TW:Vent/Sh
My dad doesn't just beat me for no reason but I feel like when he does it's not necessary. Like he beat me for wasting trash out the trash can on accident in 8th grade. He beat me for not taking a shower early in elementary. and it's not just spankings he hits me with a leather belt in the same spot. He beat my sister for accidently buying a movie when she was in elementary. He would slap my brother. He says the only reason he doesn't slap me is because I'm a girl. But lately he says he will and I'm to big to get beat. He threatens to slap me when I try to talk or defend myself. He's fist fought my sister twice but it's because she said really messed up stuff to him. He makes me buy my own phone but buys my sister a phone even though her phone is fine. I got mine stolen after I got maced and he makes me buy it. I tracked my stolen phone but now he took it even though I paid for it. He wakes me and my siblings up and makes up clean the whole kitchen if we miss one spot on one dish. He makes me cook for him. He always yells and he calls me dumb because sometimes I don't catch on. Or because I'm forgetful. He got mad at me for choosing to go live with my mom. He got mad at me for drinking night quill when I had a cold he says I'm acting like a junkie like my mom. He yelled at me Infront of the whole class even though my teacher lied. His voice scared me. Every since I was little his voice scared me. When he calls my name I get scared then I go to him and he says something simple. He choked my dog because I corrected him when he was wrong. He smiled and apologized the next morning. He yells at me about touching my siblings things but I let them hold my stuff and they broke it but he didn't yell at them. Im not even scared of him anymore or at least I don't think I am Im just annoyed by him. But when I think about it I'm scared to tell him what want. I was scared for the past four years to tell him I wanted to live with my mom. He bought me a puppy just to make me give it away a few days later. He yells at me cause I called my sister a retard but they get to call me the b word and other stuff. Sorry if retard offense anyone at this point I'm desensitized. My dad talks bad about women. He talks badly about periods then ask e why I don't want to talk to him about it. He would get mad at me and then call me bipolar when I'm upset. He says I'm dumb and weak for self harming. He would always yell for hours then repeat it over again. He always targeted me. But I'm the one who dident want to talk bad about him. I'm the one who told my sister's not to us him for money. I'm the one that cooked for him that cleaned the house alone. I'm the one that listen to him drunk cry. I always tried to forgive him and try to see him as a better person. He abused my mom that's why she doesn't even like him. But I'm the only one that lived with him for four years and he still treats me different. He treat me and my other sister different. He cares about my half sisters more than me. They talk bad about my mom make her seem like a deadbeat but my mom takes care f us or tried by herself for years and he always helped my half sisters mom. He chooses my half sisters over me and my other sister. He called my sister many names like slut whore and stuff like that. I'm 15 by the way and my sister is 16. My half sister is 15 and my other half sister is 15. If anything happens he blame me and my sister's. Like the light cut off when we was cooking he blammed us. How the frick is that our fault. I can't remember all the stuff he did but he would say or do stuff that just makes me mad. He forced my sister and I to learn the amendments in 5th grade. I forced myself to learn but I forgot them again so that was a waist. I got blammed for everything he always believe my younger sister over me. I've seen him drunk many times he almost shot my cousin in front of me. He was drunk and tried to makey sister get in the car with him. I asked him not to drink on my birthday he got mad. But he was nice at times. He took us out to eat he bought us clothes. But that's the bare minimum. To get us clothes and give us food. But he took us to six flags which was fun. He buys us stuff like computers and other stuff. I know all this sounds ungrateful and dramatic but he makes me so angry I want to hurt him or myself I've thought about it when I was younger but I don't anymore. But is he abusive or am I just dramatic? Sorry this honestly became a rant/vent but I don't like that men.

New Stuff Added
Trying to get rid of some manga. condition varies some brand new, some very used and are priced accordingly.
Open to offers.
Shipping not including. if you buy enough then I will pay for shipping.
Tried to price things best I could if you believe pricing isn't fair and you're interested we can work something out.
Signed Funko! at the bottom.
Thanks for looking!
Photo Link: Image/Proof
Manga Lots 3+ Volumes:
A, A tropical fish yearns for snow vol 1-3 15$
B, Bloody Mary vol 1-4,6 30$
Bride of the water god vol 1-9 90$
C, Chainsaw Man BAM Box set vol 1-4 (With Poster) 20$
D,
E,
F,
G,
H, Hi score girl vol 1-8 50$
I,
J,
K, Kare kano vol 8,11-14 25$
L,,
M, Mashle vol 1-3 15$
N, Naruto Vol 8-10,12-13,26-28,39,41-43,50 (13 Volumes Total) 45$
O,
P,
Q,
R,
S, Shaman King Singles Vol 1,2,2,3,3,5,7,7,8,8,12 6$ Each

Saint young men HC vol 1-3 36$ 

T, Testarotho vol 1-4 Complete 30$
The Saviors book Cafe story in another world vol 1-5 Complete 45$
U,

Uzumaki Junji ito singles vol 1-3 (Complete) 50$ (Check condition) 

V,
W,
X,
Y,
Z.
Manga Lots with 1-2 Volumes:
A,
A distant Neighborhood Singles vol 1-2 Complete 20$
B,
Beast Complex Vol 1 7$
Blue Period vol 1-2 15$
C,
Citrus vol 1,6 15$
Code Geass vol 1 15$
Captain Harlock vol 2 HC 10$
20th Century Boys Singles vol 2 10$
D,
Dragon Head vol 7 20$
Dragon Ball Z vol 7 4$
Drrr!! Vol 1 7$
E,
F,
Full Metal Panic! Vol 1 8$
Firefighter daigo vol 4 15$
G,
Golden Kamuy vol 1 8$
H,
Happy Mania vol 1 15$
Hells Paradise vol 1 8$
Hi Score Girl Vol 1 6$
I,
Inside Mari vol 9 8$
Iron wok jan! Vol 4 12$
J,
Jujutsu Kaisen vol 1 (Spine Miss Print) 3$
Jing:King of bandits vol 7 3$
K,
Kamisama Kiss vol 7 8$
Kaiju NO.8 Vol 1 8$
Kodocha Vol 5 9$
Knights of sidonia singles vol 4 10$
King of cards vol 4 10$
L,
Look Back vol 1 8$
Lupin 3 Singles Vol 1 12$
M,
Mashima Heros 7$
My Hero academia smash vol 1 5$
N,
Naruto the Official fanbook 6$
Naruto Forever The unofficial Guide 6$
Naruto Full Color Movie Manga 6$ each
Nightmare inspector vol 4 4$
No man's land vol 1-2 Complete 10$
O,
One Piece Gold Foil vol 4 12$
Oh my goddess vol 31 8$
Oh my goddess vol 19,19,19,19 20$ Each
P,
Prison school Vol 14 13$
Phantom Tales of the night vol 1 8$
Q,
R,
Records of Ragnorok vol 1 8$
S,
Sayonara Football Volume 1 8$
Solo Leveling Vol 1-2 26$
sweetness and lightning volume 1 7$
Scums Wish Vol 1 18$
Sweat and Soap vol 1-2 14$
Steins Gate Vol 1 Loot Crate Exclusive 20$
Stellvia vol 1-2 10$
Shortcake cake vol 1 6$
Shaman king omnibus vol 1 10$
Saiyuki vol 1 HC 12$
T,
Testament of sister new devil vol 1 30$
The Last Uniform Vol 1 10$
Tokyo Knights vol 1 3$
Tokyo tribes vol 3 6$
U,
V,
Vampire Hunter D Vol 2 7$
W,
Wotakoi B&N Exclusive vol 1 10$
X,
Xo Genasys vol 1 6$
Y,
Yowamushi Pedal Loot Crate Exclusive Vol 1 10$
Yakitate!! Vol 6 4$
Yona of the dawn vol 1,34 12$
Z.



Manga Light Novels:
A,
B,
C,
D,
E,
F,
G,
Goblin Slayer LN Vol 1 7$
H,
I,
J,
K,
L,
M,
My Youth Romantic Comedy Is WRONG as I expected Ln Vol 1-2 15$
Monster Girl Doctor Ln Vol 1 6$
N,
Naruto Mission protect the waterfall village! Ln 6$
Naruto Innocent Heart,Demonic Blood Ln 6$
No Game No life LN vol 1 7$
O,
P,
Q,
R,
Re: Zero Ln Vol 1 7$
S,
Spice&Wolf Ln vol 1-14 120$
T,
The Alchemist Who Survived Now Dreams Of Quiet City Life Ln Vol 1-2 15$
The Saga of the tanya of evil Ln Vol 1 8$
The Saga of the tanya of evil Ln Vol 1 8$
Toradora Ln Vol 1 8$
The twelve kingdoms Ln 7$

U,
V,
Vampire Hunter D LN vol 2 10$
W,
X,
Y,
Z.
Signed Funko!
Jiraiya On Toad Hot Topic Exclusive Signed By David Lodge (Long Quote) PSA Cert #73 200$
Ahsoka Amazon Exclusive Signed by Rosario Dawson JSA Cert #467 300$
Demon slayer funko pops 6 total (2 not signed) 290$
Photo: Images/Proof

Platform: mobile Pretty old and simple Very very basic graphics. And I mean very simple I'm pretty sure it starts when a princess / love interest / sister gets kidnapped by big bad, so you have to save her. Almost sure it's turn based but I could be wrong. One other thing is that encounters would move around on the overworld and you could sometimes avoid them. Also, villages were tiles and if you walked on them you went inside and you would have to walk to the edge to leave. Finally, to move around there was a on screen D-pad that was just 4 squares with arrows. Plz help l've been looking forever

Everyone I spend time with my friend it feel so wonderful. Is it still love after all this time?
I miss her so much every time I leave after a visit.More of a story and a question. I really don’t even know where to start. You need to how painfully confusing this friendship was from the start. Met in grad school 2017, was taken with my friend quite quickly, and she expressed interest and when I followed up on her invites she wasn’t interested. So, I avoided her because I didn’t want to get involved. However, she ended up running into me all the time and something changed. One night right around Christmas at dinner, she just blurted out she’s polyamorous and a few other things. I didn’t know how to react and by the time I knew what the hell was going I, I didn’t know if I wanted to get involved, thought I might get hurt.
There were a number of nights at 3AM when she asked me to come back for coffee or whatever(that I remember), and I wasn’t sure of anything. However, we ended up living close together and then spent way too much time together during the pandemic going on trips alone, with her other partner. I felt myself falling for her again, but then she moved away and my life fell apart. But it didn’t end.
I need to clarify. My life falling apart wasn’t her fault. The pandemic pidgeon-holed me in a toxic job and then both my older parents had health incidents which required that I move back and start taking care of them and 80% of the household items and transitioning them to a smaller house. Couple that with my own health problems which are a result of all this stress and I feel like I’ve lost who I really learned to be.
I know I should be out doing things and looking elsewhere, but I have no time. I waste 2.5 hrs commuting to work, errands after work for my parents, come home cooking, scrape the remnants of myself together, take a sleeping pill (because the tv is never off) and go to bed. This isn’t relevant except to say I hope I’m not simply clinging to my friend for the wrong reasons.
I’ve withdrawn into myself, am nervous and generally don’t feel like dealing with people. Every other aspect of my life is so taxing right now.
Back to my friend. Knowing her changed me. Although I was confused, she still taught me how fulfilling it can be to make someone happy, communicate emotionally with someone and just feel content and happy being with them. Simple things like telling them unabashedly how something small they did made me happy, being more demonstrative with me affection, and how reciprocating is so fulfilling. The constant making fun of me always helped too. I think that I wouldn’t really have these feelings if she didn’t keep doing as much for me as I try to do for her. I don’t know why I feel embarrassed, but I feel content and so much more when I’m with her.
She gave me so much confidence and energy.
A couple months ago, we met up in NYC for four days and just spent time together. When I went pick up my car at the valet service, we hugged, said goodbye and (it sounds stupid) she said she wanted to wait with me. So we sat down on the bench, and she put her head on my shoulder. It just touched me. There’s a quote that always stuck with me from a young age, but it never really meant that much until I met her. It is “Find someone to sit with you, none of us are strong enough to do it alone.” I held it together until I drove away. I know it’s a reflection of how I’m struggling right now, but the time I spent with her, made me perk back up, be myself more.
Then last week we met up again. I drove 8 hours to spend 10 hours with her and a few friends. It made it clear to me how much time spent with her makes me feel more like my ‘actual self’ if that makes sense. She kept up bringing things up she wanted to do, and had already planned another trip.
Yes, I’m pretty sure she knows how I feel. When she moved away, I told her that she means so much to me and all the time we spent together meant the world. She stopped her car, ran back out and just squeezed me so hard. It felt like a stupid Casablanca moment. I’ve probably drunkenly said something I don’t quite remember too. To be clear, I don’t ever expect anything ‘more’. I cherish having her as a friend.
There’s always a part of me that hopes one of us won’t follow up. More often than not she asks me right before I leave if I’d like to do ‘something else’ with her that she’s already started thinking about. Or I’ll get a call right when I get home. I don’t ever say no.
Part of this post is me trying to understand me feelings. I know I want her in my life more, but that won’t work now or possibly ever. What does more mean for me? I don’t know. I get so much energy when I see her, I’m motivated to do so much with her. Seeing her giggle and have fun give me a wonderful feeling. The other 90%of my life is filled with constant stress, and indifference bordering on hate for my parents. And why does she make me feel like a more complete person? I don’t know.

