am a replica of my mother, same eyes, same face, same body shape, they immediately took me in and raised me as my father worked in 3 different jobs and my mom was a pediatric nurse and worked in shifts.
I loved growing up with her, like I said, she was an extremely spiritual person. She loved to meditate, she would tell me about her dreams, she taught me how to decode them and what it meant. She told me about ghost encounters she had in her life and always told me not to fear any spirit that comes close to me in my life because ghosts see us a beams of light guiding them to God when they are confused. Yes, that was my grandmother Anna for you. She did this until I was 18 y/o. We were very close, and I was living 5 minutes away from her so I would visit her daily, sometimes still sleep at her place.
Her hobby was to read the future in some cards she had owned (not tarot cards, but normal cards with some inscriptions she had such as "Encounter with mysterious man" , "Beware, crying child", "Careful, dangerous woman" - I can give you photos of the pack, it's just that the words are in Romanian but I can translate them for you if you wish. Also, I would have to go to my parent's house since I have moved from there and the cards deck remained there.
On the new year morning of 2017 (at 3:15 am) I called my grandma Anna to wish her a happy new year and to let her know how much I and my family loved her and appreciated her. I'd like to mention that Romanians rarely express their love by saying "I love you" to our mothers, fathers, grandparents. We consider that you show your love by what you do in your life and how you respect them rather than just say the words. But that night, for the first time in 23 years (at that time, in 2017) I FELT the need to tell her that, I still don't know why. Her voice changed, you could hear her chuckle in soft happy tears as she would hear that and said she loves us all back and forever will. Nothing seemed suspicious as I am a very sensitive and emotional woman myself so the night went on normally. She was at a party, I was with my fiancee's house.
The next day (1 January 2017 at 17:30 pm) I receive a phone call from my father who told me that grandma Anna had died the previous night. I couldn't express in words how my heart simply left my body, as if my own existence stopped...refusing to aknowledge that she was dead. I rushed home, the police was there, the ambulance was there. They say she died of a heart attack due to the climate change, same as my grandfather Michael did 11 years before her by the same cause (outside it was cold, inside the house it was too hot and as she was rushing to change her clothes, her heart couldn't handle the temperature change, her body couldn't balance the heat...it and she died).
But what I found particularly weird is the TOD (time of death) I still had her last phone call (3:15am). The police men and ambulance staff analised her and declared her TOD was around midnight...they said there was no way I could have talked to her at 3:15 am as for by that time the body would have already began the rigor mortis stage...Who did I talk to? Because it was her phone number, it was her voice, and she seemed incredibly fine. Call it a sick joke or just medical staff TOD error...creepy.
During her funeral, I decided to write her a goodbye letter as I am very spiritual and even though no one will read it, I like to consider she took the message I had for her in Heaven to pass it down to my other grandmother, Margareth and 2 grandfathers (Michael and Peter)
I wrote in that letter that I do love her a lot, that I thank her for every sacrifice she has done for me and that I wish to tell Margareth (the real grandmother which I have never met because she died from an abortion long before I was born) that I love her too although I have never met her.
I put that letter in my grandmother's coffin, kissed her forehead and watched her go on her last road. My mom knows about the letter, she yet has asked me about what I wrote in it.
After her funeral, I get a phone call from my grandmother (yes, my nana ANNA!). At first I thought it was my father as he would still use her phone to let all our relatives from other countries that she has died. So normally, I answer the phone, and I hear something unimaginable...impossible, formidable....I hear my nana Anna...I hear her voice clearly, I hear her laughly voice, with intermitence and static occuring whenever she would pause. It was a soft, fading voice, but nothing scary, nothing fierceful or intimidating. It made me feel like she was indeed there, but I will admit the whole situation did freak me out.
She said to me: "Hello dear, I called to let you know I passed the message and I love you too". I couldn't reply, as the phone call hung up right after....It left me feel so vulnerable as I thought maybe someone is playing a sick joke, but it couldn't be that. I saw my nana be burried myself, I saw the coffin be sealed, I saw the letter EXIST INSIDE the coffin until the very last second. No one took it out to read it. She had 3 sisters, but they were all dead and none of them had her voice. No one could have repeated her voice that perfectly.
But the even scarier part comes after that first phone call. After another week (I remember it was during another day of Monday, right 1 week after the first phone call) my phone starts ringing again under the same number. I answer, already have forgotten about what has happened and I hear an old lady, a voice I couldn't feel familiar, I did not know who that lady was. It was a pretty soft but strong voice, it felt like a relatively young woman...but an experienced? I would say around 30-40 years or so.
I would like to mention that this time I was in the same room with my father (who owned her phone still), and I receive the call...Her phone is in front of me on the table and NOT ringing, I open her phone as I speak on my phone. Her phone had no battery and it was dead closed...but I still get her phone call. I answer..I hear this weird lady, and she goes like this: "Hello sweetheart. You don't know me but I do. I received you message and I love you too" Then the phone call hangs up again...Needless to say I started screaming and panicking so hard that my dad immediately went to the telephone service to find out who is playing pranks on us.
