Long story short: I got a vasectomy yesterday morning. I know I don't want kids. It's just never been an aspiration of mine, not even in my happiest moments when I'm with my nephew whom I share a birthday with. Not even when I would watch him and his father (my brother) playing and having a good time. That "want" just has never been there for me. Additionally, I don't want every sexual interaction I have with a girl to be ruined in my head by the fear of a condom breaking, no matter how effective it may be. So I felt the best option would be to have this procedure done.
In the minutes leading up to me walking into my doctor's office, I felt fear stop me in my tracks, contemplating getting back in my car and going home. But I pressed on and was in the procedure room in less than five minutes. The doctor was very casual and professional, starting a conversation with me and going from there. But at the first sensation of the anesthetic needle going in, panic nearly overcame me and I started to hyperventilate a bit. Not enough to cause alarm for the doctor, mind you. But enough that he gently ushered me to just breathe normally. And I slowly got better. There were a few other moments of discomfort, but the procedure was done in about 20 minutes I reckon.
But as soon as I got to my car, I cried more than I have in a long, long time. Even when I've been at my lowest, I just don't really cry. But I legitimately was like this for a few minutes. I even wished my dad was there with me just for comfort (he's on a cruise with my mother). But I managed to collect myself and got home safe.
And yet, after only a few hours and into today, I've hardly thought about it. Granted I've been busy doing things around the house. But it's like my brain has come to the realization of "You were crying over something so trivial. You're fine". And I am fine, physically anyway. Mild pain and that's it.
But I thought about Seneca's quote above and how I, to use the old phrase, made a mountain out of a molehill. Yes this is a life altering procedure. But waking up this morning and realizing the worst was now behind me, and that this fear I had has gone...it's liberating. Truly.

(I am SO sorry for the needed lengthy) Back Story & Context Leading To My Decision:
I (33F) have 1 sister, “Sam” (38F). Although we share the same parents, our childhood & the way we were treated was incredibly different. Mainly because Sam had always been favored & treated far better than me. A fact that Sam refuses to acknowledge to this day.
Before & after my parents got married, it was agreed upon that they would not have children, until one day my mother “Susan” (66F) came up with the bright idea that if she gave her parents (“Norma & Gene”) a grand-baby they would finally love her. She went off the pill without telling my father, got pregnant, then had Sam. To no one’s surprise, Susan hated being a mom. So she would ship Sam across the country to Norma & Gene’s constantly, so much so, they saw her as THEIR child. And they showered her with love that Susan never even got a taste of. This led to Susan being aggressively jealous & resentful of her child.
Years later, my dad was tricked again into having me to “save their marriage.” They divorced when I was 3. All Sam ever knew from Susan was neglect, emotional & mental abuse from Susan, which only became worse when she could use “favoring” me as another way to hurt Sam. This was NOT a secret in my family, resulting in maltreatment towards me (either subconsciously or intentionally).
Abuse toward Sam turned physical. My father was given full custody of her when I was 8, and I was left with Susan for the next 2 years until she decided she wanted to move to San Francisco because she “deserved” a more glamorous life. I do not remember the years living with Susan, but recently one of my closest friends (of 25 years) said to me I practically lived at her house & she barely interacted with Susan throughout the entirety of our friendship.
To make up for Susan being an awful parent, Norma & Gene would dote on Sam & shell out a lot of $$$ to give her a very nice life which includes but not limited to; taking her on luxury trips around the world (I was only invited on 1 in the times we lived together), Norma would write her lengthy letters to continue growing their bond, has had so much money spent on her such as down payment on her first house & paid for extravagant events such as majority of the bill for her $50,000 wedding @ 21yo, the rest my father paid for. The only time she worked before graduating with her degree was part time ONE semester in college then quit because it was “so tiring” to work & study. Want to guess who paid her bills & gave her an allowance the rest of the time? Compare this to me when I barley received a kind word. They offered me money ONCE in my early 20’s to pay off my credit card & medical debt I accrued in college as I had to pay all my own bills while working full time (I have been working since I was 15) and going to school full time. I am the only one in the family who worked in college, yet I am still the only one to graduate with honors. I accepted with the condition it would come out of my “inheritance.” I have never asked or been offered money since. I have paid for ALL my own bills since I left home @ 18 years old.
Despite the obvious disparities and constant hurt they put me through, I was an active member of the family who mainly kept her mouth shut. I attended family events unless I could not afford to go, I sent holiday gifts, called between 1-2x per month for an 1 hour+ phone call in which I most often bit my tongue unless it was to defend Sam as Norma & Susan did not agree with her parenting.
Something to note, in May 2021 my father had an accident that would lead to his passing in December 2021. The disagreements & Sam’s nastiness toward me after the accident and then his death further strained our relationship.
Fast forward to March 2023. An explosive incident at Susan’s home. Susan started berating Sam for not allowing Susan to take my oldest nephew cross country for a week. When Sam confronted her on the abuse she endured growing up, and will not subject her kids to that, Susan lost it. Not only did Susan say that Sam made that up (I have the court documents in my possession) she screamed at Sam until she began sobbing in ear shot of her 3 young kids, husband, and my step father. I stood up for Sam as always, which resulted in Susan screaming in my face “I don’t want a relationship with you” with Sam as a witness. I cut ties with Susan in that very moment, then made the family aware of my decision, and everyone, including Norma agreed to respect my decision which she later went back on.
By August 2023, my physical health that had been on a rapid decline since 2019 including 18 out of 23 (78%) of my spinal discs deteriorating without a known cause had become unbearable to manage + time I had to take off because of migraines & doctor’s appointments, I had to quit my corporate desk job. I had enough money saved to tide me over for some time, but as any US adult in their 20’s & 30’s know, it’s been rough the past few years, add in physical disabilities & limited mobility + regular migraines, I was running low on money & needed help. So at the end of December, at the encouragement & insistence of my aunt “Elizabeth” (61F & Susan’s sister) who I had become quite close with over the past few years, I went to Norma & Gene to ask for a LOAN. They had donated $25,000 to Sam’s place of worship on her behalf a few months prior, offered to buy Sam & her husband a house the year prior, paid for Elizabeth’s bills & expensive lifestyle for the last year when she was soul searching on what line of work she wanted to do next, this was after putting a down payment on Elizabeth’s new $470,000 condo + $70,000 of renovations it needed, not to mention the literal hundreds of thousands of dollars that they have given Susan over the years just to pay off her credit card debt (none of which is coming out of their inheritance might I add) she assured me they would absolutely loan their granddaughter with serious health issues money. Elizabeth would talk to them personally about it, just to seal the deal while Sam would help me find cheaper alternatives to my current necessities such as Medicaid.
I make the request, and to my surprise they are more than happy to help me with a loan. But one week later & their phone calls with Susan, they say by email they “love me but cannot continue to financially support my poor decisions.” I call Elizabeth who says, it was not in her best interest to talk to them about helping me as I am “worthless to this family and society while being disabled.” Then adds that she will not let her “mental health deteriorate just to emotionally support me.” I then immediately reach out to Sam who does not even have the guts to talk by phone only text, and says she called Susan to explain my circumstance but “wasn’t going to argue or pick a fight” to help me and that she is sorry that that she “can't show up for me the way I want her to because she needs to maintain her own mental health, relationships and boundaries.” She also threw in that I have “made up this narrative in my head” that they treat her & I different, that she is treated better. This is literally in the same conversation where I already listed how she was treated better.
That day I fully cut contact with Norma, Gene, and Elizabeth. I told them they will not be hearing from me again, and I will not be attending theirs or Susan’s funeral. And I stopped speaking with Sam for the time being. Ironically, what led us to speaking was last month (April 2024) I had begun working on an article about going No Contact with family members. I asked if I could discuss her childhood abuse in a few sentences as part of the article. She agreed and offered to give me quotes. I accepted then interviewed her. From there we began rebuilding our relationship.
Then Wednesday, May 8, Norma passes. I do not attend the funeral that happened on Friday, May 10. My two cousins who I have become very close with in the last 6 months understood why, and supported my decision. I made it clear to Sam, who told Susan I would not be attending and I had made it clear in January that when the time came, I would l not be attending their funerals. Which clearly they saw as an empty threat. But even though I did not go, I continually checked in with them & Sam to ensure they were okay. Not once from Wednesday to yesterday (Tuesday) did Sam reply to a single message. As I was concerned about this, I reached out yesterday morning. She replied in the afternoon. I was incredibly hurt by her very lengthy message. Here are 2 excerpts that led me to full NC.

1. “Your perspective on the situation was clear, you werent coming to be with the family and you arent grieving [Norma’s] death at least in the conventional sense. I had to be the one to answer from most of the family why you werent there, it was incredibly awkward and uncomfortable for me.”
2. “Since late January/Early February things have already been really strained between us. I know that most that comes from my point of view and actions were really hurtful to you. I hate that I hurt you and Its been difficult for me to reconcile that I can't show up for you the way you want me to while also maintaining my own mental health, relationships and boundaries.”

She continually says that she cannot show up for me the way I need without affecting her mental health, jeopardizing her relationship with Susan, Gene or Norma, crossing boundaries (boundaries she never clarified or explicitly said to me ONCE) and I am not someone that would ever want to hinder someone else’s life by my presence or cause inner turmoil by associating with me. I let her know this and said I will stop trying to cultivate a relationship and I will step away for good. I said it as kind as possible, taking an hour to craft a message that can only be seen as kind. I told her if she responds I will not be reading it.
I work very hard to stay positive as it’s just me to lean on. When there is something eating at me emotionally, it will drain my energy & have me spiral until it is resolved. I did not want to waste another moment feeling hurt especially when I wasted hours being angry & upset after receiving her text before crafting my reply.
My dad always preached that Sam is “far more sensitive” than me & needs to basically be treated with kid gloves despite her being almost 5 years older (he held this stance until his passing). He would have surely wanted me to apply that rule to this situation by waiting a few weeks to cut ties once she had time to process her grief. As Norma was the closest person to a loving mother Sam consistently had, I cannot help but compare it with my experience of losing my dad. If someone who always supported me esp. with any family issues, cut contact the same week he passed, it would have added a whole other layer of devastation & loneliness to an already difficult time
So, I am torn on whether it was right of me to put myself first or if I should have done what I am known & expected to do which is making Sam’s feelings the priority over mine.
ADDITIONAL ADVICE REQUESTS: 1. If anyone else has gone through a similar situation or has no immediate family, how do you handle it when having to discuss it with others? Such as explaining it to a new S/O’s, or the least complicated version to their family members or my friends who do not know the full back story but will eventually pick up on me not mentioning my sister or my nephews & niece. 2. If anyone is not able bodied or is limited to working options due to health, what you do for your full or extra income (outside of any government assistance)?
TY to all who comment &/or upvote!☺️

Hello fellow potatoes! And to the potato queen herself, girl, you're amazing!!! I just found your channel a few months ago, but I'm a huge fan. I don't have a lot of time for videos, but when I do get to watch, I watch yours.
Have I got a boomemil story for you! Let's go on an adventure...warning...I tell stories with rabbit holes and tangents. This is probably gonna be too long. I'm sorry!!!
So, the characters are me (40f), boomer MIL (64f BM for short, like bowel movement bc she's caca), my oldest son, (17m), and my church "mom" (65f CM for short).
A little background: BM thinks she's an awesome mom and grandma even though she's not. She uses my kids as facebook props to show off how "wonderful" she is. The only reason she was around my kids so often was because we went to the same church. She lived 10 minutes down the road from us, but could never be bothered to come over or have anything to do with any of us is if we didn't initiate. She has always said that if we ever try to threaten to keep our kids away from her, like if we were having a disagreement, that she would not fight to see them. We've never threatened to keep our kids from her, she just wanted us to know that she didn't give a sh!t to see her gandkids. So, that tells you right there, that she's a grandma when it's convenient for her.
She's of the boomer mentality that mental health issues are made up and aren't real. "You have nothing to be depressed about." "Just snap out if it." "Just be happy." You get the point. I struggle with depression, I always have. She doesn't understand or even try to understand and is the least empathetic person I've ever met.
When I get overwhelmed, I get depressed, and I start shutting down. My plate is overflowing right now. Between the end of the school year and the possibility of us moving states, I've been overwhelmed. My oldest is a senior and the last month of senior year is crazy busy. I have another child (11m) in public school and this is his last year of elementary school, so this has been an extremely busy month for him. I have 3 more kids that do online public school/homeschool. So, they're home all day with online classes, but since they're a public school, they have mandatory state testing just like regular public school. I have had to take them to do state testing on 4 different days overyhe last few weeks and the meeting place was 45 minutes from home, at a conference room in a mall. I also babysit 3 kids (1m, 4m, 4f), so hanging out for 4 to 5 hours a day on 4 different days with a shitload of kids at the f#cking mall was not easy. Not to mention the positions and "jobs" that I hold at church. To say I'm busy is an understatement.
We've been planning on moving for the last few months because a position at my husband's work is coming open near where he grew up, which is in another state. His parents recently moved back to their hometown after my FIL retired, so one reason for the move would be to be closer to them. They are getting older, so I would be taking care of them once they needed it, so moving closer seemed like a great option. Also, it's a lower COL area than we live in now. Currently we live in the metro area of a capital city and we would be moving to a middle of nowhere po'dunk town.
Told you, rabbit holes, thanks for still being with me!!!
And this is just the straw that broke the camel's back, this is not the only reason for my decision.
So, to the actual story...
Last week, I got a mother's day card in the mail from BM. She's a dollar tree card fanatic. It was a very typical card that she sends me. Nothing handwritten except for "love, grandma and grandpa." This is what she writes in all my cards. (Another tangent...last year my mom passed a month before mother's day and that actual mother's day was her and my dad's anniversary. And I had a super complicated relationship with my momster. So, it was an exceptionally hard day for me. The card she got me said "Daughter" in huge letters on the front. I thought it was so incredibly passive aggressive and completely inappropriate for that year. If it would've been any other year, it would've been fine. Also, she never gets me cards that just say "daughter" so, to me, it was a low blow.) (Yet another tangent...she does passive aggressive crap all the time, for instance when she used to do fb birthday posts, she would always ask me to send her a pic to post. I'm picky about what pics are used and she knows that. Last year, I sent her a great pic of me and her son to use. So, she used one from about 12 years ago that looked like absolute poop. It was a surprise pic, so like not even posed, stupid look on my face. No matter what pic I send, and usually send like 3, she uses a completely different one that doesn't even look good.) I got the card last Tuesday. Hubby happened to be talking to her while driving home from work that day, so when he got home, I thanked her for the card and just wanted to give her a heads up that I hadn't gotten a chance to mail hers yet because of everything I had going on. I kinda broke down and was sharing how I felt and she basically just said, "suck it up, it'll be fine." She's always been dismissive of my feelings, always.
So, my CM is the sweetest lady you'll ever meet. She listens to me, lets me share my feelings without being dismissive, and actually shows she cares. I see her twice weekly at church, and text with her during the week. Since BM has moved 8 moths ago, she has called or texted "just to talk or check in on us" less than a handful of times. She only calls/texts when she needs something or on a special occasion. She called my husband to ask about something, not just to talk. I understand now why the oldest grandson, my nephew, didn't even bother to invite her to his and his girlfriend's baby shower where he proposed. She thinks she's an amazing grandma bc she sends birthday money in a card and posts their pics on Facebook. And, she even stopped posting the kids birthday messages on fb bc she said it was "too much trouble." So, she just sticks to her 30 daily inspirational Bible quotes posts. She's the type that was so pissed off that both of her kids went with courthouse marriages instead of going into debt for a wedding because she didn't get to walk down the aisle at her kids' weddings and post pics on fb. She's mentioned this several times, but definitely wasn't even willing to spend a dime towards a wedding that no one wanted except her. She was also unwilling to take a day off work to go to the courthouse with us. With both of her kids' marriages, the kids and partners were together for a while and had kids before getting married, so spending tons of money on a huge wedding for either of us couples wouldn't have been the best way to spend money.
On mother's day, I gave my CM a card with a few lines written in it about how amazing she is and how I'm so grateful for her. I'm way closer to her than BM. CM is my chosen family and to me, your chosen family is the one that means more because you chose them, you didn't just get stuck with them. My blood family is incredibly toxic, so I stick with my chosen family. CM made a fb post with all that she got for mother's day. It was gifts and cards from her own children, and of course my card as well. CM & BM are fb friends, so of course BM saw it. Also, BM has everyone convinced she's this sweet, little old church lady, but she is far from it.
So, this Tuesday she got her cards in the mail. I always give her one from hubby and myself, and a separate one from our boys. I wrote a nice little note in it. Not long, a line or 2, but it was more effort than she put into my card. She sent me and hubby the following in a group text...
Copy and pasted, only edited out names.
"Got my cards in the mail today. 😭. They were post marked Saturday. You could of kept them til I got there or next year. It's like yall bought them Saturday, wrote a few words and rushed to get them to post office. My heart 💔broken. I thought I deserved better. I wish I could send pictures of my card verses [CM] 😩 card. I couldnt tell which gift was yours. But least I have a year to try do better and be worthy of such wonderful words of love and praise that was written to her.
I don't mean to complain or seem ungrateful but I wished you hadn't mailed them.😭😭. I can't explain how crushed I am.😔 Anyway hopefully I will see yall on the 20th."
Note: my oldest son is graduating on the 20th. She was supposed to drive down and spend the night with us to attend the graduation. I honestly believe she picked this fight because she doesn't want to drive the 6 hours down here.
If you "don't mean to complain or seem ungrateful" then why tf did you send it? I asked my husband what was his initial reaction and he said, "Really?!? All she had to do was say thanks."
So, after I talked to my husband and oldest son (I wanted to make sure everyone was on board with what I was saying before I sent it) , I sent her this response:
"I mailed them on Friday, I bought them several weeks ago. I told you I hadn't mailed them yet because I've been in a deep depression and you dismissed my feelings like always. I have real, valid feelings and you always dismissed them as silly. And come after me because now you're feelings are hurt. Wow, ok. The absolute audacity. And it's not just with your cards that I'm slacking. It's with everything. Because I have depression. I'm overwhelmed on top of that and literally the only thing you care about is a card. I tried to express my feelings the other day on the phone and you dismissed them like you always do. I know things will be fine, but in this moment they are not and you don't get that. Because you don't understand how or why I feel the way I do, then my feelings are silly or invalid to you.
And I never gave [CM] a present. Don't know why you thought that.
Don't worry about coming down on the 20th."
She replies by trying to blackmail me;
"Well my am so sorry I said anything. I never realized you thought that about me. I never dismissed your depression but yes i never knew what to do for you. I am not going to go back and forth about this. I will text [son] and let him know you told me not to come."
She's not sorry to me for being dismissive, she's sorry because now she doesn't get her "Proud MeMe moment" and can't post pictures of her at his graduation on fb. And even if she didn't "know what to do" for me, all she had to do was ask. Or listen. Or give a damn hug. But, no, she just dismissed me bc to her depression isn't real. And she's not going back and forth bc she knows shes wrong! Little did she know that I had already cleared it with hubby and son before sending the text, so I think she thought it would make me look bad to my oldest son that I told her no to come. Oldest son said, "I'm neutral, I don't care if she comes or not. It's not like she's had anything to do with us since she moved, and barely had anything to do with us when she was here."
So, my last text to her said, "He knows. I asked him before I texted you, and he's good with it."
All she had to do was say thanks or not even say anything at all. But, no, she had to say something stupid. Even her own son said that she's lucky she even got a card bc if it was up to him, her actual son, she wouldn't have gotten anything. So, not only is she not invited to the graduation, she's never welcome in my home again. The great part is I don't have to share my holidays with her ever again!!! And please know that I'd never keep her grandchildren from her, but if she wants a relationship with them, she'll have to put some effort in. And we all know boomers hate effort.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading my rant. I appreciate you my friends!

(I am SO sorry for the needed lengthy) Back Story & Context Leading To My Decision:
I (33F) have 1 sibling, “Sam” (38F). Although we share the same parents, our childhood & the way we were treated was incredibly different. Mainly because Sam had always been favored & treated far better than me. A fact that Sam refuses to acknowledge to this day.
Before & after my parents got married, it was agreed upon that they would not have children, until one day my mother “Susan” (66F) came up with the bright idea that if she gave her parents (“Norma & Gene”) a grand-baby they would finally love her. She went off the pill without telling my father, got pregnant, then had Sam. To no one’s surprise, Susan hated being a mom. So she would ship Sam across the country to Norma & Gene’s constantly, so much so, they saw her as THEIR child. And they showered her with love that Susan never even got a taste of. This led to Susan being aggressively jealous & resentful of her child.
Years later, my dad was tricked again into having me to “save their marriage.” They divorced when I was 3. All Sam ever knew from Susan was neglect, emotional & mental abuse from Susan, which only became worse when she could use “favoring” me as another way to hurt Sam. This was NOT a secret in my family, resulting in maltreatment towards me (either subconsciously or intentionally).
Abuse toward Sam turned physical. My father was given full custody of her when I was 8, and I was left with Susan for the next 2 years until she decided she wanted to move to San Francisco because she “deserved” a more glamorous life. I do not remember the years living with Susan, but recently one of my closest friends (of 25 years) said to me I practically lived at her house & she barely interacted with Susan throughout the entirety of our friendship.
To make up for Susan being an awful parent, Norma & Gene would dote on Sam & shell out a lot of $$$ to give her a very nice life which includes but not limited to; taking her on luxury trips around the world (I was only invited on 1 in the times we lived together), Norma would write her lengthy letters to continue growing their bond, has had so much money spent on her such as down payment on her first house & paid for extravagant events such as majority of the bill for her $50,000 wedding @ 21yo, the rest my father paid for. The only time she worked before graduating with her degree was part time ONE semester in college then quit because it was “so tiring” to work & study. Want to guess who paid her bills & gave her an allowance the rest of the time? Compare this to me when I barley received a kind word. They offered me money ONCE in my early 20’s to pay off my credit card & medical debt I accrued in college as I had to pay all my own bills while working full time (I have been working since I was 15) and going to school full time. I am the only one in the family who worked in college, yet I am still the only one to graduate with honors. I accepted with the condition it would come out of my “inheritance.” I have never asked or been offered money since. I have paid for ALL my own bills since I left home @ 18 years old.
Despite the obvious disparities and constant hurt they put me through, I was an active member of the family who mainly kept her mouth shut. I attended family events unless I could not afford to go, I sent holiday gifts, called between 1-2x per month for an 1 hour+ phone call in which I most often bit my tongue unless it was to defend Sam as Norma & Susan did not agree with her parenting.
Something to note, in May 2021 my father had an accident that would lead to his passing in December 2021. The disagreements & Sam’s nastiness toward me after the accident and then his death further strained our relationship.
Fast forward to March 2023. An explosive incident at Susan’s home. Susan started berating Sam for not allowing Susan to take my oldest nephew cross country for a week. When Sam confronted her on the abuse she endured growing up, and will not subject her kids to that, Susan lost it. Not only did Susan say that Sam made that up (I have the court documents in my possession) she screamed at Sam until she began sobbing in ear shot of her 3 young kids, husband, and my step father. I stood up for Sam as always, which resulted in Susan screaming in my face “I don’t want a relationship with you” with Sam as a witness. I cut ties with Susan in that very moment, then made the family aware of my decision, and everyone, including Norma agreed to respect my decision which she later went back on.
By August 2023, my physical health that had been on a rapid decline since 2019 including 18 out of 23 (78%) of my spinal discs deteriorating without a known cause had become unbearable to manage + time I had to take off because of migraines & doctor’s appointments, I had to quit my corporate desk job. I had enough money saved to tide me over for some time, but as any US adult in their 20’s & 30’s know, it’s been rough the past few years, add in physical disabilities & limited mobility + regular migraines, I was running low on money & needed help. So at the end of December, at the encouragement & insistence of my aunt “Elizabeth” (61F & Susan’s sister) who I had become quite close with over the past few years, I went to Norma & Gene to ask for a LOAN. They had donated $25,000 to Sam’s place of worship on her behalf a few months prior, offered to buy Sam & her husband a house the year prior, paid for Elizabeth’s bills & expensive lifestyle for the last year when she was soul searching on what line of work she wanted to do next, this was after putting a down payment on Elizabeth’s new $470,000 condo + $70,000 of renovations it needed, not to mention the literal hundreds of thousands of dollars that they have given Susan over the years just to pay off her credit card debt (none of which is coming out of their inheritance might I add) she assured me they would absolutely loan their granddaughter with serious health issues money. Elizabeth would talk to them personally about it, just to seal the deal while Sam would help me find cheaper alternatives to my current necessities such as Medicaid.
I make the request, and to my surprise they are more than happy to help me with a loan. But one week later & their phone calls with Susan, they say by email they “love me but cannot continue to financially support my poor decisions.” I call Elizabeth who says, it was not in her best interest to talk to them about helping me as I am “worthless to this family and society while being disabled.” Then adds that she will not let her “mental health deteriorate just to emotionally support me.” I then immediately reach out to Sam who does not even have the guts to talk by phone only text, and says she called Susan to explain my circumstance but “wasn’t going to argue or pick a fight” to help me and that she is sorry that that she “can't show up for me the way I want her to because she needs to maintain her own mental health, relationships and boundaries.” She also threw in that I have “made up this narrative in my head” that they treat her & I different, that she is treated better. This is literally in the same conversation where I already listed how she was treated better.
That day I fully cut contact with Norma, Gene, and Elizabeth. I told them they will not be hearing from me again, and I will not be attending theirs or Susan’s funeral. And I stopped speaking with Sam for the time being. Ironically, what led us to speaking was last month (April 2024) I had begun working on an article about going No Contact with family members. I asked if I could discuss her childhood abuse in a few sentences as part of the article. She agreed and offered to give me quotes. I accepted then interviewed her. From there we began rebuilding our relationship.
Then Wednesday, (May 8), Norma passes. I do not attend the funeral that happened on Friday, May 10. My two cousins who I have become very close with in the last 6 months understood why, and supported my decision. I made it clear to Sam, who told Susan I would not be attending and I had made it clear in January that when the time came, I would l not be attending their funerals. Which clearly they saw as an empty threat. But even though I did not go, I continually checked in with them & Sam to ensure they were okay. Not once from Wednesday to yesterday (Tuesday) did Sam reply to a single message. As I was concerned about this, I reached out yesterday morning. She replied in the afternoon. I was incredibly hurt by her very lengthy message. Here are 2 excerpts that led me to full NC.

