Character Creation:

PC
Reddit Account: AnotherBabyEchidna
Discord Tag: thebrundun
Name and House: Willem Ryger
Age: 45
Cultural Group: RiverlandeValemen
Appearance: Willem Ryger always seems to have a coy smile about him, accentuated by his strong jawline and sharp cheekbones. His curly light brown hair has begun to thin, though his pronounced brows remain strong. Standing around six feet tall, his posture always exudes confidence, and his near-yellow brown eyes always seem to be hiding a secret or a joke.
Trait: Mastermind
Skill(s): Assassin (e), Covert (e), Devious
Talent(s): Philosophising, Carousing, Gambling
Negative Trait(s): n/a
Starting Title(s): Lord of Willow Wood, Ser
Starting Location: King’s Landing
Alternate Characters: n/a

Bio-Timeline:

• 20 BC: Willem is born into the cursed bloodline of House Ryger to Willow and Ryman Ryger. House Ryger has long kept their curse a secret to the outside world. As the story goes, at the birth of every Ryger there is a new weeping willow sprouted in their willow forests and the health of the weeping willow is said to be directly tied to the health of the Ryger.
• 18 BC: Willem’s brother, Marq, is born.
• 10 BC: Willem is sent to ward under Vance of Wayfarer’s Rest at the behest of his grandfather Lord Leo Ryger who detests the idea of his disappointment of a son raising the eventual heir of Willow Wood.
• 8 BC: Willem makes quick friends with Beck Bracken, also warding at Wayfarer’s rest, though he takes a special liking to his sister, Perra, and a childhood crush forms.
• 2 BC: Willem is knighted but the event is overshadowed by the capitulation of the Vances to Aegon the Conqueror. He returns home to Willow Wood where his grandfather informs him of the family curse and in order to avoid the curse he is sent to The Eyrie to join their court, quickly earning their trust and his outsider perspective and connections are used in the capacity of Master of the Thresholds. Also during this time his first son, a bastard named Rickard, is revealed to him. Despite the child being of common birth and mute, Willem takes him in to raise him as his own, though much of the raising is done by his servants.
• 1 BC: Funnily enough, similar to how Willem was present when King Aegon landed at Wayfarer’s Rest, Queen Visenya lands at The Eyrie, and Willem is one of the few advisors to Sharra to counsel bending the knee.
• 1 AC: Willem Ryger weds Lynese Hightower, though his true love is still Perra Bracken yet he spares her his family curse by not wedding her. Later in the year his first trueborn daughter is born and named Roslyn. Additionally, his nephew, Robyn, is born, and the pair of Robyn and Roslyn are inseparable.
• 2 AC: Willem and Lynese have another child and name her Mya.
• 5 AC: Willem and Lynese have their last child together, naming their son Myles, though the curse claims Lynese’s life shortly after his birth. After her death, his life of debauchery begins and he begins his yearly parties for the elite of Westeros. Another nephew, Addam, is also born, though Willem does not celebrate the addition to their family with his brother.
• 7 AC: Willem involves himself in the Tully plot against King Aegon, though his ties to the Vale arouse suspicion and he is barred from much of the decision making. Due to this untrust, he informs Lord Blackwood of the plot who takes on much of the burden of revealing the plot to Queen Visenya. Due to Willem’s close ties to the Vale and his lord grandfather’s acceptance, House Ryger swears fealty to House Arryn directly. During this time, the stress pushes Willem into the arms of his childhood crush, Perra Bracken, despite his continued refusal to wed her. Unbeknownst to him a child is spawned from this affair.
• 8 AC: Willem becomes a personal confidant and source of comfort to the grieving Queen Rhaenys. The intimacy of their relationship is kept a closely guarded secret, especially their bedding which results in another child unbeknownst to him. His duties to the Vale require a large distance to be maintained between them, forbidding any true relationship from developing.
• 10 AC: Willem is present for Sharra Arryn’s death yet at the same time his own father, Ryman Ryger, dies. Rather than return home, Willem persists in The Eyrie during the trying time for House Arryn. As Ronnel Arryn comes of age, Willem is retained as Master of the Thresholds.
• 11 AC: Willem’s grandfather, Lord Leo Ryger, dies soon after, as if he only lived out of spite to not see Ryman inherit Willow Wood. His death occurs after a visit to The Eyrie, the second time of visiting with the first being the oath to House Arryn, where Leo further informs Willem of their curse. Were a Ryger to stand quiet enough in the weeping willing forests of their home, he could hear their ancestors. Lastly, it is revealed that despite Leo’s attempts to shield Willem from the curse, a rot has set into Willem’s willow. Due to this, Willem accepts the counsel that his brother Marq take on much of the responsibility of ruling Willow Wood.
• 12 AC: Willem’s eldest daughter, Roslyn, is informed of everything that his grandfather has informed him of. He decides to keep Roslyn close and begin to teach her much of his subterfuge and sets her up to inherit many of his connections should he pass.
• 13 AC: Willem’s daughter, Mya, is sent to ‘squire’ for the Cavaliers upon their creation.
• 15 AC: Willem’s son, Myles, is sent to squire for the legendary knight Lord Corbray, though the boy is difficult to train mostly due to his protest of being sent away from his family.
• 18 AC: Willem’s bastard son, Rickard, is finally knighted and immediately following his ceremony he takes off to find where his commoner mother was sent off to. Unfortunately, the Riverwar breaks out during his travels and he finds himself on either side of the war depending on which side of the battle he happens to need to be on to continue his search for his mother.
• 19 AC: Willem is present for the wedding of Queen Visenya and Lord Lyn Egen and does his best to aid in the planning of the festivities.
• 20 AC: Willem’s brother, Marq, declares himself Regent of Willow Wood. While having been the de facto regent, the declaration comes under contention from Willem. To resolve the dispute, Roslyn is made Steward of Willow Wood and acts as eyes and ears for Willem. Her loyalties are in contention, unbeknownst to Willem, as Roslyn and her cousin Robyn further their relationship into intimacy.
• 22 AC: Willem’s bastard son, Rickard, returns from his travels. Being mute, his ability to convey his travels is limited, but the corpse he returns with bears the resemblance of the woman Willem bedded long ago. They put her body to rest in the weeping willow forests and Rickard forever swears his service to his father.
• 23 AC: Willem’s trueborn son, Myles, returns to Willem now a knight. He is given the truth of the family curse and his mental state further spirals, with his long protest of being sent away now given a proper justification. Willem brings the entire family to the forests to find each of their weeping willows, where Myles finds the rot of his father to have spread to his tree nonetheless. He vows to make his death worthwhile, though Willem cautions that despite his own tree having rot, he has yet to perish.
• 25 AC: Willem leads the entirety of House Ryger to the festivities in King’s Landing.

Family Tree:

https://www.familyecho.com/?p=START&c=3f566chlk4whp1yg&f=600232199387350859

Supporting Characters:

AC
Name and House: Roslyn Ryger
Age: 24
Cultural Group: RiverlandeValewoman
Appearance: Roslyn’s dark, straight hair and pale skin stand in sharp contrast to her father. Her amber eyes are inherited directly from him, however, as was her smile that often appears devious to some and endearing to others. Constantly lost in thought, she takes an unassuming posture, preferring to only display confidence when she feels she is in the right.
Trait: Insidious
Skill(s): Espionage (e), Investigator
Talent(s): Singing, Hunting, Gambling
Negative Trait(s): n/a
Starting Title(s): Steward of Willow Wood
Starting Location: King’s Landing
Alternate Characters: n/a
 
Archetypes/Notable Characters:

• Mya Ryger - Daughter of Willem; the resemblance is uncanny upon realizing that Roslyn inherited Willem’s cunning while Mya inherited charm. Aged 23. Tourney Knight archetype.
• Myles Ryger - Son of Willem and heir to Willow Wood; of whom has lost the luster of life in his eyes with an uneasy calm demeanor always present. Aged 20. Cutthroat archetype.
• Rickard Rivers - Bastard son of Willem; a mute who has devoted his life to a love of killing under the guise of being a knight. Aged 27.
• Marq Ryger - Brother to Willem; rather than enacting his cunning through subterfuge, he has instead proven his ability as a cunning commander with a true love of tactics. Aged 43.
• Robyn Ryger - Nephew to Willem; a man of true brilliance and joy for learning who has devoted his time to the art of revenue generation. Aged 24.
• Addam Ryger - Nephew to Willem; a kind-hearted simpleton that has been focused on the simplicity of combat. Aged 20.
• Septon-Maester Stephus - A long-time advisor to Willem; likely neither septon nor a maester, but his wisdom is vast, if often crude. Aged 68.

Hey,
So I just want some unbiased feedback from people regarding if my cousins were abused growing up. They both would insist they weren't, but the older one (27F same age as me) is currently in rehab for alcohol abuse after her 3rd DUI after moving across the country to California by herself. She's made a LOT of bad decisions over the years but she used to be my best friend when we were younger... I know she's suffered from ana/bul for a long time and had a miscarriage when we were 13. She has openly had issues with her dad (my uncle) since we were teens, but has verbalized for the last few years on and off that "nobody cares about her" and "her family treats her like shit"...
My younger cousin (24M) I currently live with and love to absolute pieces but he's also been through a lot. His parents kicked him out during covid at the age of 20 with no job because they were moving almost 2 hours away and wanted to live child free. I've expressed many a time how shocking this was to my cousin when he told me about it and it severely changed my overall outlook on my aunt and uncle. He couch surfed for years off and on until I was able to get him a job working with me and he was able to move in with me and my best friend. We've lived together for over a year now and things were overall happy but recently he's been dealing with a lot again. My best friend and my cousin are both queer and a messed up situation occurred on the Grindr app between the two of them, but long story short my best friend ended up coordinating a voyeur event involving my cousin.
This has caused shock waves throughout the house obviously and my cousin has every right to be extremely upset. After a lot of confusion, some things were cleared up from the extra person that was involved with this and it was proven that my best friend did not touch my cousin. This does NOT change the fact that the entire situation was effed up and orchestrated, but I do believe with intense therapy for both of them that something can be worked out...
However, I also do not believe that with all of the stuff going on with my cousin that he had any right to lash out at me in the car for explaining how I feel like our coworkers are harassing me at work. For context, my cousin is into edgelord dumb alt right style comedy and likes to make transphobic, homophobic, racist, etc jokes at work sometimes. The trade field I am in is almost all men, and I am one of two women in our whole shop. There were more before, but after the last one quit for a different job, all these jokes have just gotten SO much worse. I constantly feel like I am getting egged on for my reaction, one example was last week i was told I should "get stung by a bee for the experience" after talking about how my grandma was deathly allergic. This kind of things been happening almost weekly since January and I vented to my cousin in the car ride home (I give him car rides almost every work day) and he just absolutely blew up on me.
He screamed about how I need to "Get the eff over it", how he has to tell me like it is because when I get upset it ruins the whole vibe for him and he just wants to have fun at work. I told him that edgy jokes are fun when theyre NOT pointed directly at someone and he just wouldnt put himself into my shoes and continually told me to get thicker skin. There was a lot more that was said but long story short, he basically cannot accept that he could be wrong in this situation and even if it was all jokes, if it hurts someone its not worth making them.
I know that's how he was raised, his dad specifically gives no effs about equality, "woke culture", etc and they've always been VERY well off their whole lives so my cousins feel that anybody who has trauma or gets upset about "little things" need to suck it up because that's what their parents told them. My uncle still calls depression "the dark place" I do know that he's currently in therapy but I fear that the damage to his kids is too far gone. My dad (my uncle's brother) died in 2010, and my mom is a single mom whos been working at a grocery store for 41 years but can still find time to love and empathize with her child. She was also very upset to hear that my cousin was kicked out during covid and she bought him a queen size mattress to sleep on while he stayed at her house with my sister for a few months before moving in with me.
I just want to know the best way to move forward with my cousins. The older one in California I fear is a lost cause, she's been told to move back home so many times and she just wont... The cousin that I live with didn't come home last night after our blow up because I texted him setting my boundaries going forward (not allowed to use my coffee and no more rides to work) and texted back shooting off things to hit below the belt (like my weight, how I am "rotting" because I dont go out and see friends every night like he does, etc.) I want to be there for him because of all the things he is going through but I also need to protect my peace.
Thoughts?

