Firstly, I understand that some of the Fandom is currently muting this subreddit due to spoilers and I respect that. This is a speculation and may include a spoiler from one of the books. Also, if you're new to the Fandom/this page, welcome! Apes. Together. Strong.
As we understand now, (from "Planet of the Apes: Caesar's Story" written by "Maurice") Spoiler Maurice referred to Nova as his daughter. It would be safe to assume that a peaceful transition of power after Caesar's death allowed Maurice to write the book and that Nova probably had a very happy life among the apes, we fell in love with in the Caesar Trilogy. The name "Nova" now seems to stand as a general name for certain humans. The best metaphor I can think of, drawing on my past as a Zookeeper, every deer is a "Bambi”, and every Clownfish is a "Nemo". Anyways, this nomenclature would have come from any ape culture that can trace its origins or at least has interacted with an ape from a culture tracing back to Caesar. (Except in a scenario where some other ape culture independently developed the same nomenclature but hey, who are we kidding?)
We also understand that evolved apes have cultures all over the world. Part of "Kingdom" is the fact that some (likely most) apes have never heard of Caesar. With that, a lot of people have speculated about the ancestry of Noa. I'm more in the camp of hoping Noa is his own lineage and it's not that important to me, overall (I'll revisit this subject later). We've heard Noa say "Nova" in one or two teasers/clips. I'd think it would be safe to assume that Raka taught him to call the human, "Nova". Now, if Noa and/or other members of the "Eagle Clan" are using the term "Nova" in this manner, then it would give more merit to the folks who want Noa to have origins and/or ancestry tracing back to Caesar. This would have to imply that sometime over the previous 300ish years someone from the Eagle Clan, at minimum, had contact with an ape from a "Caesar" culture. Now I did say, at the very least, it could be a lot more we don't yet know!
Fellow Fandom, please point out if I'm missing something, logic-wise.
As for why I'm more in the camp of Noa having his own lineage, I'll explain here... We don't know what happened after Caesar died. Their culture existed with Caesar as their leader. Now, Caesar was a smart leader and had an "Ape Council". He actively sought the opinions of others. With that, while I don't remember it being specifically stated, it was at least implied that Blue Eyes was supposed to "pick up Caesar's mantle" one day. With that, Caesar's death left us with: Rocket (No known living offspring), Maurice (An adopted mute, human. An offspring but certainly not becoming the main leader of an ape culture), and Cornelius. Cornelius being roughly 3 isn't making him the leader of their culture any time soon. I have seen speculation that wonder, "What if Lake was pregnant by Blue Eyes"? That could've been cool and I think it's unlikely. I digress, Cornelius would've had to been raised and overseen while prepping him for leadership. I think we all hope that the Ape Counsel had the group's best interest at heart and Cornelius' as well.
What do we know about the "Eagle Clan"? We do know that they are an isolationist culture. We don't know why though. I would hate to think that some event or antagonist at some point, pushed out Caesar's descends/followers which led to the inadvertent founding or fusing with the "Eagle Clan". That certainly is possible. Or more apparently, they are isolationist because there's humans around. With what little we know about Proximus, he doesn't seem to have a council. We do have Silva and Lightning. So far, they appear as soldiers and/or guards, not generals or council members. As I typed this out while on a flight, I do reflect on how we all know that the offspring of great leaders/rulers always "fill their parent's shoes" and are never examples of the apple falling very far from the tree.
Speaking of trees, where is Raka from!? It seems unlikely to me that Raka is from Proximus' kingdom. Maurice often reflected on how he occasionally would've preferred to have been alone instead of being with the other apes. Raka also being an Orangutan, it makes sense that maybe he is nomadic and spreads the "good words" of Caesar. That would have to imply that at some point, as happens, Caesar's apes must have split up and we can hope it was for a good reason e.g. exploration and not an unfortunate reason e.g. A coup, conflict, etc. A scenario like that would create a situation where a charismatic, intelligent, narcissist can become a leader, though. Which we are going to have.
What I'm excited about this specific timeframe is that we get to see how Caesar and his example is spread/interpreted through the world. I liken it to the spread of Abrahamic religions. There's A LOT that the three major Abrahamic religions have in common. I'd like to point out that I'm not stating that one religion is "more correct" than another. I'm stating that we, as observers, were witnesses to Caesar and we get to see what 300 years can do. We literally know more than any ape we will see in a future movie will know about Caesar. Though, I would've hoped that Maurice's book would've served as a historical text that every ape culture would teach.
If you read this, thanks. Hope it was coherent. I mostly wanted to get these ideas off of my phone before I go to an early access screening on Wednesday.
Apes together, strong.

The story name is called Fallen family. (A spin-off of my original story called The Personalitys)
Since the beginning of time there was this realm that is called The Out-Normal Realm.
These Out-Normals' jobs are to keep the multiverse, everything and anything balanced and not to literally break the law of nature.
The Out-Normal Realm, the gate, heart and balance of the whole Multiverse.
For the many mortals that heard the tales of this realm and these so like God's, they worship them and praise them and think only good things from them.
Even though the meaning of Out-Normals lives are partially true. There is a dark secret about these Out-Normals that no mortal understands.
That was two different races of Out-Normals that are despise each other.
There are the Guardians and the Bystanders. The Guardians are much more wealthy and powerful in their realm than the Bystanders. The Guardians look like normal people and usually wear more fancy, modern and cleaner clothes than the Bystanders who wear more simple clothing. The Bystanders stand out the most with their white hair and light grey skin. They both races have red eyes known as Red Velvet eyes.
The Red Velvet eyes symbolizes two things. One that they are currently present inside there own home realm and two that since they are in there home, they are forced to follow the only big rule in the Out-Normal Realm. The only way a Out-Normal can die is from another Out-Normal. This is not a rule by the government of the realm but simply the law of nature itself. This creates a lot of drama for the two races since The Guardians are known for killing off the Bystanders because they don't much control over protecting the multiverse.
Throughout the story we see this a lot, making many different depressing and tragic scenes.
Here is where we meet our future villain in the whole Fallen Family story, Atticus Maywood.
Atticus Maywood was just your another ordinary Bystander Out-Normal who had two big goals in life. To understand and explore the power of magic/combat that Out-Normals learn and use (teaching it to other Bystanders students in school.) And to make world peace for both races to share power and happiness.
Atticus loved his family the most and never wanted them get caught in between selfish Guardians and get hurt yet alone get slaughtered. This was the main reason he took on this very difficult goal to unite both races as one. For that and for his own race.
But one unfortunate day, the Mayood family (Mother, Father and sister) were killed of the usual hatred. With much determination, Atticus learns how to bend back a timeless realm by not going back in time all together but in one spot itself, since it would not effect the timeless realm.
But with countless of deaths to the same family members and friends from betrayals from even Bystanders themselves.
Atticus snaps.
He starts to understand the only way he could have the freedom and piece he truly wanted to dream of was to start all over, if that meant creating a new universe where there is no pain, no suffering, no consequences or any negative thoughts. This meant killing every last Out-Normal by the magic skills that he learned through his whole life. He learned things that other Out-Normals wouldn't wrap their minds around to do.
The day of the wipe out, only two Out-Normals escaped alive. Atticus Maywood's new founding goal was to kill the last two Out-Normals so that he is able to have full control of the realm he once called home.

To whom this concerns,
On the evening's 30/4/24- 1/5/24, I was absolutely horrified and left in disgust at the behaviour of one of your creators on tiktok live. Elphaba Orion Doherty, who also uses other accounts to side step account bans, displayed extremely horrifying behaviour that should never be witnessed on the app.
Thousands of people, potentially even many more thousands after the initial incident, were subjected to dangerous suicide baiting behaviour and violent content by Elphaba Orion Doherty. She held a knife to her throat and threatened to kill herself to thousands upon thousands of viewers, whilst appearing to be very unstable after an incident the previous evening of claiming she had self harmed. On the day of the 1/5/24, she was even showing her viewers, who again were in the thousands her self harm "injuries" on her wrist and arm, saying that she would "show them" to her viewers so she could manipulate her audience for more gifts.
Elphaba Orion Doherty was allowed, despite thousands and thousands and thousands of reports for online safety due to the content of brandishing a knife to her own throat, threatening harm to herself and saying she "wants to die" These reports were all received with no violations and the live was allowed to continue for over twenty minutes.
Children under the age of sixteen years of age have self harmed as a result of this. Adults who experience mental health battles have harmed themselves as a result of this. Families and friends of those who have committed suicide have been affected by this.
This creator has a track record of inflammatory behaviour on the app, which again has been reported on numerous occasions because of the very real risk to children who do have access to the app. Not only just children and impressionable young people, but also the vupnerable adults and everhone else who is subjected to this behaviour. The content of this creator suicide baiting, threatening to kill themselves, actively abusing alcohol and narcotics whilst on live is completely unacceptable. If she isn't displaying the above-mentioned behaviour, then she is demanding gifts and money from her viewers, literally demanding.
Due to Elphaba being a trans creator and also young (20 years of age) She is very attractive to the younger generations, the target audience being children as a large percentage of her gifters and viewers are children. She already has an extremely negative influence on these children, with her regular intoxicated ramblings, narcotic induced tantrums, and now suicide baiting and self harming while on live, is a psychological and emotional minefield for children. Elphaba needs IP bans and enforced bans from making other accounts for the safety and well-being of so many people who use the app and platform for welcomed, creative purposes.
On a daily basis, Elphaba breaks the platforms own policies. Please see below. And I am using general terms in referring to youths 13+ who are legally allowed to have accounts and access to the platform.
TIKTOK POLICY BREACHES
•"Youth safety is our priority. We do not allow content that may put young people at risk of exploitation, or psychological, physical, or developmental harm. This includes child sexual abuse material (CSAM), youth abuse, bullying, dangerous activities and challenges, exposure to overtly mature themes, and consumption of alcohol, tobacco, drugs, or regulated substances. If we become aware of youth exploitation on our platform, we will ban the account, as well as any other accounts belonging to the person."
As we are aware that Elphaba Orion Doherty has regularly exploited 13+ youths to emotional and psychological harm by displaying the above mentioned behaviour of suicide baiting, self harm, narcotic and alcohol abuse on a regular basis. Elphaba regularly discusses sexual exhibitionism and sexual assault incidents that have allegedly happened to her, and she routinely sexualises comments and innuendos that are inappropriate entirely. Not to mention how Elphaba regularly manipulates her young viewers for gifts.
•"We are committed to bringing people together in a way that does not lead to physical conflict. We recognize that online content related to violence can cause real-world harm. We do not allow any violent threats, incitement to violence, or promotion of criminal activities that may harm people, animals, or property. If there is a specific, credible, and imminent threat to human life or serious physical injury, we report it to relevant law enforcement authorities."
The platform does have many qualities and content that is perfect for what is described, however Elphaba has threatened to physically harm other creators on a regular basis, has been active in criminal activities such as using narcotics, encouraging underage drinking of alcohol and encouraging dangerous behaviour.
• "TikTok is enriched by the various backgrounds of our community members. Our differences should be respected, rather than a cause for division. We do not allow any hateful behavior, hate speech, or promotion of hateful ideologies. This includes content that attacks a person or group because of protected attributes, including: Caste, Ethnicity, National Origin, Race, Religion, Tribe, immigration status, Gender, Gender Identity, sex, sexual orientation, disability, serious diseases."
Elphaba has repeatedly broken these guidelines which have been reported, again thousands of thousands of times in her lives. She has been transphobic, racist remarks, direct racism to other content creators, discriminatory towards other genders. She has also made sexualised remarks regarding other's sexual identity and violent sexual exhibitionism regarding others of the opposite sex.
• "TikTok is a place where people can come to discuss or learn about sexuality, sex or reproductive health. We are mindful that certain content may not be appropriate for young people, may be considered offensive by some, or may create the potential for exploitation. We do not allow sexual activity or services. This includes sex, sexual arousal, fetish and kink behavior, and seeking or offering sexual services. However, it does not include reproductive health and sex education content."
Elphaba does not host informative content such as sex education or reproductive health discussions. She regularly broadcasts that she wants to find a "man" and how he needs to have particular attributes. She often discusses what she would do to these men, quite graphically which again, is not appropriately for her target audience.
• "We celebrate all shapes and sizes and want people to feel comfortable in how they present themselves and their bodies. We understand societies approach body exposure and clothing differently, so we seek to reflect prevailing cultural norms about nudity. We do not allow nudity, including uncovered genitals and buttocks, as well as nipples and areolas of women and girls. Sheer and partially see-through clothing is not considered covered. We allow regional exceptions for showing nipples and areolas in limited situations, such as medical treatment, educational purposes, or as a part of culturally accepted practices. Not all young people have the developmental maturity to respond to unwanted physical attention and uninvited sexualization, which may lead to psychological or physical harm. We do not allow significant body exposure of young people. Content is age-restricted if it shows significant body exposure of an adult. Content is ineligible for the FYF if it shows moderate body exposure of a young person, or significant body exposure of an adult. We allow regional exceptions for body exposure in limited situations, such as common cultural practices."
Elphaba on more than one occasion has exposed their genitals, full genitals while dancing provocatively in a dress at a club and this video has circulated. She has also exposed herself on her own lives while wearing a different dress on a separate occasion. She has also exposed her chest and cleavage in provocative dresses, including adding make up to accentuate herself to be more visually appealing.
•" TikTok is a place where people can come to discuss or learn about sexuality, sex or reproductive health. We are mindful that certain content may not be appropriate for young people, may be considered offensive by some, or may create the potential for exploitation. We do not allow sexual activity or services. This includes sex, sexual arousal, fetish and kink behavior, and seeking or offering sexual services. However, it does not include reproductive health and sex education content."
Elphaba regularly discusses her sexual preferences and discusses her kinks and broadcasts her sexual desires whilst on live stream. She routinely discusses her slime fetish, venom fetish, vore, human bodily fluids and often discusses masturbation.
• "In a global community, it is natural for people to have different opinions, but we seek to operate on a shared set of facts and reality. We do not allow inaccurate, misleading, or false content that may cause significant harm to individuals or society, regardless of intent. Significant harm includes physical, psychological, or societal harm, and property damage. It does not extend to commercial and reputational harm, nor does it cover simply inaccurate information and myths. We rely on independent fact-checking partners and our database of previously fact-checked claims to help assess the accuracy of content. Content is ineligible for the FYF if it contains general conspiracy theories or unverified information related to emergencies. To be cautious, content that warrants fact-checking is also temporarily ineligible for the FYF while it is undergoing review. To help you manage your TikTok experience, we add warning labels to content related to unfolding or emergency events which have been assessed by our fact-checkers but cannot be verified as accurate, and we prompt people to reconsider sharing such content."
Elphaba regularly discusses dark conspiracies such as governmental conspiracy, wars and conflicts and repeatedly spreads misinformation medically, politically and in general day to day life and has consistently preached anti governmental propaganda.
• "Content shared online may be seen by anyone, and has a wide reach. We are committed to making sure that any personal information shared intentionally or accidentally on TikTok does not lead to harm. We do not allow content that includes personal information that may create a risk of stalking, violence, phishing, fraud, identity theft, or financial exploitation. This includes content that someone has posted themselves or that they consented to being shared by others."
Personal information has been broadcasted by Elphaba where she has, on numerous occasions attempted to "expose" other tiktok creator's who have spoken out against her behaviour. She has actively put out personal information in terms of photos, names, addresses and incited hatred from her own viewers and supporters on these people she believes is against her when these people simply want to make the app safer for everyone involved. Essentially, Elphaba has "doxxed" also known as, leaking private information in the belief to cause malicious harm. She has also financially exploited vulnerable viewers who have sent ridiculously large amounts of gifts in (monetary value) under the agreement or promise of personal interaction on a one to one basis, or to join the live, or her usual speech is "Send a big gift for a follow"
UK LAW BREACHES
• Threatening behaviour with an offensive weapon - This can be prosecuted under The Offensive Weapons Act 2019, Threatening with an offensive weapon etc in a private place – Section 52.
•Threatening behaviour to other creators - This can be prosecuted under the Malicious Communication Act 1988 and the Communications Act 2003. Online threats could take many forms including threats to kill, harm or to commit an offence against a person, group of people or organisation
• Talking sexually to Minors - This can be prosecuted under Section 67 of the Serious Crime Act 2015, Section 15A. Furthermore, it can be prosecuted under Protection of Children Act 1978 if "sexting" occurs towards a minor. To also add that if the offender is under the age of 16, the following legislation can be pursued Protection of Children Act 1978.
• Obtaining money through tiktok gifts and Go fund me under the representation it for transitioning surgery - This can be prosecuted under The Fraud Act 2006, a,b and C, being false representation and misinformation. Other charges under the same bracket can be made due to the nature of the offences.
• Refund fraud, ie ordering food and returning it for monetary gain and at the loss of another - The above act also covers this.
• Fraud committed through the use of computer or mobile, technology devices including using the above mentioned methods to further commit crimes - This is prosecuted under Computer Misuse Act 1990.
• Blackmailing or threatening particular actions or behaviour that is to force someone to do a specific thing - This is prosecuted under The criminal offence of blackmail under the section 21 of the Theft Act 1968.
There are so many more things that could be added to this report.
Also, please see the attached online safety bill, which Elphaba is in direct breach of in regards to her content and live streaming behaviour ;
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/enacted
I look forward to your reply.

This is a long one, y'all. In order to engage in a genuine way, you'll need to read this whole thing. If you're not willing to do that, please go read another post.
So, I've been in fandom for 20 years. I have seen and read a goddamn lot of stuff. At certain points I was reading 400k+ words of fanfic a day (not an exaggeration; yes, I had no life). And you know what I've seen become a prevailing theme recently in fandom, in contrast to the current trend of general society? Authors are being deliberately obtuse about what they're writing, and how it could be harmful to readers.
Please pay attention to this part right here. People can write whatever they want. They can write furry gangbangs or octopus prostitution rings or 18-month-old bank robbers or whatever floats their boat. I am not saying that people should not write about weird things, or even problematic ones. Go for it! It's fiction! If you want to explore abuse or taboos, then that's totally okay. Write away! And you can cover it in as much depth and detail as you'd like because that's your right as an author not living under the Politburo or the Ministry of Truth or whatever else.
But here's the thing. If you write abuse and in the process portray it as positive both in-universe and without having any sort of meta acknowledgement of how it is abusive (eg tags, content warnings, author's notes), then your work has failed to be responsible about the content. Want to write a work where an abusive partner is portrayed as hot and mysterious and romantic? Sure! But include "abusive relationship" in the tags, or make a note at the beginning that you're writing about an abusive relationship and that abusive relationships aren't okay in real life.
I can hear some of you now: "But that's not fair! We shouldn't have to moderate our content for others! They should know what is and isn't real or okay! It's not my job to tell them!"
Sure it's not. And no, you don't have to censor your content for anyone; I'm not even suggesting that. And maybe people should know what is okay or what isn't. But then let's examine this from a different angle.

• Do fashion and beauty magazines/influencers contribute to negative body image by showing hugely photoshopped models as "natural"?
• Does today's porn negatively influence people (especially young men) by showing roughness, choking, hitting, etc. as normal?
• Do companies market food in unethical and deceitful ways that make their products seem healthier than they are?
• Should addictive medications come with warning labels about the potential for dependence and abuse?
• Should adults provide sex education and safe-sex materials to teens, rather than insisting that the only way is abstinence?

If you think that fic writers have no responsibility, and also answered no to all of the above questions, then you're free to go! Your logic is consistent. I can't argue with you. I disagree with you, but you're consistent in your beliefs. However, if you said yes to even a single one of those questions, hold up. This is a binary judgment. Either you think that content/product producers have zero moral obligation to provide some factual information/context, or... you agree that they do in fact have some level of obligation, regardless of that degree. And so if you do agree that they have an obligation, then... do you apply that standard to fic authors also? They are content producers. Do you make a special exemption for them since they're "amateurs"? How about the fanfics that are turned into "original" works and then published? Then does the author have a responsibility? How do you decide? Does it depend on the number of hits the work gets? The fandom that it's in? The language they publish it in? Come on, people. We need defined standards, not just, "Well, it feels like..."
So now let's take the common excuses made to exculpate fic writers re: this issue, and instead use them to rebut the questions I asked above. If you answered yes to one of those questions, but no to fanfic responsibility, then this is important.
Everyone should know how to think skeptically and form their own opinions based on scientific fact. They should. We all have access to Google! We know that models are prettier than the average person. And everyone should be able to understand nutrition labels and ingredient lists, right? And people should google their medications before they take them instead of just blindly obeying their doctor and pharmacist, who aren't medical professionals or anything. And as far as porn, websites ask if you're 18! And if you're a kid, then you shouldn't be having sex! Q.E.D., y'all. Cower away from the towering might of my moral high ground.
So if you read that and now answer "no" to the questions I asked, then thanks for playing. You've resolved your cognitive dissonance. You can skip away from this post. But if instead you read the above paragraph and think that it sounds ridiculous, then let's keep going. Have you decided that fic writers have some degree of responsibility toward their audience?
"Oh my god, this is just fanfic. Why do you care so much?!" Thank you for asking. I'll explain. I've always been bothered by this stuff, but recently I read a fic that tipped me over the edge. Here's the plot (fake names):
There are two friends named Bob and Bill. They have always been just friends, with no romantic or sexual subtext. Bob shows up one night at Bill's door with alcohol. Bill wants to have sex with Jack but instead of saying that, he pretends to be very drunk and uses that as pretext for touching Jack in inappropriate ways by "accident". Somewhere between showing up and getting blackout drunk, Bill kisses Jack without asking.
The next morning, Bill wakes up sober, alone. He doesn't remember the whole night, but he's sure that Jack did not sleep with him. He's infuriated by this. He goes out into the living room to find Jack and directly confronts him by demanding to know why they didn't have sex. He is very angry and uses abusive language. Jack is shocked. Bill knocks something out of Jack's hand and kisses him again without consent. Bill then uses his arms to keep Jack "trapped". Bill keeps kissing him and has the exact thought that it's okay to do because if Jack didn't want it to happen, then he'd struggle away. Then Jack says that he didn't have sex with Bill because Bill was too drunk to consent. Bill calls that bullshit and says that he made it clear that he wanted to have sex. He says that he wanted it and that he was expecting to wake up with Jack beside him.
Does this sound in any way... uh, unhealthy to you? Abusive? Disregarding of consent? Pre-meditated, coercive, and manipulative? If it does, then congratulations, because it is. What comes next? Surely Jack makes it clear that Bill is out of line in all sorts of ways, and then Bill reflects on it and sincerely apologizes. And maybe way on down the line they get together, but Bill needs to do a shit-ton of work on himself beforehand.
Fucking wrong. Jack suddenly forgets about all of Bill's bullshit and admits that he loves him and wants to be with him. They kiss some more. Sex is implied. Happily ever after, right? Except no. What the fuck? This whole story happens in the space of... eh, 1500 words, so don't come at me with, "Well, maybe it was a long fic and all that character development happened over the course of this 100k-word one-shot!"
"But what's your problem here? Are you saying that people can't write that stuff?"
Literally no, that is not what I'm saying. Please refer to the beginning of my post. But let's think about this.

• Bill never gets called out on his abusive behavior by Jack. Jack is the only other character in this story.
  • Jack does say that he doesn't want to be Bill's drunken hookup, but he does not address Bill's abusive behavior.
• Bill thinks that he's perfectly within his rights to behave this way.. He even explains in his internal monologue how it's okay because Jack's not struggling, which means that he wants it.

"Hold on! Just because someone shows fucked-up stuff in their fic doesn't mean that they're being irresponsible!" But wait, there's more:

• The author did not tag the fic appropriately for Bill's factually abusive behavior.
  • They did include a tag saying that things could have been nonconsensual... if Jack had had sex with drunken Bill... which he didn't. But they don't address Bill's actually abusive behavior that is nonconsensual.
    • The inclusion of this tag proves that the author is aware of what consent is, and at least one way of how it can be violated. I think touching someone in a sexual way without permission is... more obviously nonconsensual than having the ability to have sex with an inebriated person and then... not doing it. But hey. What the eff do I know?
• The author does not include an author's note about how in real life, this is abuse. Not even a blurb of, "Bill and Jack get together here. It's fiction. In real life, this dynamic would be abusive and hurtful. It is never okay to touch someone without their consent, or to get mad at them for not reciprocating that touch."

"Okay, well, whatever. Readers should be smart enough to recognize that that behavior isn't okay."

• No comment pointed out Bill's behavior as bad. In fact, people described him as cute or adorable. A couple of readers even said that they felt sorry for him because he wanted to have sex with Jack so badly.
• To be logically consistent with this rebuttal, then you must also agree that no content makeproducer has a responsibility to their consumers, because people should be smart enough to know the truth, regardless of what they've being shown. But you should have left the post at this point. Please go back and re-read.
• How many people encounter those situations in real life and are unable to decide whether not it's okay, when it's directly affecting them? Are you saying that people in real life should be smart enough to recognize that they're being abused? How very victim-blaming of you, my dear Watson.

"Okay, maybe kids' stuff should include disclaimers, but I'm writing for adults! My stuff is tagged as mature or explicit! Kids shouldn't read it!"

• When you were a kid, did you adhere to age limits on websites? If you're making this argument, then I expect you to have never even hovered your cursor over a porn URL until your 18th birthday. Otherwise you're making a bad-faith argument.
• When you were a kid, did you have unfettered internet access available via a small private device that you could keep in your pocket and carry everywhere? My casual googling says that 53% of kids in the US have a smartphone by age 11.
  • "But their parents should monitor it!" Ah yes, the infallible modern-day parent, who's got limitless time to monitor their child's every internet activity, as if they're the NSA spying on Edward Snowden.
    • "But there's monitoring software!" I don't know about you, but I've never had AO3 blocked on any computer I used that had monitoring software. (No, I don't read fic at work. Yes, I did test out the URL and even pages that I knew had "naughty" words.)
    • "But parents can exclude certain words!" Would you believe me that it's... possible to describe abusive and even explicit activities without using those naughty words? That's the magic of synonyms and metaphors.
    • "But the kids should know better!" Yes, because kids are renowned the world over for their maturity and ability to weigh future consequences. That's why we let them do everything that adults can do! Wait...

"You still haven't explained why this is giving you such an aneurysm, damn."
Okay, okay. I'm getting there. If you've made it this far, then you agree that content creators/producers have a responsibility of some kind to discuss the dangers of their products, and/or to provide accurate information to the consumer about them. Not doing so could cause harm, whether emotional or physical. Agreed? Agreed. Now, let's think about the age range of people reading fanfic. If someone forced you to choose, which person out of these two would you say is more likely to be reading the Bill and Jack story: a 15-year-old, or a 60-year-old? Don't quibble! You're not saying that it's definitely one person reading the fic. You're just saying that it's more likely for one person to be reading the fic over the other.
According to the 2024 AO3 Census of registered AO3 users who participated in the survey, 3.51% of registered users are 13-15. 0.6% are 60-69. Geez, I know it was such a hard decision. Really close in either direction! The median age of respondents is 26.0 years. Now, let's keep in mind that you have to say that you're 13 to create an AO3 account and thereby participate in this survey. (Somehow one person still said that they were 12.)
Notably, It is not a sample of *all readers* in the population. It is a sample of a certain *subset* of readers. But let's go with the median age of respondents being 26 years. How susceptible to outside influence were you at 26? Are you younger than that now? And 25% of readers are under 20.8 years of age. We all know that young people have a firm and nuanced grasp on how to recognize abuse and how to determine consent. That's why SA statistics on college campuses are-- oh. Never mind. And it is scientifically proven that the prefrontal cortext, the part of the brain responsible for weighing consequences and thinking things out, is not fully developed until 25 or older.
"Are you saying that 18-year-olds are stupid?!" No, and please respond to what I have said, rather than what I have not. Maturity is an asymptote. We continuously approach the horizon but never reach it. That being said, we do get closer with each passing year.
"But why the actual eff do you care?!"
Because me. My experiences. My very own. I grew up drowning in abuse and neglect. My "normal" was what other people would consider the topic of a Very Special Episode on television. Or, uh, a true crime podcast. Or, if committed in a political context, literally a war crime. Boo hoo, poor me, yadda yadda. That's not the point. The point is that despite the extremity of my circumstances, I had no clue that they weren't normal until I was 11 years old. What changed? I discovered fanfic. It was the first place I'd ever seen non-wholesome topics discussed. Where I'd seen trauma and even the gasp forbidden diagnosis of PTSD.
This was 2006. The school library didn't have books about this stuff. There was no #MeToo. There was no discussion in the general zeitgeist about abuse and dysfunction. Sure, you had the random V.C. Andrews book, but that was horror stuff. There wasn't anything that showed me that other people knew what was up. And looking back on it, I'm sure 99% of those fics were abysmally written, but that's not what mattered. What mattered was that I learned that I was being abused and that it was not okay and that it was not normal and that I deserved better.
As soon as I discovered it, I was hooked. I read it nonstop. Devoured it. Felt addicted to it. It was the only thing I looked forward to. But I didn't put two and two together. I knew it felt really... soothing, perhaps?... to read fic with those topics, but I didn't see how it related to me. I thought that of course the characters in the fic were traumatized and had experienced horrible stuff, but couldn't apply it to myself. This went on for... oh, 2 or 3 years. Around 15, I finally started to wonder if maybe, just maybe I might also be... traumatized? I might also be... living in a situation that wasn't okay? I might also be suffering... abuse?
At 17 I went off to college. I kept voraciously devouring fanfic. I read anything re: trauma and abuse that I could get my hands on. I still hadn't accepted that I had lived in a world of shit my whole childhood. But I fed off the characters' emotions, and how other characters validated them and supported them, and I even talked about the fics in therapy (referring to them as "online stories" and not fanfic, lmao). And then around the age of 25, I started getting frustrated with the way trauma was portrayed in most fic. I had moved past the stage where I just wanted to see trauma discussed. I wanted to see it discussed realistically. No cute one-shots where someone's abuse gets found out, they have two or three conversations, and then they're all better. No, I wanted something that portrayed the evil and insidiousness of the cycle of abuse, and how no one is a perfect victim, and how it can be a decade or more after the fact and you can still be fucked up from it, and how hurt people hurt people. I wanted something that people could read and relate to and see themselves in. I was never able to see myself in the other fanfic I read because the "victims" were too smart or too mature or too kind or too functional. I couldn't measure up and I shamed myself for it. But the truth is that no one who's starting to recover from that kind of trauma can be that perfect protagonist. It does not an easy story make.
To that end, I started writing my own series. It's pretty popular. I don't mean that as a humblebrag. It's a decently sized fandom and it's the most popular series in that fandom re: these topics. And by writing my own fic, and hearing from other readers that it helped them too, I came full circle. I never fully realized the extent of my abuse until then. Logically I knew that things had been fucked up, and that I did have C-PTSD, and blah blah blah, everything that my therapists had told me, but it didn't feel real until that moment in time. It did once I started writing. I've had many readers reach out to me and tell me that they didn't realize their abuse was abuse until reading my fic.
It feels amazing. My writings help people. I've had grown adults with kids and careers message me and tell me stuff that they've never told anyone before. Readers have told me that my fics encouraged them to stop drinking, or go to therapy, or break up with their abusive partner. That my fics are the main source by which they're processing their trauma. My writing has helped people just like other people's writing helped me.
So yeah. That's why I care. That's why I think it's important to acknowledge in some way or other that problematic material is problematic. That abuse is abuse. That things in fiction aren't always how they should be in real life. Because if I hadn't read fanfic that validated me, I don't think I'd ever have realized that I deserved better. I wouldn't have gotten away. I would not be the person that I am now. And if I'd read even a few fics that showed abusive dynamics as good, then I guarantee that I'd have focused on those, since they confirmed what every real-life person was telling me. That what was wrong was right, and that I was the odd one out for being hurt by it.
Thank god I never read those fics.
Okay. Enough about me. Moral of the story below.
Fiction is the best medium for exploring uncomfortable things and, yes, no one is forced to read your work. So write whatever you want. Explore whatever dynamic you feel like. Cover the topic that you find most interesting. But if you're aware that what you're writing shows abuse or other hurtful dynamics, then please, for the love of god, either make it clear in-story that the abuse you're writing isn't okay, or add some kind of note outside of the story about it. A tag, a content warning, a single freaking sentence. I beg you. Because I guarantee you that there's a kid somewhere out there sitting in a darkened room, eyes racing as they read word after word of your fic, and they're absorbing and searching and trying to understand, even if they don't know it yet. What you write does have the ability to affect them, whether for better or worse.
I know, because I was once that kid.

