Hey everyone, I need some help here. For the past month, I've been having this issue where at random times, my phone (brand Realme, model RMX3780) started playing a specific music together with vibration. The issue seems to resolve when I restart the phone, but it keeps coming back every now and then. There is no app open when it was playing, and it seems like I can control its volume on the alarm section for volume.
The music that was playing was this music from a random person with 22 subscriber on YouTube by Young T.
Do anyone of you know how to solve this problem? Is it a malware or virus? And if so, what can I do to get rid of it? Thanks a lot!

Hey everyone, I need some help here. For the past month, I've been having this issue where at random times, my phone (brand Realme, model RMX3780) started playing a specific music together with vibration. The issue seems to resolve when I restart the phone, but it keeps coming back every now and then. There is no app open when it was playing, and it seems like I can control its volume on the alarm section for volume.
The music that was playing was this music from a random person with 22 subscriber on YouTube by Young T.
Do anyone of you know how to solve this problem? Is it a malware or virus? And if so, what can I do to get rid of it? Thanks a lot!

So you wanna play airsoft. Good on you, it’s a great sport, and an even better outlet to get rid of all those pesky money in your bank account.
You’ve likely already tried out the sport as a rental or loaner, and you’ve likely already skimmed this awesome beginners guide. If not, then you know what to do – read on, and go do the other stuff after that.
This text is about ruining any illusions you have about what you need and why. So you don’t go wasting money that could be put to better use off the field. So you remember asking yourself, what’s actual point? What am I actually hoping to achiece with this ’upgrade’.
WHAT YOU NEED TO REALIZE
Heck, you already feel it inside, airsofters are kids (of all ages and sizes). We like to dress up and play an advanced form of tag with toys that look like guns. So in short, we’re a bunch of immature nitwits - welcome to the club.
WE EXAGGERATE – WORSE THAN ANY FISHING STORY
This means that in our childish enthusiasm, we often get ahead of ourselves. We talk about ‘upgrades’. We wants the biggest, the bestest, the most precious and few of us have very little beyond anecdotal experience - someone said “Buy a MAXX Hop-up!”, we bought a MAXX, we hit someone with it at 400 airsoft feet (that’s about 150 real feet), so we love our MAXX.
It all comes from a good place, as we need to justify spending 80 bucks on a sidegrade to our 20 buck standard hop-up unit. Just imagine burning 150 bucks on a japanese steel barrel, you bet your eyes will tell you that you shoot a little straighter, and those BBs go just a little bit further than before. And sure they do… it’s just a question if you’re actually getting your money’s worth, we’ll get back to that.
WE LIKE TO DRESS UP LIKE PROPER CRINGE WEEKEND WARRIORS
And you likely dream of looking like one of us too, in full multicam with plate carrier vests, and all sorts of military gadgets, sidearms and stuff, and pretending to be a real army man. And it’s perfectly alright to get a little excited from the cosplay ‘fetich’wear, lots of (wo)men have a thing for uniforms.
Let’s just not pretend that it makes all that much of a difference. An airsoft game is 20-30 minutes, mags easily hold 200+ rounds. The fast pace makes camo less effective, and BBs don’t even hurt (that bad). And a pair of pants with two back pockets is more than enough loadbearing gear than you’ll ever need for a field rifle.
Need, not want, mind you.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get the full get-up. There’s just no reason for you to fall in the pit and try to stretch your starter budget on getting a gun, sidearm, vest and ending up getting outgunned, because you bought stuff too cheap - as half the industry is about selling you a crappy ‘starter’ gun.
THERE ARE NO GOOD ‘STARTER’ GUNS
When you see a gun labeled as a ‘starter’ gun, it’s a marketing way of taking advantage of your lack of knowledge. The youtuber Novritsch might get a bad rep for selling overpriced ’pre-upgraded’ guns to n00bs, but at least you get a gun that won’t make you feel outgunned at first, even if you paid a little extra - unlike brands selling you a cheap-o discount ’starter’, with half the range and twice the response time of most field guns.
Now there’s good reason to sell the cheap-o guns, as most players quit without buying a second - likely because someone sold them a subpar and disappointing experience.
Good ‘starter’ guns, are guns that you’d buy as an experienced player as well. They’re usually midpriced at 2-400 bucks. They come with decent performance, and has a build quality that you can build upon – once you get into that whole side-grading cosplay thing.
And if you’re tempted at that cheap ‘starter’, because it leaves you room to buy a cheap sidearm to boot, just give it a second thought. If it is labeled ‘starter’, isn’t it implied that you’d soon want to get rid of it?
Which leads us into performance in general.
PERFORMANCE GUNS IS MORE FOR SHOW AND LESS FOR THE FIELD
Now there’s a certain joy in tinkering and maximizing performance. Can I make my gun shoot faster, snappier, harder, etc. but on the field, where one BB is all it takes, there really is little point in a 50+ RoF setup that shatters your gearbox. There’s two points to doing this; the challenge of tinkering, and that you want to overshoot and hurt people – and you might want to consider if you’re up for getting overshot and hurt in return. They do look amazing on reddit videos, and they’re fun to build, but again what’s the point?
Then there is performance in power. It makes sense, power should equate more range right? And it does, power is a strong tenth factor in range. The first 7 places go to BB weight, the 8th to hop-up system, and 9th to the cleanliness of your barrel. I, myself had a shocking revelation, when my 1J pistol performed on par with my 1.67J rifle - not in the extreme cases, but at 95% of skirmish ranges, it was more than adequate. You see a lot post about pushing performance to field limits, but again at most it’s about inflicting more pain at close quarters, because at range it is the same. So don’t sweat too much about having a 1.4J rifle at a 1.7J field. Get quality BBs, as heavy as your hop-up can lift and clean your barrel instead. The differences between 1.5J gun and 2.5J DMR is about 10 yards of extreme range.
So think of it. There’s a reason no one likes neither the HPA speedsofter kid, nor the flabby middleaged $10K shooting hot ‘DMR’ milsim weekend warrior -archetypes. Not that there’s anything wrong about playing for sport or roleplay, but when you disregard that you’re shooting at other people, you aren’t playing games, you’re just being an arse – and airsofters (and you) are generally nice guys who deserve a lot better.
DESPITE WHAT EVERYONE SAYS, YOU SHOULD GET A ‘SNIPER’ FOR YOUR FIRST GUN
Assuming you have played on a field, and found out that a sniper is what you want. You should just be aware of the limitations of said gun and not expect to play like all the AEG players out there. Just like a GBB or HPA system is perfectly alright for a beginner. Starting out with AEGs is recommended because 90% of players run around with AEGs. And it’s true, they are great performers, but they still feel like sewing machines.
Just be mindful of your field. A sniper is a poor choice if there are no firelanes for it to take advantage of, or if there’s no terrain to hide in. And if highpowered, you need a sidearm to access the whole field.
In the same way, a pistol is king in an indoor field, but if you’re running it primary outdoors, you need ninja training and you should enjoy the stealthy approach. You might have the range of rifles, but you won’t have the ammo capacity.
But if you’re aware of that and already know that you’re not into the AEG playstyle, there’s no point in getting an AEG, just like getting a too-cheap rifle will give you a disappointing start, so will a poor choice of platform. Heck, if performance is what you’re looking for just splurge and get a Wolverine MTW, no one ever regretted buying one, and you’ll save a ton of money from not buying a string of guns before it.
BUY 2ND HAND
There’s a huge 2nd hand airsoft market. Airsofters like their toys, they like getting new toys, and they like ‘upgrading‘ their toys – and then they get bored and need to get rid of it to fund their passion. And get rid of it at 70%ish of the cost.
Just make sure you get it in your hands and try it out, so you’re not buying a lemon. And so you make sure that it feels and operates better than a stock/rental gun.
Why? You’re likely to need to experiment to find a playstyle that suits you and compliments your field. 2nd hand guns are basically free, as you can try them out and sell them off at roughly the same price. And often you’ll get spare mags, and cheap-o china red dots to boot.
One month, you might run an AEG M4, the other a gas MP9, and at some point you’ll know what suits you, and you might work from what you’ve got or get a nice factory fresh virgin gun to build from.
Also, remember all those guys who make their initial purpose then move on. They’re all desperate to get rid of their guns. Especially those with expensive custom guns and more frugal partners, you’ll often see high-end guns at a third of the build price – another reason not to go overboard yourself in expensive ‘upgrades’.
TECH’ING ISN’T ROCKET SCIENCE, SO DON’T BE AFRAID OF IT
There are only a couple of handfuls of moving parts in an AEG, so as long as you can chew gum and walk simultaneously, you can work a gearbox. You might need a few attempts and have left over spare parts the first couple of times, but you’ll get it right. Changing a bucking or a barrel is the equivalent effort to putting on a condom, so there’s no excuse not to, and although this article question the idea of ‘upgrades’, knowing how your gun works will allow you to determine what you hope to improve by changing things, so you’re not just changing one piece for an expensive equivalent, because the internet said so.
WHAT YOU SHOULD GET
Good protection. For your face, your eyes and your ankles. That’s airsoft injury territory the rest is just pain.
A primary gun - that you think is cool and isn’t sold as a ‘starter’.
Appropriate power source for your gun, be it muscle, a charger, green gas or HPA.
As heavy BBs as you can hop. Likely in the .28-.32g range.
A few extra midcap mags. Nothing ruins the experience like wind-up wheels.
That’s it.
WHAT’S NICE TO GET
A knee pad for the knee you go down on.
A molle belt or chest rig with pouches to bear the load.
A grenade or two.
Some appropriate camo to your surroundings and role.
A sidearm, if you’re running highpower guns with an MED.
WHAT’S COSPLAY
Everything else.
Get the full multicam drip, get the tarkov gas mask, get a pink tutu or go commando in pair of denim overalls and a straw hat. Everything is game.
Have fun.

Hello guys,
It’s my first time posting so if my post needs more details or corrections please feel free to tell me. I’m new here as it’s my first pregnancy.
I’m (30F) 5 weeks and 2 days and now for the 4th time in a week I have strong stomach ache and menstrual cramps that lead me to the toilet in dire pain.
After agonizing in pain due to cramps, almost puking from nausea and getting rid of liquid stool I feel better.
Twice it happened after sexual intercourse/orgasm (without protection) and sometimes it’s at night or the morning.
Except this I have no bad symptoms and my HCG lines are strong. Also my first OB-GYN appointment is next Monday so I’ll be able to discuss this topic with her.
Anyone had this ? What were the causes and how long did it last ?

