There is a curious dynamic at work in politics these days. Trump does not appear to be trying to court voters to his standard. If he were, he would be reaching out to Nikki Haley voters and trying to moderate his stances. Instead, he is rejecting her voters and doubling down on extreme positions. Rather than trying to appeal to swing voters, he seems to be trying to whip up his right-wing base to engage in violence on his behalf. In Minnesota on Friday, Trump echoed fascists when he told supporters, "No matter how hateful and corrupt the communists and criminals we are fighting against may be, you must never forget this is not a nation that belongs to them. This is a nation that totally belongs to you. It belongs to you. This is your home, this is your heritage." Saturday, at the annual meeting of the National Rifle Association in Dallas, Texas, Trump floated the idea that he could throw out the constitutional amendment limiting a president to two terms. “You know, FDR 16 years—almost 16 years—he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?” he asked the crowd. Some yelled, “Three!” In the same speech, Trump told attendees that the Second Amendment “is very much on the ballot” in November, and he urged gun owners to vote and to “be rebellious.” Then he told the crowd that Biden’s actions were such that if he “were a Republican, he would have been given the electric chair, they would have brought back the death penalty.” This evening, Trump’s Instagram account posted a video of what a newspaper would look like after a 2024 MAGA win. Under the headline “WHAT’S NEXT FOR AMERICA?” were the words “INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED DRIVEN BY THE CREATION OF A UNIFIED REICH,” a clear reference to fascism and German dictator Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. It is not clear to me how anyone can any longer deny that Trump is promising to destroy our democracy and usher in authoritarianism. But it is also not clear that he is still a figure that any but the extremes of his base will follow to that end. Hence his emphasis on turning them to violence. His lies have become increasingly outrageous. On Friday he told a crowd in Minnesota that he won the state by “a landslide” in 2020 even though he actually lost it by more than 7 points. At the NRA annual meeting, Trump claimed that his former physician told him he is “healthier” and “a better physical specimen” than the famously athletic former president Barack Obama. At that same event he boasted that he won 31 club golf championships; the day before, he boasted that he won 29. Significantly, he continues to insist that the area around the courtroom is like “Fort Knox.” “There are more police than I’ve ever seen anywhere because they don’t want to have anybody come down,” he said today, “There’s not a civilian within three blocks of the courthouse.” But this is, quite simply, a lie. Virtually no one has turned out to support him. As conservative lawyer George Conway noted today, “There is virtually complete freedom of movement around that courthouse.” Social media contributor Eddie Smith, who filmed the handful of Trump protesters in New York today, put it more colorfully. After noting that “MAGA’s not repping in New York,” he added: “Wait a minute! You guys hear that? There is a mouse pissing on a ball of cotton in China. That’s how quiet it is out here.” Republican lawmakers are stepping in where Trump’s base followers are not. Republicans attacked as unfit for office 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server. They tried to impeach current president Biden on unfounded accusations that he took bribes from foreign countries. Now they find themselves forced to defend a man who is currently the defendant in a criminal trial that is showing that his associates acted like a criminal gang. As Tom Nichols put it today in The Atlantic, that defense is partly because they are afraid of their own voters. Nichols also called out those “now circling Trump like the cold fragments of a destroyed planet” who “resent the people who stuck to their principles.” Those MAGA Republicans lawmakers are, like Trump, trying to gin up anger with lies. Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), who went to Trump’s Manhattan trial to support him on Thursday, told Jesse Watters of the Fox News Channel and later posted on social media that “[t]hey’re trying to keep cameras out of the courtroom so that the American people don’t see what’s happening.” Former federal prosecutor Ron Filipkowski noted in response that “New York has banned cameras in courtrooms since June 30, 1997.” The most important of their lies, though, is that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and that to protect the 2024 election, it is imperative to police the election. This is the same tactic Trump used in 2020, claiming exactly four years ago that “they send in thousands and thousands of fake ballots.” Those lies have resulted in a huge increase in threats against those whom MAGA perceives as an enemy. Danny Hakim, Ken Bensinger, and Eileen Sullivan reported in the New