First Previous Wiki
Fleet Commander Annabelle Weber raised the shields of the dreadnaught as she approached. All across the Alliance Defense Fleet's mental network, psychic amplifiers were activated in tandem with shields. Thousands of small bubbles surrounded the soldiers and crews in the mindscape while Annabelle herself donned a mental device meant to strengthen her even more. It had been delivered directly by Brey herself in a massive expenditure of energy and likely was another classified project.
This far out, Annabelle had less access than usual. There was also less contact with Phoebe than usual, likely due to politics. But out here, that didn't matter. All that mattered were her crews, her ships, and her soldiers. Past that, the Cawlarians. Tenrah's fleet had started to move away from her, as the Admiral drew most of the fire from Siran's fleets.
Meanwhile, Annabelle and the Battle Planner were working on the planet crackers. There were five of them, luckily out of position by a few scouting attacks that had been sent against them a few hours prior. It had helped to ensure Annabelle and the Battle Planner wouldn't get wiped by the beams before even entering the battlefield.
They'd been deployed faster than expected. Phoebe's sabotage drones hadn't been able to destroy them quickly enough before being detected. The capability was unexpected, but it wasn't entirely implausible. She hadn't told the Heptarchies anything of the war plans, and neither had Phoebe or Tenrah. And the Battle Planner had almost no contact with them after their constant disparagement of his religion.
He'd gotten over it, though, and was stable. Hundreds of thousands of mine sweeper vessels, little more than drones with massive but flimsy shields, started moving forward. They cleared any stealth mines, antimatter pockets, and any other natural surprises that waited for them. The planet crackers themselves loomed large in the distance, but only through the optical sensors.
The battle would take a long time, and Siran's forces were being hit by a large portion of a second fleet. The Cawlarians had suddenly pulled off border patrol for a pincer attack. It risked the Heptarchy invading, but Annabelle couldn't stop that.
If Kawtyahtnakal had made the decision, he had plans in place. It wasn't a question. Annabelle checked the vectors, the networks, and the inventories of her fleet again. Everything was nearly at 100%, with only the FTL fuel reserves somewhat lower. Luckily, hydrogen compression wasn't exactly difficult in the modern age. Specialized interfaces told Annabelle that several smaller fleets of the High Kingdom were closing in, but they wouldn't arrive before they were already in the thick of battle.
Explosions rippled on the distant shield fronts of the mine sweeper drones. Corrosive acids and even smaller cutting drones came out, along with several heavy magnetic field bursts. Many of the drones were disabled, but the Battle Planner's strategy had paid off. His fleet took almost no damage, and only a few dozen cruisers and frigates were even hit. They shrugged off the damage easily, though they did pull back from the front of the formation.
The fleets had adopted a design that allowed for easy repositioning and retreat. It took tactics similar to the old British musket lines, only for actual ships instead of people. The caveat to that was only small ships could really turn quickly enough for the strategy to be effective. Their broadside guns, less capable than the dorsal and spinal guns but still powerful in their own right, also helped with maintaining the barrage of fire pouring down on the thick shields that were rapidly spinning up around the planet crackers.
Several ships filled with explosives and absolutely covered in heavy metals zoomed into the system from outside the battle. Annabelle could only track them by calculations. The ships themselves were empty of crew, with only a few androids piloting them. Phoebe's suicide vessels were ships that had been towed by Alcubierre drives, emerging from the bent bubbles in such a fashion that they had a massive relative velocity to 'normal' space.
In fact, thanks to some very complicated effects, they had been accelerated to a very close percentage of the speed of light. But in a space battle, the speed of light was still somewhat slow. Even with the presence of tens of thousands of overlapping Q-comms suppression fields, the Kingdom put up a good defense. Invisible ships detonated in front of the attacks, their own versions of speeding space drives detonating in a violent and bright fashion, creating ruins in reality.
Through those broken holes, stars glimmered, twinking uncontrollably. Bright lasers erupted from the side barrels of the planet crackers, taking sweeping passes over the attacking fleets. Thanks to the multiple trajectories, the planet crackers themselves couldn't easily focus their power. Hours later, as lasers and fighters darted across the system, and metal and flame spewed from red-hot barrels on both sides, the first shot hit.
A planet cracker aligned with the center of Annabelle's fleet. Its massive beam charged, sending warning readings across every sensor she had. Charon-class guns fired on the planet cracker, but its shields still hadn't opened. Annabelle started dipping the dreadnaught down, traveling at an oblique angle as the superweapon charged.
All the dreadnaughts in the battle were trying to avoid the planet crackers' fields of fire, but the massive guns were moving far faster than they should have been capable of. Whoever was in charge of them was truly desperate, which was dangerous.
She shouted her orders. The captains did their best, relaying them down the ranks. They pushed their ships beyond their limits. Cruisers groaned. Battlecruisers creaked. Dreadnaughts strained. But one ship, not close enough to the shield to avoid the rotating planet cracker nearest to Annabelle, was unable to escape.
Annabelle blinked away the tears in her eyes watching as the dreadnaught tried to engage its FTL drive, but the opposing fields from the planet crackers blocked it. The ship fired its main guns eight times in five seconds before the weapon split apart. The extra thrust gave it a boost, but it still wasn't enough. Everyone on that ship was about to die, and they all knew it.
Annabelle had done what she could. Now, the rest of the fleet would be in danger if she didn't act soon. She finally unlinked all the fleet's shields, having them pull them back to limit the impact the weapon could deliver. The codes thankfully managed to get through the interference in the battle, though she'd had to resort to laser communications to do it. Some of the ships had already dropped away from the combined fleet's shield.
Even the planet crackers could only damage what they could hit. With her fleet spread so far, the thick beam couldn't destroy them all. And there was proper warning with the Q-comms relays in place for instant communication. The light from the planet cracker wouldn't be fast enough on its own to warn them before it had already fired.
But it still fired. The impossibly bright beam burned out sensors that hadn't shut in time. Shields were overloaded in an instant. A violent undertow in speeding space accompanied the thick laser, allowing the FTL nature of it even despite the suppression fields in place. Past a certain threshold, they could do nothing.
The hivemind took over Annabelle's mind. The thousands of humans on the Coordinator were separated from the network to prevent a far worse fate from befalling the rest. Gravitational waves radiated from the beam along with a physical heat so strong it would have fried Annabelle to plasma from a hundred thousand miles away.
Space dust, scattered asteroids, and the shields of ships all glowed like stars. The unprotected matter became plasma, and a thick ring of plasma puffed out around the planet cracker's barrel, the residue left from the reaction that had created the devastating attack.
It was not just a physical effect, either. In the mindscape, a section winked out of reality, warping so violently with energy as to kill anyone inside. Stone sheared and calved away into a new dimension, caving in and through itself, shields, and people in the process. Light and space bent and collapsed in a relatively straight line. Thousands of people she'd served with for years were wiped out, their minds obliterated as effectively as they could have been.
And then the reality of the mindscape imposed itself, and the line split into smaller things and shapes beyond calculation or understanding. Minds visible beneath the shields of the planet cracker became hidden once again, as Phoebe pulled back her assault briefly to prevent damage to her mind. The hivemind withdrew into its constituent parts, so that the remnants weren't dragged into oblivion.
With Annabelle acting as a hivemind node, the hivemind deciding to remain would have killed her instantly. Her mind would have been smashed into the rock so violently it would have cracked the local layer of the mindscape, possibly killing everyone in the star system.
Meanwhile, the FTL beam continued moving. 182 light minutes separated the planet cracker from the Coordinator. Typically, speeding space FTL was anywhere between 52 to 3000 times faster than light. But speeding space, when it acted on a planet cracker beam, only served to accelerate its speed forever. The last warning from the hivemind had been sent.
13 seconds later, the beam itself impacted the dreadnaught Annabelle was using to remotely coordinate the fleet. The Coordinator was one of the newer and more heavily shielded dreadnaughts that had come from the Mercury shipyards. But no matter how much protection it had, a direct hit from a planet cracker was beyond its capabilities.
The beam atomized the dreadnaught entirely, along with four battlecruisers that were inside the beam that was several kilometers wide. The bright glow vanished in an instant, and the beam kept going, as it would do forever until it struck a planet, moon, or star. The glowing innards of the planet cracker suddenly sputtered with damage. Several attacks had managed to slip through the open shield as the planet cracker fired. They were followed by bullets, decoy drop pods, and actual drop pods. Just as expected.
It was a grim exchange, one which chilled Annabelle's heart to the core. In the military, losses were expected. But that never made them any easier. Doubt crept into her mind, and she harnessed her grief and pain to grind it into the stone of the mindscape. Her soul ached with the reality of what she'd caused, but she pulled the hivemind from its node and gave it an order.
A second later, her grief was quarantined and sequestered appropriately, where it would no longer impede her ability to command. She would spare the tears and the emotions for when they could be allowed. A gap in the defenses needed to be exploited.
The Coordinator's destruction had allowed Annabelle to take out the planet cracker with a shot from her dreadnaught's side guns. She couldn't use the main gun due to the angle and the risk of causing irreparable damage or an explosion she couldn't escape.
It could be easily repaired, but not quickly. The capacitor cell had been hit. Annabelle took the opportunity to assess the battle, as well as keep an eye on the defending forces. The remaining Kingdom battlecruisers and destroyers were fighting on, but they were a footnote in the battle. FTL suppression and multi-vector attacks kept them from being able to escape.
The Alliance hammered on them hard, breaking their shields, cracking their hulls, and detonating their reactors. Every few minutes, there would be another explosion out in the void as fighters and frigates took down the shields of another enemy. Her dreadnaught took care of the battlecruisers while her battlecruisers and cruisers hunted and corralled the smaller ships.
Without the power of numbers on their side, the Kingdom's defenses were already caving in. All that remained were the planet crackers, locked out of FTL by the strongest fields Annabelle could manage. Had her ship been hit, they could have freed a few. But it had not been. The Coordinator's ultimate sacrifice, terrible as it was, still enabled her to win the battle.
Several fighters strafed the inner defenses along with faster frigates. Dreedeen pilots spun and looped around inferior defense vessels.
Phoebe's missiles and lasers targeted the planet cracker's own laser defenses with pinpoint accuracy. Nuclear detonations rippled across the thick bulk of the planet cracker, but it shrugged off the barrage easily. More shields were flaring into existence, but it was too late to prevent Phoebe from landing roughly twenty thousand androids and five hundred commando androids on the ship.
Fighters fell apart, releasing more androids hidden within their wings and hulls. Several frigates fell to pieces, disgorging hundreds more androids. They flooded the planet cracker's nearest airlocks. Thermite Throwers spewed their searing power into the thick locks. More detonations rippled across them as Phoebe worked on taking out the airlocks.
Thick gouts of air rushed out of the planet cracker, though comparatively small compared to the actual size of the massive gun. Annabelle continued to move her fleet closer to the planet cracker, still watching as Phoebe's disposable androids swarmed through the now broken airlocks and set more Thermite Throwers on blast doors, sealing their entrances. The battle proceeded for more grueling and stressful hours.
The Battle Planner captured two more planet crackers, taking hundreds of thousands of losses in ships and borders for each of them. Phoebe broke through to the engine and control rooms of the planet cracker she was invading, finding it all destroyed. With the defenses neutralized and the defenders being routed, a new carrier was brought in.
It was a ship dedicated to bringing technological marvels to the frontline. Androids hauled thick cables from the ship, dragging them through the hallways of the planet cracker. Phoebe eventually plugged them into the broken remains of the computers in the control and engine rooms.
"Done," the android next to Annabelle said. "I'll have the planet crackers ready in a few hours for firing. I've captured around 40,000 personnel."
"Thank you, Phoebe," Annabelle said.
"You are welcome. Excellent work."
She'd already offered condolences for the deaths. Morale was low, having lost a dreadnaught, and there was no need to lower it. All Annabelle could do was commend those who'd fallen in the line of duty, protecting the lives of innocents by capturing weapons capable of destroying entire worlds.
Annabelle's second prong of the attack, along with the Battle Planner's third and fifth prongs, hit the fourth planet cracker, swarming it with attacks. The shield never opened for it to fire, but that didn't matter. An Arsenal Asteroid smashed into the planet cracker's shield at 99.6% of the speed of light when its barrel aligned with Annabelle's dreadnaught. It was too slow to properly evade at this distance, and both of them knew it. The weapon was starting to charge its gun.
It hit at an oblique angle to avoid destroying the valuable target entirely. When it impacted, a nova of light erupted in a halo rising from the shield, which flickered several times. And then it went out.
15 trillion gigaton explosions tended to be damaging to shields. Even the massive shield of the planet cracker, equipped with all the power of a planetary shield inside a few dozens of miles in radius, was unable to stand up to that. Though it almost had, somehow.
Annabelle had nearly died. Luckily, the planet cracker fired prematurely, so its beam didn't carry the apocalyptic power in its entirety. It had roughly half power. But most importantly, it wasn't FTL. So, the 80-minute travel time was plenty for Annabelle's evasive maneuvers to evade it. The beam vanished into the void of space.
The tears did not fall. Not yet. There was more work to be done. Her eyes fixated on the fifth and final planet cracker, which was turning her way. The sensors picked up several stealth fighters attached to the gun's sides, helping to push it to make those quick turns.
Annabelle had the dreadnaught roll, swinging it back toward the rotating planet cracker. She'd measured the firing time of the last one, and the momentum of the thing would work against it. By the time it would be able to match her forward motion and account for it, she would be out of the cone. She had an extra 10 minutes, thanks to the light lag for that. And she'd put them to use.
The Battle Planner swooped back in, using the precious minutes to burn toward the last remaining threat. Annabelle's ship passed the line of sight of the planet cracker. It had already started charging, but it was too late. The last of her ship had passed when the massive gun belched a ray of thick light. It seared past and below her, as she'd also used the light lag to add a bit of relative yaw and pitch to her ship. The laser destroyed her shields and ruined the armor facing it with heat expansion. Plasma formed on the edges of her dreadnaught, exploding away in violent puffs.
The actual beam had passed a scant few thousand miles away and was going off into space, this time hitting nothing at all directly.
A stream of fire from the planet cracker hit the shields at the same time, trying to keep the opening from allowing purchase in the shields. But as the residual explosions cleared, nothing seemed to happen. No fighters, no giant battles against the well-prepared defenses.
"Permission to fire?" Phoebe asked.
"Permission granted," Annabelle replied.
A hard light hologram around the captured fourth planet cracker fell away. A thick beam passed the shield of the fifth planet cracker, weakening it visibly. Then, the planet cracker beam hit the star in the center of the system. A gigantic coronal mass ejection followed, along with an ejection of plasma roughly eight times the size of Jupiter, as the beam detonated within the dense interior of the hot ball of plasma.
The magnetic storm which followed disabled every shield in the system, leaving the Cawlarians and the Alliance easy pickings of the planet cracker. Phoebe's androids landed on the burnt and blasted metal surface first. Thermite Throwers followed.
Five hours later, the battle ended. The hivemind wrapped her in a gentle hug as the mental block on her grief slowly started to fade.
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Elder Manil Van smiled as he ate something called a burger. So far, the tour he'd gone on with the Alliance had been mostly uneventful. Dirty looks, a few mothers moving to the opposite side of the street, and a whole lot of walking. He had expected it, though.
The Patriarch checked in on him periodically, looking through his eyes and sometimes listening to the conversations that Manil had. A few of the humans on Luna actually were interested in learning more about him. They'd come up to him, shake his claws with their hands under the wary gazes of his guards, and ask if they could learn more about him. Some of their interests were academic. Several scientists had been recording his testimony on how genetic altering and conceptual energy had contributed to the number of Elders who were angry all the time.
Others wanted to know more about his culture, traditions, and morals. They'd been surprised several times to learn just how similar some of them were or how different. The Casting Of the Candles as a way to honor the death of someone great by setting floating candles into a river was apparently similar to how a few of them had done funeral services. Other times, they were surprised by Manils' descriptions of how large the Sprilnav's trains and buses were to account for quadrupedal forms. Their ceilings were generally lower in exchange for packing more people inside. Some of them were also interested in Sprilnav fashion.
Most of it wasn't something that he bothered with. The Sprilnav didn't really do 'pants' like humans did. With four legs, that was often relegated to either long socks, robes, and dresses, or just simple loincloths. Female Sprilnav didn't have the same taboo that female humans did about showing their chests. Manil assumed it was likely due to a lack of mammary glands at the location, so there was no 'breast-feeding' of children or any related stimulations even possible.
The dimorphism between male and female humans was greater than that of the Sprilnav, who mostly showed it in bone structures and how lean their bodies were. Others had compared him to other quadrupedal Earth creatures, attempting to see the singularities and differences.
Of course, he denied anything that required extensive physical interaction. The rave gyms that Equisa apparently went to didn't interest him, with their large crowds. He disliked having so many eyes on him, so he decided to avoid that whenever he could. One particularly bold human had even asked him on a date, citing things that were apparently mixes of superstitions and odd fantasies gained from too much time spent on a network with a great deal of certain content.
Though some of it was shocking, most wasn't. He'd seen a lot in his long life, and if a network was unregulated enough, a lot of the things Phoebe later explained to him would also appear. Though the fact that anything they did managed to surprise him at all was worrying, considering that they were not an old species.
"And you likely could start up a few businesses, for the novelty of it," Phoebe was saying. Manil nodded absently.
"What is it?"
"Where are Luke and Leia?"
"Elsewhere," Phoebe said. "They're assets of the Alliance. We don't exactly give away their locations. Especially..." she trailed off.
"Especially not to Sprilnav," Manil finished.
"Yes. I am authorized to tell you that further contact can be arranged in the future, under careful circumstances."
"That is good. They are good people, somehow. I'm still trying to figure out how to managed to make super soldiers that are good people."
"I had no hand in their creation. But we managed."
"Yes. I would hope no more are being experimented upon."
"I can neither confirm or deny that. Take that as you will, but there will be no further conversation about classified topics."
"Then... how are you feeling, Phoebe? I heard you got in some hot water recently."
"Learned that idiom too? And yes, I did," she said, looking a little defensive. "Politicians are who they are. But Humanity is better than them, and kinder than them. Even the youngest people can say the nicest things to me. It's what I love about them."
"Love," Manil said. "An interesting word."
"A true one. I am a person, and I happen to be able to love."
"You have people that do not love?"
"There are different kinds. Aromantic people, for example. Edu'frec doesn't engage in non-familial relationships. The wanderers do things differently, as do the Junyli. Every species is different."
"So you have people that do not contribute."
"We do. Every society does, and they all deserve a chance at life."
"An interesting opinion, but I suppose our cultures to have differences."
"I hope you don't purge your own people."
"I do not. The Van family does not. But we are not our entire species, just as you and Penny are not the entire Alliance. It is prudent to remember that."
He said it more for the Patriarch than for them.
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Penny frowned as Valisada continued to defend himself against Justicar's anger. Kashaunta's promise of a 'civilized discussion' clearly didn't account for their animosity. Only Valisada didn't say anything, continuing to listen to various insults spewed against him and his leadership. When Justicar's latest tirade finished, Valisada turned toward Penny.
"Your ally is gifted with his words."
"How dare you ignore me," Justicar said. "Your Grand Fleet did this, and I will have my reparations."
"What's your price, now that you are done?"
"50 quintillion credits, and you leave."
Justicar had escalated his terms. Valisada noticed, as did Penny.
Nilnacrawla sighed in Penny's head.
If we get him to sign a non-aggression treaty, we need to ensure both Kashaunta and Justicar have a vested interest in backing it. He isn't above tarnishing his reputation for the issues he believes are important. He is dangerous, and you must remain vigilant while he is Grand Fleet Commander.
Kashaunta is worse than I hoped.
She is what you knew she was, but is now comfortable letting her worse side free so it will be normalized when the Judgment is done. Once you get used to it, you will excuse it, and Kashaunta will use your gratitude to ensure your continued relationship. She is grooming you, Penny.
For what?
Likely to continue providing her money with the linear singularities. Do not be surprised if new threats appear that 'only Kashaunta can stop' when the Judgment ends. Or if it goes unfavorably, for her to clamp down because she knows she's the Alliance's only hope. Play at anger or friendship if you wish, but do not forget who she is, and how she got her wealth.
Thank you, Nilnacrawla, Penny said. But can you remind me when I'm losing my way, if I do in the future?
Gladly.
"I cannot leave, sadly," Valisada said, looking truly downtrodden at the request. "I have my own masters I must please, the same ones who ensured the previous leader's removal. I cannot go against their desires, and their desires are for me to remain here, as a check against Kashaunta and her own Grand Fleet."
"My Grand Fleet is here because yours is. And I would note that yours arrived first," Kashaunta replied.
"Through no actions of my own, and I am unable to rectify that to your liking."
"That is convenient, isn't it?" Justicar asked.
"Ask them about that. They're the ones who attacked my flagship and abducted Azeri," Valisada responded. "I hold no animosity about that, but your actions to have consequences. I will not be bullied or goaded into making a poor decision here. You all are smart people, so surely you realize that any further arguments must have a legal backing before we proceed. Justicar is uniquely equipped to handle these things, given the size and scale of his legal apparatus, as well as its high quality. Just as I am sure that the Judgment will proceed soon."
"You almost sound eager for it, Elder Valisada. Is there any reason why?" Penny asked.
"Well, yes. It is because I am tired of this. Regrettably, it will determine the fate of your species. But that is life. The weak are ruled by the strong."
"And yet you say you do not look down upon Humanity."
"It is not a weakness of your forms, or of your hearts. It is one of minds, population, and resources. And your Alliance has more species than just Humanity, Penny. Are you not concerned for the teeming billions of Acuarfar, or the Guulin you stole from the United Legions?"
"The Guulin were liberated from slavery," Penny frowned. "And when I get back down to Justicar, I will continue doing that to the innocent people your Dreadnaught Captain mercilessly slaughtered. In the interest of honest cooperation, I will terminate gang leaders with prejudice if I must, but only if there is no other choice.
Any who have links to your Grand Fleet will be treated even more harshly, which should discourage any more 'rogue' members of your fleet from engaging in illicit affairs. For the 455 thousand dead Sprilnav that Solei personally killed, it would be the least you can do. Given that the Grand Fleets exist to protect the Sprilnav species from all threats, internal and external, of course."
"Perhaps Solei believed you were an external threat," Valisada replied. "Given your threats against those who actively stand against you, it would make sense from his perspective."
Penny laughed. "His last perspective was of Justicar's teeth crunching through his ribcage."
"How distasteful to laugh over such a gruesome death."
Valisada actually managed to look sad about it.
"Distateful, Elder? I'm showing the same amount of appreciation that you do for the Sprilnav who don't happen to be rich and powerful Elders. Unless you are assuming that the 455 thousand Sprilnav are worth less than the life of one Elder?"
"There is no assumption necessary," Valisada said. "In monetary, legal, economic, and even political studies, this has been proven true. In fact, the lowest estimates for the ratios are 1 Elder for every 50 million Sprilnav, though some more biased studies can go quite higher. I remember the Autonomous Peoples' Stars put out a study which found that roughly 20 billion Sprilnav equaled an Elder in value.
Of course, the names of those who funded that study happened to include several Elders high up in the political hierarchy, including a certain Elder named Kashaunta. Luckily, more realistic measures of our worth prevail. In the event of a war breaking out, the largest losses for Justicar would be the civilians."
"And a war will not break out," Justicar agreed. "If it does, my jaws will find a new Elder's body."
For effect, his tongue slid over his teeth. It was a grotesque gesture, but neither of the Elders seemed bothered by it. Perhaps they'd seen worse. Penny had to admit it would just be another step to Elder insanity if they were cannibals, too. The only thing worse was if they did blood sacrifices on babies in cults.
"You know, cannibalism is considered a crime by your very own laws," Valisada said as if that was the only problem with it worth considering.
"I do not remember consuming the physical meat of Solei, which is the requirement for that law. Deaths in the mindscape can happen when Elders make poor decisions. But that is beside the point. I have matters to attend to, and will be sending over some agreements and lawyers to your ship. Kill them or harm them, and you will be at war with me for real," Justicar threatened.
"Without a flagship, such a measure would be foolish," Valisada said.
"Luckily, he would not be without a flagship in that case," Kashaunta replied. "Because I will be sending lawyers too. Rest assured, a war with me, and my nation, is something you might live to see the end of, though your remaining relatives on your home planet would not."
"You would not dare."
"I would," Kashaunta said. "Quite recently, I have been reminded of my previous methods of dealing with those like you. I believe I was reminded 'what I am' if you would. You do not care about the people Solei killed on Justicar, and neither will I for Padalia, Ni-alsi 2, or Malikaven."
So this was to make Penny feel bad for her words. She saw what this was, and would not allow herself to be swayed. Elders had this sort of tendency, and if she wanted to get a positive outcome, she'd have to deal with it for a bit longer. Perhaps Kashaunta would regain her willingness to maintain her facade of friendliness again once this was over.
But Penny would not forget this. Kashaunta was the Alliance's best option, but that didn't mean she was a good one. After the Judgment, Penny would reexamine their relationship.
Valisada's eyes narrowed. "You would increase it to three planets?"
"Yes. I believe their total population is roughly 140 billion people. That equates to 70 Elders. Or 67.16, if we are being exact with the study I believe you are citing."
Penny did her best to hide her disgust but failed. Valisada took notice. "This is who you work for, Penny. This is who she really is."
Don't listen to him, Nilnacrawla said.
I know. He doesn't want what's best for us, and Kashaunta's our means to an end.
Watch you back, Penny. I'll do the same.
"I know," Penny replied. "But we don't have any other allies. You're not exactly reliable, even if you were to suspiciously flip sides and make an offer to be a new ally. Justicar is bound to his planet. The Progenitors are pulling back their influence."
"And such extreme threats as I have made would only come to fruition if a war were to break out," Kashaunta said. "I am making them so you understand the scope of your actions as a Grand Fleet Commander. Perhaps I was overly harsh, but do not mistake these threats as empty. I protect my own."
"Your own?" Valisada asked. Kashaunta flicked a claw toward Penny, without meeting her gaze. Penny was still processing the sudden escalation, which had seemingly came out of nowhere. Why was Kashaunta pretending she cared? She clearly saw Penny and the Alliance as means to an end. Perhaps even several ends.
"Penny, and those she values. I could consider the slaves as citizens of the People's Stars, for example."
"No, you could not," Justicar responded. His demeanor darkened visibly, and the lighting in the virtual reality became darker.
"Why not? You don't think they're your citizens, do you? Not much 'justice' in keeping slaves, hmm?"
This is stupid, and a waste of my time, Penny thought.
They do need a bit of an ego check, don't they? Nilnacrawla agreed.
Yes.
Penny stood up, making her chair slide backward. "Can you all quit being evil? This is ridiculous. All we need to do is sit together and draft agreements. Otherwise, leave it to the lawyers, and stop with the petty insults. Or the grave ones. You're not 5 year olds. You're billions of years old. It's honestly sad. No, it's pathetic.
How have you managed to keep your 'master race' thing going this long, when you suck this badly? Spoiled little brats. Can you believe Kashaunta told me I needed to be civilized for this meeting? Perhaps I should don a loincloth and pick up my club, so I can start hooting it up with you old primitives."
The Elders paused, looking at Penny in wonder.
"You see? Let's talk treaties. Do you guys have any ideas, or should I go get some wood for a bonfire? With how much you all talk, I'm sure your singing voices must be phenomenal."

The results are in for Match 18. The winner is…
The human body is only capable of handling so much external stress before it collapses.
This limit depended on many factors. Your average person would likely not be able to withstand much without beginning to panic, and any truly absurd amount of stress would cause the aforementioned collapse. The more endurant among us may have a far larger limit, but a limit is still a limit. Marcus was one such man. He had lived through seemingly endless pain, forced through tragedy and turmoil at seemingly every turn. Even a man like him had his limits.
And he had long since hit them.
Marcus stumbled backwards, growling under his breath. His vision was spotty, constantly assaulted by bright lights. His skin was constantly victim to bites, blood spurting out from what felt like a thousand cuts along his body. The constant swarm had grown too loud. He felt like he was going to explode, and it took every ounce of will in his broken body to force himself to keep up with the oncoming Steric, who-
Bright light, like fireflies, filled his vision. Something from the man’s mouth. It didn’t matter what it was. It overwhelmed Marcus’s senses. His Stand was screaming something at him, but he couldn’t hear it. It was too much. This was all too much.
Something punctured his chest.
In that moment, he gained a sudden clarity. He could see the pipes around him moving skyward - no, that wasn’t right. He was falling. The man who’d been so much trouble to him was in front of him now. He glared, but there was something sympathetic there, too.
“This is for your own good!”
Ah. No, that wasn’t right. This man wanted to help him. He didn’t deserve help. Marcus’s teeth dug into Steric’s shoulder, ripping through flesh, just before-
SLAM
He landed on the factory floor, sword sinking through his chest. His head slammed against hard metal beneath him, and the reaving hound finally felt nothing but peace and silence, a gentle calmness guiding into a slumber where he may, for just a moment, find some sort of rest.
He did not want to be helped, but... He couldn’t refuse this peace and quiet, either.

Steric Lou Farin, with a score of 78 to Marcus Keller’s 69!

Category	Winner	Point Totals	Comments
Popularity	Steric Lou Farin	11 (4.5+2) - 19 (8.5+2)	Thank you to everyone who turned up to vote!
Quality	Steric Lou Farin	23 (7 8 8) - 24 (7 8 9)	Reasoning
JoJolity	Tie	25 (8 7 10) - 25 (7 8 10)	Reasoning
Conduct	Tie	10-10	Nothing to report!

Captain Hooked and Kho Pesci clattered to the concrete, as the hunter gently slid the edge of his own spectral blade out of his arm. Steric stood, panting over the incapacitated Marcus, finally given a chance to rest—a reprieve from his torment. Yet still, they both bled red in the end. Blood pooled around them, an indistinguishable mix of their collective strife and struggle over the past...how long had this been? What a headache.
Steric struggled and lurched into something approximating good posture, speaking to the aether in hopes at least one of the supposed monsters before him could hear.
"Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth? As a witness to many such spirits coming and going, I can say that it is certainly not the case, and confirm that believing otherwise truly is tantamount to vanity. We're not irredeemable, even when behaving so savagely...whether viscous with reckless abandon or flailing like a cornered beast... Do not resign yourselves, please... And I can promise the support of at least one ragged hunter." Steric’s smile was warm, inviting, and most importantly, real.
Allowing himself to sit down in the mass of viscera and buzzing flies for a mere moment, Steric uncapped his flask, only to find it empty. It truly did become one of those days, huh?
He could hear the groaning of pipes above him, the distorted form of Texas Aco glaring down from between stalks of metal. Steric could tell that she was sobbing, now, seeing her up close. He’d offer her a drink, but... Well, the flask was empty. He’d get her a milkshake later, once she calmed her down.
...How was he going to calm her down, again? She didn’t seem to look too happy with him. He probably didn’t have much time until she attacked, and lord knows he wasn’t in the state to fight. He had to say something. In a single moment, he had to say something to get her not to gut him like a fish. In a normal circumstance, he might’ve been able to think up something real clever, but with his exhausted mind, all Steric could muster was a simple
“Happy birthday, kid.”
All at once, Texas’s weeping stopped.
“I spoke to your mother earlier,” he continued, not passing up this chance. “It’s a long story, but, uh. She’s proud of you, y’know? Don’t beat yourself up too hard.”
Texas seemed to genuinely consider that, to some degree. But it was not enough, not now, and one of her wretched limbs shot towards Steric, aiming to stab right through him.
But it did not reach him. It was held, tightly, in a massive silver claw. Steric grinned.
“You could’ve given me a little more notice.” Brighid Rhodes sighed as her Stand toppled the wailing Texas Aco into the mass of pipes and held her there. “I’m a busy woman, y’know? If you hadn’t said it was urgent I would’ve ignored you.”
“Haha!” Steric collapsed onto his back, content to let his backup handle the situation. “I’m glad you gave me your card! Would’ve been a real pain in the neck otherwise.” He’d decided early into taking the job that going on his lonesome wouldn’t be the smartest call. The rest of PINDROP were all sorts of busy with other things regarding the Metropolis case, so he had to call in an outside hand. Luckily, he knew just the person to ask - even if it took a lot of work to convince her.
Brighid sighed, approaching Texas’s struggling form. She readied a hand, and dashed forward, weaving past insectoid limbs. He palm raised, and smacked into the back of the girl’s head. All at once, the buzzing stopped.
“Learned that one in college.”
For a moment, the two were silent. The situation was handled, but... What to even do, now? Brighid resigned herself to bandaging the man’s wounds, hoping and praying Texas didn’t regain consciousness anytime soon, and when she finished, the man gave her one of his signature grins.
“Let’s get her a burger or somethin’, yeah?”

If you’re looking for another brutal brawl, check out the latest Middleman attack, leaving two Stand Users to fend off them and each other!