At first glance, Shelly seemed like a good enough girl. Her role in our company was an entry-level thing. She had that childish nervousness where you could tell she sees us all as adults, superiors, people with insights that remain hidden to her. She was reluctant and insecure. But that much is to be expected, we’ve all been there. Shaky voice the first time we negotiated salaries, acting over-grateful, over-enthusiastic, feeling over-panicked about bullshit. Yeah, I’ve been there too sort of, but I got out of it fast.
Incompetence though, that’s the real problem. With some people, you can’t say if they’re just that unlucky or that incompetent. Incompetence is a vortex, when the label sticks onto you, every move you make is seen through that lens, and Shelly thought that’s what was happening to her. That it was unfair.
Our boss was a dickhead. He wrote half-literate emails, was almost stubbornly hard to understand as if he wanted people to feel perpetually confused (until you realize he just wanted to preserve the right to blame others if things go wrong), and got into blaming rants whenever there was an issue or someone made a mistake. We’ve all been there, and I usually moved on quite easily or let him have it right back. Then talk shit about him to a colleague over drinks. For fuck’s sake he was our boss, not a dictator.
But poor insecure little Shelly got pretty traumatized when he let her have it the first few times. Sometimes she felt just awful because he was right, and she did wrong. Other times she was broken by the injustice because she just didn’t understand what he wanted of her, he wasn’t clear, she was just trying to do what he said… “Use your fucking head Shelly” - he’d interrupt. Of course, when she attempted to take any small initiative, on the verge of panic, it would go unnoticed or it would go wrong and he’d yell again. Panic doesn’t really help a nervous and inexperienced person do better, and Shelly’s panic was growing more and more every day.
Why didn’t she just get another job? Who knows. Maybe she needed the money, maybe it was hard getting through that door and a few month-long work experience with a pissed ex-boss doesn’t look good on an unimpressive resume. Or maybe she just didn’t have it in her to even initiate that topic with him.
The problem was that soon it wasn’t just him who had an issue with Shelly. While the rest of us there mostly commiserated with each other’s feelings for him and did our job the rest of the time, she never quite fit in with us. For one, we were all at least semi-useful to each other. We know how to do our part. She was unsure about hers and no one had the patience to teach her.
Lara, the girl who interacted with her most often due to her position, always had an aversion. She had no patience for this girl who walked around asking stupid questions, hoping for validation and approval. Plus, Shelly did make mistakes, and correcting them was annoying. So she started lashing out at Shelly too and making comments about her to the rest of us.
Whether she was being fair or not, none of us cared that much and it quickly took on. Now everyone noticed everything that was wrong with Shelly. Eye-rolling and snickering were common when she did or said something dumb, even if as an isolated incident it was a fair mistake. We all made mistakes, sure, but our image was solid. We weren’t labelled. We could say “oh fuck” and move on, but she couldn’t. Quite literally too, she always over apologized or stupidly apologized, like by using emojis when called out on the group chat. Fair enough, it was informal and others used emojis too, but when she did it we could only see immaturity and stupidity radiating from it.
I had a phase when I was in a pretty good mood. I handled some major projects well, dickhead was talking about a promotion, colleagues appreciated me. I could spend half a day on Reddit and no one would notice shit because I was competent, comfortable, knew my shit. My personal life was going great too, me and my girlfriend Cynthia had a lot of fun - going out was fun, Netflix in bed was fun, hangovers were fun… I was happy.
I normally didn’t pay much attention to Shelly, I was polite enough with her but didn’t shy away from some ridicule at times. But when I saw her all nervous and alone, I took pity on her. Filled with energy and the idea that I had awesomeness to share, I gave her a little special attention one day. Chatted with her a bit, showed some interest… she was so grateful for this attention. She latched onto me.
She started opening up a bit, asked me about some projects she was unsure of. It was all so easy, it just took some knack to understand our boss. I took some time with her and decyphered the request, gave her some pointers. She looked at me as if I were Jesus. Later, she asked me if I could take a look at her work. It took me just a few minutes to validate her, compliment her, point at some small error (she thanked me profusely as if I saved her from a death sentence), give a little suggestion to make it even better, and she was done. Apparently, it all went well and she didn’t get yelled at.
I truly enjoyed feeling like such a good person.
For a while, I dug the whole thing, her admiration and respect, playing a mentor. I even defended her in front of others. I said she’s just inexperienced and anxious. Lara said I’d regret getting involved soon enough. She was right.
As work-life went on, new projects came along, dickhead was in a shit mood and my happiness started wearing out. I started feeling overwhelmed, irritable, Cynthia started taking too much of my time when I didn’t work, it seemed I had little time to focus on anything else between the two and I was in a shittier mood. Nothing major, just regular ups and downs, moods that come and go. Nothing was horribly different than the phase before, it just didn’t feel as good and my energy and attention span felt tested.
Suddenly Shelly’s little interruptions didn’t give me a feel-good ego kick anymore, they were just bothersome. She became a burden. She now saw me as her knight who will protect her against dickhead and mean coworkers and she didn’t dare to fart without checking with me first. It was always “could you just take a look at this…” or “hey does this look fine…” or “Richard asked me to do blah blah, what does he mean?”
First, I got colder. I ignored her more often or replied much later with “sorry, no idea, check with him” or “kind of busy, I’m sure it’s fine” or “ask Lara, that’s her department.” I stopped encouraging and validating her victim complex. Yeah, Richard is a pain, Lara has a bad temper, whatever. In the end, it’s still your job, you’re an adult, fucking handle it.
I came to agree with everyone, she was just not competent. I shared my analysis based on my first-hand experience. As much as she seems like an abused little puppy, she’s a professional victim. The narrative in her head, that probably makes her so prone to mistakes, is that the world is conspiring against her. I mean shit, I started agreeing with Richard’s point of view more than with hers most of the time, and trust me there wasn’t a situation where I didn’t consider him to be a moron. But she’s not learning, she’s not handling herself, as soon as she got someone to listen it was just complaint after complaint.
Yeah, she gets shit for a small grammar error or a missed attachment. But she’s also oblivious about her level and about the amount of responsibility others handle. It was her job to focus on small shit and do the nonsense that should make our lives easier. She’d take about 1h to even draft an email because she’s so paranoid, the rest of us don’t have time for that.
She had this misconception that everyone else was relaxed, that everything fell on her, that everything was unfair. She just doesn’t get it. Although she had no self-confidence, in her victimhood she seemingly found the way to be the martyr, and that made her more arrogant than any of us. It made her distasteful to me, I went from losing interest to seeing her as a nuisance I had an urge to put down. I guess because she chose to be down and useless.
Finally, I snapped at her for sending me a message when I was relaxing at home on my day off. I was already telling her more and more aggressively to figure things out herself. I said “Shelly stop asking me inane questions. Do your job, or look for something else. I’m not your tutor.” She profusely apologized, used some dumb emojis, I didn’t bother to reply and appease her.
After that, I made a point I was not available for conversations with her and she got the message. Now she was fully alone. Mistakes continued and got progressively worse, while all of our moods were pretty intense due to the workload. The more people snapped at her the more people felt comfortable snapping at her. Fuck, it felt good to snap at her. We snapped at each other too, but there was always a line. Not so much with her. At one point she tried to stand her ground, I am sure she felt she’s a victim of bullying who will now stand up for herself. Except, like everything she did, it completely missed the mark. The moment she gave one of us the attitude was when people went from talking down to her to downright animosity. People called her a moron practically to her face and within her earshot. She gave up. Now she was just sullen, grey in the face, looking physically sick. The air around her was heavy and poisonous.
Then she started missing work. Whenever something went on where she knew she needed to coordinate a lot of things with a chance of something not running smoothly, she’d stay at home. Richard was already talking about her as a goner, she was now just a running joke. In fact, I’d even say we all bonded over it through the stressful work period, when things went wrong and someone pointed at her we all sympathized, even if it was Richard saying it. Shelly’s days were numbered.
Thinking of it now, I’m sure she could feel she entered a state of limbo. No one even asked her to do things, in fact sometimes one of us would ask for something she’d normally do and another person would helpfully volunteer, or we’d just politely ask someone else right past her. She was practically ignored all the time, at best Richard would send her to get coffee or order us lunch. There was something morbid about that time, although I have to admit her pain gave me some kind of satisfaction I find hard to explain. I guess, I just didn’t like her. Beyond that, I didn’t want her associated with me. There was this divide between people like us and people like her, and in that, she lost her humanity to me.
Who she was was wrong. She was a leech. She was an irritant. She became even physically ugly although if you asked me at the start I’d say she’s a cute-ish average, a solid 7. Now she just seemed bloated, sickly, her skin got really bad. But the morbid part I mentioned, it was like having a dead woman walking, she was a corpse. She didn’t speak. She tried to make herself invisible but also imposed on us with her presence. You’d think she’d have the dignity or the decency to just end the misery and quit, but she would still show up where she wasn’t wanted and we watched with morbid fascination. Richard started interviewing replacements.
And then one day before work we got a message from Richard to stay home for the day. Apparently, that night when everyone left, Shelly managed to stay in the building and jumped down 6 floors, falling right in the middle of the lobby. She actually did it correctly and managed to die, I was almost impressed.
Of course, there was a shock I felt at first. More accurately, surprise. But was I sad? She didn’t really mean anything to me. I contemplated if I should feel guilty but I didn’t really. You don’t kill yourself for this. There must be a big huge context behind why she killed herself and whatever my role was, it was marginal. Plus, what should I have done? Kept holding her hand and appeasing her? Even my coworkers showed some irritation after the first few generic “shit I feel so bad for her” messages. In fact, isn’t it really sick to do it like that, to make your suicide your company’s issue? Well, she wasn’t right in the head, we all knew it. Wasn’t this just the ultimate act of passive aggression, bordering on evil?
I couldn’t feel bad for such a person. But I did feel defensive at the same time. I felt that her act pointed the blame at us, including me, and even though I disagreed I couldn’t shake off the discomfort that she found me responsible for what she did.
But then it started, like a virus that spread from her to us. We all started making mistakes. Not just the type of mistakes everybody makes, but bigger, stupider, more and more frequent mistakes. Some were really embarrassing. Franz showed us his reddit profile while screen sharing during zoom. I accidentally copy-pasted a morbid curiosity internet search to an email subject line and I can’t for the life of me explain how. Mistakes got bigger. Offensive typos. Mentioning the wrong company name. Sloppiness. Forgetfulness during important presentations. Richard was more and more furious, we were annoyed at each other and downright paranoid of getting called out. The more worried we were about people noticing our mistakes, the more we were on defence looking out for those of others.
We never actually talked about it to each other, because talking about it would be a type of admission of incompetence. But I’m sure we all felt that something was wrong about all this, that something was being done to us. You can say that it’s easier to think you’re cursed than admit your own mistakes, and on one level I could rationalize what was happening in many ways, but it also felt completely outside of my control. There was a part of me that toyed with the idea that she cursed me, or even worse, that her presence was still there, doing it. This is why, of course, I’d never say it out loud or think about it for real, why we never talked about this suspicion and instead just got more and more frustrated with others around us.
Richard started firing people, he was a wreck. I got into an argument with him and got fired too. I was shocked. I had fights with Richard before, but I always knew he’d never fire me, I was way too valuable. Now though, he informed me that for the last few months my work has not been up to standard, that I’ve been informed about this several times and failed to improve, and that the company suffered for it. Man, fuck that job, but I was pissed. It was actually the most literate email I’ve ever seen him write.
Fine, I thought. I’ll regroup and go somewhere else, it’s a good thing I’m not working for that imbecile anymore, plus maybe in a new place, the curse of Shelly’s incompetence would leave me.
Cynthia’s reaction kind of irked me though, instead of being supportive she was asking me about my financial plans. She’s been very naggy lately and the more stress I had at work, the more she liked to point out my failings or absent-mindedness around the apartment, all trivial nonsense only relevant to a bored mind. I didn’t even tell her that I got fired, I told her we all got let go because the business is going bad, but I could see some doubt in the way she looked at me. Like she’s doubting me and my abilities.
Her resentment made me resent her, though she insisted she suggested no such thing, she wasn’t unsupportive. “What did I say?” she asked. “It’s not what you said, the look on your face and shit you didn’t say that says it all,” I replied, perhaps a tad bit dramatically in retrospect. She called me insane. I broke something on my way out. I could hear her curse in the bedroom. “It was on purpose!” I shouted while slamming the door.
We eventually made up but it wasn’t the same. I wasn’t the same. It took me a while, 5 months actually, to find another job worth doing, and the bit of freelancing I did in between wasn’t always as good as promised. I got paid only 50% of what I was supposed to for my last project because I didn’t do it so well and it had many mistakes, and no one was really re-hiring me. I blamed working from home in this fucked up atmosphere with that Karen in the other room, who’d roll her eyes whenever she passed me by as if my presence in the apartment is a sign of my fatal failure.
But that little part of me had an entirely different idea about what was happening, and it certainly didn’t serve to appease me about my failures. Instead, it was growing anxiety pressing on my chest. I wished it was my fault. I wished it was in my control. But not only did I know that it wasn’t, that I didn’t know how to change it, I also knew that no one would take my fears seriously. “Ha” they’d say. “A girl cursed you. She’s an evil ghost that causes bad grammar. No my friend, you’re just trying to avoid taking responsibility for your own actions. You don’t need an exorcist, you need a therapist.”
I had some savings, mom sent some money, but Cynthia’s patience was wearing thin. “Good to know” I thought, while we fought more and more. When I finally got a job and got fired in the first week because of a fuck up, she dumped me. Like, it wasn’t about that. “It was about me being different.” Fuck off.
The way I saw it is when things start breaking down everything follows. Of course, I was fucking up, I got it into my head that I am cursed with bad luck and now I couldn’t shake the insecurity and paranoia that things will go wrong, which of course makes things go wrong. I lost my natural touch.
Yes, I tried a therapist although I wasn’t crazy about it. Soon enough I could tell he seemed annoyed at me. When I said that much, he told me “I didn’t say anything.” I told him I saw him roll his eyes. He told me to lower my voice in a condescendingly “calm” tone. I flipped, he asked me to leave. Not doing that shit again.
One day I ran into Richard. He looked dishevelled. I’ve never seen him not wearing a suit before, now he wore flip-flops, had a neckbeard and just generally looked like shit. Gained some weight too. We didn’t really talk much, he said he was fired by the board of directors, that it was for the best and that he’s working on his mental health now. He was kind of hostile and reeked of alcohol so I didn’t push.
I looked up Lara and found out that she attempted suicide and was now in a coma. Her sister left this message on her Facebook. I’m fucking serious, this one shocked me. I imagined this person I knew lying in a coma and felt sick to my stomach. To be fair, she wasn’t a friend or someone I was that interested in aside from work, she was fun to flirt with at times but not my type. But her humanity suddenly felt as real as mine, and her being in a coma felt like an attack on me. I can’t explain it, was it empathy or fear, but I was paralyzed.
I tried getting in touch with other ex-coworkers but found surprisingly little. One left the country and all trace of him seems lost. The other was not responsive and seemed to have deleted all accounts. Much later I learned he butchered his girlfriend and her daughter around that time, after an argument, and then calmly waited to be arrested.
My life continued. I got another job eventually after many painful, discouraging interviews and eating a lot of shit to get a chance with this employment gap. I’m still not quite there. I’m so scared I’ll fuck this one up I stay working until 10PM every day just double-checking everything, it’s not like I have much of a life outside of work anyway, or enough money to buy one. Even so, I’m not highly regarded and mistakes still manage to find their way into my work. Stupid errors I can’t explain or understand. I notice my new coworkers rolling their eyes at me sometimes and it takes all that I have to stop myself from reacting and losing another job. Who the fuck do they think I am? Well, I know the answer to that question.
I can’t trust myself or my judgment, which causes me to feel constant fear. Saturday nights are the worst, the idea of a whole new week opening up in front of me, with new demands and tasks I have to go through, so many mistakes I’ll fail to avoid.. It makes me want to stay in bed forever. It’s more panic-inducing than anything I’ve experienced in my life. No horror movie can match the terror of “Monday morning.”
The worst thing about it all is that it’s so unfair. And everyone who looks down on me for it is taking part in this injustice. I am being made into something I’m not and they’re all reinforcing that wrong image. For that, I hate them all.
Every day I dream and fantasize about getting a gun and just shooting every motherfucker in my workplace, all these idiots who think they’re better than me. And maybe Cynthia. Then myself.
I stop and with less and less conviction tell myself it’s just a phase. There’s no curse, no ghost, I’m not doomed. It’ll pass and I’ll be myself again. Just, how long can a phase last? Because I’m running out of patience. And another, more and more convincing part of me wonders, if there is a curse that worked like a virus, could I not spread it onto them just how she did it with me? So that at least they all know what it’s like and that it was never my fault.

So my husband and I have been married for a year, dated for a year before that, and had been friends for 2 years before that. Our marriage has been somewhat rocky, as we both deal with mental health issues and childhood trauma. However, we still love each other a lot and have been trying to work on things. But today he told me something that is bothering me a lot. We have 3 cats that I absolutely adore them. But they do have a lot of health problems which has been hard on us financially and emotionally. We also just struggle in general because we are college students so we don’t have a lot of money and we are constantly stressed working, going to school, and trying to stay healthy. Well my husband has been especially struggling lately, and today he broke down crying telling me that for the past little while he has been seeking out one of our cats to hurt him when I’m not around. He said he would flick my cat’s ears, squeeze his tail so hard until he would meow in pain, and pin him to the ground and watch him try to escape before doing it again. I feel absolutely sick to my stomach and honestly dissociated from everything. I have always been a huge animal lover and I have gotten extremely upset with my husband before when he would throw rocks at random ducks at the park even thought he claimed he “was just trying to scare them not hurt them.” I would beg him not to do it but he would do it anyway, though he would apologize afterwards and seemed sincere. He knows how much I love animals and how I can’t stand to see them in pain. Well he said he feels really bad about hurting our cat and wants to stop and that’s why he told me and I appreciate he was honest with me, but I can’t get rid of the pit in my stomach. I told him if he was ok with hurting our innocent pet what’s to stop him from hurting me or our future kids? He said he would rather unalive himself than do that, but he is still ok with hurting animals? My head is spinning and I feel so guilty that I wasn’t there to protect my poor cat and that I had no idea any of this was going on and still wouldn’t have if he hadn’t have told me. What should I do? I truly love my husband and he has been there for me when no one else has, but I can’t even look at him right now.

Heyo,
I'm bored so I thought I'd share a list of downsides of Bitcoin. I often come across situations where I say one of them, so I'd like to have a place to link to.
Some of these points aren't as strong as others. I suspect some you haven't seen before. So hopefully it's not all regurgitating what has been said before.
I came up with 18 potential downsides. They are in no defined order.
1)
One of the purposes of Bitcoin is to remove the need for 3rd parties to reduce fees/costs from the service. Much like cash, where you simply transact directly with the merchant without the bank. Bitcoin is digital cash.
Problem: it's not scalable (No, lightning network doesn't solve this). Higher volume means more fees which effectively removes this benefit of no 3rd party, and also means less transactions reach the blockchain.
2)
To add to (1) Bitcoin undergoes the ruling of 'code is law'. In addition to it's decentralized nature, changes are very slow and unlikely to ever occur. This means however it was originally made is there to stay. In other words, don't expect the problems of the protocol to improve much.
Problems of the protocol: Scalability (1), inflation (5), security (8).
I thought Bitcoin-NG was an interesting solution to the scalability problem. Bitcoin will remain Bitcoin. The problem is, at this point the interest of the people will remain with the original Bitcoin (as has already happened many times over with potential improvements).
Article of Bitcoin-NG, if you are interested: Eyal, I., Gencer, A. E., Sirer, E. G., & Van Renesse, R. (2016). {Bitcoin-NG}: A scalable blockchain protocol. In 13th USENIX symposium on networked systems design and implementation (NSDI 16) (pp. 45-59).
3)
If the currency remained to have value, trading would be done in satochis. Thus, the real limit is 21 million * 10 million satochis, not really 21 million. The distinction is important.
If the currency were ever to replace regular currency (hypothetically), mining would cause a severe unequal distribution of how that currency is given to the public. Everyone would have to be mining. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.
4)
You've heard this one so I'll be brief, its anonymity provides protection to criminal intentions.
Tax evasion, theft, illegal purchases, etc..
Ransomware transactions are far more common than you think.
Some things to note: https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.15082
5)
Suppose Bitcoin is the standard currency. There would not be enough to go around largely due to its heavy unequal distribution. Currency cannot be printed further once it reaches its limit to grow the economy (not all inflation is bad), and thus, the government cannot aid in the financial crisis in the same way that it can with the real dollar.
Bitcoin IS anti-governance. This means a Bitcoin financial crisis cannot be maintained.
6)
In regards to how people use it:
Many people forget it's supposed to be a currency and not an investment. It can't be good at both. Currency must be spent.
You can use it as a hedge to the dollar if you want. The inflation right now if I recall is about ~1% per year until the next halving.
Problem is, it's supposed to be a currency yet is treated as an investment.
7)
In regards to how people invest in it:
Personally I'd rather invest in a dividend where I have a quantitative value of the assets worth. Bitcoin could be worthless, it could be priceless. There's no measure of its worth beyond demand and supply of its investment interest. Someone buys, and you profit if they are willing to pay more, thus the last in line always loses (this is why people call it a Ponzi scheme. I don't really agree with that since I don't see how it's different from collectors items, but it's still a factor to consider when investing in it).
8)
It is true that it is cryptographically secure with modern security. This does not mean it will be with future technology.
Regarding 2²⁵⁶ security, if Bitcoin improved that number, wallets that were created before the improvement would still have 2²⁵⁶ security.
Ie, The issue is: Improvement are for new wallets. This is a problem in regards to (2).
To add to this,
It's not like Bitcoin has never had security flaws. For example, from 2009 to 2017 many wallets suffered from its weak randomness; with approximately 48% of keys under a tested dataset were vulnerable to having their digital signature discovered by another individual with the same private key:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167739X17330030
Another potential future issue is with mining. While security concerns haven't been found in this regard, the variable h1 in sha256 is always set to 0 in any mining problem due to the difficulty. I suspect this may lead to future attacks if there are any patterns or mappings created from inputs that always lead to an h1 of 0 (I am hypothesizing, this could be nothing. The reason why I see it as an issue to be highlighted is that Bitcoin uses a special case of Sha256 needing numbers smaller than the target hash; not any hash will do).
9)
Bitcoin relies on the majority of node power in the network being trustworthy. If Bitcoin became more standardized in say the USA, countries can then pull an attack on the united states financial system by pulling together their computation to constantly attempt the 51% attack. This would create a financial crisis. They may want Bitcoin to be a success in the USA.
In other words, it is vulnerable to politics.
Note that the 51% attack is a name. Realistically, 30-40% or so would be sufficient to perform the attack since it's unreasonable to assume the remaining 70% are working in unison (FoundryUSA should be big enough, but people will swap pools).
Note that in the case of politics or war, the enemy doesn't need to perform that attack to cause problems. For instance, they can intentionally mine empty or pointless transactions. Any amount of blocks they get means others don't get on the chain and thereby increases fees. This also reduces supply when there's no more halvings.
This isn't so much something fiat doesn't have either, just a downside.
One big problem however (again, assuming Bitcoin isore standardized) is that this also means Bitcoin is vulnerable to people losing trust in the Bitcoin protocol. A very bad trait of an adopted currency. If people lose trust in the protocol itself, then there would be less honesty throughout the network.
10)
Due to Bitcoins anti-governance nature, you can expect various governments to ban it, making it illegal as we've seen (e.g., China mining crackdown, causing the major crash in 2021). This will negatively impact its value. All it takes is for that to happen in the USA and the value will be gone. This is why you always hear older investors say "the government will stomp it". It's not unreasonable to think that as a possibility.
A lot of a currencies value comes from trade. You cannot expect other countries to accept Bitcoin as means of exchange. This essentially means (in addition to other mentioned reasons) Bitcoin can never fully replace fiat.
11)
There is so much misunderstanding and mis-information on Bitcoin, which can lead to dangerous 'extremist' ideologies.
I already see theories of people reacting about the NSA creating SHA-256, it was predictable.
As an example there was news during the pandemic of the mounted police in Canada / Trudeau banning Bitcoin wallets related to the trucker movement. I didn't keep the link as proof and don't care enough to re-find it, but all Bitcoin news articles just link to each other as their evidence and the original post was an arbitrary twitter account that clearly photoshopped the polices logo.
Bitcoin is a cesspool of mis-information honestly. You'll probably even see a number of it on this subreddit!
12)
With no cash, Bitcoin relies on electricity. Power outages cause temporary financial breakdowns on the impacted individuals.
While you could say the same thing about modern digital currency, Bitcoin cannot have cash. It is digital cash.
So EMP's/outages cause slightly bigger problems in the sense that there is no cash version of it.
This is another reason that a country cannot actually rely solely on Bitcoin.
You could say Bitcoin can survive any attack from its decentralized nature, but at that point the currency would be replaced with something else out of fear of another outage.
13)
Environment, but we've all heard this one in regards to power, but how about the E-WASTE!
The E-waste will be extreme, which is already a surreal problem in various coastal countries.
Miners purchase the latest GPUs or ASIC's, and old parts will be replaced in a shorter than average lifespan. Not to mention the ASIC's only purpose is to mine.
Suppose Bitcoin became more standardized, various materials that are used to create these parts would be in high demand. In 2020 there was a chip shortage. The materials will have to be scavenged from somewhere to keep up.
14)
Back onto power. Bitcoin has a huge waste of energy, and no, it's not 'consensus'. There is a lot of energy that serves no purpose at all.
Take for example pools withholding blocks. If a big mining pool finds the block quickly, they can simply not propagate the block for everyone to start working on the next right away. Instead, the pool can privately work on the next since the competition is very little. Then they propagate the block when they think they may have competition, if maybe the next one is slow. This way they can send multiple blocks for more rewards.
This would have to be why it's so common for big pools to get multiple (e.g., 3+) blocks in a row: https://btc.com/btc/blocks. Surely this is a very common practice in some form -- at least withholding for a short period.
On June 1st / May 31st 2024 (yesterday of typing this, the date isn't intentionally selected) in a 24hr timespan there were 3 consecutive blocks from pools done 9 times. A pool with ~30% hashrate did it 7 times. Another pool with ~27% hashrate did it once, and another with ~14% hashrate did it once. All in one day, which you will likely see everyday. Within the timespan there were 140 new blocks. The probability alone of 3 consecutive events for each of 30%, 27%, and 14% hash rates should be 2.7%, 1.9% and 0.27% without block withholding. 140 trials is not enough to obtain that.
So, block withholding must be extremely common. The reason why it's a power waste is that everyone else is performing useless mining since the work they are performing cannot aid in the creation of a new block on the global chain. Pools that are fast enough to eventually catch up aren't wasteful since they are what will force the withholding to stop (otherwise we have a 51% attack), but all of the remaining mining would always result in work that does nothing. In order to not be wasteful the pool withholding blocks would need to communicate to tell others that cannot keep up to stop mining completely until the new blocks are propagated; this doesn't happen and would give bad publicity.
15)
As Bitcoin becomes popular with increased value, so does crypto theft.
There aren't any 'real' banks in crypto, and even if there was, they would have to create your wallet in order to keep you protected (Note that, this is pushing money back to a central authority).
The issue: security undergoes less government regulations, it is up to you. Individuals who are not electronically adept are easy to scam.
An example of this being an issue:
Most clients use passwords and use some forms of abstraction (wallet seeds) so that you don't need to store or even know about the existence of a private key.
So, security depends on password length and the company's brute force protection, but it's almost certainly much smaller than 2^256. Many seeds are 12 words from a pool of 2048, so 2048¹² which is still fine but far worse (from 256 to ~128 bit). Point is, people don't know they are making themselves less secure.
16)
Bitcoin is vulnerable to a partition attack by internet companies or nodes in the network.
17)
Private keys are any number from 0 to ~2²⁵⁶ (or seeds from 2048^12). This is high enough to not be brute forced.
Nowadays, most people don't know or create their private key or seed; which is good (note: not guaranteed to always hold true, see (15)).
Bad RNG can cause problems though. There are many scammers right now that will be running a brute force on private keys. If they happen to come across your private key by chance, your money is gone.
The issue is if the private key lands on something with a pattern.
I can't brute force all 2²⁵⁶ numbers, but I can brute force sets of these numbers.
Your wallet probably won't land in one of those sets. But will anyone's wallet land on one of these sets?
With my bank if that happened, atleast I'd be guaranteed to get my funds back.
18)
The main benefit (and purpose) is to not rely on the trust based model. That is, requiring a trusted 3rd party.
Bitcoins centralization demands trust in some form.
Mining is heavily centralized across a small number of pools. The pool must be trusted to be honest. People won't move so as long as that trust can be retained, whether they act fully honestly or not (e.g., block withholding).
Exchanges must also be trusted, and completely negates the idea of decentralization.
Many lightning wallets are custodial, or use 3rd party payment processes that also requires 3rd party trust.