Hey there! I’m a 20-year-old guy born and raised in the beautiful hills of West Virginia. I’m a down-to-earth person who loves the simple things in life. You can usually find me hiking the scenic trails, walking the quiet valleys, or just enjoying the peaceful outdoors. But at the right time I can grab a decent book and relax at the house or catch a movie with friends.
I’m a student working towards my degree, but in my free time, I’m all about adventures—whether it’s a spontaneous road trip, trying out a new local restaurant, or just stargazing on a clear night. I’m also a bit of a writer. I’m always coming up with a new story.
Looking For:
I’m looking for someone who shares my love for nature and has a kind, genuine heart. Someone who enjoys good conversation, has a great sense of humor, and isn’t afraid to try new things. If you’re up for some adventure and enjoy the simple pleasures in life, let’s chat and see where things go!
Interests:
Hiking and camping Exploring local history Music (I’m a singer) Cooking (especially grilling) Watching the stars Writing And Occasionally Gaming
Fun Fact:
Ive travelled to 16 different countries and traveling is one of the best choices I’ve made in my life!
Favorite Quote:
"Not all those who wander are lost." - J.R.R. Tolkien
What I’m Looking For:
Someone adventurous and outdoorsy A good sense of humor Kind and caring Enjoys quiet nights as much as exciting days Open to exploring new places and experiences If you think we might click, send me a message! I’m looking forward to meeting someone special.

I’ve searched the sub and I haven’t found any real clear answers to this question.
TLDR my question is: what is the potential harm from using chatgpt on my phone or laptop to learn stuff and answer tech questions?
—
I’m wondering if someone more knowledgeable than me can give me reasons why I shouldn’t use chatgpt, or explain what negative consequences could happen from me using it. Is chatgpt worse than regular google/browser search?
I just used it for the first time ever, without signing up. I used it just now because, just like every day I need help/an answer to some simple question, trying to google it, or search on Reddit, or quora, or YouTube, was so abysmally frustrating. It was literally impossible to find a clear simple answer to my excruciatingly simple tech question.
For some reason chatgpt popped into my mind, and in a fit of rage I went to the website and asked it my simple tech question, and not only did it give me the answer immediately, but it gave me multiple different methods of how to solve my question, step by step instructions of each method, and explained why they work.
It felt like a weight being lifted off my back. Like it literally lowered my blood pressure. I felt so happy and hopeful I can’t even describe it. For f*** sakes, finally something that isn’t absurd, finally something that works. Finally a working alternative to the absurd, inefficient, incorrect, contradictory, hopeless runaround from google search.
Now if I have a question, it won’t take me an hour of trying different googling phrases, different words in quote, trying YouTube (and skimming through tons and tons of fluff in each video to get to the 1 relevant part), etc etc. Now if I have a simple tech question, I can literally ask the question, and get an actual clear answer. You know, the way google search is supposed to work.
Since I am not very knowledgeable about tech, chatgpt, and ai in general, all I have is sort of an irrational fear that if I use chatgpt something “bad” could happen down the line.
So I’m wondering if someone can explain what the “risks” are in using chatgpt, compared to the hopeless endless soul-draining gaslighting narcissistic abuse that is google search.

Long Rant here and i dont really care if i get downvoted or banned.
But what the fuck are we celebrating?
Oh yeah, we fucked our country to the point where our own Tamil brothers and sisters (with whom weve lived side by side with for good portions of the last 2000 years), felt like they had no choice but to pick up a g*n and start a war. And then have that war destory the entire island for 30 years. And then only have the war end in the death of tens of thousands of innocent civilians.
Yeah go us! /s
WTF is wrong with everyone? The fact that people celebrate this as "Victory" Day is not only so unbelievably insensitive but just proves that our people havent learnt SHIT.
Im not saying you have to be spineless and lick the ass of LTTE either. They did fucked up shit to Sinhala people and Muslim people (including ethnic cleansing, bombings and all the other fucked up stuff), and even Tamil people too. There is a time and place for that criticism too.
But my god, look at things in context. There were at least 4 seperate pogroms against Tamils prior to the war. When Tamils protested peacefully, they were violently assaulted or ignored.
Ill tell you a story of one of my uncles. He is one of dads oldest friends. This is a man who has known me since birth and i have photos of me sitting on his lap when I was a kid.
A few years ago my dad told me of what happened to this uncle during Black July '83. He was hiding in a drain on the side of the road desperately trying to avoid being found by the racist murderous mobs of Sinhala rioters.
Can you imagine that? A human being hiding in a drain because he was that scared?
Its very easy to say LTTE this, Tamil Diaspora this etc etc. But all of this is a symptom of what the country has created. The cruelty we have inflicted upon them.
For a country apparently based on "Buddhism" and protecting the "values of the Dhamma", we sure do a great job of showing absolutely zero compassion for people when it becomes slightly inconvenient.
I dont know how well I expressed myself but here are a few quotes from Lasantha Wickramatunge, a Sinhala journalist who was allegedly assassinated by the Government in 2009. These quotes are still relevant today.
"we have consistently espoused the view that while separatist terrorism must be eradicated, it is more important to address the root causes of terrorism, and urged government to view Sri Lanka’s ethnic strife in the context of history and not through the telescope of terrorism. We have also agitated against state terrorism in the so-called war against terror, and made no secret of our horror that Sri Lanka is the only country in the world routinely to bomb its own citizens. For these views we have been labelled traitors, and if this be treachery, we wear that label proudly."
"What is more, a military occupation of the country’s north and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live eternally as second-class citizens, deprived of all self respect. Do not imagine that you can placate them by showering “development” and “reconstruction” on them in the post-war era. The wounds of war will scar them forever, and you will also have an even more bitter and hateful Diaspora to contend with. A problem amenable to a political solution will thus become a festering wound that will yield strife for all eternity. If I seem angry and frustrated, it is only because most of my countrymen - and all of the government - cannot see this writing so plainly on the wall."

Hello, I need serious advice and please don't slut-shame me.
My husband and I have been married for 2 years, and together for 5. Our sex life has been really good, and at some point, we started discussing our fantasies. His fantasy was nothing drastic (role-play), but mine was something serious, at least in his eyes.
I thought about having a threesome, and I wanted to try it at some point, so I talked to my husband about it. He wasn't really happy about it. We discussed it for weeks, figuring out how to approach it, setting rules, deciding whom to involve, and discussing our feelings about it. Long story short, he eventually agreed, but he established some ground rules:

1. He takes priority.
   
2. It doesn't start without him.
   
3. Protection must be used.
   
4. It's a one-time thing.
   

We went out with our mutual friend, and after some talk and drinks, we returned to our house, intending to proceed. I was really excited, our friend was too, but my husband not so much. Long story short, my husband didn't enter the house for at most 5-10 minutes. By the time he did, we had already started with foreplay (oral). He said, 'This is what you wanted, right?' but he sounded angry. I asked him what was wrong, and he told me that I could keep our friend and that he would be leaving. I ran after him and asked him to talk to me. He said that he had asked me to follow simple rules, and I couldn't even do that. He told me to go and enjoy my debauchery with somebody else and that I cannot be trusted, and that we would be separating from that moment.
I started crying and apologizing, and he told me that my apology is worthless. I begged him to stay so we could resolve the problem, but he didn't even look at me. He got into his car and left. I entered our home and told our friend to leave, which he did. It was two days ago, and he hasn't come home. He's staying at his sister's place. He isn't answering calls or messages. I don't know what to do.

My former girlfriend Dakota and I started out as childhood best friends in kindergarten. I did move a few states over for a couple years before moving back, but we religiously mailed each other and called as much as we could. Our parents each joked that we were like sisters, so jokes on them when we got together as girlfriends in 10th grade.
Dakota and I had our ups and downs and we both did a lot of growing as people over the years, but in my humble opinion, we were solid even ten years later, engaged and saving up for marriage, when the car accident happened. Dakota died from sepsis from her injuries, so it was a rollercoaster to deal with the crash, to have her stabilized in hospital and visit her while being told prognosis of PT, and then for her to nose dive again, and finally to lose her. I struggled with grief but my family and friends were huge aspects of my support network. Even Dakota’s parents were a huge help, which I’ll forever be grateful for. After three years of abstaining, I dipped my toes into dating again, with a few dud relationships that eventually fell apart for various reasons, ranging from not meshing to differing points in our lives, before I met my current boyfriend Michael. We have since been together for almost a year and a half at this point.
The ring in question is a simple silver crown shaped band I wear on my right ring finger. When I was in the depth of my grief, it helped a great deal to fidget with it as it helped remind myself to treat myself as a queen, to be gentle and patient with myself, to remember I was loved and love will come again and life will improve, “there is a light at the end of the tunnel”, that sort of thing. I’ve explained to Michael that while Dakota gave it to me, it has also taken on a meaning of self love and self care. He insists that I can at least just wear it on a necklace so that it’s not on my hand where everyone can see constantly, and I’d still be able to fidget with it in a way similar to my normal method and still have it on my person. I’m not a necklace person though, and it felt awkward and uncomfortable around my neck despite giving it two months to adjust. I stopped wearing it as a necklace, going without for a few weeks before I told him I’d like to return to wearing it on my hand, which started a huge fight about how I am prioritizing Dakota over Michael. But other than the ring, he hasn’t been able to tell me any other times that I made him feel second rate, despite me asking genuinely many times during our talks, not even about the ring, before this fight. As in I’ve been checking in about my grief concerning Dakota and how it impacts him, and he doesn’t care about the grave visitations, or when I talk about her or my history with her, but it’s the ring that seems to be the issue. I won’t lie: I feel guilty because he “puts up with” me visiting Dakota’s grave each month or how she features in childhood memories that get brought up, not even by me but by my family.
I need to know if I’m blinded here and missing a reasonable upset to the point I’m being cruel, or if I can talk with him about getting a mediator like a couples therapist to help us both talk our sides better without getting lost in emotional translation. I’ve found having a third party helps when words get mired, either in speaking or hearing, in emotional background noise. I would love us to go to therapy together as it is, but if he’s 110% reasonable and my attachment to the ring is not, then I don’t want to pressure anything.

I told him I was sick... he told me to inform him when I'm be better. That was a week ago. Since then he hasn't texted, hasn't called, basically didn't bother to even check if I'm doing ok or not.
I'm more or less ok now, but the week I had was awful. I had a very bad throat and ear inflammation, was in so much pain that went to the hospital at 2am with my mom and sister. That resulted in my left eardrum getting ruptured. I have to go to hospital daily for another 3 days (6 total) for intravenous infusions, and I was told to forget about gym until the eardrum recovers for good.
Had to take two days off work, and now have to finish my work on the weekend, amazing I know. All of that, and still he couldn't care less to send me one simple how do you do text.
If I act angry he's going to get angry in return by saying that he was busy, didn't have the time, that I should've known that already, and that he's thinking about me regardless. Yada fucking yada. I truly wonder if he thought I was really going to just inform him when I'm finally ok??????
Wtf?? I can't be overreacting right, please tell me
Edit: Thank you all for commenting and thank you for making me believe that I am not in fact a needy, unreasonable, ungrateful and selfish bitch. That's exactly what I'll be hearing about myself when he calls me eventually and I tell him we're done. I have to and I will. Won't make the same mistake again. Let's see when that'll happen because I sure as hell won't be the one calling first. Immature maybe, but idc.