Scenario: Zafar Singh’s House, Mist City — 10:42AM
Zafar didn’t live in as luxurious a mansion as some of the other high rollers of Rākinnagarh, the modern Major General and his late wife had still acquired what may be considered one for the sake of raising a family together. While the place certainly was larger than the man needed since he became the sole inhabitant, right now the house couldn’t feel smaller for the man and Mahimit—the latter having visited to discuss their future plans.
“...Are you certain about this?” Zafar spoke, breaking the silence as he poured another cup of tea for the two of them.
“Yes,” Mahimit answered wearily. “With everything that’s been going on, I think it’s really important that I take a break for the sake of my mental health.”
“I understand that, but isn’t leaving everything just…extreme? You might not be able to get back into the City’s Planning Board, and I know that was a job you loved.”
Mahi sighed, hand shaking slightly as they took a sip. “I suppose I did, but it was more that I enjoyed being able to give back to the city…I thought that I wouldn’t need to focus on myself, that I could push through everything for the sake of the city but…I just can’t anymore. I’ve realized that just pretending that everything was okay wasn’t going to fix things, and while I will miss the work I did as part of the planning board I think I really need some time for myself.”
Zafar nodded in understanding. “I see. I recognise it must be a tough decision to forgo doing some good for the city.”
“I mean, you make it look ea…sy…” Mahimit huffed, only realizing that they spoke too loud when Zafar’s eyes widened in slight shock as he lowered his teacup.
“What do you mean by that?” the major general sputtered. “I’ve done plenty for the community through the military—“
“And what has the military actually done these last few years, or even the police?” Mahi countered. “There’s been a string of murders—no, assassinations—that have been getting more and more public, with the latest being in broad daylight at a public bazaar. Why are the institutions meant to protect the city doing nothing to protect the people who live in it?”
“You know exactly the reason why we can’t do anything about it—”
“Except helping cover it up? You really think people haven’t noticed that it’s barely been covered in the news despite people having been murdered? The fact that it took place right after the police were there and left is also going to have people wondering if they’re involved with this Middleman.”
“The average person doesn’t pay attention to this sort of thing for too long—you’re severely overestimating how many people are even going to learn about it. I understand your concern but it should solve itself. It is a shame people died, yes, but leaving this alone is necessary for the good of th—”
At that, something in Mahimit snapped. “NECESSARY!?!?!?” They shouted, slamming their hands onto the table as they shot up in anger. “You’re telling me that people’s deaths were necessary?! That the murder of all these people is a good thing?!?!?!”
The room was silent, Mahimit trying to calm themself as Zafar sighed—this too will pass, he thought to himself, before speaking up to attempt to clarify. “You know that’s not what I meant—”
“Do you know what your problem is?” Mahi cut him off, voice shaking as he held back the anger he felt—but not his disappointment, dripping from his voice in volumes. “It’s that you ignore any problem until it either affects you or until it's too late: especially if it's one of your pals doing it. You wouldn’t let someone you just met commit abuse, but you’ve never once tried to stop Sing Now! from abusing his daughter during the decades of it you have been witness to. Of course you’ve never been at a crossroads in your life, you’ve always turned away whenever you’re faced with a choice.”
Mahimit started walking out of the room, facing their father once they reached the door. “I do still love you dad, but I can’t ignore all this any more,” they spoke, and then Zafar was left alone in the house once more.
The row of chic Mist City townhouses were no stranger to congregating and kibitzing; even if much of the district was nominally focused on business and luxury development, the glitzy streets and shops made for the perfect backdrop for social climbers to establish and flaunt themselves. Even here, in the residential area where the young architect stormed off, many could be found loitering and talking amongst themselves on the sidewalks.
Three heads turned to watch Mahimit as he walked past to clear his head.
One of which belonged to a motorcyclist, the sleek leather and chrome of his ride and his jacket matched the black and silver of the modern city around them, but the kaleidoscopic splashes of color on Vasant’s jacket was enough to gather attention.
Attention that would have gone to those beside him. One of whom was Gioia Arancini, talk of the tabloids for her recent arrest and subsequent firing from Night Train studios. Her hair wrapped in a headscarf and sunglasses kept her discrete: perfect for the trio’s stake out. “That’s the Planning Board’s wonderkid, yeah?”
The other celebrity nodded. An internationally acclaimed architect, Disco D. Lune was enthusiastically invited to urban planning meetings and historical societies across the city, whenever the hosts could find her, if she even deigned to give them a response. A few attended meetings at the city’s Planning Board, a few handshakes with the enigmatic Disco D. Lune and she had all the connections they could ask for. “Will you follow him?”
“Nah,” Gioia looked back towards the townhouse as Mahamit disappeared into the distance. “His dad’s the suspicious one.”
There had been murmurs of discontent stemming from the ‘conspiracy theorist's message board mixed with a gossip rag,’ and the recent rumors of the Middleman’s appearance at police altercation had only fanned the flames.
Disco frowned. Regardless of whether or not the Suite’s tendrils had burrowed into the urban planning committees, such an influence over the city as a whole made things increasingly difficult for her. “Urban planning:” top down governance and management that siphoned and suppressed the general public that she, despite her seclusion, relied on. Architects built for people after all, not shadowy cabals.
“What’s the reason we’re suspecting him again?” She asked her peers. “I understand the police may have been involved in the latest attack, but the military is quite different.”
“He’s been suspected since before we got a name to give the Metropolis Suite,” Vasant responded, keeping his attention on the house. “Some people we met a few weeks ago had found some documents in the military base that showed that finances and resources were being transferred to accounts with little attachment to army operations of any kind.”
“—And he’s a close associate of Sing Now!’s for decades,” Gioia carried on, turning to Disco. “Regardless, these latest attacks by the Middleman have been meant to scare us away from pursuing them—but that just means they’re scared of us, right?”
“Like a cornered animal,” the architect mused to herself. “Snarling to try and scare off threats.”
“Exactly: so we push harder. And what better way than to follow as many leads as we can to get at least one person to spy on a meeting? Sing Now!, Luiviton, and several we suspect such as Zhengqi—there’s people watching each of their moves. Getting into or even just able to listen to a meetup would be able to provide valuable information on who we’re dealing with.”
Vasant coughed, bringing the other two’s attention to himself. With a tilt of his head, he motioned that Zafar had left the town house and was beginning to head to a car parked outside—he was on the move.
“He’s on the move,” Gioia stated. “You two, follow him. I’ll stay behind and look through the house to find anything—I can't get more fired than I already am.”
“Got it,” Vasant nodded, hopping onto his Silver Dollar as he motioned for Disco to do the same. The architect sighed, getting onto the motorcycle behind him and holding on, before they eventually started pursuing their target at a distance.
Scenario: Holiday Road Military Base, Port Konwar — 11:24AM
Sunlight shone across the outside of the military base, silence filling the air as most of the soldiers based there had left for the weekend, leaving only those tasked with keeping guard and those involved in training new recruits. Security had been increased somewhat since the explosive infiltration that occurred months ago, but any urgency has laxed out with few incidents since.
It wasn’t that hard then for Dried Donuts to climb the perimeter wall, the guards at the nearby gate not noticing the rainbow arms of the panther’s Stand bending the barbed wire at the top to let her slip through unharmed to drop down onto the other side. She snarled as she noted the lack of vegetation in this place, with only the grass beneath her paws showing that there was once life here.
Cautiously she began to prowl around the area, investigating her surroundings as she stuck close to the wall. She’d been told that this place was dangerous, even for most humans—but that in itself had sparked her curiosity on what sort of place this was supposed to be. D.D. had learnt about what a military was, but the chance to learn more was exciting for her.
At the same time, that wasn’t the sole reason she was here: she hasn’t been paying as much attention to the recent going-ons of the city, only vaguely knowing of the existence of the Metropolis Suite through discussions some of her friends had about it. She got some weird vibes from the time she met Xenagoras, but she didn’t learn of his connection to this group until much later. To be honest, she didn’t exactly know what they were doing beyond trying to run the city from the shadows. But recently, a friend of Dawn’s got brutally wounded by someone from this Suite—so she thought that if she could figure out some info about these guys that might be able to cheer her friend up!
Her ears perked up as she heard the wall’s gate start to open, quickly cloaking herself with her Stand as she saw a car drive through and stopping. The panther quickly moved closer, spotting the driver—some buff old guy—talking to the two guards that were there.
“Is everyone accounted for?”
“Y-yes, General Zafar!” One of the guards answered, raising his hand to his head in a sharp manner—wait, was this one of those ‘salutes’ that they do? D.D. pondered.
“Good—make sure nobody manages to get in, I need some peace today.”
“Sir yes sir!”
With that, the car continued on into the compound as the gates shut behind him. D.D. recognised that name from when she was using the internet to read up more on this place—that guy’s the person in charge here! And given his supposed connections, he certainly isn’t the model of a modern major general. Surely if there was a Metro meeting or something he would be going to it, right?
As she began to follow where the car was headed, she noticed something strange occurring on one of the outer walls: a door had appeared, subtle and blending into the rest of the wall but it was still there. This caught the attention of D.D.—to her knowledge doors didn’t just appear out of thin air.
The panther watched as the door opened, and a woman stepped through and closed it behind her. The door vanished almost as quickly as it had formed, leaving just the person who made it, her dark suit making her begin to blend into the shadows—at least, for a human’s senses she would. D.D. recognised this figure from internet news articles: Disco D. Lune, one of the most well known architects in Rakin City. What was she doing here? Was she also trying to follow that Zafar guy?
Disco sighed looking at her surroundings—she couldn’t afford to lose Zafar now after Vasant had managed to find her an opening to get into the base. Surveying her surroundings, she paused as she noticed a shimmer of light in the middle of the wall’s shadow. Instantly, she summoned her Stand to her side, keeping her eyes on what she presumed to be a threat.
D.D. stepped back, surprised to have been spotted so soon while excited as she figured out that door must have been a Stand effect. Cautious, she decided to uncloak and reveal herself to the architect, whose eyes widened as she saw a panther materialize in front of her.
The two’s attention were quickly taken by a loud shout, the two instantly hiding as they saw Zafar exit his car as he was shouting over to one of his men. One quickly ran over to the general, and the two watched as he was handed the keys to Zafar’s car. It seemed that he had decided to continue his journey on foot past the next set of gates.
As the two Stand Users hid, looking from each other to Zafar, they realized that the two of them both had the same goal—alongside the fact that it was likely that only one of them was going to successfully follow the general without getting caught.
Open the Game!
Location: The Holiday Road Military Base!
The outline of the base and its buildings are given here, along with how many floors are in each building and section. The base does not have exact dimensions, but is fairly large. Zafar's path is given here.
He will arrive in a car, drive along the roads through the checkpoints, then get out and walk to a group of new recruits doing training exercises. He will examine them and their bunks, then examine the marina. He will visit the office briefly, then get lunch, then work in his office for a while. His route will take roughly 2 hours and 30 minutes.
Once he’s done with his office work, he will exit the office, enter the parking garage, and drive out in a car. He will do so with no fanfare, and afterwards drive out to a meeting with the rest of the Metropolis Suite. It is highly suggested that players keep especially close tabs on him while he is in the parking garage, and keep in mind he will be on highest alert there.
The compound is ringed by brick walls that are 5m high and lined with anti-climbing surfaces on top, and there are several watchtowers that would be able to point out anyone actively out of place. There are checkpoints, denoted by red lines, where someone going into the base must present identification. Obviously, players may circumvent these with their Stands how they wish; they are not expected to go through checkpoints normally.
The military buildings, notably the garages, training fields, barracks, and marina, are filled with various soldiers and service people going about their day to day work. The office buildings contain white-collar workers, while the central command contains the higher-ups in the base and their offices. Zafar’s office space is on the third floor, marked out in red.
All buildings have security cameras that are being watched by reasonably competent guards; obvious skulduggery will likely be noticed. Assume that unless you’re inside a bathroom, while in a building, you will be watched by some security camera. Creating a distraction for the guards or otherwise making yourself hidden is recommended.
Goal: Follow Zafar without getting caught, and keep an eye on his actions throughout the military base! Zafar will be walking in the path specified on the map - while players do not have to follow his exact path or keep eyes on him at all times, they must stay aware of where he is moving around the map. Keep in mind that in character, players do not know his routine or path, and must trail him without leaning on that knowledge.
Players may not attack any people on the map, as any fight or an NPCs’ absence will be noticed and put the base on high alert. If a player is spotted and confirmed as an intruder, or a player loses track of Zafar, this will count as a loss condition. While they don’t have to stick by him entirely, the players must at least be aware of his general location and be able to follow him.
Players may enter from any point they wish on the edges of the map. In the event that neither player loses the match and both keep track of Zafar proficiently, whoever leaves the less overall evidence behind of their presence on the military base will be counted as the winner.
Additional Information: Zafar’s attention will be drawn to especially loud noises, but will continue onwards if he does not spot anyone. Repeated bizarre situations or seeing the same person over and over will raise his guard; he isn’t expecting anyone to follow him around at the start of the match, but he can and will spot a sloppy approach.
Zafar and everyone else in the match cannot see Stands, but will still be able to see their effects.
Players may use any misdirection, stealth, disguise, and other factors to keep their presence hidden. The longer that a player loiters in a particular area, the more likely any disguise they have will fail. Part of the challenge of the match isn’t just following Zafar, but remaining non-obvious when he stays in a location for a particular amount of time.
Security is highest on the entrances and exits of the map or on large, open areas. It’s lowest inside of the office buildings, or in areas with a lot of people. It does take some effort to get past checkpoints into or out of buildings, though these can be circumvented through various means. The more close scrapes players have, the more alert people will be as rumors of some intruders start going around. Security on the area directly outside the walls is more lax; enough to give leeway during the start of the match.
Additionally, since Zafar's early path takes him in an open, public area on the training grounds, there is more leeway early in the match for keeping a bead on him.
Disco won a bid on designing the main building; while she has no intrinsic knowledge of other buildings on the map that her Architectural knowledge wouldn’t give her, she knows the full blueprint of the large building, including the location of all security cameras and their blindspots. Both players can be considered to have some understanding of how to ‘move’ around an environment while disguised to not be seen as suspicious.

Team	Combatant	JoJolity
I.M.P.A.C.T.	Dried Donuts	“Choose. (2 seconds remaining.) [Banana Peel] or [Dog Turd]” You’re an ambush predator, and some old fogey isn’t going to shake you! Use every tool you have, and show off mastery of human behavior and stealth!
Evergreen	Disco D. Lune	Paisely Park, what ‘lock’ did you just break?” You’ve designed so many structures for these people, it requires an intimate knowledge of how they think and act. Use every tool you have, and show off mastery of human behavior and misdirection!

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If the team that created MOLLARS had the knowledge to accomplish what they have accomplished, It’s not all about getting their pockets fat, just think about it. Just like a credible business that is successful has to a business plan, websites and processes, so does a creator of a digital currency with the White Paper. Road map. Tokenomics . I firmly believe they could have created a shit coin took it live and gotten a million dollars a lot quicker. No bull shit legally. Think about it. If they could create what they have, they could have a lot easier and a lot less time and effort created Elonsbabiesmomma Inu. Tokenomics trillion coins burn one for each sold, (sounds pretty good right)spend a couple thousand to bots on media platforms to boost it and then when blows up, white paper shows that they get 10% or whatever they would make millions not two million, 30-100 million are what ever. But they created a Mollars a SVT with half the supply of Bitcoin why if you had the knowledge and know how to create what they have would you risk going to prison over a million or two million ??? And I can pretty much guess that it’s not just one person doing everything it’s a team plural so they chop it up and walk away with 400k$ if that’s the case give everyone there money back and contact me with your knowledge and my ideas, you could make millions at no risk of prison. I hope that makes sense to everyone. Scams in digital currency makes 100’s of millions of dollars a year. And most have been caught and imprisoned and the others live in fear. Now that that’s out of the way. Here’s my thoughts backed by facts and little about me. I found out about Mollars on CoinGecko and CryptoRank which reports most scams and give information about presales. After doing my due diligence I decided to buy in without going to Social media sites because I saw evidence of the potential for this project but I have never bought in a presale before because of so much crap that is out there.And I didn’t want to be swayed by the consensus of someone who is trolling or had a bad day. Historically after Bitcoin halving, which this time the data is different especially after ETF approval and BTC reaching its ATH pre halving. But after. ever crypto follows BTC Trajectory very volatile the first couple weeks I paid with Eth as some of you others. The volatility is real for a lot of reasons market conditions, investor sentiment. According to Ycharts the US investors were 32.14%bullish two weeks ago the action was sideways and /or down compared to 4 weeks ago last week was 38.49% and now that investors know what the Feds are doing with rates the market will continue as it historically does on its upward trend, and based off information that by the 31st of this month both major players will be a lot higher in price compared to the 30th of April, for Mollars investors we will have a higher evaluation and time for the management to see if any other exchanges want to play ball will be some point before the end of the month, it didn’t help that the feds aren’t lowering the rates. @mollarinvestingchad you have been a champion for this project and I don’t know what you have in this, but you are part of this community and for you to make a comment from the emotional state you were in at that was difficult to read. Let’s not forget the terms and conditions of our investment. I don’t know exactly where I saw it, but the management did apologize, but did it for the people. I have been a winner since investing and I have lost . But I stand bullish and if have an negative emotions they are kept to myself for the greater good of the community, when you have a negative feeling or attitude it’s contagious and it gives a voice to those who have been hating on this project from day one. This isn’t a rug pull Im completely confident in that, every one of us that has skin in the game needs to come together as the Mollars family and prosper and grow stronger. In every business I had expectations and goals that I was going to achieve, and some I have failed one way by not the profits I set, for unforeseen reasons because of licensing issues taking 7 months longer to get them, Covid screwed up and set back my biggest one. One of the number one selling t-shirt and koozies in the 80’s had a saying written on them that said “ Shit Happens “ the words you can put in front of that can have behind it can sway to mean it’s positive or negative. But it will always suggest a reason. And to have reason, you have action and in this case the action is for a good reason. It’s to help us grow more??! Limitless. Let’s all rally together and support our team leaders and their decisions. After I invested I went through some tough times . Where 20$ was the difference of me feeding my dog first and then myself, luckily I have been good to people and have built relationships where when I’m going through something I had basically what I consider family to help out. And everyone that knows me I always pay it forward 10 fold. You can say I’m a good guy with good moral compass, I’m a protector and I’m not one where people can confuse my kindness as weakness because I’m a warrior and have put myself in harm’s way to protect or defend someone I care for, in fact I’ve done for complete strangers. Against odds. I never cared about what people thought, I only cared for what’s right. Jumping someone because of race are religion is not right, man hitting a woman, and in my presence since I can remember those people got to know me real personal like. I am a different breed because I have witnessed events where several people could maybe prevented or stopped before I could get to them. Most of the times it wasn’t popular, but no one could say it wasn’t right. In business I have lost in the short term because of principles of different matters . I would be and I am better at face to face engagement of any kind at any time. I don’t use code names or user names that I don’t go by, And when I commit to something I’m committed.. And I believe that this is an opportunity of a lifetime for those of you that have or willing to invest and become part of this new community there’s something that has to change and it’s us it depends on us to build value and let people know that we’re part of something that is going shake up Bitcoin . I know it’s a lot easier to be negative when everyone is still trying to speculate . But I promise you, not only in this community but in every community the long term effects, the residual value and benefits of being positive and committing to apply this in everything in life , you’ll see doors open you never thought possible, you will be recognized by your peers differently, that see you as being more creative , a real one and you will become the a leader built with value, knowledge and a type of strength you have always wondered about, like how things seem so easy for some people and that tough for others. We live in a fast growing world and the Elites will somehow find a way to take away our rights to get in projects like this. I hope it doesn’t happen but we are in the fight of our lives to keep Crypto defi and unregulated but right now they haven’t and I believe this our chance and I hope it is the vision of the creators of Mollars and everyone of us see the greatness that can come for building the community for Mollars because it’s going to make Millionaires and when we become that I hope that we will want to have a clear mission to be better. Less be honest right now not one of us are whales yet. Whales move what our hard cap is daily .And the value of a 1$ dollar is something different for every person on this Earth but will not change anyone’s life for a time. But picture this, your maintain a positive mindset about your investment and you remain bullish. If see the event of turning 1$ in 2$ isn’t the attitude that we as a community should, but turning 1 Mollar into a house, or college tuition, or drinking water for a third world country. No limit mindset is truly decentralized and it’s a choice that will require discipline and accountability for how you respond and approach every decision you make. What would you do without limits. This possible and the blueprint on how to achieve is written in this comment that I hope transcends as one of the many stones to house our community needs in pursuit of the same goal, not only to profit but be better than we are now and invite someone else along with us on this limitless journey in our lives, to be better than we were the day before. To become the best version of ourselves and it is shown everywhere anywhere anytime. That we bought into one of the greatest digital assets ever created and we not only make a difference in our own lives but we are truly free to make a difference in this world. Everyone that bought in, now let’s collectively buy in this mindset that is 100 - Mollar will become as big as we imagine it to be. Let’s grow as a community and write our own future together. Don’t just read this, engage with me with your positive mindset. Share what you would like to achieve. We need to act as if, Mollars has surpassed any expectations. If we all come together with a positive message, not about the set backs we personally feel, but what you want it to be. We got hacked in the middle of presale that took time to straighten things out, but the team pulled us through. We could have lost it, but they stood up for us and now let’s stand with them. Let’s make today the best day. Everyone engage with volumes of positive expectations and we are just in overtime and we will win. Let’s everyone blow up our own social media accounts proudly explain why you are in. Let’s Go !!!!

Part One
The recluse in my room won't stop talking to me. I don't even know when it started. Once it did though, it became more and more frequent. At first I thought, maybe I was going crazy. However I had always been a bit on the mentally unwell side, to put it lightly. I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression in six grade. The psychiatrist said it was like I was put together wrong. The thing is he didn't just mean my internal organs, nor did he simply mean the thoughts in my head; but like something deep to the core of my very atoms was wrong. Was gross. War rotten. Was nasty. Then.. when I met Dr. Peterson is when he told me I have something against people. He told me that I seemed to have disdain for those around me. That my pain was caused by me in many ways. He wasn't wrong of course, but he could never figure out why exactly I ended up this way, and of course I could never tell him. When you tell doctors the truth, they try to hurt you. The try to send you away to that place. To the dark side of the earth. I will NOT go there again. I will not go there again. I will not go there again. I will not go there AGAIN.
So, I lied. I Said I didn't know what he meant, and that I just like to keep to myself. He wasn't wrong of course. I did have a disdain for the humanly figure. Disdain for the small minded ants that wandered the broken halls of past men many times their equal. They stand in the disrepair, and wallow in it. Not me. I could never. I am not, them. I will never be them. I will however be leaving soon. So, I needed to get this out. You might not be able to tell, but I am terrified. I am terrified of him. I am terrified of it. I am terrified of me. However, I am most terrified of the spider. No matter what it says to me. The brown recluse that follows me into my dreams, it tells me to not fear it. It tells me to not fear it while it plunges it's incisors down into my forearm, and pushes the venomous liquid out of it's body into mine. Sucking away the little life I have, while plunging in new disease on top of disease. In order to understand my fear, to understand my pain, to understand the bottomless stairs to the lair of hell which innocent souls go. Then let me go back. Let me go back. Let me go back. Let me go back.
I was thirteen when I was diagnosed with an auto immune disorder, I wasn't surprised, even back then. Sickness, disease, and torture seemed to follow members of my family wherever they went. Take my grandmother for example. She had led a very good life. A modest, God fearing life. Ya know where that got her? Laying six feet deep, after a years long struggle from oral cancer. The woman never chewed tobacco in her life, never so much as laid a finger on any drug, and never did anything bad to anyone in her entire life. Yet, she still moved onward to the dark abyss that we call death. Now I'm alone. I'm alone, and that spider knew it. It knew when I was watching it. It knew when I was thinking about it even. It knew. It always knew. It knew that the one person I had left, was gone.
My grandmother was my favorite person. She helped me when I needed it most. She came to me when I was down. She came to me when I was blue. She came to me, when the spider wouldn't leave and wanted you. Now she sits down, down down down. Down in the murky waters of soot and sand. I will go down there one day too. Honestly, I hope I go down further. I would rather burn in hell for the reset of eternity than allow my consciousness to go straight into an endless abyss of darkness and loneliness coagulating into the oozing mud that is the pitch black. It isn't my choice though now is it. See my grandmother always terrified me. This is one of the reasons that I love what scares me. I love the excitement. I love the thrill, but I also loved her. My grandmother was a child of four. She was a beautiful girl, but her mother hated her for it. As the eldest, her mother would always tell her that she had a face only a mother could love. That no man should ever want her.
When she entered high school though, that wasn't quite true. When she finally found a man that she cared for, her mother enraged with jealousy of her beauty, youth, and freedom decided to rob her of it. She decided that if she should suffer, so should her daughter. So, she went into the kitchen and grabbed a pot. She seared it on the low burning flame, and added oil until it popped. Then when my grandmother came home, she splashed a pot of boiling oil on the side of her face. It caused the skin of half of her face to melt, and droop downward like melting wax. Only for the oil to leave her face and the skin that melted downward hardened in various spots. Creating this crater effect on half of my grandmother's face. My great grandmother finally made her wish and statements come true, my grandmother had a face only a mother could love. That was until I came along. I see my grandmother for what she is. A beautiful woman, with the soul of an angel and the face of a loving goddess. As I said before, tragedy and despair follow my family like vultures. Waiting for dead corpses to pile up so that they might chew away at the last remaining fabric of their skin.
Most people think of me as an outcast. I never cared. I always thought that the best thing I could be, is alone. I was always sick everyone said. No one knew quite how sick I was, or what type of illness I bear. People told me I had my weaknesses, like my immune system. My immune system has always been somewhat confused, it seems to think that I am the foreign body. That mere consumption provide enough reason, to rid the body of itself. This caused me much pain, mentally and physically. However, no one told me I also had my strengths. I had to find that out for myself. See when no one bothered me, my brain could be set free. I could see anything I wished. Feel anything I wanted to. It all started when I was very young. I used to sit in my room for hours and talk to my friends, some of them more real than others. I had a friend named Koby. He was my most real friend.
I met Koby at elementary school, a private school where everyone except me was laced with hundred dollar bills. Koby’s family was also wealthy, but he was different from other people too. He didn’t understand when people made fun of him, why people made fun of him. He was naïve. Me on the other hand, I watched everyone. Judged everyone, just like they judged me. I got a cheaper entry in to my school due to my grandmother working at the school office. After summer ended people would come into class and the teacher would inevitably ask “What did you do this summer class?”. Everyone else either went to Greece, Italy, Rome, Japan, or some other foreign country. They were different than me, and they made sure I knew it. Not Koby though. Koby never asked me about my money, and we liked some of the same things. People would tease us and call us gay, because we liked “girly shows on the Disney channel”. We both came from a perspective of liking what we like unapologetically, at first.
We did indeed have a close and personal friendship, the kind young boys who care not about societal boundaries have. We would throw each other over one another’s heads in his pool mimicking wrestling moves. Imitating Randy Orten, and Brock Lesnar as if we were lumbering monsters of flesh and bones. Sometimes we would get hurt, bang our head in to the wrong object, or hit something too hard; only to console each other as to not cry and get in trouble. We also would make short films that ranged from comedy to action, and we replicated the bad language we saw online. We loved choreographing fake sword fights, and I always loved living as a swordsman in my head. Imagining chopping apart opponents, limb by limb as I dismantle their world and build my own. I also always wanted to act. I thought I was quite good at keeping on masks. Never relenting on an unending character, the likes of which only I know are fake. Koby and I didn’t see eye to eye on a lot though. He was a huge fan of childish games, while I liked things to be a bit more advanced and difficult. He thought random curse words were funny, while I felt my taste a little more sophisticated. Did I feel superior to him? In some ways yes. It didn’t matter though, what mattered is they didn’t like him almost as much as they hated me. That helped us bond.
Then one day something changed. Koby changed, he became one of them. Koby began to play into their jokes. Tried to be what they wanted him to be, a clown. The bullying got worse, and worse. It started with calling us gay, use the f slur towards us, and other homophobic slurs. It then turned in to physical violence. People slapping us, using us as punching bags. I was a big kid. I think they enjoyed the idea of having power over someone larger than them.
One day during basketball, we were playing knock out. During Koby’s turn, one of the kids James went up to him and punched him directly in the eye. He did this due to being “knocked out” moments prior in the game by Koby. Having had enough, I immediately threw my basketball at the kids head, and moved to begin smashing his skull with my bare knuckles. Gnarling, and utilizing years of frustration I lunged at James. Rather than joining me in fighting him, Koby stopped me. He stood between me and James. He apologized to James profusely begging for his forgiveness, and scolded me. Told me how evil I was for simply fighting back. I had never felt more embarassed. More betrayed. The person I called a friend, would stop me from protecting him, and make me look like a weak fool in front of everyone. He cared more about his image to them, the people who didn’t like him to begin with than the will and anger his own “friend”. I would never stoop so low as to let the people who berated me, who hurt me choose who I become or what actions I take. That’s when I realized my “real” friend, wasn’t so real at all. I gladly accepted that I would never protect another being again.
After he stopped me, he became close with the people we once loathed. He would go on to spend time with them, join their clubs, go to their birthday’s. He was no longer the Koby I was once tolerated, and was now something very different. I hated him, at first. That was until he became comfortable enough with them, so comfortable he told them my deepest darkest secrets. The boys that had been scolding us, making us feel like nothing for years, he told them of my abuse. He told them of my desires, and of my fears. He told them who I enjoyed spending time with, what kinds of media I enjoyed, and what goals I had. He told them. That is what matters, and that is unforgivable. When I told him that what I thought about him, when I let him know how small of an ant he truly was to me, that’s when the voices around me became more than real. In a way they were the truth. They never lied to me. They always told me what I needed to hear, not what I wanted to hear. They never judged me when I was wrong. So, when I was by myself… I was never truly alone. Some of them have names, others are a faint whisper. An echo of the wills of the past. A presence, that is not quite understood.
See I grew up in a trailer park. That is why the rich kids would never like me. I wore the same tattered uniform to school every day. Never having enough change to purchase a hot lunch, always begging the school for free food just to eat for that day. I never really thought much of my family’s money, or lack thereof. I somewhat liked living at the trailer park. I had acquaintances of all backgrounds, ethnicities, nationalities, languages you name it. However, people knew of me, but no one knew me. I would put on a front, and call myself by different names just to toy with people. Sometimes I would do different accents, to see how long it would take for someone to realize how fake it was. I always liked playing tricks on people, it’s one thing that often alienated me more than anything else. I didn’t care. I saw it as more of an art than anything. Plus never letting anyone in on the joke, made it all the more special. Only I could control what others knew of me. I was the bottle neck for that pipeline of information.
One trick I used to play on my neighbor Darren was exceedingly hilarious, but he didn’t like it much at all. He had a cat, it was a black and white cat named Moo that loved all the kids in the neighborhood. Except me. It would always scratch at me when it saw me, hiss like I was some monster. One thing that no one liked however, is that this cat meowed as loud as a Bostonian woman in the middle of an orgasm. Every single night, throughout the neighborhood it would whale on. It kept me up at night as a child, and made my dog anxious too. I always prayed that cat would get hit by a car, or smashed by a falling anvil. One day my wish must have come true. One day, the cat stopped meowing. Some say the cat got skittish, ran off, and got lost. I think differently. I think someone killed that cat. Someone took matters into their own hands, and good for them. When there is an annoyance, I say end it. People always get so sentimental over things like death. I find death to be peaceful, inviting. Warm.
However, even with Moo gone Darren and I still didn’t get along. He hated my dog, and blamed me for his cat going missing. So, one night I found an old recording on my phone. It was the cat meowing in the backyard. So I took my speaker over to Darren’s house, and played it at just the right volume to make it sound like the cat was at his gate. He got up moments later, and ran downstairs, searching for his cat. The way his face shimmered with mere glimpses of hope, and happiness only to give way to utter defeat and despair really put a smile on my face. The deep smile he had, turning in to a frightful scowl made my night perfect. His misery for some reason provided me with a level of comfort, knowing I could control someone’s emotions with such ease. It felt right. It felt like a power, that I deserved. Darren later that week would tell all the neighbors, and the neighbors started keeping an eye out too. The cat was never found, so they say. I think differently.
These days I don’t play many tricks on people at all. These days I’ve lost my power. I stay inside, away from those who can harm me. Free from everything of the societal world. Free to roam the mind that I so desperately aimed to understand in it’s entirety. Voices, that need to be satiated with conversations only I can have with myself. This is the only way to truly escape. The only way to be truly, and utterly free.
Day 3
I sit here on my couch. Staring at a blank screen ahead of me. Thinking not of the future, but of the past. I look fondly on my childhood memories. Moments with my parents where we would go on glorious adventures, filled with frights and delights all the same. One I recall is going to Bodega Bay with my father. We were roaming through beach caves, as the tide began to rise. I was with another child I met on the playground, and at a moments notice we were nearly trapped in the cave unable to get out. Luckily the other child’s father was able to get in the cave, and get us out. I hate to think what might have happened, had that man not been there on that day.
I think fondly of my school memories. While I had some friends, I mostly stuck to my studies. I was able to move forward, and at least pass my classes with relative ease. I always procrastinated, which gave me a lot of anxiety. I continued to do so anyway. By the time I reached high school I was able to graduate at 16. This made me ecstatic, because I no longer had to attend the high school that bored me so deeply. I was then able to take online classes for school, limiting my contact with others. Most see this as negative, I loved it dearly. I always felt I excelled when I worked on my own, rather than in teams. They always slowed me down anyway.
Today I sit quietly, in silence. Except for the sound of a child. The neighbor downstairs keeps a little brat that begs for attention all day long. Sometimes that baby reminds me of my neighbors cat when I was a child. It’s a long story, maybe we’ll get to it some other time.

