I am mostly using this as a sounding board for any potential solutions.
A bit of background: On paper I'm pretty successful - I am 22, I'm a software developer in metro Dallas and $130K/year and I work from home 4/5 days of the week. State flagship graduate - CompSci and Econ major. Normal height and weight; normal appearance. Never really friends in middle school or high school - I was socially awkard; in college, no real friends as well, just study partners that I never engaged deeply with. Spent evenings and weekends in high school and college reading oodles of Wikipedia. Never really developed hobbies of any sort but did end up learning a substantial amount of econ, polisci, and finance.
I notice about me when I am chatting with my coworkers is that I have no "normal" interests - sports, dating, movies, TV shows, music, guns, etc "touching grass" - none of that interests me and I've never done it (ex: go to a live music festival, go to the movies, watch weekend football, etc).
The only hobby-ish thing I have do now is reading econ/polisci/law papers - but it's a highly niche interest - none of my coworkers really do care about learning about the capital structure of a private equity firm or life insurer balance sheets or research on optimal size of municipalities or statistical methods for causal inference even if I can ramble about it for hours; it's not even that I enjoy reading the econ/polisci/law stuff - it's that I feel like I have nothing better to do - on the weekends, I'll log into my laptop; say I'll do leetcode or professional development (to improve my salary), and then do nothing but read wikipedia, a handful of econ/polisci papers, and browse news before its 2AM (not really generating any satisfaction - feel like I'm just burning time). It is also incredibly lonely since I don't really have anyone to talk to, no real friends, and relatedly, no real interests. And obviously: it's very hard if not impossible to find people to talk about the things I am interested in IRL. I know I'm in a comfortable spot but honestly, my hobby-less situation with no "outside" interests and no real friends is really weighing on me, I'm incredibly lonely and isolating; I've been in this metro area for 1 year and the only people I'm on a first name basis with are my coworkers. especially since there's a clock where if I wait longer, I won't be able to make friends since everyone in my birth cohort will be with children, spouses, and careers; what should I do to find something that interests me and so that I am able to make friends and have normal hobbies?"

Hello, to preface this post, I am not very familiar with Reddit and am using a throwaway account as to keep this anonymous. I will likely try posting this in other subreddits to try and hear thoughts from a wider range of users. I apologize in advance if this post doesn't match exactly to how people normally use this forum.
Recently, I have been thinking a lot about some experiences I had during my life from my childhood until now (I am 20). I never really questioned most of this stuff and just assumed that the things I would experience were common and ones that everyone else around me could relate to. It wasn't until more recently when most friends I spoke to about any of this stuff thought this was somewhat abnormal or they couldn't exactly understand what I was trying to describe. So, under this paragraph, I am going to outline some mental phenomena I used to (or still do) experience. If anyone can relate to or have some better understanding for what these things are, I would really appreciate a response.
I regularly experienced vivid night terrors as a young child, some that I still remember well to this day. I would sometimes wake up screaming in my sleep or roll off my bed. I would often sleep walk throughout my home in the night, and would also have nights where I would experience a half-asleep half-awake state of consciousness in which I would pace around in circles in my bedroom or living room while imagining that my dreams were connected to real life. As an example: The night after watching the movie Gravity in theaters (I was 9 years old), I sleep walked into the living room. I then woke into this trance-like state where I paced around in circles with anxiety for what felt like hours and hours as I was convinced that I was being sent to space and that I would die. Just to note- I also experienced sleep paralysis a couple times in which I would awake with a completely numb body, unable to move, with a shadowy figure standing in my doorway. These night terrors eventually went away, and they stopped around middle school. Around that time, I began experiencing very common and easy to achieve lucid dreams, both on purpose and accident.
Very often, after looking at an object for long enough, I would begin to feel that the object was either much smaller than it really was, or that it was a large object further away than it really was. By this, I don't mean that objects were literally larger or smaller in my vision. Rather that they were distorting in size while also distorting in distance from my eyes in order to maintain the same amount of space in my field of view. This would often happen in school while staring at boards, papers, or teachers. It was often very disorientating and dizzying. I could only usually make my perception return to normal after closing my eyes for long enough. Otherwise, my vision would distort more, and everything would feel strangely far away. This is something that I experienced more as a kid, but still occasionally feel even today.
In a similar vein to these visual distortions, I also occasionally experienced mild time distortions. (This is difficult to describe, so bear with me.) Also as a kid, hearing and focusing in on a particular tempo visually and auditorily (like tapping my finger at a constant interval) would cause time to feel as if it was moving significantly faster. It feels like the tapping is happening really slowly while the world around me moved faster, making me feel really anxious. This didn't happen very often, and would usually correlate to the night terrors I would have (feeling much longer than they actually were). This is something I do not experience anymore and haven't since middle school.
I also experienced a couple rare episodes of dissociation growing up. They felt pretty severe to me, feeling like I wasn't in control of my body or mind, like I was watching from far away, and everything felt cloudy and fuzzy. One in particular was very intense, and just lasted for one day- ending with me becoming severely ill and throwing up all over the place.
Nowadays I don't experience much of these things. The only real mental struggles I feel now are high social anxiety, often avoiding places and people so that I don't have to interact. College friends regularly mention to me that they walk past me and that I see them but never say hi, and I almost never realize that I had stared straight at people I know. I often feel like I walk around everyday without recognizing or even seeing people's faces, even ones close to me.
There are a couple other habits I had as a kid that might warrant looking into, but they are things I didn't want to really get into here. If anyone has any insight or shares these experiences, please comment, I'd love to hear! Looking back at all this stuff is strange and a little worrying at times, so any thoughts are appreciated! Thank you for reading this. :)