I don't know much about septics, so I'm going to try to information dump to get a more accurate answer. I will list as many septic specs as I can at the end.
So we recently bought a property that was listed as having city sewer, but after purchasing, we found out it indeed has a septic. It worked fine but we didn't know when it was last pumped and could occasionally smell a rank smell, and we werent sure if it was us or not so we decided to have it pumped. The dude shows up and finds the lid, but the porch stair rail was set with concrete on top of it. He broke it up, pumped the septic, and put it all back together. Now according to the previous owner, he pulled the wrong lid, but I don't think that's accurate. He did end up pumping the full septic amount which was 1250 gallons. Another guy told me they should have opened 2 lids and pumped both sides, which this guy did not, but I don't think he needed to. It looks like there's 3 doors total and the next door also opened into the first tank I believe.
Everything was fine for a couple weeks, then my wife did 4 consecutive loads of laundry and we noticed where the lid was that water rose from where the lid was. That was concerning, so we thought we'd let it dry out and it'd be okay. Well it keeps happening now even with a single load of laundry or when people spend slightly to long in the shower and we don't know what to do. I called a septic guy out who showed up a bit before he said he would, inspected the property while I was still asleep, and then left. When I called him he said the septic was functioning normally. I'm not sure how he determined that without digging it up or anything or inspecting anything inside, but the drain field does indeed to be functioning as the grass above it is very clearly still growing thicker than the rest. I did find out one toilet was constantly draining into the overflow, and I fixed that. That was about 4 days ago that I did that. There is also a very slow drip from one faucet that we have yet to fix, but it is very slow.
So to be clear, I'm trying to get everyone to conserve water usage right now so it can have time to drain out. There are currently 5-8 people living here. It's a range because some of us go back and forth between this and the old property that we're still trying to fix so we can sell it, and some of us will be there for weeks at a time. 2 of us are in an RV that is connected to a clean out into the septic. It seems like no matter how much water we conserve, it will still happen. It's not backing up into the house, we just see a small puddle from above the lid, and then it drains. If I dump the RV tank, I can dump my black tank (about 35 gallons) no problem, and then my grey tank (about 40 gallons) a little later and it will stop flowing, then water pools up above the lid, after a few min the water above the lid will drain, and then air will glug into the RV drain line slowly draining the rest in.
Now before we had it pumped, we had no issues besides maybe sometimes there is a slight wiff in the air. I could actually dump my black tank on RV and refill it 4 times, then dump the grey tank consecutively, while people are doing laundry and such with no issues. I did this before I knew it was septic and we didn't have any issues. After the pump, it seems to be overflowing as it wasn't before, when it was apparently pretty full and hadn't been pumped for a while I would guess.at least 4-5 years I think.
So for the house, it's a 4 bed 2 bath house, has 4 sinks, laundry, 2 toilets, 2 baths, and a standing shower connected to the septic. I also currently have m RV hooked up to it and my wife and I live out of that for right now. There is 8 people total.
The septic is 1250 gallons, double compartment gravity system. It has a 2 way clean out, not sure if that is relevant. There is no electronics of any kind. It was installed in 2009.
Drain field is 200 feet of 8 inch graveless pipe in 2 inch wide trench.
Soil type is listed as fine sandy loam and texture class is Ib. IDK what that means.
My questions are, are we just overloading the septic or is there something else going on? We are currently trying to conserve water where we can.
How much water per day can a septic of this type and size handle?
What can I do to mitigate this problem or fix it? I've tried calling more septic guys out but they seem to be giving me the run around.
Is there anything else I should list or anything else I should know?
Thank you for reading and for your time. Any help is appreciated!

1330 Terran Front Fleet Time
On the Turinika homeworld, the first signs of unrest began to manifest like a wave, The broadcast of the most esteemed Tizikikoonazikiakakiatkata, Taratanti of the roost Kazatalak, openly performing the act of Kavsa had been met with shock. The last Taratanti who had voluntarily performed Kavsa had done so in protest of the treatment of the Kulorn caste, nearly two thousand years prior. It was an ancient rite, one that signified rejection of the greatest shame. Even more shocking than the act itself was the evidence that had followed it. Visuals of species, brought into the Conclave, not as migrant workers as had been believed, but as slaves, was met with an almost immediate attempt at censorship. This attempt failed spectacularly, mostly due to those who had been tasked to censor the information not only refusing to follow the command, but openly declaring that they had been ordered to do so. A situation that was already, as the humans would say, out of hand, spiraled completely out of control. Within only twenty minutes of the ending of Tizikikoonazikiakakiatkata’s broadcast entire cities entered a state of absolute anarchy. Two planetary capitals were stormed and taken by the furious civilian population, demanding the location of those who had been enslaved. The Turinika Armada, which even then was in the middle of a training session meant to prepare the fleet to withstand the Terran Front’s assault, began to cease operations. Within the hour, the entire armada would be recalled to the turnika homeworld. Those who did not take to the streets simply stopped whatever work they were doing and went to their homes to be around their brood. Images of Tizikikoonazikiakakiatkata with his stripped wings spread wide in front of the human fleet commander were on every news fed of the Conclave, as was the sound of his thunderous voice, and the wails of despair from a turinika female that couldn’t be seen. Close ups of the human fleet commander’s face were shown, with analysts remarking on the shock, horror, and sympathy. Since the outbreak of the Seventh Orion War, the female human known as Simmons had been reported to have made several threats towards the turinika, she had quickly become seen as a warmonger, ready to take revenge against the turinika for refusing to go to war and violate their principles of pacifism. Now the images of her lunging forward to stop the violation of Tizikikoonazikiakakiatkata’s plumage, the agonized expression of her face, and the true reason for her threats against the turinika were rapidly reversing her image. On far flung deep core mining stations and agricultural stations, on deep space stations dedicated to material processing, and in other areas hidden from the sight of the normal turinikan population, overseers and taskmasters felt their hearts run cold at the knowledge that very soon, their part to play in the willful enslavement of another species would be known to the wider Conclave. As the data package transmitted alongside the broadcast were fully decompressed and the scale of the Conclave’s government’s involvement was revealed, the entirety of the Conclave itself was teetering on the verge of absolute pandemonium. The image of a member of the kolra species, from the look of it barely a hatchling, quickly was becoming the face of the entire incident. The picture was absolutely damning, and the sight of the image had sent any who saw it instantly into contorting and painful displays of shame. The young kolra was sprawled on it’s stomach, looking to the one taking it’s picture with eyes that had no life in them. It’s shell covered it’s back, and despite the age of the kolra it was already dulled and scuffed. The foot pressing down on the shell was unmistakably familiar to those who saw it, the clawed feet of a turinika. Within the hour, billions of winged figures stood in streets, the normally soft spoken and passive species demanding action, demanding justice, on the hundred worlds of the Turinika Conclave. The bulk of the Taratanti caste, most of whom had been left in the dark of the truth of the situation, quickly went public with their own declaration of outrage, and the eyes of the entire species turned inwards to the mountainous homeworld of their species.
Hakuri Watanabe looked down at his helmet before putting it on his bed, the stylized SEVEN seeming to stare at him. He sat down in his chair and picked up a small cloth from his buffing kit. No one knocked on his door, in fact, mostly he and the rest of his squad were left alone before a major operation. They were just given their time, time to mentally prepare. Some of his squad would go over their mission briefing, some, like him, would spend their time doing something to relax themselves. Hakuri always found that taking care of his suit calmed him considerably. Granted he could simply turn it over to the squads armorers to be tended to and they would do as good of a job as he could, but he preferred it to be done by his own hand. The symbol of a triangle was on his form fitting shirt, the symbol of his special operations command unit. He was known as a Myrmidon, but the official title of his unit was Section Three. He knew this, his superiors knew this, and as far as Hakuri knew, most of the Terran Front was aware of his unit’s existence, but past that, they knew very little about what he actually did. As far as his mother knew, Hakuri was a pencil pusher onboard the TFS Berlin, the troop mothership that all of his letters were sent from. He thought about writing her, but then again, he only liked to do that when he returned from a mission, not when he was expecting to go to one. If he tried to write her when he was waiting, he would just get anxious, and homesick. That wouldn’t do when he was dropping into a combat zone. That wouldn’t do at all. Hakuri instead started to buff his helmet, waiting for the word to come down which meant they were prepared to jump. A glance at the clock made him pause in his circular rotations. The clock said 1330. Operation Naked Sun was about to begin.
Tika was on his side, Kzia standing at the end of the medical bed that had been adjusted for his turinikan physiology. He felt cold in more ways than one. For his people, clothing was more of a decoration than a necessity, but without his protective plumage he felt the cold stabbing him through to his hollow bones. His diplomatic access was already gone, his privilege access revoked. He heard the broadcast for a preparation to jump, but he wasn’t truly listening. There was no question in his mind he had made the right decision. There was no question at all. One of the humans, a nurse, came to his side and gently laid a heavy blanket over him. The human’s hand lingered on his trembling body for a few moments before it was removed, and Tika glanced in their direction. The female was one of the ones who had responded first to the call for medical service for him, had heard what had happened and why. Tika had gotten very used to being glared at on this ship. He was hated, and he knew it. He knew he had deserved it. He was a party to the vral’s enslavement of the humans, the chua, and far too many others. When he had come to Thermopylae station, he had not even given that fact a single thought. He was born into power, being of the Taratanti. He belonged to the most powerful species and government in the entire quadrant of the galaxy. His people, while mighty, did not seek to use it. To him, they had simply been above it all. When the vral had approached him with the offer to sell captured species at first TIka had wanted to reject it out of hand, but a few had told him to go through with the sale. Such was the nature of this galaxy, or so he had believed. The weak were at the whims of the strong, and one’s place in the galaxy was determined only by the power they could wield. The turinika were not nearly the first to have taken a species and used it for slave labor, and while Tika did not approve of the deal, he had not fought it either. As he looked back to the wall, he remembered what the humans had taught him these last days. When he had arrived in Thermopylae he had assumed he would find the chua species to have been at the very least regulated to a subservient role, if not outright enslaved. Finding them sharing power was a curiosity. He had expected to be treated with all the honor and dignity that his station demanded, that the power of his government demanded. Fleet Marshal Simmons had disabused him of that, and had left him humiliated and shamed. As he had laid in the dark as Simmons had declared the Seventh Orion War, covered in his own filth, feeling as if at any moment he was going to be killed he knew true fear and horrific uncertainty for the first time in his life. He had never faced these emotions, these sensations before. He had always been in power. He had stood with the full might of the Turinika Conclave behind him. He had never known anything other than the superior position. Now, as he lay in the hospital bed, staring at the wall, he was ashamed of how arrogant, how blind, and how short sighted he had been. After he had risen from his own filth, he had desperately tried to convince his leadership of the strength of the Terran Front, how it matched or eclipsed their own. The Conclave was not the unchallenged power in the quadrant anymore. The terrans, the human and chua, had somehow defied fate. They had not fallen to the vral after ninety years of near constant conflict, and now if Tika was right they had come out of it nightmarishly stronger than before. Tika had actually begged to be heard by his superiors, and he had never come close to that once in his life. The chua homeworld however, had fully broken him. If he had not been on the Antares, had not been humbled beforehand, he knew that he would have just clapped his hands together and said that it was delightful. As the transmission from the chua homeworld had come in, and the rescue effort had begun, he could only wallow in his own shame. He had profited directly from the chua’s suffering, the human’s suffering. Again he had tried, and failed, to convince his people, and again he had failed. Being on the Antares, for him, was torture. The lights were too dim, every human and chua looked at him with nothing more than loathing and contempt, his entire worldview had been shattered from the way he viewed the galaxy to his own place in it. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the shadow of Simmons standing over him, her voice cold with a lethal rage, hearing her voice echo in his mind, seeing the glint from flashes of light shining in her eyes. ‘We Know.’ echoed in his mind in his sleep, the voice of the terrifying Fleet Marshal transforming into the sound of a vengeful god demanding compliance and promising retribution. Then he had watched the humans and chua, who he knew were preparing to go to war with his people, celebrating the return of the shesvie. Once more he had expected them to be integrated into the Terran Front, but as soon as he learned Simmons offer to them, and what it had entailed, he had been called to his room to answer the latest message from his people. Once again, his people had doubled down, the knowledge of the enslavement of the humans had been suppressed, and once more Tika found himself, and his people, standing against a Terran Front that had every justification to declare war, to right the wrongs that had been done to them. All the while, he knew something else. He knew that, after everything he had seen, that his people would lose. The turinika had not been to war for nearly two thousand years. His people were not ready for what the Terran Front could do, and after seeing what they had done to the vral so far, he knew his people were not ready for what the Terran Front would do. He was afraid of the dark. Tika was absolutely terrified of it now, because now he knew the monsters were real. Simmons had shown him that, but the humans, the chua, they were not the monsters. He was. He had refused to be one any more. He had announced his intentions to his staff, who had squalled in rejection, all but three. Kzia was the first to step to his side, Kikumot and Tziki had stepped forward as well. Never, in his most nightmarish dreams, did he ever think that he would stand in front of Simmons and voluntarily have his plumage stripped from him, performing the act of Kasva. He never thought that his staff would have ever compiled and transmitted the data package they had sent. He had never thought that he would betray his people, if only to save them. Simmons had changed that, the humans had changed that. He knew the terror of the dark, he knew fear for his people’s safety, he understood the horror of war, and for the first time in his long life he could truly look back at every interaction he had had, with every species, that had asked for help in their struggle for survival against the vral and truly understand their fear and desperation. Now he lay, his plumage stripped from him, his station revoked, his status removed, surrounded by a people who despised him. He wouldn’t have it any other way now. He knew that they would listen now, if not to him, then to the civilian masses of the Conclave that would not stand for what they had done. He prayed to the Great Mother often now, shivering in the dim light, hoping that it would be enough. He had been wrong, and in his error he had sullied his own people. He had made them complicit. Even now, he did not know how they would ever be forgiven, because right now he wasn’t quite sure he could ever forgive himself. As he heard the broadcast calling out on the ship, announcing one minute to jump, he felt a hand on his side, and looked up to the human nurse. She was smiling at him. Not a smile born of malice, or anger, but a genuine smile. She patted his side lightly, then turned to walk out of the room. For not even the twentieth time since he had come onboard Thermopylae, he was mystified by these people.
The bridge of the Dhampir was thrumming with music and the vibrations of the reactor and Conrad leaned forward in his chair mount, his eyes almost feral as he looked at the empty space that was the mandeville point. He was positively chomping at the bit. Batz was positively roaring the lyrics to the song that was blaring over the ships speakers. Rev and Dev sat side by side in their mounts, throwing their hands up in time with the pounding bass beat of the sound. Towns was the only one besides Conrad that was quiet, both of them looking towards the mandeville point with complete impatience. Conrad felt like jumping from his skin. Fidget, well, fidgetted, holding his hands over his headset and listening as if he were trying to hear secret messages in the music. They were ready, their pulses were racing. The crew of the Dhampir was positively vibrating. Conrad looked to the shipboard clock, seeing 1330 displayed, and his head snapped to Fidget, waiting for the word. They were going to run, they were going to chase, they were going to hunt.
Vicky sat back, looking towards Jess and Kukat as they slept. Jess was in her chair, Kukat in her medical bed. Vicky glanced back at the block print on the paper and read it for the fifth time. She read the individual lines, one at a time, cursing their existence. After reading through the message printed she let her hand hang again. Kukat would be released from medical tomorrow, and both her and Jess still thought they would be boarding the Thumper to join the Vellacore once more. Jess had talked non-stop about her quarters on the Vellacore the past few days, how she just wanted to be back in her room. Kukat was equally excited. Only Vicky didn’t share their excitement. They didn’t know yet. They didn’t know about their battlefield promotions, they didn’t know about their reassignments, they didn’t know the days of them working together were functionally over. Vicky looked down at her hand holding the paper again, and felt like crumpling it. She had lost her crew. She had lost them not due to negligence, or time, she had lost them to fame. Kukat was to be promoted to ensign, and was to be the sensor officer on the destroyer Hadrian, Jess was getting the same promotion, her station on the cruiser Victorious. Vicky? She was the sparkling new commanding officer of a destroyer that was arriving at Thermopylae in two days, the Quarrel. She never wanted this. She had turned down promotion after promotion that would take her from the cockpit of the Thumper, away from Kukat, away from Jess. She wanted to serve in this war in her own way, as a pilot, with the two who had made her life so enjoyable. Now though, they were to be split up, and there was nothing she could do about it. These promotions hadn’t come from simple seniority, they had come from High Command, as had the orders. Tomorrow, when Kukat was released, they would be ushered into the hanger bay of the Barrowmore. They would all three be awarded the Star of Terra, then they would be reassigned. Tonight was the last night they would all be together. Vicky wanted to wake them up, she wanted to tell them, to give them a chance to process it. As she looked to Kukat and Jess she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She held up the letter again, reading the first few lines, then she felt the sting of tears in the corners of her eyes. She looked away, her heart panging with sadness, and stared at the wall. The clock read 1330.
Corporal Brandy was sitting on the small rack, with Janet Shippen sitting between his legs using his thighs as armrests. They were both dressed for the first time in the last few hours, both of them staring at the clock. This close to the reactors they could feel them beginning to spool up for the trip through hyperspace. When the news of the operation had come down they had elected to spend as much time together as possible, which Brandy had enjoyed to no end, and he had made sure Janet had as well. Brandy had even taken some time to reach out to his sister Victoria, a rarity for them both, as since they were children they were often barely able to speak to each other simply due to schedules. He had even told her about Janet, and although he hadn’t gotten a response from his sister yet he already knew what she would say. Janet nestled back against him, but he could feel her body was stiff. Neither of them knew what the next few months were going to hold. Their time together might be constricted, in fact, this might be the last few moments they were together for quite awhile. Brandy’s Ghouls were specialists, ship boarders. Chances are he was going to be extremely busy, as was she. He didn’t quite know how he felt about Janet, but he did know that beyond a shadow of a doubt he didn’t want to be away from her. Judging from how she was acting, she felt the same as him, conflicted about her relationship with him, but not wanting to be apart. He knew what he needed to tell her, that he had to get up, that he had to leave. The Ghouls were going to be assembled at 1345, ready to board. Her unit was going to be prepared at the same time, to begin taking on salvage. Her hands were like clamps on his legs, and from how tense she was, he wasn’t going to get up until she was good and ready. The clock on the wall switched to 1330. He stared at the clock, feeling like the clock was mocking him, when suddenly Janet leaned up and turned. Her hands took hold of his shoulders and she threw her body against his, her lips finding his own. Her arms wrapped around her frame and he tightened his grasp on her.
Simmons spread her hands over the panel in front of her, looking at the table. Seven points connected the recently reclaimed chua space to what was former Shesvie territory, and beyond that, the heart of the Vral Empire. Her lip curled in a wicked smile, On the digital display of the table the hyperspace lanes, and more importantly, the avenues of attack her fleet was preparing to take. She held out her hand, all five fingers splayed over the lanes, envisioning the war as it stood now. The war to come. Seven hyperspace lanes, seven systems, branching out into sixteen, branching out again to another twenty. The Antares herself was going to link up with the Barraki, and was set to simply plough through the next five systems to do so. Slowly she tightened her hand into a fist as she looked along the hyperspace lanes, seeing task forces lined up and ready to jump. Drones had already been sent through. The vral had forces along the border, but nothing that could withstand what was to come. Her fleet was ready. She was ready. The Seventh Orion War was at the end of it’s first month, and had taken back six systems. The first moves of Operation Naked Sun would double that and exceed it, then double it again. She had already given her speech, her task force commanders were ready. High Command had taken it’s time making this decision, and while she had railed against the delay that didn’t matter now. All along the front, individual task forces were joined into larger fleets, ready to jump into the next system and eliminate any vral defenses, but unlike now, they simply would not wait. Naked Sun was to be a lightning strike to cut off as much of the Vral Empire as possible, to deny them their own space, to imprison them on their own worlds. Task Forces were designed around three types of vessels combinations, Lighthammer Task Forces were comprised of corvettes and fast destroyers, the fastest vessels in the fleet, meant to take systems quickly, to devastate unprotected infrastructure, and to eliminate light resistance. Simply put, they were going to swarm into vral space, determine pockets of resistance, and move on. They were going to rip entire sections of vral space from them, calling in other task groups if needed. Thunder task groups were the primary capital fleets, meant to be sent into those pockets of resistance, and neutralizing them, joining with the Lighthammer groups if needed. The cruisers, carriers, battleships, they all belonged to these task forces. Her own task force was called the Nova task force, and it comprised only the Antares and it’s sizable fleet escort. Simmons glanced up at the clock, the time was 1329. She breathed in slowly, then unbidden the thought came to her head and she looked to the report from the two habitable planets that had been scanned by the drone cutters, the information having been relayed to her almost twenty minutes prior. She was not worried about the ground campaign, in fact a reserve fleet from Thermopylae would be the ones to escort the landing ships from planet to planet that her fleet left behind in it’s wake, isolated and defenseless from the wider Vral Empire. Fleet escorting was no longer her job, protecting ground invasions were no longer her job. Simmons was positively growling now, as her only job was to take her fleet and use it to rip the vral out of the stars. Still, the thought nagged at her. On both of the planets that her fleet was set to overrun, there were Vral ships in orbit. On the first, there was evidence that the Vral had been bombarding a small area of the surface, extremely similar in size to the hole that now existed on Zvitia, the planet that even now was being integrated into the Terran Front. In the second system it showed Vral ships in orbit, but whatever they were doing during the time they had taken the scans, whatever they were covering up, they didn’t seem to have gotten to it yet. On the radiological scan of the planet a massive bloom of electromagnetic energy painted a broad region of the planet blistering white. She had sent the images back to Earth, back to High Command, but no one seemed to know what was happening. The one thing that every analyst agreed on so far that was that whatever the blooms represented, it meant nothing good. She took another long look at the radiological scan, seeing the intensity of the radiation, and her lip curled in a snarl. She couldn’t think about that right now, but orders had already been given to notify her the moment that they had taken a planet that still bore the radiation signal. The vral were being damned fastidious about it though. She pulled her thoughts away from it, looking back to the hyperspace lanes. The slow grin entered her features again. She glanced at the clock. 1330. Her hand took hold of the receiver next to her station and she pressed the transmission stud, knowing that Hazard had already opened a channel to the wider fleet.
“Commence.”