1. “Your perspective on the situation was clear, you werent coming to be with the family and you arent grieving [Norma’s] death at least in the conventional sense. I had to be the one to answer from most of the family why you werent there, it was incredibly awkward and uncomfortable for me.”
2. “Since late January/Early February things have already been really strained between us. I know that most that comes from my point of view and actions were really hurtful to you. I hate that I hurt you and Its been difficult for me to reconcile that I can't show up for you the way you want me to while also maintaining my own mental health, relationships and boundaries.”

She continually says that she cannot show up for me the way I need without affecting her mental health, jeopardizing her relationship with Susan, Gene or Norma, crossing boundaries (boundaries she never clarified or explicitly said to me ONCE) and I am not someone that would ever want to hinder someone else’s life by my presence or cause inner turmoil by associating with me. I let her know this and said I will stop trying to cultivate a relationship and I will step away for good. I said it as kind as possible, taking an hour to craft a message that can only be seen as kind. I told her if she responds I will not be reading it.
I work very hard to stay positive as it’s just me to lean on. When there is something eating at me emotionally, it will drain my energy & have me spiral until it is resolved. I did not want to waste another moment feeling hurt especially when I wasted hours being angry & upset after receiving her text before crafting my reply. But with that said, AITA for cutting ties at this time & not waiting?
EDIT: I realized that this post may have appeared as me venting more than asking for perspective since my mind was already made up about going full NC, but the reason I pose AITA is in reference to the timing. My dad always preached that Sam is “far more sensitive” than me & needs to basically be treated with kid gloves despite her being almost 5 years older (he held this stance until his passing). He would have surely wanted me to apply that rule to this situation by waiting a few weeks to cut ties once she had time to process her grief. As Norma was the closest person to a loving mother Sam consistently had, I cannot help but compare it with my experience of losing my dad. If someone who always supported me esp. with any family issues, cut contact the same week he passed, it would have added a whole other layer of devastation & loneliness to an already difficult time…So, I am torn between if did the right thing by putting myself first or if I should have done what I am known & expected to do which is making Sam’s feelings the priority over mine.
ADDITIONAL ADVICE REQUESTS: 1. If anyone else has gone through a similar situation or has no immediate family, how do you handle it when having to discuss it with others? Such as explaining it to a new S/O’s, or the least complicated version to their family members or my friends who do not know the full back story but will eventually pick up on me not mentioning my sister or my nephews & niece. 2. If anyone is not able bodied or is limited to working options due to health, what you do for your full or extra income (outside of any government assistance)?
TY to all who comment &/or upvote!☺️

This is an expansion of a recent post and also incorporates some ideas from this theory (by u/ndependent-Design17). Throughout the series the reader is repeatedly reminded that "only death can pay for life" — that magic, especially powerful magic, comes at great cost.

"Only death can pay for life, my lord. A great gift requires a great sacrifice.”

Davos, ASOS
This phrase or variations of this phrase are repeated by Melisandre, Mirri, etc. at various points throughout the series. That which follows is a highly speculative theory on the nature of the cost of magic in the series. Specifically, that souls are central to the exercise of magic and can be used as magic currency.

1. establishing the concept of the soul

Oh, to be sure, there is much we do not understand. The years pass in their hundreds and their thousands, and what does any man see of life but a few summers, a few winters? We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so they seem… but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes.

Bran, AGOT
What happens after we die? Is there some part of us that lives on or do we simply cease to exist. These are fundamental questions that are essentially unanswerable in life but not in ASOIAF. The reader is given a point-of-view account of death in the prologue of ADWD. After unsuccessfully attempting to steal the body of Thistle, a wildling spearwife, Varamyr dies and briefly becomes a disembodied consciousness:

The white world turned and fell away. For a moment it was as if he were inside the weirwood, gazing out through carved red eyes as a dying man twitched feebly on the ground and a madwoman danced blind and bloody underneath the moon, weeping red tears and ripping at her clothes. Then both were gone and he was rising, melting, his spirit borne on some cold wind. He was in the snow and in the clouds, he was a sparrow, a squirrel, an oak. A horned owl flew silently between his trees, hunting a hare; Varamyr was inside the owl, inside the hare, inside the trees. Deep below the frozen ground, earthworms burrowed blindly in the dark, and he was them as well. I am the wood, and everything that’s in it, he thought, exulting.

Prologue, ADWD
Afterward his "spirit," or soul, is eventually transferred into a body of wolf and he begins his second life. This event, and the process of skin-changing more generally, appears to involve projection or transfer of a soul from one body into another. The process of projecting or transferring souls to either animal vessels or the weirwoods is central to the magic of the Children of the Forest.

“Someone else was in the raven,” he told Lord Brynden, once he had returned to his own skin. “Some girl. I felt her.”
“A woman, of those who sing the song of earth,” his teacher said. “Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you would remain in Summer if your boy’s flesh were to die upon the morrow. A shadow on the soul. She will not harm you.”
"Do all the birds have singers in them?"
“All,” Lord Brynden said.

Bran, ADWD
After death a "shadow on the soul" of the Singers remain in the crows. The soul of Orell is also described as living on in the body of his eagle after his death.
This process appears to take two forms: the soul can be temporarily projected from one body into another (e.g., as happens when Bran skin-changes into Hodor) or can be permanently transferred as is described in the separate examples above.
These transferred souls merge with their recipient, at least to some degree, and may decay over time:

"The wolf is part of you from that day on, and you’re part of him. Both of you will change.”
Other beasts were best left alone, the hunter had declared. Cats were vain and cruel, always ready to turn on you. Elk and deer were prey; wear their skins too long, and even the bravest man became a coward. Bears, boars, badgers, weasels … Haggon did not hold with such. “Some skins you never want to wear, boy. You won’t like what you’d become.” Birds were the worst, to hear him tell it. “Men were not meant to leave the earth. Spend too much time in the clouds and you never want to come back down again.
...
"They say you forget," Haggon had told him, a few weeks before his own death.
"When the man's flesh dies, his spirit lives on inside the beast, but every day his memory fades, and the beast becomes a little less a warg, a little more a wolf, until nothing of the man is left and only the beast remains."

Prologue, ADWD
Bran is provided with similar warnings about the danger of spending too much time in Summer's skin by Jojen.

2. shadow magic requires souls

As above the reader is repeatedly reminded throughout the series that "only death can pay for life." What is specifically being sacrificed, though? Is the magic being fueled by the blood of the sacrificed or by something else?
To answer this let us examine one of the most concrete example of magic in the series, the use or exchange of Stannis Baratheon's "life-fire" in order for Melisandre to manifest the shadows used to kill Renly Baratheon and Courtney Penrose.

Shadows only live when given birth by light, and the king's fires burn so low I dare not draw off any more to make another son. It might well kill him."
Melisandre moved closer.
"With another man, though... a man whose flames still burn hot and high... if you truly wish to serve your king's cause, come to my chamber one night. I could give you pleasure such as you have never known, and with your life-fire I could make..."

Davos, ASOS
According to this explanation, the cost of producing these shadow appears to have been part of his "life-fire," or soul. The shadow is specifically described as having the shape Stannis supporting this. Whether this applies to other types of magic — specifically blood magic or fire magic — is less clear but shadow magic very much appears to require the use of souls.
This type of exchange is also directly referenced in the story of the Night's King provided by Old Nan:

A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well. (Credit to u/DigLost5791 for this reference.)

Bran, ASOS
Stannis is described by Davos afterward as follows:

The look of him was a shock. He seemed ten years older than the man that Davos had left at Storm’s End when he set sail for the Blackwater and the battle that would be their undoing. The king’s close-cropped beard was spiderwebbed with grey hairs, and he had dropped two stone or more of weight. He had never been a fleshy man, but now the bones moved beneath his skin like spears, fighting to cut free. Even his crown seemed too large for his head. His eyes were blue pits lost in deep hollows, and the shape of a skull could be seen beneath his face.

Davos, ASOS
Asha later describes Stannis as appearing life a "man with one foot in the grave."

What little flesh he’d carried on his tall, spare frame at Deepwood Motte had melted away during the march. The shape of his skull could be seen under his skin, and his jaw was clenched so hard Asha feared his teeth might shatter.

Asha, ADWD
These descriptions seem appropriate for a character that has lost part of their "life-fire" or soul.
Throughout the series Stannis is forced to make a series of increasingly difficult decisions. The most significant of these decisions regards the fate of his nephew, Eric Storm. Melisandre repeatedly urges him to "give [her] the boy," presumably to be burned, but is rebuffed by Stannis.

“I know the cost! Last night, gazing into that hearth, I saw things in the flames as well. I saw a king, a crown of fire on his brows, burning… burning, Davos. His own crown consumed his flesh and turned him into ash. Do you think I need Melisandre to tell me what that means? Or you?” The king moved, so his shadow fell upon King’s Landing.
"…what is the life of one bastard boy against a kingdom?”
“Everything,” said Davos, softly.

Davos, ASOS
Is the life of this bastard boy worth the lives of millions that would die if the Others break through the Wall? Making a deal with the devil and literally selling his soul in pursuit of some greater good seems very appropriate for his character, thematically. The description of his flesh turning to ash in this vision is representative also supports this interpretation.

3. blood and fire magic

As opposed to the creation of the shadows described above, we are also provided an example of so-called blood magic in the leech burning ritual.

“Give me the boy, Your Grace. It is the surer way. The better way. Give me the boy and I shall wake the stone dragon.”
...
Melisandre bowed her head stiffly, and said, “As my king commands.” Reaching up her left sleeve with her right hand, she flung a handful of powder into the brazier. The coals roared. As pale flames writhed atop them, the red woman retrieved the silver dish and brought it to the king. Davos watched her lift the lid. Beneath were three large black leeches, fat with blood. The boy’s blood, Davos knew. A king’s blood. Stannis stretched forth a hand, and his fingers closed around one of the leeches.
“Say the name,” Melisandre commanded.

Davos, ASOS
Following this ritual all of the mentioned individuals do die but do so as the part of separate conspiracies (e.g., Robb Stark is betrayed by the Freys and Boltons, Joffrey Baratheon by Littlefinger and the Tyrells, etc.) which were already in place. It is left intentionally ambiguous by the author but it does not appear that the ritual meaningfully contributed to their deaths.
The creation of the shadows is said by Melisandre to have required part of Stannis' "life-fire" or soul. Could it be that the leech burning ritual was unsuccessful because blood alone is not sufficient as a sacrifice?
These forms of magic are frequently described in the community as "shadow magic" and "blood magic." These concepts — "fire and blood" and "flame and shadow" — are highly associated with one another in the text:

“Shadow?" Davos felt his flesh prickling. "A shadow is a thing of darkness."
”You are more ignorant than a child, ser knight. There are no shadows in the dark. Shadows are the servants of light, the children of fire. The brightest flame casts the darkest shadows."

Davos, ACOK
I speculate that these are different expressions of the same concept; that all of these fall under the general umbrella of fire magic and share common principles. "Fire consumes and in the end there's nothing left."

4. dancing shadows

The tent was aglow with the light of braziers within. Through the blood-spattered sandsilk, she glimpsed shadows moving.
Mirri Maz Duur was dancing, and not alone.
...
No, Dany wanted to say, no, not that, you mustn’t, but when she opened her mouth, a long wail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin. What was wrong with them, couldn’t they see?
Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.
“The Lamb Woman knows the secrets of the birthing bed,” Irri said. “She said so, I heard her.”
“Yes,” Doreah agreed, “I heard her too.”
No, she shouted, or perhaps she only thought it, for no whisper of sound escaped her lips. She was being carried. Her eyes opened to gaze up at a flat dead sky, black and bleak and starless. Please, no. The sound of Mirri Maz Duur’s voice grew louder, until it filled the world. The shapes! She screamed. The dancers!
Ser Jorah carried her inside the tent.

Daenerys, AGOT
The introduction of shadow magic in the series is provided above with Mirri Max Duur. Following this ritual Drogo is described as a lifeless husk:

"He seems to like the warmth, Princess," Ser Jorah said. "His eyes follow the sun, though he does not see it. He can walk after a fashion. He will go where you lead him, but no farther. He will eat if you put food in his mouth, drink if you dribble water on his lips."

Daenerys, AGOT
It has previously been speculated that Mirri "reverse skin-changed" Drogo (e.g., "strength of the mount go into the rider, strength of the beast go into the man."). The description provided is less consistent with a horse soul inhabiting a human body than it is with the complete or near-complete absence of a soul. It appears more likely in retrospect that Mirri sacrificed part of Drogo's soul to summon the shadows and likely as a means to kill Daenerys' unborn child.

“The stallion who mounts the world will burn no cities now. His khalasar shall trample no nations into dust."

Daenerys, AGOT

5. reanimation

If "only death can pay for life" and souls are used as a form of magical currency how does one explain the reanimation or resurrection process?
There is a paucity of information on the reanimation of the dead in the series. The resurrection of Beric Dondarrion, for example, appears to be different in fundamental ways from that of the wights or Cold Hands. (We are potentially given a point-of-view account of this process if you accept that Victarion died in ADWD.)

“Thoros, how many times have you brought me back now?”
The red priest bowed his head. “It is R’hllor who brings you back, my lord. The Lord of Light. I am only his instrument.”
“How many times?” Lord Beric insisted.
“Six,” Thoros said reluctantly.
“And each time is harder. You have grown reckless, my lord. Is death so very sweet?”
Arya, ASOS

There is no immediately identifiable magical cost for these "kisses of life," at least at first glance. Thoros later tells us that he breathed part of his "flames" or soul into Beric:

“That first time, his lordship had a hole right through him and blood in his mouth, I knew there was no hope. So when his poor torn chest stopped moving, I gave him the good god's own kiss to send him on his way. I filled my mouth with fire and breathed the flames inside him, down his throat to lungs and heart and soul. The last kiss it is called, and many a time I saw the old priests bestow it on the Lord's servants as they died." (Credit to u/watchersontheweb for providing this quote in the initial thread.)

Arya, ASOS
Thoros is also described as appearing very different after performing this ritual several times in a way that is not entirely dissimilar to the changes in Stannis’ appearance referenced above.

“Here’s the wizard, skinny squirrel. You’ll get your answers now.”
He pointed toward the fire, where Tom Sevenstrings stood talking to a tall thin man with oddments of old armor buckled on over his ratty pink robes. That can’t be Thoros of Myr. Arya remembered the red priest as fat, with a smooth face and a shiny bald head. This man had a droopy face and a full head of shaggy grey hair.
...
“Thoros of Myr. You used to shave your head.”
“To betoken a humble heart, but in truth my heart was vain. Besides, I lost my razor in the woods.” The priest slapped his belly. “I am less than I was, but more. A year in the wild will melt the flesh off a man. Would that I could find a tailor to take in my skin. I might look young again, and pretty maids would shower me with kisses.”

Arya, ASOS
Thoros attributes these changes to his renewed devotion to the Red God and spending "a year in the wild" as above although he is not exactly forthcoming with Arya about the resurrection process. It is also likely that he does not entirely understand what specifically is being exchanged here.
Later he describes Beric giving the "kiss of life" to the corpse of Catelyn Stark:

“The Freys slashed her throat from ear to ear. When we found her by the river she was three days dead. Harwin begged me to give her the kiss of life, but it had been too long. I would not do it, so Lord Beric put his lips to hers instead, and the flame of life passed from him to her. And… she rose. May the Lord of Light protect us. She rose.”

Brienne, AFFC
Notably, this process produces a reanimated Catelyn (a.k.a. Lady Stoneheart). The soul of Beric, or at least whatever is left of his soul at this point in the series, is consumed in order to resurrect Catelyn and not transferred.

6. cold shadows (wild speculation)

The terms "white shadows," "pale shadows," and "cold shadows" are repeated used to describe the Others. The Others are also highly associated with ghosts — the spirits or souls of the dead bound to the earth. (The forrest in which they are introduced is literally called the Haunted Forrest.)

The Others made no sound.
Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness. Then it was gone. Branches stirred gently in the wind, scratching at one another with wooden fingers. Will opened his mouth to call down a warning, and the words seemed to freeze in his throat. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps it had only been a bird, a reflection on the snow, some trick of the moonlight. What had he seen, after all?
“Will, where are you?” Ser Waymar called up. “Can you see anything?” He was turning in a slow circle, suddenly wary, his sword in hand. He must have felt them, as Will felt them. There was nothing to see. “Answer me! Why is it so cold?” It was cold.
Shivering, Will clung more tightly to his perch. His face pressed hard against the trunk of the sentinel. He could feel the sweet, sticky sap on his cheek. A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywhere dappled with the deep grey-green of the trees. The patterns ran like moonlight on water with every step it took. Will heard the breath go out of Ser Waymar Royce in a long hiss. ...
The Other slid forward on silent feet. In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen. No human metal had gone into the forging of that blade. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor.

Prologue, AGOT
This is again highly speculative but it seems reasonable to consider that these cold shadows are not "ice demons" or "ice zombies" but are in fact ghosts, the spirits or souls of men that are bound to the earth through magic by the Children of the Forest. (The textual evidence of the creation of the Others by the Children has previously been discussed at length in the community in separate posts.) "Fire consumes, but cold preserves."
This would explain several of the unusual characteristics of the Others described by Tormund:

“Tormund,” Jon said, as they watched four old women pull a cartful of children toward the gate, “tell me of our foe. I would know all there is to know of the Others.”
The wildling rubbed his mouth. “Not here,” he mumbled, “not this side o’ your Wall.” The old man glanced uneasily toward the trees in their white mantles. “They’re never far, you know. They won’t come out by day, not when that old sun’s shining, but don’t think that means they went away. Shadows never go away. Might be you don’t see them, but they’re always clinging to your heels.”
...
Tormund turned back.
"You know nothing. You killed a dead man, aye, I heard. Mance killed a hundred. A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up… how do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teeth … air so cold it hurts to breathe, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?"

Jon, ADWD
A reasonable interpretation of this information is that the Others are present during the day, at least in some capacity, and are only able to assume corporeal form at night.
The Others are also described as "going lightly upon the snow" which would also supports the idea that they are ghosts:

“The white walkers go lightly on the snow,” the ranger said. “You’ll find no prints to mark their passage.”

Samwell, ASOS

7. conclusions

This highly speculative theory attempts to reconcile several seemingly disparate concepts in the series related to magic, namely the actual nature of magical sacrifice ("only death can pay for life") and shadows or shadow magic. More specifically, I suggest that souls are the primary magical currency and can be consumed using fire magic to summon shadows, create glamours, etc. I also speculate that similar processes took place during Mirri Maz Duur's shadow-binding ritual in AGOT and during the repeated resurrections of Berric Dondarrion in ASOS. I further suggest that the Others are ghosts, the spirits or souls of the dead bound to the earth.
EDIT: edited several times to address formatting issues

This is an expansion of a recent post and also incorporates some ideas from this theory (by u/ndependent-Design17). Throughout the series the reader is repeatedly reminded that "only death can pay for life" — that magic, especially powerful magic, comes at great cost.

"Only death can pay for life, my lord. A great gift requires a great sacrifice.”

Davos, ASOS
This phrase or variations of this phrase are repeated by Melisandre, Mirri, etc. at various points throughout the series. That which follows is a highly speculative theory on the nature of the cost of magic in the series. Specifically, that souls are central to the exercise of magic and can be used as magic currency.

1. establishing the concept of the soul

Oh, to be sure, there is much we do not understand. The years pass in their hundreds and their thousands, and what does any man see of life but a few summers, a few winters? We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so they seem… but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes.

Bran, AGOT
What happens after we die? Is there some part of us that lives on or do we simply cease to exist. These are fundamental questions that are essentially unanswerable in life but not in ASOIAF. The reader is given a point-of-view account of death in the prologue of ADWD. After unsuccessfully attempting to steal the body of Thistle, a wildling spearwife, Varamyr dies and briefly becomes a disembodied consciousness:

The white world turned and fell away. For a moment it was as if he were inside the weirwood, gazing out through carved red eyes as a dying man twitched feebly on the ground and a madwoman danced blind and bloody underneath the moon, weeping red tears and ripping at her clothes. Then both were gone and he was rising, melting, his spirit borne on some cold wind. He was in the snow and in the clouds, he was a sparrow, a squirrel, an oak. A horned owl flew silently between his trees, hunting a hare; Varamyr was inside the owl, inside the hare, inside the trees. Deep below the frozen ground, earthworms burrowed blindly in the dark, and he was them as well. I am the wood, and everything that’s in it, he thought, exulting.

Prologue, ADWD
Afterward his "spirit," or soul, is eventually transferred into a body of wolf and he begins his second life. This event, and the process of skin-changing more generally, appears to involve projection or transfer of a soul from one body into another. The process of projecting or transferring souls to either animal vessels or the weirwoods is central to the magic of the Children of the Forest.

“Someone else was in the raven,” he told Lord Brynden, once he had returned to his own skin. “Some girl. I felt her.”
“A woman, of those who sing the song of earth,” his teacher said. “Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you would remain in Summer if your boy’s flesh were to die upon the morrow. A shadow on the soul. She will not harm you.”
"Do all the birds have singers in them?"
“All,” Lord Brynden said.

Bran, ADWD
After death a "shadow on the soul" of the Singers remain in the crows. The soul of Orell is also described as living on in the body of his eagle after his death.
This process appears to take two forms: the soul can be temporarily projected from one body into another (e.g., as happens when Bran skin-changes into Hodor) or can be permanently transferred as is described in the separate examples above.
These transferred souls merge with their recipient, at least to some degree, and may decay over time:

"The wolf is part of you from that day on, and you’re part of him. Both of you will change.”
Other beasts were best left alone, the hunter had declared. Cats were vain and cruel, always ready to turn on you. Elk and deer were prey; wear their skins too long, and even the bravest man became a coward. Bears, boars, badgers, weasels … Haggon did not hold with such. “Some skins you never want to wear, boy. You won’t like what you’d become.” Birds were the worst, to hear him tell it. “Men were not meant to leave the earth. Spend too much time in the clouds and you never want to come back down again.
...
"They say you forget," Haggon had told him, a few weeks before his own death.
"When the man's flesh dies, his spirit lives on inside the beast, but every day his memory fades, and the beast becomes a little less a warg, a little more a wolf, until nothing of the man is left and only the beast remains."

Prologue, ADWD
Bran is provided with similar warnings about the danger of spending too much time in Summer's skin by Jojen.

2. shadow magic requires souls

As above the reader is repeatedly reminded throughout the series that "only death can pay for life." What is specifically being sacrificed, though? Is the magic being fueled by the blood of the sacrificed or by something else?
To answer this let us examine one of the most concrete example of magic in the series, the use or exchange of Stannis Baratheon's "life-fire" in order for Melisandre to manifest the shadows used to kill Renly Baratheon and Courtney Penrose.

Shadows only live when given birth by light, and the king's fires burn so low I dare not draw off any more to make another son. It might well kill him."
Melisandre moved closer.
"With another man, though... a man whose flames still burn hot and high... if you truly wish to serve your king's cause, come to my chamber one night. I could give you pleasure such as you have never known, and with your life-fire I could make..."

Davos, ASOS
According to this explanation, the cost of producing these shadow appears to have been part of his "life-fire," or soul. The shadow is specifically described as having the shape Stannis supporting this. Whether this applies to other types of magic — specifically blood magic or fire magic — is less clear but shadow magic very much appears to require the use of souls.
This type of exchange is also directly referenced in the story of the Night's King provided by Old Nan:

A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well. (Credit to u/DigLost5791 for this reference.)

Bran, ASOS
Stannis is described by Davos afterward as follows:

The look of him was a shock. He seemed ten years older than the man that Davos had left at Storm’s End when he set sail for the Blackwater and the battle that would be their undoing. The king’s close-cropped beard was spiderwebbed with grey hairs, and he had dropped two stone or more of weight. He had never been a fleshy man, but now the bones moved beneath his skin like spears, fighting to cut free. Even his crown seemed too large for his head. His eyes were blue pits lost in deep hollows, and the shape of a skull could be seen beneath his face.