• Nicholas Anderson

When I moved out of the trailer park, and started going to high school is when everything really changed. We went from living in a place with a community, to living in an apartment where no one knew their neighbors. Not that I cared for the people in my community much anyway, but having something to interact with seemed helpful. That was now gone. My father traveled for work, and my mother was usually getting high somewhere. So I would often stay by myself, in my home, alone. Listening to nothing but music, and the voices I had come to love so much. The voices that I began to see as more real, than reality itself. Even when one of my parents were around, I still just wanted to be left to my own devices. I’ve never liked interacting with anyone much. I don’t think I ever will.
Considering this to be the case, I was also still what you might consider to be anti-social. I did not like people, and most people did not like me. Once I learned how much I loved spending time with myself, this seemingly just got worse. Once I entered high school I realized how different I still was. No one here was significantly richer than anyone else, but I still felt a barrier separating me from them. I did find a small group of misfits however, to waste my time with at lunch. Even then I often still sat silently, while everyone else clambered on.
Even in this group, I still felt utterly alone. What I did enjoy however, was that my mere presence to them was somewhat of a trick. I did not care for these people. Yet they seemed to believe that simply because I was there, that I somehow cared about them. They also seemed to enjoy the embodiment of mystery I took on. I would rarely provide any information about myself, and when I did I would still commonly lie. Lie about who I had been with, what I had done, what I accomplished, what I had faith in. They believed it, for a time.
It all started to come apart, when Jada came around. Jada always seemed to take an interest in me. I didn’t really understand why. I never paid her any attention, and when I did it was always quick, simple, and to the point. Maybe my lack of interest in her, is what caused her interest in me. Either way, it wasn’t a good decision for her. I never have cared much for how my actions effected others. Nor have I ever really considered what would happen, if my lies were to be discovered. It just doesn’t matter to me, and typically I don’t stay around others long enough to be figured out anyway. Jada however, stuck to me like glue.
Anywhere I would go she would follow, with sad puppy dog eyes. Begging for attention. To be honest on some level I thought it was quite adorable, but also relished in the idea that I might be able to exert some sort of romantic power over someone. She was going to provide that to me. So, I fed in to her ways. I told her what she wanted to hear. I told her that she made me feel ways no one else ever had, which was completely fabricated. Pulled from thin air. I did not love this girl. I loved what she could do for me. I loved how I could make myself feel with her, and now that I had a taste of it I loved that power. That was, until she started to push back.
For a while I thought I was untouchable, I thought no one could break the spell I had on Jada. Any time I would ask her to be somewhere, she would be in an instant. It did not matter the time or the place. I could tell her any lie, ask her to complete any task and she would believe it or complete it. I had her fully in the palm of my hand with a firm grasp, until others in our little group started to get in to her head. They started to realize that some of my stories, didn’t quite add up. They saw how Jada spent her time with me. How she was at my every beck and call. That she would give up anything for me, yet I would give up nothing for her. They were jealous. They wanted to have that control over somebody, but they never could. They were never smart enough, never talented enough to do so. They told her that I was no good for her, that I was using her.
Make no mistake, I was using her. Isn’t that what love is? One using another person, to find some bliss. Some happiness which they can’t find elsewhere? Why am I wrong for doing the same. She provided me pleasure, I provided her with some in return. Sounds like a fair transaction to me. Besides, who are they however to interfere with my life. With my people. With my toys. When she finally told me she never wanted to see me again, I knew she was lying. She wanted me more than ever. Wanted to fix me. Wanted to make me hers, but she would only ever be mine to toy with. I was unfixable, because I wasn’t broken. It was everyone else that needed fixing, I was simply playing the game. Not long after Jada said that to me, I was excised from our group.
They thought of me as a dirty liar, who they couldn’t trust. It’s not my fault I played with those who are easily fooled, preyed on what made them weak. I was simply showing them what they were doing wrong. What they could do better. I knew from then on that the only person who understood me was the people I spoke to when I as alone. They knew me better than I knew myself. They knew what I wanted, what I could do. They had faith in me. That’s when I knew I needed to keep myself low. Put away. Kept neatly in a box, so that way I could ascertain my full potential. Once again I realized, only then could I be free. People, even as my toys were more detrimental to me than anything else. I loved being alone, but more importantly I thrived in it.
Once I started staying away, keeping to myself. I realized love was not what I had been told. Love was not for others, but for the feeling one can attain from the power it provides. With other humans that power is fleeting, but with one’s self it remains until your eminent death. With only myself in my home is when I found my first true love aside from loneliness. Cutting. Utilizing a blade to make the marks on my skin which I now define as art. A knife’s place is meant to be against the skin of a being. It fits so fluidly down the fold of one’s figure, like a figure skater dancing around an icy path with the blades on their feet. Leaving behind trails of love, despair, pain, and joy.
I swear it was an accident at first. I was in the kitchen one day, angry that I couldn’t understand myself. Why I felt the way I felt about life. Angry that I felt abandoned, without a mentor to assist me in both my strengths and my weaknesses. That’s when I instinctively took a knife angled it directly downward with both hands grasping it, and I slammed it straight down in to a cutting board. Little did I know that my hand would slide on to the knife as the impact was made with the board. My white tendons on the left side of my inner right palm, sliced open. Bleeding profusely.
My anger swelled in that moment, and manifested in immense pain that synergized and gave me something I had never quite felt like that before. Euphoria. Pure, and utter bliss. In that moment I felt aroused, excited, ready for something to happen. Nothing did. As my feelings of euphoria began to fade away, I was left with the slide in my hand from the blade. Blood dripping all over the cutting board, and the counter beside it. Crimson red splattered behind the board, leaving a bloody mess to clean up. I quickly applied pressure, and got a bandaid from the bathroom sink. Applied it, and sopped up the red stained tile with paper towels. As I did so it occurred to me, that feeling can be replicated again. All I needed was a knife, and a will to achieve nirvana. With blood spilt, it would be far easier the next time.
Day 5
Today I find myself on the floor of the kitchen. Staring at the ceiling, thinking of past relationships. The wrongs, the rights. What I did, what I didn’t do. What could have been, and what never will be. These things I find fascinating as a self-exploration exercise. What could I have done wrong to the woman that I once said I loved, so much so that she deems it necessary not to speak to me again. Did I do anything wrong to begin with? Is it true that she will never speak to me again? I find it doubtful, although I do not put myself in high regard on this situation either. I called her my baby doll, because that is what she is for me. I just want her back. Sometimes. However, I want her back for me. She wants me back for her. Maybe we can meet in the middle.
I think of my parents and what they didn’t do for me as a child. They weren’t model citizens, but they also weren’t terrible parents. They just didn’t know how to raise a child, and honestly who the hell does? I fault them not for what they did, but for allowing themselves to have a child in the first place when they were not ready. Bringing a child in to a world you are not prepared for let alone them, is downright despicable. A selfish and vile act of pure arrogance of nature. The arrogance of two to think love is enough to fill the stomach of their child.
Children deserve to be nourished and cared for. They deserve to prosper and have what is needed at their fingertips to grow. Anything below what you are most capable of is a disappointment, however being short of the basic necessities is abuse. This is why I would never have a child, I am not ready nor am I sure that I could truly care. If I could not care, but fake it would that be equally meaningful as a father who truly loves their child? Is it a father a child needs? Or does a child just need a figure. Someone, anyone to emulate. For finding your own way, and your own emulation in the world is the scariest task one might undergo.
Take the child downstairs for example. It cries non-stop, yet the parents do nothing to satiate the child. Whaling on and on. I could never understand bearing your carbon copy, only to neglect them. Why copy yourself to begin with. Let the branch of life come to an end. Let it fizzle out of the universe alongside that great big ball of fire we call a sun. Let us fizzle out like the final firework in the night sky during a Fourth Of July display. Burning ever so slightly less until the stars of the galaxy swallow the light whole, leaving nothing left to be devoured.

• Nicholas Anderson

Some people might say I am deeply arachnophobic, I am not. I say I am not, because it’s not the spiders I fear,. I fear what I don’t know. I don’t know where they are, I don’t know where to expect them, I don’t know what they want. I don’t know. I don’t know… Except this time. This time it seems… different. The spider in my room, it seems to understand me, somehow. Somehow, I understand… it. I’ve never liked spiders, their creepy multiple eyes, their sharp toothed grin ready to snatch away your life at any moment. Sure most spiders aren’t poisonous, but some of them are. That’s all that matters. Some spiders are small, some are massive. I hate the big ones. Ya see, I got bit by a black widow as a child. I was foolishly playing in the garage with my toys, oblivious to the world around me.
At 3 years old, I had my first encounter with this terrestrial alien. The spider that bit me injected me with enough poison to kill a small horse, so the doctor laid me down; She looked over, and with a big smile she said those famous words. “This won’t hurt a bit”. She put no numbing injections, she simply wiped the site clean, and began cutting. Sawing away at my tiny toddler stomach, slowly making their way through layers of fresh, soft, smooth skin. I remember nothing but warm tears streaming down my face as I screamed at the top of my lungs. Screaming at a rate I as a child had not even yet known. The screams of pain, they are unique. People can attempt to mimic them, but the true scream of torture and death is one so blood curddling that it makes your skin crawl. As a child you know only playful screams, this was my first introduction to what pain in the real world looked like. I just so happened to be it’s next patient.
I remember the pain, the cold feeling of blood pouring down my side, and screaming for my father. Yet, my father was the one to hold me down when I started kicking at the doctor from the pain. Rather than force them to stop cutting into a child without some type of anesthetic, he continued to hold my arms and legs as the doctor cut away. My greatest support system, to betray me in such a way. To take the trust of a child and crush it. After that session, I never trusted doctor’s again. I surely, never trusted a spider. That was until now.
That’s because even if the spider in my room were poisonous… It meant me no harm. Even if it did need to nest, and lay eggs it would not do so in my body. Even if it needed sustenance, it would not come in my direction. At least, that’s what it told me. That's what it told me as it's incisors pinched it's way into my arm once again, numbing the area unlike the doctor that went to work on me as a child. As I stare into it's eyes, I realized... I was scared. I was more than scared, for once... I was terrified. For my entire life, I was the one to induce fear in others. Now, that fear was being induced in me. So I am here. I am here to tell you. Until I am not. Let these words keep you from the spiders. Do not talk to them. Do not listen to them.
Do not be afraid. Even though deep down... fear consumes me.

Hey guys, I am posting here because I have gotten removed for "not being a personal scary experience". The only thing I could think is that the character does not always seem fearful, but there's a back and forth on it, and the fear is explained. Further, I can see that maybe the sections that are in diary format might be an issue. However, they are overall still in first person and add to the story as well as are important for a turn that occurs at the end of the story. Any help would be great!
" The Recluse In My Room Won't Stop Talking To Me"
Part One
The recluse in my room won't stop talking to me. I don't even know when it started. Once it did though, it became more and more frequent. At first I thought, maybe I was going crazy. However I had always been a bit on the mentally unwell side, to put it lightly. I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression in six grade. The psychiatrist said it was like I was put together wrong. The thing is he didn't just mean my internal organs, nor did he simply mean the thoughts in my head; but like something deep to the core of my very atoms was wrong. Was gross. War rotten. Was nasty. Then.. when I met Dr. Peterson is when he told me I have something against people. He told me that I seemed to have disdain for those around me. That my pain was caused by me in many ways. He wasn't wrong of course, but he could never figure out why exactly I ended up this way, and of course I could never tell him. When you tell doctors the truth, they try to hurt you. The try to send you away to that place. To the dark side of the earth. I will NOT go there again. I will not go there again. I will not go there again. I will not go there AGAIN.
So, I lied. I Said I didn't know what he meant, and that I just like to keep to myself. He wasn't wrong of course. I did have a disdain for the humanly figure. Disdain for the small minded ants that wandered the broken halls of past men many times their equal. They stand in the disrepair, and wallow in it. Not me. I could never. I am not, them. I will never be them. I will however be leaving soon. So, I needed to get this out. You might not be able to tell, but I am terrified. I am terrified of him. I am terrified of it. I am terrified of me. However, I am most terrified of the spider. No matter what it says to me. The brown recluse that follows me into my dreams, it tells me to not fear it. It tells me to not fear it while it plunges it's incisors down into my forearm, and pushes the venomous liquid out of it's body into mine. Sucking away the little life I have, while plunging in new disease on top of disease. In order to understand my fear, to understand my pain, to understand the bottomless stairs to the lair of hell which innocent souls go. Then let me go back. Let me go back. Let me go back. Let me go back.
I was thirteen when I was diagnosed with an auto immune disorder, I wasn't surprised, even back then. Sickness, disease, and torture seemed to follow members of my family wherever they went. Take my grandmother for example. She had led a very good life. A modest, God fearing life. Ya know where that got her? Laying six feet deep, after a years long struggle from oral cancer. The woman never chewed tobacco in her life, never so much as laid a finger on any drug, and never did anything bad to anyone in her entire life. Yet, she still moved onward to the dark abyss that we call death. Now I'm alone. I'm alone, and that spider knew it. It knew when I was watching it. It knew when I was thinking about it even. It knew. It always knew. It knew that the one person I had left, was gone.
My grandmother was my favorite person. She helped me when I needed it most. She came to me when I was down. She came to me when I was blue. She came to me, when the spider wouldn't leave and wanted you. Now she sits down, down down down. Down in the murky waters of soot and sand. I will go down there one day too. Honestly, I hope I go down further. I would rather burn in hell for the reset of eternity than allow my consciousness to go straight into an endless abyss of darkness and loneliness coagulating into the oozing mud that is the pitch black. It isn't my choice though now is it. See my grandmother always terrified me. This is one of the reasons that I love what scares me. I love the excitement. I love the thrill, but I also loved her. My grandmother was a child of four. She was a beautiful girl, but her mother hated her for it. As the eldest, her mother would always tell her that she had a face only a mother could love. That no man should ever want her.
When she entered high school though, that wasn't quite true. When she finally found a man that she cared for, her mother enraged with jealousy of her beauty, youth, and freedom decided to rob her of it. She decided that if she should suffer, so should her daughter. So, she went into the kitchen and grabbed a pot. She seared it on the low burning flame, and added oil until it popped. Then when my grandmother came home, she splashed a pot of boiling oil on the side of her face. It caused the skin of half of her face to melt, and droop downward like melting wax. Only for the oil to leave her face and the skin that melted downward hardened in various spots. Creating this crater effect on half of my grandmother's face. My great grandmother finally made her wish and statements come true, my grandmother had a face only a mother could love. That was until I came along. I see my grandmother for what she is. A beautiful woman, with the soul of an angel and the face of a loving goddess. As I said before, tragedy and despair follow my family like vultures. Waiting for dead corpses to pile up so that they might chew away at the last remaining fabric of their skin.
Most people think of me as an outcast. I never cared. I always thought that the best thing I could be, is alone. I was always sick everyone said. No one knew quite how sick I was, or what type of illness I bear. People told me I had my weaknesses, like my immune system. My immune system has always been somewhat confused, it seems to think that I am the foreign body. That mere consumption provide enough reason, to rid the body of itself. This caused me much pain, mentally and physically. However, no one told me I also had my strengths. I had to find that out for myself. See when no one bothered me, my brain could be set free. I could see anything I wished. Feel anything I wanted to. It all started when I was very young. I used to sit in my room for hours and talk to my friends, some of them more real than others. I had a friend named Koby. He was my most real friend.
I met Koby at elementary school, a private school where everyone except me was laced with hundred dollar bills. Koby’s family was also wealthy, but he was different from other people too. He didn’t understand when people made fun of him, why people made fun of him. He was naïve. Me on the other hand, I watched everyone. Judged everyone, just like they judged me. I got a cheaper entry in to my school due to my grandmother working at the school office. After summer ended people would come into class and the teacher would inevitably ask “What did you do this summer class?”. Everyone else either went to Greece, Italy, Rome, Japan, or some other foreign country. They were different than me, and they made sure I knew it. Not Koby though. Koby never asked me about my money, and we liked some of the same things. People would tease us and call us gay, because we liked “girly shows on the Disney channel”. We both came from a perspective of liking what we like unapologetically, at first.
We did indeed have a close and personal friendship, the kind young boys who care not about societal boundaries have. We would throw each other over one another’s heads in his pool mimicking wrestling moves. Imitating Randy Orten, and Brock Lesnar as if we were lumbering monsters of flesh and bones. Sometimes we would get hurt, bang our head in to the wrong object, or hit something too hard; only to console each other as to not cry and get in trouble. We also would make short films that ranged from comedy to action, and we replicated the bad language we saw online. We loved choreographing fake sword fights, and I always loved living as a swordsman in my head. Imagining chopping apart opponents, limb by limb as I dismantle their world and build my own. I also always wanted to act. I thought I was quite good at keeping on masks. Never relenting on an unending character, the likes of which only I know are fake. Koby and I didn’t see eye to eye on a lot though. He was a huge fan of childish games, while I liked things to be a bit more advanced and difficult. He thought random curse words were funny, while I felt my taste a little more sophisticated. Did I feel superior to him? In some ways yes. It didn’t matter though, what mattered is they didn’t like him almost as much as they hated me. That helped us bond.
Then one day something changed. Koby changed, he became one of them. Koby began to play into their jokes. Tried to be what they wanted him to be, a clown. The bullying got worse, and worse. It started with calling us gay, use the f slur towards us, and other homophobic slurs. It then turned in to physical violence. People slapping us, using us as punching bags. I was a big kid. I think they enjoyed the idea of having power over someone larger than them.
One day during basketball, we were playing knock out. During Koby’s turn, one of the kids James went up to him and punched him directly in the eye. He did this due to being “knocked out” moments prior in the game by Koby. Having had enough, I immediately threw my basketball at the kids head, and moved to begin smashing his skull with my bare knuckles. Gnarling, and utilizing years of frustration I lunged at James. Rather than joining me in fighting him, Koby stopped me. He stood between me and James. He apologized to James profusely begging for his forgiveness, and scolded me. Told me how evil I was for simply fighting back. I had never felt more embarassed. More betrayed. The person I called a friend, would stop me from protecting him, and make me look like a weak fool in front of everyone. He cared more about his image to them, the people who didn’t like him to begin with than the will and anger his own “friend”. I would never stoop so low as to let the people who berated me, who hurt me choose who I become or what actions I take. That’s when I realized my “real” friend, wasn’t so real at all. I gladly accepted that I would never protect another being again.
After he stopped me, he became close with the people we once loathed. He would go on to spend time with them, join their clubs, go to their birthday’s. He was no longer the Koby I was once tolerated, and was now something very different. I hated him, at first. That was until he became comfortable enough with them, so comfortable he told them my deepest darkest secrets. The boys that had been scolding us, making us feel like nothing for years, he told them of my abuse. He told them of my desires, and of my fears. He told them who I enjoyed spending time with, what kinds of media I enjoyed, and what goals I had. He told them. That is what matters, and that is unforgivable. When I told him that what I thought about him, when I let him know how small of an ant he truly was to me, that’s when the voices around me became more than real. In a way they were the truth. They never lied to me. They always told me what I needed to hear, not what I wanted to hear. They never judged me when I was wrong. So, when I was by myself… I was never truly alone. Some of them have names, others are a faint whisper. An echo of the wills of the past. A presence, that is not quite understood.
See I grew up in a trailer park. That is why the rich kids would never like me. I wore the same tattered uniform to school every day. Never having enough change to purchase a hot lunch, always begging the school for free food just to eat for that day. I never really thought much of my family’s money, or lack thereof. I somewhat liked living at the trailer park. I had acquaintances of all backgrounds, ethnicities, nationalities, languages you name it. However, people knew of me, but no one knew me. I would put on a front, and call myself by different names just to toy with people. Sometimes I would do different accents, to see how long it would take for someone to realize how fake it was. I always liked playing tricks on people, it’s one thing that often alienated me more than anything else. I didn’t care. I saw it as more of an art than anything. Plus never letting anyone in on the joke, made it all the more special. Only I could control what others knew of me. I was the bottle neck for that pipeline of information.
One trick I used to play on my neighbor Darren was exceedingly hilarious, but he didn’t like it much at all. He had a cat, it was a black and white cat named Moo that loved all the kids in the neighborhood. Except me. It would always scratch at me when it saw me, hiss like I was some monster. One thing that no one liked however, is that this cat meowed as loud as a Bostonian woman in the middle of an orgasm. Every single night, throughout the neighborhood it would whale on. It kept me up at night as a child, and made my dog anxious too. I always prayed that cat would get hit by a car, or smashed by a falling anvil. One day my wish must have come true. One day, the cat stopped meowing. Some say the cat got skittish, ran off, and got lost. I think differently. I think someone killed that cat. Someone took matters into their own hands, and good for them. When there is an annoyance, I say end it. People always get so sentimental over things like death. I find death to be peaceful, inviting. Warm.
However, even with Moo gone Darren and I still didn’t get along. He hated my dog, and blamed me for his cat going missing. So, one night I found an old recording on my phone. It was the cat meowing in the backyard. So I took my speaker over to Darren’s house, and played it at just the right volume to make it sound like the cat was at his gate. He got up moments later, and ran downstairs, searching for his cat. The way his face shimmered with mere glimpses of hope, and happiness only to give way to utter defeat and despair really put a smile on my face. The deep smile he had, turning in to a frightful scowl made my night perfect. His misery for some reason provided me with a level of comfort, knowing I could control someone’s emotions with such ease. It felt right. It felt like a power, that I deserved. Darren later that week would tell all the neighbors, and the neighbors started keeping an eye out too. The cat was never found, so they say. I think differently.
These days I don’t play many tricks on people at all. These days I’ve lost my power. I stay inside, away from those who can harm me. Free from everything of the societal world. Free to roam the mind that I so desperately aimed to understand in it’s entirety. Voices, that need to be satiated with conversations only I can have with myself. This is the only way to truly escape. The only way to be truly, and utterly free.
Day 3
I sit here on my couch. Staring at a blank screen ahead of me. Thinking not of the future, but of the past. I look fondly on my childhood memories. Moments with my parents where we would go on glorious adventures, filled with frights and delights all the same. One I recall is going to Bodega Bay with my father. We were roaming through beach caves, as the tide began to rise. I was with another child I met on the playground, and at a moments notice we were nearly trapped in the cave unable to get out. Luckily the other child’s father was able to get in the cave, and get us out. I hate to think what might have happened, had that man not been there on that day.
I think fondly of my school memories. While I had some friends, I mostly stuck to my studies. I was able to move forward, and at least pass my classes with relative ease. I always procrastinated, which gave me a lot of anxiety. I continued to do so anyway. By the time I reached high school I was able to graduate at 16. This made me ecstatic, because I no longer had to attend the high school that bored me so deeply. I was then able to take online classes for school, limiting my contact with others. Most see this as negative, I loved it dearly. I always felt I excelled when I worked on my own, rather than in teams. They always slowed me down anyway.
Today I sit quietly, in silence. Except for the sound of a child. The neighbor downstairs keeps a little brat that begs for attention all day long. Sometimes that baby reminds me of my neighbors cat when I was a child. It’s a long story, maybe we’ll get to it some other time.

• Nicholas Anderson

When I moved out of the trailer park, and started going to high school is when everything really changed. We went from living in a place with a community, to living in an apartment where no one knew their neighbors. Not that I cared for the people in my community much anyway, but having something to interact with seemed helpful. That was now gone. My father traveled for work, and my mother was usually getting high somewhere. So I would often stay by myself, in my home, alone. Listening to nothing but music, and the voices I had come to love so much. The voices that I began to see as more real, than reality itself. Even when one of my parents were around, I still just wanted to be left to my own devices. I’ve never liked interacting with anyone much. I don’t think I ever will.
Considering this to be the case, I was also still what you might consider to be anti-social. I did not like people, and most people did not like me. Once I learned how much I loved spending time with myself, this seemingly just got worse. Once I entered high school I realized how different I still was. No one here was significantly richer than anyone else, but I still felt a barrier separating me from them. I did find a small group of misfits however, to waste my time with at lunch. Even then I often still sat silently, while everyone else clambered on.
Even in this group, I still felt utterly alone. What I did enjoy however, was that my mere presence to them was somewhat of a trick. I did not care for these people. Yet they seemed to believe that simply because I was there, that I somehow cared about them. They also seemed to enjoy the embodiment of mystery I took on. I would rarely provide any information about myself, and when I did I would still commonly lie. Lie about who I had been with, what I had done, what I accomplished, what I had faith in. They believed it, for a time.
It all started to come apart, when Jada came around. Jada always seemed to take an interest in me. I didn’t really understand why. I never paid her any attention, and when I did it was always quick, simple, and to the point. Maybe my lack of interest in her, is what caused her interest in me. Either way, it wasn’t a good decision for her. I never have cared much for how my actions effected others. Nor have I ever really considered what would happen, if my lies were to be discovered. It just doesn’t matter to me, and typically I don’t stay around others long enough to be figured out anyway. Jada however, stuck to me like glue.
Anywhere I would go she would follow, with sad puppy dog eyes. Begging for attention. To be honest on some level I thought it was quite adorable, but also relished in the idea that I might be able to exert some sort of romantic power over someone. She was going to provide that to me. So, I fed in to her ways. I told her what she wanted to hear. I told her that she made me feel ways no one else ever had, which was completely fabricated. Pulled from thin air. I did not love this girl. I loved what she could do for me. I loved how I could make myself feel with her, and now that I had a taste of it I loved that power. That was, until she started to push back.
For a while I thought I was untouchable, I thought no one could break the spell I had on Jada. Any time I would ask her to be somewhere, she would be in an instant. It did not matter the time or the place. I could tell her any lie, ask her to complete any task and she would believe it or complete it. I had her fully in the palm of my hand with a firm grasp, until others in our little group started to get in to her head. They started to realize that some of my stories, didn’t quite add up. They saw how Jada spent her time with me. How she was at my every beck and call. That she would give up anything for me, yet I would give up nothing for her. They were jealous. They wanted to have that control over somebody, but they never could. They were never smart enough, never talented enough to do so. They told her that I was no good for her, that I was using her.
Make no mistake, I was using her. Isn’t that what love is? One using another person, to find some bliss. Some happiness which they can’t find elsewhere? Why am I wrong for doing the same. She provided me pleasure, I provided her with some in return. Sounds like a fair transaction to me. Besides, who are they however to interfere with my life. With my people. With my toys. When she finally told me she never wanted to see me again, I knew she was lying. She wanted me more than ever. Wanted to fix me. Wanted to make me hers, but she would only ever be mine to toy with. I was unfixable, because I wasn’t broken. It was everyone else that needed fixing, I was simply playing the game. Not long after Jada said that to me, I was excised from our group.
They thought of me as a dirty liar, who they couldn’t trust. It’s not my fault I played with those who are easily fooled, preyed on what made them weak. I was simply showing them what they were doing wrong. What they could do better. I knew from then on that the only person who understood me was the people I spoke to when I as alone. They knew me better than I knew myself. They knew what I wanted, what I could do. They had faith in me. That’s when I knew I needed to keep myself low. Put away. Kept neatly in a box, so that way I could ascertain my full potential. Once again I realized, only then could I be free. People, even as my toys were more detrimental to me than anything else. I loved being alone, but more importantly I thrived in it.
Once I started staying away, keeping to myself. I realized love was not what I had been told. Love was not for others, but for the feeling one can attain from the power it provides. With other humans that power is fleeting, but with one’s self it remains until your eminent death. With only myself in my home is when I found my first true love aside from loneliness. Cutting. Utilizing a blade to make the marks on my skin which I now define as art. A knife’s place is meant to be against the skin of a being. It fits so fluidly down the fold of one’s figure, like a figure skater dancing around an icy path with the blades on their feet. Leaving behind trails of love, despair, pain, and joy.
I swear it was an accident at first. I was in the kitchen one day, angry that I couldn’t understand myself. Why I felt the way I felt about life. Angry that I felt abandoned, without a mentor to assist me in both my strengths and my weaknesses. That’s when I instinctively took a knife angled it directly downward with both hands grasping it, and I slammed it straight down in to a cutting board. Little did I know that my hand would slide on to the knife as the impact was made with the board. My white tendons on the left side of my inner right palm, sliced open. Bleeding profusely.
My anger swelled in that moment, and manifested in immense pain that synergized and gave me something I had never quite felt like that before. Euphoria. Pure, and utter bliss. In that moment I felt aroused, excited, ready for something to happen. Nothing did. As my feelings of euphoria began to fade away, I was left with the slide in my hand from the blade. Blood dripping all over the cutting board, and the counter beside it. Crimson red splattered behind the board, leaving a bloody mess to clean up. I quickly applied pressure, and got a bandaid from the bathroom sink. Applied it, and sopped up the red stained tile with paper towels. As I did so it occurred to me, that feeling can be replicated again. All I needed was a knife, and a will to achieve nirvana. With blood spilt, it would be far easier the next time.
Day 5
Today I find myself on the floor of the kitchen. Staring at the ceiling, thinking of past relationships. The wrongs, the rights. What I did, what I didn’t do. What could have been, and what never will be. These things I find fascinating as a self-exploration exercise. What could I have done wrong to the woman that I once said I loved, so much so that she deems it necessary not to speak to me again. Did I do anything wrong to begin with? Is it true that she will never speak to me again? I find it doubtful, although I do not put myself in high regard on this situation either. I called her my baby doll, because that is what she is for me. I just want her back. Sometimes. However, I want her back for me. She wants me back for her. Maybe we can meet in the middle.
I think of my parents and what they didn’t do for me as a child. They weren’t model citizens, but they also weren’t terrible parents. They just didn’t know how to raise a child, and honestly who the hell does? I fault them not for what they did, but for allowing themselves to have a child in the first place when they were not ready. Bringing a child in to a world you are not prepared for let alone them, is downright despicable. A selfish and vile act of pure arrogance of nature. The arrogance of two to think love is enough to fill the stomach of their child.
Children deserve to be nourished and cared for. They deserve to prosper and have what is needed at their fingertips to grow. Anything below what you are most capable of is a disappointment, however being short of the basic necessities is abuse. This is why I would never have a child, I am not ready nor am I sure that I could truly care. If I could not care, but fake it would that be equally meaningful as a father who truly loves their child? Is it a father a child needs? Or does a child just need a figure. Someone, anyone to emulate. For finding your own way, and your own emulation in the world is the scariest task one might undergo.
Take the child downstairs for example. It cries non-stop, yet the parents do nothing to satiate the child. Whaling on and on. I could never understand bearing your carbon copy, only to neglect them. Why copy yourself to begin with. Let the branch of life come to an end. Let it fizzle out of the universe alongside that great big ball of fire we call a sun. Let us fizzle out like the final firework in the night sky during a Fourth Of July display. Burning ever so slightly less until the stars of the galaxy swallow the light whole, leaving nothing left to be devoured.

• Nicholas Anderson

Some people might say I am deeply arachnophobic, I am not. I say I am not, because it’s not the spiders I fear,. I fear what I don’t know. I don’t know where they are, I don’t know where to expect them, I don’t know what they want. I don’t know. I don’t know… Except this time. This time it seems… different. The spider in my room, it seems to understand me, somehow. Somehow, I understand… it. I’ve never liked spiders, their creepy multiple eyes, their sharp toothed grin ready to snatch away your life at any moment. Sure most spiders aren’t poisonous, but some of them are. That’s all that matters. Some spiders are small, some are massive. I hate the big ones. Ya see, I got bit by a black widow as a child. I was foolishly playing in the garage with my toys, oblivious to the world around me.
At 3 years old, I had my first encounter with this terrestrial alien. The spider that bit me injected me with enough poison to kill a small horse, so the doctor laid me down; She looked over, and with a big smile she said those famous words. “This won’t hurt a bit”. She put no numbing injections, she simply wiped the site clean, and began cutting. Sawing away at my tiny toddler stomach, slowly making their way through layers of fresh, soft, smooth skin. I remember nothing but warm tears streaming down my face as I screamed at the top of my lungs. Screaming at a rate I as a child had not even yet known. The screams of pain, they are unique. People can attempt to mimic them, but the true scream of torture and death is one so blood curddling that it makes your skin crawl. As a child you know only playful screams, this was my first introduction to what pain in the real world looked like. I just so happened to be it’s next patient.
I remember the pain, the cold feeling of blood pouring down my side, and screaming for my father. Yet, my father was the one to hold me down when I started kicking at the doctor from the pain. Rather than force them to stop cutting into a child without some type of anesthetic, he continued to hold my arms and legs as the doctor cut away. My greatest support system, to betray me in such a way. To take the trust of a child and crush it. After that session, I never trusted doctor’s again. I surely, never trusted a spider. That was until now.
That’s because even if the spider in my room were poisonous… It meant me no harm. Even if it did need to nest, and lay eggs it would not do so in my body. Even if it needed sustenance, it would not come in my direction. At least, that’s what it told me. That's what it told me as it's incisors pinched it's way into my arm once again, numbing the area unlike the doctor that went to work on me as a child. As I stare into it's eyes, I realized... I was scared. I was more than scared, for once... I was terrified. For my entire life, I was the one to induce fear in others. Now, that fear was being induced in me. So I am here. I am here to tell you. Until I am not. Let these words keep you from the spiders. Do not talk to them. Do not listen to them.
Do not be afraid. Even though deep down... fear consumes me."

I’ve finally calmed down enough to write this objectively and subjectively after a recent incident with AA. AA created a series of errors causing a domino effect of issues.. such as overcharging us, 10 hours of delays, seating me separately from both kids on both flights, expensive airport meals, stress and anxiety for all of us. During this fiasco… I had to go with the flow and I figured I’ll deal with this later when we get home, before I end up having a stroke from my own medical issues.
In February I booked 3 flights (me and 2 kids) using a $1400 credit (I was given for volunteering to give up my seat on a flight last year) and did this by calling AA on the phone. We chose to visit Florida and fly out of Westchester NY (with a layover in Charlotte). I ended up having to pay an additional $100 since the total cost came to $1500 for 3 tickets. So one of the kids tickets I paid the $100 on my credit card. Emails confirmed flights etc. We arrive at 6:00AM, 1 hour early (a small airport) and go to the counter to check our luggage and get boarding passes. That’s when everything takes a turn for the worse. The gentleman Malachi, issues 2 of the 3 tickets, and says “I cannot issue the 3rd. It appears your son’s ticket was never processed”. I said “then how did you know his name? Because I had to pay an additional $100 for his ticket and it was charged to my credit card, so I know it was processed”. Malachi said “nope”, then calls another AA rep and they have to reissue the ticket, but they will not honor the original price! It costs more now! They charge me another $75 for the ticket. Malachi said it was out of his control and I said fine I’ll deal with this later. By the time this fiasco was resolved it took a total of 35 min. Now they run our luggage out to the plane and “rush” us over to security. The security remained in turtle mode and they went through everything so by the time we got to the other side we ran to the gate… and literally as I run up to the desk, Lacquisha (AA worker) says “gate is closed”. I said “No! This isn’t our fault! They just ran my luggage out there!” She repeats “nope, it’s closed. I’m not going back and forth with you”. I said “I need a supervisor”. Supervisor comes over and speak with Lacquisha, and I could tell the supervisor was mad because she said “you knew they were coming and you closed the gate!” And Lacquisha kept defending herself. At this point they rebooked our flights, but we had to wait 4 hours. Then our connecting flight we had to wait another 7 hours. We didn’t arrive to Florida until 1:00am. We were all seated separately in both flights. Not to mention all the waiting times and meals or snacks while we waited were a fortune.
That sums up the story. When I call, I cannot get anyone to hear this (after long hold times), all they say is “so you missed your flight” file a complaint online. Yes, we missed our flight due to circumstances out of our control. And they overcharged me too! They took my money for that ticket twice! There is no phone number to this department and you are at the mercy of whomever reads your email with a 200 character limit, and if they even read it, depends on what kind of mood they are in. They do not give you any option to appeal it or a number to contact this department that makes decisions.
So what is my recourse? At this point, they offered me $25 for credit to use towards a ticket within 1 year. I think that is insulting, am I wrong? I don’t even know how to appeal it!