I have commented here a few times but never posted. It's long so i get if you dont want to read. I just have some feelings to let out! I've been with my(27f) SO(29m) for 4 years. He has a son(12) whom I met when he was 8. I am child free and have no interest in being a mother myself. However, I felt being a stepmom/cool aunt would be fine bc I don't have that big of an issue with kids and my SO only has SK EOWE (he now keeps SK 3 weekends a month bc SO's mother can't not stick her nose where it isn't wanted) I made the mistake of trying to be too helpful at the beginning of our relationship bc I am a people pleaser who didn't know better and wound up being main caregiver every weekend SK was here due to SO's excuse of having to work. For a little while it was fine bc SO had started a new, very fruitful and life changing job and I wanted to help him succeed and i was under the impression after a while he wouldnt be expected to work them as much. I picked up SK from BM's house after my own long day/week at work every weekend my SO had custody, I would pick up food for SK, even paid for groceries for SK when SO failed to get any for the weekend, cleaned up messes and was the only ear around for SK to yap into oblivion. HUGE MISTAKE!!! After a while (like 2.5 years) of this going on, no thanks or appreciation and then getting criticism from SO's father for literally parenting SK when no one else was, I threw my hat down and said I'm done taking care of SK for SO and would step back. Last year I had started to slowly nacho and do less and less as my resentment towards both SK and SO grew larger. At this point in time, SO was CHOOSING to work these weekends instead of being required to; and choosing to pick up extra OT (an extra 8 hours on top of the 16 he is working that weekend) on some of these weekends while taking off on weekends we didnt have SK. This grinded my gears and I had a discussion with SO about how unfair it is to expect me to be completely responsible for SK when I am not his parent. That resulted in SO's mother taking SK for one weekend a month and SO apologizing and saying he won't do that anymore. Now, maybe I should have been more clear, but SO took this to mean that he could work these weekends, but no OT. That is not what I meant. I meant for SO to not work when he has SK. It came to a big head when just 2 weeks after we had our initial discussion, SO texts me from work telling me he not only had signed up for the weekend, but asked for an additional 12 HOURS that weekend since it would be extra pay for working on a holiday without talking to me on a SO custody weekend. He had the audacity to tell me "dont be mad." I lost it. I told him that this behavior was disrespectful to me and a huge slap in the face given the conversation we practically just had a fortnight ago. He apologized, said he won't do it again but it wasnt good enough for me until i saw real, consistent change. I told SO he needs to get his mother to watch SK that weekend because I will not be doing it. He tried but SO's mom was out of town. I was pissed and told him if it happened again there would be a serious change in our relationship, either I move out or we split and that he will be making up for this for a long time. Things were fine for a little over a month. SO was taking off weekends he had SK like I asked and had someone watch SK if SO wanted to work. All is good. Then this weekend came. SO signed up this weekend despite SK coming over and didn't communicate with me. I was mad but kept quiet, when I shouldn't have. Today we were talking and deciding whether to go workout today since if we did we would have to rush around before SO had to leave for work. SO said something along the lines of: SO: "what do you want, then?" Me: "for you to not go to work tonight." SO: "So we can go to the gym?" Me: "Yea....among other things.." I think he knew what I meant. I could tell his tone got defensive. I know that was passive aggressive of me but tbh we had been having some rough times lately and I was so tired of being frustrated with him so it just kinda came out. I told him the same things I had been saying: not my kid so why am I expected to take care of him? I don't mind helping but I am not SK's mother or father, he has those. This did not bode well in SO's brain because even though I stayed level headed to express myself, he immediately jumped on the defensive, got loud and told me that since I am at home that it "shouldn't be too much to expect me to watch his kid." And just no. Absolutely not. I DID NOT PUSH THIS KID OUT OF ME OR BUST A NUT IN THE WRONG PLACE!! I put my foot down and I told him straight up I did not get into this relationship to be anybody's mother and if that is what he expected of me then we will not work. After A LOT of getting him to calm down🙄🙄🙄 he began to understand what I was saying(Or at least put on a damn good show of it if not). I tried my best to make him feel that I do not hate or really even dislike his son or wish him to be gone(I prefer Sk not be here but it is what it is and I try not to have SK feel that way bc it's not his fault) but I am very resentful of the amount of work I have put in and am expected to do for a child I did not have and isnt my responsibility. I also sited his lack of communicating efficiently with me about his work schedule. I said I know I get visibly irritated when SK comes over and SO decided to ask "well if I do this will your attitude towards SK change?" Which like...what bad faith question honestly. I told him "yea, most likely, with time and consistency from you." Overall, we are doing well as of right now and I feel like things are slowly changing, which is good. Not exactly how I wanted but that's reality, ya know? I love SO very much. He is an amazing partner and is the only place I have felt safe in my life. His child is just a really tender spot for us as SO does not want to be a father but feels stuck. I understand that but we have to wake up to our reality and not just push responsibilities off onto others. I hope things will continue to get better from here but I also wouldn't be surprised if this is what eventually breaks us up if we spilt ever. Apologies for the length. I've had a lot of feelings for a while and don't have anywhere to let it out but this subreddit has really helped me understand my own feelings and feel less like I'm the bad guy for how I feel.