I've been working on this story for... 3 months? 4? who knows, with my ability to keep track of time I could have started this yesterday, anyway, this is a story that has sci-fi elements, and some fantasy, although the fantasy stuff is mainly dragons so lets say adventure for now, (cause I don't know shit about genres, I just wrote the story) , Keep in mind, this has been written in free time, of which I don't have a lot, so if you don't like the story it is probably my fault, here is a look at:

Dragons wing

I slowly drift from my sleep and think to myself, ow, why is everything warm? I check the thermostat and see that it is at a temperature as cool as Canada and when I turn back to go back to bed so that I can sleep in, I see that my stuff has been knocked over? Oh sorry, where are my manners? I'm James O’Maley, I put everything back into place, and lay down on my bed but nothing is comfortable! I just decide, you know what, whatever, I’m just gonna get ready for work, and with that i get dressed, everything feels harder to put on, but it really hits me when I go to brush my teeth, when I looked into the mirror, I saw that their were, wings on my back, and a tail, growing out my butt like a lizard, I obviously spend several minutes having an existential crisis about this shocking revelation, and I decide to look at what these wings can do, I open a window, crawl out, with some difficulty and some slamming the window on my tail. I go to the edge of the fire escape railing, hop on, and jump, and I flew, higher and higher, until i nearly flew into a mountain but that's when I suddenly breathed fire, from my mouth, and bore a hole straight through the cliffside, I could spend all day flying, breathing fire, and fiddling with my tail, but I began to feel as tired as if I’d just gotten back from lifting weights with tigers, I landed on a cliffside and fell asleep. When I woke up I wasn’t on the cliffside anymore, there were monitors and scientists all around me. I tried to show some sign that I was awake, but I was chained up! I spent several moments struggling to get free, I must be free, I am not something they can chain down! I struggle, I roar, I attempt to move my head enough to burn the surrounding area, but I can’t, until someone finally talks to me,
“Hello there, James, please forgive us for our caution, but with your kind we can never be too careful.” I can see the scientist, I read his name tag, Dr. Crane William, I roar out
“My kind!? Get me out of these chains!” I breathe fire, claw, kick and swing my tail, trying to free myself, until I see two other people watching, one with weird whiskers, a long tail and a smug look on his face, and the other with a similar appearance to me but her wings are her arms. The next few days go by, until the two finally decide to talk to me, and in those days, My face becomes a snout like a komodo dragon’s, the one with the whiskers opens his mouth first and I already hate him
“Would you look at that, he’s even uglier up close!” I glare at him with absolute hatred, that seems to anger him more,
“What are you mute or something? Speak before I tear you apart!” he takes one step closer and that's all I need, I Bite his shoulder and use his head to break the chains on my right arm, I continue to break the rest of them with ease, and tell whiskers
“You want to fight? Let’s fight!” I leap on top of him, clawing at his face, he tries to slash me with a blade on his tail but I grab it and stab the wall with it, until I feel a burning sensation in my veins, The girl had bitten me! She looks at me with sadness,
“Sorry about this,” I look at her and drift into unconsciousness, when I wake up next I’m in some kind of, medical wing, ha, wing, as I look around I feel that my mouth is bound shut, but other than that, I can move my body, I get up off the gurney and just when I think it looks nice, whiskers shows his face,
“Well thanks a lot freak, now I’m on probation with Dr. Crane.” I motion to my mouth and he seems to have enough brain cells to understand what I mean
“Ha! You got the boot, Lily had that on her when she wouldn’t stop biting staff, I’m Ryan Mist.” I just walk away and try getting this muzzle off, That's when Crane walks in,
“Well, I must say it has been a while since we’ve had to use the boot, Ryan, your behavior was unacceptable!” I can tell that Crane is annoyed, and right as he finishes his sentence, click, the boot falls off my face and clatters to the ground. I don’t bother trying to fight Ryan again, I’m just happy to be able to talk!
“Well that’s a lot better, now, talk, I want answers.” I growl, Crane and Ryan seem surprised that I got the boot off but they talk, turns out, I’m what’s called a dragonkin a Human who has dragon genes in their genome, Lily and Ryan are also dragonkin, although they can’t breath fire, Lily has fangs and a venomous bite, turns out she’s the girl that bit me, and Ryan just looks weird, apparently we are the only dragonkin who evaded the organization that Crane works for, Called ‘Kadmus,’ into adulthood, Lily being found at 22, ryan at 20, and me at 24, on top of that, we are the only dragonkin who have survived that long, it’s at that moment that I notice Lily looking at us from behind some glass, I decide that I’ve heard enough and open the door, and I leave the room.
As I leave the room I can tell that Lily was not expecting me from the look on her face, I start a conversation with her, trying desperately to be friendly and not notice all the scientists glancing at me nervously.
“Hey, Lily, Right?” I say in the friendliest tone I can, “I’m James.” Lily looks at me with a calculating look before answering
“Hello, yeah my name is Lily, Lily Megan.” she clearly is wary of me, but I can tell a few things about her, making herself look small, clearly smarter than she lets on, seems shy,
“How did you get it off?” Lily breaks into my train of thought with the question,
“What?” I ask her, confused,
“The Boot, how did you get it off?” She gestures to the room where Crane and Ryan were having an argument, but more specifically to The Boot, laying on the ground
“Oh that? I once took a lockpicking class when I was younger.” I explain
“Huh, you mind teaching me that sometime?” She catches me off guard with that one, I can tell that she is being genuine so I agree, And we begin working out what time works best.