Hello everyone! I don't know of a better place to talk about this online, and because it is related to the left-wing movements and, at least indirectly, to the issues Vaush talks about, I decided to post it here. And I know that it might be a very, VERY hot take, but let me cook here for a bit. It's going to be a very long essay, so brace for it.
First of all, I consider myself a progressive, standing somewhere between SocDem, DemSoc and LibSoc. I stand with and support oppressed/disadvantaged people all around the world, whether it's Ukrainians, Palestinians, Uyghurs, Syrians, Iranians, LGBT+ people, disabled people, immigrants, women, and even men who do not fit the "traditional" gender norms. I believe we must keep fighting against any oppression, social, economic or political, relentlessly, and I don't want to discard or diminish that fight in any way.
That being said, I've noticed a pattern amongst many progressives (especially in the West) where the "voice of the oppressed" basically gives a free pass to the oppressed people or people supporting them to hold any opinion they want if it fits the narrative of "fighting against that oppression". This post was triggered by one absolute doozy of a thread made by some Britishman who's gone so far with his Ukrainian larping as to "Ukrainise" his name on the Twitter handle while not even fighting in the ZSU and, from what I understand, he only visited Ukraine for the first time in his life last month.
Quick TLDR for those who haven't seen this drama: he basically said that NFKRZ, a vocally anti-putin Russian youtuber who recently managed to move to Portugal, should be deported along with every other Russian living in the West. He's been pretty obsessed with NFKRZ for some weird reason (much more than with any actual pro-Z russian propagandist, mind you) for quite a long time, but this was the post which put him on the radar.
Thankfully, Nick got rightfully ratio'd into the oblivion for his cooking, because he cooked a gourmet meal of vomit with the side of diarrhea. But he, together with a bunch of other "pro-Ukrainian" grass avoiders (some of whom even had Palestinian flags in their handles!), both from and outside of Ukraine, kept doubling down against anyone who disagreed with them with increasingly unhinged arguments. I won't even go into the classic post-Warsaw Pact Central European bangers of "uhm, they should just go and overthrow their totalitarian government, it's THAT easy! 🤓" and "collective punishment is good, actually". Many of their arguments deranged into actual dehumanisation, esoteric ahistoricism, proposals for ethnic cleansing and even open proposals for genocide (one mf, when asked what NFKRZ did wrong, unironically said "he's still breathing" and then proposed to drop a nuke on Moscow, saying that "innocent animals might die, but millions of humans will be saved"). That whole thread and threads that came out of it contain so many Hitler particles that Hitler himself would have resigned out of embararassment for not being genocidal enough if he read it.
Of course, many of those people might have been russian bots created to taint the pro-Ukrainian movement as comically evil. For example, one "Ukrainian" mofo unironically pulled out an article from the Russian constitution as an argument on why all Russians are collectively responsible for the war (and there's literally zero chance that an anti-putin person from a post-Soviet area who knows how russian state functions would not know that russian government treats their own constitution as toilet paper), while in the other thread he said that putin is "just a fragile old man, there's no way he could he do this, it's clearly the russians' fault". But it would also very much fit the behaviours of some people "rallying" for other oppressed groups, such as tankies in the pro-Palestinian movement calling for an ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel, or ultra-conservative sinophobes in the pro-HK movement. And I believe there's one very big reason on why is that happening.
Progressive movements generally accept the notion that we must listen to the oppressed people when they talk about their oppression and matters related to it. Which is good, true and based. But I feel like many people forget that those oppressed groups are not some deities that are never wrong about anything related to their oppression. They are still humans, and humans can be wrong, especially when they're under emotional stress that war and oppression cause. Forgetting that not only allows genuine hitlerites to poison any social justice movement and that same movement to get discarded in the eyes of the people, but also ends up dehumanising those oppressed groups by fetishising them as flawless deities. Social justice movements should NOT be just another religion where the oppressed groups are gods and their supporters are their prophets.
I completely understand where the feelings of some more radical Ukrainians and Palestinians come from, but for some of those feelings, we should only understand them, not enable them. We should absolutely call out pro-Ukrainian supporters, whether they're from or outside of Ukraine, if they call Russians as a collective "animals" or "bubonic plague", just like we should call out pro-Palestinian supporters out if they call for another Holocaust or post "Jewish Khazar heritage" conspiracy theories, and just like we should call out radical feminists for advocating for nighttime curfews for all men.
Much of that comes down to the very basic human nature. We love hero stories. We love simple stories where the good fights the evil and there's only two sides of any coin and everyone lives happily ever after. Many people *need* to see their enemy as comically evil and themselves as saints to even be able to fight when it's needed. And we love to strive for our perfect utopia. It's been part and parcel of the human psyche ever since we've evolved from the monkey. But, just like we've overcome the part of human nature where any conflict gets solved with bashing your neighbouring caveman's skull in with a rock, we need to strive to overcome this part of the human nature as well. As much as I like to call the russian invasion of Ukraine the most clear-cut "good guy vs bad guy" war in decades, we must accept that there are no fundamentally perfect and fundamentally anti-perfect sides. Usually, there's only one "better" choice, which will inevitably come with its own imperfections, and one or more "worse" choices. The utopia will never be real, as depressing as it might sound to some.
Finally, I want to address the question that will inevitably rise up: "Why are you even talking about this? These people are just a terminally online minority". Well, we are living in an increasingly online world, which means that their voices can be louder than ever before, and it's already starting to affect us in real life. TERFs started getting an increasingly strong influence in the British politics because the mainstream just accepted the notion that "feminists cannot every be wrong when they talk about women's issues", even if it's completely anti-scientific bollocks and delusions about men dressed as women just itching to rape every single woman in public bathrooms. In my country (Lithuania) people who publicly go on actual genocidal rants about Russians and the necessity of "Der Totalen Krieg" against russia have had a strong influence on the public and political opinion ever after the first few months of the war passed, to the point where not only Russian and Belarusian, but also Ukrainian immigrants/refugees are now getting threatened with deportation (first two groups for being "a national security danger", and Ukrainians to get drafted for war). And pro-Palestinian movements constantly get harassed for being "pro-Hamas" because there are actual pro-Hamas people being accepted (at least online) as "necessary allies". Hell, even Israelis are using their past (and present) oppression as an argument on why they have the right to murder every single Palestinian. Allowing these people to have such a relatively unchallenged presence is already reaping the bitter fruits that will only allow hateful people to win.
Please, whatever oppressed group you're standing for, do not let your movement turn into a religion. Challenge and prevent bad actors from outside the oppressed group from turning your cause into yet another hateful one. Understand, but still challenge bad actors from within the oppressed group from doing the same.
P.S. I would LOVE to see a Vaush and NFKRZ discussion, I imagine it would be an absolute banger.

I think it’s harder to go from 0 to 10 clients than it is to go from 10 to 20 or 20 to 40, etc. It’s the idea that a crowd attracts a crowd… and once you have a crowd, there’s more potential conversations about you going on more frequently.
In terms of word of mouth referrals, those are going to be the best clients that you get. I think a lot of trainers who have been in the game for a while might agree with this. I’ve heard of a variety of different ways that people generate referrals and word of mouth. I’m sure there’s 1 million ways to do this. If you’re a trainer who has a really great referral system, please share in the comments. I’d love to hear about yours.
Anyhow, here’s an internet stranger’s approach for whatever it’s worth.
Disclaimer: This is just how I do it. Not the only way. And my opinions may not be right for you.
Should you do discounts and incentives?
In my business I don’t love giving discounts or doing promotions that are salesy and cliche in nature. For me, I think of what we do as a superpower for those who are vulnerable. We can help very unhealthy people develop habits and underlying physiological improvements that may extend their life, reduce risk or prevent lifestyle diseases, and if nothing else improve their quality of living.
If it’s kids or athletes we can improve their self-confidence, help them make a team, take them from a high school athlete to a college athlete, etc. We have the knowledge and capability to tremendously enhance the lives of people who are ready and willing to be vulnerable and consistent.
To me, that’s a superpower. I think that in order for our profession and each of us, individually, to be taken seriously and viewed as professionals then we need to carry ourselves that way and communicate it to the world.
I look around at physical therapists, athletic trainers, doctors, and professionals that somewhat fit under our general health and physical well being umbrella. Not to say that we are as qualified in the realms that they are, however, we have our own expertise. What I’m getting at is that those professionals don’t discount their services. They take themselves seriously and therefore it communicates to the public to take them seriously as well.
I’ve watched my fair share of cult documentaries. What I’ve noticed is that if you repeat a message enough times to a vulnerable population, there will be at least a percentage who follow and buy into what you’re putting out. If all of the touch points people have with you are professional; your social media, your website, and anything that pertains to your services communicate professionalism, then people will get the vibe that you are a professional. They won’t even realize they’re thinking that, it’ll just be an intuitive perception.
Professionalism, alone, increases the perception of value from the consumer. They’re not training on a discount, but instead, they’re training with the professional at this craft.
Generating Organic Word of Mouth
That idea that a crowd attracts a crowd is true, at least in my experience.
I think even more than in years past people crave a sense of community and belonging. Perhaps that’s in our nature and Covid may have reminded us of this. Therefore, it might be helpful to look at your role as a trainer, but also a community generator.
When you do that it starts to reshape how you go about your services, at least for me. At this point in my career after 13+ years in this field, I see training as a veneer that I can utilize to build community along with the obvious physical benefits. CrossFit has mastered this. Naming their workouts and making things competitive for demographics that care to do that sort of thing creates a situation in which people bond. When friends are having fun they want to invite other friends too.
What I’m getting is that you can create organic referrals through giving people something to bond over. Whether it’s a struggle, something fun, an event, a challenge, or anything they can rally around it will increase the likelihood of your current clients wanting to share what’s going on in their life with other people.
A simple example of creating camaraderie that we do at my gym is during the holidays. My brother in law and partner will change the names of exercises in a manner that applies to the holiday. On Valentine’s Day we referred to push-ups as “smush ups”. On July 4th he referred to a running part of the workout as a “Revere Run”. These are cheesy dad jokes, but people thought it was dumb yet funny. It creates conversation, camaraderie, and fun!
That is a very simple example. Another thing we do are beer nights once a month or so. Two of our members own the local brewery. We try to do business with small businesses as well, especially ones that use our services. Whenever we have beer nights, our members bring their spouses, their friends, sometimes their kids if they’re old enough. It organically gives us a way to start conversation with new potential clients.
This summer we are inviting all of our clients out to a local minor-league baseball game with their families and friends. We are also looking into renting out a 135 person movie theater where we can show a universally loved movie. We are always looking for ways to generate community and camaraderie.
Something I do with my kids program every month is “Fast Friday”. I break the group of around 20 kids into a few teams and we do fun yet challenging fitness competitions. We give out two separate awards. One is a trophy that one of the little guys made out of tinfoil, which goes to the team that wins the overall competition. Then we have the golden onion award which goes to the young people who exemplify leadership characteristics that their parents want reinforced. All of the kids want to win the golden onion.
I spray-paint onions with a metallic gold. I’m even in the process of having a golden onion logo drawn up so I can put it on T-shirts. It is hilarious, but the kids rally around that. They want me to do a Fast Friday almost every week! However, by doing it less frequently it gives them an organic goal to train for.
Even though there are kids of all different ages between 9 to 18 they all enjoy this and the camaraderie that it builds between them. There are kids who would never talk to each other outside of this setting or who go to different schools and may never have even known each other. Now, they have positive relationships with each other and can’t wait to show up for training every day. Their parents love it so they tell their friends about it. Their friends reach out because they want their children to be involved... it’s all organic.
No discounts, no incentive program, just professionalism, fun, and hopefully lifelong appreciation for the lessons learned and habits built.
Now, back to that statement I made about being trainers and community builders…
Once I started realizing that exercise was a tool for health AND community, it truly morphed my business into something that our members love to rally around and bring new people into.
I hope this gives you some food for thought so you can implement some sort of referral system, whether it be organic or inorganic, to help you grow your clientele. Remember, this all takes time combined with relentless consistency.
Building your business truly is embodying the tortoise approach versus the hare.
Hope this helps! thanks to anyone who cared to read my long-winded blog.

"Welcome back to Total Drama Action!" The episode faded back in with a shot of the front gate, the camera panning out and down to show the castmates and host back in their regular attire. "Where against all advice to the contrary, the players have changed out of their bathing suits. Hope you like swimmin' in your jeans," Chris told them, folding his arms.
"Do you expect us to believe that we'll be going to the beach this time?" Sky asked.
As if on cue, a horn was honked and the shot panned over to the Boat of Losers driving up to the side of the set.
"You were saying?" Chris asked.
Confessional: Ripper
"Chris actually didn't tell us hogwash?" Ripper explained in surprise. "Who would have expected that?"
Confessional Ends
The scene cut back to the host and contestants getting on the boat. "Since the beach we're going to isn't connected to the film lot, we're traveling via boat,” Chris informed the teens. “Bet you guys feel stupid for changing out of your swimsuits now!”
“We thought you were going to put us in another studio that's as chilly as Alaska!” Anne Maria called out. “Don't blame us because we were trying to think ahead.”
"And that's what I like about you kids," Chris smirked before the boat started to take off.
The camera skipped ahead to Chris' feet as he stepped onto sand, the shot panning up. "Yes campers, we're actually back at your old stomping grounds," he announced as birds called in the background, "Total! Drama! Island!" The shot zoomed out as it usually did when the series' name was said, and the eleven teens were shown standing in their teams by two sectioned-off areas of beach.
"If you need to take a moment and reminisce about the great times you had here," Chris told them, Chef Hatchet standing at his side.
They all took a moment… to burst out laughing.
"Fine," Chris said, "we'll skip the good memories montage. Screaming Gaffers, you've got a thirty-minute head start on," a few dramatic beats were played over close-ups of the colorful plastic tools that were in the two makeshift sandboxes, "the Sand Castle Building Contest! To be judged by our resident King o' the Dunes!" A deep drumroll played as Chef placed a tall sand-colored, castle-shaped crown on his head. "Make like prop masters, guys, and give me something awesome. I really don't want the tiebreaker to have to go down."
The shot cut over to a trio of logs tied together in a pyramid shape. "I don't think legal's quite approved it yet." The camera panned down the rope, showing a large boulder suspended above a crash test dummy. The rope snapped and the dummy was crushed, then the structure itself collapsed, then a reddish-orange car – its horn, the Confederate national anthem and a '01' painted onto the roof – came flying off from the high ground behind the beach and crashed into the pile.
The footage flashed to the Gaffers. "Chase, go make the sand in that bucket!" MK commanded, sending the daredevil off running. "Ripper, pack it firmer!"
"And who got killed to make you boss?" Ripper demanded.
"In my history class, I was taught about Frank Gehry," MK explained.
“Who?” Ripper asked in confusion.
"He's one of the greatest architects of our time," MK detailed, “and the number of buildings created by him are thirty three.”
"Yeah yeah yeah," Ripper cut her off. “Continue to geek out and I may kick the sandcastle into your face. Now where's Scott?”
"He said he was gonna go get some more buckets," MK replied, annoyed by Ripper's threat.
The scene flashed over to Scott, who was holding a stack of three metal buckets as he walked through the woods towards the beach. He saw the Grips idling around their construction area for a bit but decided to carry on.
Confessional: Scott
“As much as it'll bring me joy to mess with the other team's sandcastle, I did promise to stick by MK's side and not make any big moves so that I wouldn't get eliminated,” Scott mentioned. “My old habits didn't die hard.”
Confessional Ends
"Three, two," Chris counted down, his eyes on his watch. Instead of calling out 'one', Chef blew a few notes on a trumpet. "Thank you Chef!" Chris said as the two watched over the Gaffers, all now working on a ring of five towers surrounding the central one. "Screaming Gaffers, your thirty-minute lead is over, so," he walked to the other team, "Grips, dudes, get castlin'."
"First things first!" Brick proclaimed. "We'll need water!" He and Millie grabbed buckets and took off.
"I'll get some from the mountain stream!" Anne Maria declared.
"You all know we could use the lake," Jasmine pointed out.
"Our mistake!" Millie cried as she and Brick ran back past the others.
"Quiet!" Trent yelled, forcing his team to freeze. "We need a plan, and I've got one."
Confessional: Justin
"Little Trent mans up. Wow. Even I had goosebumps,” Justin said and started looking at himself in his mirror. “And there wasn't a mirror for miles."
Confessional Ends
The scene showed Anne Maria, Justin, and Millie at work with strengthing their sand castle while Trent monitored them.
“That's right. Nine turrets, nine doors,” Trent instructed as Brick and Jasmine poured more sand. “Justin, add one more moat, so we have…”
“Nine?” Millie finished for him.
Anne Maria notices a crab crawling around. She picked it up and used her lipstick to draw their team logo onto the shell. "We can use this as a flag!" she said as she put the crab on top one of their sticks, making the crab fall out of its shell.
“Great! We just need eight more!” Trent said. “We'll need all the luck we can gather up.”
The camera flashed to show the finished result of the Gaffers’ sand castle now with red flags on top. "Now this is the Taj Ma-Kate," MK announced, "named after my real name, Mary Kate." The camera panned across the impressed faces of the Gaffers.
Meanwhile, Trent was adding more shells to the castle's six. “Dude, stop at three. Stop at five. Just, just stop!” Justin advised him as the team looked worried.
“It can't support that much weight!” Jasmine claimed, “so unless you want the castle to be demolished, don't add any more shells.”
“Alright then,” Trent sighed.
“What if we rip up some of my magazines and put them around the castle?” Anne Maria suggested.
"It's a sand castle building contest, Anne Maria," Millie rebutted.
"No, it's a prop sand castle building contest,” Anne Maria corrected. “With papers and hairspray, we could do paper mache!"
“Crafty,” Justin smirked.
“Good idea, Anne Maria,” Millie smiled in approval as the Jersey girl took out four magazines from her pockets. “Sorry I doubted you.”
“Everybody start tearing up these magazines!” Jasmine ordered as the team ripped up the magazines and put them onto the bucket that Brick was holding.
“Remember, nine of everything!” Trent added in, much to his teammates’ bother.
The footage skipped forward to show the Grips standing around their paper mache sand castle.
"I dub thee… Casa Sky!" Trent announced.
Sky and Chase were overseeing the Grips’ castle. “Did Trent just name his team's sandcastle after me?” Sky asked in astonishment.
“Correctamondo,” Chase nodded. “And why are you bothered by this so much?”
“I'm not. It's just that the castles are supposed to be team based, not relationship based,” Sky explained.
“At least he's not going all crazy over you,” Chase told her.
“Yeah. It could be a lot worse,” Sky shivered.
The shot cut to show both teams, the camera panning right and focusing in on the Gaffers as they tried to deal with a number of seagulls that had taken up residence in and around their castle.
"Get away from my castle, you stupid gulls!" MK hissed as she and the rest of her team tried and failed to scare the birds away.
Finally, the flock of gulls took off squawking – and in doing so, caused the Gaffers' castle to collapse. "This is why I hate birds!" MK griped as a cloud of sand and feathers settled to the ground.
The scene cut back to Chris and Chef. "We have a winner!" Chris announced. "Anne Maria and the Killer Grips' clever prop, Casa dos Paper Mache!"
The winning team celebrated. "You can thank me and my flawless style," Anne Maria flashed a smile.
"Which means," Chris said as the camera cut back to him, "we need a new tiebreaker!" His face fell into a scowl. "And I was hoping for the evening off. Instead," he grinned again, "gather ye some wood, campers, for a fire of the bon variety."
The scene changed to the woods, where Sky was gathering sticks up off the ground when Justin and Trent walked up to her with sticks of their own.
"Sky!" Trent called, grabbing her attention. "Hey! I feel like it's been ages since we had any uh, you know... quality time together."
"I'll give you two some privacy," Justin said and walked off.
“What do you want to talk to me about?” Sky wondered.
"I kinda want to talk to you about..." Trent began.
Sky's attention was caught by the number of sticks he carried. "Not to interrupt," she started to say, "but you're carrying nine sticks."
"Of course," Trent said casually. "It's my lucky number. Something the matter?"
"I did overhear you trying to make nine out of everything…" Sky said nervously. "We should talk later. We really need to focus on the game."
"Sky, wait up!" Trent called out, but she already ran off, leaving him confused. "What am I doing wrong?"
"I oversaw everything, so I can answer that for you," Justin said as he reentered the shot. "You're in a relationship with her, and normally, the most important thing would be to make her happy. What does she like most?"
"Sky does like winners…" Trent thought slowly.
"Exactly," Justin winked. “Do what you think is best for you and your girlfriend.” The eye candy walked away, his devious grin hidden from Trent, who smiled at an idea forming in his head.
The footage skipped ahead to night, a full moon high in the sky as the castmates and Chris stood on the beach. The host clapped his hands, and the firepit and assorted torches burst into flame.
"Why did you even make us go and collect firewood?" Brick asked angrily.
"I needed some alone time," Chris answered bluntly. "You think these hands manicure themselves?" He held out a hand towards the cadet. "Which brings us to the tiebreaking challenge!" The surf music started again. "A watusi-twist-mashed potato dorky old school dance contest!" he announced while sampling a variety of those and similar dance styles. "Teams! Choose your best boogier for battle!"
The music ended as Ripper immediately walked forward. "I'll show you all my funky moves," he said.
“I nominate Trent to step up,” Millie spoke up.
“We heard you got some fly moves,” Justin told the team leader.
“Okay, I'll do it,” Trent agreed.
The footage flashed forward to a close-up of a stereo on a table; Chris pressed a button on it and a surf rock song began to play. Trent and Ripper approached one another nearby and stood face-to-face.
"Prepare to be humiliated worse than a wet-willie," Ripper taunted.
"Bring it," Trent countered.
The two young men backed up, and began to dance. Both immediately showed themselves to be talented, Trent's swaggy styles more than matched by Ripper's more wild and funky moves.
The camera quickly panned across the Screaming Gaffers, who seemed to be impressed by their teammate.
Confessional: Scott
"That guy's moves are impressive," Scott said in the confessional. "That's as far as I'm gonna go in complimenting him after he forced me to go first in the surfing portion!"
Confessional: MK
"Funky and groovy," MK said in her own confessional. "I thought he'd bomb it, but he managed to subvert my expectations."
Confessionals End
Trent was nodding his head in different directions before facing the camera and pushing his hands forward.
“Go Trent!” Jasmine cheered.
“Don't stop now!” Anne Maria supported.
Trent looked over at Sky for a moment, who was frowning from their earlier conversation. He then started to feel conflicted.
Confessional: Trent
The thing is, if Sky wants to win, why is it unethical for me to help her? I'm Trent first and a Killer Grip second,” Trent emphasized. “Oh, can we erase that? Confession might be good for the soul. It's not so good for the teamwork.”
Confessional Ends
As Ripper did a chain wave with his arms, Trent was moonwalking in the background. The guitarist noticed a stick lying behind him, and after winking at the camera, he deliberately tripped on the stick and fell backwards.
The music stopped as the Grips stared in shock. "Dude, get up!" Justin cried.
Trent groaned in his position. "I think I have turned my ankle!"
“Seriously? And now?" Anne Maria moaned.
Trent attempted to move his body while remaining on his back, which stopped when Chris stood over him. "That's not dancing!" the older man disapproved.
"It's modern," Trent tried to explain. "It's uh... interpretive!"
"I interpret that as sucking big time," MK snarked.
"Not now, MK!" Sky shushed her. "Trent is currently distressed right now."
"That's not your problem," Chase told her. "It's his. Not to be mean or anything."
Confessional: Sky
"I like Trent," Sky told the camera in the make-up trailer, "but I can't ignore whether he's feeling unwell or not. Us being on different teams is likely the reason for his recent attitude."
Confessional Ends
"Thanks to Trent's blunder," Chris said, "Ripper and the Screaming Gaffers are the winners! And your reward...," the camera pulled out to show the entire cast, "the greatest beach party ever pitched!"
The Gaffers began to cheer, and Trent caught Sky's eye. She motioned for them to meet up a little ways away before walking off and Trent followed.
The scene changed to the woods as Sky and Trent reunited. “I know you really wanted to win,” Trent spoke first.
“And I know ankles don't immediately heal in a few seconds,” Sky said back.
“I'm weird like that,” Trent said.
“Speaking of weird, what was with that nine stuff earlier on?” Sky wondered. “I was going to talk to you about it earlier on, but we were still in a challenge.”
“If I'm being honest with you, nine is my lucky number, and I thought I'd rely on it to help us with the sand castle building contest,” Trent admitted.
“So you're superstitious?” Sky smiled at this. “You never told me this before.”
“You never asked, and I didn't think about bringing it up,” Trent continued. “Let's get back to our teams before Chris forces us too.”
“Good idea,” Sky nodded before they took off.
The footage skipped ahead, a hip-hop tune playing on the stereo as the camera panned down to the now-partying Gaffers, Sky included. A pan left took the focus to the Grips, disappointment on their faces, as they waited in a group near Chris.
"If the losing team could just follow me to the boat," Chris said before walking off down the beach, the six Grips following unhappily.
Later on, the Gaffers were watching Ripper perform two air punches to the air before performing the worm on the floor. Scott, who was feeling tired, decided to kick sand onto Ripper's face.
Ripper felt the sand and stopped dancing in order to cough. “What did you do that for?!” he demanded.
“Come on. You know I had to get you back for the surfing fiasco,” Scott said.
Confessional: Scott
“I just made history by kicking sand into the bully's face!” Scott cackled. “How's that for subverting movie stereotypes?!”
Confessional Ends
The scene switched to the area in front of the cast trailers back at the film lot as the Grips headed straight for their beds, though Justin held Anne Maria back by her shoulder.
"What is it?" Anne Maria yawned. "Can't you see I'm tired?"
"I just want to thank you for winning us the sand castle contest," Justin said to her. "Especially since I blew the surfing challenge. You really saved my bacon."
“You're welcome,” Anne Maria said. “I don't want to get booted off the show early again. You understand, right?”
“Definitely. I didn't fare much better as well, but I'm positive that this season will be your breakthrough for fame,” Justin winked at the now flattered girl.
“Anything you say, handsome,” Anne Maria laughed in her enamored state, but another yawn from her changed her mood to cranky. “I mean, we better go to sleep!”
Confessional: Justin
"Let's just say I'll do anything to win. Anything," Justin said in the confessional. "With Anne Maria not being connected to anybody else, I think it's only natural for us to be in an alliance."
The footage seemed to pause, and the viewpoint cut back to show Chris watching the confessional feed from his control room as the music turned ominous again. "Wow," the host said. "Dude is as crafty as he is good-looking. Maybe we're related?" He laughed. "He wishes!"
The host cut the confessional feed off entirely. "Poor delusional guy could never even swim in my gene pool," he told the camera. "More importantly, tune in next time to watch more me!" He laughed again. "Aaand a few minutes of Justin...," he stood up so that his head was no longer in the shot, "on Total! Drama! Action!" He immediately walked off, saying "Which one of you geniuses left the two-way mic on?"
(Roll the Credits)
(Bonus Clip)
“The Hawaiian party wasn't bad at all,” Ripper confessed in the make-up trailer. “The poi was super tasty, and the chopped pineapples were fantastic. If this is how Hawaiian people live, I should probably use part of my money to move me and my family to a resort over there, though I will ignore the coconut bras for sure.”
Eva - 14th
Geoff - 14th
Izzy - 12th
Killer Grips: Anne Maria, Brick, Jasmine, Justin, Millie, Trent
Screaming Gaffers: Chase, MK, Ripper, Scott, Sky

What's your story's big mystery? How puzzling is it? Who's there to solve it? Why do they need to figure it out? Once it's solved, is it kept secret or told to the whole world?
For the sake of brevity, I'll replace most of the names with epithets.
In my story, The Royal Capital is facing a crisis where people are being turned into abominations known as "inhumans". The Clergy has started an inquisition to find the culprit, proclaiming the cause of inhumans is due to heresy. However, this attempt at consolidation has led to mistrust, as many believe The Clergy and Royalty conspired to create inhumans. As the problem spirals from a monthly occurrence to an almost daily one, The Clergy is forced to hire mercenaries to help suppress the fierce inhumans.
The protagonist, Galil, is a hired mercenary of The Clergy's militia with a specialization in scouting and sabotage. He partners with an inquisitor, Ulimarq, and a reclusive archivist known as Najia in order to uncover The Conspiracy.
Once it's solved, the other half of the story is spent trying to make the systemic changes necessary to prevent a resurgence of The Conspiracy. However, with the heads of The Conspiracy subdued, the prospect of another conspiracy isn't seen as much of a threat. Additionally, the inhuman affair was expensive for The Nation, and so a complete systemic overhaul is considered out of the question.
That is, until, the protagonists create their own conspiracy.
How about you all? You don't have to tell us the resolution if you don't want to, lol.

Race Information

• Name: Revel White Mountains Marathon
• Date: May 05, 2024
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Location: Conway, NH
• Website: https://www.runrevel.com/rwm
• Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/21845763
• Time: 3:15:30
• Rank: 34 of 949
• Age division rank (F25-29): 5 out of 78

Goals: A Sub 3:20 Yes
B Sub 3:25 Yes
C Sub 3:30 Yes
Splits Mile
1 7:19
2 6:50
3 6:49
4 6:45
5 7:01
6 7:11
7 7:16
8 7:23
9 7:30
10 7:32
11 8:20
12 7:36
13 7:01
14 7:26
15 7:43
16 7:30
17 7:22
18 7:31
19 7:29
20 7:34
21 7:38
22 7:42
23 7:42
24 7:46
25 7:52
26 8:00
27 7:33
About Me
I am a 28F currently finishing my last year of residency in NYC. I have been running for years but got more serious about it in the last couple years.
Training
For some background, this is my fifth marathon, of only which the fourth and this one I had any semblance of time and pacing. Previously I was running just for fun and to finish. My marathon times went from 4:08 (Philly 2017)->3:56 (Philly 2018)->3:50 (Philly 2019)->3:35 (NYC 2023). I had gotten a running coach for this cycle only. For my last training cycle, I had a custom plan made for me but failed to follow it to a T since I had undiagnosed anemia for which I had iron infusions for.
I’m not sure how many weeks exactly I spent specifically “marathon training,” but I had been running pretty regularly since December, and my peak mileage weeks were around 50+ miles. My longest run was just over 20 miles, and I was running an average of 5x/week with one tempo/interval run, three easy runs, and one long run with marathon pace incorporated. It was lovely having a coach make all the running decisions for you so I just followed exactly what he prescribed.
I had not previously done many tempo/interval runs where I was going faster than my marathon pace, so at first I was pretty uncomfortable with how tired/exhausted I was after those long, yet fast runs. However, my fitness improved during the 4 months I spent training, so I gradually got more used to them.
I took oral iron every day to try to keep my hemoglobin up. Last I checked it was a 12, with ferritin 28.6. Not ideal I know, but better than it was before.
I had gotten much faster during this period, and I went on to PR pretty much every distance I ran including half marathon, 10k, 4M which was awesome to see. So going into this race, I knew my fitness level was there, but I was nervous going into a race with a time goal, since I had never had one before.
I had mostly trained in Prospect Park (has one larger hill), as well as West side highway (very flat).
Pre-race
My friends and I carpooled from NYC to NH as there were a couple of them running it with hopes of BQing as well.
I had my husband with me for support and some friends as well so we definitely were here to have a good roadtrip/mini vacation.
I had gotten pretty good sleep for the week before since I took a few days off of work before the race. I never understood proper nutrition and hydration until this race. I carb loaded with pasta and too many bagels for 3 days before the race and drank at least 1L of water a day, usually with LMNT powder in it. I know a lot of people drink more, but I usually drink 8 oz of water a day, so this was a lot for me already. I also don’t want to see pasta/bagels again for the foreseeable future.
The night before I practically got no sleep as I was brimming with anxiety about this race, and what time I would get. But I read that one day of poor sleep before the marathon is okay as long as you get a week’s worth of good sleep before.
Race
I had studied the course well prior to the race. Shout out Coach Paul from the Revel Expo! I knew that the biggest drops were in miles 1-5, 6-9 were the slow down, 10-15 was the hill/out and back, 16-20 was a gradual downhill, and 21-26.2 was mild rolling hills and flattening out.
In terms of nutrition, I alternated between a Huma gel and a Maurten gel every 5k on the dot. I eat gels in two bites, assisted with a mouthful of water with my small Spibelt water bottle. There was a lot of drinks/gels/fruit offered on the course every 3 miles, but I did not take any of it. So for this marathon, I had less than 8 oz of water and 8 gels. Right before starting the race I had 16 oz of water with an LMNT. I know a lot of people would find this horrendous but it works for me.
I wasn’t entirely sure how fast I wanted to go for the first 5 miles as that part was the most steep. I figured I would run at a 7 out of 10 and let my legs figure out the rest. I was super cautious though because I didn’t want to burn out later on. However, not having done this type of downhill before, my legs were flying and I was not about to put on the breaks. At the end of the day, I may have started out too fast but I knew this even while I was running it. I just have no discipline in racing. Not being used to this downhill, I started to feel tightness in my quads as early as mile 3 which I was concerned about but I wasn’t about to let that slow me down.
Miles 6-9 were definitely a lot slower, mostly flat and some very mild uphills as well. I definitely held my own this part of the race, dreading what was coming up next.
Miles 10-15 was the out and back with a 200 foot incline in one of the miles, with some more or less flat miles in there as well. I slowed way down this mile as I knew I would need to as steep hills are one of my weaknesses. But what goes up must come down, so I came back down around mile 13 to finish the first half of the marathon at around a 1:35.
Miles 16-20 honestly felt like a blur, as I was trying to figure out running tangents as my coach told me that this course seemed to have a lot of twists and turns (which it did). I started to feel tired around mile 18 but definitely still had energy to keep going. At this point, my legs were feeling very much in pain, especially the quads. This was something I was not accustomed to, because in my previous marathons, there was not a steep grade downhill as in miles 1-5. I also accredit this to me trying harder for a time goal as well.
Miles 21-26.2 were painful. Every mile felt long. My coach had told me not to be faster than 7:30 for the first 3 miles in this span but I was in no state to go faster than 7:30 anyway. I was still able for the most part to keep my ultimate goal of around 7:40 a mile. But every mile I passed, I calculated how fast would I need to run to be under 3:20 total. Mentally, this was very challenging and physically, my quads were dying. I am proud of myself for keeping up a good pace during these miles. At mile 25, we ran into town where we saw the people of Conway, NH. They are honestly some of the sweetest, most encouraging people. They were shouting my name (all the bibs had names on them much to my chagrin) and cheering loudly. The last mile was essentially completely flat and I didn’t feel the need to speed up because I knew I had hit my goal and then some. My last mile was right at a 8 min/mile.
Crossing the finish line felt surreal as this day started so early in the morning, I felt like this was another day already. Overall, I loved my race experience and the White Mountains were absolutely stunning! The city of Conway with its population of 2,200+ was incredible and truly gave me a small town feel coming from NYC. I want to say thank you to the people and the city for being so welcoming to the thousands of us who ran through the White Mountains into your city!
Post-race
I only finished this race 10 hours ago, but this is the most sore I’ve ever been from a marathon. Right after the marathon, I sat down and legitimately could not get back up without help and that has never happened to me before. Walking even right after felt like a challenge if I were to stay still for too long. Let’s not even talk about stairs. I’m sure the DOMS will kick in even harder tomorrow and the next day, but for now I am feeling okay, and able to walk slowly. I really really enjoyed the race print outs that Revel provides with all your race information and a special little tag that says you BQed. I was so nervous going into this because you never know how much time Boston will take off their time goal, but I feel very comfortable now with a -14:30. I am so thankful for finishing this race with no injuries and I had a great time with friends. I can’t wait for my next marathon (Berlin!), but for now, I can’t wait to take a well needed break.
Made with a new race report generator created by u/herumph.