Some itchy spots started 5,6 days ago on my back and then more and more, finally to the point that the pain kept me awake last night so I went to see the doctor, and it’s shingles.
What I don’t understand is I never had chickenpox exposure, and I have proof. I had an antibody test done in 2019 which showed I had no Varicella Zoster (chickenpox) antibodies, and was told by my doctor to get the varicella vaccine and I immediately got the vaccine as told. 5 years later, now I have shingles??
I decided to take the varicella vaccine 5 years ago precisely because it’s supposed to protect me from shingles. But I just checked, the vaccine is live attenuated virus, and that’s the only plausible way how the virus got into my system. I’m confused and angry. Pain and suffering aside (which has been bad but hopefully not for too long), the blisters are going to leave permanent scars and increase my risk of Alzheimer’s?! All because I’ve been trying to protect myself and my family by taking the vaccine?? I’m not anti-vax at all, I just want to understand.

Silence permeated the crisp afternoon air.
Rob immediately tried to reactivate Dimensional Message, but the Skill's energy had run dry. It was just him and the deranged voice in his head again. For all intents and purposes, he was alone once more.
Although...he didn't feel alone.
I'm an idiot. Rob wished he could turn back time and knock some sense into his past self. There was a fine line between necessary sacrifice and self-flagellation, and he'd pretty much vaulted over it like he was going for an Olympic record.
Not allowed to quit until I've tried everything I can think of. Is that right? He almost hated how much sense those words made. Sounds so obvious when it's laid out like that.
Rob still didn't think he should risk meeting with Riardin's Rangers and Hauz. The chances of that going catastrophically wrong were way too high. However, that didn't mean he should've thrown in the towel entirely. If one plan was a bust, improvise another – wasn't that how he'd gotten this far? Yet he hadn't even tried.
...I didn't want to, he was forced to admit. After letting Leveling High take control, hurting my friends...and...and killing Duran, I felt like this was what I deserved.
And what an insult that notion was. Because–
'Be happy, Rob. Enjoy your life to its fullest. Consider this my last request to you.'
–It wasn't what Duran would have wanted.
It wasn't what anyone would have wanted. Not Jason, or his parents, or Riardin's Rangers, or...
Or me.
"I want to live."
Rob clenched his fists. His throat was dry from disuse, yet his voice rose higher as he spoke. "I want to live. I want to FUCKING LIVE! To hell with dying by myself at the ass-end of the world!"
{Yes! That's–}
"FUCK OFF, YOU AREN'T PART OF THIS!"
Rob tuned out Leveling High's peanut gallery comments, activated Quick Thinking, and got to theorizing. There wasn't much sand left in the hourglass before his soul collapsed. He owed it to himself – and everyone who cared about him – to rack his brain for solutions. For what might be the final time, he thought:
What are my options?
His mind raced faster than a jet engine as he categorically went down the list. First, exclude the unfeasible. Won't be able to restrain Leveling High when around other people. Help can't come from external assistance. Also means no entering populated cities or villages.
Unpopulated areas, then? Dungeons, Loci of Power, edge of the world, Deadlands, divine realms. All connected to the gods in some fashion. Esoteric solution may be hidden at one of them.
After several moments, Rob shook his head. Not knowledgeable enough with magic to figure that out. Even for the people who are, they would need to do extended research.
He shivered with growing discomfort as a chill snaked its way up his bones. Time is premium. This'll be a rush job.
Answer has to come from me, right here, right now.
He drummed his fingers on his thigh. Perform brain surgery on myself? Hmm...no. Leveling High is attached to soul, not body. Rules out actions that solely affect physical form. Must be a Skill that primarily affects the soul. What do I have that–
Rob froze.
Precious time was wasted second-guessing himself. After all, he'd already addressed this line of thought yesterday. As amazing as some Skills were, relying on them could lead to overcentralized thinking.
Not everything was the nail to Purge Divinity's hammer.
However, while Leveling High wasn't of the divine...it was divinity-adjacent.
Precedent existed for Purge Divinity working on similar entities – like the pseudo-Corruption of aberrant Dungeons. Kismet had told him months ago that Dungeon personalities were based on the Blight. Leveling High, as a consciousness created by the gods and molded in the Original Will's image, definitely fell under the same umbrella. Both were withered branches of the gods' grotesque family tree.
Rob carefully regulated his breathing. This wasn't a guarantee. At all. But if his logic was sound...if he turned his Purging energies inward, as he'd done when cleansing himself of Corruption so many times before...
Then Purge Divinity might be able to kill Leveling High.
Had Kismet realized this, in the end? Is that why he couldn't say that mortals were incapable of removing it?
Rob quickly tamped down his excitement before it got out of hand. There were too many caveats to call this a winning strategy. For starters, Purge Divinity hadn't even been particularly effective when used on the Dungeons' pseudo-Corruption. It had felt like shoving a square peg through a round hole – you *could*, but it took a lot of extra effort, and something was bound to break in the process.
Furthermore, while his theory made sense as a logical argument, something about it just felt...off. When Rob had targeted the Blight or the gods with Purge Divinity, he'd always experienced a profound sense of rightness. As if he was using the Skill exactly for its sacred purpose.
He didn't get that impression when contemplating whether to use it on Leveling High. The idea failed to elicit that same instinctive euphoria of cleansing an evil from the world. It was likely proof that Leveling High sat outside of Purge Divinity's intended parameters. Gut feelings related to the system weren't infallible, yet they'd been right more often than not.
Spitballing here, but Leveling High has been a passenger in my soul for nearly a year now. What if that close proximity makes it harder for Purge Divinity to recognize Leveling High as a threat? Like how some viruses trick your immune system.
Rob focused on 'A Dialogue', hoping to ask the Skills for advice. Leveling High furiously blocked his attempt, its static loudening to a harsh, ear-splitting cacophony of noise.
On my own. He refused to lose composure – even as the frailty in his soul entrenched itself ever deeper. Assume that Purge Divinity will be at least slightly effective. What can I do to increase my chances? I'll need to dump my full energy stores in one go, obviously. Have to push through Leveling High's defenses. It won't take this lying down.
...Unless he convinced it otherwise.
A complicated laugh burst forth from Rob's throat. This was his big plan? Persuading the embodiment of uninhibited savagery to lower its guard and let Purge Divinity in? The irony was so thick that he could've sliced it apart and made a sandwich out of the pieces.
Because while this idea was patently absurd...it wasn't unfamiliar, really. Rob felt strangely accustomed to these types of situations.
To be blunt, he had already met a concerning number of people who'd requested for their lives to end by his hand. Kenzotul, Stonewarden Grant, the Gellin, King Elnaril, and probably more to come. Suicide-by-cop was one of Elatra's many disturbing trends, apparently. Rob had even gotten a taste of what the other end of that equation felt like during his chat with Jason – usually *he* was the one talking people off ledges.
With that in mind...how difficult could it be to make Leveling High jump onto the bandwagon? Rob had accumulated a wealth of experience related to this topic. He was practically a bonafide expert in all the right things to say.
Which meant he knew all the wrong things to say as well.
Leveling High. Rob stopped hiding his thoughts, projecting a mental voice that was completely humorless. We need to have a talk.
{So you've come to your senses?} It sounded pleased with itself. {I knew you wouldn't surrender your life so easily. While some of our differences may \seem* irreconcilable, I am certain that a bargain can be–}*
No. No bargain, no deal. Just a talk.
The static briefly quieted, then resumed a moment later. {What do you mean? We don't have time for idle chatter.}
Let's say we go straight to Vul'to, Rob continued, as if he hadn't heard anything. He uses Soul Repair to fix us up. In fact, let's also say that I step aside and relinquish the driver's seat to you. You gain total autonomous control of our body, with no strings attached. What happens next?
Another pause. {Is this some sort of trick question?}
I'll answer, then. You'd go on a rampage – and not a small one. Even before Ascending, I doubt that anything on Elatra or Earth would be able to stop us. \After* Ascending, which you'd 100% do...it's a wash. The two worlds would get bulldozed until they were flat as pancakes.*
Rob waited for one appropriately dramatic second. What happens next?
{Why bother asking when you seem to have all the answers?} it groused.
Oh, I was just wondering if you'd already figured out how miserable your life is about to become.
Leveling High jerked back as if it had been slapped. {I am on the brink of achieving everything that I desire. Power to crush my foes, freedom from the shackles that bind me, and immortality to revel endlessly. What more could–}
You're a junkie, Rob flatly stated, and the problem with junkies is that nothing is ever good enough. They're always seeking a greater High. I'm sure you'll have your fun killing billions of people, but afterwards, what happens next?
{I will travel to a new world. Slaughter billions more.}
Rob arched an eyebrow. And then?
{Find...another world,} it replied, stumbling mid-sentence.
You're seeing the issue. Burning ants with a magnifying glass is only going to be entertaining for so long. Where's the thrill in killing something that can't fight back? You'll get bored after three worlds, tops.
{The universe is incomprehensibly vast. Something, somewhere will possess the strength to test me.}
Don't delude yourself. We both saw the gods' memories. They traveled to untold worlds, perused the tapestry of infinity itself, and found that their power was incomparable to anything else out there.
{And yet they were slain by mortal means.}
Rob wiggled his hand in an 'eeeeh' motion. More like mortals exploited their mistakes. Without the gods creating the system, or imprisoning souls with a grudge, or thinking they were invincible, or...you get the point. We were extremely, extremely fortunate. Everything lined up \just* right in our favor.*
Leveling High narrowed its eyes at him. {You act as if I wish to be defeated in battle.}
Maybe not now. Give it a couple hundred thousand years of perpetual disappointment. He shrugged. In the short term, you're still boned. Everyone here is endowed with supranatural power by a system that other worlds lack. Good luck finding people stronger than Elatra's Combat Class users to whet your appetite with. When this world has been exhausted of decent fighters...what happens next?
It took a second to respond. {I...shall stay here. The system has exhibited that it can produce powerful combatants. If I constrain my revelries to merely three-quarters of this world's population, then I can leave the remainder as seeds for the future. Champions worthy enough to challenge me will be cultivated on Elatran soil.}
Rob clapped. Better! You're learning. Alas, it won't work. You and I are simply too darn strong. On average, Elatra churns out one Level 80+ Combat Class user every several hundred years or so. Imagine waiting that long just to squash your 'worthy challenger' like a bug.
{The system can be modified.} Leveling High was beginning to sound anxious. {I'll cultivate stronger adversaries, at a faster rate.}
You would \totally* mess that up. Gonna have system errors up the wazoo. But for the sake of argument, fine, I'll buy it. Let's say that you successfully turn Elatra into a factory of Combat Class users that can entertain you without posing a real threat.*
He made a show of tapping his chin. Based on the gods' memories...I give it ten thousand years before you get bored, lose your shit, and raze the place to dust and ashes.
{DO NOT COMPARE ME TO THEM!}
Buddy, you ARE them. You were made in their image. Same tendencies, same personality flaws. Although, the gods were at least a little less trigger happy; they didn't need constant bloodshed just to feel something. They hung onto their rationality by a single fraying thread. You?
Rob fixed Leveling High with a piercing gaze. You're \fucked*. A creature like you isn't built for eternity. First you'll slaughter Earth and Elatra, or try to make things work here for a while, then give up and slaughter everyone anyway. After that, it's back to searching for another inhabited world, slowly wandering across the unending void – you remember that, don't you? Nothing around for thousands of years. No stimuli whatsoever. Like a ghost drifting through a nightmare. Eventually you'll find a new world, and inevitably, it shall disappoint you as well. You will repeat this cycle over and over, losing more of your sanity with each iteration, your mind warping and fracturing, twisted into a misshapen facsimile of what it used to be. Actions that previously brought you joy will feel hollow and meaningless. A part of you will crave death, yet the rest of you will be incapable of admitting it. Desperate hope will be your only companion – until one day, at a time impossibly far from now, the heat death of the universe will arrive, and even that hope is snuffed out like a candle flame in a blizzard. You'll be left alone, surrounded by absolute cold, everlasting darkness, and bitter memories. And in that moment, when the dawn of your eternal solitude begins to rise, you will wonder:*
What. Happens. Next."
A full minute of silence passed.
Rob waited on bated breath for Leveling High's response. That had been his best effort. If it dismissed or ignored his assertions...he wasn't sure what he was going to do.
But if he'd read the room correctly, and Leveling High was already feeling despondent after Kismet had brutally denied its existence, then–
{I know no other way of living.}
It was likely intended to come across as defiant. Instead, what came out sounded beaten, like a general who'd watched his army systematically executed right in front of his eyes. No vigor remained in its words. Leveling High had lost faith in both itself and the many years that awaited it hereafter.
Rob couldn't have asked for better. If he struck now, this could all be brought to the conclusion he desired.
Yet...he hesitated.
In what was probably a certifiable case of Stockholm Syndrome, Rob found himself pitying Leveling High. Humanity's curse may have been a true blue bastard, but considering that its creators had molded it to be exactly that, how could it have possibly become anything else? Its prospects were doomed from the start. Plus, he'd felt Leveling High's genuine hatred towards the gods – wasn't much different from his own. That garnered a very Rob-specific type of sympathy.
For a brief moment, he entertained fantasies of rehabilitating Leveling High. It didn't have to stay as a bastard. With time, compassion, and understanding, perhaps it could learn to enjoy life outside of just wallowing in carnage. They could create a new body for it like with Diplomacy; give it the opportunity that the gods never had.
Then reality came crashing down. Leveling High wasn't just 'a little crazy' – there was a reason it was synonymous with Elatran insanity. Unfucking its mentality would be a project. Even if helping it was feasible at all, how long would that take? Years? Decades? Centuries? During which Rob would need to be isolated to protect others?
...No. Sorry, but no. That wasn't an option.
Not when he had people waiting for him.
It was time to take back his life.
You know... Rob adopted a lighthearted tone. Although we can't level up anymore, we do still receive EXP. Just gets stockpiled in our soul.
{To no purpose,} Leveling High said, despondent. {I am aware.}
Why so glum? Think of your Experience as a trophy. It's like proof that you've conquered a mighty foe! Of course, with how strong your body is now, I doubt there's anything in the universe that will grant even a crumb of EXP.
Rob paused. Mostly.
Despite itself, Leveling High perked up. {What are you implying?}
That right now, you have two choices. You can continue as you were planning before – microdosing joy until you hit rapidly diminishing returns, followed by a lonely hell that never ends. Or...
His eyes widened. Blaze of glory. You choose to feel the heady, intoxicating ecstasy of EXP flowing into you once again. Few things would be capable of giving you that...but the co-owner of an ascendant HUMAN's body? Participant of the deicide of Blights and gods? I think that more than qualifies.
An insane, maniacal grin spread up Rob's face. Don't you want to see how much EXP you'd get if you killed yourself?
It started as a giggle.
Just a tiny mirthful sound, as if Leveling High had heard an amusing dad joke. The giggle continued unbroken for ten seconds straight – until it elevated to a chuckle, brimming with merriment and joy. Leveling High chuckled on and on, its voice rising in intensity with every passing second. Finally, the chuckle ascended to full-blown laughter, a sonorous, belly-deep noise that echoed throughout the recesses of Rob's head.
{HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!} Leveling High was shaking violently. {SO THAT'S YOUR ANGLE?! YES! I LOVE IT! THE ULTIMATE HUNT! DELIVERANCE FROM PAIN! AN END TO THIS VAIN, MEANDERING FARCE OF A LIFE! BLAZE OF GLORY! ERUPTION OF REVELRY!}
It surged forward, grabbing hold of Rob's consciousness in an iron grip. {HOW?! HOW DO WE ACHIEVE THIS?!}
Rob didn't know how he answered calmly, but he did. Purge Divinity could work. You'll have to lower your guard and–
{DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT!}
Leveling High halfway shoved Rob out of the driver's seat of their shared body. The HUMAN allowed it to do so, intentionally relinquishing a degree of control, and then guided the curse to Purge Divinity's energy reserves.
Together, they activated the Skill and mentally aimed it towards the ever-present static in Rob's mind.
Purge {DIVINITY!}
Nothing happened.
The Skill did activate, and its energy was being expended. But other than that...zilch. Purge Divinity bounced off the static like a waterfall colliding with solid steel.
If anything, Leveling High felt more disappointed than Rob. They both kept pushing, consuming increasing amounts of energy, trying to force an opening where none was. Humanity's curse screamed obscenities at itself, willing its own defenses to falter.
A change suddenly occurred – although not the one either had hoped for. With a muted gasp, Rob felt his soul tremble. Cracks spread through his essence in a spiderweb of encroaching death. His body became suffused with frailty and weakness.
He had less time left than he'd thought. If this endeavor failed, then–
{There.}
Its voice low and callous, Leveling High pointed at one minuscule spot amongst the deluge of static. Purge Divinity had reacted with...something. Like a loose end snagging on an infinitesimal nail.
Throwing caution to the wind, Rob pushed Purge Divinity past its limit, betting his life on advice given by a madman that would've gladly slaughtered everything and everyone.
The loose end snagged a second time. Then a third. Gradually, steadily, a vulnerability took shape in the form of a small hole. It was widened by cleansing energy, which picked up momentum as the vulnerability grew larger. Almost as if the Skill now understood that the solemn duty it has been forged for was not yet finished.
A foul offshoot of divinity resided here, and it would be Purged.
That was about when the burning sensation started – like hot lava being poured in Rob's veins. He'd expected as much. Leveling High was deeply entangled with his soul. Even in an ideal scenario, separating them was never going to be a painless procedure.
On his list of Elatran pains, he ranked it...in the Top 10. Maybe Top 5 if he was feeling generous. It certainly wasn't enough to deter him in the slightest.
Rob grasped the pain and used it as motivation to keep pushing further. He summoned a year's worth of emotion as added fuel, beginning from the moment when Duran first told him what Leveling High meant, and that two words on his Status Screen would define his new life as a Human. It all became kindling on the pyre of necessity, bringing him one step closer to the light at the end of a long tunnel.
Beyond this transitory suffering lay the salvation he'd dreamt of.
The static flared with Purging energy, like dry twigs that had caught fire. Leveling High let out a screech of agonized exhilaration. Rob nearly blacked out, and might have if not for the curse lifting him up – only to yell into his ear with urgent ferocity.
{DO YOU THINK THIS TO BE THE END?!} Even as it shouted, Leveling High focused on Purging itself. {THAT THIS IS YOUR FREEDOM?! I KNOW WHO YOU ARE! I KNOW THE CONTOURS OF YOUR EXISTENCE! YOU ARE A BODY ENDLESSLY HEALING, SHELTERING A MIND HOPELESSLY SCARRED! A KILLER MASQUERADING AS A MAN! MY INFLUENCE HAS WARPED YOUR SOUL BEYOND RECOGNITION!}
That's life. Rob pushed to match Leveling High's Purging fervor. You take some hits, lick your wounds, get back up. It's okay to change. I'm still me.
{ARE YOU?} It kept Purging. {YOU CANNOT HIDE YOUR BLOODLUST FROM THAT WHICH EMBODIES THE FEELING! HUMAN, YOU HAVE GROWN TO \ADORE* COMBAT – TO* REVEL IN IT! HOW CAN LASTING PEACE BE SUSTAINED BY SOMEONE DRENCHED IN DEATH?}
With vigilance. Rob kept Purging. You aren't going to win this debate, for the record. I've tackled these doubts already. You're late to the party.
{YET YOU DID NOT DENY HAVING A LOVE FOR BLOODSHED!}
I'm a freaking BERSERKER. Enjoying the thrill of battle comes with the territory. Doesn't mean I can't also channel my energy into something more constructive moving forward. I'll be happy to hang up my crate of Firebombs when the fighting is over.
{AND WHEN YOU GET BORED OF PLAYING PEACEMAKER? WHEN THE URGE TO KILL INSISTS UPON YOU, AS IF MY PRESENCE NEVER LEFT? WHEN YOU CRAVE THE CLOYING NECTAR OF EXP ONCE MORE?}
I'll beat up a Dungeon. Or just watch Netflix. Unlike you, I have multiple hobbies.
His eyes narrowed. And let's get something straight. No matter how many times you infused me with artificial joy, you \still* never managed to turn me into a heartless murderer. Everything I've done, even the stuff that keeps me up at night, has been for the sake of a brighter tomorrow filled with happier people. I can be–*
A lump formed in Rob's throat. He almost didn't finish the thought. It felt dangerously close to a self-indulgent lie.
But if he didn't make an earnest effort to accept it...he would be betraying the love and trust of everyone who cared for him.
I can be proud of the person I am now.
For some reason, that made Leveling High start laughing again. Despite most of the static having vanished by now, its voice remained strong and insistent. {TO STEAL YOUR WORDS...GIVE IT A COUPLE HUNDRED YEARS OF PERPETUAL DISAPPOINTMENT. EVENTUALLY, YOU WILL BE NO DIFFERENT THAN THOSE WHOM YOU DESPISE.}
Rob shrugged, his vision blurring with pain and exertion. Guess I'll just have to prove you wrong.
{TRY!} Leveling High doused itself in Purging energy. Its laughter reached a crescendo of insanity. {AND WHEN YOU FAIL, REMEMBER THE ONE WHO WARNED YOU! REMEMBER THIS VOICE – THE VOICE OF YOUR FUTURE SELF!}
The static exploded into an inferno, myriad energies thrashing about within Rob's soul. His senses lit up like a kaleidoscope of contradictory sensations.
{I'LL BE WAITING FOR YOU IN OBLIVION, ROB!}
He blacked out for real.
--
When he awoke, there was an absence of sound.
Rob had experienced something similar to it before – during the blissful period when Vul'to sealed away Leveling High. Back then, however, he'd still felt a vague sense of...unease. Like the Sunday night preceding a busy Monday. He'd known his reprieve was temporary, and that the seal would one day fall, so any relief had been tinged with apprehension.
Not so, now. This silence was full and complete. The static had disappeared entirely.
Leveling High was gone.
And it just \had* to get the last word in,* Rob grumbled. Although...he actually appreciated that, in a way. Nothing would motivate him more to prove Leveling High wrong than a healthy dose of spite.
If he ever faltered in the future, he would only need to think back to how annoyed he was in this very moment. It was the curse's dying gift to–
Alert: Soul Instability is worsening!
Rob's knees buckled and fell.
His muscles no longer functioned as they should. Inside, he felt an ephemeral something tearing apart. As if the core of his essence was coming undone.
After going months without a Hauz tune-up, and being injected twice with the god's mana...using Purge Divinity on Leveling High had been the straw that broke the camel's back.
His soul was collapsing.
Clarity settled upon Rob's mind. He understood that he had at most several seconds before blacking out again – and entering a sleep from which he would never awaken. It was enough time to muster his strength and cast one Waymark to one location.
He chose immediately. Wayma–
Error: Due to your Soul Instability, Waymark has failed to activate!
Shit. Way–
Error: Waymark has failed to activate!
Sweat ran down his brow. Please–
Error: Waymark has failed to activate!
The world grew dimmer with every instant.
Error: Waymark has failed to activate!
Rob felt tempted to pray for help, but he'd killed everyone who might listen.
Error: Waymark has failed to activate!
Warmth ebbed. His body shivered. Blood pooled out from the corners of his mouth.
Error: Waymark has failed to activate!
I...
Error: Waymark has failed to activate!
His heart stopped beating.
Error: Waymark has failed to activate!
His blood was no longer circulating, sitting stagnant in his veins.
An error message popped up. He couldn't read it anymore.
Death had arrived. It looked impatient.
With the fading dregs of his awareness, Rob willed his muscles to obey. He raised a hand, clenched five fingers into a tight fist–
And punched down at his chest.
His heart pumped once, and blood circled through his veins for just a moment longer.
Waymark.
Blue motes of mana spirited him to a faraway land.
The Skill completed, depositing him at his destination.
A weak smile inched up Rob's face. Out of all the possible locations he could have picked for his final Waymark...he had chosen well.
Riardin's Rangers were here.
Soul Surgeon Hauz, too. That part was of little surprise, considering this was the Fiend's personal operating room.
As everyone turned to stare at him, Rob glanced towards the corner, seeing sleeping bags and cots situated next to each other. Riardin's Rangers had been camping out. With absolutely zero guarantee that Rob would return, they'd stayed right here for hours on end, hoping that he would come to receive Soul Surgery and remove Leveling High.
They had never stopped planning to save him. Not for one instant.
Man, you guys are the best–