Davos, ASOS
Asha later describes Stannis as appearing life a "man with one foot in the grave."

What little flesh he’d carried on his tall, spare frame at Deepwood Motte had melted away during the march. The shape of his skull could be seen under his skin, and his jaw was clenched so hard Asha feared his teeth might shatter.

Asha, ADWD
These descriptions seem appropriate for a character that has lost part of their "life-fire" or soul.
Throughout the series Stannis is forced to make a series of increasingly difficult decisions. The most significant of these decisions regards the fate of his nephew, Eric Storm. Melisandre repeatedly urges him to "give [her] the boy," presumably to be burned, but is rebuffed by Stannis.

“I know the cost! Last night, gazing into that hearth, I saw things in the flames as well. I saw a king, a crown of fire on his brows, burning… burning, Davos. His own crown consumed his flesh and turned him into ash. Do you think I need Melisandre to tell me what that means? Or you?” The king moved, so his shadow fell upon King’s Landing.
"…what is the life of one bastard boy against a kingdom?”
“Everything,” said Davos, softly.

Davos, ASOS
Is the life of this bastard boy worth the lives of millions that would die if the Others break through the Wall? Making a deal with the devil and literally selling his soul in pursuit of some greater good seems very appropriate for his character, thematically. The description of his flesh turning to ash in this vision is representative also supports this interpretation.

3. blood and fire magic

As opposed to the creation of the shadows described above, we are also provided an example of so-called blood magic in the leech burning ritual.

“Give me the boy, Your Grace. It is the surer way. The better way. Give me the boy and I shall wake the stone dragon.”
...
Melisandre bowed her head stiffly, and said, “As my king commands.” Reaching up her left sleeve with her right hand, she flung a handful of powder into the brazier. The coals roared. As pale flames writhed atop them, the red woman retrieved the silver dish and brought it to the king. Davos watched her lift the lid. Beneath were three large black leeches, fat with blood. The boy’s blood, Davos knew. A king’s blood. Stannis stretched forth a hand, and his fingers closed around one of the leeches.
“Say the name,” Melisandre commanded.

Davos, ASOS
Following this ritual all of the mentioned individuals do die but do so as the part of separate conspiracies (e.g., Robb Stark is betrayed by the Freys and Boltons, Joffrey Baratheon by Littlefinger and the Tyrells, etc.) which were already in place. It is left intentionally ambiguous by the author but it does not appear that the ritual meaningfully contributed to their deaths.
The creation of the shadows is said by Melisandre to have required part of Stannis' "life-fire" or soul. Could it be that the leech burning ritual was unsuccessful because blood alone is not sufficient as a sacrifice?
These forms of magic are frequently described in the community as "shadow magic" and "blood magic." These concepts — "fire and blood" and "flame and shadow" — are highly associated with one another in the text:

“Shadow?" Davos felt his flesh prickling. "A shadow is a thing of darkness."
”You are more ignorant than a child, ser knight. There are no shadows in the dark. Shadows are the servants of light, the children of fire. The brightest flame casts the darkest shadows."

Davos, ACOK
I speculate that these are different expressions of the same concept; that all of these fall under the general umbrella of fire magic and share common principles. "Fire consumes and in the end there's nothing left."

4. dancing shadows

The tent was aglow with the light of braziers within. Through the blood-spattered sandsilk, she glimpsed shadows moving.
Mirri Maz Duur was dancing, and not alone.
...
No, Dany wanted to say, no, not that, you mustn’t, but when she opened her mouth, a long wail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin. What was wrong with them, couldn’t they see?
Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.
“The Lamb Woman knows the secrets of the birthing bed,” Irri said. “She said so, I heard her.”
“Yes,” Doreah agreed, “I heard her too.”
No, she shouted, or perhaps she only thought it, for no whisper of sound escaped her lips. She was being carried. Her eyes opened to gaze up at a flat dead sky, black and bleak and starless. Please, no. The sound of Mirri Maz Duur’s voice grew louder, until it filled the world. The shapes! She screamed. The dancers!
Ser Jorah carried her inside the tent.

Daenerys, AGOT
The introduction of shadow magic in the series is provided above with Mirri Max Duur. Following this ritual Drogo is described as a lifeless husk:

"He seems to like the warmth, Princess," Ser Jorah said. "His eyes follow the sun, though he does not see it. He can walk after a fashion. He will go where you lead him, but no farther. He will eat if you put food in his mouth, drink if you dribble water on his lips."

Daenerys, AGOT
It has previously been speculated that Mirri "reverse skin-changed" Drogo (e.g., "strength of the mount go into the rider, strength of the beast go into the man."). The description provided is less consistent with a horse soul inhabiting a human body than it is with the complete or near-complete absence of a soul. It appears more likely in retrospect that Mirri sacrificed part of Drogo's soul to summon the shadows and likely as a means to kill Daenerys' unborn child.

“The stallion who mounts the world will burn no cities now. His khalasar shall trample no nations into dust."

Daenerys, AGOT

5. reanimation

If "only death can pay for life" and souls are used as a form of magical currency how does one explain the reanimation or resurrection process?
There is a paucity of information on the reanimation of the dead in the series. The resurrection of Beric Dondarrion, for example, appears to be different in fundamental ways from that of the wights or Cold Hands. (We are potentially given a point-of-view account of this process if you accept that Victarion died in ADWD.)

“Thoros, how many times have you brought me back now?”
The red priest bowed his head. “It is R’hllor who brings you back, my lord. The Lord of Light. I am only his instrument.”
“How many times?” Lord Beric insisted.
“Six,” Thoros said reluctantly.
“And each time is harder. You have grown reckless, my lord. Is death so very sweet?”
Arya, ASOS

There is no immediately identifiable magical cost for these "kisses of life," at least at first glance. Thoros later tells us that he breathed part of his "flames" or soul into Beric:

“That first time, his lordship had a hole right through him and blood in his mouth, I knew there was no hope. So when his poor torn chest stopped moving, I gave him the good god's own kiss to send him on his way. I filled my mouth with fire and breathed the flames inside him, down his throat to lungs and heart and soul. The last kiss it is called, and many a time I saw the old priests bestow it on the Lord's servants as they died." (Credit to u/watchersontheweb for providing this quote in the initial thread.)

Arya, ASOS
Thoros is also described as appearing very different after performing this ritual several times in a way that is not entirely dissimilar to the changes in Stannis’ appearance referenced above.

“Here’s the wizard, skinny squirrel. You’ll get your answers now.”
He pointed toward the fire, where Tom Sevenstrings stood talking to a tall thin man with oddments of old armor buckled on over his ratty pink robes. That can’t be Thoros of Myr. Arya remembered the red priest as fat, with a smooth face and a shiny bald head. This man had a droopy face and a full head of shaggy grey hair.
...
“Thoros of Myr. You used to shave your head.”
“To betoken a humble heart, but in truth my heart was vain. Besides, I lost my razor in the woods.” The priest slapped his belly. “I am less than I was, but more. A year in the wild will melt the flesh off a man. Would that I could find a tailor to take in my skin. I might look young again, and pretty maids would shower me with kisses.”

Arya, ASOS
Thoros attributes these changes to his renewed devotion to the Red God and spending "a year in the wild" as above although he is not exactly forthcoming with Arya about the resurrection process. It is also likely that he does not entirely understand what specifically is being exchanged here.
Later he describes Beric giving the "kiss of life" to the corpse of Catelyn Stark:

“The Freys slashed her throat from ear to ear. When we found her by the river she was three days dead. Harwin begged me to give her the kiss of life, but it had been too long. I would not do it, so Lord Beric put his lips to hers instead, and the flame of life passed from him to her. And… she rose. May the Lord of Light protect us. She rose.”

Brienne, AFFC
Notably, this process produces a reanimated Catelyn (a.k.a. Lady Stoneheart). The soul of Beric, or at least whatever is left of his soul at this point in the series, is consumed in order to resurrect Catelyn and not transferred.

6. cold shadows (wild speculation)

The terms "white shadows," "pale shadows," and "cold shadows" are repeated used to describe the Others. The Others are also highly associated with ghosts — the spirits or souls of the dead bound to the earth. (The forrest in which they are introduced is literally called the Haunted Forrest.)

The Others made no sound.
Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness. Then it was gone. Branches stirred gently in the wind, scratching at one another with wooden fingers. Will opened his mouth to call down a warning, and the words seemed to freeze in his throat. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps it had only been a bird, a reflection on the snow, some trick of the moonlight. What had he seen, after all?
“Will, where are you?” Ser Waymar called up. “Can you see anything?” He was turning in a slow circle, suddenly wary, his sword in hand. He must have felt them, as Will felt them. There was nothing to see. “Answer me! Why is it so cold?” It was cold.
Shivering, Will clung more tightly to his perch. His face pressed hard against the trunk of the sentinel. He could feel the sweet, sticky sap on his cheek. A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywhere dappled with the deep grey-green of the trees. The patterns ran like moonlight on water with every step it took. Will heard the breath go out of Ser Waymar Royce in a long hiss. ...
The Other slid forward on silent feet. In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen. No human metal had gone into the forging of that blade. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor.

Prologue, AGOT
This is again highly speculative but it seems reasonable to consider that these cold shadows are not "ice demons" or "ice zombies" but are in fact ghosts, the spirits or souls of men that are bound to the earth through magic by the Children of the Forest. (The textual evidence of the creation of the Others by the Children is linked in a separate post here.) "Fire consumes, but cold preserves."
This would explain several of the unusual characteristics of the Others described by Tormund:

“Tormund,” Jon said, as they watched four old women pull a cartful of children toward the gate, “tell me of our foe. I would know all there is to know of the Others.”
The wildling rubbed his mouth. “Not here,” he mumbled, “not this side o’ your Wall.” The old man glanced uneasily toward the trees in their white mantles. “They’re never far, you know. They won’t come out by day, not when that old sun’s shining, but don’t think that means they went away. Shadows never go away. Might be you don’t see them, but they’re always clinging to your heels.”
...
Tormund turned back.
"You know nothing. You killed a dead man, aye, I heard. Mance killed a hundred. A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up… how do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teeth … air so cold it hurts to breathe, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?"

Jon, ADWD
A reasonable interpretation of this information is that the Others are present during the day, at least in some capacity, and are only able to assume corporeal form at night.
The Others are also described as "going lightly upon the snow" which would also supports the idea that they are ghosts:

“The white walkers go lightly on the snow,” the ranger said. “You’ll find no prints to mark their passage.”

Samwell, ASOS

7. conclusions

This highly speculative theory attempts to reconcile several seemingly disparate concepts in the series related to magic, namely the actual nature of magical sacrifice ("only death can pay for life") and shadows or shadow magic. More specifically, I suggest that souls are the primary magical currency and can be consumed using fire magic to summon shadows, create glamours, etc. I also speculate that similar processes took place during Mirri Maz Duur's shadow-binding ritual in AGOT and during the repeated resurrections of Berric Dondarrion in ASOS. I further suggest that the Others are ghosts, the spirits or souls of the dead bound to the earth.
EDIT: edited several times to address formatting issues

I have no idea if the admins will approve this but I’d love an opinion on something. The curse of the drink has been passed down in my family for generations. To quote Dickens, “it was the best of times and the worst of times”. I hold no anger as I’ve watched generational trauma as a direct result of the horrors they endured. We are generations of survivors.
To my point. I’ve been building a book about my people. I have this wonderful tree and I’ve just now been able to start adding on all the extras that I held back on so I can keep a straight forward focus on direct lines. I have at least 80 newspaper clippings of all kinds of various subjects. At least half are stories of drunken escapades and the occasional drunk tank. Do I use them? I have no shame and most of the clippings are awfully funny and positively show that we are the same people (with many more conveniences) throughout the generations.
My grandmothers older nieces and nephews still like to be secretive for no reason other to save face. I don’t know if they’ll be bothered. Should I care if they are? I do not want to care. I do not think I should as I’m a grown adult and these people belong to me also.
I’m also not going to share the real secrets that have caused pain for too many living people. I don’t have the right to tell those stories. I’ve spent my life making sure the history I put on paper is filled with truth backed up with contemporary sources.
I can’t imagine not putting these clippings of them there. Every bit is a glimpse into their lives. I’m so lucky to have all of this and I’ve learned so much of where, who, what, and why. I want them there.
I am going to be respectful enough to ask my mother and her siblings what they think and I’ll go from them there.
This little book will be sent off to all living heads of our direct lines and they can take it from there. Once they all have it I will publish it.
I’m so long winded.I try not to be but I never succeed. So, what say you? I truly want your opinions and I will not be negative in your response. I’ll read them all. I need outsider thoughts before I go to them. I might not be the only person here who has these questions or stories.

There are many reasons to grow fond of Uncke iroh as a person:
First his funny and laid back persona always brought lightness to the story.
Not to forget man walked out leaving every thing behind when he was on Top of his game (dragon of the west for a reson)
Got the understand life as whole as he went from being a ruthless general to loosing son and then to guide his nephew as humble old tea guy who loves jasime tea
Man did pullups in prison and got shredded as well at that older age🫡
Lastly his quotes are real masterpiece , one which I like the most and lives rent free in my head is
In the darkest of the times, hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength
I think this qoute will stay with me forever