I forced myself to be attracted to people because I thought that's what I was supposed to do because all the other kids my age were being in love; I just became really good friends with my 'crushes' and never wanted to kiss, hold hands, or do more than just hang out; I never thought any of my classmates were attractive; if society deems someone attractive, then so do I; I never realize people are genuinely drawn to people they think are attractive and want to DO things with them; I think romance is gross when I see it IRL or between live-action people and think it should just stay in books or non-live-action media. I just think people of any gender presentation look pretty. Growing up, I developed a 'crush' on anyone who was nice to me; I had a crush on ALL my friends and just wanted to hang out with them a lot; I got super uncomfortable and my attraction faded when we became 'intimate' with me like holding hands or wanting to date; and I feel this towards ALL genders, so I thought I was pan. But inside my head is the only place I feel sexual and romantic attraction, and it's only between non-live action characters and is always experienced from a 3rd-person perspective. Love and sex are just a storyline to me; I feel the romantic and sexual emotions of the character I'm telling the story's perspective from, but once the storyline ends, so does my attraction. I have a libido; I still experience personal desires, but I find that they can be managed easily on my own. I feel very repulsed by the idea of having sex with someone else. But, when I do get aroused, it's sexual attraction to anyone of any gender, but again, it's viewed from the 3rd-person perspective. After the solo mumbo jumbo, the arousal and sexual attraction fade into nothing; I even get repulsed by sex and romance for a long while after solo spicy adventures. I genuinely don't understand how somebody looks at someone else and wants to touch them, kiss them, and have sex with them. It's always been "Oh, they're pretty!"; it's never been "Oh, they're pretty; I want to date/have sex with them!". When I was a kid, I was a hopeless romantic; I wanted to find my soulmate, but the way of doing that was unrealistic. It was more like a remix of a Disney movie rather than something I actually wanted. I saw other kids my age have crushes, and adults always asked me if I was going to get a boyfriend, so I always thought it was something I was supposed to want, but I don't. I'm fine with being single forever. I'm happy this way, but I also don't want to do anything with anyone, so I feel as though I'm somehow on both the a-spec and m-spec. I’m not sure how exactly. All I know is that I consider both men and women attractive, but I don’t necessarily care about their gender identity when it comes to finding them attractive or not. I honestly can't understand how someone wants to do romantic or sexual things with another person. I dated this one guy in my freshman year, and it only lasted a week, and I avoided him like the plague the whole time. I felt all mushy and blushy when we talked and did things together, but once we started dating, I got super uncomfortable. We texted, and I was a huge flirt, saying we could hold hands and all that stuff , but when I went to school and he wanted to hold hands, I didn't want that. I didn't like being touched in a romantic way. I'm fine with my friends, though. What's confusing is that, at the same time as never wanting or feeling romantic attraction, I still want to do those things. I literally only feel romantic and sexual attraction to fictional characters. Because I am attracted to [female OC] and [male OC] (currently speaking, not speaking about past fictional crushes). I always have the strongest desire to be with [female OC], touch her, kiss her, and do other things, but I don't feel those things in the real world. She is literally my soulmate. Yes, romance and sex are still just a storyline to me, but I would say that I am in love with her. And sometimes the same can be said for [male OC]. There are some moments where I, Rowan, will get blushy and just smitten over him, but again, it's never in the real world. Would this even be considered a romantic or sexual attraction? I think it would. It's very rare when I feel something for real-world people, but it's always on the a-spectrum, like cupioromantic or grey-, for example.
— Rowan (they/he)

It is, of course, much too late for any real changes for the upcoming Revised PHB, and WotC was never going to make any fundamental shifts anyways, but I've been considering it for a while. This post was mostly inspired by me reading the rules for Mythras, which if you're not aware is a d100 game generally catered towards lower fantasy, with more brutal and more tactical combat. One of the main things about combat in Mythras is that, if you get a critical hit during combat (or if your opponent does particularly badly to defend against your attack), you can add certain special rider effects to your attack, whether that be maximizing your damage, aiming for a certain body part, compelling their surrender, or damaging their weapon or armor. There's a broad variety of these special effects, and choosing which one you want to use in any given situation is both fun and a bit overwhelming.
Reading Mythras, and then playing a Fighter and a Wizard in Pathfinder 2e and Laserllama's Monk in 5e, all since fall last year, has made me come to the conclusion that I dearly enjoy having too many options. There's a lot of talk about the supposed complexity of spellcasters or Battlemaster, but when I look at them I see that, yeah, there's some choices there, that's cool! I like choices too! But there simply aren't enough in 5e. Even the mightiest of spellcasters feel flat because all but the standout spellcasters feeling very similar, Battlemasters are basically all incentivized to take the best Maneuvers when they get their subclass and leave it at that - and don't even get me started about how all of 5e's other martials are so similar that you might as well just go back to having a Fighting Man class and make the current classes subclasses. It's fine the first time around, but every time I've tried to theory craft or make a new character, I've realized I literally can't do anything unique in terms of playstyle - the game just won't support it mechanically.
I want to continue to like 5e, I really do. It was my introduction to ttrpgs, and there's a lot to enjoy about it and its community, but the more you examine it, and the longer you play it, the more it feels like you just can't do anything with it. My Champion Fighter is the same as your Champion Fighter, my Draconic Sorcerer is near identical to your Draconic Sorcerer. In combat, martials run up and hit people and spellcasters win from long range. Any differences created in the system feel like a product of the players working around the limitations, rather than the system facilitating them to make those decisions about their character.
The new PHB is certainly working towards it by making feats more common, and I do like that, but tbh I don't think it's enough. Maybe I want more from D&D than its designers are willing to provide, but that kinda sucks, yknow? It's not like there's not room for it.

This will function as a one-stop guide to sound deaden the 3rd generation Mazda3. I believe it will be useful for any previous or next-gen Mazda3 owner, or anyone with a CX-30, as these platforms share many components.
Like others undertaking this project, I did a ton of research on sound deadening, the process, and the products first before jumping in. I would encourage anyone pursuing the same project to read through the links I’ve included in this write-up as they should give you all the information you need to sound-deaden your car in a comprehensive, easy manner, without having to do the weeks of research I had to do.
Pre-reading:
If you haven’t already, read through this thread for background as this is a solid, comprehensive write-up.
https://www.mazda3revolution.com/threads/sound-deadening-my-17-mazda-3-bn.242072/
Materials Needed:
1. Butyl-based mat to apply first as your base layer
I used 72 square feet to do the entire car, including hood, wheel wells, full interior, rear hatch area, and all doors. I did not do the headliner.
Total cost: $200 CAD
I used 1 box of 2mm (80 mil) Kilmat, and 1 box of 2.5mm Amazon branded butyl sheets. I found the Kilmat had better adhesion and was easier to cut and work with, because of the smaller sheet sizes, so I used this for tight spaces and the doors. The Amazon stuff was great to apply to large areas such as the floor of the vehicle, because I would just stick one entire sheet down and be done with it. It’s also slightly cheaper than the Kilmat.
Other brands: Silless, which manufactures the closed cell foam, also makes this stuff for a reasonable price.

2. Closed cell foam as the second layer
I used 100 square feet.
Total cost: $200
I did a LOT of research and shopping around to find the best balance between price, value, and performance of closed cell foam. I ultimately landed on using Siless Liner 157mil (4mm) closed cell foam which I found on Amazon. Noico is also another brand that makes this stuff for slightly more cost. These come in boxes of 51 square feet for about $100. I thus bought two boxes of the stuff. I did end up with leftover product, which I have saved as it can be used to stick on anything else that causes noise such as a furnace, washing machine, etc along with the leftover butyl mat.

3. Rubber-based floor underlay as the final layer
I used a 100 square foot roll of Technoflex Underlayment Acoustic Membrane, 2mm thickness.
Total cost: $85
Product link: https://www.rona.ca/en/product/technofloor-technoflex-underlayment-acoustic-membrane-thermal-insulation-4-ft-x-25-ft-x-008-in-100-sqft-rubber-material-black-m2000-100-73015020
Alternate link: https://technoflexintl.com/en/product/technofloor-acoutstic
Other products I considered, but chose against as the Technoflex is thicker

• https://www.rona.ca/en/product/mono-serra-zito-200-ft2-15-mm-blue-high-density-foam-underlayment-for-vinyl-floors-fm-906-84666069
• https://www.rona.ca/en/product/selitbloc-griptec-subfloor-underlay-pressure-resistent-foam-48-in-w-x-25-ft-l-100-sqft-15-mm-thickness-blue-gold-a64305-05075003

In Canada, you cannot find mass loaded vinyl. My goal was to find something relatively cheap and functional. I went to underlay because it’s sold in bulk and there are many products out there to compare effectiveness. Flooring underlay also has specific requirements in order to carry a particular sound deadening rating. It’s also rubber-based, like vinyl, so I figured I would just double up on layering as I had enough product to do so. I did end up doubling up the layering in most places and had leftover product.
Please note, this product is not adhesive. You lay it down like a blanket and you need to cut it to fit in tight spaces. Thus, I did not use it in vertical areas like the doors. I only used it on the floor and trunk of the vehicle. I am not technically inclined enough to adhere or screw it on the doors, but there are other people in the links on this thread who have done so, so depending on your skill level it is certainly possible.

All Tools Required

1. Socket set with 10mm socket and a Phillips screwdriver. I purchased a full socket set because I did not have one and found one on sale.
2. E-torx socket size 12 to remove the front seats. I just purchased a set of 8 for $20
3. Trim removal tool and plastic clip replacements, approx. $20. Extremely useful!!
   • https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01N9AL149?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
   • The metal trim removal tool is worth its weight in gold. Trust me, there are a LOT of plastic trim pieces to remove, and this tool makes them very easy to remove properly without breaking anything. All cars nowadays use plastic trim, so it’s a worthwhile purchase if you’re ever going to do work on any future car as well.
   • I purchased the set above because it came with a whole array of trim removal tools as well as a huge variety of replacement plastic trim pieces. I ended up using a couple pieces that broke when I did the doors. The kit has everything you may need for most vehicles, including our Mazdas.
4. Rubber roller, $12. Useful for rolling down the butyl mat and closed cell foam.
   • https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01N9AL149?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
5. Do yourself a favor and get some gloves. I used my bare hands for about 50% of the time, and they were sore, and had little nicks and cuts all over them by the time I was done. Much easier with gloves.

Skill Level
I have a general interest in cars but the most technical work I’ve ever done are oil changes and tire swaps. This was the largest and most technical project I ever embarked on. I work an office job, so I don’t even work with my hands a lot. If I can do it, so can you (as long as you set aside the time and have the proper tools).

Results
I did not take before-after videos, as that has been captured by videos on Youtube as well as people who have measured the noise levels in the threads below. All I can tell you is that this does work. In my opinion, the project even for a newb like me is totally worth it. For less than $500, and a couple days of work, you can make your Mazda feel like an entirely different vehicle.

Now, sounds and vibrations are barely transmitted going over rough roads. The car feels so much more planted and stable when going over bumps. The audio system sounds better. The doors close with a rich-sounding ‘thunk’. By far the biggest improvement is getting a whole new level of isolation within the car, which makes long trips so much more tolerable and the daily commute so much more relaxing. I would 100% do this again.

The project
Okay, let’s get to the project itself! I’ve broken up each area of the car into separate sections. As the write-ups below are fairly comprehensive, there is no need for me to reinvent the wheel.

Doors
This link contains pictures and instructions, very clearly detailed, on how to do the doors. I did the rear doors first to get used to working with all the materials, then the trunk, then the interior of the car. I would suggest following these instructions.
https://imgur.com/a/2018-mazda-3-sound-deadener-install-vE1o9Hi
Before taking apart your doors, also read through this thread as it contains some more details and information that you will find useful.
https://www.mazda3revolution.com/threads/sound-deadening.126105/?post_id=1624345&nested_view=1&sortby=oldest#post-1624345
This thread is also good to read as it is very detailed. It is for the previous generation, but the door design has not changed that much compared to our generation.
https://www.mazda3revolution.com/threads/cheaply-and-effectively-sound-deadening-your-2010-2013-mazda3.111385/

Wheel arches
Use these links and instructions for the wheel arches
https://www.mazda3revolution.com/threads/sound-deadening.126105/page-2
As well as the Imgur gallery from the Doors section for some more pictures.

Trunk
This is the easiest part of the whole project. If you’ve read the threads above, you don’t need any help with this. I did not do the hatch door. I do not think that is worth it, because if your trunk area is well insulated and you have your rear seat up, there’s not a lot of noise that’s going to get through the hatch door.

Interior
This is the part of the project that I had to figure out on my own, so I want to give several tips that will make it easier if you’re doing this.

~1. Removing the interior carpet:~
First vacuum the carpet.
You don't need to remove the entire console to get access to the majority of the floor. To remove the interior carpet, first remove the rear seat, then the front seats, then the interior plastic trim, and finally there are some pieces of Styrofoam in the front wheel wells. You can pull up the carpet for the left side of the vehicle as you work on that side, then tack it all down, and repeat for the right side of the vehicle.

~2. Removing the front seats~
First, disconnect the battery using the 10mm socket. This is recommended by the manufacturer to prevent accidental discharge of the air bags.
If you have the E-torx size 12 socket, removing the seat bolts is a breeze. I zipped them right off. Undo the back bolts, then slide the seat to its rearmost position, then remove the front bolts. Roll the seat onto it’s back to access the harness, undo the harness, then remove the front seat either from the front or rear door. It doesn’t matter.
Go to this site and download the PDF that Anchorman posted. That is all you need to know to remove the front harness. It took me HOURS of searching the web to find a resource this good – there aren’t even any good videos demonstrating what the PDF shows. https://www.cx3forum.com/threads/drivers-seat-removal.17234/
This was both the easiest and hardest thing about the project. Where I got stuck was removing the wiring harness from underneath the seat. Don’t be like me and stick a screwdriver in there, because that can damage the plastic. Instead, simply lift the white tab, press the tab underneath, and the harness comes off nice and easy. The link above with the PDF by Anchorman is what I WISHED I had at the start. I hope this will make it much easier for you.
Don’t be worried about the airbag going off etc. Using the diagram in the PDF, it’s just 1 harness and it comes off super easy and clips back in super easy too. It’s idiot-proof. You won’t have any trouble.

~3. Remove the interior plastic trim~
Again, watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aat4kUanm9w to see how to remove the trim and in what order. It’s actually quite easy and easy to reinstall as well. Just remember that the front and rear passenger scuff plates go on last. The other interior trim, does not matter what order you reinstall it.
Another tip, when removing the furthermost front inside trim (i.e the fusebox cover) and its equivalent on the front passenger side, there is a plastic nut securing that trim in place at the very front of it. It’s hard to see in there. Simply reach your hand in there, find the nut, and lefty-loosen it all the way until it comes off. Easy peasy!

~4. Remove the carpet~
You can pull up the carpet one side at a time. I recommend starting with the left side. In one area only, I cut through my carpet in order to remove it on the rear passenger areas, where it is affixed underneath the front seatbelt holder. This is not a problem. It was just easier this way, and because that area gets covered up by plastic trim, it doesn’t matter if you cut through it to make your life easier.
Once the carpet is lifted up, vacuum underneath it to ensure you have a clean surface that your butyl will adhere to.