The next few weeks go by in a flash, but I’ll summarize it for you, I ended up getting my own room like Ryan and Lily, I start teaching Lily how to pick locks, and we end up having a few game nights where we played games like charades, poker, even monopoly, lets just say that we will never play monopoly again. However, the most important thing of all, we ended up finding another dragonkin! We aren’t sure what dragon ancestor he has, but we think he’s another eastern long tail, like Ryan, the new guy’s name is Dillian, He’s great, absolute goofball, he’s from Australia, and according to him, his family has never been anywhere but the land down under, weird, but the guy’s like a little brother to me, so it’s cool, and that catches you up. “Hey Dillian!” I lean my head into his room, “Wanna come hang out with the rest of us? It’s movie night!” Dillian just looks at me, unreadable, 

“Okay, your loss.” I try to hide how unnerving that look felt, but something doesn’t feel right. I go back to the lounge, where Ryan, Lily, and Crane are all waiting for me,
“Sorry guys, Dillian, isn’t up for it.” Lily looks at me disappointed,
“Aw man, and we're even watching Dune!” I just look at her with a sad look, but Ryan manages to lift the mood a little bit,
“Last time we let Crane pick the movie!” Crane just glares at Ryan, I can tell he’s about to lecture him so I just start the movie, around one hour in, boom, everything is blurry, and there is dust swirling, everything hurts. I see Lily and Ryan helping evacuate the scientists, I don’t see Crane anywhere! But that's when I see it, Cranes lab coat, soaked red and underneath a piece of rubble, I try to run towards it, but I can't stay on my legs, I call out,
“CRANE!” My friends hear me, they rush towards me and they see the lab coat, Lily tears up, Ryan is too stunned to speak, then we hear it, we hear him. Dillian, he’s laughing, laughing at the lab coat, laughing at us, My head snaps toward him, I feel the rage burning, my wings flare out, fire rises in my throat, I grab Dillian by the collar, and I roar,
“Do you think this is funny?!” Dillian just keeps laughing, “Crane is deadI!” Dillian looks at me, and he finally stops laughing, he pushes me off and spikes erupt from his skin, his tail wraps around my throat, and he growls,
“Don’t touch me you cretin, my ancestors were nearly wiped out by yours, I’m just returning the favor.” I look at him confused, Ryan seems to have been just as confused as me because he asked,
“What do you mean? The Eastern long tails have never had an issue with the Flying flame drakes.” Dillian just flicked his wrist and one of the spines shot out and nearly sliced Ryan’s head off!
“Do not compare the Wyrms to those foolish sky beasts! They have ruled the land for centuries!” Dillian roars, at this point I finally manage to choke out,
“Wyrm? Like the dragon inside the mountain Wyrm?” I struggle against his tail, I finally get a claw hooked under it and pull, it takes all of my strength to get my head loose and retreat, and then I see Dillian fully for the first time, pale skin covered in red spines and a long tail that could probably crush a normal humans windpipe, if I wasn’t a dragonkin I’d be dead.
“So, you do have a brain. Indeed, my ancestors were the Wyrms, Masters of the land, and the only dragons to be nearly forgotten by time, if it weren’t for the colony under Australia, I would not be a dragonkin.” Dillian snorts, and after saying his piece he leaped up, dived down, and bore through the earth, I try to go after him, but Lily holds me back,
“James you're hurt, and you would not stand a chance against him in your current state!” I hate to admit it, but it’s true, I would not stand a chance against Dillian, oh man, my leg hurts, I look at my left leg and I see that it has a shard of metal sticking out of it, and then everything feels heavy, I hear Lily yell out my name, but she sounds so far away, I don’t try and fight it, I just let the darkness envelope me, at least in the dark I can’t hurt, when I wake up I’m in the medical wing ha, it’s still funny, I have a bandage around my leg and then it all rushes back to me, Crane’s lab coat, Dillian laughing, the rage, everything, replaying over and over in my mind, I immediately try and stand up and I find a lot of difficulty in that, but I manage to stumble off the bed, I avoid putting weight on my leg, and I use my wings when necessary,
‘Well it’s about time you woke up, and here I was thinking that we had wasted time and resources.” I spin around to see a lady in a suit and glasses looking at me with a look of disdain,
“Hello, I am Dr. Leanne Vern, but you can call me Leanne. I am your new head researcher, I hope you are ready for your next few tests, Dr. Crane wasted a lot of time ‘bonding’ with you.” It’s right as she finishes that sentence when I feel the urge to make it her last, I feel rage burning under my skin and I glare at her with every last ounce of anger possible,
“What.” Either she didn’t get the memo or she is just a jerk, because she did not care, but either way I continued,
“Do you think that now is a good time to either ridicule Crane, or tell me that you need to run tests on me? I am not your lab rat” I grab her collar “I am not something you just get to boss around, If you say something like that again I will send you straight to the underworld where you belong.” I shove her back and go look for Lily and Ryan, I find them in the cafeteria, I get some food and sit down across from them,
“Mind if I sit here?” It clearly lightened the mood, but not even Ryan found the humor to reply, but we started to talk turns out I had been knocked out for two weeks, when I asked about Dillian Ryan tensed up, he explained to me that Dillian goes by ‘Death Wyrm’ now, he’s spent the last two weeks tormenting the city, and eventually I brought up Leanne,
“That Dr. Leanne is a jerk though, when I got out of the medical wing she just introduced herself, told me that she would run some tests and insulted Crane.” Lily seemed to agree because she replied,
“Yeah the first day she got here she told me I was ugly, and had me escorted into the testing chamber and forced me to fly for as long as I could or else I would get shocked.” Upon hearing this I feel rage flare up inside me, I flare out my wings and fly straight towards Leanne's office,
“You threatened Lily with being shocked?! What is wrong with you?” Leanne just looked at me stone faced and told me,
“You dragonkin are nothing but freaks that look interesting, you should not be treated like humans, you are tools.” I just stand there, shocked until the dam just breaks, I roared, I grabbed her by the collar and I slash her face with a claw,
“Tools? TOOLS?! The only tool in here is you! First you insult Crane, someone who died only two weeks ago! Then I learned you threatened one of my friends with a shock if they stopped playing your sick little game!” I feel the fire rise in my throat, I open my mouth, but then I see the look in her eyes, fear, absolute, paralyzing fear, I hesitate, and think to myself, oh my god, what am I doing? I release Leanne and walk out of the room, as I’m leaving I hear Leanne bellow from behind me,
“Where do you think you’re going?” I glare back, I don’t need to answer her, but because I know she will hurt my friends if I don’t I tell her what I’m doing, I explain.
“I’m going after Dillian, don’t try to stop me.” I can tell that Leanne is angry, I can feel her eyes shooting daggers at me, she clearly disagrees with me,
“Oh no you don’t, listen to me you bloated gecko, we did not spend millions tracking you down for you to play superhero!” I just walk away from her and go to the cafeteria to tell Lily and Ryan, they of course freak out at me, saying that I should not go after Dillian, that he’d kill me, and that I should stay here, but I look at them with all of the emotion in the world, I tell them
“Look, I know that Dillian would probably kill me, but I at least might tire him out enough for the police or military to stop him, but it’s more than that, I can’t let him hurt innocent people.” Lily and Ryan look at me, Lily hugs me, and tells me,
“Don’t you dare die or I will kill you.” I look at her, And I say to Ryan,
“I hope she’s joking.” Ryan looks at me and punches my arm,
“You are a good friend man, I hope you live through this.” I look at Ryan and Lily, knowing that this might be the last time I see them, I hug them both, and I flare out my wings and I fly off.