I've always been bound to death.
On my eighth birthday, a shadow strode into my house and shot me and my family dead. I remember it vividly, every detail, every angle, etched and stained and carved into my memory.
I sat very still with my knees to my chest, my gaze glued to my siblings.
Lily and PJ looked like they were sleeping, and I could almost believe it.
I didn't look at the shadow.
From the comfort of my knees, I waited for my brother to lift his head.
But his body was so limp, so still, every part of him faltering. My sister’s head was nestled in his shoulder, thick beads of red running down her face.
They're just sleeping.
I could tell myself they were— as long as I didn't look at the splatter of scarlet staining the back of the couch and pooling at their feet.
BANG.
Mom’s body dropped onto the ground.
I lunged forwards, slamming my hands over my ears.
BANG.
PJ’s head slumped forwards, a teasing smile still frozen on his lips.
BANG.
Lily gently tipped into PJ, like she was going to sleep.
Before she closed her eyes, Mom told me to run.
I can't remember how long I stayed under the shattered remnants of Mom’s favorite table. The shadow was waiting for me to move, to make a noise.
I watched booted feet crunch through glass, getting closer and closer, and slowly, fight or flight began to take over.
Making it halfway across the living room, my palms slick with my mother’s blood, I thought I was going to live.
Cruel fingers wound their way through my hair and shoved me to my knees. I remember the phantom legs of a spider creeping down the back of my neck when the shadow with no face dragged the barrel of his gun down my spine.
“Turn around.”
The shadow had a voice.
When I didn't move, the protruding metal stabbed into my neck.
“Turn around, kid!”
I did, very slowly.
Behind him, my siblings still weren't moving.
They were asleep.
Lily was still smiling, strawberry blonde ringlets stained red.
I couldn't see PJ’S face anymore.
BANG.
I didn't feel the gunshot.
I didn't feel anything.
Looking down, I glimpsed slowly spreading red blossoming like a flower.
It felt like being cut from strings.
I hit the ground, just like my mother, my body felt heavy and wrong.
Paralysed.
I remember being unable to scream, unable to cry, the salty taste of metal filling my mouth. It was like being winded. Rolling onto my side, all I could see was flickering candlelight.
The air was thick, so hard to breathe.
I rolled onto my back trying to suck in air.
The shadow took a step back, opened the front door, and bled into the night.
I don't remember the pain, and I don't remember dying. I couldn't breathe, couldn't conjure words in my mouth.
I felt warm and sticky, lying in my own blood.
I think I tried to move.
But I was so tired.
I’m not sure what death feels like, because it's like going to sleep.
I remember my last shuddering breaths, a lulling darkness beginning to swallow me up. I don't know why I wasn't afraid.
Oblivion almost felt like I was sinking into lukewarm depths on a Summer’s day.
Oblivion wasn't pain, and there was a peaceful inevitability to it.
It was endless nothing, a nothing I found myself gravitating towards. But before I could envelope myself in that darkness, it was spitting me back out.
The next thing I knew, I was in a white room, a slow beeping sound tearing me from slumber. I had a vague memory of slow spreading roses blossoming across my shirt, like summer flowers blooming.
Everything was white.
The walls, the ceiling, and my clothes.
Sensation hit me in slow waves.
Exhaustion.
I felt it tightening its grip around my brain, dragging me back onto a mountain of pillows when I tried to jump up. My Aunt May was sitting next to me on a plastic chair, her warm fingers entangled in mine. Aunt May and Mom were practically twins, with the same thick red hair and pale skin.
Mom wore her hair in a casual ponytail, while May preferred a strict bun.
I had to bite back the urge to yank my hand away.
Aunt May was asleep, used tissues filling her lap.
There was a nurse pottering around, checking my vitals and prodding my arms. My eyes felt heavy. I had to blink several times to keep myself awake.
“Charlie?”
The nurse’s voice was like wind-chimes.
I pretended not to notice her forced lipstick smile, the way she stood with her arms folded, staring at me like I was one of my cousin’s experiments. “You were in an accident, sweetie,” the nurse spoke up. I could see her trembling hands. “Just, um, try and rest, okay?”
I wanted to ask where my family was, but I already knew the answer.
I think she knew that too.
“You died, Charlie.” The nurse’s voice was eerily cold. “You were dead for thirteen minutes.”
She took slow steps towards me, her eyes growing frenzied, like she couldn't understand me, like I was a puzzle she could not solve– and it was driving her crazy. I could see it in her twitching hands, her wobbling lips that were trying and failing to appear stoic.
“In fact, I just pulled you out of the morgue, honey. I opened up your body bag that I had just zipped up, and told your aunt that you were a miracle I just… can’t understand.” The nurse sounded like she was trying to choke down a laugh, or maybe a sob.
“Charlotte, you were pronounced dead at 3:02am from a gunshot wound to the chest.” Taking a slow, sobering breath, the nurse tried to smile. “The bullet went through the right ventricle of your heart and severely damaged your left lung, rendering you unable to breathe. Your heart stopped, and after four attempts to resuscitate, we called it.”
Something slimy wound its way up my throat when she began to pace the room. “I… did all the paperwork. It took me two minutes. Your death certificate was signed, and your body was taken to the morgue to be prepped for transportation. Then I had my lunch. Tuna salad with a protein milkshake. I’m not a fan of the chocolate flavor.”
She shook her head. “Anyway, when I came back to you, you were awake inside your body bag.” Her voice was starting to break. “You were…um, alive, and asked me for apple soda.”
The nurse moved closer, and yet kept her distance.
I could feel myself moving back, panic writhing through me.
“So.” The nurse spoke calmly. “How the fuck are you still alive, Charlie?”
I think I passed out after that.
When I woke up again, my head a lot less heavier, the nurse was gone.
Slowly, my foggy brain began to find itself and connect dots.
My mouth was dry, full of cotton.
There was a sudden tightness, a sharp and cruel sting in my wrists.
Something sharp was protruding into my flesh, and no matter how many times I violently wrenched my arm, it was stuck. It didn't feel right to be able to breathe so easily.
I knew the second I woke that my Mom was dead.
Lily and PJ were dead, and it was like losing them all over again.
As clarity came over me, I found my voice, a strangled cry escaping my lips.
“Get it out.” I whispered in a shrill cry.
Tugging at the IV in my wrist, I tried to yank the needle from my skin.
“Get it out!” I shrieked, my gaze glued to the tiny spots of blood staining the insertion point.
I could see it again.
So much blood.
Mom was curled up on the floor, lying in slow spreading red that wouldn't stop, seeping across her beaded rug.
She was all over me, slick on my skin and caked in my fingernails.
I couldn't wash her off of me.
“You're okay, Charlotte.”
Aunt May’s voice came from my right, stabling me to reality.
The world started to move again, started to make sense again, when she cupped my cheeks and told me to breathe. When I opened my mouth to ask where my family were, she lightly shook her head and I swallowed my words. Aunt May handed me a glass of water, and I drained it in one gulp.
She told me I was a miracle.
Aunt May didn't say much, and when she did, she broke into sobs.
Her eyes were raw from crying, clinging onto me, her shuddery voice reassuring me that I was going to be okay.
She told me I would be living with her from now on, before wrapping me into a hug and leaving to get coffee.
Once my aunt was gone, another nurse came to prod my IV.
I tried to sleep, but the uncomfortable tightness of the needle sticking into my skin and the sterile white lights in my eyes made it impossible. I waited for grief to catch up with me, drowning me in a hollow oblivion I wouldn't be able to claw myself out of. But I didn't feel sad. I didn't feel angry.
I wanted to know why my family were dead.
I wanted to know why I was breathing, and their skin was ice cold.
Rotting.
The sudden image of maggots crawling up my brother’s nose sent me lurching into a sitting position, my stomach heaving. Reaching for my glass of water, it was empty. The sensation of throwing up felt familiar, almost comforting.
Mom was always with me when I was sick, holding my hair back and lulling my hysteria with reassuring murmurs.
I was frowning at the trash can by the door, my cotton candy brain trying to figure out if I would be able to make it in time, when a small voice drifted from the doorway, startling me.
“I don't want you to come live with us.”
My cousin was peeking through the door, hiding behind a shock of dark brown curls. Jude was the only brunette in our family. The rest of us were redheads.
I wasn't sure why he was dressed up like a ghost, draped in a white cloak that was way too big for him. Jude was a weird kid. His mother, and my auntie, had inherited the family house, so in his mind, that made him superior.
Jude made it clear he didn't like his cousins, refusing to let us play with him and banning us from family gatherings.
When the adults were drinking cocktails and losing their awareness, Jude ordered us around. The times we did play with him, our cousin showed us his spider collection, or the raccoon brain he kept in a jar. PJ was convinced our younger cousin was a serial killer. Several months earlier, he'd happily showed us the roadkill he'd been growing bacteria on under his bed.
Jude’s ‘experiments’ were worrying.
He stuffed mushrooms down my brother’s ears while he was sleeping, to, and I quote, “Recreate The Last Of Us.”
When Lily had a nosebleed during Thanksgiving dinner, Jude collected all her bloody tissues and refused to tell us where he'd put them, and what he had done with them. Fast-forward two months, and I found them under a nest of spiders. Jude was trying to adapt the spiders to be able to feed on human blood. I was surprised my cousin hadn't immediately demanded to see my siblings’ dead bodies for autopsy.
Jude stepped into the room, shuffling his feet.
“I'm sorry about Lily, PJ, and Aunt Ivy.” He mumbled, glaring at the floor tiles.
My cousin made no move to offer real sympathy, instead speaking to the floor.
“But I don't want you to come live with us.” Jude lifted his head, looking me dead in the eye. “I don't like you, Charlie. I want you to stay away.”
Before I could reply, he stepped back like I was diseased.
“You should be dead.” Jude grumbled.
He scowled at me, getting my age purposely wrong as usual before running off.
“Happy 68th birthday.”
I was six months older than him.
In Jude’s eyes, I was ready for retirement.
Still, though, my cousin was right.
I was stone cold dead, and then I was somehow alive.
Which was wrong.
Growing up, I realized Death was not so subtly attempting to fix his mistake.
It started small. I'd choke on things I wasn't supposed to choke on.
Chips.
Candy.
Ice cream.
Aunt May had to perform the heimlich manoeuvre when I choked on a piece of chicken. I thought I was just really unlucky, but then I locked myself in a freezer that didn't have a lock, and almost drowned in the local swimming pool, catching my foot in stray netting.
At the summer fair, Jude convinced me to try apple bobbing, only for my head to conveniently get stuck underwater.
It started to make sense.
I was supposed to die with my family that night, and death was out to get me.
Death started to get clever, changing his tactic. Instead of using everyday things to try to kill me, he sent reinforcements.
I turned twelve years old, and my aunt threw me a huge party, inviting all my classmates. Aunt May was rich, rich.
Mom never explained it, but our grandparents left everything to May.
The house was like a palace, a labyrinth of floors I was yet to explore, and two swimming pools.
I was in the kitchen cutting myself a slice of cake, when, out of nowhere, a dead boy came rushing at me with one of my aunt’s favorite kitchen knives.
A dead boy who I immediately recognised.
Wren Oliver.
Several years prior, he'd gone missing from his parents' yard. The town launched a full investigation, only to find his body in a ditch a week later.
So, Death had sent a footsoldier.
Hiding under a hooded sweatshirt, Wren appeared older, like he had grown up with me. But there was a startling vacancy in his expression that drew the breath from my lungs, freezing me in place. Wren’s death was announced as an accident, though his wounds suggested the opposite, dried blood smearing his right temple and a cavernous hole in his chest, his clothes painted, stained, in bright red, glued in sticky mounds clinging to him.
The boy’s eyes were wild, feral, like an animal.
His hair was longer, a mess of reddish curls matted to his forehead.
Lip split into a demented giggle.
I remember taking a slow step back, my gaze glued to the knife.
Wren’s fingers were wrapped around the handle like he knew exactly how to use it, how to plunge it into my heart and kill me for good. He moved like a predator, zero self awareness or recognition, only driven to kill me.
The dead boy prided himself in slow, intimidating steps, shoving me against the wall and dragging the blade of the knife down the curve of my throat.
His eyes confused me, writhing with hatred that was artificial, programmed into him as Death’s official soldier.
He didn't speak, only smiled, revelling in my fear. I could tell it thrilled him, my trembling hands, my sharp, heavy breaths I couldn't control. Squeezing my eyes shut, I waited to finally die.
I waited for the pain, and to lose my breath once again.
But death was playing with me.
When I opened my eyes, the dead boy was gone, and I was on my knees, screaming.
“Wren Oliver is trying to kill me!" I managed to hiss.
My aunt knelt in front of me, her expression crumpling.
*Sweetie,” She spoke softly, squeezing my hands. Aunt May was trying to appear calm for my sake, but I could tell she was scared, her frantic eyes searching mine. “Wren Oliver is dead.”
The kids surrounding me started to giggle, whispering among themselves.
In the corner of my eye, my cousin was leaning against the door, mid eye roll.
When my aunt was ushering kids back to the pool, Jude came to crouch in front of me. Ever since I started living with him, he'd made sure to keep his distance.
This time, though, Jude leaned uncomfortably close, a sparkle in his eyes I had never seen before. Inclining his head, he rocked back and forth on his heels, prodding me in the forehead.
“If you see the dead boy again, can you tell me?” His lips curved into a smile.
“I did see him.” I gritted out. “I’m not lying.”
Jude shrugged. “I never said you didn't,” he lowered his voice into a whisper, “I wanna know when you see him again.”
“Why?”
His lips curved into a smirk.
“So, I can catch him.”
My cousin got closer, his breath tickling my cheek.
“I seeeeeeee dead people.”
After that incident, death left me alone for a while.
I was fifteen, walking through the forest with a friend, catching fireflies in bell jars. Aunt May was lucky to live so close to the forest, the entrance just outside her back door. When we were littles, PJ would drag Lily and I down the trail to escape Jude’s weird experiments.
I decided to invite Jem Littlewood on a summer walk.
Jem was cute, but in a dorky way. He was chronically clumsy, and dressed like he'd been spat out of a John Hughes movie. We hiked all the way to the end of the river and had a picnic, watching the sun set over the horizon. I was having conflicting feelings for this guy.
Jem was obsessed with fireflies.
Though he seemed more interested in photographing them than me.
The guy couldn't seem to sit still, jumping to his feet to marvel at tiny specks of light dancing in the air.
“I'm just going to take photos!” Jem beamed, holding up his camera.
I had to bite back the urge to say, “Don't you have enough photos?”
I nodded, and he turned and sprinted back down the trail.
Before his footsteps ground to a sudden halt.
At first, I thought he was snapping polaroids.
When I got closer, though, blinking in the eerie dark, I caught something.
Bending down, I picked up a bell jar still spilling fireflies.
Further down the trail, Jem was lying crumpled in the dirt, his camera smashed to pieces next to him, blood running in thick rivulets down his temple. There he was. Leaning against a tree, his arms folded, was the ghost boy. Wren Oliver was growing up with me. Now, a teenager, and yet his face was carved into something else entirely, more of a monster, slight points to his ears and too-sharp teeth, eyes ignited.
Wren didn't look like a ghost boy anymore.
Death had dressed him in shackles of ivy, a crown of glass and bone forced onto his head, entangled in his curls. Death was torturing him.
Wren’s body was its canvas, and every time I got away, he was punished, painting his failures across scarred skin.
I should have been running for my life, but I was mesmerised by each symbol cruelly carved into his neck.
The boy did a slow head incline, like he couldn't believe I was standing in front of him.
His slow spreading smile caught me off guard.
I remembered how to run, stumbling over my feet.
But I couldn't move.
The burning hatred that death had filled him with, was stronger, hollowing him out completely. I managed two shaky steps, before I felt him, an unearthly force winding its way around my spine. This time, he didn't hesitate.
I watched his mouth move, a single curve of his upper lip that wrenched my body from my control, slamming me against a tree. There was something around my throat, choking the breath from my lungs, a thick fog spreading over my eyes.
Following his mouth curving into silent letters, I could feel my feet slowly leaving the ground, my legs dangling.
I was floating.
Hovering off of the ground, suspended by his words.
Through half lidded eyes, I caught the glint of a blade between his fist, but I couldn't move, couldn't scream.
He was drowning me, bleeding into my blood, spider webbing and expanding in my brain without moving a muscle.
Instead, the ghost boy stood silently, running his thumb down the teeth of his knife while he ripped my lungs apart.
It was like suffocating, sinking into that peaceful oblivion I met at eight years old.
This time, though, the darkness was starving.
“Charlie?”
My eyes found daylight, a scream clawing out of my mouth.
“Charlie, it's past curfew!”
Wren flinched, his stoic expression crumpling.
The dead boy’s lips moved again, this time in a curse.
Fuck.
“Charlotte!”
Staggering back, Wren’s eyes widened and the suffocating hold on me severed.
His head snapped in the direction my aunt was coming from.
“Charlie, answer me right now.”
He hesitated, his bare feet pivoting in the dirt, like he was considering finishing me off. Wren studied me with lazy eyes, sucking on his bottom lip. When my aunt's footsteps got louder, branches snapping under her shoes, something contorted in the boy’s face.
Fear.
I guessed the boy wasn't expecting other humans to intrude.
Wren fell over himself, shuffling on his hands and knees, before diving to his feet. When he turned and ran, I was released, slipping to the ground, trying and failing to draw in breath. I barely felt the impact, only a dull thudding pain. I could hear the ghost boy’s footsteps, his uneven, shuddery breaths as he catapulted into a run.
Under a late setting sun, I watched his dancing shadow disappear into the trees.
Mission unsuccessful, I guessed.
When I was fully conscious, Aunt May was checking over Jem, helping him sit up.
“Where did he go?” I managed to get out, scanning the darkness for Wren.
“He's okay, just concussed.” May whispered, dialling 911.
My aunt applied a dressing to Jem’s wound, ignoring the boy’s hisses.
“Keep still.” she murmured, smoothing his bandaid. “What happened, Charlotte?”
“She pushed me over.” Jem groaned, shuffling away from me. When my aunt told him to stay calm, he straightened up, leaning against the tree. “The psycho bitch tried to fucking kill me!”
When my aunt's gaze flicked to me, I shook my head.
“It was Wren Oliver.” I gritted, teetering on hysteria. I could tell she didn't believe me, but I couldn't stop myself.
I prodded at my throat, clawing for the indentations where his phantom fingers snaked around my neck, squeezing the breath from my lungs.
But there was nothing.
I could feel my mind starting to unravel. I nodded to my disgruntled classmate trying to dodge my aunt’s prodding.
“Ow, ow, ow! That stings!
“He knocked Jem out.” I managed. “Then he tried to kill me.”
Jem surprised me with a scoff. “You're seriously blaming your psychotic break on a dead kid?”
Aunt May pursed her lips, motioning for Jem to be quiet. Judging from her face, however, she agreed with the boy.
May forced a smile, though it didn't quite reach her eyes. “Okay. Can you, uh, describe the boy to me, Charlotte?”
“He was wearing a crown,” I said, “And he looked my age.”
Aunt May cocked her head, and I saw real worry, like she was trying not to freak out. Jem made a snorting noise.
“I'm sorry, he was wearing a crown?”
“Yes!” I insisted, getting progressively more frustrated.
I tried to jump up, only for my aunt to gently lower me back down. “I know it sounds crazy, but death has sent Wren Oliver to kill me, just like my family. He tried to kill me when I was twelve, too!”
Jem let out a bitter laugh. “Your niece is a fucking wackadoodle.”
Aunt May’s eyes darkened. She grabbed my shoulders, her nails stabbing into my skin. “Charlie, I want you to listen to me, okay?” When my eyes found the rapidly darkening sky, my aunt forced me to look at her.
“Charlotte!”
She was as scared as me, her voice shuddering.
“Wren Oliver is dead.” My aunt said firmly, shaking me. Even then, though, I wasn't even looking at her. I was trying to find his ignited eyes lighting up the dark. “Wren died at eight years old in a terrible accident, and you can't keep using him as an excuse for your mental trauma.” There was something twitching in her expression I was trying to make sense of. When I risked a look at Jem, the boy was staring at me dazedly– like I really was crazy.
Aunt May pressed her face into my shoulder, and I could feel her tears soaking into my shirt. She was trying to hold it together, trying to understand.
“Charlie, I know you lost your family,” she whispered. “But you and Wren Oliver are not the same. You survived, and he didn't.” Her voice splintered.
“You need to come to terms with that, okay?”
When I didn't respond, she pinched my chin, forcing me to look at her.
“Charlotte.”
Aunt May’s voice turned cold. “I ignored this when you were a kid, but if you continue to use this poor boy as a coping mechanism, I will have no choice but to send you to a specialist.”
When Jem was taken away by paramedics, Aunt May held my hand, squeezing my fingers for dear life.
I caught her gaze scanning the tree's around us, delving into twisting oblivion. Every little noise sent her twisting around. She was looking for something.
“I'm going to get you help.” Aunt May said in a low murmur when we were back at the house. Jude was sitting on the kitchen counter, legs swinging. I could feel his penetrating gaze burning into the back of my head.
Aunt May set a cup of cocoa on the table.
“No more fairytales.”
By the time I was eighteen, I had bitten three therapists.
They refused to believe that death was coming to reclaim my soul, and was using a dead boy to do his dirty work.
For my 16th birthday, I braced myself to come face to face with Wren Oliver’s ghost.
I wasn't even in town, staying at a friend's house.
But dead boys, and especially dead boys moulded into Death’s personal soldiers, could materialise anywhere.
I locked every door in the house, and taped up my friend’s window.
Nothing happened.
On my seventeenth birthday, I was sick in bed with gastritis.
Still no ghost boy.
Death seemed to have finally left me alone.
On my eighteenth birthday, I was stuffing books in my locker when my cousin popped up out of nowhere, scowling as usual. After an unexpected growth spurt and losing a tonne of baby fat, my cousin had scaled the high school hierarchy, swapping his weird experiments for a varsity jacket and experimenting with his sexuality.
The two of us had come to an unspoken truce.
I kept quiet about his spider collection to his popular friends, and he tolerated my existence until I left for college.
“Your surprise party is cancelled.”
Jude leaned against my locker, running a hand through thick dark hair tucked under a baseball cap. Jude never admitted it, but he was definitely embarrassed of being the odd one out.
My siblings may be dead, but they were still redheads.
I pulled off his cap with a smile, throwing it in his face. “Sure it is.”
My cousin’s eyes widened. He lost his slick bravado, grabbing for his cap.
“Hey!”
According to my cousin, my party was unexpectedly cancelled every year.
I wasn't sure if it was his weird superiority complex, or just plain jealousy, but it was getting exhausting.
Jude followed me down the hallway, matching my stride.
“Can you just not come home tonight?”
I quickened my pace. “It's only a party. I'm having some friends over, and no, we won't go anywhere near your room.”
“No, I mean.” Jude stepped in front of me, and for the first time in a while, he wasn't trying to hide disdain for me.
His dark eyes pinned me in place for a moment, the world around us coming to a halt. Sound bled away, and all I heard were his slow breaths. There was something there, an unexplainable twitch in his eyes and lips, that twisted my gut.
Jude stepped closer, his lip curling. He shoved me back, losing his facade.
“Stay the fuck away from the house tonight.” He said, and his voice, his tone, was enough to send shivers creeping down my spine. Jude had always hid behind a ten foot wall in his mind. It was jarring to see something in him finally start to splinter. Fuck. I thought.
This kid had serious Mommy issues.
I blinked, and the world resumed, kids pushing past us.
Jude seemed to catch himself, slipping back under his mask.
“I'm having friends over,” he rolled his eyes, “Your presence will ruin the vibe.”
“It's my birthday?”
He groaned, tipping his head back. “Yes, I know. But–”
“I think you can deal with the attention off of you for one night, Jude.”
“Will Wren Oliver be there too?” Jem Littlewood hollered.
Jude didn't respond for a moment, his lip curling.
“Shut the fuck up.” He spat at Jem, who immediately backed down. With an audience this time, Jude forced an award winning smile. “Fine.” His lips split into a grin I knew he hated. My cousin clamped his hand on my shoulder, hard enough to hurt. I could feel his fingers pinching the material of my jacket. “Have it your way, dude.”
Jude backed away with a two fingered salute.
“Happy 78th birthday!”
In a sense, I wish I listened to my cousin.
My party was a success, sort of.
Four of us, a crate of beers, and no sign of my cousin.
I was mildly tipsy, sitting on the edge of the pool, dangling my legs in the water when my friend demanded more beers.
I was also hungry for cake, so I stumbled inside in search of the goods.
The house was dark, lit up in dazzling blue from the pool's lights reflecting through the windows. Aunt May was in her office on the ground floor, and Jude was getting high in his room. In my drunken state, I found myself marvelling my aunt's house, and how much of it was left unexplored.
For example, in the foyer, past the spiral staircase she’d had custom made, was an elevator I had never questioned.
There was a girl my age standing on the staircase.
She was frozen, mid run, dressed in ragged jeans and t-shirt.
Everything about her stuck out to me, bringing me to a sobering halt.
The girl reminded me of my sister– or at least, if my sister had ever grown up.
I wasn't sure if I was drunk or hallucinating.
Her flower crown was pretty…
Lily had grown wings.
I was slowly moving towards her, a sudden bang sounding from the kitchen.
The bang of something shattering on the floor.
Twisting around, I found myself gravitating towards warm golden light.
The first thing I saw was the refrigerator door hanging open, and someone, no, something, rooting around inside it.
Glued to the spot, I dazedly watched them grab milk, guzzling it down, and then soda, cracking open each can and sucking them dry, before carving their fingers into my birthday cake.
But I wasn't looking at the spillage of food seeping across the floor. Instead, my gaze found a crown of antlers, both human and animal bone entangled with dead flowers and human remains glued to a head of familiar matted brown curls. There was something sticking from battered and bruised flesh, twin gaping slits sliced through a torn shirt resembling glass wings that were not yet formed, reminding me of a butterfly.
Wings.
But not the wings I dreamed of as a kid. These things were unnatural mounds that both did and didn't make sense on a human boy. I could see the trauma of them slicing through his flesh, monstrous, looming things protruding from what was left of a human spine.
Human, and yet I couldn't call his beautifully grotesque face human.
Wren Oliver had grown up with me, now an adult.
Eighteen years old.
His clothes confused me, a single white shirt and shorts.
Wren’s feet were bare, battered and bruised, blood smearing my aunt's tiles.
Angel.
Death had turned his footsoldier, and my future killer, into an angel.
But there was nothing angelic about the dead boy, his body and mind sculpted and moulded into Death’s own.
The boy no longer resembled a human, feral eyes and a manic smile, choking down pieces of cake. His face had been contorted into a monster, gnashing teeth and sharp points in his ears, a sickly tinge to malnourished skin.
And that's when it hit me, watching him stuff himself with food.
Something slimy inched its way up my throat.
The boy didn't move. I don't even think he'd noticed me, gorging himself on anything he could get his hands on.
Chicken, raw bacon, leftover salad.
When he moved onto cupcakes, licking frosting from his fingers, I glimpsed markings on his arms, a language I didn't understand, carved into him.
His wrists were shackled, bound, in entangled iron and vine, iron that was ingrained into his skin, vines and flowers and ivy entangling his bones, that were part of him, polluting his blood. Slowly, my eyes found stab wounds splitting open his torso.
Raw flesh, where his skin had been torched, melting, and then merging, ripped apart and put back together over and over again.
I found his heart, the gaping cavern in his chest where it should be.
And it was.
Marked, carved, and branded with a symbol resembling an X.
Wren Oliver was not dead.
But, just like me, he should have been.
I remember saying his name, my voice slurred slightly.
I didn't drink that much, but I could barely coerce words, my head spinning.
Wren’s neck snapped towards me, his eyes narrowing with resentment I couldn't understand, hatred that seemed to puppeteer him. Slowly tilting his head, the boy’s lips split into a grin, eyes filled, polluted, with mania.
I could see where his lips had been stitched shut, and then ripped open.
“Hi.”
He held up his hand in an awkward wave.
When one of my friends stumbled into the kitchen, Wren reacted on impulse.
He picked up a knife from the counter, throwing it like a dart, straight through the guy’s throat.
Something shattered inside my mind.
Ignoring my friend bleeding out, Wren stumbled over himself, abandoning his feast. He took a single step towards me, backing me against the wall, coming so close, close enough for me to feel his very real breath grazing my cheeks. Just like when he was a kid, he traced the teeth of his blade down my throat. I wasn't expecting him to burst out laughing, trembling with hysteria.
His eyes were wild, feral and wrong, almost euphoric.
With what all I could only recognise as relief.
BANG.
I was barely aware of the gunshot.
The bullet went straight through his head, the winged boy hitting the ground.
Dead.
I saw the blood stemming around him in a halo before the bleeding pool faltered, seeping back inside his head.
Like rewinding a VCR.
Wren was dead, and then he was alive.
Wren’s body contorted, his chest inflating.
His gasp for air was painful, strangled, eyes opening wide.
Terrified.
“You fucking idiot.”
Jude’s voice sent me twisting around.
My cousin stood in the exact same robes he wore as a child.
The world tipped off kilter, and I was on my knees, then my stomach.
I sunk to the floor, my thoughts swimming.
Jude’s murmur followed me, creeping into the dark.
“I told you not to come home.”
I can't remember how long I was unconscious for.
When I woke, I was dressed in an evening gown, a dress that used to be my mother’s.
My vision cleared, and I found myself sitting in an unfamiliar room resembling an abandoned swimming hall.
The pool itself was empty, the bottom stained revealing scarlet.
There were symbols carved into each tile.
Like a game.
“Sit up straight, Charlotte.”
I was sitting at a banquet.
Jude was in front of me, sipping on wine.
He caught my eye for half a second before averting his gaze.
At the far end of the table sat my aunt May.
Kissing the rim of her glass, her smile was twisted.
“I've been waiting so long to give you your birthday presents, Charlotte. Your memories should be returning soon.”
“Mom.” Jude muttered, hiding behind his glass. “Calm down. You're embarrassing yourself.”
Ignoring my cousin, May tapped her glass with a fork, and in walked my birthday presents.
No, dragged.
By their hair.
Wren Oliver, the dead boy, was in fact my aunt's prisoner.
Behind him, was the girl who looked so much like Lily.
I think that's why my aunt chose her.
Aunt May cleared her throat.
“For a long time, our family has lived among creatures who live in the forest you played inside. In exchange for keeping this town safe, they only ask for small favors. Wayward children who disappear into the woods are good enough payment. Charlie, you and your siblings do not share our inheritance. Your mother never wanted fae children. She wanted you to be human.”
Aunt May’s smile faded.
“After losing my sister, and my niece and nephew, I made a deal to give my last surviving niece 100 years of life.”
Her words were white noise, my gaze glued to my birthday presents. I couldn't call them human anymore.
I couldn't call Wren human, when his face was so beautifully grotesque, painfully hypnotising.
The monstrous things sticking from twin slits in his back were supposed to be wings, except they looked wrong, cruelly protruding from his exposed spine. Under the influence of alcohol earlier, the girl made me smile.
Her wings, to me, looked like one of a real fairy.
In reality, they were torn and shredded apart, bigger than the girl herself.
When she dropped onto her stomach, she was dragged back to her feet, her knees buckling under the weight. Her tiara of flowers and bone looked pretty to me when I saw her on the stairs.
Now, though, I could see the pearly white of a human child's skull forced onto her head, dead flowers threaded through cavernous, gaping eye sockets.
The two of them were violently shoved into the empty pool.
“Jude. Please demonstrate, sweetheart.”
Jude stood, pulling out a gun, and aiming it at the winged girl.
BANG.
The girl’s body hit the tiles, her blood seeping across stained white.
“Now, of course, our king did not give you life for free.” May continued.
“The King demanded a debt, as well as two heirs to join him in his court once your hundred years were complete.”
Her lips quirked into a smile.
“The king is smart. If a child cannot be stolen from the human world, they can, however, be made, moulded and shaped from their human forms, skinned of their humanity through their suffering, leaving a hollowed out shell in the child's place.” She was speaking so casually, ignoring Wren’s whimpers.
“The conversion takes a while. 100 years to birth a fully blooded fae heir, who will lose their human memories, in preparation to join their new family.”
Jude shot Wren in the chest, his eyes empty.
This time, he dropped his weapon, using finger-guns instead.
“Bang.” He deadpanned.
Then the neck.
I watched Wren come back to life, and then die.
Over and over again.
I think at one point, he screamed and cried.
But not now.
He was their puppet on display, dancing for their entertainment.
Half lidded eyes drowned in oblivion found mine, and I understood his hatred.
Before he was shot again.
Stabbed.
Branded and burned, and ripped apart.
At some point, I screamed at them to stop. I couldn't breathe, slamming my hands over my ears and begging them.
Aunt May didn't listen, ordering for my hands to be tied down.
“The King required two human sacrifices to suffer in your place.” She concluded. “For one hundred years.”
Aunt May’s smile was suddenly sad, and she lifted her glass in a toast.
I was watching their blood trickle down each tile in the pool, like every death, every time they suffered, my body became progressively less human.
I felt disgusting. I wasn't supposed to be alive. Every single year of my life, every breath I had taken, was stolen.
Aunt May nodded at me, her lips forming a proud smile. She stood up, and was handed a sacrificial knife.
Climbing into the swimming pool herself, she strode over to Wren.
The boy slumped to the floor, trembling, his knees against his chest.
Aunt May grabbed him by the hair, forcing his head up, and sliced the blade across his throat.
His eyes flicked to me, and I swore he smiled.
Spots of red dotted yellowing tiles, a river trickling under my aunt's heels.
“Happy 78th birthday, Charlotte.”
Last night ended with me being locked in my room.
It's been almost 15 hours, and the door is still locked. Please help me. I'm fucking terrified of what my aunt is planning.
I can't stop shgajing. FycjbfucibFUCK
If she is telling the truth, I shouldn't be here, right??
And I can't stop thinking.
Is Wren Oliver trying to kill me, or himself?

TW: transphobia and mention of the f slur) Context I’m young I won’t disclose how young but my mom is almost in her 50’s and my sister is almost 20. So I thought when I came out I think 4-5 years ago I thought I was non-binary but later discovered I was genderfluid. My mother and sister have been always a little bad about it but I was understanding of their point of view or tried to be. When I was younger soon after I had come out my mom talked to me in the car and said something along the lines of “I love you and will support you but you will always be my little girl” which at the time broke me but I understand how hard it must be for her now to have to switch at the time. I wanted to give them time to adjust but it feels as though we’re going backwards. My brother had a moment of accepting me crying on the phone and I hoped it was true that he had accepted me. Now he and his wife are more accepting then almost everyone in my family I even got to wear a tux at their wedding they correct themselves on my pronouns their okay with me wanting to be called uncle. I know I shouldn’t compare people on how accepting they are but my sisters nickname for me used to be the f slur. Now to the story recently we were on vacation we were in the hot tub and my sisters says “I just think almost every gay person (referring to all non straight and cis people) is traumatized” now there’s more to this quote because I asked her to elaborate and she did. She basically was insinuating that your gay because your traumatized and I said “maybe traumatized people are just trying more to find out out their emotions and in the process find out their sexuality or gender” she ignored me I don’t remember exactly what was said. Which is because I was so upset in that moment. I do remember though it was just transphobia being said or confusion of trans peoples experience. I got out of the hot tub and tried to leave they questioned me. I said I didn’t want to be involved in the conversation and it was making me upset. Then my mother said my sister was just asking questions and I said she wasn’t she was stating her opinion then my mother said “why are you so upset” I said “I’m not” and she said “you want me to record you and show you later you would agree” then I left and stayed in my bed for a day and half because I was so upset. I didn’t realize until recently how transphobic they are because only recently have they been more open about their transphobia saying things like “yeah having a uncle who wears dresses won’t be confusing” my mother being sarcastic when talking about my nephew and me. I chose to ignore the comment but my sister has called me an embarrassment and blamed that and something else on why she can’t make friends. My mother and sister never try with my pronouns anymore because I let it slide so much because I’m trying to be understanding but when I’ve gone by the same pronouns for 4 years it’s hard to be understanding and I’m not the only family member who’s part of the lgbtqia+ community and they don’t treat her like that. I just feel so angry and confused because I thought we had gotten past this point a long time ago. I guess we’ve gone backwards and it just makes me so upset and so sad to know this is supposed to be my family. I just wanted to get the way I felt about this situation off my chest I feel betrayed but thanks for listening.