I (F18) have a younger sister (F14) that recently had something really bad happen to her back in December. It’s been very tough on my entire family as a whole. My mom has been very overprotective of my little sister even to the point, she rarely pays attention to me these days and just only worries about her. My prom is even today and she doesn’t cares about it.
But Last Thursday, I was annoyed at my younger sister. The night before I over heard her talking to a boy and sounding seemingly normal and happy. I wasn’t mad that she was talking to a boy but it was the simple fact she was fine !! she’s not actually that depressed and she’s only playing up that part to garner sympathy from my mom. So I decided to rant to my friends about in a group chat about it and about a couple hours, my mom runs in my room yelling at me and calling me vindictive and insensitive. Apparently couple people from the group chat message my lil sis and said they were sorry about what happened to her. Like nothing that actually bad. But apparently it was HUGE problem, because my sister cried and then Tattled to my mom about it. So I told her to stop being an over medaling parent and let her daughter deal with her stuff, instead of constantly rushing to her defense. She then out of nowhere kicked me out and told me to stay at my Nona’s house until she allows me back.
I tried to apologize via therapy and she did not want to hear it whatsoever and again only just worried about my little sister like usual. I talked to my sister yesterday and I apologize to her, she accepted it and she’s not even mad at me anymore…but my mom still is. I feel like she turned me to scapegoated since my dad passed away and it just makes me really sad. today is my prom and she hasn’t even messaged me or do the motherly stuff like other parents do for prom.. I just want to know if I’m somehow the AH in the situation?

I (42F) recently moved in with my fiancé (46M). His older sister (49F) (who everyone, including their own mother, warns about what a bitch she is), came to visit with 3 of her 4 kids- all 20+ years old, 2 females, 1 male. The sister and 2 nieces all freaked out about us implementing simple training and boundaries for his dog after he’s attacked my dog twice. (They’re all crazy obsessed with this dog, it’s abnormal to the extreme.) In response to my stating that he attacked my dog twice, they replied, “it’s HIS (the dog’s) home.”
I wanted my fiancé to say something to the effect of, “we are getting married, it’s her home too.”
He wouldn’t do it because “at the end of the day, they are my family and always will be. Just like I want you to be also.”
This has made me feel like it’s actually not my home, too!
I have a huge problem with him not having my back and wonder if these types of issues are “normal” for most couples?

This simple document is rendered by pdflatex using serif font (not sans as requested) and I get the warning "Font shape OT1/qhv/m/n undefined":

\documentclass{article} \usepackage{newtx} \begin{document} \textsf{Hello} \end{document} 

Adding lmodern does fix the issue. The output is rendered with the same sans face than without using newtx at all:

\documentclass{article} \usepackage{lmodern} \usepackage{newtx} % <-- this does nothing in this case \begin{document} \textsf{Hello} \end{document} 

So it seems that newtx is using the same sans font than lmodern, but its documentation states:

It is a complete text (newtxtext) and math (newtxmath) package with roman text font provided by a Times clone, sans serif based on a Helvetica clone

So why doesn't it work by itself when using sans fonts? (TBH I don't quite understand what newtx does in general).
NOTE: with xelatex and lualatex the first example works OOB.
EDIT: this is also taken from the package documentation:

If you specify no sf text or tt text fonts before newtxmath/newtx, those packages will load a Helvetica clone and the typewriter font from txfonts.

Maybe I should install txfonts (I'm using basictex, so it's probably not installed by default), but anyway the first quote seems to imply that the fonts are provided by newtx.

First lf all, hello potatoes! This is my first ever post on anything, so bear with me!
I (21f), have an aunt who I've finally decided to go no contact with after years of her bs. For the sake of this post, let's call her EA. EA has always been a narcissist, though none of us really did anything about it for a while.
For instance, when I was young, about 12 or 13, she decided it would be a good idea to take me and my three siblings to a youth group, even though we never wanted to. She pretty much dragged us over there and would act like she was doing something good for us so we could pay her back later. We never wanted to go, because of some issues we had with the last religious group we went to, and it became painful for us to deal with.
Anyway, we ended up being late to an event one night, and the entire 30 minute drive down, she had been complaining about how late we were. Once we had gotten to the building, she went inside and talked to the person in charge about it. My siblings and I had come in and she locked eyes with me.
"Thanks a lot, kids."
That's all she had to say to us, then proceeded to complain to the person in charge over the whole ordeal. Being as young as I was and as sensitive as I was at the time, I held on to that feeling. Eventually, we stopped going, again because it was hard for us and EA made it unbearable.
Several years went by, and not long after I had graduated, she had come back into my life, in a much more violent way than before. I had moved out for school and work, so I wasn't physically there, but I heard about it after the fact. It turns out, while my parents and EA had gone to an appointment they both had in the nearest city (3+ hour drive), she had attacked my mother. Not verbally, but physically. She had pounced on her and left scratches and bruises. The cause of the fight? Some water on her butt. She threw a whole fit and physically attacked my mother, over a little bit of water on her butt.
Let me tell you, I was fuming when I had heard about it. She even went so far as to insult us when she attacked my mother, and I'll never forget it.
"You're raising your kids to be just like you!"
She made it sound like a bad thing for us to turn out like my mother. Now, my mother is a kind woman with a soft heart and a soft spot for dogs and cats. She loves crystals and plants, and she loves cloudy days and being by the ocean. She accepts all of us for who we are, and makes inappropriate jokes for us to laugh at. To hear EA insult my mother made me angry, but she had told me not to put any energy into it.
EA began to get worse afterwards. I was working a job that was slowly killing me, and whenever she'd visit, she had that sickly sweet 'I'm tolerating you enough to talk to you' look on her face and tone in her voice. When I was moved to nights, I was hoping to never deal with her again. But then, my grandmother fell down.
I heard about it during one of my shifts, and when I had gotten off, I couldn't sleep. I was afraid something would happen to her if I was asleep, so I stayed awake until my bf (21m) woke up. I told him the situation and we had a talk about it, and we both agreed that it would be best if I moved back to take care of her. So, on my first day off, I packed all my stuff and left. I texted my boss, who I wasn't on good terms with, and told her the situation. I pretty much handed in my two week notice, but only gave her two days.
So, I came home and moved in with my grandma so I could take care of her. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, dishes, anything and everything she needed done, I would do it. I was lucky enough to be able to bring my dog, a chihuahua dashund pug mix, to live with me. Spud made things a bit easier for me, considering everything that I had given up and what was going on. It felt like things were gonna get better.
Until my grandmother had to go to the hospital. I wish I was kidding, but I'm not. She couldn't get out of bed one morning, and since I didn't know what to do, I panicked and called my father. He came and checked on her, gave her an oxygen treatment, and when things didn't improve, he called EA so they could go to the hospital. I was freaking out and pacing around on the balcony, trying to calm down as they carried her to the car and drove to the hospital two towns over. She got better, so that helped, but it scared me so badly I couldn't sleep for a while. We were given an oxygen machine and told to have her on it as often as possible. That first night was terrible. I hadn't slept at all that night, or for the next few nights, because I was afraid of what would happen if I did.
To help with this, my father bought a baby monitor so I could make sure she was okay, and after a few days, I was feeling much better. EA began showing up, when she hadn't come at all before the hospital visit. When she did, the first thing she did was complain.
My little sis (11f), was helping me clean, and we had finished doing what my grandmother needed us to do when EA had come in. The first thing she said to us was that we should be cleaning, and began cleaning the stuff we didn't get to. She then started to complain about how we weren't doing these tasks that my grandmother never asked us to do. My sister and I just looked at each other with confusion. I could tell she was feeling bad, but it wasn't her job to do in the first place. EA took her cleaning to my grandmother's bedroom, and she stayed in there for a long time.
I began to get worried, so I ended up heading to my room downstairs to check the monitor, only to find EA had covered it. I sat, confused by what she had done. It's not like I had the monitor there to snoop around, it was only there to make sure my grandmother was okay. I shrugged it off and uncovered it before I went to bed that night. After a few days, I had decided to make the trip to see my bf. It was almost a 2 hour drive, so I wanted to leave early. I asked my little brother (18), to watch over everything while I was gone for a few days. He agreed for the price of some dark chocolate for his own mochas in the morning. I agreed, and made sure he knew what medications my grandparents had to take and when, where the blood pressure cuff was and how to use it, and the device to check my grandmother's oxygen. After that, I packed the clothes I'd need for four days, and left.
Things were going smoothly for a while. I was laughing and relaxing with my bf, watching videos he had saved to show me, and going on dates, talking and catching up. On the third day, I got a text from my brother saying that he was angry. I asked why, and he explained everything.
He said EA had showed up, and was trying to make me and my sister sound like thieves. She claimed we had gotten into some drinks meant for my uncle, who's diabetic and also lives with my grandmother. I told him I don't drink that particular brand anymore, and my sister only ever got into the milk and some cold water. I showed my bf the messages, and we both had a good laugh over it. He knew that I don't drink that particular brand, and that I enjoy a different brand altogether, so we thought it was just ridiculous.
It continued like this for a while. EA would make little comments and talk with my grandmother about certain topics, trying to make me and my sister sound like we were against her. All the while, I was doing my usual job of cooking and cleaning for her and making sure she was okay. I was pretty much untouchable in her eyes.
My mother had come by to visit for a while and make sure everything was okay one day. We talked, she helped me cook, and we just had a good time, until EA popped in unannounced. My grandmother, wanting them to fix their relationship as sisters, stopped my mother from leaving the kitchen and told them to hug. I was watching the whole thing and heard EA say something thst just made me want to yell.
"Are you gonna attack me again?"
She made herself sound like the victim, and made it seem like my mother had attacked her. They hugged, and things proceeded to get worse from there. I refused to talk to EA when she came by, and I'd watch when she started her random cleaning. If she went into my grandmother's bedroom, I'd go downstairs, watch the monitor and try to make sure she wasn't stealing anything. She coveted the camera again and again, which slowly drove me crazy. I regret not talking to her about it.
She did it again when I was on another trip to see my bf, and this time, my brother called her out on it. He told her to stop covering the camera, that it was only there to make sure my grandmother was okay at night, nothing more. According to him, EA began yelling at him and puffing her chest out over the whole thing, while my brother acted more mature and waited for her to finish. He then asked if she was done, to which she huffed. He was getting pretty angry over it. I had him tell me everything thst was going on, so I was up to date while I was gone.
This would continue for a few more weeks, and again, while I was away, EA would confront my brother, but this time, she said something thst made me lose it. My brother was telling my uncle that it probably wasn't a good idea to take a pastry with him downstairs, since it had a bunch of sugar. EA went ballistic over this and started getting in my brother's face, yelling about it and calling him a few names like r-tard, and said, and I quote, "No wonder you were bullied, you deserved it."
For context, my brother faced severe bullying when we were in school. He was thrown around, threatened, hit, and more. He also has an accent due to having multiple earaches as a baby, so sometimes, it's hard to understand him. He's a smart kid, with a good heart, and having a middle aged swamp monster with a superiority complex getting in his face and yelling at him about how stupid he was and saying he deserved to be bullied broke me and hurt him. He didn't show it, but I know it hurt him.
When I found out, I was angry, sad, and an all around mess. My bf read the messages and didn't know what to do. I was ranting and rambling angrily by this point, in tears and just about seeing red. I was getting more angry as I talked about it, completely unaware that while my bf was playing a game, he was playing with a friend, and they could hear everything. They heard my voice beginning to shake as I let out all my frustrations, and they heard how angry I was that this haggard hoghag of a woman could treat my little brother like that. I ended up crying myself to sleep that night, I was so furious.
After that, she kept coming around and trying to make all of us sound like the villains of the tale while she was the goodie two shoes. I cut all contact with her, refused to talk to her or even acknowledge her existence, and just continued to enjoy myself. My sister had some other plans
EA is diabetic, so she can't really have sugar, so my sister had an idea to pay her back, at least a little. EA had come over to open oysters with us. My grandmother had ordered them for me and my sister, because we enjoyed them so much. My sister decided to get some Popsicles from the freezer upstairs and started to eat one in front of EA. She also handed one to me, so I could enjoy too. We got some looks from EA, but I don't remember hearing her say anything. Later on, we even went so far as to make delicious chocolate chip banana bread while she was there, so she couldn't have some but had to deal with the temptation. I guess this could count as a petty revenge story, but I don't know where else to put this. I just wanted to get this story off of my chest and hear what the other petty potatoes think about this.
So, AITA for going to contact with my aunt? And for going so far as to make treats she can't have?