They went through her profile, numbers dialed and received...my number was not in her agenda of calls...So we decided to disable her number. Ever since then we do not receive calls anymore. But I do go to the cemetery more often and talk to them. This year is the first year from her death so we are sort of "celebrating" her memory.
But for me, personally, I do not celebrate her memory as I feel she is constantly physically with me. I often have dreams of her, she would often visit me at nights (I'm saying dreams because I feel like I am going insane if I ever conclude on these situations being something other than dreams)
I guess I am trying to thank you for giving me the possibility to share this with you. If you wanna share my story further, To all the people out there who encounter ghosts or paranormal activity, I am going to say what my grandmother Anna taught me all my life: Do not be afraid of them as they are just confused lost souls, who see you as beams of light helping them to find God. The way YOU feel about them, will conclude in the way they react (and afterwards end up scaring you)

I am a 25 year old female. For the purpose of anonimity I will refer to myself as Sabrina. I am from Romania. English is not my native language but I shall try my best to make the story easy to be understood.
My stories contain what you would call angels, spirits, demons, archangels, satanic people doing forbidden sessions of vodoo and everything but for this particular story, I sort of believe, this is not necessarily a bad encounter, or so I lie to myself, sometimes.
There are many stories that I would love to share with you (you can either decide to share them, I don't mind, but mainly I just wish to talk with someone who has went through what I did and can understand and empathize with it based on your personal experiences)
The one story that I can and will share with you for now ( I need time to think if I'm ready to share the less fortunate experiences for now)
I live in Romania (our country has orthodox religion - basically very similar to Christianity, we believe in God and Jesus Christ, with small certain similarities and differences) For example, idk if it's the same as catholics do, we keep the deceased for a night (we call it the Sleeping Duty or Guard Night). We do not take that body out of it's house he/she has lived in for their entire life in order to help the spirit find it's way to Heaven easier. The next two days (as we bury the bodies after 3 days) we take the body to the church where loved ones (but not relatives) to the deceased may come and pay respects to that person. After this process concluded, we bury the body at the cemetery where the priest will chant prayers helping the spirit of the deceased understand that he/she is no longer among the living as Romanians are very spiritual people and believe in the after life, spirits and even in bad spirits that linger the world unable to move on.
Understanding this is important as the story is pretty detailed itself. I had 5 grandparents (3 grandmothers and 2 grandfathers) My first grandfather, we shall call him Michael, died when I was 6 years old due to a heart attack in august 2007. He raised me and his death marked my life ever since because I couldn't grasp the significance of death. I would frequently dream about him, his messages, his signs, I would hear him in my dreams as he would "guide" me to be a good person and so on. But even then, as a child, I knew what was a dream and what was reality. His wife, whom we shall call Anna, was my adoptive grandmother as my REAL "by-blood" grandmother, name Margareth, has died when my mom was 2 years old due to an abortion (I'm not sure if she was trying to abort my mother or a third child, since my mother has a brother and she was the second child) - during the communist years (1946-1989), Romania had a strict law regarding abortions and women would abort the fetuses on their own, in the privacy of their homes by themselves as no medics would agree to help with the procedure due to fear of being sentenced to life in prison...she died of septycemy and my mother grew up without a mother until the age of 6 years old. Needless to say I never met her or knew anything about Margareth, my blood grandmother)
But this story is about my grandmother (adoptive one) named Anna. She was a very spiritual, wise, kind hearted and intelligent woman. She never had children of her own, she adopted my mom and uncle (their names aren't important for the story). My granfather, Michael, was only dating my grandmother but after my mother had met her on a family visit on her side in Iasi, Moldova (it's a town in Romania) they got married soon after. My grandfather was a military general and raising two children of 6 years and 13 years was hard. How they decided to get married? Well, it was thanks to my mother because as soon as she first saw grandma Anna, she went straight to her, at the age of 6, raised her both arms up at her and asked, in a jolly child voice: "Hi, my name is Cristina, would you like to be my mommy?". My grandmother burst in tears, picked her up and immediately created a connection with my mother whom she raised and loved as her own. It was not the same for my uncle, as he was 13 at that time and knew his own mother, Margareth had died and why. He denounced her and made her life much much harder. After raising my mom and uncle, my uncle had two children of her own, a boy and a girl. She raised the girl, and when the boy was born she had a calcium crisis that made her faint and hit her head. She refused to raise my cousin afterwards as she was afraid she would drop holding the baby. My uncle never forgave her for that and hated her even more. When I was born, I was the light of their life as she loved my mother from moment one and my grandfather Michael adored my mother. Because I am a replica of my mother, same eyes, same face, same body shape, they immediately took me in and raised me as my father worked in 3 different jobs and my mom was a pediatric nurse and worked in shifts. I loved growing up with her, like I said, she was an extremely spiritual person. She loved to meditate, she would tell me about her dreams, she taught me how to decode them and what it meant. She told me about ghost encounters she had in her life and always told me not to fear any spirit that comes close to me in my life because ghosts see us a beams of light guiding them to God when they are confused. Yes, that was my grandmother Anna for you. She did this until I was 18 y/o. We were very close, and I was living 5 minutes away from her so I would visit her daily, sometimes still sleep at her place.