Previous Post - https://www.reddit.com/AITAH/comments/1bsb0jl/aitah_i_27m_want_to_give_up_my_parental_rights_of/
I couple of hours ago someone asked about my situation. So I thought to give an update and few responses.
First of all except 2 comments each and every comment helped me. Both negative and positive ones. So thanks for that.
To the first dude that irritated me to you I want to say YES I read your comment that I don't deserve my GF and she should leave me. You don't need to reach me everywhere possible to say this to me. I read it once.
To the second dude. I am quoting a line I read in one reddit post for you. "You only have two brain cells competing for third place". You said I should leave my GF and get in relationship with my AP because she must have something which my GF lacks that why I cheated.
Now reason of the update. I am the father. But it is in the best interest of both me and the child that I am not involved in the child's life. Because of all the comments I thought about it for a long time and came to a conclusion that no bio-father is better than a bio-father who resents. I will still pay the child support. My GF also advised me that I should also create a college fund for the child. If there is something else I can do then you can give me some advice.
During my IC it has been revealed that I have developed borderline psychopathic tendencies due to my childhood and my work ethics. To be honest I always suspected this. I always had some degree of reduced empathy, risk-taking, and overly high self-regard when it comes to people who are not my family and GF. So I hope you can see the dangers here.
Now lets come to my family. Situation is not right. I am on LC with everyone except my grandparents and brother. It is my sister who has cut me the deepest. Two year ago when she got pregnant. Both she and husband decided to abort the child because they were not "emotionally prepared". It was their words. If my parents got to know about this all hells would have broken loose. It was I who kept her secret. It was I who helped both of them to get abortion as smoothly as possible without anyone knowing. Now when I needed her support she is saying it will be amazing to have a nephew or niece and she will be an amazing aunt. She is treating me like this now. Our relationship will never be the same again.
Now why AP did this. We were friends since we were 13 and we became FWB since we were 16. Somewhere down the line she started liking me romantically but I never saw her that way. I should have nip the problem in the bud back then but I was too selfish back then. Then my GF came in my life and I thought that it was too long her feelings would be long gone by now but now it has come to bite me back. Why she thought that by doing this we can be together I don't now. I think drugs has addled her mind or she is suffering with serious mental problems or she is obsessed with me.
Now lets come to the most important person in my life my GF. Some people were saying I should set her free and let her be happy. I am nor holding her captive neither I am forcing her to be with me. She is free to do what she wants. I even told her if all this get too much and she decides to leave me I will not hold it against her and I will understand why she did so and there will be no negative feeling from my side. She chose to stay with me. She also goes to IC. I am doing everything possible to make sure she doesn't suffer emotional torture from my family(except my grandparents and brother), AP, AP's family and AP's friends. Till now I have been successful. She also have got close to my grandmother and her sister. Its good to see that she has a good support system.
Now on to the comments saying that I was sexually assaulted. That night when AP made her move I remember saying "no it's not right" but she kept pestering and eventually gave in. If it was six years ago I could have resisted against AP's advances. Now I am thinking has my tolerance decreased or if I really cheated. I really don't know. But one thing is sure that I still betrayed her that night by doing drugs.
AITAH?

Previous Post - https://www.reddit.com/relationship_advice/comments/1bsay74/i_27m_want_to_give_up_my_parental_rights_of_my/
I couple of hours ago someone asked about my situation. So I thought to give an update and few responses.
First of all except 2 comments each and every comment helped me. Both negative and positive ones. So thanks for that.
To the first dude that irritated me to you I want to say YES I read your comment that I don't deserve my GF and she should leave me. You don't need to reach me everywhere possible to say this to me. I read it once.
To the second dude. I am quoting a line I read in one reddit post for you. "You only have two brain cells competing for third place". You said I should leave my GF and get in relationship with my AP because she must have something which my GF lacks that why I cheated.
Now reason of the update. I am the father. But it is in the best interest of both me and the child that I am not involved in the child's life. Because of all the comments I thought about it for a long time and came to a conclusion that no bio-father is better than a bio-father who resents. I will still pay the child support. My GF also advised me that I should also create a college fund for the child. If there is something else I can do then you can give me some advice.
During my IC it has been revealed that I have developed borderline psychopathic tendencies due to my childhood and my work ethics. To be honest I always suspected this. I always had some degree of reduced empathy, risk-taking, and overly high self-regard when it comes to people who are not my family and GF. So I hope you can see the dangers here.
Now lets come to my family. Situation is not right. I am on LC with everyone except my grandparents and brother. It is my sister who has cut me the deepest. Two year ago when she got pregnant. Both she and husband decided to abort the child because they were not "emotionally prepared". It was their words. If my parents got to know about this all hells would have broken loose. It was I who kept her secret. It was I who helped both of them to get abortion as smoothly as possible without anyone knowing. Now when I needed her support she is saying it will be amazing to have a nephew or niece and she will be an amazing aunt. She is treating me like this now. Our relationship will never be the same again.
Now why AP did this. We were friends since we were 13 and we became FWB since we were 16. Somewhere down the line she started liking me romantically but I never saw her that way. I should have nip the problem in the bud back then but I was too selfish back then. Then my GF came in my life and I thought that it was too long her feelings would be long gone by now but now it has come to bite me back. Why she thought that by doing this we can be together I don't now. I think drugs has addled her mind or she is suffering with serious mental problems or she is obsessed with me.
Now lets come to the most important person in my life my GF. Some people were saying I should set her free and let her be happy. I am nor holding her captive neither I am forcing her to be with me. She is free to do what she wants. I even told her if all this get too much and she decides to leave me I will not hold it against her and I will understand why she did so and there will be no negative feeling from my side. She chose to stay with me. She also goes to IC. I am doing everything possible to make sure she doesn't suffer emotional torture from my family(except my grandparents and brother), AP, AP's family and AP's friends. Till now I have been successful. She also have got close to my grandmother and her sister. Its good to see that she has a good support system.
Now on to the comments saying that I was sexually assaulted. That night when AP made her move I remember saying "no it's not right" but she kept pestering and eventually gave in. If it was six years ago I could have resisted against AP's advances. Now I am thinking has my tolerance decreased or if I really cheated. I really don't know. But one thing is sure that I still betrayed her that night by doing drugs.
Anymore suggestions?
TLDR: I want to give up my parental rights of my potential affair child with previous FWB to save my relationship with my GF of 6 years. Now there is a rift in family because of this.

Ok here's what I've got today:

1. Dany is indeed the final "threat" of the story. That does not make her mad or evil.
2. The second dance is a global endgame conflict along lines or race, class, and religion.
3. The rise of R'hllor is about western anxieties around the rise of the Islamic empire and the perceived threat jihad posed to Christendom during the Middle Ages. Hence why the Faith of the Seven is a clear allegory for Catholicism and western monotheism, while R'hllor is a clear mashup of Zoroastrianism and eastern monotheism.

Even for me, this is going to be a pretty elaborate theory. But if you can get over the alternate timeline stuff I think I can provide an explanation of how the last three episodes of the show were D&D's attempt at depicting the second dance of the dragons.
The first dance of the dragons was a Targaryen war of succession fought with dragons on both sides, and George has said that a second dance will be a subject of a future book. The prevailing view in the fandom is that the Essos story will wrap up in Winds, and Dream will open with a quick dance between Dany and Aegon spanning the time it takes the Others to march from the Wall to the Trident.
My problem with that view is that Aegon doesn't have a dragon, the Essos story cannot resolve by the end of Winds, and you cannot fit a race war between Duskendale and King's Landing.

I. Some say the world will end in fire

The title of A Song of Ice and Fire is based on the Robert Frost poem 'Fire and Ice' which proposes the world can end in either fire or ice. In the poem ice is hatred and vengeance, and fire is love and desire. In the story, ice and fire manifest as the two threats looming over the Seven Kingdoms, being the Others to the north and Daenerys and her dragons to the east.
George is very upfront about this:

Well of course the two outlying ones, the things going on north at the wall, and Daenerys Targaryen on the other continent with her dragons, are of course the ice and fire of the title, a song of ice and fire. The central stuff, the stuff that's happening in the middle in King's Landing, is much more based on historical events, historical fiction, it's loosely drawn from the war of the roses and some of the other conflicts around the hundred years war, although of course with a fantasy twist.
One of the dynamics I started with there was the sense of people being so consumed by their petty struggles for power within King's Landing that they're blind to the much greater threats happening far away on the periphery of their kingdoms. And of course you can see that all through history...
~ GRRM

Yet the way the story has developed, the ice is coming before the fire. Once the Long Night comes, Dany can no longer be perceived as a threat because the Others pose a common enemy. This is why I believe the story will show us a split timeline.
Like the poem, one ends in ice and the other ends in fire.
In the first timeline the threat is the Long Night, where ice comes to end the world and fire wages a war for the dawn. In the second timeline the invasion from the north is prevented, so the threat is the from the east. It's Azor Ahai. It's the Stallion Who Mounts the World. With no ice apocalypse to fight, a holy war in the name of a fire god becomes a threat to the people of Westeros.

"People say I was influenced by Robert Ford’s poem, and of course I was, I mean... Fire is love, fire is passion, fire is sexual ardor and all of these things. Ice is betrayal, ice is revenge, ice is… you know, that kind of cold inhumanity and all that stuff is being played out in the books." ~ GRRM

Like in the poem, the threat of the Others is about hatred. The Others are the revenge of the Children of the Forest. Also like the poem, the threat of dragons will be about love and desire. Dragons are a manifestation of Dany's desire to liberate and conquer, but also her quest for love and belonging.

"Fire is a cruel way to die. Dalla died to give this child life, but you have nourished him, cherished him. You saved your own boy from the ice. Now save hers from the fire." ~ Jon II, ADWD

The kingdom is saved from ice and then it must be saved from fire. From love, desire, and dragons.

II. Under the banner of House Targaryen

I believe that in the second timeline Tyrion doesn't sabotage the Aegon cause out of spite, and so Aegon actually does go meet Dany in Essos. He is accepted by Rhaegal due to his Valyrian blood, so Dany accepts his legitimacy and the two are betrothed. Thus House Targaryen will proceed to conquer the world, with an empire stretching from Vaes Dothrak to Casterly Rock.
That may sound ambitious given the size of Dany's dragons, but consider the alliance forming under the banner of House Targaryen.

1. Dany has already established a foothold in Slaver's Bay.
2. Dany is headed for Vaes Dothrak where she will no doubt raise a Dothraki army.
3. Victarion has brought the Iron Fleet and is fighting Dany's enemies from Astapor and Yunkai.
4. The Red Temple is preaching Dany as the messiah and want her to lead a slave revolt in Volantis.
5. Red Priests are leading religious uprisings in Qohor.
6. Barristan has promised Pentos to the Tattered Prince.
7. Dorne already seeks to align themselves with House Targaryen.
8. Tyrion has promised the gold of Casterly Rock to the Second Sons.
9. The Golden Company originally broke their contract with Myr to join Dany.

Dany's dragons may be young, but people are flocking to her just as Quaithe said they would. Everyone wants a piece of the miracle, and that desire has inspired the messianic prophecies that now surround her. Dany's story is even more powerful than her dragons.

Tyrion considered saying something, then thought better. It seemed to him that the prophecy that drove the red priests had room for just one hero. A second Targaryen would only serve to confuse them. ~ Tyrion VIII, ADWD

People often speculate that Aegon will steal Dany's thunder in Westeros and drive her to jealousy and madness, but currently Aegon is the one who is insecure about being less accomplished. For people in Essos, Daenerys Targaryen is the messiah, but Aegon is just a boy.
^{Remember how the show framed Jon and Dany's first encounter. Jon show is also Aegon IV.}
In the west this dynamic will be inverted. The mummer's dragon was raised to adhere to the norms of Westeros, so Aegon VI will be perceived as the rightful king coming to restore peace and stability after a corrupt Lannister regime. Meanwhile Dany will be perceived as the queen of savages, bringing with her a foreign fire religion. This plays out on the show as well.

"No." The eunuch's voice seemed deeper. "He is here. Aegon has been shaped for rule since before he could walk. He has been trained in arms, as befits a knight to be, but that was not the end of his education. He reads and writes, he speaks several tongues, he has studied history and law and poetry. A septa has instructed him in the mysteries of the Faith since he was old enough to understand them. He has lived with fisherfolk, worked with his hands, swum in rivers and mended nets and learned to wash his own clothes at need. He can fish and cook and bind up a wound, he knows what it is like to be hungry, to be hunted, to be afraid. Tommen has been taught that kingship is his right. Aegon knows that kingship is his duty, that a king must put his people first, and live and rule for them." ~ Epilogue, ADWD

I know that the dynamic I'm putting forward here isn't new, but this doesn't work in the middle of the Long Night, nor does it make sense after. A dragonless Aegon Targaryen cannot prove his legitimacy, nor survive the Others, nor call himself protector of the realm.
Symbols matter. Wyman Manderly makes this clear.

To thwart him White Harbor must have Ned's son … and the direwolf. The wolf will prove the boy is who we say he is, should the Dreadfort attempt to deny him. ~ Davos IV, ADWD

But in another timeline where he brings a (green) dragon, Aegon will have the proof he needs to pull off a Targaryen restoration.
While Aegon has been raised to adhere to Westerosi norms so he can appeal to the church and aristocracy, Dany's following in Essos is being built through slave revolts and the rise of R'hllor. The only way to hold this global empire together would be a Dany and Aegon marriage. Yet Aegon is not Dany's type nor is Dany Aegon's. Rather, the two are setup to be mostly jealous and resentful of each other. And what happens when two married people resent each other?
They get divorced.

III. World War D

To explain how this ignites, I have to use everyone's least favorite scene from season 8.
Let's talk about Dany's speech:

You are liberators! You have freed the people of King's Landing from the grip of a tyrant. But the war is not over. We will not lay down our spears until we have liberated all the people of the world. From Winterfell to Dorne, from Lannisport to Qarth, from the Summer Isles to the Jade Sea! Men, women, and children have suffered too long beneath the wheel. Will you break the wheel with me?
~Shownerys Targaryen

I understand that D&D treat Dany's ending without much nuance, aiming to paint her in the most fascist light possible. And I understand that for many, this scene is simply a reflection of D&D's fear of women and brown people (I'm Palestinian, I get it). However, I think it's cope to argue D&D pulled this out of nowhere. A global jihad to liberate the world is very much setup in the books.

"Benerro has sent forth the word from Volantis. Her coming is the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. From smoke and salt was she born to make the world anew. She is Azor Ahai returned … and her triumph over darkness will bring a summer that will never end … death itself will bend its knee, and all those who die fighting in her cause shall be reborn …" ~ Tyrion VI, ADWD

The Red Temple are gearing up for a holy war across Essos. After Dany helps them topple slavery and take control of Volantis, the Red Priests will seek to take control of the neighboring Free Cities. Dany doesn't need to become a R'hllor fundamentalist to allow this (and she won't), she simply needs to accept it as part of the anti-slavery crusade. After all...
Most of the Free Cities still allow slavery.
So the uprisings won't end in Volantis. Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh, all practice slavery. The Red Priests are already instigating riots in Qohor, where slavery is illegal but still practiced by the wealthy. Next is Norvos, a theocracy where slavery is also practiced. After Norvos is Pentos, again where slavery is forbidden but still practiced by the rich. Most notably Illyrio Mopatis, a wealthy backer of the slave trade who has been the puppet master behind the Targaryen restoration plot from the beginning. Whether Daenerys makes good on Barristan's promise to the Tattered Prince, Pentos is where her story began and the story is pulling her back.

Tyrion pondered all he knew of Volantis, oldest and proudest of the Nine Free Cities. Something was awry here. Even with half a nose, he could smell it. "It's said there are five slaves for every free man in Volantis. Why would the triarchs assist a queen who smashed the slave trade?" He pointed at Illyrio. "For that matter, why would you? Slavery may be forbidden by the laws of Pentos, yet you have a finger in that trade as well, and maybe a whole hand. And yet you conspire for the dragon queen, and not against her. Why? What do you hope to gain from Queen Daenerys?" ~ Tyrion III, ADWD

While Aegon proceeds to conquer Westeros by appealing to the ruling class, Dany's forces will carry out an anti-slavery crusade across the Free Cities. This crusade will not only abolish slavery, but will topple the ruling class and spread R'hllor, threatening both the aristocracy and the church, who fear the same in Westeros. Aegon might demand that she stop, but he'd have no power in Essos, where people are loyal to the black dragon, not the green.
This sets up the core political basis for a second dance. It won't really be over the question of legitimacy (it never is), but rather conflicting approaches and interests. Just like in the first dance, the dispute is between a progressive monarchy (the blacks) and a traditionalist aristocracy (the greens). It's a dispute that threatens to spin out into a global conflict along lines of race, class, and religion.
Once again, Tyrion is the saboteur. Tyrion will fall for Dany and act upon his unrequited love by instigating the conflict. This could involve anything from planting the seed that Aegon might be a Blackfyre to insinuating that Aegon is having an affair and plans to have her set aside (perhaps over her alleged infertility). But Tyrion can't invent a conflict, he can only instigate what already exists.
My guess is that this all comes to a head when Dany goes against Aegon's wishes and burns Illyrio alive for treason. This will be true. He is after all guilty of funding the Triarchs against her. You may feel this is justified, but it will still invite comparisons to Aerys. Then Aegon will have Missandei taken into custody for spying on behalf of Daenerys. This will also be true. Finally, Aegon will seek to have Dany deposed, she will declare him a pretender, the Aegon loyalists will turn on the Dany loyalists, she will mount Drogon, he will mount Rhaegal, and the dragons will dance.
Black vs Green

Teora gave a tiny nod, chin trembling. "They were dancing. In my dream. And everywhere the dragons danced the people died." ~ Arianne I, TWOW

When the dance is done, Dany will be victorious. But the collateral damage will be catastrophic, with countless civilian casualties as well as the death of Rhaegal. The quest will have turned her into the villain of the story she was raised on. The tragedy of the mother of dragons is that she becomes the usurper and kills her own child.
This is pretty much where I see the end of the Dany story. If you disbelieve her death on the show, then Dany can fly away to Asshai never to return. Otherwise Dany will be assassinated by someone close to her (probably Jorah Mormont). In the new timeline she and Jon never meet.
The twist is that the Dothraki, Unsullied and Fiery Hand never invade.
The holy war never comes to Westeros.

IV. Dany's Landing

George has said the second dance doesn't have to mean Dany's invasion.

The second Dance of Dragons does not have to mean Dany's invasion. George stopped himself short and said he shouldn't say anymore. ~ SSM

I think he said that because it doesn't. Daenerys will come to Westeros, but we're not getting two consecutive Targaryen invasions, because why on earth would we need that?
I know that is controversial, but really look at the story. There isn't space for a full scale Daenerys invasion. People kind of see this already. When most fans describe what they expect a Dany invasion would be, it's typically just two battles between Duskendale and King's Landing.
But a true Dany invasion is practically a race war. It's a massive story that would bring tens of thousands of people who are ethnically, culturally, and religiously alien to the continent. Really ask yourself, who will lead the Dothraki after Daenerys? How do the Unsullied fit into Westerosi society? What will the Fiery Hand hand think about King Bran? These groups don't share the same customs or language, they can't establish new houses, and they don't even want to live in Westeros. Without Dany becoming queen to help them assimilate, the only options they have are to fight to the death or leave.
^{And no, George won't resolve the Essos story by having all the foreigners die in the Long Night.}
I believe that as the Essos plot expanded to be about ending slavery, George decided he'd rather not have the freed slaves show up to Westeros as a hoard that gets massacred and then leaves. Instead it seems that the Dany invasion from the original outline was scrapped in favor of a more fleshed out Essos campaign, and the Aegon invasion was created as a replacement in the west.
Even with this change, the overall Dany arc is as originally intended. It's queen, conqueror, messiah, then downfall.

The whispers became a swirling song. . . . three fires must you light . . . one for life and one for death and one to love ~ Daenerys IV, ACOK

The second fire is not King's Landing. It's in Volantis. The fire for death will be Dany burning the Old Blood behind their Black Walls. The show depicts this as the burning of the khals, which is followed by people worshiping her as the messiah (also adapted from Volantis). In addition to being proclaimed Azor Ahai in Volantis, Daenerys will also take up the mantle of the Stallion Who Mounts the World in Vaes Dothrak. This is a clear historical parallel to Genghis Khan, who's ambition to conquer the world was also justified as being the will of god. Just like the show, the books are building up to a situation where all of Dany's loyalists are from Essos, her destiny is perceived as being divinely ordained, and her downfall prevents a crusade to "remake the world."
Yet Daenerys still lands in Westeros in both timelines. In one she will reconstruct the messiah narrative, and in the other she will deconstruct it.

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper's rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened. ~ Daenerys III, ASOS

In the Long Night, the Daenerys story will be close to fantasy. She'll come to Westeros as a messiah, and characters will perceive her as a light in the darkness that gives humanity a fighting chance. She doesn't need to bring her army for this, she just needs to use her fire to empower the people of the Seven Kingdoms to fight for their own lives.
I don't expect her to have a literal war council with every major character, but she will likely face Euron and fight alongside Jon.

"When I went to the Hall of a Thousand Thrones to beg the Pureborn for your life, I said that you were no more than a child," Xaro went on, "but Egon Emeros the Exquisite rose and said, 'She is a foolish child, mad and heedless and too dangerous to live.' When your dragons were small they were a wonder. Grown, they are death and devastation, a flaming sword above the world." He wiped away the tears. "I should have slain you in Qarth." ~ Daenerys III, ADWD

In the second timeline, the Daenerys story will be political. She'll come to Westeros as a "messiah", and characters will perceive her as a destroyer of worlds. A tyrant queen bringing foreign savages to topple their way of life. For Dany the challenge will be political, not military. It will revolve around dealing with a nobility that refuse to bend to her will.
I don't expect her to have an irrational beef with the Stark girls, but she will likely seem antagonistic to the other protagonists.
Yet she is the same character in both timelines. What changes is the story.

"I am no maester to quote history at you, Your Grace. Swords have been my life, not books. But every child knows that the Targaryens have always danced too close to madness. Your father was not the first. King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land." (...)
"So I am a coin in the hands of some god, is that what you are saying, ser?" ~ Daenerys VI, ASOS

Whether Dany's landing is greatness or madness actually is in the hands of some god, and that god is the storyteller. Whether that storyteller is Bran or Sam or George, or even you the reader, the point is to reconcile the duality. Great figures like Daenerys Targaryen are heroes to some and villains to others, and ultimately they are defined by the story we choose to tell about them.

V. Summary

George has stated that the dual threats of ice and fire are from the north and the east, and that Dany is the threat from the east (essentially Genghis Khan with a dragon).
The second dance of the dragons does not refer to Dany's invasion. It refers to a global succession dispute between Daenerys and Aegon which takes place at the end of the story. Much like the Dany and Aegon of the show, the two will have irreconcilable differences that make marriage impossible and thus divide the Targaryen empire.
Once again it's blacks vs greens. While the female claimant rides the black dragon (Drogon), the male claimant will ride the green dragon (Rhaegal). While the people of Essos favor Daenerys, the people of Westeros will favor Aegon. While Dany builds her coalition through slave revolts that replace the ruling class, Aegon will build his coalition by winning the ruling class over to his side. While the Red Temple of R'hllor proclaims Dany to be their messiah, the Faith of the Seven will anoint Aegon VI as the one true king (religious uprisings are already underway in both continents). If Daenerys brings her army from Essos, it will be race war, class war, and holy war.
However neither Dany nor Aegon will be religious. As in history, the religions will mostly be used as competing stories to justify who should rule. Yet the stories used to consolidate support behind the black and green dragons will also push them to conflict. Thus the mother of dragons will be forced to kill not only her alleged nephew, but also her own child.
In the end the holy war will be averted, but that's another story.