Blake was listening to his sister through his headphones while she ripped into him about his hopeless addiction to pornography. He rolled his eyes as she went on and on about his sexist attitudes and his distorted views on women and sex. If his sister had only known that he was scrolling through explicitly drawn versions of Marge Simpson and Lois Griffin in various poses with various props, she would have hung up the phone and given up.
As far as Blake was concerned there were no distortions in his mind about women. He had lived through so many interactions and had seen so many videos of women being terrible people that it only reinforced his bias.
Porn didn’t judge Blake. Porn didn’t make Blake do things that he didn’t want to do. He spent time with women the way he wanted to. If he wanted a woman to act a certain way, he could find a video where she did just that.
The way he saw it, women wanted a lot, and if they didn’t get what they wanted, they made everyone’s life hell until they did. Conversely, if a man wanted something, it was tough luck. He watched his mother treat his father like that until the day he died, overworked and unhappy.
Less than a year after his mother put his father in the ground, she was with someone else that she was all too happy to control. Porn gave Blake the control, and he liked it.
“Blake, I love you, but you’re going to waste your whole life in front of a screen holding your dick.”
“Don’t you have another kid that you should be working on squirting out?”
She hung up.

Blake was caught watching videos at work again, but this time he had a plan. He knew eventually that he would be caught, but after losing three jobs for the very same reason, he hatched a simple way of ensuring that he wouldn’t lose out on any money, and be able to stick it to the boss and company he hated for no other reason than employing him.
Blake was called into his manager’s office, but before anything could be said, Blake blurted out that he needed to take mental leave. He sobbed in front of his manager while he said that the job was giving him thoughts of hopelessness and self harm, but he was smiling on the inside. He was talking just loud enough for a few people outside of the office to hear him.
His manager's face was red.
“Cornered you, bitch.” Blake thought to himself. “Good luck firing someone who’s crying out for mental help.”
Blake figured that he’d be able to stretch this out for at least a month. A month of paid time off doing what he loved.

“It’s my phone!” he muttered to himself as he rode the elevator down to his new found freedom. “If people have a problem with the things I’m looking at, perhaps they shouldn’t be looking over my shoulder and mind their own fucking business.”
He didn’t mind the other people in the elevator, or their awkward expressions. They didn’t matter to him. No one really did.

Still on a high from manipulating his boss into a corner, Blake decided to do something new on the bus ride to his apartment building. He clicked on a video. He wasn’t exactly watching the video, rather he was watching people’s reactions out of the corners of his eyes.
He kept the volume low, but up just enough so the moaning could be heard.
At first, people around him were wondering if they were actually hearing what they thought they were hearing.
He was trying not to laugh at their reactions. People began to move to other seats, and soon enough, everyone was giving him disgusted looks.
“Fuck em.” he whispered.
He noticed one man sitting in the back of the bus who was giving him quite a different look than everyone else. The man was well dressed. Perfect hair. Perfect teeth.
He was smiling at Blake.
Blake, a self admitted and overly enthusiastic homophobe, turned off the video. He began to worry that he had attracted the wrong kind of attention.

Blake was all too eager to get out of the bus and hurry towards the doors to his building. He heard a voice behind him that caused him to catch a breath and lose his forward progress. He turned around. It was the beautiful man from the back of the bus.
“Excuse me! I’d like to have a word!”
Blake found his voice hypnotic, and his stride was elegant, almost like he was floating just above the cracked and cruddy sidewalk.
“I uh… couldn’t help but notice what you were doing on the bus young man. I think I have something you might be interested in.”
Blake was lost in that voice. He had never been attracted to another man, but he was feeling things inside himself that he’d never felt before, and he hated himself for it. After a long awkward silence, Blake finally found his voice.
“Look buddy, take your pixy dust and bother someone else. You’re not my type.”
“Oh, you’re definitely my type.” The beautiful man laughed and handed him a plain white business card with nothing but a web address on it. “In so many different ways, you’re exactly my type.”
“What is this?”
“It’s my business, Kid. You want videos you can’t tear yourself away from? Trust me. It’s the newest thing.”
He winked at Blake and walked away.
-
Blake was staring at his screen while he was riding in the elevator. There was a paywall. A dollar for the first month, then a hundred dollars a month after that.
No screenshots or thumbnails, just a form for a credit card. As the doors opened to his floor, he put his phone in his pocket and decided against any further investigation. He was sure that it was a scam of some kind.

Until ten o’clock that night, Blake engaged in his normal activities with one new addition he had begun almost two weeks prior. He built two shelves in front of two different air vents in his apartment, and he had placed speakers on the shelves. The tenants in his building got to experience all of the auditory pleasures of the thrusting and jiggling and smacking that he was watching.
Blake made sure he followed the rules, and nothing came out of those speakers after ten p.m., but it was fair game until that time.
He would laugh to himself thinking about the tenants having to listen. He wasn’t sure how far the sound traveled through the vents, but he figured that most people on his floor were getting a good chunk of it.
That night though, his usual joyful time in front of his phone, his 70 inch television, and his newly discovered fondness for Cerave was marred by the thought of something unique and dangerous out there that he hadn’t seen.
After several attempts at a satisfactory denouement in his masturbatory madness, Blake finally gave up, raised the white flag on its limp post, and went to bed.

Blake kept hearing the man’s siren-like voice in his head while he tried to sleep. After almost two hours of tossing and turning, he sat up and snatched his phone from the charger and typed his credit card information into the mysterious site. He just had to know.
The site opened up and he was instantly intrigued. There were no thumbnails on any of the videos, but the descriptions on each of them were so graphic, profane, and dehumanizing that it would do us all a great service if they were not repeated here. Blake’s favorite appendage however, jumped to a zealous attention at the graphic depictions that the perverse descriptions painted within his brain.
Blake stripped off his briefs and sat down on the edge of his bed. His left hand gripped the phone while his right hand eagerly gripped something else.
He clicked on the first video and it began to load.
Blake waited.
And waited.
And waited.
The video wasn’t loading, so Blake decided to try another one, only to find that his left thumb wouldn’t move. He realized that his entire body was stiff. Nothing would move with the exception of his eyes. He couldn’t even speak.
All he could do was stare at the glowing screen in the darkness of his apartment.
After a moment, his mind started to race while his body remained ridiculously rigid.

Three hours had passed. Blake had been able to see every minute tick by. He had watched his battery meter slowly run down to eighty percent. He had thought that his screen would eventually turn off, but it never did. It was still trying to load the video.
Something was tickling his nose and his face itched. His back had begun to ache and he felt some tiny pin pricks along his still turgid tool. He wanted to cry, but nothing would come. In fact, his eyes had begun to dry because he had not been able to blink.
Blake watched another hour go by before his body finally succumbed to exhaustion and fell into a deep sleep, in spite of the fact that he could not close his eyes.

He awoke six hours later and his vision was partially obscured. Still holding his phone and his phallus, Blake tried to scream. The sun was now coming through the window of his apartment. He could see his reflection in the mirror that was on the opposite wall. His hair was long, and it was white. A spotty and wiry beard had exploded out of his face and it hung down to just above his enlarged and sagging nipples set in a sagging and flabby chest.
His breaths were shorty and ragged; phlegm was gurgling with each inspiration.
His arms and legs were covered in large liver spots and all of his skin was a purple paper thin.
He was old.
The shock of seeing his hunched and rigid reflection had staved off the feeling of pain from his nether regions for only a moment. His fingernails were growing on his hands. Some of the yellow things were curling around his phone while the others were curling and jabbing into what now looked like a deflated balloon stretched too thin, that was desperately trying to retreat into his abdomen against his rigid grip.
The battery on his phone was blinking.
It was about to die. He wondered what happened when the battery ran out, but somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew exactly what would happen when that loading screen finally went dark.
His sister’s words were all he could think about as the screen and the world went dark.

After several nights of peace, Blake’s neighbors noticed an awful smell emanating from the air vents. After several complaints, the building’s Super opened Blake’s apartment and found the withered, still rigid frame of a dead old man sitting upright on the edge of the bed.
After taking several photos that he would post later on social media and stealthily absconding with almost a full bottle of Cerave, the Super called the authorities.

Hello,
Names JCEE.
Like many individuals on this page, we are fans of a wrestling company known as All Elite Wrestling. As a long-time lurker, this fandom comes within many shapes, sizes and sorts. From my time here, there were many highs, All Out 2021 or Wembley Stadium, to the lowest lows, Brawl Out, and whether there were people that have been here since day 1 or just joined recently, we come together due to one simple fact:
WE LOVE AEW.
My origin into this fandom wasn't at the every start, I didn't watch All Out 1 or watched when AEW started weekly TV in its first year.
I was a waning WWE fan and the only weekly stuff I watched was NXT Takeovers and NXT UK because being in a part of Europe where I couldn't watch weekly the main roster stuff so just kept up to date with podcasts or highlights.
(Shoutout OG Whatculture with Pacitti, Jack and King Ross).
Like many fans of the E, I came in as a fan throughout the early 2000's and dropped off and came in again every so often.
The height of my fandom will always be going to Youtube in the old days and watching the Shield vs The Wyatt Family in Elimination Chamber.
Even back then, Mox to me was the leader of the Shield and still salty that they made Roman the leader towards the end. (haha)
Man it was wild to think that the main reason the E gave so much shine to Black and Gold NXT at Survivor series was mostly due to AEW gaining momentum.
NXT Black and Gold/UK will always hold a special place in my heart for two main reasons
1) it was the place where I showed my partner her first proper wrestling match: Adam Cole (Bay Bay) vs Keith Lee Champ for both their belts.
She was sad she coudn't get me the shirt for that match cause it was only available in US
2) Ilja Dragunov vs Walter. NXT UK Pandemic Era
Still to this day, my favourite series of matches that made me realise "man I love professional wrestling".
If any of you still have the old network go out of your way to watch this and their Takeover match, I remember being part of that journey where Ilja basically had to break himself down and build himself up to get another shot at Walter had to be something special to get me to watch a weekly show where only piped in crowd noise was the only response to the action.
However, even though I say these things and had those memories I don't watch the product anymore since my Membership expired. I recently went to a live event a while ago in Germany with my sister to see WWE.
Standout moments were:
a) The Miz cut a promo, in German, about how big his balls are. He faced Cody Rhodes and not gonna lie. Favorite match of the night.
b) Introduction to Main event Jey Uso live and the Yeet chants. Tag match with Sami Zayn that spiraled from an NXT North American Title Match that ended when Dom and JD got the DQ on the FIRST MATCH to set up a tag match.
c) New Day are still great
d) Imperium vs Alpha Academy was great home town goodness.
e) Gunther vs Bronson was easily a slapper. Both figuratively and literally. I was in seats high up in the Arena. I have a feeling most of us would die if Gunther were to chop any of us. It was LOUD.
f) Seth Rollins vs Shinsuke for the World title in a Berlin Street Fight. Gunther should have main evented and that table spot SUCKED BALLS.
After the event, My sister and I chatted, she had a great time. Told her I did too, I still would not watch the product again.
Alright, the preamble is now out the way. I know alot of you guys would consider the above excessive but I feel like I had to paint a picture to get you into the frame of my mind as a fan of wrestling. I'm not coming from a WWE hater but as someone who did love the things they did but, unlike some who dropped out after a multitude of BS wrestling bollocks from E, for myself, I just could'nt find a way to enjoy a company that seemed so.....two-faced.
AEW will always be the company that proved to me that there is a company that would do right by wrestlers who felt they could've been more.
The moment that made me into an avid AEW fan.
Jon Moxley beating Chris Jericho to win the AEW title for the first time.
The guy whose last run involved a gas mask was able to be crowned a champion as HIMSELF in front of an adoring crowd.
Then the Elite/Hangman saga. Eddie Kingston. Darby. Orange. AEW Dark hangouts.
I went into the deep end of this new company and wanting to know more about these new characters and people I was introduced to.
It still feels nostalgic thinking about how the Elite created the BTE title or the Bucks asking Eddie to cut a promo on a pack of cookies.
God that was some good times.
Then the Punk stuff happened.
With the preamble being as long as it was, this section is going to be brief. In summary:
-Exciting when he came in. Loved his match with Darby.
-Brawl Out was a situation where if you go back and just tweak things a little, I have a feeling we would have a different timeline that what we have today.
-Regardless, everyone shoulders blame and things could have been handled better. That said, CM Punk is an entitled baby who realised that just because TK loved him, the rest of the locker room had different opinions.
-Him being fired was probably the best to occur and regardless of what you feel about the video, still not cool to lunge at your boss cause you feel slighted. Leave your "oh it wasnt even that bad, TK got thin skin" bs out the door.
The above point is why Youtube personality Just Alyx soured on me.
"Come on, CM Punk Tony. LIke look at him"
That was the phrase that just made me sad about one of the people I loved to get his views on with the product.
Also JDfromNY. Loved his WWE rants. They were hilarious. With Papa H pretty much running the show, he and Alyx, two dudes I could just listen to and just kinda vibe with became insufferable.
I think the line where one posted "With Triple H finally getting these backstage hands in order and the Rock being one of the board members, I can confidently say that I can just enjoy and not backseat" was the push I needed to get those two off my timeline.
AEW as a five year old company has made mistakes, jesus christ Wardlow I'm so sorry, but it has shown it can grow and it's still a place where wrestlers can call home.
The recent thread on SQ is over 1.5k comments about the low ratings and I didn't click onto it cause I enjoy my mental health but I feel people forgot that Sting had his retirement match two months ago and that was arguably one of AEW's best PPV's. Then Dynasty happened and so on and so on.
There are alot of things that AEW needs to fix but I'm confident that all of us can admit, they have made great strides compared to its start and they will continue to improve without, hopefully, resorting to childish BS in the future
I feel like this post was therapeutic in the sense that I needed to vent about the recent online discourse. So I leave you guy's a question:
What is the one thing you can say that makes you love AEW
I'm JCEE. Thanks for the Ted Talk