Her hobby was to read the future in some cards she had owned (not tarot cards, but normal cards with some inscriptions she had such as "Encounter with mysterious man" , "Beware, crying child", "Careful, dangerous woman" - I can give you photos of the pack, it's just that the words are in Romanian but I can translate them for you if you wish. Also, I would have to go to my parent's house since I have moved from there and the cards deck remained there.
On the new year morning of 2017 (at 3:15 am) I called my grandma Anna to wish her a happy new year and to let her know how much I and my family loved her and appreciated her. I'd like to mention that Romanians rarely express their love by saying "I love you" to our mothers, fathers, grandparents. We consider that you show your love by what you do in your life and how you respect them rather than just say the words. But that night, for the first time in 23 years (at that time, in 2017) I FELT the need to tell her that, I still don't know why. Her voice changed, you could hear her chuckle in soft happy tears as she would hear that and said she loves us all back and forever will. Nothing seemed suspicious as I am a very sensitive and emotional woman myself so the night went on normally. She was at a party, I was with my fiancee's house.
The next day (1 January 2017 at 17:30 pm) I receive a phone call from my father who told me that grandma Anna had died the previous night. I couldn't express in words how my heart simply left my body, as if my own existence stopped...refusing to aknowledge that she was dead. I rushed home, the police was there, the ambulance was there. They say she died of a heart attack due to the climate change, same as my grandfather Michael did 11 years before her by the same cause (outside it was cold, inside the house it was too hot and as she was rushing to change her clothes, her heart couldn't handle the temperature change, her body couldn't balance the heat...it and she died).
But what I found particularly weird is the TOD (time of death) I still had her last phone call (3:15am). The police men and ambulance staff analised her and declared her TOD was around midnight...they said there was no way I could have talked to her at 3:15 am as for by that time the body would have already began the rigor mortis stage...Who did I talk to? Because it was her phone number, it was her voice, and she seemed incredibly fine. Call it a sick joke or just medical staff TOD error...creepy.
During her funeral, I decided to write her a goodbye letter as I am very spiritual and even though no one will read it, I like to consider she took the message I had for her in Heaven to pass it down to my other grandmother, Margareth and 2 grandfathers (Michael and Peter)
I wrote in that letter that I do love her a lot, that I thank her for every sacrifice she has done for me and that I wish to tell Margareth (the real grandmother which I have never met because she died from an abortion long before I was born) that I love her too although I have never met her.
I put that letter in my grandmother's coffin, kissed her forehead and watched her go on her last road. My mom knows about the letter, she yet has asked me about what I wrote in it.
After her funeral, I get a phone call from my grandmother (yes, my nana ANNA!). At first I thought it was my father as he would still use her phone to let all our relatives from other countries that she has died. So normally, I answer the phone, and I hear something unimaginable...impossible, formidable....I hear my nana Anna...I hear her voice clearly, I hear her laughly voice, with intermitence and static occuring whenever she would pause. It was a soft, fading voice, but nothing scary, nothing fierceful or intimidating. It made me feel like she was indeed there, but I will admit the whole situation did freak me out. She said to me: "Hello dear, I called to let you know I passed the message and I love you too". I couldn't reply, as the phone call hung up right after....It left me feel so vulnerable as I thought maybe someone is playing a sick joke, but it couldn't be that. I saw my nana be burried myself, I saw the coffin be sealed, I saw the letter EXIST INSIDE the coffin until the very last second. No one took it out to read it. She had 3 sisters, but they were all dead and none of them had her voice. No one could have repeated her voice that perfectly.
But the even scarier part comes after that first phone call. After another week (I remember it was during another day of Monday, right 1 week after the first phone call) my phone starts ringing again under the same number. I answer, already have forgotten about what has happened and I hear an old lady, a voice I couldn't feel familiar, I did not know who that lady was. It was a pretty soft but strong voice, it felt like a relatively young woman...but an experienced? I would say around 30-40 years or so.
I would like to mention that this time I was in the same room with my father (who owned her phone still), and I receive the call...Her phone is in front of me on the table and NOT ringing, I open her phone as I speak on my phone. Her phone had no battery and it was dead closed...but I still get her phone call. I answer..I hear this weird lady, and she goes like this: "Hello sweetheart. You don't know me but I do. I received you message and I love you too" Then the phone call hangs up again...Needless to say I started screaming and panicking so hard that my dad immediately went to the telephone service to find out who is playing pranks on us. They went through her profile, numbers dialed and received...my number was not in her agenda of calls...So we decided to disable her number. Ever since then we do not receive calls anymore. But I do go to the cemetery more often and talk to them. This year is the first year from her death so we are sort of "celebrating" her memory.