~5. Do the driver’s side first!~
The front left side of the vehicle floor is the hardest to do because you have to contend with the footrest, reaching underneath the steering wheel, and the gas pedal. I removed the accelerator pedal – it is just held in place by two 10mm nuts, and then an electrical harness that easily clips off. Remove it and set it aside. Then, lift the carpet and remove the Styrofoam. Use a needlenose plyer to help unclip the plastic portion holding the Styrofoam in place. I did not end up reinstalling that plastic piece, as I installed sound deadener where it would have plugged into the floor. No harm.
I suggest doing the driver’s side first because once you’re done that front left area, the rest of the car is super easy. So do this while you’re fresh. Try to cover as much as you can in the front wheel wells, because that is a significant area of incoming road noise. Be systematic about cutting the butyl and closed cell foam in the correct sizes here, as you will have to reinstall the gas pedal, the Styrofoam, and the carpet properly. The good news is that it’s all easy to reinstall. I didn’t have any trouble.
Once you’re done with the driver’s compartment, systemically work your way with large butyl sheets and closed cell foam through the rest of the car floor. There is no need to apply this stuff up where the plastic trim will be reinstalled, on the inside lateral frame of the car – if you do so, it might be more difficult to reinstall the carpet and the plastic trim. Just do the flat bottom floor only, and you can hold the carpet up to access up along the centre console as well. (Keep in mind this is written for someone with my skill level – i.e newb. If you are more advanced and know what you’re doing, then go ahead and put some butyl or CCM in the inside lateral area, the area otherwise covered up with plastic trim).
I did not go for 100% coverage. To do that would take a lot longer. I went for about 90% coverage with the butyl and closed cell foam, and the rubber Technoflex layers covered up pretty well 95% of the area.
When you are laying the material down, ensure not to cover the holes for the seat bolts. If you do by accident, no worries – just use a screwdriver to poke through them, and you can easily still thread the bolt through when you go to reinstall your front seats.
Repeat the same steps on the right side of the vehicle.

~6. Reinstall the plastic trim.~
First reinstall the carpet and ensure all the holes line up. Reinsert the plastic clips into the holes to hold the carpet in place. Then, reinstall the frontmost trim piece, ensuring it clicks into place, and finally screw the plastic nut on. You may need to lift the rubber insert around the door to replace the plastic trim properly – the rubber insert comes off and goes on very easily, it is very forgiving to work with.
Then, install the B pillar trim piece. Then, the inside rear trim piece. Finally, the scuff plates, front and rear.

~7. Reinstall the front seats.~
~8. Reinstall the rear cushion.~
~9. Plug in the battery again.~
You’re done! Go for a rest drive and let the results speak for themselves!

Final thoughts
I did not take pictures because I was too busy installing the stuff and there are plenty of pictures available on the various threads.
I did reach out to many people on the forum and on Reddit who have done this project and from everything that I’ve learned, I believe this should be all you need to know to do this project successfully.
It will take several days so set some time aside. Here are some rough estimates:

• Trunk: 2 hours
• Each door: 2-3 hours (first door will take longer, then each door after gets shorter and shorter)
• Wheel wells: 2 hours
• Inside Hood: 1 hour
• Interior: 9 hours. Set aside a full day for this. You will want to take breaks in between steps. It took me from 10am to 8pm.

The Last Faith is what you get when you combine the tone and allure of Bloodborne mixed with the flowing combat and sheer coolness of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Theres also a sprinkle of Blasphemous in there, for some reason. It's also a game that isn't quite sure if it wants to be a souls-like and near-copy of Bloodborne or just a simple metroidvania. In two sentences i've probably confused you. Good, now we're both on the same page. This is The Last Faith.
The Last Faith puts you in the shoes of Eryk. Eryk is a swell guy. He cares for everyone, questions little, never says a mean word and goes out of his way to help out hapless NPC's as well literal monsters. While everyone around him is content to compliment him on his combat prowess, Eryk thinks he's just a dude. Does that sound like the main character of a game that's basically 2D Bloodborne? It's a mismatch for the tone of the game and while it wasn't enough to take me out of the experience, I couldn't help but feel he belongs in another game. Animal Crossing: New Horizons, maybe? He'd make a killing on the stalk market.

----------------------------------------------------------------

"2Blood, 2 Blasphemous"

He's also afflicted with... something. And oh boy, when that something finally reveals itself it.. oh wait it doesn't ever fully reveal itself. This game's version of "souls" is called "Nycrux." Sigh. Can we just call them souls, please? For the love of the moon presence we don't need cute names for the currency with every souls-like. In typical souls-like fashion though the Nycrux is also what our character is afflicted by. I think. What does it do? No clue! Did I even pay attention to the story?! Dude I tried. I really did. The notes and item descriptions did little to help me piece together the story, unlike FromSoftware games. It's utterly non-sensical.
Speaking of potions and ammo, this game is VERY similar to Bloodborne. Unlike Elden Ring or the Souls series, you have health potions that do not refill upon death. You have to find them in the world or buy them. Just like Bloodborne. The same goes for ammo. This wasn't an issue. The game throws so many health potions at you and they're so cheap to buy I had nearly 200 at the end. Which begs the question, why even do this? Because Bloodborne did it? There's little tension in death when I have 15 heals and know I can easily go get 50 more in a matter of minutes.
Combat is standard fare but feels quite good. Let's take a look at some super cool bullet points!

• You have a light attack and you are also able up charge up that attack which I did precisely 6 times and never again because it's utterly useless.
• Each weapon also has a unique (or somewhat unique) weapon art. In addition you have whats called a Stigma and this allows you to use various abilities such as a shield, parry or something else I found to be rarely helpful which is thebeast mode.
• Combat revolves around rolling, attacking and learning enemy patterns. Parries and block's don't factor in as much here but they absolutely can if you are dedicated to pulling them off. And they feel great!
• My play-style started as your standard strength build and then morphed into a mage who used a big ass scythe. So like a DEX/INT build. Very grim, very reaper.
• The spells themselves are varied and quite cool and are good for helping you to get in close. The game also features guns. I used them to varying degrees but they all worked well and while I never felt like I NEEDED to use them, I had fun with them nonetheless.
• Like any souls-like, you can level up your character (STR, DEX, INT, etc) as well as your weapon. Each weapon will scale depending on what stats you invest in and the game is VERY generous with its scaling.
• Weapon requirements exist and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. You can wield any weapon or spell in the game regardless if you have the stats or not and the only penalty is a slight decrease in damage.
• Your roll has I-frames. And sometimes it doesn't. It was frustrating be able to doge into a projectile and come out unscathed and then I try it again with a different move and get hit.
• Bosses varied wildly in difficulty. Some where extremely easy while the last few bosses has me questioning my sanity. Very few were inspired, but they all felt right at home in the world.

Now lets talk about how this is as a metroidvania. Every area in the game features a myriad of locked doors, hidden alcoves and plenty of spikes to insta-kill you. There's a plethora of platforming segments and none of them are particularly difficult. You won't find the punishing difficulty of Aeterna Noctis or the intricate and rage inducing, but satisfying platforming of Blasphemous. Instead it's primarily ability based. You'll find quite a bit of fun to be had in gaining abilities and marrying the light platform sections with learning enemy patterns.
The mood and atmosphere in the game are absolutely superb, but the environments don't reflect this as well as they could have. You have your standard ice area and swamp area, but for the most part it's just houses and caves. For me, the pacing of when you get abilities varied wildly. Being a metroidvania, there are a number of zones to choose from and some you can miss entirely. Depending on your path you may find the game doles out abilities far too slowly and it just feels like you're not progressing.
I didn't even get one of the coolest abilities until right before the end because I just happened to miss a tiny path barely viable on the map that led to an entire zone. Because of course it did. When you play a metroidvania, these are the things you accept going in and it's what makes these games special. I do wish the game would have had a more set progression path for your abilities, however.
All in all, I enjoyed my time with The Last Faith. Part of me feels this would have been better off as just a metroidvania or Castlevania-like, but it does combat and movement well and has a top notch atmosphere. I recommend The Last Faith.
Some random things that didn't fit in the main body of the review.

• When you die to a boss, your "Nycrux" spawns right there with you at the checkpoint. I greatly appreciate that. Boss corpse runs are the WORST. But also kind of fun if i'm being honest.
• Status effects in this game are utterly useless against bosses, as I only got one status effect to proc on a boss ONE time in the entire game.
• A massive issue I have with this game is this insane input delay after you roll or dash. I cut the section on it as this is already too long but it nearly ruined some boss fights for me. You have to HOPE you are already perfectly positioned when a boss does a big AOE and if not, oh well. That input delay isnt letting you get out of the way in time.
• Hope you like Monster Closets, because very frequently this game will lock you in a room with a gauntlet of spawning enemies and wont let you leave until they're dead.
• The Game has 3 endings and some pretty cool hidden bosses. One of which was the best fight in the game and isn't too hidden. The game leads you to it quite well, actually!

50F. I am not looking for medical advice, but I’d love to learn from experts how generally to approach evaluating a matter. I have an appt with my specialist pending. I’m an academic and enjoy learning about complex puzzles.
Here’s some context:

• For years, I’ve had kidney-area pain on my left side. Deep gnawing ache that keeps me up at night. Doctors have shrugged.
• I also have plenty of medical issues: autonomic dysfunction (orthostatic hypotension), autoimmune small fiber neuropathy, deficient IgG subclasses, etc. Overall health is poor. I am on low-dose IVIG, which helps with the above.
• A week ago, I had what I am going to call “an acute episode” that lasted for a day. Deep, agonizing mid back pain, that increased like a crescendo throughout the day. It appeared to be associated with intense gut pain.
• By the end of the day, the back pain had spread horizontally to each kidney area, but far more intense on the left - my area of long-standing pain. I vomited several times in the evening, and after the last upchuck, the pain started subsiding all around. It was (and still is) immensely painful with pressure on the area, but it no longer causes agony just by existing.
• This “episode” was bad. I almost went to the hospital. Probably should have. I thought of death. I’m pretty low drama, so this is not a trivial thing.
• Of note: a few hours before this agony began, I had a vasovagal reaction to a particularly inept set of needle sticks - multiple sticks and a lot of rooting around. Not typical.
• The next day, I had standing blood orders, and added a kidney urine panel. The urine alb/creat ratio came back high, at 88. All other markers - blood (CBC and CMP) and urine - were normal. A month ago, I did a 24-hour proteinuria test that was normal.

I’m interested in how to THINK about this, how to frame an approach to thinking about it, from a medical perspective.
For example, one doctor (not my specialist) suggests it was an acute transitory event, potentially pursuant to an infection. That it probably doesn’t indicate a chronic issue or a longer term risk. This doctor is prone to minimizing everything - but she may be right. Another doctor told me to get off my low-dose IVIG (28g monthly) ASAP. I won’t see my specialist for another month.
What could be going on?
How do you approach evaluating a seemingly acute issue like this? What questions do you ask when trying to evaluate risk and severity? How to you weigh past normal tests with an abnormal test immediately after an episode? How do you factor in acute moments in the context of potential chronic issues, and come to lean in one direction or the other? If this was a transitory event, does low-dose IVIG pose a risk? Etc. Are these even the right questions?
I’m looking to learn. Would love to have smart people open up their brains and share a thought process.
Thank you!

Has anyone else had almost every medication they’ve tried cause muscle twitching in various parts of their body?
Or have intolerances to medication and the side effects are bad?
When Im not on any psych med, my muscles in my body don’t twitch. As soon as I start psych meds and continue taking them, my muscles twitch. The twitching is similar to as if I just did a full body workout out, but I haven’t.
It seems every drug I try, causes EPS/a movement disorder. Latuda caused my eyelids to twitch and facial tics. Serequel caused muscle twitching throughout my body.
Caplyta makes me physically ill and have flu like side effects that don’t go away. Im currently on the lowest dose (dropping from 42mg, to 21mg, to 10.5mg), and it still makes me feel shitty and isn’t even therapeutic anymore.
Lithium really messes with my thyroid and landed me in the ER.
Mood stabilizers for me don’t work because of the birth control interaction. I have endometriosis, and without birth control, I am constantly in debilitating pain. I don’t want to get an IUD because of how incredibly painful and traumatic it is to get one inserted, and the side effects. To be fair, my current oral contraceptive amps up my depression a lot and has side effects. But I can’t mentally handle being in excruciating pain all the time and not able to move. I also can’t mentally handle this depression either. Having to decide which to deal with — being in debilitating pain and be on a mood stabilizer to help my mental health or have a very bad mental state and not be in physical pain is a truly shitty decision to have to make as a woman. There is no winning if you’re a woman. (I do want to state that being in excruciating pain all the time DOES NOT help my mental health, regardless if Im on a med or not)
I’ve already tried Lamictal, while being on birth control. Lamictal made the BC ineffective and made my hormones not be stable and go up and down everyday, and I was in hell. And the BC made the Lamictal not effective.
Depakote is the only mood stabilizer that doesn’t affect birth control, even though birth control makes depakote less effective. Depakote makes my arm muscles twitch, and makes my leg muscles twitch more than they do now. It’s only 250mg of depakote too, so not therapeutic. I did run a lil experiment. I stopped the depakote for a week to see if some of my muscle twitching subsided.. and it did. My arm muscles no longer twitch. My leg muscles still do and it drives me INSANE.
I just.. I don’t get why my body is like this. There was a point when I was on 200mg Lamictal, 60mg Latuda, and 100mg of Serequel and the muscle twitching was so bad. My whole entire body was constantly spasming and moving.
Prior to July, I tolerated psych meds really well! Until a psychiatrist (who can rot in hell), cold turkey cut me off of a very high dose of klonopin. I went through a 2 month withdrawal and couldn’t get water or food down for at least a month and lost 30 pounds in 3 weeks. My body has never been the same again, and I now have severe GI issues because of the trauma my stomach went through during withdrawals.
After being cut cold turkey off of benzos.. my body and brain do not tolerate psych medications at all. experience EVERY side effect and they don’t go away, on top of movement disorders.
Im desperate for a medication to work and Im hopeless currently. Everything that seems to help me somewhat mentally, makes my muscles twitch and jerk!
I don’t know what to do and how long I can last with my current mental health! I don’t know if anyone would have advice or have gone through similar things? Has anyone else experienced numerous psych meds causing movement disorders?