We recently signed a contract for our new pool. We were quoted for sandblasted marble (which we wanted) but after going to the show room and seeing the artistic pavers we love the idea of them. A little background, we have two boys multiple nieces and nephews and a Great Dane, our house is typically the house that host parties. We have a lot of foot traffic, we’re located in west palm beach, Florida. My question is does anyone have any input on marble vs artistic pavers. We LOVE the marble look but is it realistic for our family? Our contractor said artistic pavers can take a beaten and very low maintenance. Now we’re undecided 😬

I feel I am a victim of abuse and my life is in danger. (Big claim I know, but hear me out) I think I was poisoned with cyanide which throws your blood levels off and makes the test look as if you’ve had a seizure. I was hospitalized for 48 hours and “she” had all my things when I woke up in the hospital not remembering how I got there. That day we had been living together for like 2 years “She” was sitting next to me on the bleachers, I woke up in a sitting position (why was I asleep slumped over sitting next to her and she just looked on at the rodeo? I’ll never know that answer) and took a drink of the water bottle that was between us that I thought was mine and asked her if it was mine but the man sitting over my left shoulder said it was and I took a drink of it. I immediately got up and knew it tasted weird and then the next thing I remember, I was on my back grabbing at my neck asking “what was going on?” I told someone talking to me “I was being poisoned and they are after my organs. My past injuries have been used against me by a person I let get close to me. And they used my past injury as the guise for me to “have a seizure”. The person I let close to me is a widow and has over 45 years in the medical community from administration to nursing and everything inbetween. But no alarms were going off with my slurred speech, dragging my leg and then the next day I’m slumped over sitting next to her and she looks on as if everything is fine.
Her nephew drank all his life and even a week up until he got his brand new liver from a 27 year old angel that died on I-95 that night… He was released and went straight to the bars and his children has had to drag him out of them and he said “I was drinking a non alcoholic drink” as his defense.
I feel I can even prove motive for her actions. It’s just a long story and you’d have to have the knowledge of manipulation and narcissistic behaviors. I’ve been reading and learning what I can about it but I know nothing as you can probably tell by the way my thoughts are so scattered now.😔
She is in the organ business… and I think she told them she was gonna deliver them mine.
I have prior videos and text(week before saying I didn’t want to go to the rodeo) and proof of what I am saying, even my concerns about my health I expressed to her but she kept pushing and pushing me over the limit. I am a disabled man. This is not right at all and NO ONE has yet to ask me once about what I told the medics as I was laying on the ground.
I thought if you told someone you were being poisoned, and then had a seizure and went into the hospital for 48 hours, they were supposed to help you and test you, but I guess if a 45+ year medical professional is there to lead them in the direction she wishes, is it because they don’t listen to you laying on the hospital bed until it’s time to dismiss you? That’s what happened.
I’m physically shaking my head in a wobbling motion up and down and slurring and shaking trying to answer the ladies question as she is asking me to spell my doctors full name so she can write it down. I get my dismissed papers and his name isn’t even on it, says they didn’t know who my doctor was. I’ll provide a picture of that paper also after she MADE me spell his full name out.
So certain info can just be left off paperwork now and “it’s ok”.
All these are the bread crumbs that will lead you to the person that knows who is running the organ trade amongst them…🤔
Before the rodeo she told me “I’m going to gaslight you like you’ve never been before this weekend” -end quote…
While in the hospital I have to move out of her house because she gave me a 15 day deadline to get all my things out.
She knew they were going to clamp my license for 6 months because of the seizure… this was all planned…
What do I do?
I know redit has some very caring people within.
I’ll speak with anyone. I have nothing to risk but my life at this point😔I have names also…

Today we shall be discussing and analysing the several lawful infractions committed by Mr. Adams as well as approximating the potential penalties and consequences of said crimes. Note that what is listed is what would likely be the MAXIMUM penalty and not necessarily what the actual penalty inflicted by a Court of Law would be.
"Idiots insulting my head named, shamed and destroyed" - Cyberbullying with threats of violence, can be dealt with under online criminal and civil laws. LOW-LEVEL COMMUNITY ORDER AND/OR 12 WEEKS IMPRISONMENT.
"Ghosts, spirits and the time I caught a werewolf" - details shooting a cat with an air rifle. Animal Welfare Act 2006, 6 MONTHS+ AND/OR £500 FINE
"A Mother's Day Special" - Details forcing his mum to cook and clean, even watching him eat before being allowed to eat herself. Domestic abuse, 2 YEARS IMPRISONMENT.
"How to get rid of a persistent ex-girlfriend" Details unlocking the bathroom door while a woman is defecating and harassing her as she does so. Sxual harrassment - Placed on a sx offender's register. 6 months imprisonment.
"Banned from Tesco. Day spoilt. Well done whichever spazmoid grassed me in" Details destroying a Tic Tac display. Maximum sentence - 6 months imprisonment.
"Tips for doing something illegal or questionable online" - Direct incitement with intent, £100 fine
"Livid. (Old Facebook Vid)" - Details putting Gareth in a headlock. Aggravated Assault, maximum sentence 7 years.
"VIDEO TITLE UNKOWN" - Callum details pinning Gareth down and dribbling into his mouth. Sxual assault, 6 months imprisonment + placed on a sx offender's register.
"Emergency poo, a low point." - Details defecating in public. Indecent behaviour, £40 fine + £5 offender levy.
"Reacting to "Shrek is Love, Shrek is Life" - WHAT THE HELL??" - Uses the F slur, however no hate crime was committed and used it in a private quoting context with no hateful intent. Innocent.
"Moist Little Muppet. Idiot driving instructor." - Details shouting and swearing at people while driving, could constitute a crime but is unlikely to face prosecution. Possible £50 fine.
"I Slept in a £7 Hotel Room & This Is What Happened..." - Slander, possible £500 fine.
"Getting Revenge On My Sket Sister" - Details sending a meat feast pizza and bacon to his vegan sister. Harrassment, low-level community order AND/OR £100 FINE.
"I Cut Off Her Hair For Revenge" - Assault, 12 weeks imprisonment.
The Hundreds of Streams Between 2019 & Present Day - substantial albeit unidentified amount of aggravated threats made towards viewers, quote "I will track you down and shit in your eyes" and threatening to quote "track (person) down and end their life" after threatening his nephew. Maximum Sentence 5 Years, likely placed on Supervision In The Community.
Has not declared tax on thousands of pounds worth of donations. TAX FRAUD, MAXIMUM 14 YEARS.
2nd May 2024 Stream - Fraudently purchases Xbox Live by using a credit card that no longer exists and then laughs about scamming Bill Gates - £500 fine.
SENTENCE: 30 YEARS 4 MONTHS IMPRISONMENT. LOW-LEVEL COMMUNITY ORDER £1795 FINE SUPERVISION IN THE COMMUNITY S*X OFFENDER'S REGISTER
Callum is the dirtiest of all birdies.

Hey, all, it’s ToErrDivine again. Today I’m looking at the intermission of the ADMONITION series (or you could call it installment 4.5, if you want), SCP-6183, ‘B L A C K B O X’, by Billith, MontagueETC and Liryn. I’d like to thank Billith, an invaluable but nameless colleague, and the mods for all their help, I couldn’t do it without you. As per usual, this isn't my work, I didn't write it and I don't have all the answers, etc.
Before we begin, here’s some background info: like another article I declassed, SCP-6109, this article was written for GoblinCon, where people were given a theme and had to come up with an article that fit it. And, like 6109, this article won the slot for its theme (and in fact, it was the grand prize winner of the contest, getting the highest score of all the entries). That theme was ‘Deletions’. We’ll get to that in a bit.
This is not the first SCP featuring the Department of Deletions- that was SCP-7079, ‘C H I A S M A’- but this was the first one written. (If you were wondering, yes, all DOD skips have names that make them sound like drugs in a cyberpunk game, it’s a stylistic choice. And honestly, I’m not going to pretend that I wouldn’t try smoking some C H I A S M A if someone offered me some.)
(Also, I’ve been informed that the spacing between each letter is called ‘whitespacing’, so with each character representing fragments of a whole (in this case, the whole word), we literally have whitespace between BLACKBOX.)
Before we get into it, there’s one important thing to mention: as per word of Billith, “Admonition's Intermissions are different from the main eps for a number of reasons, serving as worldbuilding and flavor for the future/past of the series’. In addition, this takes place before the rest of the series, so keep that in mind as we continue.
(Also, for some extra flavour, there’s an ambient track that plays in the background when this SCP is open. It doesn’t work on all browsers, so if you can’t hear it, here’s the link.)

Part One: Ready Or Not, You’ve Started A Game

Now, there are two obvious questions: one, what’s a black box? Well, there’s a couple of possible meanings, and that’s intentional- to quote the DOD hub, ‘Each Deletions piece so far has had a name with multiple meanings, with C H I A S M A having somewhere around five or six implicit meanings if you consider similar words (i.e. chiasmus, chiasm).’
Here's some potential meanings:
1: Also known as a flight recorder- a recording device that’s placed in an aircraft to record information about the flight so that if the plane crashes, investigators can figure out why it crashed. (It’s actually a misnomer- these days flight recorders are painted bright orange for visibility reasons.)
2: A computing and engineering term for a device or system where you can see its inputs and outputs, but not its inner workings. (For example, you have to turn a doorknob in order to get the door to open, but you can’t see and don’t need to see the inner workings of that doorknob to make it work.)
3: Censor bars. Y’know, these little guys. ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██
4: From the DOD hub itself, ‘Junk data surviving from previous narratives which have been deleted.’
Now, I am not the authos, but if you asked me to take a stab at which one is the relevant meaning here, I’d say… all of them. :) We’ll see why later.
And question two: what is the Department of Deletions?
…look, I’m honestly not trying to sound like a total smart-arse here, but I’m having trouble coming up with a better answer than ‘They’re a department who delete things’. We’ll get a better answer shortly, OK?
So, after a big empty space, we get the DOD’s recursive triangle logo, and then a message:

THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN MARKED FOR DELETIONS

The Hub tells me that this means that this document is intended to be delivered to the department- it’s wordplay, like saying it’s meant to be deleted, but actually not. We then get the ACS heading: this is Level box. No, seriously, where the number should be, it’s just a box that looks like a puzzle board, and the writing under it has been distorted into white boxes.
This thing is classified Keter, which isn’t good. Its secondary class is Radix; the guide helpfully tells me that this means that ‘Item has been integrated into the Foundation's command structure.’ It’s the same as the class called ‘Yesod’, except that ‘Yesod’ refers to anomalies that are related to Judaism.
Its disruption class is ‘Infrared’, which means ‘The amount of disruption that this item can produce/is producing cannot be discerned.’ That’s a great omen! And finally, its risk class is ‘Cryptic’, which means ‘The amount of danger that this item can produce/is producing cannot be discerned.’ Fantastic! So, basically, we know sweet fuck-all about this thing.
…or, they want us to know sweet fuck-all about this thing. Feels like that’s a legit option here.
(I will say that looking at the symbols on the banner makes me feel like I’m in that episode of Lost where Locke sees the blast door map under ultraviolet light. Damn, that show was good… for the first couple of seasons, anyway. Don’t @ me.)
We now get a photo; it’s of a circular tunnel that’s nearly dark and looks like a cross between the Voltaic tunnels in Myst 3: Exile and some of the passageways in Mass Effect 2. The caption tells me that this is the ‘Passageway to Research Station Mnemosyne.’
Mnemosyne (pronounced ‘Neh-MOH-see-nee’, which just proves that I’ve been mentally pronouncing it wrong my entire life) was the goddess of memory, but she was technically a Titan, not a god. She was the mother of the nine Muses (you might have heard of them), whose father was her nephew, Zeus. (Is there an ancient Greek equivalent of ‘roll tide’?)
Given that Research Station Mnemosyne is making its debut in this article, there’s not much else I can say here, so let’s keep reading.
The assigned departments here are Decommissioning and Essophysics, and a footnote tells us that the latter was at the request of ‘[DELETED]’. Somehow I get the feeling that we’re going to get really familiar with [DELETED].
The project lead here is Calvin Bold, the assigned sites are 01, 17, 19 and [DELETED], and the research head is another bundle of white boxes.
Here’s the Special Containment Procedures:

SPECIAL CONTAINMENT PROCEDURES: As SCP-6183 does not exist entirely within our accessible portion of this phase space iteration, the efficacy of ongoing containment efforts cannot currently be determined.
An effective medium of oversight and containment is necessary and must be implemented as soon as possible, despite any and all perceived benefit provided by SCP-6183's existence.

OK, so they’re trying to contain this thing, but they can’t really tell how well they’re doing. And they want to make sure they’re containing this thing, even if its existence is benefitting them (or, even if people think its existence is benefitting them).
There’s a couple of footnotes here. Footnote 2 is after ‘phase space iteration’ and says ‘The set of all states for all energy and matter in the universe that could theoretically be accessed with the initial conditions of said timeline; e.g. anything, anywhere, at any given time.’ 3 tells us what ‘Infrared’ and ‘Cryptic’ mean. 4 is at the end of the last sentence and explains ‘Radix’.
Who’s up for the description?

object reference not set to instance of object ; description_2.rtf does not exist
object reference not set to instance of object ; description_3.rtf does not exist
object reference not set to instance of object ; description_4.rtf does not exist
object reference not set to instance of object ; description_5.rtf does not exist
object reference not set to instance of object ; description_6.rtf does not exist

Well, that definitely explains absolutely everything! Don’t know why I’m still here.
There’s also a gif, captioned ‘[DELETED]’. The gif is of a mostly-unlit staircase going down to an open door. The room beyond the door is also unlit, so there’s nothing to see there. Nothing moves in the gif, it’s just the image stuttering a bit. Gives me SCP-087 vibes, honestly. (I suppose it’s possible that there could be something else in the gif, but I’m not going to sit here staring at it for an hour, sorry.)
Time for the first addendum: ‘Discovery’. Here’s the first paragraph.

SCP-6183 was discovered following investigation into a worsening database issue wherein entire sectors of deleted memoryspace could not properly be overwritten. The Records and Information Security Administration's research into these corrupted sectors revealed a perpetual backup of deleted archival data being held in a clandestine Foundation server (SCP-6183-A) purportedly owned by a "Department of Deletions", located on Site-19's 48th sublevel, which does not exist.

Well, well, well. So a quantity of deleted archival data has been perpetually backed up by the non-existent DOD. Somehow I don’t think this is an accident or a coincidence.
Now, the question is: is this just some random data, or is it specific data?

SCP-6183-A receives approximately 1% of SCP files that are removed from the main archive (SCP-6183-A-1), regardless of whether the device has internet access or electricity, such as when placed within a Faraday-Exclusion Field.

So either they’re grabbing so many files that it amounts to 1%, or 1% are sent to this server by default and nothing can stop that.

Nearly all observed SCP-6183-A-1 instances have been heavily corrupted, often to the point of inaccessibility. However, close examination of individual instances has revealed apparent messages concealed within:
object reference not set to instance of object ; messagelog_1.rtf does not exist
object reference not set to instance of object ; messagelog_2.rtf does not exist
object reference not set to instance of object ; messagelog_3.rtf does not exist

Well, that’s helpful.
It gets better! The second and third addendums don’t exist either. What does exist is addendum four, ‘Decommissioning Meeting’. I’ll sum it up for you.
Short version: the rate of discovering new anomalies has gone up by slightly under 50% in the last decade, and it looks like they’re on the verge of an ‘anomalous baby boom’ scenario, something that would completely destroy the Veil. Unfortunately, there’s no easy solution: they don’t have the resources to just contain everything, and the only option that might have the potential for long-term sustainability is decommissioning- but that’s not simple. It’s not cheap, they have to take precautions so that things don’t get out of hand, and acroamatic abatement- that is, the disposal of anomalous waste- is also incredibly risky and expensive. And decommissioning isn’t as simple as ‘just shoot it’- it’s a different approach for each anomaly. Worse, the success rates of decommissions have gone down by 25% over the past three years.
Why is that? It’s simple: the longer the Foundation exists, the more likely it is that the various Groups of Interest are developing countermeasures against them- and the ‘wild’ anomalies are adapting to them. Just as they’re starting to discuss what can be done, this happens:

<[DELETED] hands O5-8 a piece of paper.>
O5-8: Thank y—

[...]
Dir. Bold: For the record I, um, believe I just saw a disembodied arm give the Overseer a document, and then disappear.

Well, that was nice of that arm.
(Before I continue: that bit about how acroamatic abatement is very risky and expensive? That will be very important for the fifth instalment, SCP-7243.)
Addendum five does exist, but it’s called ‘addenda_5.rtf’, along with ‘▀ ▝ ▙▚▞▁ █▕ ▅’. These are Unicode symbols; they theoretically could be translated, but Billith stated in the author post that the ones in this article are all meaningless, because that would make it too easy (he also said that ‘The reason the unicode symbols cannot be translated is purely because the themes of deletion and data loss. Most often, it's highly improbable that one could find the loose pieces of a fragmented file and put them back together.‘). Can’t have that- although as my excellent helpers pointed out, one blackbox/Unicode symbol seems to equal one letter, so it’s theoretically possible to figure out some of the later stuff.
Anyway, it’s not long: The same ‘[DELETED]’ as before (I’ll just call them ‘Deleted’ to make it easier) pops up in a breakroom, thus scaring the fuck out of one Junior Researcher Constance Morgan. One short conversation later, Deleted establishes that they’ve got the right time, but the breakroom is one floor above where they were trying to get to, so they unceremoniously leave.

Researcher Morgan: Well, alright then.

Time for addendum six, a conversation that involves…

PARTIES PRESENT:
• Dir. H. Genevieve (Essophysics Dept.)
• [DELETED]

You.
I realise that chronologically speaking, it hasn’t happened yet, but lady, the last time we listened to you, your alternate timeline self turned 682 into a god and fucked up everything for everyone. I ain’t listening to you about shit.
Luckily, the point isn’t that we’re meant to be listening to her, it’s that she’s meant to be listening to Deleted.

[DELETED]: Well, regardless, I'm glad to speak like this with you. The last time I've had a face-to-face conversation with another person was…
You know, I really can't say. We usually only get a limb through, as you might have heard. It's an… imprecise science. It works better if you don't think about it.

Bit weird, but OK, let’s keep this ball rolling. Genevieve asks why Deleted is here; Deleted asks if she didn’t get the note, and Genevieve says she did, but she doesn’t know how it relates to her. Deleted says…

[DELETED]: It's about the database. And your career. But mostly the database. It was all in the note.

Hmmm.
Genevieve rereads the note and asks what "[QUERY:DENIED]" mentioned at the end here” is. Deleted says that they can’t answer that, and they think she knows that they can’t answer that, not yet. Genevieve’s response is basically ‘OK, then, I’ll give it to you straight: not my problem’. Deleted tells her to cut the bitching and that they came to her, “Fully acknowledging the risks to my self, mind you.”
To their ‘self’? Not ‘myself’, ‘my self’? I wonder what that means?
Genevieve asks them what the actual fuck they’re talking about, and then we get this:

[DELETED]: I wish I could explain it to you, but it's beyond the scope of your perception. It isn't nonlogical. It isn't nonexistent, either. Something far different, and far worse.
Dir. Genevieve: Care to enlighten me as best as you can?
[DELETED]: That would be… disadvantageous.
Dir. Genevieve: Give us something to work with. You claim to be a Foundation department, after all.
[DELETED]: How can I put this…
It's not that the information you're talking about doesn't exist. It's here. It never left, not really. That's sort of the problem. That's why we're having this goddamn conversation.
All the component parts are beyond your reach. I cannot point you to where they are. But I see them now. They are in so much pain, and feel so much hatred. Screaming. Burning. Unending. And then… above them all…

[DELETED]: ▜ ▔▕ ▌ ▊ ▇ ▟▇▛ ▀ ▔ ▙▘▃▟ ▀ ▂▗ ▞▒ ▉▊ ▄▆
Dir. Genevieve: That's ridiculous. They're manifesting on your side of the Barrier! Your "department" should be the ones handling this!
[DELETED]: I'm sorry, there's nothing else we can do. You have to be the ones to change.
So, what is your decision?

[DELETED]: You don't have that authority.
Dir. Genevieve:
[DELETED]: No need to yell.

Thanks to word of Billith, my invaluable nameless colleague correctly guessed what that redacted sentence is: ‘the sound of BUREAUMANCY’.
I can’t say that I really understand what that means (beyond the phrase ‘it’s perfectly legal, thank you very much’ popping into my head), but I am getting a vague idea of some of the greater themes of ADMONITION as a whole. (I may or may not be right, of course, but it’s still something.)
Anyway, I can’t tell you what Deleted wants Genevieve to do, but I can make a pretty good guess at what they’re talking about: something that exists, but not to anyone’s perception. Something beyond humanity’s reach. Something that’s in pain, and hates. Something like… oh, pattern screamers, maybe? I’m actually not that far off, Billith said that ‘rather, the build up of data patterns that cannot die but still exist outside of perception is reaching Problem status.’
As to how that build up happens, here’s the definition of ‘the Barrier’ from the Deletions hub: ‘Separation between timelines within the Database and the Gray. Abstract personnel, entities, and departments may traverse this delineation to various extents.’
This may or may not clarify anything for you, but keep going.
There’s one other question: Genevieve can’t talk with her mouth deleted, so what’s happening in that last part? Is Deleted psychic? Or are they talking to someone else? Someone who doesn’t have the authority to delete her mouth? Who might that be?
Time for addendum seven. More of the text is getting eaten by those blocks, but from I can tell, this is later in the same conversation. Genevieve wants to know more about Deleted; Deleted laughs at that, so they might think it’s a funny question, or they might just be incredulous that she’s asking. They say that Genevieve obviously doesn’t get it, but agrees to answer her questions, saying that ‘You'll figure it out, in time.’ Please note that the wording throughout these quotes is very important.

Dir. Genevieve: Deletions. How does a department like this come into being?
[DELETED]: How does anything? Equal, opposite forces resulting from other, more equal and more op▓osite forces. Though, I'd hesitate to call it "being" in any sense.
Dir. Genevieve: Please, elaborate.
[DELETED]: Well, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for this damned Database issue. That's the irony of our mission. We are because we shouldn't. Over in whitespace, it makes all the sense in the world.
Dir. Genevieve: Whitespace?
[DELETED]: Unoccupied alt-spacetime where I come from. Think like, a parallel universe made out of void and multidimensional garbage ejected from other timelines. The void parts are whitespace. The junk is blackbox. Together they comprise everything that isn't all of this here; the Gray. Your worlds plus mine equal the Database.
Dir. Genevieve: The Database—?
<[DELETED]'s head melts and reforms. An additional limb manifests, a writhing cephalopod tentacle approximately two meters long. It spasms uncontrollably. [DELETED] vigorously shakes its head.>

That tells me precisely jack shit, except that I’m probably not smart enough to understand it. However, looking at the Department of Deletions’ glossary tells me that the official definition of the Database is ‘The entirety of memoryspace from the perspective of Deletions agents; All timelines, plus the Gray.’, and ‘the Gray’ is defined as an ‘Atemporal alt-spatial dimension encompassing the entirety of memoryspace not occupied by complete narratives.’ So we gotta think narratively, people.
Genevieve switches tacks and asks Deleted about themself- their earliest memory. Deleted gives her a pretty standard answer… and then another one. And then another. And then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth…

Dir. Genevieve: [DELETED], what are you trying to tell me?
[DELETED]: I have had many birthdays. So many parts of me have had birthdays. I've had countless first memories. One day I might have yours.
Dir. Genevieve: How is that possible?
<[DELETED] shivers. It glances in two different directions at once, then two different directions at once, then two different directions at once, then two more. Then one.>
[DELETED]: We were deleted.

So basically, what I’m getting from this is that everyone who’s in Deletions is like a big formless mass of memories and body parts that’s melted together and bits are getting connected to different people all the time. Kinky.
(You know, I had an idea for an SCP like this once.)
And from what the Hub tells me, I’m basically correct:
Members of the department are burdened by the nature and awareness of their own existence. Being made of multiple fractions of deleted individuals, they are fundamentally unstable when assuming a physical form. They "fall apart", both physically and mentally, when exposed to time. Thus, Deletions agents tend to avoid interacting with timelines unless absolutely necessary, which it often is.
So, everyone in Deletions is Frankenstein’s monster. (If anyone feels the need to be a smart-arse about who in Frankenstein qualified as the monster, don’t.) And that explains Deleted bringing up the risks to his ‘self’- he’s falling apart just by being in this room.
Genevieve asks how, who did it, what the fuck are they talking about, but all Deleted says is ‘[QUERY: DENIED]’ and then ‘[DELETED]’. Genevieve says that they’ll try again later and that the interview is over, and Deleted gets deleted. This might seem like a flippant ending, but it isn’t.
That was part one of the 6183 declass; part two is right here.

Now here's what this changes there are no sings of other activity anywhere Beyond The Wall.
I want draw your attention to a quote from Jon in A Storm Of Swords.

Grand projects are going to happen in this fic and do not tell me the Starks can not afford it.

(Spoilers Main) Spoilers Main) Addressing A Misconception About House Stark Largely Created By The HBO Show And Not True In The Books.