But for me, personally, I do not celebrate her memory as I feel she is constantly physically with me. I often have dreams of her, she would often visit me at nights (I'm saying dreams because I feel like I am going insane if I ever conclude on these situations being something other than dreams)
I guess I am trying to thank you for giving me the possibility to share this with you. If you wanna share my story further, To all the people out there who encounter ghosts or paranormal activity, I am going to say what my grandmother Anna taught me all my life: Do not be afraid of them as they are just confused lost souls, who see you as beams of light helping them to find God. The way YOU feel about them, will conclude in the way they react (and afterwards end up scaring you)

I am a 25 year old female. For the purpose of anonimity I will refer to myself as Sabrina. I am from Romania. English is not my native language but I shall try my best to make the story easy to be understood.
My stories contain what you would call angels, spirits, demons, archangels, satanic people doing forbidden sessions of vodoo and everything but for this particular story, I sort of believe, this is not necessarily a bad encounter, or so I lie to myself, sometimes.
There are many stories that I would love to share with you (you can either decide to share them, I don't mind, but mainly I just wish to talk with someone who has went through what I did and can understand and empathize with it based on your personal experiences)
The one story that I can and will share with you for now ( I need time to think if I'm ready to share the less fortunate experiences for now)
I live in Romania (our country has orthodox religion - basically very similar to Christianity, we believe in God and Jesus Christ, with small certain similarities and differences) For example, idk if it's the same as catholics do, we keep the deceased for a night (we call it the Sleeping Duty or Guard Night). We do not take that body out of it's house he/she has lived in for their entire life in order to help the spirit find it's way to Heaven easier. The next two days (as we bury the bodies after 3 days) we take the body to the church where loved ones (but not relatives) to the deceased may come and pay respects to that person. After this process concluded, we bury the body at the cemetery where the priest will chant prayers helping the spirit of the deceased understand that he/she is no longer among the living as Romanians are very spiritual people and believe in the after life, spirits and even in bad spirits that linger the world unable to move on.
Understanding this is important as the story is pretty detailed itself. I had 5 grandparents (3 grandmothers and 2 grandfathers) My first grandfather, we shall call him Michael, died when I was 6 years old due to a heart attack in august 2007. He raised me and his death marked my life ever since because I couldn't grasp the significance of death. I would frequently dream about him, his messages, his signs, I would hear him in my dreams as he would "guide" me to be a good person and so on. But even then, as a child, I knew what was a dream and what was reality. His wife, whom we shall call Anna, was my adoptive grandmother as my REAL "by-blood" grandmother, name Margareth, has died when my mom was 2 years old due to an abortion (I'm not sure if she was trying to abort my mother or a third child, since my mother has a brother and she was the second child) - during the communist years (1946-1989), Romania had a strict law regarding abortions and women would abort the fetuses on their own, in the privacy of their homes by themselves as no medics would agree to help with the procedure due to fear of being sentenced to life in prison...she died of septycemy and my mother grew up without a mother until the age of 6 years old. Needless to say I never met her or knew anything about Margareth, my blood grandmother)
But this story is about my grandmother (adoptive one) named Anna. She was a very spiritual, wise, kind hearted and intelligent woman. She never had children of her own, she adopted my mom and uncle (their names aren't important for the story). My granfather, Michael, was only dating my grandmother but after my mother had met her on a family visit on her side in Iasi, Moldova (it's a town in Romania) they got married soon after. My grandfather was a military general and raising two children of 6 years and 13 years was hard. How they decided to get married? Well, it was thanks to my mother because as soon as she first saw grandma Anna, she went straight to her, at the age of 6, raised her both arms up at her and asked, in a jolly child voice: "Hi, my name is Cristina, would you like to be my mommy?". My grandmother burst in tears, picked her up and immediately created a connection with my mother whom she raised and loved as her own. It was not the same for my uncle, as he was 13 at that time and knew his own mother, Margareth had died and why. He denounced her and made her life much much harder. After raising my mom and uncle, my uncle had two children of her own, a boy and a girl. She raised the girl, and when the boy was born she had a calcium crisis that made her faint and hit her head. She refused to raise my cousin afterwards as she was afraid she would drop holding the baby. My uncle never forgave her for that and hated her even more. When I was born, I was the light of their life as she loved my mother from moment one and my grandfather Michael adored my mother. Because I am a replica of my mother, same eyes, same face, same body shape, they immediately took me in and raised me as my father worked in 3 different jobs and my mom was a pediatric nurse and worked in shifts. I loved growing up with her, like I said, she was an extremely spiritual person. She loved to meditate, she would tell me about her dreams, she taught me how to decode them and what it meant. She told me about ghost encounters she had in her life and always told me not to fear any spirit that comes close to me in my life because ghosts see us a beams of light guiding them to God when they are confused. Yes, that was my grandmother Anna for you. She did this until I was 18 y/o. We were very close, and I was living 5 minutes away from her so I would visit her daily, sometimes still sleep at her place.