First four chapters of the novel I'm working on. keep in mind this draft is very early. Please give any and all criticism and advice you can think of no matter how small. (should also mention that i am dyslexic so i apologies for any spelling or grammar mistakes Grammarly didn't catch) any way, ill stop yapping now, here it is:
CHAPTER ONE The cold winds raged as the small force of a few dozen men traveled north, the snow in front of them illuminated only by the silver glow of the moon. In the lead was a young man on horseback. Barely 19, every other man there was by far his superior in age. Yet he led them, not because of his military record or his skill in battle, but because he had been personally selected to lead this force by their lord, the lord of Diduna, and the young man's father. "Cadam!" a soldier from the back shouted. The young man turned his horse around. "Our scouts have identified the encampment, it was just south of the Bonlin forest," the soldier informed him. "Good, but tell the men we did not step into the forest itself," Cadam replied. "You still believe the stories?" the soldier chuckled. "I would rather be a fool for believing them, than a fool for not," the Soldier stopped chuckling. "Very well, but we should make camp here for the night and move out in the morning," Cadam nodded to him. The men set up near a small rock formation. A group of four men huddled over a small fire they had started. As they huddled, they began to talk about the upcoming attack and about the one who would lead it. "Nineteen!" one man exclaimed. "A nineteen-year-old leading us into battle, the boy is barely out of the womb!" "Has Ganjo lost his mind?" another asked. "I suppose he wants his son to gain experience in battle," one tried to reason. "Well, I would rather not be a pawn in the child's first chess game! The emporer would never have alowed this" as he exclaimed this, the other men noticed a figure looming over them. "Do you wish for every man in all of Antesia to know we were here?" he said as he kicked a thick pile of snow onto the fire, smothering it. "I'm sorry, my lord, we were just cold, that's all," the first man said. "You have hides, if it is too uncomfortable out here, then maybe you should have stayed in the city, I hear there is an opening for a dung shoveler at the stables” one of the men started snickering but stopped immediately upon a glare from his friend. Cadam gave the men one last look before returning to his tent. In the morning, the men packed up camp and began to march north. By midday, they saw something on the horizon. Cadam ordered his men to stop; he took a messenger and approached the encampment himself. As he approached the front gate, he stopped and turned to his messenger. "Approach their encampment and deliver to their leader a challenge to single combat," the messenger nodded and began towards the front of the encampment with his arms raised. A few moments later, the gates opened, and a single person rode out on horseback. The armor they wore was clearly scavenged, what may have once been noble and quality gear was now tattered and worn away by many years and many battles, except for the helmet which was evidently new and of somewhat quality make. It was very similar to Cadam's own helmet, covering most of the head and face. As they approached, Cadam thought something was off about their face, his suspicions were confirmed when the stranger spoke. "You have challenged me to single combat," the stranger said in what was unmistakably the voice of a woman. "No, I challenged the leader of this encampment," Cadam responded. "You are looking at her." "I won't fight a woman." "Okay then, don't" she said as she reached for her belt and threw three knives in Cadam's direction, the first two missed but the third implanted itself in Cadam's thigh. He fell off his horse and clutched the knife. As he tried to pull out the blade, the woman unsheathed her sword and dismounted her horse. Before he had time to remove the knife from his leg, her sword came crashing down towards his head. He managed to roll to the side, narrowly avoiding death. She readied her sword for another strike. He drew his own blade, managing to parry her attack at the last second. With a sweep to the leg, he knocked her to the ground, kicking away her blade and pointing his at her throat. "You cheated" he remarked. "This wasn't one of your fancy duelling lessons. Prince-boy." She said the word "prince" with more disgust than Cadam had ever heard someone say a word. He discarded her weapon and called to one of his men. "Tie her up along with any other prisoners we capture," Then he addressed the rest of his force. "As for the rest of you, you may keep whatever loot you find, Attack!" CHAPTER TWO The men reacted to this command with enthusiasm Cadam had not seen since they departed. The men rushed towards the encampment like a pack of starving wolves who just discovered a wounded deer. Cadam finally removed the knife from his leg and dropped it to the ground. He remounted his horse and hurried to the encampment before his men stole all the action. Being on horseback, catching up with his men proved no difficulty. Cadam charged at the head of his force, stopping at the front gate. a few of the men carried over a rudimentary battering ram made from the trunk of a tree. Cadam dismounts and readies himself for the ensuing battle. The gate crumbles after the fourth hit from the ram, upon its collapse Cadam leads his troops, charging into the enemy line. A battle is a significantly different beast compared to a duel. Cadam had spent most of his days as a child training in the art of the duel with some of the greatest instructors Antesia had to offer, including his father. He was well prepared for nearly any one on one encounter with an enemy, but there was nothing that could prepare him for a real battle, a battle between two groups of men with every intention of tearing one another into pieces and showing no mercy. Cadam was scared. He had spent weeks marching through snow on the way here, and he spent his entire life dreaming of his first battle. Yet, he was scared. Cadam stumbled, falling behind the rest of his men as they charged head first into the enemy. He watched as they furiously battled, the sound of steel clashing was deafening. Cadam knew he couldn't let his men see him like this so he held up his sword and forced his legs to walk him into the fray of conflict. Looking for an opponent he could take by surprise, he saw one of his men on the ground seconds from death as a yellow robe fighter went in for the kill. Cadam rushed the Fighter, plunging his blade deep into the man's side, killing him. He then turned to the soldier who lay on the ground and offered him a hand, it was he then noticed it was one of the men from the campfire a few nights ago. Cadam helped him up and they both returned to battle. Eventually the Yellow robes were defeated, there was only a small number who did not fight to the death and chose to surrender instead. Cadam addressed his men and told them they may take whatever you can find but to leave the prisoners alive. The soldiers reacted very positively to this and ransacked the encampment for anything they could find. Once the pillaging was complete Cadam organised his soldiers and gathered the prisoners who he would bring with him for the return to his fathers city. By the time they were organised and ready to leave, night had crept in so they decided to rest for the night and set out in the morning. Cadam sat around a campfire talking and drinking with the soldiers, the mood was Ecstatic in the wake of their victory. Cadam had finally gained the respect and appreciation of those around him, although he did not feel as though it was earned. Each man was so focused on himself and the battle that none had noticed their leader freeze and fail to exhibit courage and leadership. All they knew was that he led them to success and even saved one of them during the fighting. As if in answer to Cadams thoughts, the very man he had saved during the conflict hurried up to the campfire. But the expression on his face was not one of gratitude but one of great concern. "sir, there's a problem" he stumbled over his words barely managing to get them out of his mouth. Cadam immediately arose from the spot he had been sitting at, discarding his thoughts and resuming the stoicism his men knew him for. "hold on now, what's your name soldier" "N-N-Neeman, sir" "Alright Neeman, now what is the issue?" "My friends i can't find them" "These are the men you were at the campfire with?" Cadam inquired. "yes sir" Cadam let out a sigh and put a hand on Neemans shoulder "Listen, war is dangerous. I'm afraid your frei-" Neeman cut him off before he could finish his sentence "No, they didn't die in the battle, i was with them after" Cadam removed his hand from Neemans shoulder visibly annoyed "You should know better than to interrupt your superior" Cadam said with a disapproving glare" "I'm sorry sir, it's just... I'm very worried. " " Why? how do you know they have not just gone for a piss" Suddenly Neeman diverted his eyes from Cadams, avoiding eye contact as though it were the plague "Because... Because they went into the Bonlin Forest" at the mention of the forest the chatter around the campfire immediately ceased, all eyes now fixed intensively upon Neeman and Cadam. "Follow me" Cadam muttered as he walked away from the prying eyes. Once they were out of earshot Cadam turned to Neeman with a look of anger on his face "Can you fools not follow the single order i give you?" "I-I'm sorry sir i told them not to but-" "When did they leave?" "earlier in the night, only an hour or so ago" "show me where they went" Neeman lead Cadam around the back of the ruined encampment careful to avoid the eyes of any soldiers who may think it a good idea to follow Neeman stopped 30 or so feet from the forest. The pine trees stretched high with leaves like those of daggers settled at the top. This would have given a good view into the forest given the relative lack of foliage in the lower half of the trees but there was an unnatural darkness within the forest, a darkness not even the moon could illuminate. But it was not only Cadams eyes that told him not to go any closer, there was a chill he could feel, radiating from inside the forest. This was not like the chill provided by the snow that covered everything outside the forest. This was not a chill felt on the skin or any other part of the material body. This was a chill felt deep within the soul, a chill that could only have a single source. "you feel it dont you" Neeman said as he turned to Cadam "There is a great evil within this forest" Cadam replied, not looking away from the darkness cloaked in trees. "Your friends are dead" Neeman did not contest this claim for he knew it to be true. Death seeped from every inch of the forest, they both knew instinctively that there was not a single living being past the point where the first trees grew. "I'm sorry Neeman" Cadam said to Neeman as he turned his back on the forest. "We should head back to camp, we have a long journey to start in the morning" Neeman replied. As they walked back towards their camp Cadam had a deep uncomfortable feeling in his gut. He was being watched. And whatever was watching him, was looking at him from the forest.
Chapter 3 The following morning as everyone was packing up getting ready to leave a soldier came running up to Cadam "Sir, some of the men decided to go for another look around the encampment to see if we missed anything last night, and boy did we!" Cadam had hardly slept last night due to his thoughts resting on his performance in the battle from the previous day and the forest. Due to his tiredness Cadam was not in the mood for any nonsense "just throw whatever you found in with the rest of the stuff and have someone carry it" "you misunderstand me sir, that won't work" and why not?" Cadam asked this with a tone suggesting annoyance, the soldier either did not notice or did not care about Cadams mood for he continued in the same upbeat tone "follow me sir, this isn't something i can carry and present you with!" reluctantly Cadam followed the soldier and to his surprise he did not see some piece of armour or a valuable relic, instead a wagon sat in front of him. "how did you guys miss this when searching the place last night?". The soldier made a drinking motion. "alright then, get two horses and throw some of the loot in the back" "what about the prisoners?" Cadam had completely forgotten about the prisoners taken during the battle. "how many are there?" Cadam asked "ten, eleven including their leader you defeated" the soldier replied "alright, spread the prisoners out so they cannot conspire amongst themselves, put their lead in the wagon and make sure her hands are bound securely. She strikes me as someone i will need to keep an eye on" the soldier nodded and left to complete this task. It would take a few hours for the group to be packed and ready to go, with Cadam sitting in the wagon that also contained a majority of the loot and the yellow robes leader, as ordered her hands were bound very securely to prevent any stealing or escape attempt. Cadam climbed aboard the wagon once they were ready to depart "Follow the Nahilri minor downstream until we meet with the main river" he commanded. As they started to move, Cadam turned around to face the woman in the back of the wagon, his face adorned with a confident smirk "you nearly killed me, feel like i should know your name" he asked. "Nima" she responded without looking at him. "Well Nima, how is it that a woman becomes the leader of a yellow robe encampment?" she scoffed at Cadam before answering him "i earned my position, i didn't get it handed to me by way of my birth. bastards like you are what's wrong with Antesia, and what we are fighting to fix" The accusation of nepotism visibly shocked and offended Cadam. His smirk immediately faded to be replaced with a cold stare as it took all Cadams composure to conceal his anger at her remarks. He turned away from her and focused instead on the roads ahead of them Now it was Nima's turn to smirk They wouldn't speak again until night fell and they had to stop for rest. Neeman volunteered to take first guard of the prisoners but Cadam dismissed him "you should get some rest Neeman, I'll guard them" Knowing better than to argue, Neeman relented and went to bed. Cadam sat next to Nima "You know, the world isn't as black and white as you think" "Oh please, enlighten me" she said sarcastically "My father wants to better Antesia as well, just like you do" "And I suppose that requires him to control it as well?" Cadam did not answer, she continued "What is it YOU fight for? Do you want to conquer Antesia for your father? Do you fight to install your family on the imperial throne? You lead an attack on our encampment but do you even know who you fight?" Cadam looked away from her, unsure how to answer "I-I- I don't know" Nima was surprised by this answer, she expected him to act defensively and combat her claims "Well, I hope you figure it out. She turned to look him in the eye "And I hope you figure it out soon, before all of Antesia in engulfed in flames" Once again Cadam had no answer, they sat there in silence for a few minutes before Cadam regained his composure and his display of confidence. "you asked me why I fight, why is it you fight?" "I wasn't born in a castle, or a palace" she chuckled "Or even a damn shack. I was born in the middle of nowhere, born to parents who died soon after my birth. The emperor never cared about people like me, we were not important enough. Just irrelevant peasants who were never worth a second thought. When he died and the yellow robes were created it was my chance to do something about it, to help people and to be more than a worthless lowborn. I fight to try and make Antesia a better place, one free of out of touch rulers who only rule because of their status. That is why I fight, to do what I can to improve the world, and I would die for my cause. Would you die for yours?" Chapter 4 The small force would be on the road for many days, they followed the Nahilri minor south until it joined with the main river. In total it was a little over a month before they reached their destination, this was due mainly to the weather. You see during winter the northern reaches of Antesia were often hit with heavy snow and sometimes blizzard-like conditions. This winter was no different, despite the winter season nearing its end and the dawn of spring the snow would not let up for several weeks to come. This meant that for most of the journey, all that they could see was an endless sea of white. So it was a great relief when they finally saw it. At first, they only saw a bright light shining over the horizon, and as they drew closer the small light morphed into what seemed like a bright ball of glowing radiance illuminating the night sky, Diduna. After so long on the road Cadam was relieved to finally see his father's capital. "When you see the city you'll change your mind about wanting to lead an encampment in the middle of nowhere" he said to Nima "I'm a prisoner, not a guest" After having spent so long travelling together Cadam had almost forgotten the reason he even left the city. "Don't worry I'll put in a good word for you, I know the guy who runs this place. You'll get out in a month or two" for what may have been the first time since they met Nima smiled. "Alright then, you better give me the grand tour" Their conversation was cut short as they reached the front gate. There stood two men guarding either side of the entrance. Both were significantly better equipped than any of Cadams men. They wore silver plate mail with a crest engraved into the chest piece, it depicted a snake and wolf fighting with an eagle swooping from above. At first, Cadam had not noticed him but next to one of the men stood an old man, he was dressed in fine silk robes and had a long white smooth beard. "you have returned," the man said addressing Cadam "Yes, Father I succeeded in the mission you gave me" When Cadam said this his manner changed instantly, he spoke not like he was addressing a friend or relative but like he was addressing his superior, his face became cold and emotionless and his tone completely neutral. "Good, these men will take the loot and prisoners into the city, come with me" Cadam immediately dismounted the wagon and followed his father inside the city "you did well son. I have arranged to throw a feast in honour of our victory, hopefully, the first of many" Ganjo led Cadam into the great hall. Its roof climbed high into the sky and its walls stretched as far as the eye could see, the ceiling was held up with eight great arches on either side of the hall. Massive tables adorned the floors nearly as long as the hall itself. It appears that nobody thought to wait for Cadams arrival before starting the celebration being held in his honour. "Enjoy yourself Cadam" Before Cadam could turn around to answer, Ganjo had already left. Cadam took a seat at one of the tables but before he could grab anything to eat, he felt the bench he sat on sink, to his right now sat a massive man, in both height and width. The man was nearly a foot taller than Cadam, he had long orange hair and a massive bushy beard to match. And unsurprisingly to Cadam, he had a leg of meat in either hand. "Good to have ya back, and even better they're are throwing you this feast!" The man said addressing Cadam "It's been a while, how have you been Grassio?" "Been pretty boring with you off doing whatever it was you were doing, the others aren't half as much fun" "where are they?" Cadam asked "uuuuhhhhhhhh" Grassio said as he surveyed the hall "ah!" he said as he raised his hand in a beckoning motion "over here, found 'im" As Grassio said this two others took notice and began towards them A man with short dirty blond hair sat to Cadams left, and a woman wearing a dark cloak with equally black hair sat opposite Grassio "Haha, knew it'd take more than a couple of yellow robes to take out the mighty Cadam of Diduna" the man to Cadams joked as he put his hand on Cadams shoulder "Good to see the possibility of war on our doorstep hasn't dampened your mood, ey Bogen" Cadam responded, matching his joking manner "I see Grassio wasted no time stuffing his face." Remarked the woman "Come on, my love! you know the war machine needs its fuel!" Grassio replied through mouthfuls of food She rolled her eyes at him "I see nothing has changed since I left" Cadam laughed "Nah, old Adga here has hardly let me eat a thing!" Grassio said as he finished his second leg "So tell us, lad, how was your little expedition?" asked Bogen Cadam spent the next few hours filling them in, on the battle but more importantly his conversations with Nima on the ride back to Diduna. He decided it best to leave out mention of his performance during the battle and of the events around the Bonlin forest. A few hours into the celebration their chatter was interrupted by a soldier approaching Cadam. "Cadam, your father has requested your immediate presence" "Alright, I'll be with him in a min-" the soldier interrupted Cadam before he could finish his sentence "Immediate," He said far more sternly this time Cadam conceded and followed the soldier away from the party "Don't wait for me" Cadam called back to the others at the table "I wouldn't dream of it!" Grassio called back as he bit into another leg of meat The soldier led Cadam out of the feast hall and through the streets of Diduna. The sky was pitch black, there was nobody on the streets and the only sound that could be heard was the faint celebrations from the feast hall. The soldier led Cadam up to the northmost area of Diduna, this is where the richest citizens and most important buildings were located. But all of them were dwarfed by the great palace of Diduna. It Was made of glowing white bricks and was by far the largest building in the city, in both area and height. It had four great spires on each of its corners, these spires each stretched so high into the sky they looked as though they may piece it, but there was one final feature of the palace that dwarfed even these spires. Protruding from the centre of the palace was a single tower, nearly twice the size of the four spires. Apart from the sheer height one of the other noticeable features of the tower was the golden engraving of a tree, the branches of this tree wrapped around the entire tower and upon each branch was a name. This tree showed the line of Didunas ruler from its founder down to Lord Ganjo, and next to Ganjos name, there was a space reserved for Didunas next ruler - Cadam. At the highest reach of the tower, there roared a great flame, this was the flame of Diduna. Its glow burned through the night's blanket illuminating the entire palace. Ganjo stood in front of the palace. "leave us" he commanded the guard The guard did as he was told and left Cadam to talk with his father. Ganjo turned and walked inside the palace, with Cadam following close behind. They walked in silence to the top of the tower, stopping once they stood next to the great flame. Ganjo looked out over Diduna from the tower. Without turning around to face him, Ganjo addressed his son "We live in an incredibly unique time, son. The emperor's death has turned Antesia into a land filled with chaos, but also one ripe with opportunity. This is not the first time an employer has died without an heir, but it is the first in more than a thousand years that there are no living members of the imperial family. My son, we are living in the most pivotal moment of Antesian history since the great catastrophe." He turned to look at Cadam "war is brewing, winter has given reason for peace among the lords but now that spring approaches, every single lord will wish to claim the imperial throne. Do you remeber General Karft? The late emperor's greatest general." "Uh, yeah I think so" Cadam responded "He has taken control of the imperial city and most of the southern lands with it, he has spent the winter fighting back these yellow robe peasants and I suspect he shall soon move to subdue larger targets. You have proven yourself with your recent mission against the Yellow Robe camp north of here, I am going to send you on a diplomatic mission to Lord Mufid at Fort Zamok, you spent a summer there as a child." "yes, I remember," Cadam said accidentally interrupting Ganjo, he was met with a glare before Ganjo returned to speaking. "I will need to you persuade Mufid to join me against Karft, it will be difficult as he prefers to keep to himself, but I trust you will remind him of the urgency of this situation. One final note, the prisoners you captured will be executed tomorrow morning, publicly. It is necessary to remind the public how we deal with rebels" Cadam was taken aback by this news and attempted to argue "But father, are you sure that is best? One of them is a woman, what would people think of you executing a woman" Ganjo raised an eyebrow in response to Cadam's outburst. "Has spending time on the frozen roads made you forget your place boy? My word is final, I thought you knew better than to speak back. Remember to hold your tongue unless you want to end up like these prisoners you love so much" And with that Ganjo left Cadam alone in the tower, to sit with the revelation that by sunrise, Nima's fate would be sealed, and she would be executed. And it was there, for the first time in his life, Cadam decided to disobey his father.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to be dead in the next 24 hours.
Whether that's the Costella family, or whatever this is, I'm not sure.
The police are taking forever, and part of me knows they're either refusing to believe me, or RC got them too.
I'm holed up on our school bus, so I've got nothing better to do.
I want to tell you about my team.
We met in our sophomore year.
Strangers standing outside the club room.
Levi was the freckled brunette who wouldn't stop talking about Game of Thrones.
Sunny, a pretty redhead, told him to shut up.
Tom, a sandy blonde, nodding his head to music corked in his ears.
I just wanted to be part of a club, and get away from my overbearing mother.
I won't say it was a perfect start. Our school was lacking in funding, so anyone could join, which made us more of a Quiz Club. I had some serious anxiety, so I stayed on the sidelines for a while, watching, rather than taking part.
It's not like we actually talked to each other initially. The first few weeks, we played Jeopardy, and attempted to find more members to cement us as an official Academic Decathlon club.
Unfortunately, though, it was just the four of us.
Which made it extremely hard for us to be taken seriously.
According to Google, Academic Decathlon teams were made up of nine members, placed by their GPA.
Our principal laughed at us, but he did let us become official.
Which was out of pity, I assumed.
The club was assembled, and we started meeting up after school.
Sort of.
Sunny barely showed up, and Levi didn't take anything seriously, preferring to spend the time telling us about his weird family turf-war.
Our principal dumped us in a tiny classroom with a resident rat living under the floorboards.
There was barely enough room to move, and the four of us crammed together for three hours was less than appealing.
Still, though, I wanted to be part of a club.
I had grown up with parents who were obsessed with board games, so I was pretty good at general knowledge questions. Our club room was too small for anything else but three desks (Sunny and I shared one) and a whiteboard we had to shove through the door.
But, again, we didn't start as an Academic club.
It was more akin to Story Time Club.
Arriving late on my third day, armed with quiz cards from home, I found Tom and Sunny completely mesmerised by Levi’s storytelling skills, drowned in shadow.
They didn't even turn the lights on.
I strictly remember squeezing next to Sunny, and hearing the words, “But there was so much blood all over the floor, and my Mom told me to go upstairs and hide under the bed…”
Sitting in front of them was Levi, perched on a desk, his legs swinging, a whiteboard marker between his teeth.
Sometimes he'd get up, and illustrate parts of his story.
It sucked that his drawings were all stick people.
I won't go into full details of his life, but Levi grew up as part of a family who had… interesting methods of making a living. I had seen the guy’s father multiple times when we hung out at his place, and, yeah, my friend’s family definitely had Soprano vibes.
Levi’s Draw My Life was nothing to do with the club, but it did bring us closer.
Even if, at that point, I was considering leaving.
But it's not like it was easy to walk away from these guys. It's like finding your soulmates. Levi wasn't the only one with an interesting life. Sunny Lang was an ex kpop trainee, who was kicked out for being too fat, which led her to develop a severe eating disorder, and a hatred for her own body.
Sunny explained her family were originally from Boston, her mother growing up in Korea.
She signed up for an idol agency focusing on creating a new girl group, and had gotten all the way to the final stages, before being kicked for her weight. Sunny told us her story with a smile, though there was a hollowness in her eyes I couldn't ignore. The other girls were judgemental bullies, and the idol diet and brutal regime almost killed her.
Sunny lived in a tiny apartment with 9 girls, who would tear each other apart for a chance to debut. Sunny said all the other girls debuted, and when we (not so patiently) asked for names, she shrugged, admitting she signed an NDA that prevented her spilling the beans.
What she did say, was the K-pop idol is a product, not a person– and are made and moulded into a product.
She had zero interest in throwing her humanity away to become a manufactured doll.
So, one of us was the son of an underground family, and the other was an ex idol.
Tom was an aspiring horror writer with a famous older step-brother.
His story times were usually, That one time I went to the Met Gala.
When it was my turn to reveal my story, I told them the only interesting thing about me.
I could smell when something bad was going to happen.
They laughed, but I was being serious.
When I was a kid, I smelled my mother’s brain tumor.
I remember it smelled like curdled milk.
I asked Mom why her head smelled of mouldy milk, and Mom laughed and said it was her shampoo.
It was actually a grade two tumor growing inside her brain.
Thankfully, the tumour was found quickly and removed.
Growing older, I became sensitive to smell. The little girl choking on the bus smelled of singed wood, and the old man crossing the road stunk of gasoline.
In the fourth grade, my classmate Alex Castor smelled of lemons all morning.
I sat behind him, choking on the stink all the way through class.
Ever since I met him, Alex had always smelled… off.
It was a distinct smell I could never understand, and as the days and months and years went by, that smell morphed into a subtle orangey musk that was so strong I had to cover my mouth and nose. Then, he smelled like lemons.
During Recess, I watched Alex fall off of the jungle gym, straight onto his head.
Alex Castor was dead before the paramedics arrived, my panicked teacher attempting CPR when his brains were leaking out of his ears.
The school claimed it was an accident, but Alex would have been fine if the jungle gym wasn't built on solid concrete.
I told my team members this, and Levi was sceptical.
“You can smell bad things?” He said, his lips curved around his milkshake straw. In the early days, we hung out in the local bar. It's not like we were allowed inside, but Levi could get us in anywhere.
I was squeezed between Tom and Sunny, while Levi took the seat opposite us. I couldn't help noticing our waitress was insisting on free milkshake refills, her frantic eyes glued to Levi.
I had zero idea why. Levi Costella was about as intimidating as a fruit fly.
Wearing a white shirt with a popped collar, a leather jacket thrown over the top, Levi was giving rebellious Harvard student, rather than son of a crime family.
Leaning forward, he raised a brow, clearly not believing me.
“So, you're like a stink psychic?”
I shrugged, sipping my own shake.
“Sure.”
I wasn't planning on telling him the club room smelled off on our first day.
Once we actually started the club, Levi surprised us as the smartest member, and getting to know him further, I came to the realization his family were infamous in our town.
However, his parents hid it well. Lucy and Michael Costella were the owners of a popular ramen store in our town, hiding under the facade of two successful business owners. The Costella’s were an attractive family.
Lucy was a sophisticated brunette with a lipstick smile, Michael, a handsome fluffy haired man who looked like he modelled glasses.
The two were fiercely protective over their youngest son, not so casually reminding us behind grinning smiles, that if anything happened to Levi, we would automatically be involved in the family.
I mean, they did laugh and say, “We’re joking! Look at your little faces!” when Sunny went deathly pale. But there was definitely truth behind their words.
Being Levi’s friend was… challenging at first.
Tom and I were in his room studying for finals, and an alarm went off, flooding Levi’s room in red light.
I had zero idea where it was coming from, but it locked all the doors and windows, forcing the Costella residence into temporary lockdown. Levi didn't seem fazed, casually mentioning his parents were taking care of it.
He had a whiteboard set up in his room, and was standing in front of it, cramming all of our textbook notes into one easily digestible drawing.
Levi wasn't just smart.
He was Ivy League smart, so we had struck gold with him.
His family were questionable, and yes, sometimes I did fear for my life, but as the more time we spent at his house, the Costella household became a second home. We got used to the alarms.
I just brought along ear plugs.
I wish I was writing this post about Levi’s family, and sure, they are a factor in what is going on right now, but I want to preface this by saying the events below involve the 2024 scholastic decathlon final in our town with the school’s listed:
Starbrook High School.
Ratcliffe High School.
Please note, the incident that took place last night was immediately covered up, and all phone footage was destroyed. Our town is mostly out of the way, and does not show up on Google searches.
We also have our own version of the academic decathlon, which is a more town-level competition, due to lacking funds. The four of us were desperate to start competing with our schools.
So, we started taking things a little more seriously.
We got a coach.
Mr Hanes, who was hesitant at first.
In his words, “You will hate me as your coach.”
He started by recruiting more members, announcing, “If you want to be taken seriously as an actual club, then I'll be taking the reins from now on.”
He did, and with our teachers guidance (and sometimes brutal honesty), we reached a level where we could start competing with other school’s in town. Now, none of us knew this, but Mr Hanes was obsessed with winning.
So, club meetings were twisted into two hour study sessions with no talking, followed by Mr Hanes Jeaprody, which was Jeaprody, without the actual fun.
We were quizzed multiple times, answer cards and practise questions quite literally thrown directly in our faces.
I hate to admit this (I really hate to admit this) but Mr Hanes’s tactics worked. Sure, we had been mildly brainwashed by our slightly unhinged coach, but with Levi Costella, we destroyed our competitors. Like I said, our town held their own version of the academic scholastic decathlon, but it was pretty much the same, with some changes.
Ten subjects. Language and Literature, Math, Social Science, Economics, Art, Music, Interview, Speech, and Essay.
Unlike the official Decathlon, ours was more like a game show, with the ability to be knocked out if a team member answers a question wrong. Whoever answers the most questions correctly wins. Team meet ups were either tests, study sessions, or quizzing each other.
Which leads me to last night.
The finals were held in the reigning champions, Ratcliffe High School’s, auditorium.
And we were about to win our town’s Scholastic Decathlon 2024 Championships.
Well…I was knocked out in the music section. Standing next to my coach who I was sure was going to asphyxiate from excitement, I could smell the sudden potent stink of lemon. I tried to ignore it at first, but the more questions my team were answering correctly, the smell got worse, suffocating my senses.
This wasn't just lemon. The stink was like a burning, singing smell trickling into my nose and the back of my throat.
It was stronger than what Alex smelled like.
This was suffocating, drowning my thoughts.
“Are you okay, Cassandra?”
Mr Hanes nudged me when a Ratcliffe girl was struggling to answer a question, only for Sunny to jump in with the answer. “You look quite pale.”
I nodded, forcing a smile.
My gaze was on the Ratcliffe coach, a scary looking blonde woman, whispering in one of her student’s ears.
The Ratcliffe kid freaked me out. He was way too tall, dark blonde hair, and bulging eyes I swear were not blinking.
His gaze was glued to Levi, who wore a smug grin.
There was a smaller girl next to the Ratcliffe kid, a Macbook balanced on her knee. Every so often, he leaned into her, the two of them in deep conversation.
“I'm just nervous.”
I jumped when Ratcliffe scored a point, their side erupting into cheers.
During the break, we had a mini team meeting.
Sunny rushed to the bathroom to freshen up, and I noticed a Ratcliffe girl with a bouncing ponytail following her.
Ignoring our coach’s speech, I joined the two girls in the corridor, that lemony scent hanging thick in the air.
I caught them in an awkward position.
The Ratcliffe girl had her fingers pinched between the material of Sunny’s dark blue shirt bearing our school’s name.
Sunny looked confused, her lips parted like she was going to yell.
Ponytail dropped her hand, suddenly, with a nervous laugh. “Oh! I'm so, so, sorry,” she gushed. “You had, like, the biggest spider crawling on your back.”
Sunny caught my eye, shooting me a reassuring smile.
“Thanks.” She made sure to keep her distance. “Uh, where's your bathroom?”
The Ratcliffe girl nodded down the hallway. “It's just down there. I'm going there too if you want me to show you?”
Sunny motioned for me to go back to the auditorium. “Uh, sure! That'd be great!”
I did try to follow them, only for Sunny to cough loudly.
I took the hint, reluctantly heading back into the auditorium.
My team was hyping each other up, Levi in the centre, sweating through his team shirt. He ran a trembling hand through his hair. “I can't do this,” He groaned. “Ratcliffe High is known to play dirty, man. They're unbeatable.”
“In what way do they play dirty?” I asked, joining them.
Levi gulped down water, shrugging.
“I dunno! They're already trying to distract me with the stink eye.” The boy narrowed his eyes at a grinning Ratcliffe kid who, after noticing our stares, jumped to his feet, waving at us.
“Hey guys!”
“That's Harry Cartwright, the son of the Cartwright family who tried to kill my parents in the third grade.” Levi mockingly waved back. “As you can see, their kid is a fucking sociopath.”
Huh. I wasn't expecting the smiley kid to be the mobster’s son.
Harry Cartwright was not what I expected.
Unlike his team members, he was the only one in casual clothing, a short sleeved white shirt and jeans, a pair of sunglasses perched on top of his head.
Tom went pale.
“Fuck.” He hissed. “He’s one of you? Then those bastards will have a reason to play dirty, right?”
Levi shrugged, averting his gaze. It was the first time I saw his eyes darken, like he was subtly telling the boy to back off.
“The Cartwright’s have been trying to buy our land for a while,” he muttered. “I wouldn't put it past them to use the Decathlon as a way to attack.”
“Attack?!” April, another member of our team, hissed. “Like, attack attack?”
Mr Hanes grabbed the boy, resting his hands on Levi’s shoulders. “Ignore them,” he said. “Hey. Look at me.”
Levi did, raising a brow.
“You're losing that spark in your eye, young man.”
“Spark?”
Our coach nodded. “Look at me, kid.”
Levi rolled his eyes. “I am looking at you, Mr Hanes.”
The man was shaking. I was guessing his whole career (or coaching career) was on the line.
“They know they're losing, Mr Costella.”
Hanes shook the boy, squeezing his shoulders. “You are being positive and Ratcliffe doesn't like that. They want you to be nervous. They want to make you second guess yourself and lose confidence. Don't let them get into your head.” he smiled, giving the boy a playful shove. “Kick their asses.”
“Exactly!”
I didn't realize Sunny was back from the bathroom.
The faint smell of lemons had followed her. I noticed a wet patch on her shirt collar, though she was quick to smile at me, admitting she'd spilled water down herself. Sunny wrapped her arms around Levi, squeezing him into a hug.
She hung on for a little too long, Tom dragging her away with a laugh. “Good luck, all right?” she backed away, ruffling his hair. “We’ve got this!”
When I hugged Levi good luck too, I had to resist covering my nose.
The smell of lemon was unbearable, just like fourth grade Alex.
But it wasn't as potent as earlier.
I vaguely remembered the smell starting to fade once Alex’s body was being carted away on a stretcher.
Following my captain through the crowd, I was right. The smell was less suffocating. Before he went back to the stage, I grabbed the back of his shirt.
The material was soaking wet.
“How are you so wet?” I said, swiping my hands on my shirt.
“Huh?”
I shook my head. “Never mind. Do you remember what I told you in sophomore year?”
Levi settled me with a confident, but nervous smile. “Thaaaat you're scared of clowns?”
“No. I mean the boy who smelled of lemons.” I gritted out.
Levi surprised me with a laugh. “What are you talking about?”
Something ice cold trickled down my spine.
Levi did know what I was talking about. He brought up my stink sense a day earlier in front of his parents, and I had to cover his mouth to shut him up.
Leaning close, I whispered in his ear. “You stink of rotten lemons.”
He nodded slowly, pulling away. “Uh… thanks?”
I bit back a hiss of frustration. “No, you don't understand what I'm saying–”
“Starbrooke High School,” The host announced. “Can all members please return to the stage.”
Levi held up his hand for a high five.
“Can we do this later?” He winked. “I'm kinda busy carrying this spelling-bee on my back right now.”
I nodded shakily, high fiving him, and letting him jump back onto the stage.
Before his words hit like a tidal wave, ice cold water slammed into me.
Spelling Bee?
Slowly making my way back to the stands, Levi’s mistake was circling around my head. He did win a spelling bee, but that was in middle school.
Thankfully, the smell of lemons was gone when I returned to my seat.
Mr Hanes handed me a soda. “Chill out, Cassandera, it's just a game.”
He could talk. The guy was on his fifth coffee.
Mr Hanes was not chilled out in the slightest.
Surprisingly, the event went well. I was half expecting my team to be crushed by the rafters, or caught in a blaze started in the crowd. But we were doing well. No, we were winning.
Reaching the climaxing round, Sunny choked against a smug Ratcliffe boy, joining me on the sidelines.
Levi answered the next question with a confident smile.
We were winning, but Ratcliffe could still catch up with a miracle.
The second to last question was to Ratcliffe, and it was general knowledge.
”Where on the human body would one find the *orbit?*
I knew the answer, and so did Levi, his lips breaking out into a smile when the Ratcliffe boy was hesitating, eyes wide.
Our school’s buzzer went off, Levi slamming his hand down.
Bzzz!
The host turned to our team. “Starbrooke, can I have your answer?”
Levi nodded, shooting our team a victory grin.
“It's…!“ He opened his mouth to answer, his jaw slackening suddenly.
The boy’s shoulders slumped.
“Uh… “
“Um…”
“Huhhhhh…”
Levi inclined his head, blinking, his eyes glazing over. There was a sudden, hollow vacancy that sent chills down my spine. It was like someone had reached into his skull, and yanked out his brain, leaving a shell in his place.
To my confusion, our team captain frowned at his buzzer like he'd never seen one before. He pressed it, exploding into child-like giggles.
Bzzz!
The audience laughed along nervously.
Tom nudged me. “What the fuck is he doing?”
Bzzz Bzzz Bzzz!
Levi’s entire body was slumped, his hand slamming down on the buzzer.
I caught something pooling down his chin.
“Is he… drooling?” I whispered.
Mr Hanes looked mildly horrified. “Has he been drinking?
“Levi?” Tom spluttered. “Drinking?!"
Whatever we were watching, however, was definitely influenced by… something.
Bzz. Bzz. Bzz. Bzz. Bzz!
“Young man, that is not a toy!”
The host wasn't amused. “Starbrooke High School, I need an answer from you,” He nodded to Levi, who was pressing the buzzer, his smile growing.
“Once again,” The host backed away, like Levi was contagious. “Where on the human body would one find the Orbit?”
Levi cocked his head, lips parted.
His gaze found the overhead lights, and he winced, his lips curling into a frown.
“Starbrooke High School!”
Levi jumped, tipping his head back and blowing a raspberry. “Palm tree?”
The audience laughed, and I started feeling nauseous.
Across from us, I could see the twist of a smirk on the Ratcliffe coach’s lips.
Bzzz! Levi slammed the buzzer again giggling.
“Starbrooke High School, if your team member continues to act like this, I will be forced to disqualify all members.”
Our captain stopped, gaze glued to the host, his hand creeping towards the buzzer, like it was a big red button.
The audience loved it, laughing like they were watching a sitcom.
“He wouldn't.” Tom whisper-shrieked.
The auditorium was silent for a moment, awaiting Starbrooke’s response.
Levi stuck out his tongue, slamming his hand down.
Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz–
When Tom dragged Levi away from his podium, a Ratcliffe girl hit her buzzer.
“Starbrooke High School, you are disqualified,” the host announced. “Ratcliffe High School, do you have an answer?”
It was Ponytail who nodded with a grin.
“The answer is the eye socket! The Orbit is part of the eye socket!”
“That is the correct answer.” The host was distracted, his eyes glued to Levi.
“Ratcliffe High School wins.”
Levi jumped when the Ratcliffe wide erupted into cheers.
His eyes were wide, clinging onto the buzzer for comfort.
Next to me, our coach looked like he was going to faint.
I barely noticed Ratcliffe’s victory, too busy watching our team captain, who was Harvard bound, tipping his head back and smiling at the ceiling like a new-born baby. Tom dragged the stumbling boy over to me, his mouth twisted.
“This was Ratcliffe, right?” He hissed, shaking our captain, who was struggling, squirming in his grip.
“Did they put something in his drink?!” He prodded Levi. “Hey! What did they do to you?!”
Still, though, drugging his drink didn't make sense.
Levi never left the auditorium, and kept his water bottle with him the whole time.
How did they even manage to slip something into his drink in the first place?
Did I smell our competitors drugging him?
Sure, intentionally inebriating my teammate was morally wrong and illegal, but why could I smell lemon?
“I doubt it was Ratcliffe.” Sunny squeezed next to me. “I've been watching them. They're harmless.”
“Then how the fuck do we explain this to his parents?!” Tom whispered, grappling with Levi, who was fighting to get back to the buzzer.
When Tom let go of him, he dropped onto the floor, crawling over to his podium. It was like watching a child.
Who was determined to piss off the adults.
Levi jumped back to instead feet, his gaze was glued to the host, a smile curved on his lips, when he slammed the buzzer again.
Bzzz!
“Someone, please remove the Starbrooke boy from the stage!”
I was embarrassed, our whole team ducking our heads as our captain was forcibly removed from the podium.
Mr Hanes grabbed Levi, pulling him off of the stage.
I expected our coach to be mad at him, but I think the teacher was more worried, a phone pressed to his ear while he forced the boy into a sitting position.
No, I don't think it's influence from alcohol, I could hear his conversation.
Levi kept trying to get up, mesmerised by the buzzer. The teacher was firm but gentle. “Hey. Sit down, all right? Keep still.” He went back to his phone call, gently prying Levi’s eyes open.
From what I can see, there's nothing wrong. He's just kind of…
Mr Hanes swiped his own hands on his jeans. ... wet?
Team Ratcliffe came over to rub it in our faces, though I was still tuned into our coach’s hissed whispering.
Water? No, I don't think it's water. It smells… no, I haven't told his parents…
“You guys did awesome!” Ponytail's voice was sugary sweet. Too sugary.
She held the 2024 trophy, bearing a satisfied smile. I noticed the Ratcliffe members were surrounding Harry, like guards.
“Better luck next time, okay?” She held out her hand, her eyes twinkling.
“No hard feelings?”
“Control your dog.” Harry said, amused eyes flicking to Levi, who was once again sprinting back to the fucking buzzer. His eyes had visibly darkened, lips curled into a triumphant smile.
Harry Cartwright was watching Mr Hanes chase our team captain like it was his own personal entertainment.
I had to look away before I died of second hand embarrassment.
“What did you put in his drink?” Tom demanded. “Weed? Edibles?” the boy attempted to shove Harry, only to be pushed back. “What the fuck did you do to him?”
Harry’s smile didn't waver. “Like I said. Control your mut.”
When the Ratcliffe team walked away, our red faced coach struggling with Levi, who was behaving progressively more erratically, informed us we were longer welcome inside the school.
Tom suggested calling an ambulance, but our coach was hesitant.
We all knew who Levi’s family were.
On the way out, Tom matched my stride. He was frowning at our team captain struggling to walk.
The way he was acting was already eyebrow raising.
But walking at an angle and being unable to stand up straight was worrying.
“I don't think they drugged his drink.” Tom muttered.
We pushed through the doors out of the school, and I revelled in the cool night air grazing my cheek. “If they did, he would be acting out of it, right? So, what's the deal with him acting like–”
“A child.” I finished for him.
“Yeah.” Tom leaned closer. “Do you think this has something to do with their turf war?”
I slapped at a bug creeping across my cheek.
Levi fell over again, this time bursting into giggles.
“Almost definitely.”
Levi was right about Ratcliffe playing dirty. I didn't realize how dirty until we were on the losers bus home. Levi was in the seat next to me, and the kid hadn't moved since we left Ratcliffe, his eyes wide, lips pulled into a dazed grin.
Bzzz!
The noise startled me from slumber. I was drooling, my head pressed against the window. Outside, the sky was pitch dark, and squinting through the glass, I couldn't get a bearing on where we were. I thought I was hearing things, but when I sat up, I heard it again.
Bzzz!
It was close.
Leaning over the boy, I glimpsed a smear of scarlet on his headrest.
I choked on my next words.
“Tom.”
Tom was in front of me, listening to music.
He didn't reply, his head of dark blonde curls nodding to the beat.
“Levi.” I managed to get out. I prodded him, and his head lolled into his shoulder. “Hey. Can you… sit up?”
Bzzz! Bzzz!
When the boy didn't move, I gently grabbed his shoulders and pulled him forward myself, something contracting in my stomach.
I don't know how long it takes for your mind to fully register something, but my body was already reacting.
Levi’s seat was infested with bugs, eating their way through the upholstery. I was aware of my body moving back. I threw up, instantly, screaming into my hand.
The back of my best friend's skull resembled a deflated soccer ball, what was left of his brain leaking from his skull where a swarm of skittering bugs chewed their way through brain tissue, metallic legs scratching the curved, pearly white of the base if his skull.
Levi’s head hung, his body flopping into mine.
But his eyes were still open, lips still stretched into a smile.
Blood ran in thick rivulets from his nose and ears.
Bzzz!
I could see them, black writhing dots alive in his eyes, wriggling movement under his skin.
“Tom!”
I jumped up, stumbling into the aisle, my stomach heaving.
And it was only when I was on my knees, swiping bile from my lips, when I realized the others weren't reacting.
Tom wasn't moving.
I pulled an Airpod out of his ear, a long, slithering string of pink attached to the end.
There was a stray bug skittering across his hand, his face starting to twitch and writhe.
Moving back, I checked myself over, my hands shaking.
Head.
Shoulders.
Hair.
Clawing through it, my breath was stuck in my throat.
Arms.
Legs.
Feet.
Mr Hanes was slumped against the window, a reddish froth bubbling from his mouth.
Sunny.
I started towards the back of the bus, but all I had to see was her bowed head, half of her skull chewed through.
Sunny was in a far more deteriorated state, her face had been ripped through, a skeletal smile glinting in the dim.
The thick black smear on the window next to her was moving.
When I screamed for the driver to stop the bus, he ignored me.
If anything, he stamped on the gas.
I moved forward to shake him, before glimpsing a bug creeping down his face.
Calling 911, the operator laughed at me.
“Bugs are eating your friends.” He said. “Do you know the penalty for calling with bullshit pranks?”
The bus didn't stop, so I stayed at the front, while the bugs took over the back, eating through my teammates.
After four hours, I risked leaning over the seat next to Tom to check on Levi.
They were eating him.
Chewing all the way through skin, muscle and bone.
I tried to stop the bus, but the driver’s hands were tightly wrapped around the wheel.
Another hour, and blood was seeping down the aisle, crawling with bugs.
Levi was gone, and in his place, a buzzing skittering pile of bugs, that I thought were going to move to a second victim, maybe burrowing into the seats.
But, no.
These things began to tremble, replicating.
Building.
Slowly, nothing became static, and static became muscle.
Then bone.
Then flesh.
When a body began to slowly form, moulded from the dead boy, I stumbled back.
These things weren't eating Levi Costella.
They were rewriting him.
…
Edit: I'm still on the bus. I'm 99.9% sure that I'm infected with whatever this thing is. I can't stop fucking itching.
I keep picking them off me but they won't stop. This bus isn't going to stop until I'm like the others.
…
Edit 2:
I can feel them chewing into my skull. They're in my ears. I keep spitting them out. Please, someone get them off of me. Help me. I don't want to die at 17.
Edit 3:
Still alive. Still breathing. Maybe they're leaving me alone????? I think I'm okay. There is a pile of bugs at my feet, but they're crawling off of me.
Edit 4:
Levi really wants to go home. Like, he just told me he REALLY wants to go home. He's got a gift for his parents.
I have a feeling I know what it is.