As I sped off towards Dillian, no, Death Wyrm, he stopped being Dillian when he killed Dr. Crane, one thought was going through my mind, am I going to survive this? It doesn’t really matter, as long as Death Wyrm gets what he deserves, when I arrive in the city I look around from above first, I decide to stop by my old apartment, I remember when My dad helped me find this place before he died, it has looked weird since I had my stuff moved into my room at the Kadmus site, I decide to sit down on the floor, when all of a sudden I hear a click and a secret safe opens from the wall. Inside I find a video message to me from my dad, along with an envelope, with the words for when I’m gone written on it, I look through the envelope and I find an old Kadmus keycard for my dad, so that's what his work was, I knew he was secretive but damn, A few other papers that talk about dragons, turns out, Kadmus had been looking into the dragons for years, although these papers are odd, as if my dad had prior knowledge of the dragons. The ball drops when I play the video message it says, 

>Hello, James, if you are watching this then I’m probably dead. In the envelope that you have found alongside this message, there is also my old keycard, it will give you full access to any Kadmus site. Along with my personal notes on the Flying flame drakes, the Eastern long tails, the Wyverns, and some vague knowledge of a supposed fourth dragon species, including some vague diet, and possible weaknesses, but if you’ve already read them, then that means you have seen that the Flying flame drake notes are more definitive, that’s because I am also a dragonkin, I only inherited physical strength from our ancestors, but I have a feeling you will have more characteristics, but I am saying this because you need to know the history behind our ancestors, and the rest.<
I look at the message and wait for it to continue, until a small piece of paper slips out of the metal box that is the message, when I open it I find out that in the beginning of the dragons, there were supposedly four species, the Flying flame drakes, the Eastern long tails, the Wyverns, and the Wyrms, until the Wyrms struck out, they had felt as though due to there inability to fly, that the other dragons thought less of them, the dragons were forced to lock away the Wyrms deep beneath what would one day be called Australia, and then man arose, and along with them the first dragonkin, Tiamat, a Flying flame dragonkin, as my dad called him, but the humans lived in fear of the dragons, eventually driving them to the bleeding cut edge of extinction using their advancing technology, eventually humans all but forgot about dragons, reducing them to myth or fairy tales. That was more or less all that was written, I committed all of this knowledge to memory, and then I heard a loud boom and some maniacal Dr. Doom esc laughing, I peer out of the window to see Death Wyrm, tormenting people, I leap out of the window and into the air, getting a good angle before dive bombing Death Wyrm, breathing fire on him and slashing him with my claws,
“Hey Dillian, did you miss me?” I laugh, I tried to pull a Ryan and joke myself into feeling confident, and it kinda helped, Death Wyrm roars out in rage,
“Why didn’t you stay out of my way?” He whips his tail up, shooting spines out at me, although thanks to my practice I manage to dodge them, I decide to not make a joke and just stay quiet for now, I remember something a security guard once told me, if the enemy is in range so are you, don’t just talk, actually attack, I know that I am in range for a fireblast but Dillian doesn’t know that, I shout out,
“Those spines must really hurt, but not as much as my claws!” I suddenly make a sharp turn and get in close with my talons, I first duck beneath Death Wyrms hook, and slash at his stomach, I then dodge a spine shot, and quickly follow up and through with a tail whip, knocking him off balance, then quickly blast fire right at his feet, but I didn’t see that Death Wyrms tail had grabbed my leg before it had already thrown me two blocks away, I was getting up when I felt a Burning pain in my arm, when I looked to see, it was one of Death Wyrms spines, It had only penetrated the outermost muscle tissue, I would heal in a few weeks but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hades, I rip the spine out and breath fire on the wound in order to cauterize it, when I suddenly feel Death Wyrms tail around my throat, choking me, and I am all of a sudden pinned to a wall, with my mouth bound shut, great it’s the boot all over again, I see Death Wyrm, he’s grabbing the spine I ripped out, he walks towards me, and he gives me a small speech,
“You know James, if you weren’t so noble I’d actually have let you join me, I never wanted to kill you, but you leave me no choice.” He lifts the spike up, when all of a sudden he is blasted back seemingly by a freakishly strong gust of wind, wait, that's a thermal updraft, I turn to see the best sight I could have seen, Ryan and Lily! Ryan opens his mouth first and I couldn’t be more thankful for his humor,
“Nobody treats James like that but me!” He then flies into battle riding on a thermal, while Lily freed me, she slices through the binding on my mouth and I immediately ask,
“What are you guys doing here?” Lily opens her mouth to answer but Ryan cuts in with being thrown into a wall
“Me and Lily are saving you, idiot, speaking of which a little help here?” Me and Lilly help Ryan up and we all get ready for a fight, but before we can charge in, Lily hands me a headmic,
“Here put this on,” I do as she says and suddenly Leanne's voice buzzes in through the speaker,
“Well it’s about time,” I am just happy to have some help with knowing my surroundings,
“Whatever happened to ‘we didn’t spend millions tracking you for you to play superhero?’” If Leanne heard me she didn’t answer, I just started to run towards Death Wyrm, before I took off alongside Lily and Ryan, I felt a familiar rage build up in my veins, I allow the rage to drive me forward, I feel the heat, the fire, rushing to every vein in my body, building along with all of the rage in my life, I gather my thoughts, a raging body is good for combat but a raging mind is bad for victory, when this feeling washes over me, I finally feel calm, I feel at peace, I never want this feeling to end, I open my snout, and unleash a twisting, flowing, blooming tunnel of flames,wounding Death Wyrm and distracting him long enough for Ryan to swing in with a bladed tail to his back, followed by Lily, biting into Death wyrms tail, as Death Wyrm roars I dive in and I do something unexpected, I talk to him,
“Dillian, I thought of you as a little brother, but you killed someone I cared about, I am sorry but, we need to take you in.” Death Wyrm roars, he writhes, up until Lily’s venom takes hold and he falls to the ground, defeated, a news reporter had been, well reporting, nearby and walked up to me, and asked me for an interview,
“Under normal circumstances I would agree, but not right now.” I wave as I signal to Ryan, it takes an embarrassingly long time for him to get the hint that I want him to create a thermal under Death Wyrm in order to transport him, but he follows my lead, and before we know it, we are flying toward the Kadmus site, but as we fly, I yell behind me,
“Hey, go ahead, I’ll… I’ll catch up.” Lily looks at me while Ryan just zooms ahead, no questions asked,
“Okay what are you doing?” I just look at her, feeling conflicted about telling her about my dad, for all I know this could get me in trouble, or worse, I make a split second decision,
“I… I think I saw something.” surprisingly it works, I swoop back towards the city and back to my old apartment and I grab the message from my dad, his keycard and the papers, I then fly off with them clenched between my arms and my body, I then fly into the Kadmus site, and discreetly go to my room, in order to hide them, I then get out of the site, and fly back into it acting like nothing happened, and to my surprise, there was a celebration waiting for me, there was cake, and wine, and even a nice Irish whiskey, eventually I asked about Death Wyrm, and turns out he was placed in a secure facility, deep under the site, and that anyone with high enough clearance could go down there, I decide that that is probably for the best.
After the celebration, I go into my room, and pull out the message, I look over it, Dad was a big fan of puzzles, so maybe this message is a puzzle? After several minutes fiddling with it, the message began to whir, and it then showed a place for a fingerprint, gotcha, I placed my thumb on the finger print and it pricked me, like I was getting my blood drawn. After that a key fell out of the message box, and a keyhole on the side, I of course used the key, which then played a different message,