York Times yesterday that last year, threats against federal judges increased 150% over 2019: 450 federal judges were targeted. Since 2018, threats to members of Congress have increased by 50%, with more than 8,000 such threats last year. More than 80% of local officials also say they have been threatened or harassed. MAGA lawmakers refuse to say they will accept the results of the 2024 election. On Saturday, Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson refused to commit to that fundamental tenet of our democracy. On Meet the Press on Sunday, Florida senator Marco Rubio also declined to say he would accept the election results. Those vying for the Republican vice presidential nomination, including North Dakota governor Doug Burgum and South Carolina senator Tim Scott, have refused to say they would accept the results. Their tactics are working among the Republican base. A CBS News/YouGov poll released this weekend showed that only 47% of Arizona Republicans say they will accept the results of the 2024 election no matter who wins. An equal number—47%—say they will challenge the results if the other side wins. That result is not symmetrical with the Democrats: 82% of them say they will accept the results, while only 14% say they will challenge the results if their opponents win. But people are pushing back against the MAGA narrative. On May 15 the Texas Tribune and ProPublica published a story by Jeremy Schwartz about Courtney Gore, a woman who ran for a Texas school board to combat pornography and critical race theory in the schools, only to find there wasn’t any. When she told the public, her former colleagues turned on her. “I’m over the political agenda, hypocrisy bs,” Gore wrote. “I took part in it myself. I refuse to participate in it any longer. It’s not serving our party. We have to do better.” Steve MacLaughlin, a meteorologist for NBC 6 News in Miami, reported on a new law Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed into law last week that will remove references to climate change from state law. “On Thursday, we reported on NBC 6 News that the government of Florida was beginning to roll back really important climate change legislation and really important climate change language in spite of the fact that the state of Florida, over the last couple of years, has seen record heat, record flooding, record rain, record insurance rates, and the corals are dying all around the state,” MacLaughlin said. “The entire world is looking to Florida to lead in climate change, and our government is saying that climate change is no longer the priority it once was. Please keep in mind, the most powerful climate change solution is the one you already have in the palm of your hands: the right to vote. And we will never tell you who to vote for, but we will tell you this: We implore you to please do your research and know that there are candidates that believe in climate change and that there are solutions, and there are candidates that don’t.” On May 17, former lieutenant governor of Georgia Geoffrey Duncan noted on Amanpour & Company that Trump had done less for rural voters than any other president in modern history. “At the end of the day,” he said, “we just cannot get into the business in America of electing dishonest human beings to represent us…. The world’s watching us. I’m hoping we get this right.” Tonight, Sarah Matthews, who was deputy press secretary for the Trump administration, wrote: “Trump’s continued use of Nazi rhetoric is un-American and despicable. Yet too many Americans are brushing off the glaring red flags about what could happen if he returns to the White House. When someone shows you who they are, believe them.” — Notes: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/19/trump-nra-convention-dallashttps://www.rawstory.com/trump-threat-biden/https://nymag.com/intelligencearticle/the-nra-is-weaker-than-ever-how-much-does-that-matter.htmlhttps://time.com/6979795/trump-receives-nra-endorsement-urges-gun-owners-vote/​​https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-trump-minnesota-4f7ebfe7a2e1949d38a7c9894616a985 https://apnews.com/article/trump-election-2024-rhetoric-germany-antisemitism-31002afb91b642c0314223d19e51f427https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/marco-rubio-joins-republicans-hedging-accepting-election-results-rcna153011 https://presswatchers.org/2024/05/trump-choosing-not-to-testify-in-his-defense-should-be-a-banner-headline/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/19/us/politics/political-violence.htmlhttps://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4675594-florida-meteorologist-ron-desantis-climate-change-roll-back/https://captimes.com/news/elections/top-wisconsin-republicans-mixed-on-accepting-2024-election-results/article_2ae8f1e4-1538-11ef-a217-d7802fd5a882.htmlhttps://www.reuters.com/world/us/donald-trump-fire-up-supporters-nras-annual-us-gathering-2024-05-18/,accepted%20the%20influential%20group's%20endorsement)https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/05/the-maga-memory-hole/678435/https://www.texastribune.org/2024/05/15/texas-granbury-isd-school-board-courtney-gore/X: BidenHQ/status/1791469492440072359RonFilipkowski/status/1792195770374099083samstein/status/1792188951920361645HueyRey/status/1792635408506912824mkraju/status/1792515853314904293gtconway3d/status/1792548740525363276eddsmitty/status/1792573721615434037atrupastatus/1792626209118884346BidensWins/status/1791609511435714795BidenHQ/status/1792209690664845569BidenHQ/status/1791946911340999113CarlosGSmith/status/1792207611733172238Tim_Walz/status/1791620309105119419BidenHQ/status/1791949552469082444AccountableGOP/status/1791661408641298808SarahAMatthews1/status/1792760772193374274