(Premise: Kassandra stays loyal, she was helped with her condition regarding visions by her sister Sanguinia with whom she grew close.)

Feathers

“-andra! Kassandra, damn you, help me!” called Regalia. It was so unlike her.
Night Hauntress’ sister knelt next to their Father’s mutilated body. Ignoring all pleas, Kassandra went past the bleeding Emperor and came up to another body lying on the floor of Vengeful Spirit.
Constillation of rubies, Great Angel’s blood covered her blindingly white wings, horrifically decorated her beautiful face. Painting of gold, white and red, Kassandra Curze saw the world in wide strokes of brush, unable to perceive what she saw before her eyes. Unwilling to perceive. Night Hauntress stood there, staring at Sanguinia’s body, her eyes just gazing in nothingness. She never noticed as her Praetorian sister left, holding the Emperor of Mankind under arms.
Lagging units finally caught up to them, entering the sanctum. Warriors from Regalia’s Fists, their Father’s personal guard, Kassandra’s own Atramaentar.
Why did you come? she wanted to ask, The battle is over.
No one dared to come closer to the Night Hauntress as she froze over the Angel. Only Jago made a few steps, approaching the moveless figure of his Mother. Blood Angels were nowhere to be seen, while sounds of rampaging battle were coming closer to the sanctum.
Sudden scream of agony woke Kassandra from this trance. She turned to see the source of the sound. One man, whose height was so unnaturally smaller than that of super-humans he was surrounded by. Young man’s body twitched and squirmed in pain, as he grasped his head, covering eyes, as if trying not to see, pulling hair, as if trying not to think.
Ah, that mortal Sanguinia fancied, the thought was so mundane, it almost seemed as she simply met him in one of Red Tear’s golden corridors, she called him Dove, as I recall. Why is he weeping?
Figure of similar stature came up to Dove. Morgenstern placed a hand on the grieving man’s shoulder. Impression persisting on the assassin's face was impenetrable, but those standing close to him could notice as knuckles on his hand whitened.
Curze once again turned, returning gaze to her beloved sister. The only sister Kassandra could call beloved, even if she was shrugging, doing so. The only sister she wanted to call sister at all. Night Hauntress lowered herself, coming closer to Angel’s face.
You must be tired, she thought, your battle lasted for too long.
In one swift and tender motion Kassandra closed her sister’s eyes.
Night Hauntress stood up. Only now she noticed another figure lying on the deck. Her other sister sprawled dead in the puddle of liquefied flesh and blood, only her bare skull showing from terminator armor. As she slowly came up to Warmistress’ corpse, Kassandra's blank face finally changed, a mask of utter disdain and rage distorting Night Hauntress’ face. Long seconds passed until she moved again.
Loud crunch filled the sanctum, as Kassandra Curze lowered her boot.

***

“No.”
“Listen, you–”
“Ceremony protocol has already been decided. You’ll be near her as everyone else.”
Why, once in your damned life, why can’t you stop being an accursed wall of rockcreat bricks?! Kassandra Curze wanted to scream on top of her lungs, as she faced Praetorian of Terra. Night Hauntress wanted to strike her sister down right here and there, she wanted to keep punching this dull stone face, until it would turn into a bloody mush.
She could never understand, thought Kassandra bitterly, I doubt she ever tried.
Image of the past, image of Sanguinia, laughing at something that had seemed funny to her in Night Hauntress words, flashed Kassandra’s mind. She lowered her gaze, trying to hold her composure. Not for herself, but for someone who would be greatly disappointed in her, if she didn’t.
“If that’s all you wanted to talk about, then I shall leave”, Regalia turned, starting to walk away, “I have still many things to ate–”
“Wait!” Kassandra growled.
She dashed, catching her sister’s shoulder. Suddenly, an agonizing flash burned her mind. It was the second time her mind was attacked by a vision of a torn off hand, drifting in space among the debris. As Night Hauntress twitched in pain, she grabbed her head pushing nails deep into skin, trying to dull the vision.
Regalia turned back, embers of blazing anger started to appear in her eyes.
“Ngh–” Kassandra slightly groaned, trying to compose herself.
She managed to stand straight and, heavily breathing, looked in Regalia’s eyes.
“Re– Sister, please, it has to be me”, for the first time Unyielding One saw Night Hauntress to plead, and to plead so sincerely.
For some long moments they looked each other in the eyes, but now Regalia’s contained no fire. She saw something new in those purple eyes. Where previously lived only bitter irony and despair, now flickered determination.
Praetorian’s face softened up, enough only for the primarch to notice. Silent nod answered Kassandra’s plea.

***

Holding Angel in her arms, Kassandra Curze stepped into the biggest ceremonial hall on Terra. The biggest that wasn’t ruined by the Siege.
The hall seemed endless, countless caryatids supporting the enormous dome of the building, that became a new sky for all those present here. Images of marble and gold covered walls of the hall, images of the Emperor's most glorious victories, most fruitful of his conquests. Seeing them anywhere her eyes could reach, Kassandra felt sick.
What a jest.
She directed her gaze forward. As endless was this hall, as countless were people present here today. All those who fought and survived the Siege, all those who did not make it on time, standards for all those who fell. From simple guardsman to finest warrior of Adeptus Astartes, all these men and women were here today for the guard of honour. The last guard of honour for her who rested in Kassandra’s arms. Honour that could never be enough.
Complete silence. Complete silence surrounded Night Hauntress as she walked forward, only sounds echoing through the space being her own steps and steps of the two Astartes, Night Lord and Blood Angel, carrying Imperial and Blood Angel’s standards. Kassandra felt as if time slowed down the more steps she took.
As she went closer to the stairs of rockcreat podium, Imperial Guard at her sides changed with space-marine legions. Their halved number still seemed as something surreal to her. Night Hauntress knew her Father’s actions will lead to unspeakable tragedy, but to see it herself was something different.
The last of the Astartes were Blood Angels. Five hundred of the entire legion. All that left after the cursed insanity that consumed them. As Kassandra went past and came up to the stairs, with thunderous sound, five hundred warriors knelt in the final personal sign of honour to their Mother. Two Astartes behind Night Hauntress followed them, staying kneeling at the bottom of podium stairs.
Kassandra made a step up. And then another. As she made more steps up that damned stairs, she felt weaker and weaker, as if life itself was sucked out of her body. She did not understand this. All since the battle on Vengeful Spirit, Night Hauntress felt empty, and now an unfamiliar feeling was filling her, as she looked down at her sister's face.
Her sister was dead.
Kassandra felt a lump forming in her throat. She felt as if any other step she took could be the last before she collapses. But she could not allow herself this.
Fighting herself, Night Hauntress reached the top of the podium. She walked up to the stone bed, covered with finest silks, a red pillow laying on them looked as the softest and the most comfortable thing in the world. Kassandra never noticed other primarchs standing near.
Strength was leaving her, her whole existence trembled as she lowered Angel onto the crimson bed.Kneeling of the countless thousands of people shook the ceremonial hall. Kassandra held out a trembling hand to touch Angel’s face, to get one final moment with her sister.
And then she felt something. Something so familiar. Something so similar to Sanguinia playfully brushing Kassandra’s cheek with her wing, once again annoyed with her sister’s fatalistic nonsense.
Kassandra’s muscles finally gave in to her grief. She collapsed to her knees holding on to red silks.
And then the Dark Queen cried.