This is my first script. Please be kind. If it sucks, it sucks, but I had fun writing it nonetheless.
Please link me if you use/fill it. I would love to hear your take on it. Free to monetize, Youtube, Patreon, whatever, I just want to hear it. :)
Please give me credit: RE: My Darling / Remy Darling

Scene setter: Italics
SpeakeVA: Bold text with "quotes" outside of the sentence/phrases
Internal monologue: Bold/italics
Action of character or SFX: ((Double Parenthesis))
Response from a character: ((pause))

Speaker: You are Killian James a.k.a. Hook. Your eyes are the color of the sea, your hair is dark as night, and you are dashing, troubled, and flirtatious. The lilt of an accent gives you a melodic tone, and your personality is dark, playful, and direct. You are comfortable in three-piece suits, and are a dangerous man with many secrets.
Listener: Your name is Wendy. Your friends have convinced you to go to a bar downtown in the more dangerous part of the city due to rumors, only they end up bailing without you. You are going to go home after you finish your drink. The bar is called Never Land, Where, according to your friends rumors, the owner is a mysterious man that they all seem fascinated with. Apparently, he is tall, dark, and handsome – a devil of a man that goes by a strange name. They call him… Hook.

((SFX – The club is above this basement 'torture chamber' area-you can hear the music of the club playing muffled. The basement area is clean and not dungeon-y but is more of a modern torture chamber with drains for easy ah… clean up))
SCENE: There is a man chained/tied up. Hook enters the room, looking almost bored that he needs to be there. He takes off his jacket, handing it to one of his henchmen, leaving the vest on, before he unbuttons his cuffs and starts rolling the sleeves up.
“I’m not pleased that our shipment is late, Mr. Jukes. It was supposed to arrive on a super yacht named the ‘Jolly Roger’ today with a bunch of rich snobs who were none the wiser. Your men guaranteed me that it would arrive with the staff and be loaded off on the dock shortly after, however, that is yet to come to fruition, and I am not a patient man.”
((SFX: VA puts on leather gloves, stretches fingers and gets comfortable in them))
“I am aware that they have taken a detour due to a storm, Jukes – but your mismanagement of my time, and my money, are not to be forgotten. Bad form, Jukes! Bad form!”
((SFX: dragging knife sound – //our character uses a tactical Hook knife. It’s typically for gutting deer – not really necessary to know, it’s just to flesh out the character for you//, Hook approaches slowly))
“I know it won't happen again. Don’t worry, Jukes, since this is your first time having erred with me, I shall simply leave you with a small reminder. I expect the shipment to be directed to our port swiftly, otherwise, I won’t be nearly as lenient again.”
((SFX chains straining, screaming that becomes muffled screaming, as Hook takes his knife and leaves the man with a Cheshire Grin/Glasglow Smile up one side of his face, heavy breathing for a moment, as he returns and throws his knife down on the table))
“Get me my other three-piece suit from my office and a clean shirt. I’ve got this bastard’s blood all over me. He's not to be given his freedom until I hear that the shipment has come in from the Jolly Roger. If it does not go to plan – we will have to take further, more drastic actions and I don’t want to have to find this cad, Mr. Jukes, again. Do I make myself clear?”
((henchmen answer))
“Good.”
((SFX – him pulling off the leather gloves and getting changed))
“One of you stay here and watch him. Tonight I’ll be on the club floor. I’m not to be interrupted until The Crocodile has made contact. Is that understood?”
((pause))
“Good. That is all.”
((he leaves))

((SFX – transition to this however you like))
\*modern day, bar scene/sounds (*no* jazz or classical music - it's a nightclub), people mingling in the background. In enters our VA/Hook.*

“Tinkerbell, pour me my usual, will you, dear?”
((Tink is quick, and slides him his drink. Sip, sigh, and pause as he looks around)) (( This internal thought is not necessary but if you want to, go for it ))
\*internal thought*\** Who’s this? Oh my, sweet lamb, you are definitely in the wrong place.
“Tink, one last thing, could you possibly tell me anything about that young woman there? The one in light blue.”
((listening intently for a moment))
“Hm. Lovely. Thank you, dear.”
((SFX – he puts down his drink, footsteps/fine Italian leather shoes approaching the young lady who is at the bar))
“Well, well, well… Isn’t that a beautiful dress on an even more beautiful woman. That color of blue really suits you. You… are a piece of art. A fascinating and intriguing piece of art. However, you don’t quite seem like you belong here.”
((pause))
“Someone as divine as you, as *innocent* as you, dressed as you are, doesn’t really seem to fit in. Not in this kind of place. You look more like you would fit in one of the high-class jazz lounges uptown. Martinis, a piano player, velvet couches and the like. Do you think that you fit in amongst these gentlemen of fortune and these women dressed in their slinky club clothes? Look around, do you see the patrons here?”
((short pause as she looks around))
“Don’t you see? You are simply dressed too elegantly for a place like this. No, you, my dear, are definitely not the type that belongs amongst these fiends. You belong uptown. Not here, amongst the dregs of society like us. Your mannerisms are too graceful, you walk with pride and your chin up – this is not the body language of one of my people.”
((pause))
“Well, I happen to own this establishment, Never Land, so I am rather familiar with the likes of the people who tend to come through its doors, and I have never seen you before. You seem quite unforgettable. Could I have the pleasure of having your name?”
((pause))
“Wendy… What a lovely name for such a lovely woman. Well, Wendy, darling – my name is Killian. My friends call me Hook.”
((pause))
“So many questions! What an inquisitive slip of a thing you are. Perhaps, we could talk over a drink?”
((*VA snaps fingers* Bartender Tinkerbell approaches immediately and waits)) ((ListeneWendy begins to decline))
“Don’t fret, darling. It’s just a drink. Should you find yourself not interested in our conversation or in me, you are more than welcome to leave and go back uptown to the *safe* areas of the city, where the likes of people like me and my ilk will be of no bother to you ever again. But should I pique your interest, perhaps allow me the grace of your presence again in the future.”
((pause))
“Just one drink. And nothing more.”
((ListeneWendy accepts))
“Delightful! Tink, if you could get us another round. One of whatever the lady was drinking, and my usual.”
((short pause as he takes her in before sighing and leaning in closer to speak to her))
“Darling, do tell me, why have you wandered into the seedy underbelly of our city? What is it exactly that you are searching for? Mystery? Intrigue?"
((whispers // into her ear))
"...*Danger*?”
((VA leans back and there is a sly curling of his lips into a crooked smile))
“Mm, that blush really does make me think that you truly are as innocent as I originally thought, Darling. Albeit, I am sure you knew what kind of danger you could get into coming to a place like this. You may be looking for danger, but it seems danger has found you instead.”
((pause))
“Oh, yes, danger. There is plenty of danger here. However, it seems like that’s something you seem to be searching for. Should I inquire as to –“
((VA leans in once more))
“What *kind* of danger you are looking for? See, Darling, that’s the thing about danger… You may only want a little but you never truly know how much you’re going to get.”
((pause))
((VA - practically whispered across her lips or ear, you imagine how close you want to get))
“Ah, yes, Wendy, darling. I happen to be very… Very… Dangerous.”
((Listener steps back))
((he gives a low chuckle))
“Do I … make you … Nervous?”
((short pause and VA steps forward as Listener shakes her head defiantly))
“Or perhaps, I am not the kind of danger you are looking for?”
((closer))
“Do you even *know* what you are looking for, my little lamb?”
((dangerously close to her))
((pause))
((drinks come at this time delivered by Tink – VA returns to less invasive persona))
"Ah, thank you, Tink. You’ve impeccable timing. Shall we? I’d love to take this to a VIP booth I prefer to sit in. It will give us a little more privacy and won’t be as loud. Come now, pet."
((footsteps/music/whatever SFX have them move to a slightly quieter place, sit in a booth))
"Do you mind, Darling? I’d much rather be sitting next to you than across the table. That way I can hear you better. Yes, that’s it, just move in a little further."
((this gives no escape for Listener as James/Hook is between the easy exit and her – SFX of her moving over if you want to get technical and him sitting next to her))
((pause))
“Ah, *that*. The name Hook… It is simply from a childhood long ago. Raised in an orphanage with many other lost boys like myself. It’s a truly heartbreaking story, I’m sure, but I’d like you to remember our first meeting in a different light. Not melancholy and deep, dark secrets. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps, if you decide to embark on a journey with me in the future, or are willing to grace me with your presence again, we can discuss it then.”
((Listener nods, nervously))
((he leans in))
“But you, Wendy, darling –“
((whispered // reaches out to draw a finger down her jawline as he looks from her eyes to her mouth))
“You still haven’t answered me.”
((pause))
“About what *kind* of danger you are looking for…”
((pause // leaning in))
“Are you looking for something – just a wee bit threatening? Perhaps something that will get the heart pumping momentarily?”
((pause // leaning in))
“Or perhaps, a singular thrilling night before the sun rises and the fun is over?”
((pause // leaning in))
“Or… are you looking for something darker? Something much more dangerous. Something soul shattering that will devour you whole? Something that makes you question your morals… Your boundaries… Something that will burn you to ash and will leave you begging me for more even once I break you?”
((kisses Wendy))
“Do you know what kind of danger you want yet, darling? That last one… It is not a wise idea for a sweet little lamb like you, but I promise... You’ll love it.”

TLDR: I (36/F) have been “roommates” with my best friend (34/F) Janine for almost 5 years. Originally, I had been renting a 3br house in 2018. Janine & her long term boyfriend broke up around the start of the pandemic— December 2019. I offered my office for her to stay until she gets back on her feet. The other bedroom belongs to my then 7 year old daughter. She turns 13 this year.
Janine is also my daughter’s Godmother, so my daughter is happy to have her around. Janine has made questionable decisions when it comes to men, questionable decisions about her life, and has unresolved trauma that she doesn’t want to see a therapist for. She does her best to fake it in front of my child. She comes in & they greet each other happily, but as soon as she sees me, that smile fades and she may not even speak to me. When I brought this up to her, she said that my girl doesn’t deserve her sadness and that I as her friend should understand that some times she doesn’t want to talk. But to not speak or acknowledge me at all? What’s up with that?
Janine is also very secretive. Things happen to her and she chooses not to tell me until either the situation has passed / been solved or she’s so deep in trouble that she can’t get herself out of it. When the situation has been solved, she has probably jumped through so many hoops to solve it and it probably could’ve gotten it solved faster had she told ANYBODY. She mainly doesn’t tell me things because I’m a “fixer”. You tell me something is wrong and I’m immediately offering advice on how to solve it. I found out that’s a bad practice and I should learn to just listen. I’m sure Janine feels like I treat her like a child with my fixing nature, but like I said earlier, she makes bad decisions.
Late last year, my job allowed me to work from home majority of the week because our business is getting larger & they need room for extra workers. I no longer have an office, so I figured we should move in a bigger house. At the time, I thought Janine was a staple in our house, but since January, Janine has been more dramatic than usual. We’ve been saving money for the moment we find something that fits our needs. I found something perfect and I texted her about it. Everyone in the house that’s over 18 has to put in an application. Application has a fee of $75. Janine said she couldn’t handle the $75 until next week but the application was time sensitive. I told Janine I can cover her app fee and she said she rather I not do that. I didn’t understand because we cover for each other and pay each other back all of the time, so what’s different now?
Because of the way she flaked on me for this nicer place, I began to wonder should I just start looking for a place for just me and my daughter? Janine told me she’s in a good place financially, so should I suggest that we save money individually and go our separate ways as far as our living arrangements are concerned? I don’t want to lose my friend, but after 5 years of living together & the original plan was for to stay until she got herself together after a 9 year breakup, shouldn’t we move on? I’m conflicted. I don’t know what to do.

So, I posted this theory a while back but it seems that most people didn’t read through it due to it being too long. So here I am back again with my best to briefly summarize the theory with the major points of evidence from the comics that I have found. It’s still going to be a lot but, hopefully, this will help get the broad idea across. Then if you have any specific points you can hopefully find them answered in the sections beneath it.
For context, you only need to read the Basic Premise section to get the basic gist of the theory, all the remaining sections are where I outline the evidence to support it.
~Basic Premise~

Nightcrawler is the Winding Way is basically the idea that X-Men’s Nightcrawler got his soul ripped in half when he was a child by his adopted mother – Margali Szardos – who used the magical half of Kurt’s soul to form the source of her power, the Winding Way.
Nightcrawler would have inherited this magical power from Azazel, who he is still technically biologically related to, as well as potentially the combination of genes from Mystique, Destiny, and Baron Wagner.
Amanda Sefton – after seeing Margali use Illyana’s Soul-Sword to obtain power in the Winding Way, took over Limbo to study it before fusing it with Kurt’s soul in the hopes of being able to use the Soul-Sword to undo her mother’s work and restore Kurt to being whole again.
Ultimately, Destiny gave the baby Kurt to Margali knowing full well she would do this to him to hide his true power from Enigma (the Nathaniel Essex that became a Dominion), who she had Kurt concieved in order to defeat.
Additionally, she told Margali of a prophecy about a Soul-Sword falling into Margali’s hands knowing that Margali would attempt to steal Belasco’s Soul-Sword, that Belasco would turn his attention to Nightcrawler to steal that magical power for herself which would result in Illyana being kidnapped by Belasco after he gave up trying to steal the power from Kurt and thus create said Soul-Sword as well as – eventually – the Hope-sword.