Hello James, and I know it's you who will be watching this, at the time of making this message I am about to help you “find” an apartment, this is one that will only play for other people if you give them access and get a blood sample, the key you used is a one of a kind, and allows you full access to pre-recorded messages, and answers for certain questions, I hope that there will come a time when you don’t need it, but, knowing you, you will probably forget what the messages say within an hour, but anyway, I hope that this helps you greatly, here is a list of topics that the message box can give you data on.< The video then becomes like an interactable encyclopedia, where I can read the list at my own pace, I skim through it before my eyes lock on one entry, Dr. Crane Williams, I open the entry and i read about Crane, turns out, he was my fathers research partner and close friend, and the two of them met in college because they had managed to win a competition that landed them tuition for any college of their choosing, and they became friends after my dad stopped somebody from messing with Crane, there was a whole lot more there about Cranes upbringing, his family, his education, but I had to cut it short when Leanne entered my room, unannounced,

“What are you doing?” She glared, in her usual condescending tone, I am not in the mood for this “Jump off a cliff.” I growl, as I tuck the message away, but she sees it, and by the look on her face she could tell what I was looking at, “Let me guess, a message you don’t want anybody seeing?” I hate her but damn it she can connect the dots well, “Was it obvious?” I don’t bother denying it, she’ll just be a jerk about it, “No, I’m just used to being lied to, who's the message from?” Leanne nods at the message box, 

“It’s from my dad, he apparently worked at Kadmus and was friends with Crane.” The fact that my dad both worked ant Kadmus and was friends with crane seem to shock her, what’s really shocking though is what she asks next,

“Was your dad by chance Shane O’Maley?” I look at her, confused, “He was, why?” Leanne immediately seems to get shell shock, as she starts to geek out, “James your father was pretty much science royalty, I would have done anything to speak to him, oh my god I insulted the dead friend of Shane O’Maley, and of his son!” I feel angry that she brought that up again, but now feels like I can get something good out of this, “Ok I’ll make you a deal, if you only do tests with me and the other dragonkin willing to do so, and make sure not to do things like threatening to shock us if we don’t do what you want, I’ll tell you stories about my dad, deal?” It was almost impressive how quickly she answered, 

“Deal! Shock threats, exhaustion tests, and anything else like that is gone!” I am really happy that I can do stuff like that. That is the best ability ever.*1
*1 WIP