........IM NOT THE ORIGINAL POSTER...............
Posted by https://www.reddit.com/useBubbly_Ad_7001/ ON https://www.reddit.com/AmItheAsshole
TRIGGER WARNING: DEATH OF A PARENT
ORIGINAL POST, POSTED ON June 1 2023
AITA for kicking out my son because he is an adult and he needs to leave the nest.
https://www.reddit.com/AmItheAsshole/comments/13xhr9w/aita_for_kicking_out_my_son_because_he_is_an/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I (46M) have 3 biological children (27M, 19M and 10F) my two sons I had with my first wife, who passed and my daughter is with my second wife (39F). I also have a step daughter (14F). I currently live with my wife step daughter, daughter and younger son. Our house is technically 4 bedrooms, but the small 'box room' we converted into a study room. That leaves 3 decently sized bedrooms, here is the dilema, we both agree my step daughter should have her own privacy from my daughter given the age difference but we do not have another room.
My oldest son moved out at 18 with encouragement from me and his stepmother, he had a part time job from 15. And rented a flat, he excelled in school and university and now has a well payed job in a decent house. I am very proud of him.
My younger son is 19 and has never worked a day in his life. He has no aspirations and did not apply to university. Iv tried countless times to explain to him that he cant live with us forever, and that he needs to get a job. But he lacks all motivation for it. When he was 18 I told him that I had enough and that if he wasnt out of the house by his 19th birthday. (Then 6 months away) I would put all his stuff outside the house and lock him out. I hoped that would make him get a job but he didnt, I locked him out on his birthday, I gave him £5000 (the same amount I gave to my eldest when he moved out) and told him that I warned him this would happen. It has been about a month and he hasnt made contact at all. For me this wanst just about the room but also getting my son to survive on his own, the room dilemma was just a nail in the coffin.
My wife thinks I may have been to hard on him, but I told her that he has to learn how the real world works. Some people in my family think I am TA for kicking him out because he could still be grieving for his mother, others say I am not because I'm finally putting my foot down. My brother specifically said to me that I am TA and how could I do that to my own son. So AITA?
Edit: I wanted to say a coulple of things to clear some things, first I'm not the greatest proof reader and I realised I accidentally said that I didnt give my younger son the 5 grand. He did get the 5 grand, along with any money he had saved up before that point (from birthdays and christmas etc.) And this has been fixed in the post.
Second, I tried to get both son's in therapy whilst their mother was terminally Ill and once she passed. My elder son agreed, my younger son refused to go after she passed. I tried to convince him it would be better for him if he went, but I continued to refuse. The offer for him to go to therapy has always been open since then, and even now I would pay it if he chose to go. I admit kicking him out on his birthday was cruel, and not the best way to go about things but if I hadn't i very much believe he would have just taken what I said for granted and continued living with us, without looking for work/working/ at school.
Finally the bedroom situation, the small box room that we converted to a study, is very small. You cannot fit a standard kids bed in it let alone a full adult single. Which is why we decided to make it a study for the girls to have a quiet space while studying.
.......
RELEVANT COMMENTS
COMMENTOR: INFO. Given the age difference between your sons your younger son may have needed a different approach to start a healing process. Did you seek therapy or counseling yourself on how to address this properly with your sons?
OP: I did not go the therapy/counselling after the passing of my late wife. It is just not the type of person I am. But I do understand and value it as importance which is why I encouraged both sons to go. Older son despite still being a kid wanted to go to an adult therapist because he felt they were child therapists were condescending. We worked it out and compromised with what we could do. Younger son asked for time off of school, I agreed, but he refused everything else, i convinced him to go to therapy once and he came back crying to I never send him again. He spent about 6 months not at school, and spent most of it playing videogames.
COMMENTOR: Thanks for your reply. I try not to be insensitive with my answer.
To me it seems as you provided your sons with the tools you thought sufficient to deal with the situation at hand but you refused to be a part of the process. Otherwise I can not fathom why your son was alone during his only therapy session, as a kid likely below 10 years old. Same with the decision to let him stay at home for 6 months without further therapeutic assistance. Children are unfit to make these decisions, you should have. If he came to you with a broken ankle, his opinion on the necessary healing process would not have mattered no matter if it hurt or not. You treating an emotional trauma to the developing psyche of a child differently creates doubt on your proclaimed understanding of therapy.
I may be wrong and I can only go with the info I have and maybe this is totally unrelated and your youngest just is not ambitious or lazy by nature and needed a kick in the ass. But to me it seems your youngest son has unresolved trauma. There may also be feeling of a futility and resentment in his efforts because he can never compare to the oldest son, you are very proud of and spent a whole paragraph on writing how good he is. Just food for thought for a discussion with your youngest down the road when the dust has settled.
I conclude that in the end you punished your son for your parental mistakes. The situation would have warranted a more nuanced approach. YTA.
OP: I do appreciate that your not being completely insensitive, thankyou. I guess you are right that I expected to much from my younger son, I may have compared him to much his older brother, who was alot more emotionally mature when he was my younger sons age that is my fault. I offered to go with him to the therapy, he refused and asked his brother to go with him, his brother agreed, I had no problem with that. Apparently the therapist asked his brother to leave the room for a bit to talk specifically to my youngest, but my son wasn't comfortable and started crying and screaming and my eldest called me to pick them up early and I did so. He begged me to never have to go back, I couldnt tell him he had to go back after the distress I saw him in.
I tried subtly to suggest therapy throughout that 6 months, it made him distressed and upset at the idea.
Ironically he doesnt like his brother now, not because of the whole favourite son thing (I genuinely couldnt love one more then the other) but because of an unrelated incident when younger son was 14.
An that topic I'm proud of older son because he practically raised younger son, becasue I became unable to say no to younger son after my wife passed, (I did tell him not to be the second parent of younger son because he didnt need that kind of responsibility when there is already so much pressure on him, but he insisted) And he maintained his grades and part time job. I am very proud of the man he is and I cannot fault him at all.
Younger son dropped out of school at 16, got an apprenticeship, quit it, and has been living with us doing nothing since. I do not compare their strengths, their would be no point because their strengths are in different areas. Older son perused his strengths and despite my efforts younger son refused to persue his.
Between the arguement where I told him I'd give him 6 months to leave and when I kicked him out, nothing changed in his behaviour. Which is why I went through with it.
You are right I was probably much to hard on him, but i couldnt see a way that he would listen to me without extreme measures.
Again thankyou for your politeness in your reply i really do appreciate it.
COMMENTOR:

So, 4 bedrooms. It used to be: 1 for you and your wife, 1 for older son, 1 for younger son, 1 for the 2 girls?
Or was it 1 for 2 sons (bigger age difference, but hey, privacy is just for girls), 1 for you, 2 for girls (one to sleep in, one to study in / have privacy)? And now the girls need 3 rooms: one each, plus one to study in?
How old was your son when his mother died? How old was he when you had a new girlfriend? How old was he when you moved in together and/or got married?
OP: When my first wife died, my younger son was 6, my older son was 14, Started seeing my current wife about 3 years later (daughter was an accident early on) we moved in together late in my wife's pregnancy. Each son had their own room and my step daughter was in a crib, in the box room. My older son was 17, and moved out the next year, when my daughter was a few months old.
COMMENTOR: Have you tried to get in contact with him? This doesn’t seem like a situation where if you give him space he’ll contact you on his own.
OP: if he wants to reach out to me he can, he is an adult he will reach out if he wants to. I do know where he is, I still pay for his phone and his phone has a tracker on it. I know its him as my son covertly checks on him without him knowing (younger son doesnt get on with older son) I have a friend (that my younger son doesnt know) who owns a bar and a flat above it. The tenants recently moved out and as such have a vacancy. I reached out to them as I discovered my son happens to attend that bar quite frequently (along with other bars in the area) and asked if they could give him a job (the minimum wage for his age) and let him live in the upstairs flat if I paid the rent for it, on the condition that they dont tell him I'm the one paying for it and that he believes he is allowed to live their because he is working their for a lower wage. She agreed but have yet to see him this week. (He is fine my older son checked on him yesterday.)
.......................................................................................................
UPDATE 25 February 2024, 8 months later
I don't know if anyone will see this, or if anyone was interested in how thing played out but here we go:
hey guys, its been a minute, about 8 months ago i made a post on this subreddit explaining the situation with my youngest son, i thought it was about time for an update,
if you read some of my comments, you would already know that i intended on getting him a job without him knowing that i got him the job, i asked my friend who owned a pub, and she gave him the job as well as the flat above the pub, as a temporary home (i was paying the rent), long story short, it worked and he worked at the pub for a few months, until he was fired him and kicked out.
my older son found my original post and told me that i left out a lot of important details about my younger son, and the events in general, which he said painted me as TA and my younger son like an angel, I told him that although my younger son is flawed he's not evil. As a result i got into an argument with my older son.
while my younger son was working at the pub, I called him (i still paid his phone bill) telling him, that he's welcome to move back in, as I promised he could stay if he found a job, he said he doesn't need to because he then had his own place, when he was fired he called me, and i told him he could move back in if he continued looking for jobs, he agreed, the room issue wasn't an issue anymore because we moved for unrelated reasons, (people were convinced that my eldest could stay in the study room, but didn't seem to understand it was barely big enough to fit a small desk and chair, it would not fit bed or a mattress) he is keeping true to his word and has started working part time at a shop to save up money. (we don't charge him rent or for food)
now my older son wont talk to me because I let my younger son move back in and my stepdaughter is taking my older son's side, my wife is also leaning towards them but is more neutral and my daughter doesn't care in the slightest. its mellowing out and I hope everything calms down between them soon.
just a final note on this update that some people in my previous post believed i was unfaithful to my wife in her last days. i could never imagine doing that to her, my current wife and i met shortly after ,y first wife passed in a support group for grieving spouses, we ended up finding comfort in each other, and my daughter was born out of a one time thing. we didn't get married until much later. we both recognise that we loved our first spouses immensely and have photos of both my first wife and her first husband on our walls in remembrance.
if anyone has any questions about the situation ill try to answer as many as i can.

NOT THE ORIGINAL POSTER

Sorry for the wall of text but this something I'm fairly passionate about so I have a lot to say. So bear with me.
From what I've seen on this sub along with struggles I've seen people have irl it inspired me to do a little social experiment with the players I know wether it be from my LGS or players outside. One of my big goals in playing this game is to hopefully inspire others to explore this wonderful game we all love in many different ways and also to help players that have troubles in many different aspects of the game. This mostly just fits into my real life personality I've always been the mediator between friends, helping people solve problems or just being an ear for folks to vent to. (I really wanted to go into the therapy field of work but it never panned out for me due to health issues)
So as an act of self reflection to learn what I could work on as a player as well as to show others who might be having problems that having these discussions might not be as horrible as they think, I decided to pose a question to my fellow mtg players.
The question:
If you're willing, would you tell me what you think of me as a player?
Clark (Player C) This is my fellow brother in arms of the Shenanigan Brotherhood. The person I enjoy playing mtg with the most.
If we're talking about how you build your decks, it feels like a lot of them are you fucking around and the rest of us finding out. At the same time, it also doesn't feel bad to lose to most of your decks.
If we're talking about how you play the game, it's mostly the same. You're a good player, but you also play in a generally goofy way. You don't really play high power decks unless you feel like you have to, which I appreciate.
Jace (A very strong deck builder and player who I have the utmost respect for. He plays pretty high power decks because he's used to cedh but he's been exploring casual more and more and always has something cool to show off. And one of the few players I know that shares my depth of knowledge of the game and love for older cards.) (I also wrote this blurb about him before he even responded and it lined up perfectly)
Hmmm as a player I think of someone who understands the dynamic of different decks at a table and plans and plays accordingly which I have a lot of respect for, also I really respect your tight play a lot of the time
I think it's also important to mention your deckbuilding decisions. I personally find some of the newer card designs really lame like the if you do x do it again and you seem to avoid cards that are really powerful fluff (roaming throne is the worst offender imo lol) but I think what I'm trying to get at is you intentionally decide not to play cards that I view as a crutch to winning the game and instead rely on really well timed removal and paced gameplay as your way of winning which I have a ton respect for.
You also really influenced me quite a bit in deckbuilding too starting with selvala. While selvala is conceptually a deck where that can't go slow a lot of games I felt like the overwhelming card quality and speed created a lot of non-games to me and kind of became draining despite really fun technical gameplay. Essentially I really wanted to earn the win so I decided to play with aether spellbomb and co. /underwhelming cards. Then I figured that the tutors were just generically too good and importantly acted as a crutch for me winning so I cut all of them except (except for chord bc that card is too sweet lol). Finally I've came to the conclusion that I'm also not really winning if im running removal to the point where I do not need to think about what to blow up. Essentially you really make me question if I even earned the win in the first place which has made for very interesting deck ideas and strategies and made me really want to power down my decks and strategies so I can improve as an actual player more instead of relying on broken cards to win games. It feels really wrong to outspend my way to victory.
Scott (A person at my lgs that I haven't played against much but have always had good interactions with)
Uh....you're a good magic player who makes well constructed decks
Shawn (The resident gaslighting joker that sometimes takes it to far but we love him)
I'll give you my honesty critique about you as a player, you're a super cool guy, you're fun to play with and you build solid and fun decks, however whether you believe it or not you are on my top list of threats and I will kill you usually first unless other threats present. Even if you're crippled I Will beat you because like me if you're given a chance to come back you will find the answer. With all of that being said your downside is sometimes you let that get to you and even if you're just frustrated with yourself it can be a buzz kill to have you at the table. This is all sometimes! People have bad days from time to time so don't take it to heart, just remember you're a good player so if we beat you while youre down don't let it urk you as much.
Joshua (A newer player that is really fun and creative and plays fun stuff! And gave me one of the most accurate descriptions I've ever heard the Chihuahua part at least lol)
In my honest opinion. I believe you have a heart of gold and you make decks to have fun not to just win and be done. Which I try to do as well. And anytime you don’t win you just joyfully move on with the day which is amazing and I don’t think I’ve ever heard you get mad or yell why’ll playing magic. You are an amazing person. And you are a man’s best friend. You are great and amazing you shaky Chihuahua. 😂😋😊 I’m joking about the Chihuahua part.
Donna (our resident super chill player, always fun to play with and has a great attitude about the game win or lose always happy to play.)
You love the game and how you play reflects that well. You do get into it a bit more then some but that is what makes it fun. Never would not want to play with you in a pod. Love the decks you build.
Teysa (Our resident spike that enjoys high power magic. I enjoy playing with them but they can sometimes struggle socially with other players at our LGS.)
This is not rude even though it sounds kinda bad, you can be one of the most annoying players to play around as you like to focus on synergies that make other players worse. It makes it so playing around what your doing is a lot trickier. You are one of my favorite opponents to play against for that reason because I love the puzzle like aspect to mtg but man you can be annoying to play against. Lol
Klay (Another one of my favorites to play against they are chill but have strong decks. They also have a ton of decks so they always have a good variety to play against which is nice. Also the player with the most undeniable drip (as the kids say) at our LGS)
As far as playing against you goes (ignoring for a second the decks being played), I would say my experience has been pretty positive. You're a very welcoming person, which I greatly appreciate!
Whether or not the decks are fun to play against repeatedly varies a lot, but the ideas and themes are often very specific which can lead to very specific and unique experiences playing against them, which I appreciate.
I don't think you're saltier than the average player, but I remember in the past I used to be confused about what you did or did not get salty about. But recently I've been thinking it's probably a difference in how we like to play.
I think you do a really good job embodying the "I want to see everyone's deck do the thing" attitude, which makes a lot of sense given your deckbuilding style. I think it took me a while to see how that effects the way you appreciate other people's decks and when you're excited to see someone pop off versus when you're annoyed about it.
(In case it wasn't clear, I do not think you are a salty player or anything like that lol I could name some people at gameon I think are salty and unpleasant to play with as a result, and you are definitely not one of them!)
Zach (One of my long time friends (even outside of mtg) we started close to around the same time but he was alot younger then but has grown into an awesome adult and fun player and I'm very proud of him!)
As a player I think you are very experienced and articulate on each play that you do. I haven’t played with you much lately but before you always were 3 steps ahead of who you were playing. It was very impressive and taught me a lot.
John (The person I lovingly refer to as Scumbag John, he was kinda sweaty back in the day but has chilled out a ton and is a delight to game with now. Also very strong player and deck builder!)
As a player you are skilled, efficient, and deceptively strong for all your jank 😅 as a person you’re fun, warm, and friendly.
Zane (A newer friend due to living in a college town, that is an absolute blast to play with and always brings something cool. Even when he's putting us in Magnifying Glass Purgatory he's still fun with it!)
Aight😂 I think you're a fun and creative deck builder, you know how to play well and you're always someone I can look forward to playing against
Jacob (Another person on Jace and John's level that does not shy away from power cards. An excellent builder and player and fun to game with. Also plays some pretty interesting decks except for mean Orvar Booo! Lol)
Sure lol. I would say specifically for Commander as I haven't seen you play other formats, you tend to play a majority of pet cards/cards that function synergistically together in a way that isn't always apparent immediately. I feel like you tend to find ways to make "jank" work in moderate to high power levels, even if it takes a few turns of being left alone to get there.
As far as personality wise you've always been a very positive person to be around, and enjoy the game for what it is, winning or losing. I feel like you like being able to sit down and watch everyone's deck do its own thing.
Kerry (A newer face to the LGS but also a joy to play against! I especially like his Teysa Opulent Oligarch token deck. Just Just fun player and also someone who likes to sneak in combos occasionally in a fun way.)
A solid player who isn't afraid to hold back, with very fun decks to play against!
Matt (Long time friend and fellow jank appreciater. Likes value engines and attacking, very high energy and fun player to game with. We are also great friends outside of mtg and our kids hangout almost weekly for play dates at the park.)
So it’s been many moons since we’ve played, but here’s my take.
You have good threat assessment and the ability to be the “police” at the table and you often play to the best line possible to make sure that the optimal play happens for you.
BUT you would rather be using your skills as an optimal playmaker to be making some jank pop off than casting a craterhoof to win the game.
These were my first initial responses from everyone that I contacted although still 4 people I haven't heard back from (not a surprise ppl get busy sometimes so I get it) Overall positive responses though, but is there anything to learn from them?
The major one that only two people mentioned was me occasionally being bummed/little salty and I'd like to elaborate on that for you guys! First of they were totally right and I know the exact circumstances they are talking about.
The first one was when Player K popped off with a fast [[Rowan Scion of War]] kill and no one had drawn an answer. That game was I was really bummed because no one else really got to do much. (Should be noted that I never take it out on the other player especially not in anger.) And they mention later in their comment that they eventually understood why I was bummed was because no one else did much rather than being upset with them.
The second scenario with Player S was a recent game where he also ran us over kinds quickly with mono red but that was also one for skimping on removal so I was upset but all at myself for punting in the deck building process. Which he later mentions in his comment.
Just a bit of back story for those interested! But that is one thing I could work on is not getting down on myself for different things that happen in game.
Overall was a very fun project and would really like to encourage people if you're having issues that reaching out and discussing with your playgroup might not be as scary as you think OR like me if you're wanting some help in self-reflection/growing as player reach out to the people you play with! Overall we have a pretty tight community at our LGS and have daily discussions about our games and it really helps to get everyone on the same page!
Hope all is well with everyone and hopefully this encourages even one person to take the step to discussing stuff with their play group. And thanks for reading about my project now I'd love to hear from you all have you ever tried something like this with your group? How'd it go for you? Does this make you want to try this with your group as well? I'm happy to discuss other things as well if you have any other questions about anyone else in my group or myself we are a chatty bunch who love discussing this game!