~Part 1 – Margali Szardos is the Worst Adoptive Mother of All Time~
Margali Szardos is a powerful witch in Marvel comics who has shown being particularly hungry for magical power – doing everything from manipulating her daughter, Amanda Sefton, into getting her Illyana’s Soul-Sword so that she could use it in a killing spree to obtain magical power from her victims (Excalibur #85), to attempting to steal the power of a demon living under London nearly destroying it in the process (Excalibur #100), to forcibly mind-swapping with her daughter to save herself leaving Amanda to be tortured by Belasco (revealed X-Men: Unlimited #19), opening a magical rift to the World Beyond to obtain its power which forced her daughter to sacrifice herself to close it (4^th Nightcrawler series #1-4), to finally selling Nightcrawler out to ORCHIS to obtain the Hope-sword that was lodged in Kurt’s chest (Legion of X #7-10).
All of these villainous actions raise an important question – why did Margali adopt Nightcrawler? After all, it’s not like Margali went around adopting children – only Nightcrawler. In fact, outside of Kurt, the only other child that Margali has ever displayed an interest in obtaining was a young Scarlet Witch (Mystic Arcanum: Scarlet Witch) which is concerning given just how magically powerful Scarlet Witch is.
This all points to the idea that Margali only took Kurt in because she got something out of it – very likely magical power. This wouldn’t be nearly so concerning if Margali Szardos wasn’t also the Sorceress Supreme of one of the most mysterious and unexplained magical systems in all of Marvel.
~Part 2 – The Winding Way is WIERD~
So, I’m just going to come out and say it - the Winding Way makes no sense in the current understanding of magic in Marvel Comics. Even characters like Dr. Strange – one of Marvel’s masters of magic – has basically no idea how the Winding Way actually operates. There is a data page in Legion of X #9 that outlines the basics of what the Winding Way is and how it operates.
According to the data page, the Winding Way is an exocentric magic system – that is to say a form of magic that is powered by an external source to the user – which its various wielders experience cycles of power and powerlessness. As far as characters like Strange are aware, it remains unclear if there is a physical “Way” or if that is simply metaphor.
The strange thing about the Winding Way is that there is no other magical system in Marvel where this cycle of users having powers and being powerless is even a thing. Whenever an exocentrically powered sorcerer loses their powers, it is always a form of punishment. This is true with Dr. Strange when he lost 99% of his powers back during the War of the Seven Spheres story. This is true with Juggernaut who loses his powers whenever he and Cyttorak – the entity that powers the crimson gem that Juggernaut uses for his powers. It’s even true for someone like Thor and his hammer. No where else in Marvel is there a system of magic where cycles of power is a thing.
All of this raises the question of whether the fluctuating cycles of power the Winding Way are actually a natural part of the Winding Way or whether they due to something else – like, say the power source of the Winding Way trying to continuously punish the various practitioners but being unable to due to their attention being split up.
Ultimately, the only truth that we can glean about the Winding Way is that nobody but the practitioners of the Winding Way ultimately know how it works and even then, characters like Margali and Amanda have proven time and again that their word cannot be trusted.
~Part 3 – the Szardos Family, Cthon, & Wundagore Mountain~
Interestingly, a different Sorcerer Supreme Sgt. Sebastian Szardos – the Sorcerer Supreme of World War II – has his own insights about the Winding Way, though they are rather vague. Firstly, in the 8^th series of Avengers #50, Sebastian claims that the Winding Way has ties with Mt. Wundagore – which was famously the tomb of Cthon before Scarlet Witch absorbed him. This seems to suggest that the Winding Way originates either via Cthon or his creation – the Darkhold.
What is more interesting is that the Winding Way doesn’t seem to be practiced during the time of the Second World War as Sgt. Szardos states that only his great grandmother on his mothers side even knew about the Winding Way – Sebastian himself clearly wasn’t a practicing member. This is peculiar as Margali Szardos demonstrates an unusual amount of familiarity with the position of Sorcerer Supreme in Uncanny X-Men Annual #4 when she stole the Eye of Agamotto off of Dr. Strange with a mere gesture. Given that Sebastian and Margali share the last name and Sebastian was a known former Sorcerer Supreme while Margali – as far as I can tell – has never been, this would seem to suggest that there is some sort of familial connection between Margali and Sebastian. This in turn seems to suggest that the Winding Way experienced some sort of revival with Margali.
My theory is that the Winding Way started out as a sort of ritual that originated with the Darkhold and was initially practiced by the Szardos family over the centuries to siphon power off of Cthon to keep him in check and imprisoned - hence why there are other Szardos clan members such as Theodosia as shown in that run of Avengers. This would mean that if my theory of Nightcrawler being the Winding Way is true, then it would mean that he is only the current source of the Winding Way.
~Part 4 – Nightcrawler is still related to Azazel (and Azazel is a demon)~
Now a major aspect in this is that Nightcrawler is where exactly would Nightcrawler’s magical powers come from? After all, he’s the son of Mystique and Destiny – two mutants with no sort of magical capabilities, right? Well, that’s… complicated.
Firstly, it’s important to note that the X-Men Origins: Blue retcon is… frankly, not very well thought out. There are a bunch of things that it just gets plain wrong and contradict a bunch of previously established X-Men lore – everything from the fact that Destiny would have been too old to give birth to Nightcrawler, to Rogue’s age being way too young (she was adopted by D&M when she was 13 not 5), to the fact that Mystique canonically cannot mimic mutant x-genes - meaning Nightcrawler shouldn’t have teleportation with this retcon, and much, much more. On top of all that, the fact that the only evidence supporting the idea that it ever even happened is from Mystique and Destiny – two of Marvel’s most notorious liars – and you got yourself an extremely messy and rather dubious retcon.
Putting all that aside, going based on what the retcon has established there are a few ways in which Kurt might have inherited some sort of magical power.
Primarily, Kurt is still technically related to Azazel – yes, Mystique “mimicked” Azazel’s DNA in Kurt’s conception but given that in genetics it is the sequence of DNA that matters and not the source of that sequence, Mystique’s “Mimicked” DNA is still ostensibly Azazel’s DNA. Azazel is an established master of dark magic – specifically soul magic – and used to rule over a legit Hell Dimension during the time of Kurt’s birth – making him a legit hell lord similar to Mephisto or Dormammu. Given that Hell Lords are also considered the Sorcerer Supremes (as in the strongest) of their respective dimension, this would suggest that Azazel once held some major power, regardless of if he’s a demon or not. And as it has been established, magic is inheritable as shown with Clea (the daughter of Umar), Daimon Hellstrom (son of Marduk Kurios), and at least half the cast of Strange Academy, it would stand to reason that Nightcrawler could also inherit magical power from him.
Now, I know what you are saying – “But, Azazel isn’t a demon! Chuck Austen said so!” And while, yes, Chuck Austen has clearly gone on record to say that Azazel is only a demonic looking mutant instead of an actual demon, it’s been kind of invalidated by the thing that every other writer for Azazel – including the likes of Chris Claremont – have referred to Azazel as a demon at least once either on-panel or in interviews. And frankly, there’s nothing in the lore that says that Azazel cannot be both a demon and a mutant – after all, Magik is both a demon and a mutant at the same time. And let’s be real here, Chuck Austen doesn’t deserve nice things when it comes to the X-Men.
However, Azazel is not the only DNA that Mystique apparently mimicked – Baron Christian Wagner was also added onto that list for some reason. This is odd as why would Destiny and Mystique feel the need to include Baron Wagner at all in the genetic makeup of Nightcrawler unless there was something special about the Baron. However, the only uniquely genetic thing we learn about him is that he’s seemingly infertile – which may suggest that there is some sort of genetic anomaly going on with him, such as maybe a repressed X-gene.
~Part 5 – Amanda Sefton/Jimaine Szardos history in Marvel Comics~
Another aspect of this theory is that – if it is true – it suddenly explains a lot of what Kurt’s ex, Amanda Sefton has been doing in comics since she was first introduced in 1976. You see, Amanda Sefton followed Kurt back from Germany and began dating him under a different name – which Kurt was not aware of. She only reveals the truth after the events of Uncanny X-Men Annual #4. This unfortunately supports Kurt’s accusation in Uncanny X-Men #206 that Amanda used a spell to make Kurt fall in love with her to begin with – an accusation which Amanda has never confirmed nor denied.
Amanda’s peculiar behavior continued into Excalibur where she was manipulated by Margali into obtaining Illyana’s Soul-Sword from Kitty Pryde – who had previously given the Soul-Sword to Dr. Doom and then Darkoth, with it returning to her both times. Upon obtaining the Soul-Sword, Margali then used it to go on a killing spree against the other members of the Winding Way to obtain their power for herself. Following this, Margali’s failed attempt to steal the power of a demon beneath London, and Kurt and Margali rescuing Amanda from Belasco after Margali body-swapped with her daughter to save her own skin – Amanda ended up taking over Limbo, supposedly in the name of protecting earth.
However, then we have the smoking gun of Amanda’s meddling – during the 3^rd Nightcrawler solo series, it is revealed that Amanda fused the Soul-Sword with Nightcrawler without telling him. Her reason for doing so? “To protect the Soul-Sword from falling into the wrong hands.” This lie is so glaringly bad that not even Nightcrawler buys it and he calls Amanda out for not being honest with him.
~Part 6 – Amanda’s Bad Lie and What it Means~
And frankly why would anyone believe Amanda’s claim? Amanda is a sorceress – which means that she is infinitely more qualified than Nightcrawler to keep the Soul-Sword safe than he is. Even if she couldn’t do so, why didn’t she take the Soul-Sword to someone like Dr. Strange?
On top of that, Amanda took the Soul-Sword away from Kitty Pryde claiming that Kitty wasn’t qualified to keep the Soul-Sword safe due to her not being a trained sorceress. Well, guess who’s also not trained in sorcery and thus – by Amanda’s own logic - would not be able to keep the Soul-Sword safe? Nightcrawler.
Except, Kitty technically was able to keep the Soul-Sword out of the wrong hands – back during Excalibur #37 she phased the Soul-Sword into a rock which even Rachel Summers channeling the power of the Phoenix Force was not able to remove it from – it wasn’t removed until Doom came knocking and got Kitty to willingly remove it for him. So why couldn’t Amanda do something similar? Why fuse it with Kurt and endanger him?
And to top it all off, Amanda still needed the Soul-Sword. She was ruling over Limbo – a dangerous hell dimension full of power-hungry demons. Her magical powers are of the Winding Way – meaning that they wax and wane. So quite literally, Amanda needs the Soul-Sword – a weapon which every demon in Limbo fears – to keep herself in power; something which was proven in New X-Men #37 when Belasco walked back into Limbo and ousted her.
~Part 7 – Amanda took over Limbo to learn about the Soul-Sword~
So, what was Amanda really up to? Well, to understand Amanda’s actions in the 3^rd Nightcrawler series, we first need to go back to Amanda’s actions in previous series. What’s interesting is that Amanda’s interest in the Soul-Sword was first manifest through Margali – who reveals in Excalibur: Minus One that there is a prophecy that the Soul-Sword would pass first into Margali’s hands and then into Amanda’s hands but would result in both of their dooms.
However, Amanda doesn’t really demonstrate any sort of interest in the Soul-Sword until after Margali used it to obtain power in the Winding Way during Excalibur. While she didn’t get the opportunity to act after the events of Margali’s failed London project due to her mother mind-swapping with her, Amanda’s actions in taking over Limbo after X-Men: Unlimited #19 was more likely due to Amanda wanting to obtain and learn more about the Soul-Sword than about her trying to protect earth.
You see, as Limbo was in no position to even threaten earth until Belasco had obtained the Soul-Sword following Margali ending up there – meaning that if Amanda had simply obtained the Soul-Sword and left Limbo, Limbo would not have been able to endanger Earth. Instead, Amanda stayed. Why? Because if there was anywhere in the universe where you wanted to learn about a Soul-Sword and how it works, Limbo is the dimension to do so.
~Part 8 – Nightcrawler and Magik are… Soulmates?~
So, why did Amanda fuse the Soul-Sword with Nightcrawler? Well, ultimately because a major function of the Soul-Sword is that it can be used as a countercharm which can undo other spells – potentially meaning that Amanda could use it to undo the Winding Way and restore the two halves of Kurt’s soul back together again.
However, another aspect of the Soul-Sword is that it is dangerous to magical creatures and Kurt’s magical soul would already be weakened after years of being separated. Amanda must have figured that if she bonded the non-magical half of Kurt’s soul to the Soul-Sword would allow for her to bypass the more dangerous aspects of the Soul-Sword and allow her to restore Kurt.
And as a result of Amanda’s meddling, when a demonically possessed Pixie ripped the Soul-Sword out of Nightcrawler during X-Infernus, it left behind a void in Kurt’s Soul as established in Legion of X #10, which allowed for the Hopesword to later form. This also seemingly gave Illyana’s Soul-Sword a new ability to damage Techno-Organic beings which it did not possess before. This also means that Nightcrawler and Magik are… soul-mates(?) for the lack of a better term, as they are both bound together through the Soul-Sword after Amanda undid Illyana’s bond with Kitty, though this fact has never been established or confirmed in the comics.
~Part 9 – Destiny caused Magik to be kidnapped by Belasco~
Now, I noted in an earlier section that Margali’s fascination with the Soul-Sword was as a result of a prophecy – one that has at least partially come true. The prophecy as laid out during a flashback in Exalibur: Minus One was that the Soul-Sword would pass from into Margali’s hands and then Amanda’s but would result in both of their dooms. Illyana’s Soul-Sword was indeed obtained by Margali back in Excalibur #85 before she lost it to Belasco after falling to Limbo and the Soul-Sword was obtained again by Amanda after taking Limbo over in X-Men: Unlimited #19.
Now, this whole situation is peculiar as Margali herself is not a precog – outside of this one time, we never even hear her do anything similar ever again. However, we know that Destiny is a precog and we also know that she was the one who gave Kurt to Margali, as per the X-Men Origins: Blue retcon, meaning that this prophecy more than likely originates with Destiny. And really, this shouldn’t be a surprise – Mystique hinted at having some sort of a connection with Margali as far back as UXM #142 when she first met Nightcrawler, it was just never clarified what that connection was.
However, this prophecy would have been given to Margali before the Soul-Sword was ever made and before Illyana was even born, which means that either Destiny could predict Illyana being kidnapped by Belasco and creating the Soul-Sword as a result… or she caused Belasco to kidnap Illyana and create the Soul-Sword as a result.
Now, you may question how that’s even possible? After all, how could Destiny cause someone like Belasco to do something when the two haven’t even canonically met?
Well, for this, I would like to point out the unexplained animosity going on between Margali Szardos and Belasco. This is a rivalry that has been mentioned quite a few times – such as back in Excalibur: Minus One, X-Men: Unlimited #19, and the 3^rd Nightcrawler series. For some unexplained reason, Margali Szardos and Belasco have a lot of enmity for one another.
So, what’s the cause of this rivalry? Well, during the Dark Web event, Mary Jane Watson and Black Cat were captured by Belasco and sent to retrieve his Soul-Sword – which, as it is explained in the story is something that Belasco could not potentially use up until the events of Dark Web.
So here’s an idea – what if Destiny didn’t specify which Soul-Sword would end up in Margali’s hands, causing Margali to immediately assume that she was talking about Belasco’s (as that would have been the only one in existence at that point) and try to steal it from him.
This then drew Belasco’s attention and caused him to realize that Nightcrawler was somehow the source of Margali’s powers. This would be why Belasco even had his eyes on the X-Men to begin with and why there was a soulless Nightcrawler back in the original Magik series – Kurt was Belasco’s original target. However, the soulless Nightcrawler and Belasco’s obvious shift in attention to Illyana clearly points to the idea that whatever experiments Belasco tried to use to obtain that magical power from Kurt, it only ended in disaster – causing him to turn to Illyana as a replacement.
~Part 10 – the Big Picture… stopping Enigma~
So, if Destiny was ultimately the cause behind all of this – from orchestrating Kurt’s birth, to handing him off to Margali, to telling Margali the prophecy about the Soul-Sword, what is it all ultimately for?
Well, what it is almost certainly not for is the given answer of defeating Azazel. Simply put, Azazel has never been so major of a threat that creating a super special prophecy child was needed. Heck, he was killed in Dark X-Men by the demonic version of Nightcrawler, so how difficult would it have been for Mystique and Destiny to do it? No, Azazel’s defeat was a bonus that Irene used to justify Kurt’s birth to Raven, not the focus.
Ultimately, there’s only one answer as to who Kurt was conceived to stop – Enigma. The original Nathaniel Essex who transcended space and time and who Irene knew to be an existential threat to all Mutantkind.
This answer even explains some of Irene’s other past actions, such as why she was involved with the Black Womb project – yes, she was keeping an eye on Sinister, but she was also learning as much about the mutant x-gene in preparation for Kurt’s birth.
It also explains why she handed Kurt over to Margali at all – the Winding Way is described in the datapages of Legion of X as being something akin to a No-Place – something that Enigma and other Dominions famously have trouble seeing into. Thus, by hiding Kurt’s magical half in the No-place until the time was right and creating the means by which to release him from that prison, Destiny ensures Enigma’s defeat.
Or does she? Because as far as the current X-Men comics have been going, there is nowhere near the development needed to have my theory take place. At this point, only the Hopesword is established which begs the question of whether the Winding Way is meant to be the thing to stop Enigma or if the Hopesword is. As of this point in X-Men Forever (2024) #4, the Hopesword is what was needed to stop Enigma… for some reason. So far, all that the sword has accomplished is being handed off from Kurt to Exodus to Hope… who was then killed by the Phoenix and sent the Hopesword back to Kurt. We’ll have to wait and see if anything else comes of it.
Personally though, I kind of like the idea that everything Destiny did in orchestrating the creation of the Hopesword and/or the Winding Way was kind of a pointless thing in the end. It’s kind of poignant for Destiny’s character – being the same woman who thought that killing Senator Kelly would prevent the Days of Future’s Past Timeline when she was in fact going to cause that very timeline to happen – to have all her manipulations and schemes to create this weapon against the existential threat that Enigma presented… only to have that threat be dealt with in some other way, leaving Irene to deal with the consequences of her own actions and question whether it was worth putting Kurt through all of that. Maybe that’s just me though.
Conclusion
So yeah, that’s most of the evidence supporting this theory. There are a few other things – such as Margali potentially being the reason why Kurt was killed during Second Coming and potentially causing his mental break down during the Extraordinary X-Men story, but those are more auxiliary to these major points.
But yeah, let me know what you guys think down below. Do you think this theory is onto something or is it way off base?