Hello, to preface this post, I am not very familiar with Reddit and am using a throwaway account as to keep this anonymous. I will likely try posting this in other subreddits to try and hear thoughts from a wider range of users. I apologize in advance if this post doesn't match exactly to how people normally use this forum.
Recently, I have been thinking a lot about some experiences I had during my life from my childhood until now (I am 20). I never really questioned most of this stuff and just assumed that the things I would experience were common and ones that everyone else around me could relate to. It wasn't until more recently when most friends I spoke to about any of this stuff thought this was somewhat abnormal or they couldn't exactly understand what I was trying to describe. So, under this paragraph, I am going to outline some mental phenomena I used to (or still do) experience. If anyone can relate to or have some better understanding for what these things are, I would really appreciate a response.
I regularly experienced vivid night terrors as a young child, some that I still remember well to this day. I would sometimes wake up screaming in my sleep or roll off my bed. I would often sleep walk throughout my home in the night, and would also have nights where I would experience a half-asleep half-awake state of consciousness in which I would pace around in circles in my bedroom or living room while imagining that my dreams were connected to real life. As an example: The night after watching the movie Gravity in theaters (I was 9 years old), I sleep walked into the living room. I then woke into this trance-like state where I paced around in circles with anxiety for what felt like hours and hours as I was convinced that I was being sent to space and that I would die. Just to note- I also experienced sleep paralysis a couple times in which I would awake with a completely numb body, unable to move, with a shadowy figure standing in my doorway. These night terrors eventually went away, and they stopped around middle school. Around that time, I began experiencing very common and easy to achieve lucid dreams, both on purpose and accident.
Very often, after looking at an object for long enough, I would begin to feel that the object was either much smaller than it really was, or that it was a large object further away than it really was. By this, I don't mean that objects were literally larger or smaller in my vision. Rather that they were distorting in size while also distorting in distance from my eyes in order to maintain the same amount of space in my field of view. This would often happen in school while staring at boards, papers, or teachers. It was often very disorientating and dizzying. I could only usually make my perception return to normal after closing my eyes for long enough. Otherwise, my vision would distort more, and everything would feel strangely far away. This is something that I experienced more as a kid, but still occasionally feel even today.
In a similar vein to these visual distortions, I also occasionally experienced mild time distortions. (This is difficult to describe, so bear with me.) Also as a kid, hearing and focusing in on a particular tempo visually and auditorily (like tapping my finger at a constant interval) would cause time to feel as if it was moving significantly faster. It feels like the tapping is happening really slowly while the world around me moved faster, making me feel really anxious. This didn't happen very often, and would usually correlate to the night terrors I would have (feeling much longer than they actually were). This is something I do not experience anymore and haven't since middle school.
I also experienced a couple rare episodes of dissociation growing up. They felt pretty severe to me, feeling like I wasn't in control of my body or mind, like I was watching from far away, and everything felt cloudy and fuzzy. One in particular was very intense, and just lasted for one day- ending with me becoming severely ill and throwing up all over the place.
Nowadays I don't experience much of these things. The only real mental struggles I feel now are high social anxiety, often avoiding places and people so that I don't have to interact. College friends regularly mention to me that they walk past me and that I see them but never say hi, and I almost never realize that I had stared straight at people I know. I often feel like I walk around everyday without recognizing or even seeing people's faces, even ones close to me.
There are a couple other habits I had as a kid that might warrant looking into, but they are things I didn't want to really get into here. If anyone has any insight or shares these experiences, please comment, I'd love to hear! Looking back at all this stuff is strange and a little worrying at times, so any thoughts are appreciated! Thank you for reading this. :)

Hello, to preface this post, I am not very familiar with Reddit and am using a throwaway account as to keep this anonymous. I will likely try posting this in other subreddits to try and hear thoughts from a wider range of users. I apologize in advance if this post doesn't match exactly to how people normally use this forum.
Recently, I have been thinking a lot about some experiences I had during my life from my childhood until now (I am 20). I never really questioned most of this stuff and just assumed that the things I would experience were common and ones that everyone else around me could relate to. It wasn't until more recently when most friends I spoke to about any of this stuff thought this was somewhat abnormal or they couldn't exactly understand what I was trying to describe. So, under this paragraph, I am going to outline some mental phenomena I used to (or still do) experience. If anyone can relate to or have some better understanding for what these things are, I would really appreciate a response.
I regularly experienced vivid night terrors as a young child, some that I still remember well to this day. I would sometimes wake up screaming in my sleep or roll off my bed. I would often sleep walk throughout my home in the night, and would also have nights where I would experience a half-asleep half-awake state of consciousness in which I would pace around in circles in my bedroom or living room while imagining that my dreams were connected to real life. As an example: The night after watching the movie Gravity in theaters (I was 9 years old), I sleep walked into the living room. I then woke into this trance-like state where I paced around in circles with anxiety for what felt like hours and hours as I was convinced that I was being sent to space and that I would die. Just to note- I also experienced sleep paralysis a couple times in which I would awake with a completely numb body, unable to move, with a shadowy figure standing in my doorway. These night terrors eventually went away, and they stopped around middle school. Around that time, I began experiencing very common and easy to achieve lucid dreams, both on purpose and accident.
Very often, after looking at an object for long enough, I would begin to feel that the object was either much smaller than it really was, or that it was a large object further away than it really was. By this, I don't mean that objects were literally larger or smaller in my vision. Rather that they were distorting in size while also distorting in distance from my eyes in order to maintain the same amount of space in my field of view. This would often happen in school while staring at boards, papers, or teachers. It was often very disorientating and dizzying. I could only usually make my perception return to normal after closing my eyes for long enough. Otherwise, my vision would distort more, and everything would feel strangely far away. This is something that I experienced more as a kid, but still occasionally feel even today.
In a similar vein to these visual distortions, I also occasionally experienced mild time distortions. (This is difficult to describe, so bear with me.) Also as a kid, hearing and focusing in on a particular tempo visually and auditorily (like tapping my finger at a constant interval) would cause time to feel as if it was moving significantly faster. It feels like the tapping is happening really slowly while the world around me moved faster, making me feel really anxious. This didn't happen very often, and would usually correlate to the night terrors I would have (feeling much longer than they actually were). This is something I do not experience anymore and haven't since middle school.
I also experienced a couple rare episodes of dissociation growing up. They felt pretty severe to me, feeling like I wasn't in control of my body or mind, like I was watching from far away, and everything felt cloudy and fuzzy. One in particular was very intense, and just lasted for one day- ending with me becoming severely ill and throwing up all over the place.
Nowadays I don't experience much of these things. The only real mental struggles I feel now are high social anxiety, often avoiding places and people so that I don't have to interact. College friends regularly mention to me that they walk past me and that I see them but never say hi, and I almost never realize that I had stared straight at people I know. I often feel like I walk around everyday without recognizing or even seeing people's faces, even ones close to me.
There are a couple other habits I had as a kid that might warrant looking into, but they are things I didn't want to really get into here. If anyone has any insight or shares these experiences, please comment, I'd love to hear! Looking back at all this stuff is strange and a little worrying at times, so any thoughts are appreciated! Thank you for reading this. :)