[FIRST][LAST]
Atlantis Commission
Officer Report - Lieutenant Colonel John Shepard
CLEARANCE LEVEL 5
Well this had definitely been a very interesting couple of hours. This dimension and its people had very odd opinions and ideas. Apparently the prey species of this dimension were all obligate cowards, whose instincts compelled them to be non-violent and run from threats. At least according to themselves. There were apparently some of them who were “predator diseased” as they called it, a disease which often resulted in increased violence, aggression, lack of empathy, and unheard like behavior. It sounded to me like some form of infectious psychopathy, but the venlil assured us it shouldn't affect us since we were predators, which didn’t really ease my fears, but hopefully it was something we could figure out when we got home if it ever became a problem.
Gotta love mandatory quarantine periods woo hoo!
As scary as this odd disease sounded, my main concern at the moment was to try and turn a professed coward into someone who could at the very least defend themselves.
I looked down to the table of gear ahead of me and then over to the mostly naked Venlil to my side, and then even farther to Tiel’c who thought It would be a good idea to help oversee Farva’s rapid fire training course. I fiddled with the bluetooth earpiece which was rigged up to one of our handhelds to run a translation program to speak directly with the captain. A big step up from our unknowingly one sided communications earlier.
I stepped on the other side of the plastic table and placed my hands down upon it and looked on at my new student..
“Welcome Captain Farva to our very impromptu accelerated course on Human arms armor and basic infantry tactics.” I said gesturing to the hodge podge gear we had managed to assemble for the good captain. “Are we ready to begin?”.
She flicked her ears, somewhat nervously by the looks.
“I’d take it that's a yes then?”
“Oh yes sorry”
“Alright then, well given that most of our crew is human and the only other alien struts around naked all the time, the only gear we have on hand is for humans, So you're going to be running size smalls and it's all going to fit all a bit big” I say as I toss her the tactical vest. ”Here try this on, we can try to tighten it up if it's a bit loose anywhere”. The captain wrestles with the buckles a bit, and Teal'c helps her tighten up some of the top straps, as the Venil’s shoulders weren't as broad as humans. Farva gave Teal’c an odd look, but seemed appreciative none the less.Once finished, she grasped the vest in her paws with interest. “This armor seems quite lightweight, which is nice, weight is often an issue that causes us to forgo armor, since heavy armor would hurt our running ability.” Farva remarks. “Also the sheer amount of pockets seems quite excessive, what do you need all these for?”
“Well for starters it's currently missing these '' I hand Farva one of the armor plates which she looks over. “That is a depleted Naquadria ceramic composite plate. It’s designed to stop bullet impacts and dissipate energy weapon blasts. It slots into that chest compartment in the front and back of your armor.”
“This isn't quite what Id imagine for the armor of your kind”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well judging by your ships I would have imagined you would put more emphasis on defense Your predatory nature would make you less likely to run away from conflict allowing for more encompassing armor to cover more than just your chest, since you have less need to run.”
She would put it like that.
“Well there are a number of reasons for that, a lot to do with those excess pockets you mentioned. For starters you will not be carrying the same amount of gear that the standard infantry unit would normally be carrying, we are preparing you for a quick in and out op. Normally us expedition teams need to be deployed into unknown territory for extended periods of time, we need to carry everything we might need with us from food, bullets, weapons, to comms gear, sensors, repelling equipment etc. The weight from all that gear adds up fast; In order to stay sufficiently mobile and combat effective; we only carry enough armor to protect our vitals, head and torso, anything else can hopefully be patched up by a field medic.”
Tielc gave his piece as well. “It is important to know when to run both towards and aways from one's foes, not every battle can be won through strength alone, but by strategy and cunning. Being able to reposition oneself quickly is therefore highly advantageous”
Farva seemed to freeze at Teal'c's statement, not out of fear I think, she instead had a distant look in her eye. To snap her out of her slump I handed her a standard ballistic helmet.
Seeming to get the idea she looked at it oddly and tried it on. It confirmed to her head shape decently well but depressed her ears to either side of her head, kind of resembling what one might imagine a sad bunny rabbit to look like “I don't think this will be something I can bring with me” she said ” I can't use ear signals and this will muffle my hearing.”
“Why don’t you keep it on for the time being, I think any extra hearing protection might be useful considering what we are about to try next.” I hand Farva some ballistic ear protectors, slightly modified and somewhat ramshackle. “One of the corporals worked closely with Nurse Fila to get an idea for safe decibels levels for your kind, we were also able to get these earbuds molded to fit into your ear canal better”
Farva took them and slipped them in. “These are a bit uncomfortable, what do I need these for?”
“You'll need them for this” I say as I unsnap the clasps on the weapons case revealing its contents.
The content seems to capture Farva’s interest, getting a slight tail wave.
“Okay So this here is a p90, It carries a 50 round top loading magazine of teflon coated armor piercing ordnance. With a cyclical rate of fire of 900 rounds per minute.”
Farvas ears perk up at this. “This seems like an efficient design, I take it these are a flashlight and laser sight for accuracy?” She asked, pointing to the top of the weapon.
“Yes we also have holographic and acog optics which will help line up targets from farther away.” I look on as Farva picks up the weapon and inspects it, testing the weight as I note that it will weigh a fair bit more once loaded. But she doesn't seem to be struggling with the weight. I can't help but notice good firearm safety as well, she keeps her finger well off the trigger and takes care to keep her weapon pointed aways from anyone else.
“This seems like a solid design but I'm not sure how useful those weapon optics would be, as they are not designed for my side facing eyes”
“I'm sure our master at arms can figure something out, why don't we give it a test fire first tho, before we send it off to make adjustments.” I instruct her on how to load the weapon and turn the safety off. I warn her of the sound it makes. And while definitely taken aback by the recoil and sound at first, she quickly gets the hang of it, she has some respectable shot groupings in both single fire and in short bursts. And keeps the rounds reasonably centered while firing in full auto.
She did a whole lot better than I would have initially suspected given her performance in the hanger bay a day before.
“The rate of fire seems useful” Farva spoke “This would be useful for our soldiers, our accuracy falters when we are panicked, and the increased shot count should guarantee some hits based on volume of fire alone” she finished with a dejected expression.
She quickly places the weapon back in its case, as if it burned to touch.” I don't know if I should be armed for this mission, at least not with that weapon, I don't want to miss and hit one of you in the back!”
“What? Nonsense, you are a great shot, and this is just a precaution in case we get separated or flanked and need some covering fire. If our guys are doing their job right you shouldn't need to fire a single round anyways.”
Captain Farva’s breathing started to hasten, earlier I might have thought it was fear, but I was starting to get an idea of what the captain's issues were. I’ve seen this before.
“I.. I can’t be trusted with this responsibility, every time I am left in charge of something, every time people put their lives in my paws I ....”
“Farva, don’t you start with me now you hear.” I said sternly, swiftly capping off her inevitable spiral of self doubt.
“But.. no.. you don’t understand”
Stopping her again I spoke. “But nothing, what happened before on that ship, and back at that colony is in the past. I don’t know your whole situation, but from what I have gathered from the crew It was nothing good. You feel responsible and it's eating away at you, and frankly it doesn’t matter if that's true or not. Accidents happen, people make mistakes, and when that happens we need to learn, take those lessons to heart, and don't let it stop us from helping people in the present. If you let guilt, or fear of mistakes stop you, then bad guys have already won, all without having to have fired a shot”
Farva is quiet for a short time, I was hoping I got through to her, I'm not the best and pep talks and this certainly wasn’t your typical weapons demo, if only everyones could go as smoothly as Ronan’s.
Farva spoke quietly, arms pressed up against her chest, she looked so sad, defeated, and small. Well more than usual anyways. “We can't be strong like you humans, we are too emotional and when we are scared we run away or we lock up and...”
“And that is clearly not the case with you captain Farva” Teal’c finally reentered the conversation having heard enough. “You have shown courage with every action you have taken so far, your actions have saved the lives of many of your crew, every time you have been threatened you acted not just to protect yourself but others as well. You attempted to contend with beings many times your size without even thinking about it, all in the effort to protect others, and this is only in the time we have known you, this speaks nothing of your actions over the colony. You are a warrior of admirable courage Captain Farva, your self doubt is unearned.”
A single tear rolled down Farva’s eyes which she quickly wiped away. “That was very nice of you to say, but I'm not brave like you say, I was terrified out of my mind the whole time.”
Teal’c looked puzzled. “I did not call you brave, I said you were courageous.”
Farva shot back with the little venlil one up one down ear flick I had very quickly learned was confusion.” I'm confused you just said brave twice”
“Hmm it appears your language does not contain the word I am using, I apologize I am not used to speaking through a translator” Teal’c relented “ There are two words I am using admittedly in slightly different forms, bravery and courage. Bravery or to be brave is to lack fear, to not be afraid to begin with. Courage tho, Is a trait far more admirable. Courage is to be afraid, to have fear, to worry about one's own mortality and personal safety. It is to acknowledge risk, danger, to feel fear, but to act in spite of it.”
“Had I not met your kind before I would have thought predators don't feel fear.”
“Everyone fears feel Farva, It is how we overcome it that determines our worth as warriors”
Teal’c picks up the p90 and returns it to Farvas hands.
“Your people need a warrior Farva, a warrior who protects the innocent and guides the lost to safety. You have shown how collected you can be in the heat of battle, You have already proven your worth in our eyes Farva, now you must do the same in your own. The greatest enemy lies not without” Teal’c places his hand firmly on the venlil’s chest “But within”.
After Action Report - Venlil Colonial Defense Force
Subject : Chief Engineer Donu
I fiddled with my holopad, Its small surface area proving to be a consistent source of annoyance in my current endeavor. Gone was the large workspace afforded to me by my holotable back in my office. Instead I had to work with the scaled down portable holotablet I was just fortunate enough to have strapped to my person when I was beamed away from our last ship. I was stuck with its smaller keyboard and slower rendering speeds.
An annoyed smooth skin alien looked over my shoulder at my device, attached to it was a jury rigged fiber optic cable, slotted into a terran silicon to crystal patch cable, which would convert the electrical signals broadcasted by my tablet into a bandwidth that the terrans crystalline based computers; which they used for highly complex tasks like hyperdrive and transporter systems; could use, and then It was patched again in a even stranger connector to patch into the odd asgard computer stones.
All in all it looked like someone tried to plug a regular computer into some crystal construct like you would find in a fantasy holonovel, and again plugged that into a harchen heat rock sauna lounge. Finally branching out from this conglomeration was a simple copper based wire that connects to a computer terminal at which currently sat the late Doctor Rodney Mckay. A title upon initially hearing led me to believe he was a medical doctor, which led to a flurry of medical questions that he had absolutely no means of answering.
While this odd alien nomenclature was interesting, what intrigued me more was his actual area of expertise, theoretical astrophysics, as well as a number of other diverse specialties and fields. Not to mention not only was he a great scientist who had he been raised in the more civilized portion of this galaxy, would have knowledge and aptitude that would put him alongside some of Aafas greatest minds, but he was also an engineer without peer, at least in this galaxy. His interactions with general Samantha Carter hinted at her possibly being his match if not more. For a species that was supposed to glorify violence the decision to have a scientist be arguably the most senior member of what was by their admission a military vessel spoke to their commitment to knowledge and understanding, a very noble prey-like goal.
I looked warily at the lines of code at my screen, the asguard translation program had earlier scanned our ship and was able to parse written languages, but complex files, like images and 3d design schematics were harder to encode and decode from our perspective systems. As is stands we have 3 completely separate computer architectures, the asguard can talk to human computers and the venlil computers can talk to the asguard computers, It sounds like we would have everything we need to get a human C.A.D schematic into a venlil holotablet right? Wrong! And you're stupid for entertaining such a idiotic notion! Parsing text from raw binary is relatively straight forward, you're just looking for patterns, repeating bit combinations that might infer letters and then iterating them over millions of times looking for patterns, letters, words, and then with a bit of help from some undecoded analog audio transmission, spoken language. This is a far cry from actual procedural communication protocols,the ones that allow for file transfers, exactly what we needed if we were to get Rodney's redesigned part schematics into a format and medium that can be plugged into a suitable fabricator. Assuming one still exists, which I can reasonably assume it does.
Speaking of which, I have just made something of a breakthrough. For upon my screen appears a simple geometric hydrogen cube, we’re talking vertices, planes, material data, everything we need for a usable design file.
I let out an excited pent up yip, the culmination of hours of frustrating software integration work. Unfortunately I startled Rodney, who lets out a panicked gasp and clutches his chest pelts with one of his paws.
“Oh god…..” He gasps, pointing at me “Please.. don’t do that”
“Sorry!” I say a bit meekly. I slowly approach him so as to not make him unnecessarily uncomfortable and show him my work.
“I got the file exchange set up, all we need from you is to finish any modifications to your part, upload them to my holopad, and then we can print away at any class 3 or above fabricator we can scrounge up on Brayga colony.”
“Ok.. um.. got it, I'm almost done i’m just you know” He points a lone grasping appendage at his screen,”Running some simulations, making sure everything is up to spec.” keeping his response kurt. “Sorry for freaking out there.”
I nod my head in the human display of affirmation and return to my workstation to further bug check my work, to test potentially problematic edge cases for when he finishes. Tho Rodney's continued odd behavior intruded on my thoughts.
I should have felt empowered, being able to intimidate this ‘massive beast’, but I didn't. I didn't like being feared, his people have been nice to me, Rodney himself courteous to a fault and desperate for positive attention.
I thought I could expect predators to be fearless but that clearly wasn't the case, rodney was fearful, nervous, had I not known better I would say defective, and while it annoyed his crew, they didn't berate him for it, or attempt to assert dominance, they encouraged it even with placating words and tried to help him through it, they encouraged and supported him like a proper herd, even if sometimes it took the form of what the human would call a playful ribbing. I supposed I could help him as well.
I approached him again, careful to make my approach known to him, making sure to approach from within his limited field of vision. He looks up at me with a wide eyed glare, had I not known him I might have assumed it was hunger, but I did and knew it to be concern.
“Uh high Donu.. um whats up?”
“Why are you afraid of us rodney?”
“Wa-What, me afraid?” he gives out a panicked laugh ”uh no no, I'm not afraid, you know just a bit weirded out I'm just getting used to you all, it's not a fear thing it's a a…. Just getting used to new aliens thing, ask Hermirod we went through this whole song and dance right buddy”
Hermirod furrowed his brow and gave an irritated sigh from across the room.
I reached out to take Rodney by the paw.
His whole body flinched at my mere touch, I quickly withdrew my paw.
“Oh.. um.. I didn't…”
“Rodney! It's okay, your crew doesn’t seem to care when you show fear, and neither do I. Why are you afraid of us? You are almost twice our size and surely double our strength, most venlil would scream and run in terror at the mere sight of you. What's wrong?”
Rodney let out a sigh. “Oh its, we don't have to talk about this, I can deal with this, I deal with scary situations all the time, it's fine, I'll be fine.”
“Rodney, my people are a very emotional, empathic people, we are open with our feelings and with our fear, and the fear of the one can affect the herd, please let me help you. I don’t know what to expect from your society but I promise I wont judge you for your fear or emotions, I mean look at many of my crew mates, we are no one to judge”
Rodney shot back “You didn't seem to be so bothered”
“I’m too old to care, I was about to retire, hell I was about to die as far as I knew, Brayga colony was supposed to be a quiet place to lay back, work on some hobbies, plant a garden and pester the young men of my colony until I either dropped dead of boredom or got lucky” I joked.
That seemed to raise Rodney's mood somewhat. He sighed and seemingly relented.
“It’s… a dumb story, I don't even know why it affected me so much, I come from a place on earth called Canada, people don't usually believe me when I say I am from there, us Canadians are notoriously friendly and I guess I haven’t exactly filled that mold for a lot of my life, but hey I'm working on it, people like me, I have lots of friends back at Atlantis” He says the last sentence in a way as if it isn't me he's trying to convince.
“I'm sure you do, Rodney, You seem like quite the charming individual when you're not cowering!”
“Ha ha thanks, maybe you could come and visit sometime. Tell that to doctor Becket, really nice guy, smart man, he would love to meet you, he loves investigating new species. But back on topic, oh boy, so me and my sister Jeannie were on a family trip to rural Vancouver to visit my grandpa's farm, he kept a lot of goats, not for eating or anything, they were essentially pets that he would use for milk”
“Wait hold on? You drink milk from other animals! Do your females not produce enough milk for their young?”
“Oh um no, we just sort of drink it or ferment it into cheese!”
“Ferment? You mean spoil?
“Yeh”
I reeled from this plasma blast of a statement, I like any right minded venlil had a number of nightmares about being an arxur’s cattle before, especially when I first learned about those things in primary school, but never once had it crossed my mind that we could be used for something so weird. What the speh was I supposed to do with that information?
“Maybe you should get back on topic”
“Yeh sorry about that uh.. Anyways the momma goat had just had a litter of babies, and their real cute when their little, so late in the day when my grandpa was asleep we snuck out to the pens so we can play with the little baby goats, our grandpa told us not to but you now how kids are.”
At this I think back to a young Nyan, as I teach him the inner working of the hyperdrive, I tell him he’s not cleared yet to operate in this engine compartment alone, but I could tell from the occasional caught black hairs and dropped writing implements, there had been a number of curious unauthorized expeditions into its inner workings, he didn't really listen either.
“My sister as always was trying to be the voice of reason, wanting to take it slow. If I was paying attention I might have noticed the angry moma goat who didn’t appreciate the strange human messing with her children.”
The color seemed to drain from his face.
“I uh…” He began to stutter again ”I screamed, a lot, it was rather undignified, she ran right at me, thank god it wasn't a male goat, one with horns, I tired to run but I was hit in the back and knocked over and kicked real good in the head, like wake up in the vet clinic a quarter mile down the road kind of bad”
“This goat was a prey animal?”
“That would be what your kind focuses on”
“Oh sorry”
“Anyways It seems dumb but I have just never been good with animals since then, especially ones that look like you; no offense; I'm getting better but when I first saw you guys in the hangar bay, I was just that dumb kid again, getting in way over my head, scared for my life. I guess there is something to be said about childhood trauma. I really should be over this, I'm getting better with it I swear it’s just”
I take his paw again, he doesn't flinch this time.
“I'm a venlil, a prey animal, I know fear, I know what it is to live in fear, It rattles your brain, it turns your paws to wet grains. It takes great strength to overcome it, to push it aside just long enough to protect the herd. Your herd relies on you Rodney and you are doing a great job in spite of your fear, in spite of having to work with those you fear. You have achieved intellectual feats that rival the greatest minds of the federation and all that while struggling with a traumatic experience. Fear isn’t dumb and there is nothing wrong with you for feeling it.”
“Thank you” Rodney says “That means a lot, I won't be like forever I promise, I just need some time.”
“We will laugh about this someday,” I assured. “Nothing as big and intelligent as you should be afraid of anything”
“Are you calling me fat?” Rodney exclaimed with fake offense.
We both chuckled.
My kind words had resulted in a more upright posture, and a more cheerful demeanor from the human, almost like when I congratulated Nyan on his work, and it got me a look at that happy snarl of his, that I was starting to grow quite fond of.
After Action Report - Venlil Colonial Defense Force
Subject : Apprentice Engineer Nyan
Oh wow! I get to write a report for this mission! I never get to write reports, Donu says they're too boring, but there’s so many interesting things going on all the time. Sometimes I sneakily write my own! Just for fun of course, nobody sees them, which is probably for the best as I sometimes get excited and embellish them slightly. One of the reports I wrote was about the time Donu used nothing but a wad of electrical tape, a bottle of high grain venlil alcohol and a pocket knife to repair a venlil medical ship just in time to get out of the way of a big scary space predator, with glowing red eyes and a million tentacles!
Anyways Im not sure If im suppose to write these In present tense first person or past tense. I asked the captain and she said it's whatever so long as I make sure any pertinent dialogues are properly quoted(“”).
“Nobody usually reads these things anyways.” She said, but this one is surely going to be so exciting, who could look away!
I mean who's gonna scoff at a chance to read about friendly predators from another dimension! A dimension of friendly predators who give warm head scratches and hand out yummy strayu not strayu treats called donuts, that are somehow fluffier than strayu, and have a nice moisture to them. I asked for the recipe but Samantha said we wouldn't have the ingredients back on Venili prime to make them, and Teal'c said the recipe is an old family secret. Its weird predators would be so protective of their plant snacks.
There are so many weird things about these predators, they have nurturing instincts that make them find us cute. They stay perfectly balanced even if they don’t have tails, swinging their arms and body all over the place to keep upright like a lopsided gyroscope, it's pretty funny looking!
They also wear artificial pelts all the time, which I thought was weird, I thought maybe the ships temperature was set by the angry gray alien since he’s the only crew member beside the venlil who walks around naked all the time, maybe he had a fit when it was to warm, and the humans obliged him cause they were worried they would make him even angrier, and wore clothes to make up for the cold. I thought this made sense, a lot of their technology does seem to come from the Asguard, maybe he has more say in the goings on of the ship because of that. But apparently humans just like wearing pelts all the time. They feel uncomfortable without them and don’t like it if you try to remove them or look up their upper artificial pelts they call shirts.
The humans are so weird, I don’t even have to embellish my reports to make it more interesting. Like that time with the big tentacled space predator. That may sound real compared to this stuff but it Isn't, Ha! I bet you fell for it at first, hook line and sinker! Like the humans would say. I think I used that saying right, I'm not sure what it means, but Shepard brought it up when he was telling a story about the wraith.
The humans are so nice, instead of exterminating their predators they try to cure them! Their doctors are working to modify the wraith so they don't have to eat humans anymore, so they can be friendly predators too.
Anyways I should probably get to the actual report part of this report. Farva says I should start after I went off with Samantha to work on some special astrophysics equations she said I would be good at. I kind of wanted to go with Donu to help Rodney get the new parts they needed, or Farva to help rescue our people, but the humans and even the angry gray alien got really weird when Farva mentioned taking me on the mission. Samantha seemed to want me to help her really badly so I didn’t mind. Samantha says I have the most important part to our mission. She's teaching me about how humans communicate through subspace, and about stellar drift equations. We are working on what she calls the exit strategy.