Her hobby was to read the future in some cards she had owned (not tarot cards, but normal cards with some inscriptions she had such as "Encounter with mysterious man" , "Beware, crying child", "Careful, dangerous woman" - I can give you photos of the pack, it's just that the words are in Romanian but I can translate them for you if you wish. Also, I would have to go to my parent's house since I have moved from there and the cards deck remained there.
On the new year morning of 2017 (at 3:15 am) I called my grandma Anna to wish her a happy new year and to let her know how much I and my family loved her and appreciated her. I'd like to mention that Romanians rarely express their love by saying "I love you" to our mothers, fathers, grandparents. We consider that you show your love by what you do in your life and how you respect them rather than just say the words. But that night, for the first time in 23 years (at that time, in 2017) I FELT the need to tell her that, I still don't know why. Her voice changed, you could hear her chuckle in soft happy tears as she would hear that and said she loves us all back and forever will. Nothing seemed suspicious as I am a very sensitive and emotional woman myself so the night went on normally. She was at a party, I was with my fiancee's house.
The next day (1 January 2017 at 17:30 pm) I receive a phone call from my father who told me that grandma Anna had died the previous night. I couldn't express in words how my heart simply left my body, as if my own existence stopped...refusing to aknowledge that she was dead. I rushed home, the police was there, the ambulance was there. They say she died of a heart attack due to the climate change, same as my grandfather Michael did 11 years before her by the same cause (outside it was cold, inside the house it was too hot and as she was rushing to change her clothes, her heart couldn't handle the temperature change, her body couldn't balance the heat...it and she died).
But what I found particularly weird is the TOD (time of death) I still had her last phone call (3:15am). The police men and ambulance staff analised her and declared her TOD was around midnight...they said there was no way I could have talked to her at 3:15 am as for by that time the body would have already began the rigor mortis stage...Who did I talk to? Because it was her phone number, it was her voice, and she seemed incredibly fine. Call it a sick joke or just medical staff TOD error...creepy.
During her funeral, I decided to write her a goodbye letter as I am very spiritual and even though no one will read it, I like to consider she took the message I had for her in Heaven to pass it down to my other grandmother, Margareth and 2 grandfathers (Michael and Peter)
I wrote in that letter that I do love her a lot, that I thank her for every sacrifice she has done for me and that I wish to tell Margareth (the real grandmother which I have never met because she died from an abortion long before I was born) that I love her too although I have never met her.
I put that letter in my grandmother's coffin, kissed her forehead and watched her go on her last road. My mom knows about the letter, she yet has asked me about what I wrote in it.
After her funeral, I get a phone call from my grandmother (yes, my nana ANNA!). At first I thought it was my father as he would still use her phone to let all our relatives from other countries that she has died. So normally, I answer the phone, and I hear something unimaginable...impossible, formidable....I hear my nana Anna...I hear her voice clearly, I hear her laughly voice, with intermitence and static occuring whenever she would pause. It was a soft, fading voice, but nothing scary, nothing fierceful or intimidating. It made me feel like she was indeed there, but I will admit the whole situation did freak me out. She said to me: "Hello dear, I called to let you know I passed the message and I love you too". I couldn't reply, as the phone call hung up right after....It left me feel so vulnerable as I thought maybe someone is playing a sick joke, but it couldn't be that. I saw my nana be burried myself, I saw the coffin be sealed, I saw the letter EXIST INSIDE the coffin until the very last second. No one took it out to read it. She had 3 sisters, but they were all dead and none of them had her voice. No one could have repeated her voice that perfectly.
But the even scarier part comes after that first phone call. After another week (I remember it was during another day of Monday, right 1 week after the first phone call) my phone starts ringing again under the same number. I answer, already have forgotten about what has happened and I hear an old lady, a voice I couldn't feel familiar, I did not know who that lady was. It was a pretty soft but strong voice, it felt like a relatively young woman...but an experienced? I would say around 30-40 years or so.
I would like to mention that this time I was in the same room with my father (who owned her phone still), and I receive the call...Her phone is in front of me on the table and NOT ringing, I open her phone as I speak on my phone. Her phone had no battery and it was dead closed...but I still get her phone call. I answer..I hear this weird lady, and she goes like this: "Hello sweetheart. You don't know me but I do. I received you message and I love you too" Then the phone call hangs up again...Needless to say I started screaming and panicking so hard that my dad immediately went to the telephone service to find out who is playing pranks on us. They went through her profile, numbers dialed and received...my number was not in her agenda of calls...So we decided to disable her number. Ever since then we do not receive calls anymore. But I do go to the cemetery more often and talk to them. This year is the first year from her death so we are sort of "celebrating" her memory.