Hello, to preface this post, I am not very familiar with Reddit and am using a throwaway account as to keep this anonymous. I will likely try posting this in other subreddits to try and hear thoughts from a wider range of users. I apologize in advance if this post doesn't match exactly to how people normally use this forum.
Recently, I have been thinking a lot about some experiences I had during my life from my childhood until now (I am 20). I never really questioned most of this stuff and just assumed that the things I would experience were common and ones that everyone else around me could relate to. It wasn't until more recently when most friends I spoke to about any of this stuff thought this was somewhat abnormal or they couldn't exactly understand what I was trying to describe. So, under this paragraph, I am going to outline some mental phenomena I used to (or still do) experience. If anyone can relate to or have some better understanding for what these things are, I would really appreciate a response.
I regularly experienced vivid night terrors as a young child, some that I still remember well to this day. I would sometimes wake up screaming in my sleep or roll off my bed. I would often sleep walk throughout my home in the night, and would also have nights where I would experience a half-asleep half-awake state of consciousness in which I would pace around in circles in my bedroom or living room while imagining that my dreams were connected to real life. As an example: The night after watching the movie Gravity in theaters (I was 9 years old), I sleep walked into the living room. I then woke into this trance-like state where I paced around in circles with anxiety for what felt like hours and hours as I was convinced that I was being sent to space and that I would die. Just to note- I also experienced sleep paralysis a couple times in which I would awake with a completely numb body, unable to move, with a shadowy figure standing in my doorway. These night terrors eventually went away, and they stopped around middle school. Around that time, I began experiencing very common and easy to achieve lucid dreams, both on purpose and accident.
Very often, after looking at an object for long enough, I would begin to feel that the object was either much smaller than it really was, or that it was a large object further away than it really was. By this, I don't mean that objects were literally larger or smaller in my vision. Rather that they were distorting in size while also distorting in distance from my eyes in order to maintain the same amount of space in my field of view. This would often happen in school while staring at boards, papers, or teachers. It was often very disorientating and dizzying. I could only usually make my perception return to normal after closing my eyes for long enough. Otherwise, my vision would distort more, and everything would feel strangely far away. This is something that I experienced more as a kid, but still occasionally feel even today.
In a similar vein to these visual distortions, I also occasionally experienced mild time distortions. (This is difficult to describe, so bear with me.) Also as a kid, hearing and focusing in on a particular tempo visually and auditorily (like tapping my finger at a constant interval) would cause time to feel as if it was moving significantly faster. It feels like the tapping is happening really slowly while the world around me moved faster, making me feel really anxious. This didn't happen very often, and would usually correlate to the night terrors I would have (feeling much longer than they actually were). This is something I do not experience anymore and haven't since middle school.
I also experienced a couple rare episodes of dissociation growing up. They felt pretty severe to me, feeling like I wasn't in control of my body or mind, like I was watching from far away, and everything felt cloudy and fuzzy. One in particular was very intense, and just lasted for one day- ending with me becoming severely ill and throwing up all over the place.
Nowadays I don't experience much of these things. The only real mental struggles I feel now are high social anxiety, often avoiding places and people so that I don't have to interact. College friends regularly mention to me that they walk past me and that I see them but never say hi, and I almost never realize that I had stared straight at people I know. I often feel like I walk around everyday without recognizing or even seeing people's faces, even ones close to me.
There are a couple other habits I had as a kid that might warrant looking into, but they are things I didn't want to really get into here. If anyone has any insight or shares these experiences, please comment, I'd love to hear! Looking back at all this stuff is strange and a little worrying at times, so any thoughts are appreciated! Thank you for reading this. :)

Hi! I'm Aryan, an international student from India. I'll be joining RU this fall for a physics major (and probably a math/cs minor)
first off, I'll quickly wrap up my GENERAL QUESTIONS ABOUT HOUSING APPLICATION...
Do I need health insurance before filling out the housing application? Or can I update that info as time goes by?What's up with health insurance anyway? I can sign up for one through a third party too right? Which one's cheaper?
I'm looking for a roommate. Here's the stuff you need to know in case interested:
I don't really mind if it's not someone from India but would be nice to gossip in Hindi at times. Would love to mix up with others tho!
I keep my room fairly tidy. At least that's what I think although my mom's opinion differs lol. (If it gets too messy, I do clean it!)
Not much of a partier but I wouldn't mind going out for meet-ups and seminars every week or so. (Don't mind if a few people come by for a bit occasionally. Movie nights are fine occasionally but I don't want the room to be a party spot)
I'm a little studious if you may categorise me. I might spend quite some time in the library there. Am a night owl but hope to fix my sleeping schedule (unable to do so for the past 4 years). I like researching and programming but I love creating things too... so you might see my papers spread across my desk while I fiddle around with something tangible in my hand.
I like singing so you will often hear me humming (it's pleasant, trust me... I whistle quite well too!)
I can fix stuff! Good experience with both engineering and software.
And well... I'm clean. No drinking and/or smoking.
PM me if you're interested... I'll be filling out the housing application soon (either today or tomorrow).