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-20-2024

Some backstory: They moved a guy to my hall who is super had to do alone which is fine but when I work alone with one girl she refuses to help me with anything. She always says "if i can do it alone theres no reason you cant" even tho shes got probably a foot on me and shes a little bigger but shes super strong. We are a small facility and I'm the only one who will work work with her so our shifts usually just have us 2 and the other shifts have 3. So far my hall was basically all hoyers and 1 assists so it was okay until i got this guy. She's one of the favorites so she gets away with a lot, never washing people up, doing get up and then not laying anyone down or changing then until after lunch, spending prob 9 hours of her 12 hour shift outside smoking or in the breakroom, not helping with meals ect. Shes banned from the hall i work bc of neglect to a resident and she didnt even get talked to they just moved her to another hall, they even offered to move that resident so she could keep her hall. Other people have been banned from rooms over this or that and they have always suspended them for a shift written them up and they we not allowed to go to that hall unless it was for assists. She's buddy buddy with the bosses and the nurses and they don't care to hide their favorites. I took 1 Saturday off for a coworkers wedding, I put my time in first for 1 day and the coworker and nurse took the whole weekend bc of the open bar at least a week after me and both of theirs were approved and mine was not.
The guy was in bed so i thought id try bc he's easier when hes in bed and I tried and I hurt my back. I could still walk and I still had to finish out the shift but I was fighting tears the whole time, I went and got her and she was pissed and rolling her eyes but I'm think it's bc I was crying that she actually came to help me. That was before supper, he was the last one I needed to get in and then I had to watch the dining room and do my 3 feeders. Usually I walk around and feed 1 a bite and while they chew feed the next one and so on so but I had to sit and do 1 at a time so I was late getting people out before night shift came. That girl was walking up to talk to the nurse and saw that I had almost everyone still in the dining room and was pissed at me again. She help me get people out and she did all the transfers but everyone could tell she was mad. Once I clocked out and went to my car I started bawling bc of the pain I called my mom amd she said I needed to call my boss so I did and I went to urgent care. My boss didn't even ask if I was okay, just told me I needed to get drug tested and I'll be written up next time I come in bc I should've gotten help. Once he moved to my hall I told her she won't help and she said she'd have a chat with her. I doubt happened but now I'm scared of the retaliation. I'm on a 10 pound weight restriction until Friday when he wants to see me again and I'm supposed to work this weekend with her. They refused to turn my work hours the first 2 years i was there so my license expired and I was told if it bothered me I could pay to get recertification, it took an email from my college basically saying they would call state on it for them to actually turn my hours in (i'm going for nursing and they need to have my cna on file). I know they don't care about me but I've seem how much she gets special treatment and I'm just an extra body to them. They wrote a girl up for asking for help too much bc she would ask that coworker for help with transfers and hoyers and that girl is really short and she told me its a little hard for her transferring everyone so much taller than her so if she's getting in trouble for asking for help with hoyers like we are supposed to whats gonna happen to me? I want to be careful when I go back to work but how can I do that when I'm with her? Could they try to get my license taken away because she is refusing to help? What am I supposed to do when it's just us the nurse wont even turn a call light off let alone do any cares. I'm stuck and I rly don't want to lose my license. This is my first time ever being written up for anythjng before and I'm scared

I (24F) suspect my close friends Jane (22F) and Mike (25M) are in a relationship with each other, but I'm not sure of it. I had my suspicions, but I always just chucked it up to them being comfortable with each other, but recent events have brought things into perspective.