The show kind of made the Starks more rustic than they where in the books. House Stark in the novels where not as wealthy as the Lannister's but they where a lot wealthier than the show.
First lets look at what they wear in the books which is nothing like there costumes in the show.
Side note Lord Rickard owned Steel armour and gold spurs.
When Arya is packing to go to Kings Landing she files where chest with silk and Sansa is fond of blue silk.
In Kings Landing Eddard looked nothing like what he did in the show, he always wore what he called his council silk. Ned also commissions a new uniform for his guards. Long cloaks of heavy grey wool decorated with white satin borders. Their cloaks are pinned with hands of beaten silver representing there Lords office as hand of the King. When he was on the Iron Throne Ned wore a white double embosomed with a grey dire wolf.
In Winterfell at the feast welcoming the King and Royal Family they all dressed grandly, including Benjen Stark. There are high born brothers in the Nights Witch from the north and south and I have never seen one dressed as well as Benjen at that feast, not even Lord Commander Mormont himself. He wears rich black velvet high black leather boots. His wide belt has a silver buckle and very heavy silver chain.
When Bran is attacked by Wildlings he is attacked for what he is wearing and he is second legitimate son and he is wearing a wolfs head broch of silver and jet. Jet is a gemstone and this is not a formal event this is just outriding in the woods.
Jon wears fine blacks and mole skin gloves which would not be cheap. At Winterfell harvest feast Bran is dressed quote, as befits a Prince and Robb wears a bronze crown and Catelyn describes her sons royal Kingly attire as quote magnificent.
Also Theon Greyjoy dressed very well when he was living with Stark in silk and Gold and Balon fears the Starks have made him soft. I doubt Greyjoy money was funding Theon's extravagant lifestyle. When he takes Winterfell he crowns himself Prince of Winterfell and orders and orders a new crown forged with black diamonds and chunks of gold. Where did he get the gold and diamonds if not from Winterfell's plundered treasury. And before Winterfell Bran and Luwin gave the Manderley's gold and build a royal fleet and mint coins.
At the Winterfell harvest feast
Now lets look at Winterfell it is much bigger and much grander than in the show this is a Castle built of granite which is an opulent martial.
Winterfell is a huge castle complex spanning several acres and encircled by two massive granite walls.
Remember the Castle is built over natural hot springs and as the wiki explains.
The water is piped through walls and chambers to heat them, making Winterfell more comfortable than other castles during the harsh northern winters.
Also from the wiki
Inside the walls, the complex is composed of dozens of courtyards and small open spaces. Weapons training and practice take place in those yards. The inner ward is a second, much older open space in the castle where archery practice takes place. It is located next to the broken tower. Inside Winterfell stands the inner castle, which contains the Great Keep and the Great Hall. Winterfell's towers and halls have diamond-shaped window panes.[6]
Inner Castle
The Great Keep is the innermost castle and stronghold of the castle complex. It was built over natural hot springs to keep it warm.[5] The Great Keep contains bedchambers for House Stark[5] as well as the solar of Lord Eddard Stark.[7] The building is connected to the armory by a covered bridge.[8] From a window on the covered bridge, one can see the entire yard.[9] Beneath the Great Keep are cellars with narrow windows.[10]
The Great Hall is used for receiving guests and the place where the household dines together, including the Lord of Winterfell. It is made of grey stone[11] and has wide doors made of oak and iron,[12] which opens to the castle yard, and a rear exit leads to a dimly-lit gallery.[12] Inside it can hold eight long rows of trestle tables, four to each side of the central aisle,[12] and the hall can seat five hundred people.[13] There is a raised platform for noble guests, and the walls are covered with banners.[11] The hall contains the high seat of the old Kings in the North. The seat's cold stone has been polished by the many lords who have sat upon it, and its massive arms are decorated with the carved heads of snarling direwolves.[14][15]
The small sept was built for Lady Catelyn Tully, a southron, by her husband, Lord Eddard.[16]
Courtyard and Other Buildings
The First Keep, a squat and round drum tower, is the oldest surviving part of the castle but is no longer in use. Around it lies a lichyard where the Kings of Winter would bury their loyal servants. The keep has gargoyles atop it.[17][6] Maester Kennet determined it was built after the Andals arrived.[18]
The broken tower, also known as the Burned Tower, was once the tallest watchtower in Winterfell. Over 140 years ago a lightning strike set it afire and the top third collapsed inward, but no one rebuilt it.[19][20] It stands behind the old inner ward. Crows nest atop the broken tower.[19]
The ancient godswood of Winterfell has stood untouched for ten thousand years, with three acres of old packed earth and close-together trees creating a dense canopy, which the castle was built around. At the center of the grove stands an ancient weirwood with a face carved into it, standing over a pool of black water.[16] Across the godswood from the heart tree, beneath the windows of the Guest House, an underground hot spring feeds three small pools, with a moss-covered wall looming above them. The godswood is enclosed by walls, and is accessed by a main iron gate, or smaller wooden ones.
The Glass Gardens[21] is a greenhouse heated by the hot springs, which turn it into a place of moist warmth.[5] It is used to grow fruits, vegetables, and flowers.[9][22] The garden has green and yellow glass panes[10] locked in frames.[8]
The crypt of Winterfell, located near the First Keep, is where members of House Stark are buried. The underground crypts are long and narrow, with pillars moving two by two along its length. Between pillars stand the sepulchers of the Starks of Winterfell, the likenesses of the dead seated on thrones, with iron swords set before them to keep the restless spirits from wandering, and snarling direwolves at their feet. The crypts are deep under the earth, cavernous and bigger than the complex above ground. They are accessed by a twisting stone stair and a huge ironwood door that lies at a slant to the floor. The stair continues below to older levels where the most ancient Kings in the North are entombed.[23][17][10]
The Bell Tower is connected to the rookery by a bridge. The bridge is covered and runs from the fourth floor of the tower to the second floor of the rookery.[6][8]
The maester's turret is below the rookery.[24]
The Library Tower houses the library at Winterfell. A stonework staircase winds about its exterior.[8]
The Guards Hall is in line with the Bell Tower, and further back, the First Keep.[6]
Winterfell has undercrofts and cellars.[25] The castle also has dungeons,[25] including tower cells.[26]
Walls
Winterfell is a huge castle complex spanning several acres, defended by two massive walls of grey granite with a wide moat between them.[4] The outer wall is eighty feet high, while the inner is one hundred feet high.[4] There are guard turrets on the outer wall and more than thirty watch turrets on the crenelated inner walls.
The great main gates[7] have a gatehouse made of two huge crenelated bulwarks which flank the arched gate[8] and a drawbridge that opens into the market square of the winter town.[27][28]
There is a narrow tunnel inside of the inner wall stretching halfway around the castle, allowing travel from the south gate all the way to the north gate without interruption.[19]
The Hunter's Gate is close to the kennels and the kitchens. It opens directly onto open fields and the wolfswood, so people can come and go without having to cross through the winter town. It is favored by hunting parties.[4]
The East Gate[10] or east gate[29] leads to the kingsroad.[10] The Kingsroad Gate[7] may be another name for the same gate.
The Battlements Gate is a small arched postern in the inner wall. It crosses the moat between the walls but does not have a passageway through the outer wall.[7]#
When Jon Snow becomes Lord Commander of the Nights Watch he considers building a glass building but thinks it will be costly and for such fine glass he would need to look Myr and by the freedom of a few glass makers.
We know Sansa loves lemon cakes and lemon trees do not grow naturally in the north importing lemon seeds to Winterfell from the reach or Doren would not be cheap. My guess would be the seeds came form Doren as one need only sail up the narrow sea than the up the White Knife.
Finally Maester Luwin has his own turret and mentions having servents of his own. The Starks top servants have servants
Not as wealthy as the Lannister but it clear Ned and Robb after him where unlike in the show 2 of the wealthiest man in the world.
Bran and Rickon both get land and Eddard arranges to have strong Castles built for both of them and as you can see above he can afford.
Jon Snow also gets land no he is not legitimized as a Stark but he is not a snow any more rather he takes a new name. What ever that name is I do not know you can discus in the comments.
Now some people have said that Morse and Hothar Umber Umber would be given land though I think its more likely that during the Winter they did what so many old North man do and went hunting so to speak.
same goes for Lord Rickard Karstarks uncles though his and the Great Jon Umbers younger sons and nephews could all get small Lordships of the there own. Now other top priorities would be the Mountain Clans and Glovers.
Is diced likewise that all these new Lords will be Vassals to Rickon if there Lands are in Brandon's gift and Bran if there lands are in the new gift.
A year latter at the age of seven with Jorry Cassel as his foster father and Regent Bran is sent to his lands to learn to rule. So when King Robert comes to ask Ned to be his hand Bran has been gone few months he will not fall form any tower.
Now what happens from here?
What's Jon's new house name?
Who are Bran Vassals?
Who are Rickons Vassals?
Who is Jons liege?

This is my first time writing anything like this about my life so I'm sorry if it's too long as there's a lot to unpack and I want to just lay everything out to get the best advice to help my decision.
I come from a family of 6. There was me, my mother, father and three sisters. I'm the youngest and there's an 8 year gap between me and my sisters, who only have around a one year gap between each of them. Growing up it was always World War 3 in our house with them as when they were in their teens the three of them shared a room. The sister in question, "Sarah", is the middle in age of the three, "Winifred" the oldest and "Mary" the youngest.
Sarah has always been the least like any of us, we're all very different, both in personality and looks, it's been pointed out multiple times by friends how different we all are from each other, but Sarah has always carried an air of superiority I've never seen in the rest of my family.
The one trait me and my siblings share would be we all have/had put ourselves first, which can be a good thing but can lean into selfishness pretty easily, a problem that plagued my personality until I met my husband who helped me see the difference in putting myself first and being a selfish AH.
Sarah has never been the type to let anything go. She always brings up things that happened when my sisters were teenagers (they're all in their 40s now) along with embellishing or completely fabricating things that have happened that make her out to be completely blameless. She retells these story's over and over until she genuinely believes them and then throws a tantrum when one or more of us correct her. I remember arguments Sarah would have with my parents that always ended up with her storming out of the house, she tends to run away from problems.
Sarah and my mother have never seen eye to eye. In many ways they're too similar, always need the last word, headstrong, never apologizing, the need to always be right and they obsess way too much about what people think (in different ways, Sarah cares about how people/ strangers perceive her and her families manners/ social status and success, my mother is particularly obsessive on people knowing details about her personal life and is a very private person). It's always been my view that Sarah has always lacked my mother's warmth and her honesty (mostly to a fault but she would always try and spare someone's feelings and bite her tongue when she really needed to). Sarah's name calling about my other sisters was always a main spark to her and my mothers arguments.
Her and Winifred got on well for the most part from what I remember, and when we all got older she was fine to talk to. There were even a few times when my father was sick, myself, Sarah and Winifred had some bonding time which was nice.
Several years ago Mary was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia ( severely effects her central nervous system, can cause wide spread pain and can easily cause fatigue) and a few years ago she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. She had a full hysterectomy and the cancer seems to be a memory but this still wasn't enough for Sarah to not belittle Mary and her, what Sarah calls "life choices". Mary has struggled with her weight since she was a teenager and Sarah never held back in letting her know her opinions on it.
It's common knowledge in our family that Sarah has always been ashamed of where she comes from and would always be embarrassed by how my mother and Mary acted and spoke (little filter and Sarah considers this candour and how they speak "lower class" ). Mary has always Sarah's verbal punching bag, both to her face and behind her back but has always disliked when people, mainly my mother, would call her out and tell her to stop. The most recent example of this I was told about was that at my wedding, she made a nasty comment about the dress Mary was wearing. Months later my mother mentioned it in an argument to Sarah that her sister (my aunt) overheard Sarah's remarks and made a disapproving face. Sarah apparently just walked away from the conversation. The next day my aunt called my mother and asked that she "not be involved in my family's drama". My mother, confused asked her what she meant and my aunt said that Sarah drove (1.5 hours) to her house to confront her about it even though it happened just short of a year before.
For years our father had been desperately trying to get my mother to agree for them to move and downsize homes so they could enjoy their retirement with a little extra money but she was extremely reluctant to leave the family home due to a combination of leaving happy memories behind and being afraid of such a big change.
Then one day, Sarah offered to give up some of her land for them to live on as a cheaper option. I think we all agreed it was a good idea and we were all so surprised by what seemed to be generosity, it blindsided us all and we mistook it as her turning over a new leaf. Our father was all for the idea as him and Sarah agreed it was good to be near family in their golden years.
I replay my parents asking my advice on this over and over in my head, as in hindsight it was obviously an awful idea. But like Winifred and Mary, I agreed it would be the best move.
Their original idea was for them to get a tiny home and have it about 100 yards from Sarah's home. Sarah entertained that idea for a short while but convinced them a built small property attached to their home would be better.
The family home was nearly 2 hours drive away from Sarah's home so her and her husband took charge with contractors and overseen almost anything to do with the build if my parents couldn't make it.
The first quote, pre-build, they received was 50k. But in the end it tripled into 150k. Over the course of the build Sarah had changed things, the location of the front door, which was now facing the window to her home office (which is her main place of work), and back door, which changed to face the back of Sarah's house ( I know this all seems like major red flags but again, her and her husband convinced them it was to do with not damaging parts of her property and what seemed like other valid reasonings).
Cut to the house being built, selling the family home and them moving in, it wasn't long until our father became ill. First we noticed his memory wasn't as sharp as it was, then he had difficulty driving and had to stop completely. It was around this time and slightly after the sale of their house Sarah started pestering him for a loan. He told me this himself, at first it was suggesting they bring everyone on a big holiday, then it was saying it would be nice to give all their kids 20k and how it would be nice to see us enjoy it. She eventually wore him down and he loaned her 20k, I'm assuming to get her off his back. At some point after she booked a trip to New York, brought 2 suitcases, one of which was empty but came back with them both packed full. I know it was her business what she wanted the money for but even if it was for a shopping trip she could have had the decency to conceal it a bit better. She promised him time and time again she'd pay him back. He never seen a penny. Previous to this he offered Winifred the same amount as she was going through a divorce and it would have gone to a house for her to move out, she thanked him for offering but turned it down and said she'd be ok. She didn't tell him that it was because she thought it wasn't right to accept money from him knowing he was sick as he was a very proud man.
My father was the best man I've ever known. Incredibly down to earth, very open and friendly and could make friends at the drop of a hat. I remember a couple of vacations when we were kids. Thousands of miles from home he'd bump into old friends of his.
He was the kind of person who rarely got a cold so his decline was obvious to everyone. It was a year of being misdiagnosed until he was finally correctly diagnosed with stage four liver cancer, which had moved to his lung and towards the end, a part of his brain.
His last month was the worst time of my entire life. The arguments, the tears, My mother and one of my sisters (I can't remember who) caught covid so we had to juggle who could be where. It was also the first time in nearly 20 years all of us were together for longer than a day.
Myself and Winifred were lucky enough to have bosses that were very understanding and adjusted our schedules so we were given the month off to be with our family.
As I said Sarah works from home and sees clients from her home office. She maintained her regular work schedule while we were all meters away. I understand that was her choice but it seems like odd while our father was literally wasting away in his bed, especially since she works for herself so has a pretty good control of when she can work.
Our father was such a strong person. Every palliative nurse that came were more and more taken aback with each visit that he was still with us.
We all said our individual goodbyes and promises to look after each other when his condition had advanced too much not to, and the next morning, he passed.
He had a special relationship with all of us and things Sarah has said since his passing leads me to believe she thought hers was the only one that mattered.
The funeral ceremony was quick (as per his wishes). We elected Sarah to be the one to give the eulogy as the rest of us have anxiety issues with public speaking, but we read what she was going to say a few days before the ceremony. I was the first one to read what she wrote and noticed a bulk of the corrections were changing "My Dad" to "Our Dad", I wouldn't have mentioned it but there were even times even in conversation I would correct her on this, it may seem insignificant but it's just something that really bothered me. I mean when siblings talk about their parents to each other is normal to just say "mom" or "dad" to each other.
There was light food and drinks in a local bar afterwards. As there were so many arguments the previous month between Winifred, Sarah, Mary & my mother, me and my husband were really the only people making conversation with her and her husband, apart from the odd distant relative or two. A week or so later Sarah flew off to New York, something she tried to conceal from my mother but she forgot she mentioned it to her almost a year before. There was yet another huge argument between Winifred & Sarah when Sarah thought Winifred told my mother this big secret. This is another trait Sarah and my mother share, forgetting they say things and to whom. When asked why she was so mad if my mother knew she was going away was something along the lines of "Because I didn't want to give her any ammunition use and tell everyone at the funeral". My mother is a chronic complainer who has never seen the bigger picture in social situations, but she knows better than that. Plus she had just lost her husband of 46 years who was also her best friend of 50, something I think Sarah will never see
The last two years without our father have not gotten any better, Winifred was diagnosed with breast cancer, started chemo, then discovered it has spread to her other breast, all while looking after 2 teenagers with CF and going through a divorce to a deplorable human being who seems to take pleasure in making her miserable. When Sarah heard the news of the divorce she offered to attend court with her, Winifred told me she yelled at her and her representation for not saying enough in court and then later told my mother "I only helped her because she has cancer".
When going on vacation with her family Sarah told my mother days before there departure and I later found out her children caught chicken pox but she took them on the plane anyway. My mother does not drive and there is no stores that are easily accessible for her.
Sarah was also diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in her colon. Both have had treatments and they seem to be on the mend.
The relationship between Sarah and my mother did not get any better in fact Sarah's partner Billy became a reluctant go between for them both.
After our father passed, my mother asked Billy could her utility bills be altered as she was still paying half of everything, even though there was four people in their house (2 kids) and she was now on her own. His response was no and that her and our father agreed to split utilities evenly. We advised my mother to organize a pre-pay electric meter for her part of the house so she could manage it properly. Shortly after, Sarah and Billy stopped using the jacuzzi they recently purchased as it was too expensive for them to run.
One month my mother paid €400, the next month €200, 2 months later it was €500, there's no way a pensioner living on her own could rack up half of those bills (The average household here only gets their oil refilled once every 3-6 months). She also bought a free standing gas bottle heater in her main living area and had her upstairs radiators were turned off to try and limit the usage as she never really went up there. I will add that Sarahs business requires a somewhat constant use of energy so even a 50/50 split of bills seemed unfair. Since our fathers passing, my mother would also spend days at time either with me, Winifred or Mary, but she paid it anyway just to not have any arguments.
She made one small payment of about 4% of the total 20k to my mother before our father passed and laid out a payment plan to her about how much she'd pay each month. There were no further payments. A year later Sarahs family dog got seriously ill and needed a surgery that would cost 1300 and asked my mother to lend her this money & my mother, being soft hearted loaned it to her. She did make an attempt to pay my mother back but again, one small payment was made and no more. Each time my mother brought up the money she'd brush her off and not speak to her for a while. The longest was 3 weeks with zero contact, and remember, she lived right beside her and my mother doesn't drive and it would be impossible for her to walk to a store. If it weren't for Myself and Winifred constantly checking in my mother would have just rationed the food she had. We had suggested to arrange a food delivery in the past but Sarah and Billy didn't want strangers to know the code for the gate to the property, but knowing she hadn't spoken to our mother for 3 weeks and didn't care enough to ask if she needed anything in the store forced my hand to arrange one anyway.
Everything that's happened with Sarah has made us seriously re-think everything she said has happened in her life, and a pattern we've noticed is that she's pushed away all her serious partners family from them. Her first serious boyfriend of 7-8 years, then her ex husband and her current husband Billy. First it would start with their mother or sisters, small squabbles at here and there, then on a weekly basis, followed by a giant falling out which would result in her partners only seeing their family on occasion and eventually cutting contact. At the time we all took her at her word: their mothers didn't want their sons taken away, they were rude, they were jealous of her independence etc. But seeing her push us all away and seeing the same thing happen to us we all feel incredibly foolish.
Sarah has done and said some pretty horrible stuff over the years. I can't remember specific times or dates and some may seem trivial but these ones just stuck with me:
- When Winifred was fighting with my mother over something trivial, she suggested "keep your kids away from her (my mother), that will hurt her". She's always used her children under the guise of care anytime they had a disagreement, to try and manipulate the argument in her favour. On several occasions my mother would wave to them playing outside or walking by her window and they'd rapidly put their heads down as if being scolded, so god knows what Sarah has ben saying to them. While we were helping my mother was move out, my niece came inside and she was in tears because my mother was not there for her birthday a few weeks before. She asked her why she didn't come out to her, why she didn't see her on her birthday and asked why she was moving and if she still loved her. Taken aback when she heard this she said of course she told her she loved her and she always would, she told her once she has a phone she could call her every day if she wanted, she explained she needed to be somewhere she could go grocery shopping and have things close to her home. I wasn't thee for the whole interaction but when my niece left my mother said the things my niece said were things Sarah had said to my mother in the past verbatim.
- Bringing her kids on a plane to vacation while they (1 or both I can't remember) had chicken pox.
- Casually mentioning to my mother about money she has left from the sale of the house and what pension she’s getting and how much (some of my mothers post had gone missing)
- She once ran away from home when she was a teenager for several weeks because my parents gave her an 11PM curfew
- Always passing comment and keeping tally about how much her or her children received for birthdays or any kind of milestone event (most recently my aunt gave her son €30 and it was the first thing she mentioned when she talked about my aunt not staying until the end for her sons birthday, something along the lines of "€30? What can he buy with that?" He just turned 12 and we only see this aunt a couple of times a year. (Also I give all my nieces and nephews that amount for birthdays and Christmas so hearing this made me re-think all her past thank yous)
- Decades of berating Mary and putting her down, always about her weight or the way she acted (hyperactive, no filter etc)
- Admitting to Winifred that she decided to build a barrier at the end of her patio to make my mother take a less direct route and, in-turn, from "looking into her house" when she needed access the trash, but told us all it was a wind barrier. My mother has always preferred to keep her own blinds shut so she's usually adamant on not looking in other peoples houses.
- After divorcing her first husband my parents took her in until she had somewhere to live. Sarah was insistent on compensating them and our father eventually accepted as she wouldn't let it go. Months later during a heated argument she said they never cared for her, to which they argued that they recently asked her to live with them after her divorce, and without missing a beat she replied calmly "you were well paid for that"
-While our father was in decline he wasn't very verbal and his motor skills weren't the best, one time she brought her and her family out for waffles, she posted a photo of them in the car, and on inspection I noticed he is holding a knife, backwards trying to eat, I still think about this photo regularly because it just angers me that she mostly wanted to be seen taking care of him, without first seeing if he was even able to eat. She documents almost every activity her and her family do, which is fine, but it really calls into question if any of it is for the sake of the activity and trying to capture the moment for her family to remember, or just to be seen doing it. Another instance of this was each morning if it wasn't her turn to stay up for the night shift, the palliative care nurse would arrive Sarah would bring everyone breakfast, but if the nurse wasn't there there'd be nothing, which I know she didn't owe anyone and I shouldn't expect good deeds from people, but she'd also be in to see our father much later those days.
- Once my parents moved into the house, not a week had passed and her and Billy would say things such as "you know we're not your carers so if it comes to it you should have something arranged" and there was always snide comments about how they built their property on her kids play area, suggesting it was an inconvenience and big of her to let them build but I don't think she's ever thought how my parents chose to spend their retirement years with her and her kids. Both my parents had told me this and we were all appalled.
- While our father was unconscious towards the end, my mother just asked Billy about an additional €5 on her utility bill. He said the internet went up and my mother either just asked when or that she didn't know it increased. He left and then 20 minutes or so later, Sarah marched in and loudly exclaimed something like "Do you think Billly is a thief or something?!". This could normally be passed off as a somewhat regular family argument, but it was generally agreed between all of us that my father could still hear us. There were certain reactions when my mother would speak to him, or when I played him his favourite songs, so her choice to start a fight about this with our dying father inches away still infuriates me.
- My mother was an avid gardener, but when she got to Sarah's land she only allowed her to have 4 plant pots at the back of the house. So many times I remember waking up with her already outside, she'd have her visor on with dirt on her clothes waving to me in the kitchen. I've been asking her what plans she has for her garden now it's taking a lot of encouragement from the rest of us for her to get back into it now she has the space.
- When me and my sisters were alone while my father was sick, we were talking about my mother and how she would cope with life when my father passed. He was responsible for everything, bills being paid on time, insurance etc. Her finances came up and Winifred asked the room if she'll have enough coming in to live off. Sarah, with a combined covetous and grudging tone I'll never forget, listed off payments my mother would be getting and ended with a " so she'll be fine" and then scanned the room for our reactions. I immediately responded with "Oh thank god, I was so worried she'd be struggling", shocked by my relieved response she stared at me for a couple of seconds and then shifted to a softer tone "Oh yeah she'll be ok" then changed the subject. I know this is conjecture, but I know my sister. Her repeated mentioning of my parents money and her general obsession with how much people have, I know she was hoping for us all to join in on what I know would have been an acquisitive rant.
- Close to our fathers end, I could only bare to be at the top of his bed. It was too much for me too look at him. This shell of a person, who was so strong in life was now half his body weight and all my family in agony around him. When it got too much for me I'd ask someone (occasionally Sarah) to sit with him while I called my husband for support and to help me through it. I later found out she brought this up against me and said I was a wreck and kept running off and my sleep breaks were too long (I stayed up for 24-30 hours at a time so I was the only one to sleep more than 5 hours). Who is she to monitor how anyone grieves. She could go into Billy whenever it got too much so she had her support system right there.
I'm sure Sarah is a good mother to her children, as they're both always so happy and care free, but Sarah sees the rest of us all as this big stain on her life she's more than happy to wash out. She's said this in some form of another several times to my mother over the past few years, "I don't need any of you, I have my family, they're there for me". I've never been the most involved in all of my sister's life, but I always make sure to never miss a Christmas or birthday for them and I always send money or buy gifts for her children, I've sent her flowers when she was unwell and when she received her diagnosis, but with everything she's done even the idea of keeping up the pretence of civility puts a bad taste in my mouth.
My mother has recently bought a new house and looking at her it's like a light switch has turned back on. I haven't seen her so relaxed and happy since my father was alive. The years living on Sarah's land she barely decorated and never really got comfortable. But the same day of moving in the first thing she did was put up one or two stuffed animals and other trinkets. Our mother decided to keep buying a house a secret to not cause an argument with Sarah as it was too draining and Sarah would make an argument out of anything my mother said. When she had signed the papers she decided to message Sarah to tell her she was leaving (Sarah had decided to not speak with her at all and for months had only spoke to her through Billy, but if my mother was outside while Sarah was with a client she would wave and say hello to her) her response was very nonchalant with a "that's your decision" all of us expected a huge reaction as it was the norm.
A part of me thinks maybe this was her end game all along, not speaking to my mother, not helping her with groceries and never having time to knock on her door to see if she was even alive. Sarah's last words to my father while he was unconscious were that she was going to try and make it work with my mother and my mother promised the same. With 2 kids and a business to run she's always so busy so any text messages my mother would always sign off with "I'm her if you need me, you know I'm always here" and varying ways to let her know the ball was very much in Sarah's court. Myself, Mary and Winifred all have been visiting my mother from hours away so I don't know why she expects my mother to be the one walk 15 meters to her front door, one time my mother tried and she was greeted with Sarah's arm literally blocking the doorway to stop her from coming in. It's my view that Sarah's last words to my father were a complete and utter lie to him, a lie she can never take back or explain and I hope it haunts her.
The way Sarah has acted and the things she has said since my father’s passing it’s obvious she has warped the memory of who my dad was and it couldn't be more wrong. Being the youngest, quiet, and sort of on my own a lot growing up I was always a very observant person. My father worshiped my mother, they were best friends, did absolutely everything together, he always took her side about everything, every argument, every situation, he was her number one fan and it never faltered no matter what, they were always a united front. I know he would be incredibly ashamed and appalled of what Sarah and Billy have put my mother through, squeezing her for every penny, being incredibly cold and not even feigning that they care, although through outside sources she's painted a completely different picture, to which my mother and sisters have used pain remover each and every time. To Sarah, she lost her father and her father only. She is starting chemo soon and sources say things are looking better for her health wise but I'd still like advice.
Thank you.