Around Thanksgiving last year, my 22 year old daughter Izzy started complaining about her back hurting. We just assumed she pulled a muscle or had a pinched nerve. After a couple weeks, the pain seemed to be getting worse. She went to urgent care on a Friday and they confirmed she probably had a pinched nerve. They gave her some meds. That following Monday (Dec. 18) she was in a lot of pain, so I rushed her to the hospital. It was her back and her left arm now bothering her. They blew her off and said that she was fine. I insisted that she get an MRI or cat scan done. Finally at my request they did a cat scan on her back and said they didn't see anything wrong. They said it's probably a pinched nerve, gave her more meds and sent us home.
The week of Christmas everything changed. She woke up each night covered in sweat. On the 28th, her heart was beating fast, she was extremely pale, and had two knots appear on the left side of her neck and one under her left underarm. I brought her to a different hospital.
When we got to the ER, they immediately took her to a room. Her vitals were extremely high (170 heart rate) from the pain she was in. They were considering that she could have meningitis or mono. They wanted to get tests ran right away. They admitted her, and did a spinal tap and MRI. 2 days later (Saturday) the doc said they found a large tumor on her spine. Can't say if it's cancer yet, she would need a biopsy first. They informed us that she would be moved that day to their sister hospital that specializes in cancer.
When we arrived, she was put on the neurology ward in a regular room. They immediately put her on a lot of meds. She was on so many pain drugs, (Oxy, Dilaudid, muscle relaxers, Morphine, Xanax, etc.) that I kept asking, "Is this end of life? Can she overdose from all these drugs?" They would respond with, "no, it's just to keep her comfortable and we're trying to get her heart rate down." On New years day they gave her Ativan. She responded horribly to it. It was a rough day. She was hallucinating and freaking out all day and night. The next day she told them to NEVER give her that again. They told her when we first arrived that anything she didn't want to take, they would respect and not put it in her charts to receive. They would put it under allergies. We assumed they would do so as they said they would.
They finally did the biopsy on Wednesday the 3rd. When she came back from surgery, she wouldn't wake up. She slept all day Wednesday and most of Thursday. I was really concerned.They kept adding more pain meds to her chart. I again was scared she would forget to breathe. That night she wasn't breathing properly and her vitals were going down. She had to be rushed to NeuroICU. They got her stable and explained it was from all the different drugs. They explained that it's trial and error. They're trying to figure out what works for her and they decided to put her on a drip line of Dilaudid. They still gave her other drugs but Dilaudid seemed to help her pain somewhat. They also said she had a spot on her lungs what looked like pneumonia starting.
All week she was constantly telling us that she was losing feeling in her legs and her left arm. By Saturday of that week she was paralyzed. They finally took her for an MRI and saw that the tumor had spread up and down her spine and to her ovaries, and it was stealing her blood supply. She would need emergency surgery asap. They of course came to explain what was happening and the surgeon informed me that Ativan would be used during surgery. I immediately told him no, and that she is allergic to it and it was supposed to be on her allergy list. I explained to him what happened when she received it before. On Sunday they rushed her into surgery and cut the blood supply to the tumor. It was too dangerous to try and remove any of the tumor. They didn't know if the paralysis was permanent, but they were hopeful that the surgery would work. It didn't we would later find out.
When she returned from surgery, she was out of control. She was violent and cursing at me. In 22 years I had never heard her curse, but she was fluent! She was hallucinating bad and kept freaking out. It was scary to watch. They decided to give her some meds to make her to sleep, to help her heal. For 2 straight days my baby screamed blood curdling screams, she would cry out "mommy, mommy" while she slept. She screamed so much and so loud that anyone in ear shot were questioning what was going on. It was heartbreaking to witness. I thought she was having a bad reaction to the anesthesia. I later found out that they were giving her Ativan anyway. They NEVER put it in her chart as an allergy the week before, and the doctor disregarded what I said about not giving her that. They had other options they could have used but he still chose to do what he wanted. I only found out because the nurse mentioned that she would be right back with her Ativan. The nurse had no knowledge that my daughter refused that medication previously. I informed her not to give that drug to her. She went and spoke with the attending physician who changed it to haldol and ketemine. That was Monday night. By Wednesday she finally calmed down from screaming, so they decided to try and wake her up.
When she woke up she could no longer speak properly, use her left arm, or move her legs. Her fingers and toes were turning black. They said it was from a certain med she was on. That it's normal. A lay person could see something was horribly wrong.
Everyday we would see up to 30 doctors. I say we, because I never left her side. One would say one thing while another would say something else. It was confusing and scary. We still didn't have a diagnosis. We just knew she had cancer. They suspected stage 4 but couldn't say until pathology came back. It was traumatic and a nightmare. It went from a diagnosis of a pinched nerve to stage 4 cancer in a matter of a week. WTF?
We finally got the diagnosis on Tuesday the 9th.. Stage 4 anaplastic large cell lymphoma. Very rare and aggressive. They said they were starting chemo immediately. They gave her the first dose that Wednesday night. We had hope. It was a rollercoaster of terror, but the doctors kept saying that she could beat this. I googled everything I could and prayed for a miracle. It's always been my girl and I, so I was desperate for her to live through this. She wasn't just my daughter, she was literally my everything.
By week 2, she needed blood on a daily basis. She couldn't eat or drink. She couldn't relieve herself. She couldn't move. She couldn't speak clearly to explain her needs or wants. Her breathing was shallow. Her vitals were not normal. They would go down and then jump extremely high. She was so out of it, that they had to come to me concerning everything. Her oxygen was dropping significantly and they had to keep changing out the masks and oxygen levels to help her breathe. They kept changing her meds and she had multiple complications from that. They couldn't find any good spots on her arms to put her IVs anymore, and her legs were so swollen that they couldn't locate a useable spot anywhere. They put it on her right side of the neck. During all this she had multiple medical emergencies. One example is they said that spot on her lungs wasn't pneumonia but they now suspected a small blood clot. That medicine she was given would hopefully help, the only problem was that medication was causing problems for her back surgery. A few days later we found out it was blood and it was completely filled up in her chest. She was drowning in her own blood. They couldn't do surgery right away because she would bleed out since her platelets were so low even while receiving blood transfusions. That blood was somehow going into her lungs. I was floored. Everyday I would ask about it and I was told it was getting better, nothing to worry about. In fact the doctor said that very morning it had cleared up significantly. Imagine my shock when the critical team comes rushing in that evening to do ultrasounds on her and tells me they suspect it's why her breathing was going downhill.
On Monday she was transferred to a MICU room on a different floor. This floor felt uneasy to me. There was death all around and you could see it. They said that this floor was where her main doctors were, so that she would get the best care. Now they introduce fentanyl to her med regimen. They explained it that it would help with her pain. She would be allowed so much every hour if needed.
The next day they decided to do the surgery to put a tube in her chest to drain the blood. She now had an extremely dangerous back surgery, staples running up her entire back with tubes, a huge scar under her arm from the biopsy with tubes, and now a huge tube coming out her chest. Her fingers and toes at this point were in a stage of necropsy. But they couldn't do anything about it. They would just have to fall off in time. It was devastating. My daughter was a trooper through out this whole time. She never complained or was negative. She was just scared when she understood what was going on. Honestly I've never seen so much courage in my life.
When it came to her pain meds she was only on fentanyl and Dilaudid drip. She would only receive it when she asked. That was her rule. She was scared she would overdose or become hooked on it and didn't want that monster on her back. She would be in so much pain but would just sit through it. Her vitals were better, but when the pain would become to much to bare, her heart rate would go into the 150 to 170 range. As soon as she got some meds it would go down to the teens to low twenty's.
On Thursday night she had a new nurse. He would administer pain meds even when she didn't request it. I saw him give her shot when she was sleeping. I walked in on him. I asked him if she requested it as I saw she was asleep and he said no. He stated he was trying to keep her comfortable. I asked him not to unless she asks. He didn't listen.Throughout the night as we slept, he would give her meds that she didn't even need. He gave her haldol. She only received that for two days after her back surgery. No one had given her that since. He would give her a shot of fentanyl behind it. I later found this out while talking with her doctors and from her records.
That Friday morning she started having these weird episodes, what later looked like seizures to me. Her vitals would drop and she would go into a deep stare. They blamed the meds. It was constant apologies for her being over medicated again. Even the doctor didn't understand why he gave her so much.She had 4 separate episodes before they (at my constant request) sent her to get a MRI done.
She had a blood clot in her brain. Again they said nothing to worry about. But after experiencing what we went through already, I was highly concerned. As I should have been. They kept apologizing and said they would change her medication up again. I told them it wasn't the medicine it was the nurse. I couldn't understand why he would give her two doses of haldol when she didn't need it. The nurse said my daughter was anxious and thought it would help. My daughter was sleeping so how could she have been anxious. I went off. Something in my spirit was telling me to get her out of there. But how could I when she was hooked up to all these tubes. She was suffering and I couldn't help her. The only thing I could do was use my voice to try and protect her and be her advocate. The next day Jan. 20th, I woke up after a couple hours of sleep, and I knew something was wrong. She was awake and trying to talk. Her vitals were back at a steady 170 with high blood pressure and a low oxygen number so I knew she was in pain. I could feel it in every bone of my body something was different that day. I felt my baby didn't have long as I thought cancer was winning. I called all of our family to come see her. I can't explain it. At one point I pulled one of her doctors out of her room and begged him to tell me what was happening. Shoot it to me straight. He kept saying she's always been critical but she would pull through. He had so much hope.
They gave her some meds to help bring her vitals down and it started to work again. Her vitals started going from 160 to 150. At this point she was having a brain scan done in her room to see what the episodes were exactly. She was awake but could no longer move from her neck down. Which had just started the 2 days before. She had a blood infection and they had to move the pic line from the right side of her neck to the left side but we're unsuccessful because she had obstructions there (2 huge tumors) They had to put the new line back on the right side in the back of the neck. I don't know what happened since I wasn't allowed in the room. I do know my daughter said after they finished, she wasn't able to feel anything but her face. She never turned her head again.
During that day she kept having flem and spit from the congestion she had due to the chest infection and surgery. I would sit there and suck it out for her. No problem, I had been doing it for days with no complaints on my end. The doctors were coming in and out constantly all day to check her brain test and at one point the doctor seeing me and my nephew take shifts suctioning her out said he wanted to try a new medicine she had never received. My daughters nurse interrupted him and said that she didn't think that it was a good idea. They went back and forth for a few minutes and I stepped in and said, it was fine, I would sit there and suction out forever if I had to. Something felt different in this exchange as well. In all of 24 days of being in the hospital, I never saw a nurse challenge a doctor. I immediately went to the computer, where the nurse had typed in the order for this drug, and googled it. The first thing that popped up, was not to give this drug to someone with high blood pressure or high heart rate. It causes a person's heart rate to shoot up high quickly. It was too late. They already administered it to her. Since her heart rate was already high it caused her to go into cardiac arrest. I just stood there in shock screaming is she in cardiac arrest? To which the doctor finally responded "I'm sorry, yes"
They ushered me and my nephew out of the room so they could work on her. After about 30 minutes they called my phone and told me she flatlined but they got her heart beating again. I went flying back in that room screaming at them. I refused to leave the room. She was now on life support, but there was no hope for her to ever wake up again. After consulting with my family and her doctors, and looking at where her vitals were, I decided to pull the plug. She passed within seconds. I feel like the doctor should have listened to the nurse, but his ego would not allow him to. I feel like he's somehow responsible, but at the same time I saw what was happening to her on a daily basis and what cancer was doing to her body. I also witnessed a lot of negligence too on their part. I've been going back and forth since January 20th, about contacting an attorney and seeing if I have a case. I requested an autopsy to be performed, because I wanted to know what all was wrong with her. They informed me they normally don't do that because of the cancer. I argued with them and said I wanted one anyway. I wanted to know what happened. I was trying to understand this whole situation. 25 days prior it was just supposed to be a pinched nerve, but it wasn't. They explained I would have to pay for the autopsy, and I was okay with that. The next day after she passed away, I received the phone call to give my permission for an autopsy. They said it would take a couple days and would let me know when it was finished so the funeral home could pick up her body.
I've been calling for months about the autopsy report with no luck. Here we are in May, I go to the hospital to get the autopsy results and it's all of five pages. It's not even an autopsy report. It doesn't even state her cause of death. It's just bullshit paperwork. All it mentions is the necropsy to her fingers and toes and her basic info like height and weight. I'm so angry right now. I have her medical records, and I noticed on the 19th of January they finally put she was allergic to Ativan. There's a lot wrong with this situation. I even asked for a CD of all her images, from pathology. What I received only two images come up. Everything else is blocked from opening. I know my daughter took multiple MRIs, ultrasounds,and CAT scans in those three and a half weeks. There's no way it's only two images.
I counted all the times the nurse gave my daughter pain meds that Thursday night and it was double what any other nurse had given her at any other time plus with other drugs she didn't need at that time. I found out that haldol and fentanyl is something they give to patients that's in end of life care. Which I was constantly told my daughter was not. Her death certificate states she passed from lymphoma related cardiac arrest. I'm just so confused on what to do. I feel like I'm letting my daughter down if I don't look into this further.
I'm sorry this a novel. I couldn't just ask a simple question with out the back story for you to understand. It was so much more believe me, this was the short version!
Do I have a case or should I just move on and accept my daughter died from cancer related complications? Thank you....