For context, Mike and I became friends at the start of the first semester in our 3rd year of college. We are in the same major (same as Jane), and we bonded over some 2nd year courses we both had to retake due to some issues. Mike and I have become good friends since then. Our rented apartments are a short walking distance apart, so sometimes I go over to his during exams so we study together and share notes and texts, and other times I just go there to hang out and chill with his flatmates, and vice versa. I stay alone, though. At the time, neither of us were close to Jane; I wouldn't call us friends (with her), but there was also no enemity or anything; we just casually exchanged greetings whenever we bumped into each other or when we met in class.
Jane and I had always attended the same church in college, but like i said earlier, we weren't friends, so we always exchanged hello's and hi's, and that was it. I just knew her as one of the smart/intelligent ones in class. We were both appointed as leaders in different departments in our 4th year, despite the fact that we both didn't want the positions. We bonded over our mutual feelings of how wrong it was that the positions were forced on us even after we voiced out that we didn't want them. Naturally, hello's and hi's progressed to longer conversations, and we realised we had some similar interests and views on certain topics like relationships and marriage, and we also live in the same state and are not that far apart either.
She usually talks about how she can't picture herself in love or in a relationship with someone and usually cringes at display of love, when the topic of relationship comes up or when she sees people gushing about their boyfriends. I found it contradictory since she reads a lot of romance novels, but then there are folks like that. On some levels, I related to her feelings, but I'm not as averse to them as she was. In her words, she said, "It's hard for me to like somebody in a romantic way; I've only ever liked one person, and it didn't last that long." She is not the type to go out of her way to cook or join in meal prep because she doesn't like cooking and finds it stressful, which was something else we bonded over.
Jane and Mike connected through me since I'm almost always with Mike in and out of school. He is naturally a free and friendly person so it didn't take long for them to get close, and so it began: our trio's friendship. We would walk back home together, talking about random things or something related to school. Jane's flat is also not so far from ours, so chilling at each other's place wasn't rare. I still remember the first time Jane wanted to go over to Mike's place. She asked me to come along with her since she was new to the group (by group, I mean including Mike's flatmates) and felt awkward. All we did was just watch movies. That concludes the backstory
Fast forward to finals; we got really busy with projects, seminars, and exams. Naturally, there would be no time for hangouts anymore; at least that's what I thought, but Mike and Jane still had solid communication almost every day and met up quite often. which is why i didn't think much of it when i started meeting up with them again and I noticed the dynamics had changed since i was M.I.A. for while, I was under a lot of pressure that period so i was really focused on school. Now they are done and just waiting for graduation, but I still have some exams to take. Recently, she has been hanging at his place a lot more than before with her younger brother, who recently got into the school.
My reason for making this post is that last Saturday was Mike's birthday, and he asked me to come over for a little get-together of friends. It was really fun. After eating, we cut the cake, and he thanked us for coming. Then everyone was just dancing and having a good time. Eventually, the fun began to fizzle out as it was getting late and people had started leaving. When I was ready to leave, Jane said, "Let's see you off." Then she and Mike followed me out of the apartment, and as we walked, there was this awkward silence that lasted for a minute, which is unusual. I felt out of place, like I wasn't supposed to be there, so I decided to bring up the games they played during the party so we could talk about something instead of the awkward silence that hung in the air, and that was all we talked about till we got to my place and they both went back. There are other things I've picked up on, but this one is the most glaring to me because it has never happened before.