But for me, personally, I do not celebrate her memory as I feel she is constantly physically with me. I often have dreams of her, she would often visit me at nights (I'm saying dreams because I feel like I am going insane if I ever conclude on these situations being something other than dreams)
I guess I am trying to thank you for giving me the possibility to share this with you. If you wanna share my story further, To all the people out there who encounter ghosts or paranormal activity, I am going to say what my grandmother Anna taught me all my life: Do not be afraid of them as they are just confused lost souls, who see you as beams of light helping them to find God. The way YOU feel about them, will conclude in the way they react (and afterwards end up scaring you)

So this update is much more delayed than I intended but its because I decided to lay my petty on extra thick today. More on that in a minute.
So first I have to tell you about the low down dirty bullshit Weeping Willow pulled before we even left the house.
She called DH and left a voicemail for him to call them back ASAP. We were showing and getting ready to leave when they called so as soon as we were both dressed and I was packing the diaper bag he stepped out to call them back, thinking something was wrong.
WW called him just to say hello and then put him on hold while she loudly gushed to Grandfather about SIL and DN. After a minute or two, DH just hung up and was absolutely pissed.
Originally we were going to just keep DS in some warm jammies bc it was cold, but after that DH said "Hell no, I'm dressing him up because everyone loves him when he's just casual, but when he's dressed up they can't help themselves!!"
We head out to Godfathers house while fave AIL and my goddaughter were out getting their hair cut because we all knew photos would abound(my hair and make up were on point, which is always a whammy bc I hardly ever do anything with that stuff but for extra special occasions). We're sitting there relaxing and suddenly WW calls DH back. Suddenly they have a (insert bullshit reason or two) to leave but BIL and SIL are still there at FM AILs house. Not five seconds later GF gets a call from AIL saying that Grandfather is really tired so FMAIL is just going to make tacos and have everyone there.
Now lets pause for a moment. There are two reasons (I believe) WW wanted to leave in such a hurry. 1)She knew our arrival on what she thought was going to be her turf was eminent. 2)She knew fave AIL was en route as well and she takes zero shit from WW, and will crash bomb any attempt WW makes to hold court.
I found that in and of itselt justice, but wait! There's more!
We arrive to FM AILs house and fave AIL is already there, we make a b-line for DH's Grandfather and love, hugs, oooos and ahhhhhs abound. I had made salt dough foot impression ornaments of DS's foot and painted them the day before (one for Grandfather to take back to Native Country as a keepsake/momento and one for fave AIL). I presented the ornament to Grandfather and told him in my best Spanish that we had made it for him. He beamed with pride, and I later learned he immediately stuck the ornament into his pocket after looking at it with heartfelt love.
Fave AIL takes a very hungry DS off to the side to give him the bottle I packed, and shoos us to join Grandfather at the table to eat since we are later arrivals. We sit and talk and laugh. At one point Grandfather had DH aside and told him he thought I was lovely (both in that I seemed very nice and was very pretty), and they shot the shit about Grandfathers adventures hunting this year.
FM AIL was originally up to her usual tactics. Very short and curt, just enough to pass as culturally polite in front of her father, but still ice cold. That is until I was still seated at the table talking with my Goddaughters, both of whom are a but introverted but we get along smashingly so they were out of their shell a bit more than usual so I had that going for me already with her. She sees my empty plate and asks if I would like more, but she asks me in broken English so I respond in Spanish with a "yes please, its very delicious, thank you" to which both my Goddaughters whipped their head around and started to praise how eloquent and polite my Spanish was while they are native speakers, then they began playful jesting about how poorly they feel they are doing in their respective Spanish classes. I thought I caught a smile on FM AIL but I couldnt be sure.
It was a small house and a lot of people, so to avoid the claustrophobic anxiety I typically get, I stayed in the kitchen with the girls while DH, Grandfather, Godfather,etc rotated in and out. Sometimes an aunt or DH would sweep DS off to play or have a teething cookie/food pouch I brought (Idk why but people are memorized to watch him eat).
During one of Grandfather's rounds into the kitchen i had DS in my lap because he wanted some cuddles. Granfather paused to make a speech to fave AIL and FM AIL about his beautiful big family, motiontion to his daughters, the girls, and MyTH and I each time saying "beautiful!"
And who wasn't part of that beautiful speech?! Weeping Willow.
Grandfather eventually asked about the age difference between Ds and DN, to which DH replied that they are exactly a month and a day. Grandfather started to gush about how big, and healthy DS was, how sturdy his posture, and how well behaved he was for his age. FMAIL took that opportunity to ask about DS's rather unique nickname that we call him by adding a letter to his initials. She had gotten his first and middle name mixed up so DH explained his first name is (DH's middle name that he has only ever gone by bc his first name is super common) and his middle name was (insert name of our priest). He explained how the initials spell out with the extra letter, and tada super cute and unique nickname.