Tl,dr: you're not missing anything
It's Saturday night, and my best friend is out of town. I was bored. Usually I'm a home body, but I decided to get out of the house by myself. Took out the car, stopped by at an NBC to take a beverage along. I'm more of a panwadi-wali-cold coffee type of guy but felt like treating myself for no reason. Went through the menu, Googled what a couple of things exactly meant, still fantasizing about my favourite roadside cold coffee but realising it would probably close by the time I reach. I ended up asking for the thing closest to a generic cold coffee. Ordered it, sat down. It was prepared sooner than I thought. Took a sip, was surprisingly not dissatisfied with it, bai nu keha thanks and left.
Got back in the car, and went out to the arterial roads. I went through GK, Anand Lok and finally Hauz Khas. Now, I have driven by myself at night before and I enjoy it, but sometimes I'm able to extract so much joy out of such a simple thing. At nights, the roads seem roomier, the heat doesn't feel like it's sucking all the water out of you, and generally feeling grateful for a moment of peace amidst all the other uncertainties of life. The time seems to slow down a little, in sync with the speed of the vehicle. Driving slow, appreciating the city in it's dormant glory, listening to Roop Ghuman, Raf Saperra, Hrjxt, Aujla and the like. Another thing I enjoy about solo gedi'an is the fact that there's no-one to criticise or scoff at my slightly unconventional choice of music, which sadly happens so often. (I'm like it's not my fault that your taste is so bad lol.)
Sister called, to ask why I'm taking so long. I didn't realise I had been out a bit longer than expected. Told her I'll be back soon, cut the call, but didn't feel like returning yet, so I turned towards the main Hauz Khas village, not with the intention to go anywhere, just to kill some more time and see what the crowd was like.
The coffee was now getting over, and so was my appetite for being out. I got out of Hauz Khas and onto the Outer Ring Road. The traffic seemed to have swelled up and brought me back to the realities of the city. Ended the gedi, parked the car. I just realised this might be what journaling is. Not bad. Do you guys go for a solo gedi like this too? Maybe you feel it's not safe or not fun alone? Anyways, thanks for reading and good night!

For some context, I 20 m and my ex girlfriend, 20 f have broken up because of wht she said to my best friend, 19 m .
Now, for my story it's important to know that my best friend, who we'll just call Jessie is gay. He also loves dressing in feminine clothing, like dresses, skits, crop tops etc. He also loves make-up, I had recently got him some stuff from rem beauty and he absolutely freaked out about it when he saw what was in the box, he literally leaped across to me and gave me a huge bear hug. Jessie is extremely beautiful. I must admit he is often mistaken for a woman ALOT because of this.
At the time I had been with my girlfriend and I honestly thought they were getting along as that is what it had seemed like anytime we hung out together. Or so I thought. Just a couple of months months ago was my birthday and this year I wanted something really simple yet special and memorable so I just had a dinner with my mom, dad, twin sister, ex, and best friend at the cheesecake factory, since it's my favorite restaurant there was where I opened presents and jessie had gifted me a ps5 along with some of my favorite games as well. I was ecstatic I hugged him tightly, lifted him up and spun around with I'm all while yelling out a bunch of 'thank yous'. In the corner of my eye, I saw my ex girlfriend get VERY UPSET I asked her what was wrong after I had calmed down and she told me that she was upset because Jessie had “one upped” her with his gift I told her I loved her gift which was tickets to see my favorite artist wave 2 earth she seemed to calm down a bit. That was until Jessie tried to stir up a conversation with her.
She snapped and started calling him a bunch of names like “a dirty little fag” and a bunch of other hurtful stuff she then took her drink and poured it all over him. It was very un expected. Jessie started crying and ran out of the restaurant and I followed behind him. It took a little while to find him but I did find him. I asked him. What was wrong, he told me that ever since we and gotten together she ha been threatening to hurt him I was shocked by this honestly. I asked. my girlfriend and she confirmed it, saying that “he was triggering my insecurity” which I don't know what that meant. she also said that he never did anything to her, but him being gay was “disgusting her“. I broke up with her right then and there. I know Jessie he's the type of person who is kind to you even if you had been mean your self. But now I don't know if I made the right decision because I'm getting multiple texts from her saying how she's depressed and wants to hurt herself AITAH. I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense but this is my first time sharing a story here so yeah you advice is much appreciated. Thank you. 🩷