I've been thinking of asking Mike about it, but I don't know if it'll come off as me prying, but I feel like I need to know so I can be self-aware about giving them space or privacy whenever they are together. Some other signs are when she'll want him to support her when we have a disagreement on a topic or when she comes to his defence whenever I'm teasing him about something. She always does it in a she-and-him-against-me kind of way, which I find very odd considering that we are supposed to be friends?. Another sign was the fact she helped with the cooking prep for the birthday and doing the dishes, both things she always firmly says she wouldn't do unless she had to, like when her mom says she should or at her own apartment. Any advice will be really helpful.

TLDR: Baby (13 weeks) won’t nap out of arms. We’ve been practicing for 8 weeks. Practicing is making me miserable. Planning to sleep train in July. Should I cut my losses and just contact nap at this point, or is there something I’m missing?
Baby is almost 13 weeks old. Since the end of March, I’ve been working on the elusive contact-free nap. Based on my Snoo record, I’ve tried in the Snoo least once a day (sometimes twice) 29 times in the last 54 days. We’ve had four successes in total, all under an hour. Twice I put him down awake and he fell asleep on his own, and twice I got him to sleep then set him down and he stayed asleep for another 20-30 minutes or so. A few times I’ve tried putting him asleep on my bed, the baby swing, the doc a tot knock off, or some other more comfortable less safe location … but no bites. We’ve also tried naps in the car and in the stroller (both bassinet and car seat attachments), and he’s only had one nap in one of those arrangements—it was in the bassinet part of the stroller, but I had to keep the stroller rolling.
During the day, he primarily naps in the baby carrier. If you get him in before his internal timer is up, he doesn’t even fight it. (If you get him strapped in a little late in the wake window, he’ll let out his swan song for 15 minutes before passing out.) At night he sleeps great in his Snoo, typically nursing to sleep before bed and during his 1-2 MOTN wakes, but he doesn’t always nurse to sleep! Sometimes I’ll put him down awake and asleep he goes. Even when he nurses to sleep, he’ll sometimes wake up during the transfer. The point of this paragraph is to spell out “sleep crutches” that he does have and the extent to which he depends on them, and to suggest that he doesn’t have reflux since he sleeps flat on his back all night long.
When we try for Snoo naps, he typically cries so intensely that the Snoo almost immediately (3 minutes in) turns off. I’ve tried just sitting there in the room, resetting it several times in a row—you have to do it manually because you’re not supposed to let your baby cry that loud for that long I guess. I’ve tried SITBACK. I’ve tried getting him sleepy before setting him down, but almost nothing pisses him off more than me trying to “Taking Cara Babies” CRIES him into a drowsy state. Once we’ve given it 10-15 minutes of wailing in the bassinet (I’m talking 100% volume, sets-off-your-smart-watch decibel levels), the road forks: I hold him to sleep then keep trying to put him down; I hold him to sleep and just sit or stand in his room for the rest of the nap; I strap him into the carrier for the rest of the nap. But whatever we do at that point, it involves a lot of intense crying and a far less restful nap than he’d have if I just put him in the carrier to begin with, and 2/3 of those options tie me down for another hour or more while I try to keep him asleep.
His room is dark with blackout curtains and is 71-72 degrees (bought a thermostat for his room in particular in case temperature was the issue.) We use a sound machine, and we have a pre-nap routine that mimics the bedtime routine. And of course I’m watching the wake windows; he seems to be a little higher sleep needs than average. He still doesn’t love being awake for more than 75 minutes at a time, especially for that first wake window which typically precedes our practice nap, so usually I start the nap time routine at the one hour mark.