Grandfather beamed and gave DH a hearty shake on the shoulder saying "That's my boy!!"
We took photos, ate, hung out, had some tequila with Grandfather and when DS just couldnt last any longer we decided it was time to head home, as it was well past bedtime. Grandfather gave me a kiss on the cheek and a hug, asking me to take care of DS and especially DH for him. I promised him I would take the best care of both of our boys.
FM AIL caught me on the way out and it was night and day with her. For the first time she looked genuine towards me. I thanked her for everything to which she replied "thank me for what? You are family!" And she too gave me a kiss on the cheek ans a hug.
So that's how badly the attempt to ruin Grandfathers visit for us out of petty revenge went for Weeping Willow.
But wait...There's still more!
I woke up today feeling rather triumphant. So when I touched base with Bar Villa (my JNmom) she informed me she was in a weird mood to cook. Now Bar Villa is terrible at a bunch of shit, and if you force her to cook its garbage but if she goes on a cooking spree because she just feels like it, look out because its bomb. I did not feel like cooking and I could not in all good conscience order Uber Eats for a fifth time this weekend. So I had an idea...
Visit Bar Villa for a rare treat. Let her mom and SDad see and fawn over DS, and take looooaaaaddddsss of pictures.
After how well the visit yesterday went keeping my wits about Bar Villa would be a walk in the park, and a carp load of adorable pictures of her and DS to shove in Weeping Willows face were icing on my weekend victory cake.
I mean I would love to say I had the devious drive to go an hour away for those photos, but in all honesty I really just wanted to eat without cooking and cleaning up. But oooohhhh those photos are the extra little jewels in my waterfall hair after last night.
Weeping Willow knows well about the trials with Bar Villa and all the ups and downs. Its going to stick right up her little ass to see she got time with DS this weekend and she hasn't seen him since her non apology!

This response is for image #3 in this set: http://www.inspirefirst.com/2013/10/25/full-steam-antonio-caparo/
"Ok, that's it. I'm done looking at these books." Luto slammed the heavy tome shut revealing large embossed letters on the cover: Marine Creatures and Where to Find Them. The 3D projection of a large fish winked out of existence
"C'mon Luto, you know what Grandpa said. We need to finish our lessons, he will see that we didn't get all the way through it!" Norah said, concerned. She was still manipulating a diagram of a water molecule as she spoke.
"I am tired of sitting in this dusty library all day. It has been nothing but studies since we got here and I want to see the rest of the ship. I mean, just look outside," Luto gestured to the porthole nearby and Norah gazed at the fish plying the murky depths. "Why learn about it in a book when we can see the real thing!" Norah hesitated, and Luto recognized the look of the wheels turning in her head. It was the look she always got right before she agreed to go along with whatever mischief he had suggested.
"Fine Luto, but I am coming because I want to see the rest of the ship too, not because you convinced me," she placed her hands on her hips and pursed her lips defiantly. "What are we going to do about our lessons though. Grandpa will have a fit if he figures out that we skipped them."
"Don't worry dear sister, I have already thought of that!" Luto proclaimed triumphantly. "Give me your goggles I have a brilliant idea."
A few moments later a bust of the late Captain Nemo, first skipper of the Nautilus was wearing Luto's goggles and intently staring at the lessons being projected towards them. The goggles reflected the projections as if they were a pair of eyes belonging to an attentive student.
"Haha it worked, we fooled it!" Luto shouted in victory.
"All right hush now. Let's get out of here before someone comes to check up on us." Norah was now fully committed to the adventure, and any semblance of wanting to be the dutiful student was now gone.
The children dashed out of the library doors and down one of the attached corridor. They had been on the Nautilus for only a few days now, but they knew the areas around their chambers and the library quite well. This familiar territory was far too mundane for today's adventure, so they passed through quickly heading towards the bowels of the ship, and more mysterious areas to explore.
The Nautilus was a gigantic ship. It was home to over a thousand sailors, not to mention about five hundred or so civilians, mostly scientists, who were busy doing important research. It was a veritable floating city, and it was a source of endless wonder for the children, but it could feel very lonely at times. Their grandfather was the captain of the great ship, and as such their time with him had been scarce since they came on board. There were also precious few children on board, and those others that were made their homes in the civilian quarters, since the sailors were not permitted to bring their families on board.
The children were not thinking about their seclusion when they rounded a corner that approached the greenhouse though. Their minds were occupied with the spirit of exploration, the same spirit that moved the men and women of the ship to spend their days thousands of leagues below the surface of the ocean. When Luto threw open the door to the greenhouse he and his sister gasped in awe.
"Wow Luto, this place is amazing!"
The children looked out into an immense chamber, several stories high and at nearly half a league across. It was filled to the brim with plants of all sizes, shapes and descriptions. There were giant blooms of fungi, trees hung with jungle vines, a hundred varieties of cacti, gourds, flowers, and fruit trees that the children had never seen before. They were also hundreds of automatons buzzing to and fro attending to the plants by spraying water, trimming branches, and picking ripe fruit. There were also people moving about, monitoring the work of the automatons and taking notes or making measurements.