Author's Note:
9000 words. Two parts. Enjoy!
​
--
​
One Day Later
The ocean waves gleamed clear and blue, shimmering like diamonds under the warm midday sun.
Rob sat cross-legged at the edge of a cliff overlooking Elven territory's southwestern tip. He hadn't moved a muscle for hours. A soft breeze caressed his face, rustling the grass as it swept past. His gaze was locked onto the rhythmic motion of the sea, almost lulling him to sleep with its picturesque consistency.
I like that it's blue, he numbly mused. It was a strange thought to have, but after witnessing Elatra's variety of color-coded grass, he'd been legitimately relieved to discover that the sea was blue regardless of territory. This sight just wouldn't hit the same otherwise. The sparkling ocean waves reminded him of trips to the beach with his family and friends back on Earth.
Building sandcastles, swimming out as far as I could, salt sticking to my skin, getting sunburnt like a red tomato... The memories brought a small smile to Rob's face. Do kids build sandcastles in Elatra too? Hope so. This place could use a bit more youthful whimsy to balance things out.
He stretched his arms and legs, letting out an exaggerated sigh. When was the last time he'd gotten a break? A real break. Beating up Dungeons had been good for stress relief, but it still required him to move his body. In contrast, this felt like stepping right into one of those corner-store "Wish You Were Here" vacation cards. Tranquil, quiet, and undisturbed.
Apart from the beast of madness rampaging inside his head, anyway.
Rob ignored a sudden upsurge of static, allowing himself the relaxation he sorely deserved. It had been an arduous, winding road leading up to this moment. Nearly a year of adversity and struggling to survive. Sometimes, he'd come close to wondering if the journey would never end – if he would be trapped in an endless cycle of conflict, always.
But finally, finally...it was over. The curtain had fallen. Together with Riardin's Rangers, they'd Purged the Blight, barbecued the Queen, and unmade the gods. At long last, Elatra's greatest threats had been permanently laid to rest.
Well...almost.
One remained.
Rob set aside those thoughts and went back to watching the sea. He submerged himself in its placid serenity, as if the waves were a metronome he couldn't pull his eyes away from – which was actually half the reason he'd come here. Right now, a calming environment was ideal.
The other half was that there wasn't anyone else around for miles. No people, no animals. If a calming environment was ideal, then solitude was essential. Seeing living, flesh-and-blood creatures would've tested his resolve in ways he wouldn't be able to handle.
All in all, though, he couldn't have asked for better. It was the perfect spot to lay down, take a breather, reminisce…
And die.
{NO!} Leveling High screamed for what was probably the hundredth time. Unfortunately, disembodied voices didn't get sore throats. {YOU CAN'T! NOT ON THE ADVENT OF MY FREEDOM! I HAVE SPENT–}
Heard that line already. Rob shook his head with a disappointed air, although he hid the thought from Leveling High. No point in antagonizing it further. That would just make this more difficult.
To be fair, he understood its frustration. Talk about defeat being snatched from the jaws of victory. It had obtained a vessel of power beyond reckoning, one it could influence and possibly even outright control...yet none of that would matter, because the damn thing was defective.
"When you leave for the Deadlands and no longer retain access to my healing ministrations," Hauz the Soul Surgeon once told him, "you will have a maximum of two months until your soul collapses."
Rob had counted the days since he first set out. The exact number was fuzzy, as the Deadlands played fast and loose with the concept of linear time, but if he was correct, he was coming up on approximately 58 days without a Hauz soul tuneup. Just shy of two months.
And that prognosis had been given before the gods injected him with mana – twice – and lovingly bestowed Soul Instability onto him. It was a minor miracle he'd held on this long, and he could sense that his time was running out. His soul ached more with each passing hour. The cracks in its foundation were spreading, and soon enough, everything would come crashing down.
He could speed up the process if he reactivated Never Forget Your Rage and strained his body again, but then he would also need to whip himself into another BERSERKER rage. Didn't seem fun when there was no enemy to smash. Better to let Soul Instability work its magic as he enjoyed one last scenic vista.
Surely he'd earned that much.
{DO YOU WISH SO EARNESTLY TO DIE?!} Leveling High sounded more desperate than ever. {WILL YOU LET ALL YOUR HARDSHIPS BE IN VAIN?!}
It took a significant amount of willpower not to respond. Especially considering that Leveling High was responsible for putting him in this situation – and for sabotaging the only avenue that might save Rob's life.
Riardin's Rangers intended for Hauz to perform Soul Surgery on him. Keira had mentioned some of the details earlier, and the rest were easy for Rob to piece together. The Fiend would excise Leveling High, and immediately afterwards, Vul'to would cast Soul Repair to patch him up before his soul crumbled.
It was probably what Kismet had been thinking of when he refused to confirm that there was no way for mortals to non-lethally remove Leveling High. And while it still left Rob with odds of survival that were distressingly low, it was overall a solid, viable plan.
Assuming absolutely nothing went wrong.
When something inevitably did? Reality would play out very differently.
Their plan was predicated on the idea that Rob could resist Leveling High's influence. He...didn't think he could. Not when it would be salivating at the chance to hunt Level 99 prey.
Keeping himself in check already felt nigh-impossible *now*, when he was in the most calming, isolated area he could think of. Rob was certain that if Leveling High saw Riardin's Rangers standing mere feet away, it would barely hesitate to slaughter them all in an uncontrollable blood frenzy.
That was the best-case scenario. The worst-case would be if it didn't.
Leveling High possessed enough self-restraint to comprehend the notion of delayed gratification. Otherwise, it couldn't have worked together with Riardin's Rangers to slay the gods. It had also exhibited a sort of low cunning on multiple occasions, knowing just what to say in order to press people's buttons and coax them into making poor life choices. Rob imagined that it'd gotten ample practice with that over the centuries.
Lastly, simply by virtue of being a resident in his head...Leveling High knew everything there was to know about Riardin's Rangers. It understood what made them tick. While Leveling High was no Diplomacy, it could still easily come up with the words it needed.
For example: "If you refuse to follow my commands, I will flee to distant lands with Waymark, and you shall never see Rob again."
Vul'to, bless his heart, was a total softy when it came to his friends. Normally, it was a likable and well-appreciated quality. Not so much when said friend was being piloted by an omnicidal maniac. Despite knowing full well what the consequences might be, he likely wouldn't be able to stop himself from using Soul Repair if it meant saving Rob's life.
And then everyone would die.
By everyone, he meant EVERYONE. Soul Instability was the only thing holding Leveling High back. Unlike Rob, it wouldn't have any qualms about completing their Ascension. After attaining godhood, it would traverse the divine realms and devour Elatra's mana, its essence swelling with unfathomable power...
Until their body and soul was reborn into something greater. A monstrously powerful deity with Limit Break, Ageless, and Never Forget Your Rage. The immortal, invincible successor of the Original Will.
The HUMAN.
At that point, two worlds would just be a blip on the radar. Leveling High would massacre Elatra, massacre Earth, then go traveling across the stars in search of more civilizations to depopulate. Rather than freeing the universe from divine predation, all Rob's efforts would have accomplished was placing it under new management.
How could he possibly prioritize his life in a situation like this? Risking himself was one thing – risking countless others was another. Maybe he could resist Leveling High's compulsions long enough for Hauz to perform surgery. Maybe. But if he failed, then his friends would die...at best. At worst, a new godlike entity would be born.
That was no choice at all. Those stakes wouldn't be worth betting on a 99% success rate, let alone what the odds actually were.
Naturally, Leveling High had disagreed with his decision. Rob was the final Human it would ever influence. He was its last chance at eternal freedom. If not for Rob having planned this contingency well in advance, it probably would've overtaken him after they'd finished slaying the gods, then gone on to commit any number of sadistic, reprehensible atrocities.
Instead, it was stuck watching the waves go by. And no matter how hard Leveling High struggled, Rob felt confident that he could anchor it here until Soul Instability reached critical mass.
Checkmate. Again.
{YOU LEAVE OBLIGATIONS YET UNFULFILLED! THIS END IS PREMATURE!}
No shit. Rob sighed. There was plenty of unfinished business left. Mostly cleaning up loose ends, but a few major things as well. Like despite how he'd rid the Skills of their jailors, he wouldn't be able to see the moment when they were set free from imprisonment.
Thankfully, he could trust Riardin's Rangers and Diplomacy to make good on that promise. His allies now had unrestricted access to the divine realms. Which...
Sounded terrifying if he stopped to think about it, honestly. The divine realms were basically a backdoor into Elatra's reality. Should anyone be allowed there?
We still need to free the Skills. Malika also needs to finish fixing the rifts that were definitely not my fault. Afterwards, I don't see a reason for us to go back outside of periodic wellness checks to make sure nothing randomly imploded. Luckily, even if knowledge of dimension magic spreads, other people can't access the divine realms without having already memorized the gods' mana signature. As long as we suppress that info from–
Rob smacked his forehead. Aw, fuck. Did we just create another conspiracy? Why does this keep happening?! I swear, I'm gonna be pissed if someone uncovers this down the line and thinks I'm secretly an evil overlord–
His thoughts cut out.
Right. Nevermind. Won't be an issue.
{COWARD!} Leveling High's screeching was starting to get on his nerves. {SO EAGER TO THROW YOURSELF AWAY! DO YOU NOT DESIRE TO LIVE WITHIN THE WORLDS THAT YOU HAVE FOUGHT TOOTH AND NAIL TO PROTECT?!}
This motherfucker. Acting as if Rob didn't want to go back home. Meet up with his parents and Jason. Give them long-overdue hugs. Introduce them to Riardin's Rangers. Get everyone settled. Establish Earth-Elatra travel. Buy a house with Keira. Catch up on trashy reality TV dramas. Sightsee the territories. Eat a goddamn Earth cheeseburger. So many things he wanted to–
...
Well, whatever. He would hardly be the first person to not get everything he wanted in life.
Just how it went.
Unsurprisingly, that sentiment failed to calm down Leveling High. The curse just kept ranting and raving, its protestations growing louder by the second. Rob attempted to ignore it again, to concentrate solely on the ocean, but his mood had been spoiled. He couldn't get back into the same zen state as before.
His breaking point came sooner than he would have expected. If you don't shut up, I'm activating Melancholy Resistance.
The static instantly quieted – more out of shock than acquiescence. {You're bluffing,} it hissed.
I don't know if I am, Rob admitted. Continue at your own risk.
Both of them were taken aback by his response. Leveling High for obvious reasons, and Rob because the thought had come to him automatically. Was his mental state really so lousy that he would contemplate Melancholy Resistance of all things? That could go wrong in a wide variety of disastrous ways.
Suddenly, waiting for his soul to gradually fail didn't feel like such a sure-fire method. Problem was, anything more direct than that would cause Leveling High to intervene. His exorbitantly high HP complicated matters as well.
An epiphany came to Rob as he absently peered out at the ocean...and at the void horizon in the distance. The answer had been staring him in the face this entire time.
First, I'll deactivate Almighty Resistance. He hid his thoughts from Leveling High as he planned. Then, I'll Waymark into the edge of the world. Simple two-step process. We'll be unmade by the void – high HP won't help us there.
Yeah. That should work nicely. Due to Leveling High vying for control of their body, anything more complicated would've been impossible, but Rob could summon enough willpower to quickly deactivate one Skill and cast another.
Easy peasy.
This isn't what my loved ones would want.
Initially, Rob assumed that the thought came from Leveling High – only to realize it had come from himself. Of course it isn't what they would want, he argued. Yet what else can I do? We've always been willing to sacrifice ourselves when necessary. A single life for two whole worlds; fair trade, far as I'm concerned.
But I don't–
Stop. With a grimace, Rob forcibly dispelled his wayward, dangerous thoughts. If he was already wavering this much, then he seriously needed to get this show on the road. Would've been nice to sit back and watch the sea for a bit longer, but...
It was fine. He'd gotten to enjoy one day of peace.
That was enough.
Deception Level Increased! $*^@&% → @)$^%#
Deactivate: Almighty Resistance.
Leveling High froze. Its moment of hesitation cost it dearly. Too late, it noticed what was about to transpire.
Waym–
An indefinable pressure materialized in a corner of Rob's mind.
It felt insistent, and rising up within, yet not strictly unpleasant. At the very least, it was infinitely more bearable than Leveling High – although that wasn't the highest bar to clear.
Ordinarily, Rob wouldn't have let this new sensation give him pause. He would've just attributed it to a diversionary tactic from Leveling High and moved on. Except...this sensation wasn't new to him. He'd felt it once, roughly two months ago.
Right before learning–
The pressure popped like an overfilled balloon. Relief reverberated throughout his mind.
Along with a voice.
<"Fucking finally. Was starting to think this would never connect. If you're gonna take forever to pick up, do me a favor and put in some elevator music next time.">
Rob's blood turned to ice in his veins.
<"Yo? Rob? What, am I on mute? Is that something we can do? Huh.">
He became suffused with an overwhelming sense of nostalgic bitterness. It brought with it a sense of hope that he dare not indulge.
<"Should I hang up and try again? First time in ages there's been no static, though.">
Hesitantly, tentatively, regretfully...he activated Dimensional Message. Several seconds later, he worked up the courage to reply.
"Jason?"
<"Oh hell yes!"> With a shout like he'd won a gold medal, Jason's tone surged with triumph. Rob could easily imagine him performing a fist pump back home. <"Been dozens of attempts and a week later, but goddamn does it feel good to hear your voice. Seriously, you know how many times I tried calling you lately?">
Rob blinked. "No, actually. What happened?"
<"Call wouldn't go through,"> Jason grumbled, a hint of frustration entering his tone. <"Kept activating Dimensional Message, but all I ever heard was static interference.">
"...Static, huh."
Leveling High appeared mildly embarrassed, seeming close to whistling nonchalantly. Rob nearly pressed it for details, but speaking with Jason was far more important.
It was easy to guess what went wrong, anyway. In all likelihood, Leveling High had blocked Dimensional Message earlier in case Jason would talk Rob out of a self-destructive path...and it was allowing Dimensional Message now because the path had gotten a little too self-destructive.
<"Did you try it as well? Was there static on your end?">
"Yeah," Rob lied. "Same deal here."
Activating Dimensional Message had been the furthest thing from his mind. In addition to distracting himself with a Dungeon bender, and the stress of his looming confrontation with the gods, he just plain hadn't wanted to speak to Jason – or anyone – after Duran's death and Leveling High's uprising. Would've felt like being dishonest with them, somehow.
As if he was subjecting them to a false conversation with a Rob they thought they knew.
Jason made a contemplative hum. <"Wonder why it started working again. Eh, not gonna question it. So – how'd the godslaying go?">
It wasn't phrased as a question; more like a confirmation of fact, rooted in unwavering belief. "Fantastic," Rob answered, his lips curling upward in spite of himself. "We got 'em."
<"Nice, nice. Wish I could've been there. Sounds like...">
Jason trailed off. When he spoke again a few seconds later, his voice had drained of levity. <"I \really* wish I could've been there. Risking my own life isn't stressful. Knowing that you're risking YOURS is much, much worse. The creatures you've been fighting over in Elatra – they're a lot more dangerous than you let on, aren't they?">*
Now it was Rob's turn to look away embarrassed. "Maybe."
<"Figures."> Slowly, Jason exhaled. <"Well, you won, so it all worked out. Can't complain."> His voice filled with a smile. <"I won't get hung up on your stupidity this time. Living through the whole godslaying deal gives you a free pass – just this once though, you hear me?">
His voice hitched. <"If I can get sappy for a sec...you have no idea how amazing it is to hear that you're alright.">
Statements like those were Exhibit #1 for why Rob had wanted to avoid this conversation.
"How's Earth doing?" he asked, changing the subject with the grace of a loaded cement mixer. "Everything okay there?"
<"Oh, way better than before. Ever since the Spires fell, no monsters have appeared. People aren't walking on eggshells all the time. Life is returning to normalcy.">
Jason let out an aggrieved, over-the-top sigh. <"Not much left for me to do as a superhero. Least it means I can go back to tennis – maybe I can play Nadal before he retires. Still don't think superpowers would be enough if we played on clay, though.">
"Good luck there."
<"Also, the military is trying to take credit for everything we did,"> Jason offhandedly added. <"They've been conducting shady research into Blightspawn corpses, too. Might need to fight the government or something later – you down for some light treason over the weekend?"> His question came with the same casual tone he'd have used to ask if Rob wanted to hit up a fast food joint.
"I'll give it a shot. No promises, though."
There was a pause. <"By the way, when \are* you coming back, exactly? Is there an ETA on that dimension portal thing? I want to prepare your favorite disgusting burgers. And also like, plan out our mini-insurrection, but that's not as important. ">*
"Sorry, portal's not ready. Might take a while."
There was a longer pause.
<"Rob. What's wrong?">
He flinched. "What? Nothing's wrong."
<"C'mon, give me some credit here. All you've said so far are short, concise responses. Normally you'd be celebrating while making convoluted analogies to explain how you felt.">
A retort arose within Rob's mind. Something about Jason not having enough brain cells to understand analogies, so keeping it simple was for his benefit. It was the kind of joke that would've only been funny to the two of them – perfect for setting a friend at ease.
What he replied with was, "Just tired right now. Long week. That's all."
It wasn't a complete lie. If he'd been less tired, he could have put on a more convincing mask.
<"You know, there's one thing I didn't tell you about Earth. Before Lucio, Baker, and everything else came along – I was stressed as shit trying to play superhero."> Jason spoke in the cadence of a professor, listing off his reasoning before delivering a conclusion. <"Had to pretend to be unbeatable. That way, no one would realize that their one hope was nearing his breaking point.">
His voice turned sharp. <"So put away the fucking mask. I've worn enough of them to know they start feeling...tight, after a while.">
Rob grit his teeth. The longer this talk went on, the more Jason would blame himself in the future. "Thanks, but I'll probably feel better after getting some sleep. Should go take a nap and–"
<"NO! WAIT!">
Jason shouted with such urgency that it even left Leveling High stunned. His tone was borderline panic-stricken – the cry of a desperate man backed into a corner.
Almost like he was aware that if this conversation ended now, he would never see Rob again.
<"I think..."> Jason trailed off, seeming to choose his next words with exceptional care. <"I think we should talk about what's on your mind. It'll help.">
"Doubt it."
<"Well it'll help ME figure out what's wrong, and I'm selfish. So talk.">
"I can't."
<"You're gonna.">
At that, a torrent of emotions coursed through Rob's veins. His exhaustion, his frustration, his fear, everything he'd fought so hard to keep a lid on...it all overflowed in that one moment. "You don't fucking get it, do you?!" he shouted. "This is difficult enough \without* you making everything worse!"*
<"Yeah, tough shit."> There was no sympathy in Jason's voice. Rob must have let out a shocked sound in response, because Jason went on to say, <"What? Think I'm gonna take pity on you? If you're so willing to suffer in silence for everyone, then this should be business as usual. You can spare some of that self-sacrificial attitude to have an uncomfortable conversation with me.">
"That's a bit self-centered, don't you think?"
<"I'm Jason Miller,"> he said, as if that was an explanation.
Rob's exasperation reached a point that it overwhelmed his anger. How was he supposed to stay mad at this fresh brand of nonsense? It was like he'd envisioned a direct, straightforward path for their talk to follow, and Jason had sent the train careening off its tracks.
For some reason, Rob felt compelled to respond. He still couldn't tell Jason all the details – it was for the best this way – but he had to say something now.
Something so that Jason wouldn't blame himself.
"Look. There's...a thing I need to do. Won't be good."
<"No other alternatives?">
"None. It's impossible. I \have* to do this."*
<"Bullshit. Don't believe you.">
Rob's exasperation flipped back around to anger. "What, you think I'm fucking lying to you about how little choice I have? That I want to torture you with worry?"
<"Nah, I get that. That's not the part I don't believe.">
"Then WHAT?"
<"Impossible."> Jason's response came naturally. <"It's a bullshit concept. Just a word people use to feel better about themselves when they quit. I've never believed in it, and you've haven't, either. Why start now?">
After five seconds of thoughtful silence, a wry chuckle escaped Rob's chest. "Man...that's actually kinda nice to hear, you know? I get what you're trying to do, and I genuinely appreciate it. But..."
Visions of Ismaire, the Human mages, and the Cataclysm alighted within his mind. They'd fought and struggled with all their might – and had been rewarded with the loss of everything they knew and loved.
"Sometimes there's no third option. Some things really are just impossible. This is one of them."
<"Stop using that fake-ass word!">
They needed to stop here. Rob had wanted to end their talk on a good note, and this was as close as it was going to get. "Have to go now. Thanks for–"
<"If you die, I'll kill you myself!"> Jason snapped.
Once again, Rob hesitated, stunned by sheer audacity. "That...seems counterproductive."
<"I'm serious*.">* There was an eerily familiar echo to Jason's voice. <"If you want to protect the world, then I'll protect you from yourself. If there's a demon you need to fight, I'll punch you in the face for not telling me sooner. If you get hurt trying to sacrifice yourself, I'll hurt you \worse*. If you die, I'll reach into hell itself to pull you out and kill you again.">*
A bittersweet smile crept up Rob's lips. It was a nice sentiment. Nearly enough for him to want to believe it. After fighting so hard, helping so many people...why hadn't he been granted just one last miracle? Where was his happy ending?
"If only that were true."
Rob's hoarse laugh sounded alien even to himself. "I wish we lived in that kind of world. But...we don't. Just have to accept reality and make the best of–"
<"FUCK THAT!"> Dimensional Message flickered wildly with discordant noise. <"THE ONLY REASON IMPOSSIBLE THINGS EXIST IS BECAUSE WE HAVEN'T TRIED THEM YET!">
Something was happening. "Jason, what's–"
<"PUT UP YOUR FIST!">
His voice became fainter, yet louder.
<"I'M GOING TO MAKE–YOU–UNDERSTAND!">
Rob raised his fist.
It hadn't been a conscious decision. He wasn't even sure why he followed Jason's request. But before he knew it, in the midst of that maelstrom of grief, exhaustion, and pain, he had extended a hesitant hand towards the empty air.
And then felt another fist pressing against his.
As if Jason was standing right in front of him. As if they were back on Earth.
Thousands of memories flooded back at once, shaking his resolve to the core. It took Rob a few long seconds to understand what had transpired. "Jason, did you...did you just fist bump me?"
<"Using Dimension Strike,"> he replied, sounding tired yet victorious.
"How?"
<"Traced your location through Dimensional Message.">
"HOW?"
<"Never attempted it before. Did now. Made it work. That's what we always do, man. You're not allowed to quit until you've tried everything you can think of, hear me? You–">
Jason's voice grew quieter. <"Shit, think I used up all of Dimensional Message's energy."> He started speaking faster. <"Look. I don't care if you need to perform the impossible to come back alive. Do it anyway. It's what \I* just did, after all.">*
His voice swelled with bravado. In Rob's mind, he could see Jason's taunting grin, clear as day.
<"You're not about to let me one-up you, are you?">
Their Message cut out.
​
--
​
Link to Part 2