I am struggling to provide more consistent practice than this because I also have a 2 year old son, and when I’m taking care of him, my ability to sink time and attention into the baby’s nap is very limited. When my toddler has other care, I need to be getting work done, so it’s a big loss to spend so much time on the nap. Best case scenario, trying for the bassinet nap takes 40 minutes more of my time than just putting him in the carrier and carrying on with life, but often it’s much more because I get stuck in his room trying to salvage some sleep for him. And of course, various life things come up, too: grandma visits and offers to hold him, we take a trip, we try to hit up library story time, baby gets his shots, etc. While I understand that this is not a great deal of consistency, it’s hard for me to imagine that there are parents of multiple children out there who have much more consistency to offer. Who that is also taking care of other kids has an hour and a half out of every 3 to render themselves otherwise unavailable, multiple times a day, every day of the week? Maybe I’m dead wrong on this point, but I have to imagine I’m offering as much consistency as other parents of multiple kids have offered their younger babies, babies who somehow began to get some traction after months of effort.
I’m feeling frustrated and hopeless. I am going on 8 weeks of making what feels like a lot of sacrifice to encourage independent napping, and I am not really seeing any progress. In fact, I’m starting to feel like it’s not worth it any more. I’ve already accepted that I’ll need to sleep train; we’re ripping off that bandaid on 7/22 and have multiple out-of-town trips planned before then. And the practice naps come at a big cost to me in terms of both time and peace of mind. Right now, I don’t have full time childcare for my baby, so I am already working in the margins. I keep telling myself that it will save me time once it clicks for him, but like we are months into this and have seen literally no return on the investment. With all the stress it has caused me, we are actually pretty deep in the red.
So: should I cut my losses and just lean in to the carrier nap until the end of July? Or is there something I can do to get bassinet napping online? Why does practicing help other babies but not mine//why have we seen no progress at all when practice is touted as the ticket?!

Jón Jónsson was a 41 year old Icelandic man who vanished in strange circumstances in Dublin on February 9th 2019. Despite extensive searches and appeals, no trace of him has ever been found.
Jón flew to Ireland by himself on February 8th with the intention of playing in a poker tournament over the weekend and then spending the rest of the time there with his fiancé as a holiday. Jón arrived into Dublin by himself and checked into the Bonnington hotel in the north of the city, the same venue that was hosting the tournament. He played throughout the night and everything seemed well. According to an eyewitness who was at the tournament, he seemed to be happy and in good form but they did state that he lost €4000 that night. He was also described as drinking a huge amount, enough that people were surprised that he could still stand. The following morning, Jón's fiancé arrived in Dublin, a woman by the name of Jana Gudjonsdottir. She arrived at the hotel around 10am and found Jón asleep in their hotel room. They had a brief conversation and then Jana decided to go downstairs to get some coffee. In the short period of time that she was gone, Jón very suddenly and unexpectedly left the hotel at 11:05am. It has never been determined why he decided to leave but he left behind his phone, wallet and passport, taking only his hotel key card. His family stated that they believed he had a large sum of money on him when he left the hotel but this has never been confirmed.
At 11:07am, Jón was captured on CCTV walking past a pub and a nursing home before exiting onto Swords Road heading towards Collins Avenue. He was last captured on CCTV walking past Highfield health centre. After this, Jón was never seen again. After he didn't return to the hotel all day, his fiancé started to grow concerned. When he hadn't returned by the following morning, Jana reported him missing to the Garda. Members of Jón's family flew over to Dublin immediately and a large scale search was launched with his family, Gardaí and civil defence all looking but no trace of him was found. In the CCTV footage of Jón before he vanished, he appeared relaxed and leisurely, smoking a cigarette and sauntering along. He wasn't followed and wasn't with anyone else. Jón's family are adamant he didn't disappear deliberately as he had just renewed his taxi licence back in Iceland and had upcoming family arrangements that he was excited for. One of his brothers had also described him as "a nice, caring, reliable and stable guy" and stated that he was always open about his finances and that if he needed financial help, he would have just asked his family.