"Let's go Norah, just make sure none of the grown-ups notice us," Luto said with an impish grin. The children took of at a run, laughing despite the fact that they were trying to remain hidden. They plunged through an artificial jungle wondering at the fact that all of this could exist in the bowels of the massive ship. Luto found a stout vine hanging from a gnarled tree that he swung from like an ape, while Norah picked a series of beautiful white flowers and wove them into a chain. They continued on to find a tree bearing a delicious fruit that appeared to be a pear, but tasted more like a tart strawberry. They were so lost in the reverie of their discovery that they nearly didn't notice when they heard voices coming down the path from the direction they had just traveled in.
"Uh oh, that sounds like a lot of people," Norah worried.
"Shoot we have to find somewhere to hide," Luto said looking around frantically. The foliage was not as dense in this area as it had been, and there was nothing that would conceal them completely. Just as they were ready to give up and make a run for it Norah's eyes alighted upon a door in the wall, partially concealed by a tangled bush. Painted words on it read "Authorized Personnel Only".
"We could try that door." She pointed at her discovery.
"Yeah lets hurry!" They approached the door and found it wouldn't budge. "Oh no it is locked. ...Wait Norah, do you still have your skeleton key?"
"What kind of adventurer would I be if I didn't," Norah said with a grin, producing a slim metal rod from her pocket. She inserted it into the keyhole and it whirred and clicked, spinning and shifting slowly. After a few moments there was a satisfying metallic sound and the door popped open. The children ducked inside just as the voices were approaching.
"Whew that was close,"
"Hush Luto, they will hear us." The muffled voices of their unaware pursuers got closer and closer to the door until they could finally make out what they were saying.
"...was saying, I just don't know how much longer we can keep this a secret. This 'lab' of yours drains an enormous amount of power and the engineers are starting to take notice," said a gruff authoritative voice.
"I believe that keeping our work here a secret is your job Lieutenant, and my job is to actually gather the data that is so vital to the advancement of our species." This voice was much softer and higher pitched, but there was a dangerous edge to it. The children heard the sound of a key in the latch and Luto motioned to Norah for them to duck behind a bank of machinery. The room was very dark and they couldn't see what they were hiding behind.
"I assure you Lieutenant, I will be done with this specimen in a manner of days. They we can dispose of it, and your men can disassemble all of my equipment. Give me a little more time to get what I need and your part in this business will be done." The voice belonged to a hunched, slight man who was wearing civilian clothes. He had a pair of goggles like Norah's, but they were much bigger with a wide variety of overlapping lenses and they gave his eyes a bug-like quality.
"Very well Doctor, but we are extending past the original terms of our agreement. I expect to be compensated appropriately for the additional time." The gruff voice was coming from a man that Norah and Luto recognized. He was Lieutenant Sasson, one of their Granfather's officers. They had only met him once but his mechanical eyepatch was unmistakable. "I will leave you to it then, but please do try to stay within the voltage limits that we set forth at the outset of this endeavor. It will make things easier on the both of us."
The Doctor waited until the Lieutenant was out of the door before muttering, "Short sighted fool. He doesn't understand the importance of my work does he my dear." As he said this he flicked a switch and lights and machinery hummed to life in the room. In this new illumination the children managed to stay hidden, and they realized that what they were concealed behind was actually a large tank of water, like an aquarium. The contents of the aquarium were so startling that Norah had to cover Luto's mouth to keep him from gasping in shock.
There was a large creature suspended in the water. It looked humanoid in shape, but in was covered in scales. Where the ears met the neck were a set of gills slowly puling open and closed. Instead of hair on top of the head were a ridge of fins that ran down the back of the neck, and the things fingers and toes were connected by a thick translucent webbing. It had a long tail that was also surrounded by a ridge of fins. As the doctor turned around and busied himself with a series of levers and dials the creature turned to face the children. It gazed directly at them with eyes that were pitch black, like the deepest part of the ocean at night. Then it spoke in a voice that they could only hear in their minds.
"You should leave little ones. It will not be good for you if that evil man finds you here." The voice echoed like some kind of ethereal spirit, and the children didn't need any kind of indication to know that the creature was referring to the doctor.
"I shall distract him. Leave while you can!" As the creature said this it looked towards the Doctor and a fierce concentration came over its face. They were aware of a slight buzzing sound, and suddenly the Doctor fell to his knees seemingly stricken with pain.
Luto and Norah scrambled quickly to the door, and as they were leaving they could hear the Doctor's voice. "I thought we had broken you of that annoying habit my dear. It looks like you still need some lessons in manners!" This was followed by a loud electrical sound and a piercing cry that was cut off as they shut the door behind them. They ran without talking to each other until they were back in the safety of the library.