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/ThrowRAgang
Originally posted to relationship_advice
My mom cheated on my dad and left him for his best friend. She made him look like he was the one at fault and and I (23f) developed a resentment towards him. I recently found out what happened and I feel guilty for being an asshole to my dad and I want to make it up to him
Thanks to a BoRU redditor for the suggestion!
Trigger Warnings: infidelity, emotional abuse and manipulation, accusations of abuse, controlling behavior, alcoholism, depression, PTSD
Original Post (automod): October 9, 2020
(english is not my first language)
My mom had been married to my dad for 9 years before she cheated and left him for his best friend who is my step dad. My father served in the army and his best friend was this rich guy who I saw hanging out with my mom at that time.
During the divorce my mom told me that my dad was abusive, controling and was not there emotionally that's why she was leaving him. She told me that my dad treated her badly, called her names and did not love her. At the time I was only 10 years old. My mum got primary custody and dad was stuck paying child support. I only got to see my dad only 2 weekends per month. After that I held some resentment towards my dad. I dreaded when it was time to see him. He had sold what used to be our house moved back to his home town opened a mechanic shop and lived in this shop.
He was an alcoholic who always tried to sober up when I came to stay him. He was miserable , lonely and depressed. He always tried to clean up his house when I went to stay with him even though it still smelled like alcohol, gun powder, gasoline and those car oils. And sometimes I found dirty laundry staffed in the laundry room. When I turned 15 I started to see him less. I refused to go stay with him and made up excuses. I only visited him a few times a year. One day I went to visit him without informing him, I found him drinking while watching a football game, he was surprised to see me, he quickly started getting rid of his beer cans, cleaning his kitchen asking for if I was hungry so that he could order pizza, and I just lashed out at him and told him that's why mum left him because he was so miserable and could keep his shit together. (I felt guilty afterwards). He loves old classic muscle cars and when I turned 18 he got me a 1970 chevrolet chevelle ss , which he had fixed it himself. Later me and mum sold it and got a honda civic.
Anyway Last week I came to visit my mom.I was planning to stay for the weekend. On Saturday night I overheard my mom and my stepdad talking about what happened 12 years ago, bragging about their affair and not once even regretting how it affected my dad. All they said that felt sorry for him. I couldn't help but cry. I wanted to confront her but I couldn't bring myself. I wanted to call her names , insult her but I didn't have the strength. I was full of mixed emotions but I felt guilty the most. All this time I held a resentment towards my dad thinking he was the bad guy but he was only the victim of my mom's affair. He never recovered from the affair due to his , depression and anxiety issues. And all the time I thought he faked to care about me he genuinely cared for me. And he always tried to stay strong and smile for me.
I left the following day and found my dad at his mechanic shop and hugged him. I was crying and he was puzzled and I kept saying sorry repeatedly. When he managed to calm me down I told him everything and I apologised even more. And when I asked why he didn't fight my mom for my custody. He told me that , he knew that his depression and anxiety issues plus his PTSD would make him to be unfit parents. And he never wanted to ruin the relationship between me and my mom because he knew I loved my mom and his ex best friend loved me and would take care of me more than he would. He said that it was not my fault and forgave me and he was happy I found out.
I want to make it up to my dad , but I don't know how . Please help.
TLDR. Mom cheated and left dad for his best friend. Made him look bad, I grew a resentment towards him now I want to make it up to him.
Comments
YourRAResource: Just continue to love him and be a good daughter. That's all he wants.
Commenter: Damn, what a fucked up story, and that your mom is laughing about what she did with your dad until today is just disgusting!
The muscle car you sold, could you buy that back? I think that your dad would be very happy if you arrive with that car in front of his store. Then plan a weekend with him, If he likes to go fishing, then do that. Just spend as much time together as possible.
Oh, and please kick your mom and stepdad in the ass for me. They destroyed a life, not for their own sake but only because they were cowards and they remember that time until today with a smile on their face. Excuse me please, I need to go and vomit!
 