Historic doubts relative to Napoleon Bunoparte
Excerpt:
"Was Europe at that period peculiarly weak, and in a state of barbarism, that one man could achieve such conquests, and acquire such a vast empire? On the contrary, she was flourishing in the height of strength and civilization. Can the persevering attachment and blind devotedness of the French to this man, be accounted for by his being the descendant of a long line of kings, whose race was hallowed by hereditary veneration? ISio; we are told he was a low-born usurper, and not even a Frenchman ! Is it that he was a good and kind sovereign ? He is represented not only as an imperious and merciless despot, but as most wantonly careless of the lives of his soldiers. Could the French army and people have failed to hear from the wretched survivors of his supposed Russian expedition, how they had left the corpses of above 100,000 of their comrades bleaching on the snow-drifts of that dismal country, whither his mad ambition had conducted him, and where his selfish cowardice had deserted them? Wherever we turn to seek for circumstances that may help to account for the events of this incredible story, we only meet with such as aggravate its improbability.^ Had it been told of some distant country, at a remote period, we could not have told what peculiar circumstances there might have been to render probable what seems to us most strange; and yet in that case every philosophical sceptic, every free-thinking speculator, would instantly have rejected such a history, as utterly unworthy of credit. What, for instance, would the great Hume, or any of the philosophers of his school, have said, if they had found in the antique records of any nation such a passage as this? *' There was a certain man of Corsica, whose name was Napoleon, and he was one of the chief captains of the host of the French; and he gathered together an army, and went and fought against Egypt: but when the king of Britain heard thereof, he sent ships of war and valiant men to fight against the French in Egypt. So they warred against them, and prevailed, and strengthened the hands of the rulers of the land against the French, and drave away Napoleon from before the city of Acre. Then Napoleon left the captains and the army that were in Egypt, and fled, and returned back to France. So the French people took Napoleon, and made him ruler over them, and he became exceeding great,"" insomuch that there was none like him of all " that had ruled over France before.""
Points made in the book range from the untrustworthiness of newspapers of the time (not a new problem) who often quoted unnamed sources, to the improbability of feats credited to Napoleon, his ability to garner support for seemingly unpopular moves, and for to the contradictions in accounts of the events. It discusses what a convenient enemy Napoleon made for every political party involved saying that to raise taxes in the future one would simply have to invoke some new Napoleon figure( We have always been at war with Eastasia**).**
Excerpt:
"There is one more circumstance which I cannot forbear mentioning, because it so much adds to the air of fiction which pervades every part of this marvellous tale; and that is, the nationality of it."^
Buonaparte prevailed over all the hostile States in turn, except England; in the zenith of his power, his fleets were swept from the sea, by England; his troops always defeat an equal, and frequently even a superior number of those of any other nation, except the English ; and with them it is just the reverse; twice, and twice only, he is personally engaged against an English commander^
and both times he is totally defeated ; at Acre, and at Waterloo; and to crown all, England finally crushes this tremendous power, which had so long kept the continent in subjection or in alarm; and to the English he surrenders himself prisoner! Thoroughly national, to be sure! It may h^ all very true; but I would only ask, if a story had been fabricated for che express purpose of amusing the English nation, could it have been contrived more ingeniously? It would do admirably for an epic poem ; and indeed bears a considerable resemblance to the Iliad and the JEneid; in which Achilles and the Greeks, iEneas and the Trojans, (the ancestors of the Eomans,) are so studiously held up to admiration"
Surely this is just some one off 19th century conspiracy theorist and no others have ever questioned the incontestable figure of Napoleon. The above book seems to lend credence to the notion that the book "Did Napoleon Ever Exist? " by Pérès, Jean Baptiste written in 1885 and touted as a satire is instead a true telling of the allegory that props up the myth of Napoleon. The use of humor and satire to speak truth to power is not a new concept.
Excerpt:
"That he triumphed in the south, and succumbed in the north ;
That, finally, after a reign of twelve years, which he had begun on arriving from the east, he disappeared in the western seas.
It remains, then, to be seen if these different particulars are borrowed from the sun, and we hope that whoever reads this writing will be convinced that they are.
In the first place, every one knows that the sun is called Apollo by the poets. ' Now, the difference between Apollo and Napoleon is not great, and it will appear still less if we go back to the significance of these names, or to their origin.
It is certain that the word Apollo signifies exterminator ; and it appears that this name was given to the sun by the Greeks, on account of the evil which it did to them before Troy, where a portion of their army perished through excessive heat, and from the contagion which resulted therefrom at the time of the outrage committed by Agamemnon upon Chryses, priest of the sun, as ja seen at the beginning of Homer^s Iliad ;
and the brilliant imagination of the Greek poets transformed the rays of the siin into fiery darts, which the irritated god hurled from all sides, and which would have exterminated everything if, to appease his anger, liberty had not been rendered to Chryseis, daughter of the sacrificer Chryses.
It was apparently at that time, and for that reason, that the sun was named Apollo. But, whatever may have been the circumstance or the cause which gave the star such a name, it is certain that it means " the exterminator."
Now, Apollo is the same word as Apoleon. They are derived from ApoUyo {AttoXXvco) or Apole6 (ATroXeo)), two Greek verbs which are but one, and which signify to destroy, to kill, to exterminate ; so that, if the pretended hero of our century were called Apoleon he would have the same name as the sun, and would fulfil, moreover, all the signification of this name ; for he is depicted to us as the greatest Exterminator of men who ever existed. But this personage is named Napoleon ; and consequently there is in his name an initial letter which is not in the name of the sun."
lastly we show the work of a Russian revisionist who found over 200 nearly exact copies of the the events of the lives of Napoleon 1 and his nephew Napoleon 3.
Excerpt:
REVISION OF THE 19TH CENTURY.I. FORMULATION OF THE PROBLEM. Traditional historical science considers the chronology of events of the 19th century, as well as these themselves events established correctly (not falsified) not only in general terms, but also in particulars (such as, for example, the identification of the current city of Sevastopol with the “Sevastopol” that was taken during the Crimean War). Task: produce analysis of the history of the 19th century for the presence of falsifications. Objects for analysis - stories Napoleon I and Napoleon III, as well as related events.
II. INITIAL DATA.
A partial selection of well-known historical data is provided as initial data, considered by traditional historians to be true. For ease of analysis, the data is grouped in pairs of events with a step between events in a pair of approximately 50 years.

1. November 1799: Napoleon I becomes head of France. December 1848: Napoleon III becomes President of France.
2. 4 years after the start of his reign, Napoleon I is proclaimed emperor France. The Republic turns into an Empire (1804). 4 years after the start of his reign, Napoleon III is proclaimed emperor France. The Republic turns into an Empire (1852).
3. On the eve of Napoleon I coming to power (1799) - an uprising in Ireland (1798), depressed. On the eve of Napoleon III coming to power (1848) - uprising in Ireland (1848), depressed
4. Barras contributed to the rise to power of Napoleon I. The first prime minister under Napoleon III was Barrault.
5. February 1798: proclamation of the Roman Republic with the support of the acceding to the Papal States of the French army; The republic lasted about a year. February 1849: proclamation of the Roman Republic; the republic lasted less years and was destroyed by the French army that entered the Papal States.
6. On the eve of the birth of Napoleon (1769), the Russian during the fleet the war with Turkey carried out the so-called "First Archipelago Expedition" (since 1769), during which there was The Turkish fleet was defeated (in the Battle of Chesme). On the eve of the birth of Napoleon (1808), the Russian fleet during the war with Turkey carried out the so-called "Second Archipelago Expedition" (since 1806), during which there was The Turkish fleet was defeated (in the Battle of Athos).
7. About 10 years before the birth of Napoleon I (1769), Germany formed literary movement "Storm and Drang", which quite sharply broke with classicism. A more moderate position was taken by the "Union of the Grove" ("Göttingen Commonwealth of Poets"), which arose a little later and collapsed a couple of years after the birth of Napoleon. About 10 years before the birth of Napoleon (1808), a literary circle was formed in Germany "Jena Romantics" who created the theory of early romanticism, contrasting it bourgeois reality. The Heidelberg circle had more moderate positions. romantics", which arose a little later and disintegrated a couple of years after its birth Napoleon.
8. During the reign of Napoleon I, a war was organized for almost all of Europe against Russia (1812 Patriotic War). On the European side, the war is led by Napoleon I, and on the Russian side - brothers Alexander and Konstantin. During the reign of Napoleon III, a war was organized for almost all of Europe against Russia. (Crimean War). On the European side, the war is led by Napoleon III, and on the European side Russia - brothers Alexander and Konstantin.
9. Only son of Napoleon I, never to reign as Napoleon II, born in 1811 (one year before the end of the Patriotic War) and lived only 21 years. The only son of Napoleon III, never to reign as Napoleon IV, born in 1856 (in the year the Crimean War ended) and lived only 22 years.
10. Napoleon I was an artillery officer who published a couple of pamphlets on ballistics. Napoleon III was an artillery officer who printed a couple of pamphlets on his specialty.
11. Napoleon I suffered from stomach cancer, which brought him to the grave. Napoleon III suffered from kidney stones, which killed him.
12. Just before the fall of Napoleon I (1815) - Bonaparte is forced to announce liberal reforms During the "Hundred Days", on April 23, 1815, the Constitution was published. very liberal compared to how Bonaparte ruled before. The Constitution was approved in a plebiscite in May 1815 (a month before the final abdication). The last years of Napoleon III's reign were marked by liberal reforms. In 1869 (a year before the fall of Bonaparte in 1870) a new Constitution was published, which was approved in a plebiscite held in May 1870 (a couple of months before the fall of Napoleon in September 1870). continued

One point of interest was not enough to secure a spot on this fine sub reddit. Nor was two, let us see if 3 points made in favor of my argument that Napoleon is a historical pseudo character are enough to remain up.
culturallayer

I moved to New Mexico from California in January. I first visited Albuquerque a few months prior, for the Balloon Fiesta, and absolutely loved it! I loved the mountains, sunsets, green chile stew, and twinning of Hispanic and Native American cultures. I was a little bored in San Diego, and I wanted more space for myself and my dog. I had a peripatetic childhood, and every few years I get the itch to move.
A week after my move, I closed on a house. I spent the next month renovating it before moving in. Major work included updating the flooring throughout the house and updating the kitchen. While my realtor showed me glossy houses with floor to ceiling windows and pools, I opted for a quirky stucco house built in 1946 in an old growth neighborhood with a big yard. Although I moved in 2 months ago, and bought a ton of furniture, I am still buying and installing a lot of "one off" items, like a chimney cover and gate lock. I'm looking forward to the dust settling and and end to the many home purchases.
Home projects I'm considering this year include building a privacy fence--my dog is way too interested in the neighbor's cats--xeriscaping the front yard, planting fruit trees, and planting grass or some other ground cover in the back yard. In the next few years, I'm going to think about installing a hot tub or an ufuro (Japanese soaking tub) in the back yard, building an art studio or an ADU and installing solar.
I wrote a money diary a few years ago, when I got a puppy, and it includes historical information about my student loans, condo purchase, and income progression.
Real Estate
I am poised to sell my San Diego condo in four months to friends, who are currently renting from me. I am giving them a price that is significantly below market rate, and because we aren't using brokers, I will avoid realtor fees. Plus, I really like the neighborly approach of selling to friends. After my move to New Mexico, I agonized over renting it out permanently. In the end, I didn't want the expense and the risk of renting it out, and I did not want to to be a landlord. I also had the strong sense that I do not want to live there again in the future. Although I drafted spreadsheet after spreadsheet with various financial scenarios, in the end, it was a gut decision.
I have a mortgage on my condo and a HELOC, which I used for the downpayment and renovations on my house. I also have a mortgage on my New Mexico house. When I sell my condo, I will pay off the condo mortgage and HELOC. After the sale, I have some options with what to do with the net proceeds: pay off the mortgage on my New Mexico house, fund some home upgrade projects, save for retirement, buy land to build in the mountains or some combination of these ideas.
What would you do?
Assets and Debt

• Retirement Balance (IRAs, Roth IRAs, 401(k), Roth 401(k) and company stock): $360,078
• Savings and checking accounts: This is divided into accounts for travel, pet expenses, clothes, etc.: $30,221
• Student loan debt:$2,629 at 3% interest. While I can pay this off, the interest rate is low, and I'm curious about where student loan forgiveness will end up.
• Health Savings Account: $4,785
• 529 Account (for my niece and nephew): $15,128. I just opened a New Mexico 529 account, which is state tax deductible.

Income
I'm a public health professional, and I love my job! I've worked at the same company for 12 years, and my job is portable--I've brought it with me to Brooklyn, San Diego and now ABQ.
Monthly Income

• Rental income on San Diego condo: $2,900
• Monthly net income: $5,626

Individual Deductions

• Taxes: $2,224
• Health insurance, dental and vision: $165
• Health Savings Account: $192
• Retirement contributions: $1,050
• Stock purchase plan: $286

Real Estate Monthly Expenses

• San Diego condo mortgage (includes taxes and insurance): $2,403
• Mortgage balance $355,176 at 2.5% interest
• San Diego HOA fees: $240
• New Mexico mortgage (includes taxes and insurance): $2,279
• Mortgage balance $260,283 at 7.1% interest: I will refinance in the next few months
• HELOC: $803
• HELOC balance: $114,477 at 7.49% interest

Monthly Expenses

• Car insurance: $138
• Student loans: $58
• Donation to Bali Animal Welfare Association: $20
• Ad hoc donations: I budget about $100
• Electricity: $30
• Gas: $58
• Water: $70. This will likely increase this month, as I have planted a vegetable garden.
• Internet: $75
• Cell phone (Mint Mobile): $25
• Car wash membership: $21. I'll likely cancel this next month.
• Spotify: $11
• Netflix: $15
• HBO: $16. I'll cancel this after I watch "Zone of Interest".
• NYTimes: $25
• Local newspaper: $20
• Pet savings: $200 to "kitty for my kitty" account
• Travel savings: $200

Monday
Before I start work, a landscaper drops by to take a look at my yard. I'm gathering quotes and ideas, and I show him around.
My last work meeting ends at 2:00p. I can tell my dog is bored, because he's been trying to play with the cat. "She'll never play with you," I tell him. Once my work is done, I feed my cat her "half dinner" so she doesn't feel deprived, and I take my dog for a hike in the Sandia mountains on a pine shaded trail. I've been going to this open space area weekly, and today I pay for for an annual pass ($30) so I don't have to deal with dollar bills in little envelopes. The weather is perfect. My trail running shoes are old and I need a new pair, as well as hiking boots for my trek to Havasupai Falls later this year.
On the way home, I stop at a tractor supply store to see if they have the grass cutting sheers that I need. Because they don't, I'm going to order them online.
For dinner, I make potato poblano quesadillas have a glass of wine, and have mint chocolate malt balls for dessert. The cat receives her second half dinner. I purchase hiking boots, trail running shoes, and snow boots (which I wish I'd had in January) for $152. I want a fancy cart for my garden hose, and it is on sale, but I decide to make do with my old garden hose for now and keep looking on Facebook Marketplace. I buy the grass sheers and two window alarms for $52.
Daily total: park pass $30, boots (3 pairs) $152, home and garden supplies $52
Tuesday
Today is hot and sunny day. My meeting schedule is light, and I have time to get to the bottom of both my to do list and my inbox. Breakfast is a smoothie with homemade yogurt, bananas, cherries and spinach. I do some nosework practice with my dog. He is learning to stick his nose in a box containing a mix of essential oils (birch, clove). We do group nosework classes, and I hope that having a job will build his confidence and reduce his reactivity.
The landscaper arrives, this time with his architect, and we talk about ideas--a rock river, low-water plants, a drip irrigation system, a Crape Myrtle tree in my courtyard, fig and peach trees in the back yard.
After work, I take my dog to Tingley beach, a series of ponds. We walk the trails by the Rio Grande. It's hot, and he dips his paws in the river. To his surpise, he's immediately in water up to his chest. He is so excited by this event that he zoomies me up the trail. It's the most thrilling thing to happen to him today! After a few miles of walking, we drive home, with a stop at the car wash (included in my car wash membership). I water my vegetable garden. The tomatoes look happy, and the basil is coming up, but the cucumbers are struggling and the strawberries look burnt.
I go to Costco to pick up my prescription sunglasses ($55 after insurance, paid for previously with my HSA account). I also buy a bottle of rose ($17) and get gas ($33). Every time I get gas in New Mexico, I think "$20 in my pocket," as compared to California prices.
Dinner is a simple Caesar salad. I make salt and pepper skillet croutons and have a Pacifico with a slice of lemon.
Daily total: Gas $33, wine $17
Wednesday
I have a long and interesting anti-trust training at work, followed by client meetings. Lunch is homemade roasted poblano enchiladas. I realized that I have been eating Amy's enchiladas a few times a week, and, on Sunday, I approximated the recipe using the ingredients on the box. I think I got pretty close! I made 9 servings, which I froze. While delicious, I'm not sure if it is worth it from a frugal standpoint, as I saved $30 or 50% over the cost of the frozen dinners--not super impressive for an afternoon of work.
In the afternoon, my dog and I have a dog training session (prepaid $1,000 for 6 sessions). Our trainer has great credentials and loves huskies. The sessions are super expensive, but they will be worth it if he can learn to meet new friends in the house without fear. Training is going very, very slowly. The trainer tries to move closer to him while keeping under the reactive threshold, desensitizing him to her presence. Today, we only make it as far as the courtyard.
After training, I go to watch "Civil War" with a friend. Because he bought tickets last time, I buy two tickets ($21). A weird tradition in ABQ is to buy a pickle at the movies, and I get a kosher dill ($3). I brought a flask with an old fashioned made from my favorite aged rum, Zacapa 23, and chocolate bitters, and he brings Tequila Rose. It's juvenile, I know, but fun.
Still shellshocked after the movie, I drop into pet store and buy a clicker for nosework. At $11, it's ridiculously expensive for a plastic piece, and in retrospect, I'll probably return it. I would have had better sense if my brain wasn't stuck in the movie world of the American dystopia. I buy a few groceries--lettuce, coconut water, pesto, crackers, mozzeralla and a small container of Greek yogurt to use as starter ($24). Dinner is grilled cheese sandwiches with tomatoes and basil and a glass of red wine.
Daily total: Movie tickets $21, pickle $3, dog clicker $11, groceries $24
Thursday
While I make my coffee, I heat up milk for yogurt to 160 degrees and put it on the back of the stove, well away from my pup, who loves dairy. Today my work schedule is jam-packed. After work, I take my dog for a 3 mile walk in an open space area around several farms. Back at home, I have 15 minutes before I leave for hot yoga. It's enough time to finish making the yogurt. The milk has cooled to 100 degrees. I stir in a spoonful of plain Greek yogurt and divide the mixture in three quart size jars, which I have pre-warmed with hot water. I leave the jars along with a Nalgene of hot water in a small cooler and let the bacteria do their work.
After my very hot yoga class (prepaid $30 for 30 days), I stop by Whole Foods and buy a green chile beef burger, mangos, coconut water, cherries, cucumbers, milk, some Amy's dinners and a Reisling ($50).
Daily total: Groceries: $50
Friday
The homemade yogurt is thick and creamy. I refill the hot water bottle and leave it for another 8 hours to increase the acidity. While I try to practice "Focus Fridays," I somehow have 6 meetings on my calendar. I'll be leaving for the country's largest powpow, the Gathering of Nations, in the afternoon, and I know my dog needs some exercise before I go. We walk around the neighborhood, and then I take him to Petco for some mental stimulation. I buy cat treats, smoked rib bones and a $4 clicker. I return the $11 clicker ($8 total).
Before I leave, I tape a rib bone in box for him to demolish. He's so good at this that he has the bone out of the box before I'm out of the door. I text a friend who is already at the event, and she says they are strict about unopened water bottles. I stop at a gas station and buy a bottle of water, and on a whim, a lottery ticket. $3. The ticket price for the Gathering of Nations is $30 and parking is $20.
I miss the horse parade, but the entry of dancers is like nothing I've ever seen: 1,000 dancers in regalia dancing to 17 drum circles, led by an eagle staff. Not only are 500+ tribes from across the US and Canada in attendance, but there are also Native Hawaiians and Maori attendees, among other First Nations. Outside of the coliseum, it's cool to see people in full regalia with ankle bells, walking around the grounds, ordering hot dogs and ice cream . I have an Indian Taco (taco fixings on fry bread) for the first time and cherry pie ($18). I also get a funnel cake for $19, which seems super expensive. There's a market with Native-made handicrafts, and and I buy a pair Quahog clam shell earrings for $20. It's one of coolest events I've ever been to: a celebration of Native American cultures where all are welcome.
Daily total: Pets: $8, Gathering of Nations entry and parking: $50, Food: $40, Earrings: $20
Saturday
I take my dog to the open space area for a long walk before I leave for a nosework competition in rural New Mexico. I've never been to one, but my nosework teacher is serving as a judge, and, when I expressed interest, she volunteered me. It turns out that volunteering is a great way to observe. I'm assisting in a "detective" indoooutdoor competition, where dogs have to find 10 hidden scents within 9 minutes. It's clear to me that so much depends on communication between the guardian and the dog.
From my field guide to New Mexico eating and drinking, I learn that there is a brewery hidden in this town, and I belly up to the bar. I try a few beers and bring home a six pack of cherry wheat beer for $11. At home, it has started to rain. Dinner is green chile stew, which I made previously. While classic green chile stew contains pork, I used a a small ribeye instead, and double up on the vegetables. I pair it with jalepeno cornbread (not homemade).
We do "Saturday nights at the movies" at home. I can't bring myself to watch a Holocaust movie, so I curl up and watch "Juliet, Naked" with my dog.
Daily total: Beer: $11
Sunday
I wake up with a scratchy throat. I was going to attend the University of New Mexico powwow that is scheduled as less commercialized counter program to the Gathering of Nations, but I text my friend to say I'm going to lie low instead and rest.
I do an hour of online yoga and 20 minutes of physical therapy from Kaia, an app that I can access from my health plan. I love it--the at home therapy has helped me avoid yet another round of in-person physical therapy. I keep my dog in place on his cot as I do this. As recommended by his trainer, I'm emphasizing self-calming behavior. I know he needs some attention, so we do some nosework practice and I brush his coat. Then, I take him to one of his favorite place, the UNM campus with a duck pond. We walk around, and I reward him for self control--for example, seeing another dog and not reacting--with very small bits of cheese.
At the nearby Frontier restaurant, I order a beef enchilada plate with green chile stew, a soda and a dozen tortillas to go for $19. It's the restaurant where I had my first meal in ABQ, after 14 hours of driving, and it turned out to be a winner!
Back at home, I open Reddit to write my money diary. A request in freemeal catches my eye, and I send a fellow redditor cat litter, cat food and cat treats for $39. In the gift message, I say "From my kitty to your kitties," although I know my cat would never give away salmon treats.
Daily total: Lunch: $19; Donation: $39
All expenses by Category (Total $481)

• Food + Drink: $164
• Fun / Entertainment: $101
• Home + Health: $52
• Clothes + Beauty: $172
• Transport: $33
• Donations: $39
• Pets: $19

Reflections
This was a heavier spend week for me, particularly in Fun / Entertainment and Food + Drink, mostly due to the Gathering of Nations event. This was a slice of life money diary and it's accurate to my place in life--new to New Mexico and spending a significant amount of money for real estate, home items, and pet-related items.