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We offer an array of services tailored to meet your academic and professional needs!

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• Essay Writing.
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• Thesis Support.
• Computer Science Projects.
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Reach out for comprehensive support today! W/A Call/Text: +1 (915) 282‑4866, Discord: Anwyll065.

We offer an array of services tailored to meet your academic and professional needs!

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• Essay Writing.
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• Thesis Support.
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Reach out for comprehensive support today! W/A Call/Text: +1 (915) 282‑4866, Discord: Anwyll065.

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• Statistical Analysis utilizing SPSS & RStudio.

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Reach out for comprehensive support today! W/A Call/Text: +1 (915) 282‑4866, Discord: Anwyll065.

We offer an array of services tailored to meet your academic and professional needs!

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• Essay Writing.
• Research Proposals.
• Thesis Support.
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• Statistical Analysis utilizing SPSS & RStudio.

Reach out for comprehensive support today! W/A Call/Text: +1 (915) 282‑4866, Discord: Anwyll065.

We offer an array of services tailored to meet your academic and professional needs!

• Aid with Online Classes.
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Reach out for comprehensive support today! W/A Call/Text: +1 (915) 282‑4866, Discord: Anwyll065.

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Reach out for comprehensive support today! W/A Call/Text: +1 (915) 282‑4866, Discord: Anwyll065.

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Copy and pasted from what I sent in a discord server on the topic.
ZTD and possibly 999 Spoilers ahead
Carlos (Action Figure)- a type of doll that is meant to be posed at all main joints (head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, ankles, sometimes the waist) and be able to hold the pose, doesn't have any interchangeable parts and typically depicts more masculine figures (commonly superheros and other rigid designs such as mech suits are used as a basis as skin tight suits and armor are easier to model around posable joints than loose clothing)
Akane (Nendoroid)- Nendoroids are a type of collectable figure produced by Good Smile that are smaller than a standard figure often depicting characters in a "chibi" style. Most models also come with multiple replaceable parts including face plates for different poses and expressions. Good Smile did also release a general accessories pack to add extra little pieces to put on the Nendoroids which does include different color cat ears
Junpei (Voodoo Doll) - I'm sure most people already know what this is, I haven't done a lot of research on voodoo dolls or the cultures that may have used them so I don't want to say anything incorrect so imma say Google it in your own time if you wanna go in depth. This being used for Junpei is more than definitely a reference to the "For you" June doll in 999
Sean (Matryoshka)- also called a variety of names including Russian Nesting dolls, stacking dolls, and tea dolls. They were created with the intention of helping kids learn to count. Symbolically is used to represent a number of things including fertility, continuation of life, and less often; someone who is "two-faced" or has secrets.
Mira (dress up doll)- the image used in game most closely resembles a Bratz doll. Dress up dolls usually also have posable joints but the range of points of articulation varies greatly between specific models. The different outfits you can buy with them can be made from cloth and closed with velcro or be made from rubber with an open seam to slip on and off. Definitely made to be played with in a ton of scenarios that kids may come up with
Eric (baby doll)- this one doesn't require much explanation. Baby dolls were initially designed in the 1800s with ceramic heads and limbs attached to stuffed cloth torsos to be a part of "imaginative play" to give kids a more cuddly doll to use as a pretend baby instead of other common dolls that were completely made from hard material with no articulation. Modern baby dolls use soft plastic or rubber as an alternative to ceramic but still represents a baby to be taken care of. Not to be confused with "Reborn dolls" that are highly intricate pieces of art designed to look exactly like newborn babies.
Diana (Porcelain Doll)- Porcelain, while being a type of ceramic, is made from higher grade clays and fired at much hotter temperatures than normal ceramics. Dolls made from porcelain are made to be display pieces and not played with in the way a dress up doll or a baby doll would be. Antique porcelain dolls can sell for upwards of thousands of dollars (Diana's doll in mentioned to be made of bisque porcelain, which is what the most expensive porcelain doll, made in 1916 and sold for $300,000, was made of) and are rare due to porcelain being extremely susceptible to significant damage from minor trauma. They are the most used example of "Creepy dolls" used in media due to their glass eyes and typically blank expression.
Phi (Posable Paper doll)- most popular from the 1930s-1950s due to paper being a cheap and accessible resource during the depression era and world war 2. They were easy to mass produce using a printing press and were often found in old newspapers. Theyre used mostly nowadays as the easiest diy dress up doll as all you need is to just draw and cut out the clothes on another piece of paper and place it on top. For this reason they are also popular for fashion designers to work out how they want something to look like on a person (example: how long a skirt on a dress should be). Also used as puppets occasionally for indie animation due to their ease of use, small storage space required, and again, price. As mentioned by someone else, very very flammable.
Sigma (Nutcracker)- a number of jokes could be made here but I will refrain. Typically associated with the Christmas season and can be used to open nuts with harder shells but using their jaws. Original german Nutcrackers were designed off of people of power to give the common folk enjoyment of the idea of making the powerful work for them by "making them crack their 'hard nuts of life.'" Nutcrackers did not become associated with the Christmas season until they were used in the ballet "The Nutcracker" that opened the week before Christmas in 1892 and became massively popular in the 1940s when it started to be performed outside Russia. Nutcrackers are also used to represent good luck and frightening away evil spirits.
Zero II's doll found on a piece of paper in the Pod room looks to basically be a cloth or rag doll which can be used to symbolize a limp person who is unable to do anything (example: being paralyzed or in a vegetative state) which could be a little itty bitty hind sight nod to Delta spending all of Dcom and the decision game in the wheelchair believed to be incommunicable with before being outed as Zero II.

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