Update (automod): October 29, 2020 (20 days later)
Sorry for the late update, its a bit long but a few of you insisted I update them. For those who missed out on my previous post, check out my profile I posted it on my profile.
First thanks to all those who took their time to comment and offer support.
As some of you said, there are 2 sides in every story, and I decided to listen my dad's side, he admitted to being distant and not affectionate after his last deployment due to his PTSD but the affair had been going on when he was in deployment.
I confronted my mum, a few days later after my post and she was defensive at first. She said that I was not grateful for what she did for me, and that she simply protected me from my father. She called him a few names. I didn't want to argue and I had already chosen my next words carefully. I told her that " my father was a good man who was broken by the betrayal of the 2 people he trusted the most and worst you turned his own daughter against him. I appreciate and am grateful for everything, but it's time I choose for the parent who put his own daughter's need first even it means making hard sacrifices and not the one who wanted the daughter to satisfy her own needs . Goodbye mom , I will keep in touch. Before I left, tears had been building in her eyes. And she just remained silent. She has tried to reach out to me but I just ignore her or ask her to stop disturbing me, I don't to block her, but my message is loud and clear. My aunt has recently reached out to me and told me that my mom is depressed. Well her husband can take care of her.
As for my dad most of you suggested I sell a civic and buy the chevy chevelle ss back. I couldn't find the person I sold it to. But I decided to look for old worn out muscle cars to fix. I have been searching for a while. It was hard but I had help of a few friends and even some redditors who reached out to me on chat. Almost 2 weeks ago I was lucky and found an old wrecked 1970 dodge charger. And yeah I sold the civic to afford the charger. My dad was kinda of upset, but when I told him the reason he brightened up. He's been more than happy to show me how to fix it. I bought an apartment an hour away from his mechanic shop.
One redditor suggested I do I make over at his place, well I have been making time and we I have started to renovate and do a make over. And my friends from college who are studying interior design have decided to help. It took him a little of convincing as he felt embarrassed but he finally joined the train. Now everyday after college I go to visit him and on weekends I spend time with him and talk about anything mostly he's interested in my life. He likes soccer and is a big fan of arsenal. So I always keeps him company during match days, pick the opponents team to add fun and am learning a little of football. Since I sold my car, he has allowed me to use his 1977 pontiac firebird he has been with it since I was 11 and as long as I can remember he has never let anyone drive it. Since I have been around more often he has stopped his drinking habits, maybe a few and I join him on game nights but who can blame us.
So there is your update, if you made it this far I guess it is a happy ending. Thanks all of you all again.
Comments
Deleted Commenter: The joy u brought in your father's life is amazing

OOP: I know, it's the only thing am focusing on.

Lordofthelowend: I’m normally not one to say nice things on the internet, but you sound like an incredibly kind and intelligent person. I guarantee your dad is so proud of you.
 

DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

First the father, now the son.
What kind of man was Guiseppe Texas, father of Cellinia Texas?
The man murdered his own father, and according to Bernardo Bellone, their relationship was not "amicable" even before that day. The two of them drifted so far apart that they could no longer agree about the future.
But before looking into how they disagreed, what did they still have in common?
Texas: The way I lived my life in Columbia was no different than the way I lived in Siracusa. And what I saw in Siracusa was no different from what I saw in Columbia.

As far as she was concerned, she's always lived life the exact same way. But, to other people— She was just like a Siracusan.
Was she just like a Siracusan? She didn't know. All she remembers is what she once said to her grandfather:
'People who keep going on and on about how life in Siracusa is nobler, or about life in Columbia is nobler, are all full of it.'
To which he laughed heartily.
...she had once asked her grandfather this question:
'Isn't Siracusan morality just trampling on the lives of the people all the same?'

Fundamentally, a mafioso separates the world into Us and Them. The 'us', the famiglia, the family business, is held together by trust and loyalty. Family helps family, family protects family, family sacrifices for family, family obeys family.
Salvadore Texas is remembered in a photograph as a kindly grandfather posing with his daughter and the daughter of a family friend. The daughter of a man Salvadore would have killed, of a family he might have liquidated, if not for the pleading of the man's mother, a woman Salvadore might once have married.
How many other daughters did Salvadore sell on the streets as prostitutes as a side business? How many other mothers mourned the sons he killed to eliminate rivals? Because "them", the other, the outsider, is just an obstacle or an enemy. Not worth the justice or mercy extended to family, or the justice and mercy promised by the Columbian government and demanded by its common people.

Betwixt Father and Grandfather

As for Texas's perspective on things, her point of view would have been limited by her role in the famiglia.
If it was Salvadore's decision to send his son's daughter to Siracusano, rather than to allow Guiseppe to raise her up in his newer, 'Columbian' ways, then it was probably Salvadore's decision that Texas would be raised up not as a business woman like Giovanna, but as a warrior like himself. A 'heavy'.
Perhaps Salvadore felt he'd taken too loose a handle on raising his son, and sought to correct his mistake with his granddaughter. Perhaps interfering with Guiseppe's right to raise his own daughter only furthered the resentment between the two men.
But even in Columbia, a mafia will always eventually resort to a heavy to get dirty work done. So Texas probably DIDN'T live any differently in Siracusa than in Columbia, just as a truck is still used as a truck no matter whether you find it on a peaceful farm or in an invading army.
Still, the business that went on around her DID have some differences...

Generational Shift

Salvadore: The Columbian famiglie changed into opulent attire, took up residence in luxurious mansions, and stepped into the so-called upper class, thinking they had clearly delineated a boundary between them and Siracusa. 'Siracusa is barbaric, while we are not.' They spoke those words, thinking themselves superior to our homeland. Your father's been captured by this line of thinking too.

In her grandfather's eyes, the Columbian famiglie had soured. They'd do anything for the sake of profit, getting involved in the lowest businesses, committing murders with no morals at all.
In her father's eyes, the Siracusan famiglie had decayed. Passing up profit and opportunity, not fighting for their interests, limiting their progress for the sake of supposed morality. All of it was the pinnacle of stupidity.
In Texas's eyes, her father and grandfather were right and wrong.

Texas never elaborates on how what she thinks each man got right and what they got wrong.
But as I did in the previous post, I have to draw a curious connection.

...she had once asked her grandfather this question:
'Isn't Siracusan morality just trampling on the lives of the people all the same?'

Is that the "morality" that Guiseppe derides? How a Columbian wise guy see a morality of trampling on the common people as limit a famiglia's progress, or getting in the way of profits and opportunities?
But if Guiseppe is referring to a morality of compassion and justice for all, where is anything of the sort evidenced in the famiglie of Siracusa? Or in Salvadore Texas, who raised his granddaughter as a living weapon, a cold-hearted killer of men?
As Texas thinks of the differences in the methods of her patriarchs:

In Siracusa, the subject may take their last breath on a dark, rainy street. The more one cares, the greater the pain.
In Columbia, a show of kindness by a mafioso often results in the subject becoming a chip in a bargain. The more one cares, the higher the cost.

As I said, the Columbian mafia shares the same fundamental contempt for outsiders and enemies as the Siracusan mafia... except in so far as they FIRST try to settle differences with a mutually beneficial deal, or at least a non-violent bargain.
To have any sort of restraint at all is, in itself, a form of compassion and morality. Of passing up the profit and opportunity of "the survivor takes all".
While the Siracusan way of jumping to "the survivor takes all" is indistinguishable from Salvadore's accusation that the Columbians would commit murders "with no morals at all".
And Texas believes both men were right and wrong in their accusations.
Perhaps she saw how their methodology differed only in emphasis. Perhaps Salvadore and Guiseppe merely disagreed about which situations called for making "deals too good to refuse", and which called for total annihilation.
And so each glossed over their own actions as fully justified, while the actions of the other were a completely inappropriate response to the situation. But the men were simply two sides of the same coin.

Guiseppe's Methods

But sometimes, a mere difference in focus and priorities can make quite the enormous difference, for those standing the farthest from the center-point of the scales.
And Siracusa wasn't prepared for the new Columbian generation.

Leontuzzo: One thing I learned from the Columbians is— If you want someone to listen to you, incentives can be more useful than violence.
Leontuzzo: 'The government is just the cloth draped over Grey Hall's round table.' Every associate of every famiglia remembers Signora Sicilia's lament. There was once a time when we never took stock of the vases and cutlery sitting on our tablecloth. But right now, it's something we must pay close attention to.
When the Columbians brought new things back with them, what disturbed me most was not their technology, but rather... How they do things nothing like we do in Siracusa.
They knew that Siracusa's officials were never going to turn their backs on the old guard of the famiglie, so they never required those officials to defer to them in public. All they needed was for them to turn a blind eye at just the right moment, or whenever it was convenient for them.
And what can we do? Getting rid of those officials won't solve anything.
Try to settle things with them directly? They're not stupid enough to give the game away.
Despite the not-insignificant amount of power and influence we have here, there is nothing we can do about them.
I believe that you, having spent a number of years living in Lungmen, should be more familiar with their way of doing things.
Texas: ...To the point I almost thought I was back in Lungmen.
Leontuzzo: Hah. But here in Siracusa, few people even realize how big the shockwaves from the Columbian approach might end up being.
You know, Signorina Texas, when I really dove into the nitty-gritty of this approach, to better understand it, the only thing I felt was... Admiration.
The weapons they deploy are profits and negotiations, not violence and bloodshed.
Wallach: What do the courts here in Siracusa have to do with the so-called law?
Look at it this way. In most Siracusan cities, standing trial and going to jail is a common coming-of-age ritual for a young mafioso. After that, his famiglia associates go pick him up, like a warrior returning home triumphant. Everything on the surface here is meaningless to those who live by the underworld's ways.
'A complete joke.' There's no other way to say it. But that's why we were able to establish ourselves here so easily.

Even the Siracusan civilians seemed to take notes from the Columbian upstarts.

Leontuzzo (speaking of Caracci): I just thought there were some similarities in the way I saw things and the way he operated. The days when problems can be solved with fighting and killing are over, padre mio.
He knew exactly how to deal with the famiglie, and that went beyond just being tactful. He knew how to help them under the table while also getting them to serve his interests. A lot of what he wanted to do would've been blocked by various famiglie, but in his hands, he always managed to get things done, step by step.
Rubio: [Caracci] showed me how to deal with the famiglie in a comically simple way— He offered them goods they couldn't refuse. Benefits.

Granted, for the last seven years, these have not been the methods of Guiseppe Texas, but of Donna Giovanna Rossati, the heir of the Texas legacy and empire.
Even so, she was very thoroughly a Columbian donna. She looked up to Salvadore as an icon, but he was dead. Without him around, the only Columbian wise guys left were of the same cloth and cut as Guiseppe Texas.
Giovanna had no choice but to return to Siracusa, to kiss Lady Sicilia's ring. But only because Guiseppe had made the decision to spit in Sicilia's face.
Guiseppe had no intention of infiltrating and subverting Siracusa with his Columbian mafia tactics; he'd fully intended to break free of Siracusa. Perhaps he was focused on turning such tactics against the local Columbian government.
Given Wallach's contempt for the sham Siracusan justice system, Guiseppe was probably in for a harder battle, though one with a bigger prize.
We'll probably never know.

Sunder's Arknights posts - a collection of links

Hey everyone, I need some help here. For the past month, I've been having this issue where at random times, my phone (brand Realme, model RMX3780) started playing a specific music together with vibration. The issue seems to resolve when I restart the phone, but it keeps coming back every now and then. There is no app open when it was playing, and it seems like I can control its volume on the alarm section for volume.
The music that was playing was this music from a random person with 22 subscriber on YouTube by Young T.
Do anyone of you know how to solve this problem? Is it a malware or virus? And if so, what can I do to get rid of it? Thanks a lot!

Last election: The DDP wins with 41.21% of the vote.
It has existed for less time than a toddler, yet already, the German Republic is in crisis. In 1919, the governing Weimar Coalition of the Center, SPD, and DDP signed the extremely controversial Treaty of Versailles, which imposed massive reparation payments, required extensive territorial concessions, and declared Germany to be responsible for the entire war. Spurred by backlash to the treaty, general anti-democratic sentiment, and military budget cuts, the Kapp Putsch, led by military members and nationalists, attempted to install a centralized, technocratic government with structures similar to the Empire. In solidarity with the republic, a general strike was called; however, left-wing elements sought to use the opportunity to seize control of various governing authorities in the Ruhr region. While the Kapp Putsch was put down fairly bloodlessly, the Ruhr Uprising took thousands of deaths to end. Now, the nation is divided, with leftists more opposed to the military than ever and rightists feeling vindicated in their belief that a more powerful state is needed to prevent unrest and protect property. The governing coalition has also been criticized for extending their authority as a constitutional convention and acting like a parliament — in response, early elections have been called.
The Center Party (Zentrumspartei) is Germany's primary Catholic political organization, having re-emerged. It purports to not represent any faction of society, but rather the entire Catholic majority. Ironically, because of this, it is divided into several factions. The party's left wing favors a commitment to republicanism and working with trade unions, a small minority of them supporting a type of Christian socialism. While the party has not adopted a stance going this far, in the Finance Ministry the Center has raised taxes and centralized tax authority. Some also support forming a broader party of all Christians, but such plans have been rejected. The right wing, in contrast, generally denounces left-wing ideology as being opposed to Catholic values. The marginalization of this wing has led to the party's more conservative Bavarian wing splintering off entirely. The party is led by the centrist Centrist Karl Trimborn, a member of the Reichstag instrumental in the party's founding, known for his humor and for advocating a combination of industrial development and social welfare.
The Bavarian People's Party (Bayerische Volkspartei), or BVP for short, is the splinter party of the Center created by Bavarian Center members. Bavarians have a long history of advocating state sovereignty and decentralization, and they are accusing the Center's leadership of a centralist course via their tax policies. They are also more conservative than the main party, largely opposing coalitions with the SPD. Their economic program is quite corporatist, favoring the establishment of a "farmers board" so they essentially want farmers on the Fed. The DVP does support democracy, though — they are conservative but not reactionary. They are also just as Catholic as the main Center. They are led by Karl Friedrich Speck, a man I could find no ideological information about whatsoever.
The German Democratic Party (Deutsche Demokratische Partei), or DDP for short, represents the left-wing component of German liberalism. Founded almost exactly when the Republic was (in large part by, interestingly enough, Max Weber), it is proud to call itself the party representing the republic and liberal republican ideas of personal freedom. Hence, it is known as the strongest opponent of calls for dictatorship, and is the only party to have no significant wing in favor of replacing democracy with despotism, having opposed both the Putsch and the Uprisings. Let's see how that turns out. While still liberal and in favor of private enterprise in general, it also supports social reforms, a system of negotiations between labor and capital, and even the state takeover of natural monopolies, a policy which has caused much internal controversy. They support the Treaty officially, but this policy has caused a large amount of internal dissent as well. The party's leader, Carl Wilhelm Petersen, is half-Jewish and a strong fighter against antisemitism, and on the party's more economically conservative wing, being a successful businessman.
The German People's Party (Deutsche Volkspartei), or DVP for short, represents the right-wing component of German liberalism. Their platform calls for secular education, lower tariffs, conservative values, opposition to welfare spending and agrarian subsidies, and hostility to socialism — a crucial tenet is private property, which they are the only party fully in support of. The DVP emphasizes personal liberty as its utmost priority, viewing excessive state intervention as wrong even when it comes from majority support. To that end, the party is split on whether a constitutional monarchy or a republic would be better safeguards of liberty. Recently, they've emphasized a need for reform within the system, rather than any sort of overthrow, though some of their members supported the Kapp Putsch and the party's stance on the issue was fairly passive. Unlike other conservatives, they support restoration of great power status via free trade, peace with the United States, and expansion of credit, though they don't radically oppose militarism either. They oppose the reparation payment levels of the Treaty, due to the high taxes it would have to create. They are led by Gustav Stresemann, a foreign policy expert who largely founded the party.
The Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands), or SPD for short, is, you guessed it, the party supporting social democracy. Nowadays, social democracy is a vague term, but back then they were sure that it meant...uh...well, they weren't quite sure either. The party contains support for Marxist historiography, such as the idea of class struggle, and they do consider themselves Marxists and socialists at the end of the day, but they focus more on pragmatic reforms, such as improved working conditions, support for unions, and increased welfare spending. The SPD has come under some controversy from its left for its suppression of anti-democratic leftist radicals seeking to overthrow the state, especially in the Ruhr Uprising, and the left also still resents the party leadership's support of the Great War. The party is led by Otto Wels, a renowned organizer who led the fight against the putschists, and Hermann Müller, the incumbent Chancellor who has thus far focused on social reforms and raising taxes, and opposes any coalition with the DVP.
The Independent Social Democratic Party (Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) or USPD for short, meanwhile, is the front for the aforementioned alienated left-wing social democrats. Founded during the War as unabashed pacifists, they aren't communists, but they are definitely socialists, supporting Soviet Russia, frequently using Marxist language, and advocating for the creation of a full-on socialist economic system. To this end, they are supporters of the movement to form independent councils of workers, though they have distanced themselves from some of the most radical Ruhr councils (while still opposing the military response). With the Communist Party boycotting the elections, the USPD is likely to gain a large amount of the hardline Marxist vote, and the party members are growing more radical by the day, with some supporting full membership of the Comintern. The party is led by Arthur Crispien, a former anti-war publisher who has participated in these Comintern negotiations, despite viewing them as a bad idea.
Last, and probably least, we have the German National People's Party (Deutschnationale Volkspartei), or DNVP for short. This is the most right-wing party, and their three planks are anti-democracy, anti-Catholicism, and anti-Semitism. They buy into the "stabbed-in-the-back" myth about the end of the war, claiming that the loss of the war and founding of the Republic came from intentional sabotage (by, of course, the Jews), and thus seek to restore the Kaiser and reclaim all lost territory. They have a very negative view towards Catholics, who they call "Romish". Unsurprisingly, they have an even more negative view towards Jews: they've banned Jewish membership since their founding, their first ever convention had enthusiastic chants of "without the Jews," and for the last election they produced a pamphlet entitled "The Jews—Germany's vampires!" The party is known for such aggressive tactics, having called for the Finance Minister to be assassinated and spreading racist rumors about Black soldiers occupying the Rhineland. More women than men vote for the DNVP, and women are very active in the party, particularly those concerned with getting rid of prostitution and pornography. They also have a high farmer presence, and strongly support agricultural tariffs. They supported the Putsch in theory, but didn't come strongly in defense of it due to fear it would fail. The DNVP is led by Oskar Hergt, who has behind the scenes been working to make the party more moderate.
So, who will we support to guide us through this crisis and hopefully not create a worse one? Vote here! Also, going forward my system for whether or not to include a party in the poll is based on if they got a double-digit seat count historically — my apologies to the one guy who really wanted to support the German-Hanoverian Party, but they only got five seats.