In 2020, a criminal who was incarcerated in an Icelandic prison contacted Jón's family and told them something interesting. He claimed that the €4000 that Jón lost on his first night belonged to an Icelandic criminal who was in Dublin at the time. Jón had allegedly gone to meet him to acquire more funds but things turned violent when the man got angry over his money being lost and accidentally killed Jón. His body was then allegedly buried in a nearby park. On an undisclosed date after his disappearance, both Garda and a local priest received letters that stated that he was killed after losing money and that his remains could be found buried in a park in Dublin. In 2024, an extensive search of Santry Park was conducted by Garda with the assistance of cadaver dogs but absolutely nothing was discovered. The search was subsequently called off. To date, no trace of Jón has been discovered and Garda are now confident that he met foul play. However, with absolutely no sign of him or any solid information on what happened that day, this baffling case remains unsolved.
Sources:https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/watch-cctv-of-missing-icelandic-man-jon-jonsson-released/37855574.html
https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0209/1431288-missing-appeal/
https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/no-results-from-dublin-park-search-for-missing-icelandic-man-jon-jonsson-gardai/a751807446.html
https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/gardai-fear-missing-icelandic-tourist-32118294

I've been a lurker of this sub for not very long, but through every step of this very short journey, this sub has been a fountain of knowledge and helped me process it.
My dad was diagnosed at the end of March 24. He was an amazing, brilliant man - and so well known and loved by many in the town we live in. In February, he was walking 10km a day, and we put his recent weight loss down to that and gastroenteritis.
In March, his stomach started swelling up like a balloon (Ascites) and originally we were told that they think it was small bowel cancer. I then took him back into hospital two weeks later to be drained again of the fluid - and this time they confirmed that they believed it was Pancreatic Cancer and that the small bowel mass was a secondary tumor.
His weight continued to drop, and he was too weak to do chemotherapy and no treatment was given to him. I watched his body slowly eat itself, gasping for energy and calories as he was no longer able to eat much aside from soup and ice cream.
He went into hospital again as the care was too much for me and the family to handle. I wanted to be his son, and leave the caring to the professionals. His body started to slowly give up, but the awful thing was he stayed incredibly lucid throughout. No longer able to walk, he would ask my sisters and I to help him onto the comode - and soon even that would prove too diffuclt with him having a seizure like episode in my arms. After that point, he was bed bound and we opted to not move him.
The last week, I felt the end coming and got him moved to a Nursing Home after spending 14 days in hospital. As we left the ward, he said to all of the nurses "Thank you for looking after me" and shouted "I'M FREE!" as he was taken on a stretcher out of the ward.
Day by day, he was getting weaker, skinnier and more in pain. Dad though had his pride and would hide the pain he was in and didn't even ring his call bell for more medication or pain relief. Yesterday, Dad passed away. He was in terminal agitation, thrashing and pulling away at himself. I told him it was okay to go and told him that I will look after the rest of the family. We listened to his favourite music and he slowly became more and more still and unresponsive. I held his hand and the last hour of him being here felt like a lifetime. He took his final breathes whilst holding my hand, and it was equally a harrowing yet beautiful moment that I was so privalaged and honoured to share with him.
From diagnosis to Dad passing, it was just under two months.
He was such a beautiful man and worked his little arse off to provide for his family - and I will always be grateful for that.
This cancer is a horrific disease which takes the person you know and completely eradicates them. I will forever love you Dad, and I'm so sorry this had to happen to you. You did not deserve this ending, but I'm glad I managed to help you be as comfortable as you can.
To those continuing to battle, the journey is hard and rough. But keep fighting. I'm so sorry.

Where to even start with this one. I promise you it’s not even what you think.
My Dad has been ill for many years with a condition that is now finally stable. He’s had a couple of horrible other conditions running alongside the original, one of which was pretty damn gruesome and still gives me PTSD dreams. There were a fair few surprise trips to the emergency room to get that one under wraps but we managed to get it settled down with the correct medication.
He was generally fine day-to-day, but anything serious that needed to be dealt with he struggled with which left me managing all his medical correspondence and financial affairs went through me for the past 5 or 6 years since he couldn’t mentally cope with any of it and there was me who could step in for him other than the nurses who still attend his house once a day even now since he can’t manage his own medication.