Hello! A pre-warning, there's going to be spoilers for the game mechanics of Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth. If there's any meatier spoilers, I'll tag them. Also, I have not even completed the game's Hard Mode (New Game +), so I might be missing things and/or getting things incorrect.
The combat of Final Fantasy VII: Remake and Rebirth has been well received, but I think it deserves a lot more love. I'm not saying its the greatest combat ever, but it's my personal favorite and I implore more people who like action combat in games to check it out for the combat alone. Rebirth took a great foundation started in Remake and made substantial progress. I'm going to break this into sections about different aspects that I like, and then I'm going to dive deep into a single character's (Cloud's) combat mechanics. I think a lot of the fun is exploring and learning new strategies on your own, so I'm going to leave out a lot of details.
Great Foundational Systems
The combat in Rebirth is built on what one would consider standard action gameplay. You have an attack and abilities, you can dodge and parry, you move around the battlefield, simple stuff. The big twist of the combat is you can freeze (slow down significantly) time to sort through menus of your abilities and spells, so you have a lot more options than a standard action game. This is just a fun feature to start off, but it also lets you have a lot of strategic depth without mechanical complexity. The game also lets you shortcut abilities, which means as you get better you can start to play the game closer to a pure action game while only freezing time to access abilities you don't have shortcutted. The game also has you play as three characters simultaneously, not just as a party, but you swap between controlling them with a simple button press.
The ATB system is how you use abilities. As you attack with your character, you fill up one of your two ATB bars. How to spend your ATB leads to a lot of fun decision making. Do you use it ASAP to avoid wasting future ATB gains? Do you save some bars to use on more reactionary defensive utility like healing? Do you want all your characters to have ATB at the same time? The characters you're not controlling gain ATB at 1/8 the rate the current character does, which is fun to encourage you to swap between characters and makes it an easier decision to save some bars.
The main offensive strategy against enemies is to utilize the game's pressure/stagger system. Enemies have a stagger gauge, which when filled up will cause the enemy to be stunned and take extra damage. You fill up the gauge just by attacking. When you meet a certain condition, enemies become pressured, which can cause the enemies to become staggered faster. Most enemies become pressured by hitting them with their elemental weakness, which often matches a simple pattern (Fire beats humans, Ice beats Monsters, Electricity beats Machines, Wind beats Flying Enemies). The elemental weakness work great for the common ecology you fight, but the game system gets more exciting with the stronger enemies. Stronger enemies like Bosses will often have unique Pressure conditions. This lets the fights feel different as you adjust your strategies to meet the pressure conditions. Pressure conditions can range from hitting the enemies during specific moves to dodging a large amount of attacks. The pressure/stagger system is great at making fights feel memorable and unique.
Rebirth's main combat additions are Synergy Skills and Abilities. Synergy Skills are commands you can use whenever that have two of your characters work together. These are branched into one offensive and one defensive ability per duo of characters. Using these skills often provide utility while building up ATB bars for both characters. These also reposition your characters, allowing you to use them to move your allies out of danger. It adds a lot more options in the moment to moment combat and makes you think constantly about the conditions of the characters you're not currently controlling. Synergy Abilities are big flashy moves that utilize two characters to deal massive damage while proving outstanding secondary effects. To access these abilities, you need to use normal abilities from two characters. This encourages players to switch between characters often to build up the Synergy Abilities and utilize Synergy Skills to build up ATB to use normal abilities. Wanting to execute the Synergy Abilities adds even more dimensions to combat.
Character and Build Diversity
One of the big strengths of the game is how many playable characters there are and how many ways you can customize those characters. You can play as Cloud, Aerith, Barrett, Tifa, and Red XIII, which leads to a lot different party combinations and playstyles to learn. Each character has a unique mechanic and their own abilities. Cloud can swaps between fast light and slow heavy attacks, Aerith sets up buffs around the battlefield that she can teleport between, Barrett has defensive utility and can do physical damage from long range, Tifa can build up damage buffs and then spend them on powerful attacks, and Red XII has unique parry moves that build up a lifesteal install.
The Materia system is really how the game really lets you create build diversity. Each character has slots for abilities and passives called Materia, and you can put these on any character. You think someone like Tifa is your main physical damage dealer, and you'd be right. Materia let me turn Tifa from a physical damage powerhouse into a more supporting character who spread around status conditions to enemies and allies. I put the Materia that puts enemies to sleep and increases your allies attacks on her. I saw how fast Tifa was building ATB and how much damage characters like Cloud and Aerith were already doing, which lead me to experiment with changing Tifa's role into something with less overlap, and it worked. You'll receive new abilities on all the characters that constantly challenge how you think they should play and let you try out different playstyles. The Materia System can let you get really creative, and you get some very cool and unique effects as you progress.
Each character also has their own skill tree called a Folio. These let you further customize your character with various buffs. Each weapon in the game also lets you equip passive buffs to your character. Between these, you can fine-tune the characters differently depending on what you need for them.
Cloud In-Depth
So for as cool as the mechanics I described sounded, I think what might turn people away from the combat system is that there's only one attacking button. It feels like a "mash square to win game" to some people, and I think the game can be easy enough where that can be true. It's probably the appeal to some people, but I think it's also dismissive since that one button is a lot more deep than it might seem. Here's a list of the moves Cloud can do without any ATB Abilities, Synergy Moves, Limit Breaks, Items, any of that.

• Mashing Attack near an enemy will deal fast low damage attacks that give you a lot of freedom of movement
• Holding Attack near an enemy will cause Cloud to do an sweeping slash to damage enemies around him and pull them in.
• Pressing Attack far from an enemy with cause Cloud to dash directly to an enemy to start attacking them
• Dodging into mashing Attack will cause Cloud to shoot out projectiles at enemies that deal magic damage
• Dodging into holding Attack will allow cause Cloud to do a slash that puts him in the air, allowing him to enter aerial combat
• Mashing Attack in the air will cause Cloud to keep an enemy up while attacking them.
• Holding Attack in the air will cause Cloud to close in on an enemy.

Pressing Cloud's Unique Ability button will swap him between Operator Mode and Punisher Mode. Operator Mode is his standard moveset of high mobility light attacks. Punisher mode slows him down and causes him to use heavier attacks. While Cloud is in Punisher Mode, blocking any physical attack will cause Cloud to retaliate with a counter attack. He's unable to block projectile attacks, and using dodge immediately removes him from Punisher Mode

• Entering Punisher Mode while an enemy attacks you will parry the enemies move and immediately counter attack.
• Entering Punisher Mode in the air will cause Cloud to perform a large slash towards the ground.
• Mashing Attack in Punisher Mode causes cloud to do rapid slashes with a large hitbox that can knock enemies into the air.
• Holding Attack in Punisher mode will cause cloud to do a close-range, high-damage combo finisher. This also grants the Berserk status condition.

So that might not be as in-depth as games with 6 different attacking buttons and combinations, but if you want to, there's a lot of unique options available just from your base kit alone. The abilities and what you do with them are when things get really fun. Each ability in the game generally has something unique about it which helps you determine why to use one over the other. Here's a list of every ability Cloud gets and what makes them unique.

• Braver is Cloud's main damage dealing move. If you use it while airborne, it does bonus damage.
• Triple Slash causes Cloud to attack three different enemies. This is great for getting Cloud into the air or finishing off multiple low health enemies.
• Focused Thrust is an ability that increase the enemies Stagger Gauge, significantly if the enemy is Pressured. This is great follow up to one of your other characters pressuring the enemy. It also cause Cloud to move significantly forward and can hit multiple targets.
• Firebolt Blade lets Cloud use Fire and Lightning elemental attacks without having to expend his Magic Points. This is great for pressuring enemies with those weakness and dealing good damage while staying airborne.
• Disorder does a strong attack while swapping Cloud between Operator and Punisher Modes and gives ATB if you successfully hit with it. This is great for accessing Punisher Mode in the air and swapping between moves while keeping damage up.
• Prime Mode installs Cloud with increased damage in Punisher Mode. It also changes holding Attack in Punisher Mode from a finisher into a three hit, very slow, high damaging combo. It also buffs up the Berserk status condition on Cloud.
• Infinity's End costs two ATB bars, but performs an extremely high damaging attack. It deals bonus damage to staggered enemies. This is great if your other two characters managed to set up a stagger on their own.
• Blade Burst unleashes a wave attack which allows Cloud to deal long range area-of-effect damage.
• Aerial Onslaught lets you deal massive damage while requiring you be in the air.

Depending on the situation, any of Cloud's ATB Abilities can be useful, and I found myself using all of them many times. Even when Aerial Onslaught ends up feeling like a better Braver, there's still times you realize Braver is the right option because the aerial requirement. Each time you get a new ability, the game forces you to utilize it in order to learn it, which lets you test out the various use cases and learn when exactly the move will be successful.
Final Thoughts
I mean I clearly love the combat here. I thought I was keeping it brief, but there's already a ton here. There's a lot I basically didn't touch on like Summons and Limit Breaks. I hope this inspires some people to try out the game and take the combat seriously. I'm excited to continue playing the game through on Hard Mode, and I think a lot of people will really enjoy it if they try Hard Mode out.
Q & A
I didn't play Final Fantasy VII: Remake, can I skip it and play Rebirth?
If you played the original, you can. If you haven't, you might want to at least watch a story recap. If the games seem up your ally, I would recommend playing Remake anyways. The combat of Rebirth is definitely better though, and playing Remake into Rebirth might be a lot. Use your own judgement on how you enjoy games. It's not the end of the world to play them out of order or to skip Remake in the end though.
I didn't like the changes Remake made to the original, will I like Rebirth?
I mean, you probably won't like the changes? The took what took me 8 hours in the orignial and expanded it into an entire game that I've played for 135 hours. There has to be a lot of new stuff. I think if you go in accepting you won't like a few bits and pieces of the key plot, you'll probably enjoy a lot of what the game has to offer. I mean I like a lot of the changes and think some others could be better.
Will the Mini-games and Open World Activities impede my enjoyment of the combat?
A bit potentially. I liked a lot of the mini-games, and you probably will like some. Some really cool gear is locked behind some mini-games, including the few I didn't enjoy much. They're not hard and a few minutes of your time every couple of hours hopefully isn't too bad. The Open World Activities end up being a bit more important to unlocking some of the coolest Materia. You probably can get what you want by just doing the Protorelic side quests, which are great, and whatever you come across. If you're delving deep into hard mode, you might need to do more. Luckily the more important areas to complete also tend to be the more fun ones. I think the important thing to do is just to have fun, so if a mini-game is giving you grief, just skip it. Think of playing the game without the rewards as a fun challenge.
How many playable characters are there?
There's the five I mentioned available from Chapter 2 on. You also unlock two more during the game The first character you unlock is Yuffie, who has a very similar moveset to the Final Fantasy VII: Remake Intergrade DLC. She's sort of a Jack-of-All-Trades character with very powerful abilities You also unlock Cait Sith. He's a very unique character. Sort of controls like a Puppet Character with him and his Moogle having various tactics when they're together or apart. You also have two more characters, Sephiroth and Zack, who are playable in Chapter 1 and after you beat the game in various Combat Simulator fights.
Will I like this game if I've completed every FromSoftware game?
I don't know, I've never been able to get into a FromSoft game. The game is on the easy side. If you play on Dynamic, the hardest difficulty for a base playthrough, you'll probably still encounter some fights that are more difficult and make you strategize with different builds. It just won't be a constant challenge. The fights that are meant to be challenges especially late into the game feel that way and I felt very accomplished overcoming them.
If I don't care about the story at all, is it worth it?
I can't say for sure. I would hope so, but I do like the story. I would hope that liking the story and characters makes it even more fun, but maybe speeding through for the late game combat challenges is fun as well.
You got something wrong.
Great, please correct me. I am but human.
Why can't I play Hard Mode to start?
Hard Mode is just the name for New Game Plus. It expects you have endgame levels and equipment to complete. There might be a mod on PC to let you play Remake on Hard Mode to start out if you're only interested in that, but I have no idea.
What was your favorite combat before Rebirth?
I'm not actually sure. I might've answered Remake, but I know I wasn't definitely sure. I might answer a fighting game like Super Smash Bros. Melee. Maybe I would've said Bayonetta 2 if I was looking for an action game specifically. I might've said NieR Automata just from how good everything feels. Maybe Horizon: Zero Dawn for how interesting enemies are to fight.

At first, my main concern with reading this was that it would intrude on my mental image of things. The Narrator is never named and his exact age seems to fluctuate. This is extends to mostly every character, Prousts style features a disinterest in precise physical descriptions of people. For example, Odette, who is rendered blonde in this, her hair color is never actually described in the book, I think. Physical descriptions are more about the impression people give than concrete details about their appearance. I don't know for sure here, but I imagine Odette is blonde here because of the actress Ornella Muti who played her in a movie, and Odette from Swan lake, both being blonde. So, its just interesting to see what he comes up with for some of the characters. It is cute the see the little outfits The Narrator wears.
Additionally, Proust doesn't tend to describe physical intimacies. Like the exact distance between people, what parts of them are touching, how they lean eachother and look in their eyes, etcm he vary rarely goes there. Of course, this is something, as a reader, you fill in, but I think practically speaking it easy (or it was my experience), to have a more nebulous image of the characters and events in your mind considering how dense his style is. To see Swann and Odette flirting and touching in a much more sensual way is very interesting to see. The graphic is strongest when it is giving an image to a particularly open-eneded passage, particularly when The Narrator is alone. It is lovely to see these things in such an intricate Franco-Belgian Ligne Claire style.
One of the most striking moments are the first two pictures, which are from this passage:
https://preview.redd.it/39v9038baoxc1.jpg?width=1468&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=39f8e5360f778df0294018dc047c1c4fe26461ed
https://preview.redd.it/knu8rr3caoxc1.jpg?width=1468&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=17c0cf56753d0a56b55e8539db161bab91fa0d42

Once, however, when we had prolonged our walk far beyond its ordinary limits, and so had been very glad to encounter, half way home, as afternoon darkened into evening, Dr. Percepied, who drove past us at full speed in his carriage, saw and recognised us, stopped, and made us jump in beside him, I received an impression of this sort which I did not abandon without having first subjected it to an examination a little more thorough. I had been set on the box beside the coachman, we were going like the wind because the Doctor had still, before returning to Combray, to call at Martinville-le-Sec, at the house of a patient, at whose door he asked us to wait for him. At a bend in the road I experienced, suddenly, that special pleasure, which bore no resemblance to any other, when I caught sight of the twin steeples of Martinville, on which the setting sun was playing, while the movement of the carriage and the windings of the road seemed to keep them continually changing their position; and then of a third steeple, that of Vieuxvicq, which, although separated from them by a hill and a valley, and rising from rather higher ground in the distance, appeared none the less to be standing by their side.
In ascertaining and noting the shape of their spires, the changes of aspect, the sunny warmth of their surfaces, I felt that I was not penetrating to the full depth of my impression, that something more lay behind that mobility, that luminosity, something which they seemed at once to contain and to conceal.
The steeples appeared so distant, and we ourselves seemed to come so little nearer them, that I was astonished when, a few minutes later, we drew up outside the church of Martinville. I did not know the reason for the pleasure which I had found in seeing them upon the horizon, and the business of trying to find out what that reason was seemed to me irksome; I wished only to keep in reserve in my brain those converging lines, moving in the sunshine, and, for the time being, to think of them no more. And it is probable that, had I done so, those two steeples would have vanished for ever, in a great medley of trees and roofs and scents and sounds which I had noticed and set apart on account of the obscure sense of pleasure which they gave me, but without ever exploring them more fully. I got down from the box to talk to my parents while we were waiting for the Doctor to reappear. Then it was time to start; I climbed up again to my place, turning my head to look back, once more, at my steeples, of which, a little later, I caught a farewell glimpse at a turn in the road. The coachman, who seemed little inclined for conversation, having barely acknowledged my remarks, I was obliged, in default of other society, to fall back on my own, and to attempt to recapture the vision of my steeples. And presently their outlines and their sunlit surface, as though they had been a sort of rind, were stripped apart; a little of what they had concealed from me became apparent; an idea came into my mind which had not existed for me a moment earlier, framed itself in words in my head; and the pleasure with which the first sight of them, just now, had filled me was so much enhanced that, overpowered by a sort of intoxication, I could no longer think of anything but them. At this point, although we had now travelled a long way from Martinville, I turned my head and caught sight of them again, quite black this time, for the sun had meanwhile set. Every few minutes a turn in the road would sweep them out of sight; then they shewed themselves for the last time, and so I saw them no more.
Without admitting to myself that what lay buried within the steeples of Martinville must be something analogous to a charming phrase, since it was in the form of words which gave me pleasure that it had appeared to me, I borrowed a pencil and some paper from the Doctor, and composed, in spite of the jolting of the carriage, to appease my conscience and to satisfy my enthusiasm, the following little fragment, which I have since discovered, and now reproduce, with only a slight revision here and there.
"Alone, rising from the level of the plain, and seemingly lost in that expanse of open country, climbed to the sky the twin steeples of Martinville. Presently we saw three: springing into position confronting them by a daring volt, a third, a dilatory steeple, that of Vieuxvicq, was come to join them. The minutes passed, we were moving rapidly, and yet the three steeples were always a long way ahead of us, like three birds perched upon the plain, motionless and conspicuous in the sunlight. Then the steeple of Vieuxvicq withdrew, took its proper distance, and the steeples of Martinville remained alone, gilded by the light of the setting sun, which, even at that distance, I could see playing and smiling upon their sloped sides. We had been so long in approaching them that I was thinking of the time that must still elapse before we could reach them when, of a sudden, the carriage, having turned a corner, set us down at their feet; and they had flung themselves so abruptly in our path that we had barely time to stop before being dashed against the porch of the church.
We resumed our course; we had left Martinville some little time, and the village, after accompanying us for a few seconds, had already disappeared, when, lingering alone on the horizon to watch our flight, its steeples and that of Vieuxvicq waved once again, in token of farewell, their sun-bathed pinnacles. Sometimes one would withdraw, so that the other two might watch us for a moment still; then the road changed direction, they veered in the light like three golden pivots, and vanished from my gaze. But, a little later, when we were already close to Combray, the sun having set meanwhile, I caught sight of them for the last time, far away, and seeming no more now than three flowers painted upon the sky above the low line of fields. They made me think, too, of three maidens in a legend, abandoned in a solitary place over which night had begun to fall; and while we drew away from them at a gallop, I could see them timidly seeking their way, and, after some awkward, stumbling movements of their noble silhouettes, drawing close to one another, slipping one behind another, shewing nothing more, now, against the still rosy sky than a single dusky form, charming and resigned, and so vanishing in the night."
I never thought again of this page, but at the moment when, on my corner of the box-seat, where the Doctor's coachman was in the habit of placing, in a hamper, the fowls which he had bought at Martinville market, I had finished writing it, I found such a sense of happiness, felt that it had so entirely relieved my mind of the obsession of the steeples, and of the mystery which they concealed, that, as though I myself were a hen and had just laid an egg, I began to sing at the top of my voice.

another strong moment...
https://preview.redd.it/vgs2hxkdaoxc1.png?width=1238&format=png&auto=webp&s=6176d0259ae17f24cbfdfa869459b7d7b0d75b4a

Once in the fields we never left them again during the rest of our Méséglise walk. They were perpetually crossed, as though by invisible streams of traffic, by the wind, which was to me the tutelary genius of Combray. Every year, on the day of our arrival, in order to feel that I really was at Combray, I would climb the hill to find it running again through my clothing, and setting me running in its wake. One always had the wind for companion when one went the 'Méséglise way,' on that swelling plain which stretched, mile beyond mile, without any disturbance of its gentle contour. I knew that Mlle. Swann used often to go and spend a few days at Laon, and, for all that it was many miles away, the distance was obviated by the absence of any intervening obstacle; when, on hot afternoons, I would see a breath of wind emerge from the farthest horizon, bowing the heads of the corn in distant fields, pouring like a flood over all that vast expanse, and finally settling down, warm and rustling, among the clover and sainfoin at my feet, that plain which was common to us both seemed then to draw us together, to unite us; I would imagine that the same breath had passed by her also, that there was some message from her in what it was whispering to me, without my being able to understand it, and I would catch and kiss it as it passed.

This great depiction also standsout...
https://preview.redd.it/zz0e9afoloyc1.jpg?width=1468&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=022d062cb1035a1b95baa42ba2ca0eab5c2186c0

I could make out, as on a coloured map, Armenonville, the Pré Catalan, Madrid, the Race Course and the shore of the lake. Here and there would appear some meaningless erection, a sham grotto, a mill, for which the trees made room by drawing away from it, or which was borne upon the soft green platform of a grassy lawn. I could feel that the Bois was not really a wood, that it existed for a purpose alien to the life of its trees; my sense of exaltation was due not only to admiration of the autumn tints but to a bodily desire. Ample source of a joy which the heart feels at first without being conscious of its cause, without understanding that it results from no external impulse! Thus I gazed at the trees with an unsatisfied longing which went beyond them and, without my knowledge, directed itself towards that masterpiece of beautiful strolling women which the trees enframed for a few hours every day. I walked towards the Allée des Acacias. I passed through forest groves in which the morning light, breaking them into new sections, lopped and trimmed the trees, united different trunks in marriage, made nosegays of their branches. It would skilfully draw towards it a pair of trees; making deft use of the sharp chisel of light and shade, it would cut away from each of them half of its trunk and branches, and, weaving together the two halves that remained, would make of them either a single pillar of shade, defined by the surrounding light, or a single luminous phantom whose artificial, quivering contour was encompassed in a network of inky shadows. When a ray of sunshine gilded the highest branches, they seemed, soaked and still dripping with a sparkling moisture, to have emerged alone from the liquid, emerald-green atmosphere in which the whole grove was plunged as though beneath the sea. For the trees continued to live by their own vitality, and when they had no longer any leaves, that vitality gleamed more brightly still from the nap of green velvet that carpeted their trunks, or in the white enamel of the globes of mistletoe that were scattered all the way up to the topmost branches of the poplars, rounded as are the sun and moon in Michelangelo's 'Creation.' But, forced for so many years now, by a sort of grafting process, to share the life of feminine humanity, they called to my mind the figure of the dryad, the fair worldling, swiftly walking, brightly coloured, whom they sheltered with their branches as she passed beneath them, and obliged to acknowledge, as they themselves acknowledged, the power of the season; they recalled to me the happy days when I was young and had faith, when I would hasten eagerly to the spots where masterpieces of female elegance would be incarnate for a few moments beneath the unconscious, accommodating boughs.

In a way, the graphic novel follows the same pattern as Remembrance in that the combray parts are somewhat ethereal and have lots of space for contemplation. But the Swann In Love parts are much busier, down to earth images, with lots of words on the pages, and kinda get bogged down by Swann and odettes back and forth relationship. At first I was disappointed about this,but then I started to slow down and notice how intricate the environments and clothes were. It really grounds you in a pleasant way . The Carriages, streets, bedrooms and studies are all so wonderfully rendered. It is just really so pretty from page to page that its easy to get desensitized to it.Additionally, at times, Heuet really captures the of contradictory feelings of love that Swann feels in how he situates the panels. I think is a great rendering of this scene..
https://preview.redd.it/jtk6j16gaoxc1.jpg?width=1468&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b6ecc553f8133c1c1c123530a47599b1b4a88534

It was true that Odette played vilely, but often the fairest impression that remains in our minds of a favourite air is one which has arisen out of a jumble of wrong notes struck by unskilful fingers upon a tuneless piano. The little phrase was associated still, in Swann's mind, with his love for Odette. He felt clearly that this love was something to which there were no corresponding external signs, whose meaning could not be proved by any but himself; he realised, too, that Odette's qualities were not such as to justify his setting so high a value on the hours he spent in her company. And often, when the cold government of reason stood unchallenged, he would readily have ceased to sacrifice so many of his intellectual and social interests to this imaginary pleasure. But the little phrase, as soon as it struck his ear, had the power to liberate in him the room that was needed to contain it; the proportions of Swann's soul were altered; a margin was left for a form of enjoyment which corresponded no more than his love for Odette to any external object, and yet was not, like his enjoyment of that love, purely individual, but assumed for him an objective reality superior to that of other concrete things. This thirst for an untasted charm, the little phrase would stimulate it anew in him, but without bringing him any definite gratification to assuage it. With the result that those parts of Swann's soul in which the little phrase had obliterated all care for material interests, those human considerations which affect all men alike, were left bare by it, blank pages on which he was at liberty to inscribe the name of Odette. Moreover, where Odette's affection might seem ever so little abrupt and disappointing, the little phrase would come to supplement it, to amalgamate with it its own mysterious essence. Watching Swann's face while he listened to the phrase, one would have said that he was inhaling an anaesthetic which allowed him to breathe more deeply. And the pleasure which the music gave him, which was shortly to create in him a real longing, was in fact closely akin, at such moments, to the pleasure which he would have derived from experimenting with perfumes, from entering into contract with a world for which we men were not created, which appears to lack form because our eyes cannot perceive it, to lack significance because it escapes our intelligence, to which we may attain by way of one sense only.
Deep repose, mysterious refreshment for Swann,—for him whose eyes, although delicate interpreters of painting, whose mind, although an acute observer of manners, must bear for ever the indelible imprint of the barrenness of his life,—to feel himself transformed into a creature foreign to humanity, blinded, deprived of his logical faculty, almost a fantastic unicorn, a chimaera-like creature conscious of the world through his two ears alone. And as, notwithstanding, he sought in the little phrase for a meaning to which his intelligence could not descend, with what a strange frenzy of intoxication must he strip bare his innermost soul of the whole armour of reason, and make it pass, unattended, through the straining vessel, down into the dark filter of sound. He began to reckon up how much that was painful, perhaps even how much secret and unappeased sorrow underlay the sweetness of the phrase; and yet to him it brought no suffering. What matter though the phrase repeated that love is frail and fleeting, when his love was so strong! He played with the melancholy which the phrase diffused, he felt it stealing over him, but like a caress which only deepened and sweetened his sense of his own happiness. He would make Odette play him the phrase again, ten, twenty times on end, insisting that, while she played, she must never cease to kiss him. Every kiss provokes another. Ah, in those earliest days of love how naturally the kisses spring into life. How closely, in their abundance, are they pressed one against another; until lovers would find it as hard to count the kisses exchanged in an hour, as to count the flowers in a meadow in May. Then she would pretend to stop, saying: "How do you expect me to play when you keep on holding me? I can't do everything at once. Make up your mind what you want; am I to play the phrase or do you want to play with me?" Then he would become annoyed, and she would burst out with a laugh which, was transformed, as it left her lips, and descended upon him in a shower of kisses.

Overall, I think this was really great. It would be a fun thing for people really into Proust, for those that stopped at swanns way, or for anyone interested in franco-belgian stlye comics. You get a sense of of Heuets love for the book. If you did not enjoy Prousts fundamental style of writing, focus on jealousy and such, these comics are not actually different. Particular the Swann in love parts are pretty dense for graphic novels, a lot of words So the actual reading experience of it is the same. It doesn't actually make it 'easier' to read Proust, it makes very little concessions and does not try to fill in any blanks that Proust left as far as peoples actions.

Sorry for how long this is.
A few weeks ago my (23F) long-time (5y) partner (25M) started a(n honestly weird) fight which ended in him saying something about maybe we should break up. That evening we both went out to the same place seperately (as was the plan: which was the reason he started the fight. It started with him asking if I was going there to spy on him all night which I thought was weird because I didn't know he was going there when I made my own plans and why would that be your first question instead of "want to go together?" or something). After the fight he behaved single (in my opinion) there all night. Flirting a bit with the girls that were with him and his friends, openly rejecting me when I went up to him for a kiss but later circling back to where I was standing to still get that kiss. All around it gave me the feeling he started the fight just so he had a reason to seem single. Yet at the end of the night he asked me if I could drive him home because he had drank too much and if I would stay over, all his (girl) friends saw us leave together which didn't fit with the story I had created in my head up to that point. (Please keep in mind that I tell this from my perspective so it is biased per definition. Any conclusions you get from this alone or if you agree with me, that could just be from the way I tell it.)
Ever since then I have been wanting to talk about that night because I feel weird about it. However he has never been in the mood to talk about it, and has been working long days so he gets home very late and it is understandably too late to start a heavy conversation. (I have his location so I am fairly certain he is indeed working. It's not a regular job where he can be 'at the office' late and still be cheating with a coworker or anything. I am pretty certain he hasn't been cheating when working late).
Friday I went over to his parents house before he got home and went to sleep in his bed. When he got home he said "I will hurry up buying a house, so you can always be home with me and you can sleep in when I have to get up early" (because again he was working long hours on saturday). Then yesterday evening (saturday) I found out he had contacted a woman friday about a house that he wanted to go visit and might be visiting tonight (sunday), but hadn't told me about (usually we visit houses together - although he is buying it since I'm still in uni so can't get a loan). These two interactions gave me opposite vibes. One being that he very clearly thinks about his future as including me, the other one being that he doesn't want me being involved in choosing a house because I might not ever move there. He has said before that our relationship puts more pressure on him to buy a house soon, if that could be relevant. (Though not through my doing). I'm not sure if he visisted the house tonight, but I did see that his location was 20km from his home around eight, though not at the address of that house.
I am not even sure if any of the previous context has anything to do with todays behaviour so feel free to disregard anything when giving advice, if you feel like it isn't related. Please don't assume everything I say had to be connected because there might also be things that happende from his perspective or in his life the past few weeks that I'm not even aware of.
Early this morning I was leaving from his house at the same time as him and he gestured at me to go first but I stopped my car in the driveway so he could freely pass me on his bike and gestured at him to do so. Seemingly out of nowhere he screamed something at me like "just fucking let me be" (don't remember what exactly he said and even then this is translated loosely to English, but I was shocked). I backed out of the driveway and drove off in a hurry. He called me before I had left his street but I was on the verge of crying and didn't feel like accepting an apology when I was really not okay with the behaviour so I declined the call. I haven't heard from him all day which is very unusual. Normally we call or text at least a few times throughout the day. He also hadn't been to my grandparents house ven though he texted my grandma that he would be over today to help fix a loose pan on her roof. (not really related but gave me the impression something was seriously wrong if he was avoiding everything to do with me) so I called him this evening around half past seven. He didn't answer but that happens sometimes and normally he calls me back when he has the time. Often that's not even five minutes later, but this time I still hadn't heard from him by nine so I called again.
I then got a message: "I don't want to call".
I answered in three texts: "What did I do to you?", "You screamed at me out of nowhere and without reason this morning. I'm actually annoyed that you haven't apologised yet but I was worried something happened so I thought I'd call. I think I at least deserve an explanation." and "Or I expect you to have the respect to just break up with me, instead of all of a sudden ghosting me."
He didn't respond so I FaceTimed him, which he didn't answer. I FaceTimed four more times before I got a text: "leave me alone".
I answered in three texts again: "What?", "Where is this coming from" and "this is ridiculously scary for me and bold of you to do. Let me know what's up so I can supress the tendency to jump into my car and come over".
He responded: "nothing's up [my name]"
To which I responded in five texts: "Yeah it doesn't feel like that at all. I hope you realise that.", "if there's truly nothing wrong, I find this behaviour very unfair to me", "if something is wrong, too", then in response to the 'leave me alone message: "you don't talk to someone you love like that, so this conversation gives me the feeling you're going to break up with me any second" and lastly "there's all kinds of alarms going of in my head and I'm having unhealthy thoughts about our relationship that stem from the panick that I'm feeling."
He replied: "[my name] I just don't want to talk and be alone okay?"
To which I said: "just closing yourself off like this feels very mean to me and gives me a lot of doubt. Give me a little context so I can sleep with peace of mind because right now I'm panicking and hurt", "plus I still expect an apology for your sudden outburst this morning".
He didn't respond again so I FaceTimed him once more. He didn't pick up and still didn't respond so I texted him: "[his name] I really need more than this. Is there someone else I can call to provide me some context? Like you parents?"
He then texted me: "[my name] It's clear I want to be alone for a bit", "nothing's wrong", "I am alive and don't have any injuries" and "I just want to go to bed in a minute, done".
I responded in three texts again: "Yes but you give me the feeling that I did something wrong by closing yourself off from me this harshly", "I haven't heard from you all day after you lashed out at me out of nowhere this morning" and a little later when I had tried to calm myself down: "I will give you the space you need right now, but by goign about it this way this influences my feelings towards you and my trust in this relationship. If this behaviour isn't caused by you wanting to break up, I hope you can give me some clarification one of the next days because otherwise I'm not sure if I can repair my feelings to what they were on my own."
He still hasn't responded to that and I'm pretty certain he won't. Even though I can see that he is actively snapchatting right now. Now typing this out, I feel like I was way overreacting, but I still don't feel at ease.
I feel like I recognize the anxious and avoidant attachment types in us and sent him a screenshot from an instagram video a few days ago about 'what an avoidant partner wishes they could say sometimes' and he reponded "numbers 1, 3, 4 and 6 I feel sometimes" which were:

1. "Sometimes it feels safer to run or go quiet than to open my mouth and make it worse"
2. I wish I knew how to open up to you
3. Sometimes I feel very hard to love
4. I feel like I fail you so much ... and that feels awful because I don't want to lose you.

Does this situation feel familiar to someone who spoke to their therapist about feelings of this kind?
Is anyone able to put themselves in my boyfriends shoes and explain to me what he might be feeling or thinking?
Any advice on how I could have better reacted or what I can still do (if anything) to help us both get through this situation without getting more hurt or damaging our relationship?
I don't want to freak out but I obviously already am and don't want to drive him away.
He usually calls me in the morning when he's on his way to work. Would it be justified for me to not pick up if he calls tomorrow? (assuming that he will, which I'm not sure of)
TL;DR My boyfriend of five years suddenly lashed out at me and now doesn't want to talk which isn't usual. I am panicking quite a bit but don't know if it is because of insecure attachment or if my worry is justified. How do I react?