Piliavin put forward the cost–reward arousal model which aims to explain why people are less likely to help when others are present, considering various factors such as the perceived danger of the situation and the costs associated with helping.

Piliavin Subway Study (1969)

Also known as the "Good Samaritan" study. The aim was to focus on factors that influence whether people help a stranger in distress. The study was conducted on the New York City subway. A ‘victim’ staged an ‘emergency’ by collapsing. The observers recorded how many people helped, and how long it took them to help. Researchers wanted to look at things at what motivates people to step in.
Specifically, they wanted to investigate the following:

• Would an ill person get more help than a drunk person? (the type of victim)?
• Would people help others of the same race before helping those of different races?
• If a model person started helping the victim, would that encourage others to also help?
• Would the number of bystanders who saw the victim influence how much help was given?

The results showed that passengers were more likely to help the ill victim with the cane than the drunk victim. Race had little influence on helping behaviour, although same race helping was more common when the victim was drunk.
Males were more likely to help than females (60% of travellers were male, but 90% of first helpers were male.
There was no significant diffusion of responsibility. Help was generally offered quickly, often within the first few minutes.
The Piliavin study highlighted the importance of situational factors in determining whether people will help in an emergency.
Good Samaritanism: An Underground Phenomenon? (1969)

Real Life Test: CCTV Study (2020)

Richard Philpot and his team compiled a set of more than 200 real-life public conflicts from surveillance video in three cities: Lancaster, U.K.; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; and Cape Town, South Africa.The video cameras tracked spots that hosted crowds of people, such as public transit stations, storefronts, and busy streets. To be included in the study, video clips had to show an aggressive incident without any police or emergency personnel present at the outset.
Philpot and his colleagues were surprised at just how often people stepped forward to defuse tense situations. At least one person in the vicinity came forward to help about 90% of the time.
The high intervention rate was very similar in the three urban locations studied, suggesting that it may persist across cultures to some extent. This suggests that humans have a strong desire to resolve conflicts and help those in need.
While the new research—contrary to some earlier reports—does not disprove the bystander effect, it does reveal that people intervene in certain dicey situations more often than we assume.
“The bystander effect is an individual measure,” he says—it gauges the chances that a single person will intervene to help someone else in trouble. What he and his colleagues did, on the other hand, was test the collective likelihood that anyone in a crowd would help, which will naturally be higher. The new work, Franco says, should be considered in light of decades of psychology research that confirms an individual bystander effect.
“There are various factors that go into people acting and reacting, but for the most part, if the crime is clear, and it’s a serious crime, in almost all cases people will intervene.” Explained Elizabeth Jeglic, a professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.
Would I be helped? Cross-national CCTV footage shows that intervention is the norm in public conflicts

Social Identity

Research has demonstrated that we are more likely to intervene when we see signs of common group identity with a stranger in distress.
In a 2005 study, Manchester United fans were more likely to help the stranger who had an accident when he wore the Manchester United shirt than when he wore a different team's shirt. Signs of shared identity with a stranger increased the likelihood of help being offered.
More importantly, in a second study using the same design, but this time making a more inclusive “football fan identity” salient, Manchester United fans were as likely to help the victim when he wore the Liverpool FC shirt as the Manchester United shirt—but helping levels remained low if the victim showed no signs of being a football fan.
The study demonstrates that being an in-group member is important for being helped in public places—but that the boundaries of who is seen as in-group are not fixed. The more open and inclusive the boundaries of the shared identity, the greater the range of people who are likely to be afforded care and protection.
Identity and emergency intervention: how social group membership and inclusiveness of group boundaries shape helping behavior

The Black Sheep Effect

This willingness of in-group bystanders to challenge in-group anti-normative behaviour which threatens the positive identity of the wider group has been referred to as “the black sheep effect”. It explains situations where group members are prepared to be even more punitive towards a poorly performing in-group member than they are to an out-group member.
Lowe, Levine, Best, and Heim (2012) found that women are more likely than men to intervene to stop female–female fights—particularly when they fight in front of bystanders that include men.
"The women talked about feeling shame and embarrassment when watching women fight and worried male observers would see this kind of behaviour as an opportunity to sexualize or trivialize women in general."
Similarly, Stott, Hutchison, and Drury (2001) describe an intervention by Scottish football fans against a fellow Scot who behaved aggressively towards a Tunisian fan:
“Scottish fans feared that the actions of the in-group member would make people think that Scottish fans are no better than English football fans—who already have a reputation for racist and violent behavior. There is nothing more aversive and identity threatening for a Scot than to be mistaken for somebody who is English.”
Although an apparent contradiction of ingroup bias, people respond negatively to those who act in ways that threaten their group’s identity, particularly when they affiliate strongly with their group.
Conversely, shared group membership with a perpetrator may also result in a positive in-group bias, in which the adverse behaviour of an in-group member may be more readily justified or permitted than similar behaviour by a non-group member.
Identity and emergency intervention: how social group membership and inclusiveness of group boundaries shape helping behavior

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Warning: these are incidents where bystanders did not intervene. Please skip if you are not in the right place to be reading right now.

The phrase bystander effect was coined in the 1960s after people watched or heard a serial killer stalk and stab a woman in two separate attacks in the Queens neighborhood of New York.
- Kitty Genovese, New York, 1964.
Though the number of people who saw or heard Genovese struggle was eventually disputed, her case still became symbolic of a kind of crowd apathy that psychologists and social scientists call the "Genovese syndrome."
There have been some more recent media cases:
- Richmond, California, 2009
Investigators say as many as 20 people were involved in or stood and watched the gang rape of a 15-year-old girl outside a California high school homecoming dance Saturday night in what authorities described as a 2½-hour assault. As many as 10 people were involved in the assault in a dimly lighted back alley at the school, while another 10 people watched without calling 911 to report it, police said.
Criminology and psychology experts say there could be a variety of reasons why the crime wasn't reported. Several pointed to a problematic social phenomenon known as the bystander effect. It's a theory that has played out in lynchings, college riots and white-collar crimes.
Criminologist Jack McDevitt says he believes the California gang rape was too violent -- and lasted too long -- to be the result of the bystander effect alone.
McDevitt, who specializes in hate crime research, says the male witnesses may have kept quiet out of fear of retaliation. In his research, witnesses who live in violent communities often fear stepping forward because snitching isn't tolerated.
Snitching could also bring dangerous consequences to their friends and family. "They don't believe the system will protect them from the offender," he said. "They think the offender will find out their name."
Police: As many as 20 present at gang rape outside school dance - CNN.com
Gang rape raises questions about bystanders' role - CNN.com
- Septa Train, Philadelphia, 2021
Passengers failed to intervene as a woman was raped on a train in Philladephia. Original reports stated that observers filmed the attack on their phones instead of helping.
Again, the story was proven to be not entirely accurate. The Delaware county district attorney said this portrayal of bystanders callously videoing the crime was “simply not true”.
While the alleged interactions with the victim took place over 40 minutes, starting with unwanted talking and then groping, the rape lasted about six minutes. Other riders were not on the train for the entire duration of their interaction, and might not have known what was happening.
Surveillance video from the train revealed two passengers raised their phones toward the assault, and that one of those provided their video to authorities.
But to dismiss the story would also be a mistake, say the people who actually live in the communities served by Septa and who ride its trains.
Septa passengers in Philadelphia and the suburb of Upper Darby didn’t find the notion of uncaring bystanders all that implausible, based on their own concerns about safety predating the rape. When presented with the fact that initial descriptions of uncaring bystanders appeared to be untrue, the consensus was that it made little difference.
“There’s no way you cannot see a sexual act,” said Victoria Evans, 38. “I would have rather taken my chances intervening than not saying anything.”
Evans, a certified nurse’s assistant, said that body language should have made people think twice about what they saw. “It would look uncomfortable. You can tell the difference. There’s no way nobody knew something was wrong.”
Why accounts of Philadelphia train passengers not intervening in a rape spread US crime The Guardian
- London Tube, UK, 2023
A 20-year-old woman was raped on a tube train in front of a horrified French tourist and his young son.
It was broad daylight, and there were other people in the tube carriage. She should have been safe. She’d fallen asleep, missed her stop, and ended up at the end of the Piccadilly line. But still, on a weekend morning in a bustling city, she should have been safe. And yet, hauntingly, she wasn’t….Something about this story, which unfolded in the space of just two tube stops, punches through all women’s comforting illusions about when and how we are safe.
How could anyone not intervene in a rape unfolding in front of them?
Yet the judge noted that the fact that the French father had returned to Britain to provide evidence that helped secure a conviction suggested it wasn’t because he didn’t care. Which leaves the uncomfortable and more morally complex possibility of a parent alone with a young child, facing someone evidently dangerous enough to commit an unthinkable crime, forced to decide whether intervening to help someone else’s daughter would put his own child at risk…
The whole thing stirs memories of a notorious attack on a woman on a train in Philadelphia in 2021, where initial reports suggested none of the other passengers came to her aid and some even callously filmed it on their phones. But later more nuanced versions emerged of a slowly unfolding horror that began with the attacker trying to strike up an unwanted conversation, then groping his victim, before finally progressing to rape...
Research suggests that far from standing around gawping, people who witness violent crime surprisingly often intervene to help – and not always the people you might imagine.
The 74-year-old Conservative MP (and former SAS reservist) David Davis reportedly stepped in to prevent two men viciously attacking a homeless man on the street in Westminster.
When the soldier Lee Rigby was brutally murdered on a London street in 2013, it was a 48-year-old cub scout leader called Ingrid Loyau-Kennett who got off a passing bus to help and ended up keeping Rigby’s agitated, blood-soaked killers talking. (When asked afterwards what had given her the courage to intervene, she explained that she used to be a teacher: someone used, perhaps, to imposing authority and quickly assessing overheated situations.)
The author of the article tells her own story:
"Now that I am also a middle-aged woman, that surprises me less than it did. A man confronting a violent man must be prepared to fight, with potentially lethal consequences, but an older woman intervening might sometimes be read as less of a threat.
Or perhaps we’re quicker to recognise the danger signs: the man staring wolfishly at a young girl on the bus, pressing too close, pestering her into a conversation she clearly doesn’t want to have. Which is, of course, how the Philadelphia attack started."
If a woman can be raped in broad daylight on a train, there are tough questions for all of us Gaby Hinsliff The Guardian

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Conclusion

There are obvious humanitarian norms about helping the victim, but there are also rational and irrational fears about what might happen to a person who does intervene. "I didn't want to get involved," is a familiar comment, and behind it lies fears of physical harm, public embarrassment, involvement with police procedures, lost work days and jobs, and other unknown dangers.
Rethinking the Bystander Effect in Violence Reduction Training Programs - Levine - 2020 - Social Issues and Policy Review

What to do: Distract, Delegate, Document, Delay, Direct

Kelly Erickson trains people in bystander intervention for Hollaback, a national organization that teaches people how to disrupt violence and harassment.
She said people can take simple actions to interrupt the violence.
“You can ask a clarifying question, like ‘woah woah what’s going on here?’ or ‘hey when you said this, what did you mean by that?’” Erickson said. “And then you’ll know if you need to step in with another intervention or perhaps it wasn’t what you thought it was. It also alerts others. When someone does something, other people are listening.”
Once other bystanders notice action, it starts to build a support system, it might encourage someone else to have the back of the person who is trying to intervene.
The five Ds are not a linear progression. They are tools to have in one’s toolbox for emergencies:

• Distract: Creating a distraction to de-escalate the situation, such as dropping your coffee or sounding an alarm. “You could tell yourself a joke and bust out in laughter. Erickson said this one is great for people who are comfortable being a fool in public.
• Delegate: Finding someone else to help, maybe even the person next to you. You start to create a bubble of safety around you and around that situation by getting others to help.
• Document: Creating documentation of the incident and then giving it to the person who was harassed. If the violence is ongoing, make sure to get the person being harassed/assaulted help before documenting the harassment. The victim should decide what to do with the documentation or how to tell their story.
• Delay: Checking in on the person who experienced harassment and ask them what they need.
• Direct: Setting a boundary with the person doing the harassing, and then turning your attention to the person being harassed. If you find that stepping in directly would cause an outcome that would escalate the situation, then try something else.

I've got long and damaged hair. Naturally it is wavy, it's soft blow dry in this pic and unbrushed for a few hours. My eventual goal is waist length hair.
I bleached my hair from 2020-2021 all over with strong bleach every 8 weeks, so I've been trying to recover my hair. The last time I box dyed it back to its natural brown was October 2023.
I know I need a chop for my damaged ends, but want to keep some length if possible. How much should I chop? Or how do I get rid of these stringy ends??
Here's my current hair care for the damaged ends:

• sleep with a silk pillowcase
• Sleep in a silk bonnet or loose braid with silk scrunchie.
• Shower with cool water only for hair.
• wash hair every 5 days
• Use post-shower tea tree scalp treatment applied directly to the scalp using an applicator and massaged in
• Massage hair daily with scalp massager lightly
• Oil ends, every other day with light hair oil
• Use shampoo and conditioner that do not contain parabens sulfate alcohols or silicones
• Use hair mask 20 minutes before washing made of coconut or olive oil from roots to ends.
• shampoo your scalp in shower only down to ears
• From ears to ends condition hair or mask let sit for 10 minutes in shower.
• Trim ends as needed for split ends.
• Avoid brushing or finger-comb when possible to avoid breakage
• Air dry hair until 60% dry then blow dry on warm to avoid breakage.
• Blow dry in sections using heat protectant and mousse
• no heat on hair other than blow drying
• never use a coarse towel to dry hair only a microfiber towel or t-shirt out of the shower
• never brush hair when fully wet