so we know scotty is born 2222 ( or at least according to the wiki)
he served in starfleet beginning in 2244
retired 2293
disappeared on his way to norpin 5 in 2294
reappeared in 2369 crash landed on a dyson sphere rescued by the enterprise-D so keep in mind scotty is 72 years old here.
As of 2382 Captain Scott was in command of the USS Challenger) which had become a personal engineering project for him. He commanded the ship during an investigation of the derelict NX-class Intrepid) where he and his crew also discovered evidence of a new type of propulsion technology called Trans-slipstream. Scott was severely injured during an attempt to recover the Intrepid after it was stolen by Mission Specialist Berlinghoff Rasmussen and his partner, the Ferengi Bok. The Challenger was able to rescue the crew of the Intrepid; however, the ship was unable to be recovered and was lost. Due to his injuries, Doctor Alyssa Ogawa informed Scotty that he would no longer be able to command the Challenger as he did not meet the minimum health requirements for starship command. Before he could be removed he retired from his position and recommended that Geordi La Forge replace him as the Captain of the Challenger. age 85
As of 2383, Scotty was still aboard the Challenger as a civilian mission specialist working in Engineering. Scotty was aboard the ship when it was assigned to investigate the recently discovered Trans-slipstream wake. After the Challenger was pulled into the galaxy NGC 4414, Scotty was severely injured and was unable to continue his 48 hour required cellular regeneration treatments due to the damage to the Challenger. When the USS Hera) was discovered, Scotty agreed to lead the away team to the vessel to ascertain its status and to protect his Captain from the emotional consequences of such a mission. During this Scotty became more and more frail due to the damage caused to his heart by being suspended in the transporter system of the Jenolen for so long - which was the reason behind his regenerative treatments. Upon the away team's recovery it was already too late for the Captain to resume treatment. Knowing he did not have long to survive, Scotty returned to the Challenger in order to seal the rift preventing the Challenger crew and the IRW Tomalak's Fist from returning to the Alpha Quadrant. Using the Challenger to seal the rift, Scotty disabled the drive systems of the ship and opened the doorway for the other vessel to return home. He was last seen on the bridge of the Challenger as the vessel was crushed inside the closing rift. A memorial service was held in his honor aboard the USS Enterprise-E. (TNG novel: Indistinguishable from Magic)
in star trek 2009 spock mentioned that scotty created the transwarp beaming formula and spock by the time he left to back to 2258 was 2387 in his time. scotty would be 90 years old in 2387
In the year 2422, the Montgomery Scott Engineering Sciences Building opened on the grounds of Starfleet Academy on the date of Scotty's 200th birthday. Scotty himself was present, and cut the ribbon. (ST novel: Engines of Destiny) aged 125?
so this is all i can find alpha/beta cannon but how long do you think scotty lived until ?

But even typing this, it doesn’t feel real. I still have hope tonight that he can change. I feel so stupid.
I am 38F and he is 39M.
I am devastated. I would do anything and everything to be married forever, but it’s no longer an option and hasn’t been since the fourth month of our marriage. I was 8 weeks pregnant with his child and he assaulted me with a metal cup in the car while he was driving on the freeway because I wouldn’t stop saying why he was upsetting me. The fight continued when we got home and he had called the police, lied to them and had me arrested. Eight weeks pregnant. With bruises up and down my body. I got arrested. I spent the night in jail and had to listen to my baby’s heartbeat for the first time from a county jail exam table.
Somehow, through that, we stayed married. Abuse makes you do wild things. It changes your brain. Abusers purposely make you confused. Through counseling, I am coming out of the confusion now, though.
I could go on and on about the abuse I have suffered. I am here today because typing this makes it real that I am leaving. And I am here today because I need support in understanding that he is not going to change.
This morning things escalated by 8am. This is typical weekend behavior. I discovered that he has been smoking cigarettes in one of the vehicles that is in my name and that I pay for, and that I have asked him not to smoke in repeatedly. I do not smoke. I think it’s gross. And it has ruined the interior of this vehicle that is expensive. Not only that, but our child has asthma. Most likely because he IS a smoker. Anyway, I grabbed something out of the vehicle for his 6yo and I came back in and simply said “please don’t smoke in the truck anymore. Please don’t tell me that you haven’t been either.” This sent him into a spiral. He called me names and said that I am controlling. He started following me around the house screaming behind my head. He is nearly a foot taller than me and this is physically intimidating to me. So much so that my hands start to shake, my heart races and my thoughts become blurry when he does this. I knew at this point it was best for me to get our child and leave. So I was doing that. But this morning he would not let me leave the bedroom and was blocking me from leaving with our child with his body in the doorway. I told him I was going to call non-emergency if he didn’t move. And he would not. So I was trying to figure out how to call but my hands were shaking so bad and my brain was so jumbled I gave up and called my sister on speaker. I asked her to call the police. As soon as he saw her name on my phone he moved and let me leave. He yelled at me and our child out the door and to the neighborhood “see - I’m so scary - I’m letting you leave”. I got our child in the backseat and drove down the street to park and get them dressed. They were only in a pull up. I saw the officer coming down the road and flagged him down. I told him what happened and he went and talked with him. I left with our child and went to my sisters. Eventually we came home and he has been upstairs ever since. This is also typical. He will have an outburst. And then go upstairs and not speak to me for a week. And then one morning he’ll just wake up and decide that it’s time to be normal again. And generally comes to me and says “have you calmed down”. Which, as you can imagine, perpetuates the situation further. And drags it on. He does not understand accountability.
We have been married 3.5 years, together for 5 total. We have one child together (2yo) and he has two other children (6yo and 14yo).
We moved in together after 9 months of dating. That is when the abuse started. The first time he was physically abusive, he broke through our bedroom door. Broke. The entire door - down. Somehow, I decided to continue.
From the start, I’ve known it was never going to last. He is unstable. He has a long and dark history of mental illness (both himself and his immediate maternal and paternal family). In addition to struggling with substance abuse his entire life. His childhood is tragic and full of heartache. It shaped the man he is today, and not for the better.
He is in the trades industry and has a GED. I am a director level professional and have a college degree. His father was in prison for the last half of his childhood and eventually took his life when he was released. My father is a retired architect, Vietnam vet. We grew up completely different. Both of our parents divorced. He then suffered verbal and emotional abuse from his step father. I suffered verbal, emotional, and physical abuse from my mother.
I believe my mother is a narcissist and undiagnosed. And I believe my husband has narcissistic tendencies and/or is one. But I am not a medical professional. I am going on what I’ve experienced with both of them.
When we first met, he was 34 and I was 33. He was unemployed and really not doing well. Drinking in access. A lot. Everyday. But I did not know. I was doing very well. I had spent my 20s creating a fulfilling and financially successful career. He spent his 20s job hopping and, quite honestly, messing around. But we had fun together. But having fun together is not real life.
Here is where the manipulation began. He was upfront about his upbringing and past. And was genuinely making steps towards a better life. He is a born again Christian. And as an educated person, I believe he has grabbed on to what is actually important in the Bible. However, he is unable to abide by what a husband biblically should be. He does not love, protect or provide for me or our child. We joined a church, I became involved and made friends, and we went there as a family for multiple years. Until one night he showed up drunk, and I never went back.
I am the breadwinner. I pay for ev. ry. thing. He keeps his entire paycheck and will not give me money to pay bills. He will also not physically pay the bills. I manage and pay all bills. But not because I don’t want him to. I have begged, cried, and tried a million different systems (both digital and analog) to make him involved. And he flat out refuses. He abused our shared checking by taking money out to “pay bills” from his personal checking account and then did not pay those bills and spent the money. So I would then have to pay multiple months and late fees to catch up. Many. Many. Times.
In addition to not contributing financially, he does not contribute to the household upkeep or yard maintenance. Literally nothing. If I want the yard kept, I do it, or I pay someone to do it. If something on a vehicle goes out, I make the appointment and consult with the technician. But again, not because I want to, but because he will not participate. Or if he does, it’s half assed and more work for me. He does not grocery shop or cook. He has never cooked one meal for me. I think he’s maybe gotten a bowl of ice cream for me a couple times? He does not clean. He has cleaned the bathroom in our home two times. We have lived here 4 years. We live in separate bedrooms because he won’t pickup after himself. His room is squalor. Clothes on every square inch. Fast food wrappers. No sheet on mattress. I have cleaned it for him many times in hopes that we could make a drastic change and start sleepin next to each other again. But he refuses. I know this sounds insane that I have stayed married. It sounds insane to me.
He verbally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, sexually and financially abuses me. Maybe not all at once, everyday. But one of them most likely daily now. Or a couple. It’s been a very long time since there has been a long stretch of stability or peace.
However, I am changing all of that this year. I have hired an attorney and am climbing through the paperwork right now.
On Christmas morning last year, before we hosted family that day, he threw a (heavy) laundry basket full of dirty clothes at me as I was going down the stairs because I asked him for help with something. And after the first one hit me, I sat down and covered my head so I wouldn’t fall, and he threw another one at me. I don’t know how I masked my raw emotions through the rest of the day with family over. I ate not one bite. I pushed my food around my plate and tried to make my face contort into normal emotions for the day.
But I stayed. Again.
Mother’s Day morning this year. Just one week ago - I spent it locked in my bedroom with our child paying the divorce attorney retainer fee on the laptop as he screamed at me what a piece of shit mother and wife I am. I honestly don’t even know what I did or remember why it escalated. Most likely because it was a holiday - and not about him.
I am exhausted. I have lost close to 30lbs since January. People are beginning to notice.
I wanted a family more than anything. I adore my child. I spend my days and nights dreaming up ways to enrich their life. I wanted family vacations and world travel. I wanted to host, big, extended family holiday gatherings. I wanted my little baby to know what it felt like to have a mom and dad at home together every night. But not at this cost. The very worst part of my parenting is staying married. I am a bad parent every day that I stay here.
I wish I could file the petition and fast forward a year. I know I’ll be okay. It’s ripping off the bandaid that hurts.