It would quite an odd yet tense set of weeks to come given that never did Logan Grimmnar the Chapter Master of the Space Wolves and his Battle Brothers thought he would be happy to see the son of Magnolia the Red and one of the most aged and powerful Inquisitors of all time. High Inquisitor Ursul who upon hearing of what was now recording as the Months of Shame had not only gone out of his way to help protect Fenris from Kysnaros the very moment he heard that Imperial Navy ships had been pulled from a campaign against the Drukhari who had allied with the Emperor's Children to squabble against the Space Wolves. Had personally used his own battle barges and a Chapter of the Thousand Sons loyalists legion known as 'The Paladins Arcana' he commanded since the Horus Heresy; alongside other sanctioned Psykers and soldiers under his command to help lay waste to Kysarnos and the Grey Knights. Where togetehr Ursul's forces and Grimnar's own men laid waste and havoc to Kysnaros's own to the point that had it not been for Bjorn's interceding that it would've resulted in a full-bore slaughter of the Grey Knights, as Ursul wielded immense Psychic strength to not only put down Kysnaros in tandem with Logan, but in anger of the Grey Knights who he resented outright for being what he saw as 'spawn of his Grandfather who first damned Psykers during the Heresy.'
As such in its aftermath would a celebration come wherein the protection of Fenris was made thanks to Ursul's assistance, something that was an oddity given that the Space Wolves and Ursul were not what ones would consider friends nor allies given what had happened on Prospero so many centuries ago. As such it had always been a burning question for the 6th Legion as to why the immensely powerful Psyker would come to their aid not only during the Months of Shame, but against his own Mother when she would seek to bring wrath and ruin to Fenris.
"Been meanin' to ask ya this, since you and your army of witches helped us fight that bastard Inqusitor and his silver clad cunts. Why the fuck do you keep helpin' out? You owe us not a damn thing?" Logan Grimnar questioned the crimson haired Psyker who drank his Fenrisian mead
"You sure you wanna know, Grimnar? It isn't as glorious or worthy of tale and saga as you might think. Besides, I'm just doing my job is all. Nothing more no less, when Ghesmei decided to pull precious forces and men that were needed against our actual enemies to fight a petty squabble against warriors that have done the hard work to protect and serve the Imperium...So I did what was needed to end this immediately and get everything back on track to ending the threat of Chaos for good" Ursul answered back his voice while as biting as being hit by a Kraken Bolter round to the kidneys there was nonetheless a sense of duty and blunt sincerity in his voice
"You may be one of the oldest bastards in the Imperium except for ol' Bjorn. But the fact that you continue to not only help us against your mother, when she comes bringing whatever sorcery and hell from the Warp to our doorstep time and time again. But also, you going out of yet way to help us, when you have no right too after what happened on Prospero when the Wolf Queen was sent to your birth world...That, that I believe qualifies as more than being worthy of saga and heroism." Logan Grimnar said his voice a respectful one to Ursul sticking his neck out for the Wolves against his mother
"Which is why you have the respect of the 6th in spades, you may not recognize it or care to know. When your out there doing who knows what with those witches you surround yourself with, and fighting tooth and nail with either Astartes or the common man. And even coming to help and mentor our Rune Priests from time to time, it speaks volumes of the heart of a true man, and one worthy of saga." Logan Grimnar further spoke
"Thank you, but I am simply a man doing his job. What I do, I do this because the galaxy needs it heroes, and when I was forced to grow up faster than what anyone should when the Heresy struck, as a man barely into his 34th year in this vast galaxy, and having to command those that my father risked his life to save that did not fall to Chaos. I owe it to do the best I can in spite of what happens." Ursul said still remembering the day when his father used all of his Psychic might to travel to Tzeentch's realm not only in search of a way to free his beloved but to stem the tide of Tzeentch's minions and harass the Lord of Change in vengeful spite of what he did to Ursul's mother.
"Then why continue to go out of your way to save our Legion from your mother when she comes to kill us all? I wouldn't blame you if you turned a blind eye, while she unleashed scorched earth. She is your blood after all, and after what had happened, and I know as Bjorn tells us of Prospero's burning when he wakes for tales of times past. And by the Wolf Queen herself, you still stand against her to the bitter end; clashing against her to protect the people of Fenris and the Wolves of the 6th" Logan Grimnar questioned
"Because, no matter how you look at it. We are family in one way or another, the Legions are connected by blood ties of their founding Primarchs, blood ties that even 10,000 years later cannot be so easily broken...This whole mess started when sister turned on sister; from what happened on Monarchia when Juno Guilliman's Legion desecrated it in the Emperor's name. To when Freya Russ and the 6th mauled my mother and her Legion, and damned so many people to a death they did not deserve among countless other examples....All of this coming back to when at the end of the day family hurts family." Ursul said turning his brilliant amethyst eyes to him fully
"That is why I refuse to let the cycle of bloodshed continue. We are at the end of the day family to each other, and I do not like watching my mother hurt what is essentially my extended family. Even if you are an incredibly rowdy and savage bunch, you are family nonetheless and I will not allow family to hurt family if I can help it. THAT is why I continue to aid in Fenris's defense and my forces help the 6th when it is needed and support them in their campaigns. Because, I want to break the cycle of bad blood and violence between what is left of the 15th and 6th, we are family nonetheless and we must work together as brothers regardless." Ursul stated in his reasoning as to why for it was out of duty as it was love for the Legions still loyal he considered his extended family
"That is a noble and damned good reason as I've heard, those Cunts in the Inquisition could take a page out of your book. Maybe then they wouldn't be such uppity cunts to everyone, thinking they can do whatever the fuck they want." Logan Grimnar spoke with a howl of a laugh as he chugged more of his mead alongside the elder Inquisitor
"Believe me, I have been trying to get rid of this behavior since the Inquisitions founding. It has been the source of many headaches when I hear of the sheer volume of fuck-ups new and veteran Inquisitors have caused alike. Honestly, I could write a book about it and still have more to say." Ursul replied having hated to play babysitter to some upstarts that chose to recklessly throw their weight around
"That sounds like it would make a good story to hear, perhaps you would not mind sharing a few stories of your own...We are family as you put it, and I think it may be time that the Wolves of the 6th started returning that courtesy you have been showin' to us. We stand by our own after all." Logan Grimnar said putting a rough armored hand on Ursul's shoulders who finished his mug of Fenrisian mead
"I guess it couldn't hurt to stay for the rest of the feast, plus it would be a great chance to share some stories of my own...I've got one of how Lorna Aurellian's daughter, Ajax and went and beat the holy shit out of the fucker Goge Vandire now that's a story I still love telling!" Ursul said back cracking a smile at his cousins and he decimating the bloody handed High Lord
"Now that is one I have to hear, I've heard legends of that battle from some of the previous Chapter Masters! So come back in and regale us!" Logan said as he stood up offering Ursul a hand
"Alright, if you insist Grimnar." Ursul replied as he headed back inside
From there Ursul would spend teh night and well into the weeping hours of the morning sharing food and drink with the Space Wolves and those of the Paladin's of Arcana that joined him there on Fenris; regaling them of battles past where he'd fought against Drukhari and Champions of Chaos alike. The atmosphere bringing out a joy in Ursul that he'd thought long since lost from centuries of countless service to the Imperium...As it would be with this that he found himself smiling at being amongst family once more, with a feeling that had been nearly lost since Prospero's burning as he joined in cheer and merriment with the Wolves of the 6th.
Hi everyone I hope you like this new installment of a series I'm doing over the Children of the Primarch GF's and their SO's in the 41st Millenium, this one being over Fem Magnus and Starlight's son who is one of the most influential Inquisitors and long-lived Psykers of the era that leads his own splinter faction of the Thousand Sons. With a special thanks to u/Naros1000 for sharing this meme that inspired this short story. And alsk special thanks to u/jfjdfdjtbfbcoming up wth the names for Ursul and Atalanta's son, I appreciate it good sirs.

This story is my true account of an issue i had with a seller on ebay back in 2015. I am new to reddit so i figured now was as good a time as any to tell my story.
A few years back i purchased a small squeeze bottle of my favorite natural rice milk lotion, on a popular auction site called eBay. I purchased my lotion & the seller shipped out fast. Cool! This specific lotion was always out of stock & i hadnt been able to find it for some time now. So you cant imagine how excited i was to find a “too good to be true” discount on ebay, for the full sized bottle. I have since become more cautious..
For reference, the usual price not during the holidays for this lotion was around $50. I only was ever able to afford it during the holidays, & this was mid june so i figured i had really scored big time at $10 less than the sale price.
I just figured they had old stock they were trying to get rid of before the dates expired.. Oh how wrong i was. A week goes by, & i receive my lotion in the mail. Let me stop here & inform everyone that i have severe allergies to most lotions, shampoos & fragrances. But if the lotion is made all natural with real essential oils and no harsh chemicals, my skin doesn’t react at all. I have eczema.
I blame my childhood self of drowning my skin in bath & body works for my abrupt adult allergies to benzene’s & other similar 15 letter plus chemical ingredients. But I digress. Im fine lol
So i get the lotion in the mail & immediately put it in the fridge to chill. I notice there are no other packaging or letters to accompany the lotion. Not a big deal, but having 15 years on ebay as first a seller, then a buyer.. sellers usually are really big about giving thank you cards & not so much just chucking the merchandise into a box with no protection. Its highly encouraged to get yourself out there and protect everything in bubble wrap as apart of the packing instructions.
The red flag🚩 i quickly noticed that the return address had been cut off of the shipping label with scissors. Okay..thats bad considering if i needed to return the merchandise & ebay for some reason doesnt work with me or the seller doesnt have returns & the system refuses my return, i wouldnt be able to return it for my money back if it where say, expired. Or not as described. They would just tell me to try & “work it out with the seller.” & more often than not, you get ghosted if they are being dishonest anyway.
So i take the lotion out of the fridge, & i pop the cap. There is no safety seal in place🚩i tell myself, Ew, this lotion has always had a safety seal! Against my better judgment & i already know this was stupid but at the time i wasnt fully on the “this seller has duped me” train yet. I squeeze a small dollop of lotion out onto my fingers & fully expecting the fragrance of medicinal essential oils to hit me, i was met with…nothing. Nothing!? I wipe off the lotion onto some paper towels now concerned. This lotion was also a lot thinner than normal.
Thats when i realize there is a smell, but it is very faint. Almonds. Cherries? Damned if it wasnt jergens!!! A dollar store lotion i often used to get but had developed a severe allergy to in the past few years. That is when i notice my fingers starting to itch & burn in painful pinpoint areas on my fingertips. I hadnt washed my hands. I drop the lotion bottle on my bed & run for the bathroom sink, dowsing my hands in cold water & rewashing them as the tissue under my fingernails begins to flare.
After my small panic attack in the bathroom i come back, take 2 benadryl & sit & think. I angrilly toss on a glove from a hair color kit i had, and toss the lotion back into the box. I have my husband tape it back up. I use my good hand & start scrolling through my order history, landing on the lotion sale. I scold myself for not looking at the seller history before ordering, my tired lapse in judgment getting the better of me.
I go through & find multiple negative feedback where the seller had all but insulted every negative feedback given. They always had something to say to try & cover themselves. Batch inconsistency excuses, blaming the buyer for their mailbox being in the sun multiple times for different reviews etc
Having the experience i do with wonky ebay sellers, i start with pictures. My hand, now fully flared. The item, with no seal & layed in its box. I typed out my findings as clearly as possible, & the seller immediately rebutted with a “clear buyers remorse case” & somehow had the case dismissed! I then attempted to appeal, but was told ebays decision was final & automated.
I message the seller asking why they refused my return request, and was met with the sobering response “you can return the item at your own expense anytime you like😊” and i was then ghosted. I responded with my explanation, & a photo on the shipping label with his address cut out. No one ever replied.
the next night, i respond steaming with the rage of a woman who has been wronged at this point, with “if you wish to play with my health, then we will play your game sir. Good luck.” I get a response less than 2 minutes later, swearing me out & for lack of a better word, calling me every feminine insult in the book, in the most foul of wording possible. & generally just mocking me in general. I receive TEN emails through ebay of him egging me on to “aw whats the matter, f****** c*** you wont do sh**!”
At this time it is clear to me that this seller has an obvious mental problem & i have the biggest ball in my court. You cant swear on ebay. So i screenshot all of my messages & add them to my “for later” folder & i then contact ebay customer service, this time during business hours.
Im met with a very nice lad who i then invite to take a look at my messages in the ebay system. He obliges & 5 minutes later im met with a chat message in a very serious tone apologizing on behalf of the entire ebay team for their negligence in this situation. & the same spiel of this is not how we want our customers treated on ebay. I am then told that my chat has been noted & a report has been made on my behalf, & im given a link to also report the seller myself in my own words.
I am then offered my money back on ebays behalf. I mull it over & ask, “is this money coming from the original sale back from the seller, or from ebay?”
And He responds with, “from ebay ma’am.” I immediately respond with i would like to ask paypal first. I told him it was the principle of the matter, that i was looking for justice and not money at this point. & he kindly accepts & says that if i need ebay to step in & refund me that all i need to do is come back & give them the reference number he then provided me. & he wished me luck lol
I then report the seller through ebay & flag all of our messages.
My Petty Revenge. I take my folder of photos & email screenshots over to paypal. Ive been with them for years & they have never allowed this type of behavior. & yes, The Crazies of eBay are in fact becoming more & more popular these days. I find my transaction & start a case. I give them EVERYTHING. Including the notes from all of the emails i received. I then report the seller there as well, & lye in wait.
He emails me through my paypal address a week later. I receive a string of insults a mile long calling me a liar. I was told very obscene things & he signed the email very specifically with “i f*** your mother, i f*** your Ala.”
i promise you, i cannot make this crap up. I first had to google who Ala was! For context, Im a 30 year old mother from the south, and am a bit confused at this point because i have no idea who this is coming from, and i have no friends whod prank me like this and the only person ive pissed off at this point Was mr ebay. i have a pretty good idea. The email is a throw away gmail account, and i immediately block and report it as junk, taking screenshots first…id love to leave it there, but I did however being in my late 20’s & not being able to take anything seriously at the time, sent back a single GIF with the vampire from the movie “30 days of night” saying “no god.” I have a sick sense of humor when met with violence!
I receive a quick response from paypal less than 48 hours later after my claim, informing me that the appropriate action has been taken with unit number *** & they take actions of FRAUD very seriously. I was not allowed to know what came of the seller, but their ebay account has since been terminated.
This dude goes POSTAL IRL. I get a letter in the mail 2 weeks later, my address is handwritten, with no return address. The words are simple, & have been typed out “i f*** your mother, i f*** your Ala.” & nothing else. Unrelated, Ive received my refund from paypal at this point, which had to involve paypal forcibly removing the funds from his account.
I take photos of the letter, i then pull his address from his selleshop profile on paypal, & then take the screenshot of the email i received, as well as the photo of the shipping label that had been cut on. The address is in LA…
I then email LAPD & send them the photos & screenshots & tell them im afraid for my life. I was thanked for my email, but due to certain laws i was not allowed to be made privy to the outcome of this “ongoing investigation.”
…omg theres an ongoing investigation!?!?
& thats where it ended.
This was honestly terrifying for me, and its made me a lot more careful to read negative feedback on ebay before i buy anything. Especially if the price is too good to be true, or the seller is mouthing off in response/seems confrontational.
Please also know that i am not insulting, nor have i ever insulted anyone elses religious beliefs💕

Guys pray for me. I’m married to a non believer and a woman who practices the occult. I’ve put up with her practices for a long time out of respect of her, but we have kids and my house is in chaos. There is a spirit of anger, sadness and hate in my house that’s extended even to my children who are always miserable. She has a closet in her room with spell jars and other stuff dedicated to her spells. Pictures of me, the kids —even pictures of my mom in there and other stuff. I just went in there and am throwing everything away. Pray that God protects me. I know that I shouldn’t have married a non believer, but I wasn’t someone who was on any type of meaningful walk at the time and didn’t truly come to Christ until later. Pray that my home is filled with the spirit of God and that spares me from any wrath that my wife may attempt to punish me with for this.
A couple of weeks ago I prayed with a prayer group about this and multiple people there said that they felt the holy spirit was calling me to get rid of certain items in my household dedicated to demonic spirits. I didn’t want to at first because I know that my wife will probably go ballistic. She has a very nasty and argumentative energy even for more basic things and will insult and belittle me for much less. That being said, I’ve been praying a lot recently.
Earlier this week, I was praying and my wife started speaking loudly as my head was bowed and my eyes were bowed. “It’s getting pretty weird in here!!!” She then started intentionally passing gas and doing other things to try to get to me. I kept my head down and focused on God.
Today after church, they talked to us about Elijah and Jezebel. How Elijah had seen God faithful to him many times and the only thing that scared him was Jezebel. How it all of his faith had seemed to escape him and how he forgot how faithful God was to him because he was faithful to God and how he had to be reminded of God’s protection over him even with Jezebel.
Today I witnessed a woman when in a Christian conversation online who came in and basically blasphemed the Lord and said that she was a witch and how our God was nothing and how she only believes in spell jars and other stuff. I didn’t even know much about that stuff. I know that my wife told me that she was into witchcraft, astral travel and she even sees demons sometimes —but I don’t know much about spell jars.
However, I do know that there is a jar full of weird stuff that she keeps in our room. Immediately something told me that that thing in our room had to go. While she was occupied I went and threw it in the trash. Something told me that all of the other stuff —her entire shrine had to go. In her closest she had a wand, a spell book, pictures of me, my kids, and even my own mother’s stuff that was given to me to use —and she and my mom don’t get along —so I have a feeling it’s sinister. There were some cute things of the kids that I wanted to keep but something said, “ALL OF IT! EVERYTHING IN THIS SHRINE!” So threw everything away. All of it.
After I did that, I prayed and asked God to bless oil that I had and anoint the area and the children. I asked God to have the place as a place for him.
My entire marriage, I’ve tiptoed around her. I even let her open our marriage at one point because she told me that she wouldn’t continue the marriage unless I allowed her to open it. I allowed her to do porn online even though I told her I was uncomfortable with it because she begged me. I was so afraid to loose her and the kids so I’d let her do almost anything. Now I just want to protect my household. I wasn’t a Christian then, but I put my faith in God and she is no longer my God that I fear has power over me. I’ll follow the Lord and do what’s best for my family and my kids do not need to be around all of that demonic energy

Hey everyone, I need some help here. For the past month, I've been having this issue where at random times, my phone (brand Realme, model RMX3780) started playing a specific music together with vibration. The issue seems to resolve when I restart the phone, but it keeps coming back every now and then. There is no app open when it was playing, and it seems like I can control its volume on the alarm section for volume.
The music that was playing was this music from a random person with 22 subscriber on YouTube. https://youtu.be/RpcYHVqaD9M?si=XdIG5ZiuP3isvbJt
Do anyone of you know how to solve this problem? Is it a malware or virus? And if so, what can I do to get rid of it? Thanks a lot!

TLDR: Looking for advice on tuning an aggro Lurrus companion deck. Looking for it to be strong and resilient in a meta with a lot of graveyard focused decks. No hard budget, but I'm trying not to spend above $5~ per card.
I really want to build [[Shilgengar, Sire of Famine]] but didn't want to get rid of my [[Bartolome del Presidio]] deck, which was doing similar stuff; so, I remade the deck with [[Lurrus of the Dream-Den]] as the companion. I have solid idea for what I'm doing, but I'm having a hard time finding the 'right' cards while following the 2 mana restriction.
I want the deck to be really aggressive; and ideally use commander damage to win, sacrificing anything I need to keep Bartolome/Lurrus out, and then rebuilding quickly.
I'm pretty happy with how the deck plays generally, but I'm looking for some good aggressive creatures, and ways to bring things back from the graveyard besides Lurrus (plus other ways to 'cheat' and use her ability multiple times). My meta also has a lot of graveyard focus, so I need some ways to protect my graveyard, aside from just reshuffling it, and probably some less salty graveyard hate than some of the effects I have.
Any other ideas/suggestions for running a more combat focused Lurrus deck? I'm a little worried I have too little instant speed interaction, but having permanents has just felt better so far.
Thanks for any help!