We had quite a good relationship, he’d come over for coffee and chats and would watch silly TV with me, show interest in my life and included me in his hobbies. We spoke a lot on the phone and things generally ticked along quite nicely in between medical problems.
Enter: The girlfriend.
I’ll start by saying I’m not in any way opposed to him having a girlfriend or partner at all. I even helped him do online dating for a little bit since he felt he wanted to get back on the scene after recovering. He met his now girlfriend through friends and ever since she’s been around him things have been off between us. She was living with her long term ex partner and was seeing my Dad at the same time, before leaving him and moving in “unofficially” with my Dad.
I expressed concerns about this situation and have been branded the bad guy, and am being seen as “attacking” him and having a problem with her. I’ve never met this woman. How could I dislike someone I’ve never met? I’m morally opposed to cheating and felt it was my right to say I didn’t agree but I have never once said I had anything against his actual girlfriend, only the decisions she’s made. I tried to be tactical and gentle in my approach as well but this was met with defensiveness and aggression.
I’ve spent the last few years trying my best to help him and sometimes making myself ill with stress because I love and care about him. He’s my Dad.
But now he doesn’t call, only tells me selective information about what he’s doing and has basically moved his girlfriend in full time after about 2 months, they’ve also booked various vacations together and he seems to be spending far more money than he has.
I feel like he has explicitly made it clear he no longer wants my help with anything and is no longer interested in my life. He no longer welcomes me into his life.
How do I get my own life back after I’ve spent so many years tending to his? I’ve had to abandon my hobbies since I had to be on call for him and make room in my life to help in his medical emergencies. I live nearby in case he needs my help, but I now find myself in a place where I’ve gone from being “on call” to no longer needed in less than a couple of months.
How do I adjust to this and rediscover who I am outside of all this mess, so so can start living for myself again?
TL;DR: I spent many years caring for my ill father who struggled with medication and treatment. I did my best and we became close and talked a lot. Now he has a new girlfriend who he has moved in after 2 months and he’s pretty much stopped talking to me. How do I adjust to this jarring change in my life?

TLDR; I may have subluxed my shoulder but the medical providers I’ve contacted either don’t understand HSD, don’t care, or are too busy to help
I’m not asking for medical advice, I am trying to figure out how to navigate the medical system so I can be sure I’m receiving appropriate care.
I slept funny on my shoulder last Friday morning napping on the couch. I ignored the soreness and took ibuprofen until Sunday night when the pain became severe. I really didn’t want to deal with the ER so I waited until Monday morning and tried to get an urgent appointment with my PCP’s office. I was unable to, so I booked an urgent virtual care appointment with a local urgent care chain.
The nurse that saw me yesterday was awful. She rushed me and I didn’t have the opportunity to tell her I had HSD or explain it at all. I tried to tell her that I subluxed my rib a few years ago from picking up a laundry basket. She seemed to think that my shoulder pain couldn't be anything serious because I ‘just’ slept funny and told me it was a pinched nerve. She prescribed prednisone and told me to keep taking the flexeril my PCP prescribes me as a PRN. It seemed like she thought I was drug seeking, and making up how bad the pain was.
I’ve left a few messages with my PCP but it’s a very busy office and I’m not hopeful I’ll hear back today. I’m debating going to the ER tonight because I have hardly slept since Saturday night, I’m in so much pain. My wife’s friend is a PA working overnights at the Ehospital associated with my PCPs office, so I think I might get treated well there. Unfortunately it’s almost an hour away. I can’t drive safely with my shoulder the way it is, and my wife would have to stay home to watch our kid.
I’m just at a loss as to what to do next.

I have a 5m and 2yr old. The only way my baby can nap is if my toddler is distracted, typically with Bluey. My toddler really doesn't independently play. If bluey isn't on, the toddler always wakes baby up early.
First nap is 8:30, we are lucky if I get an hour. Toddler's nap is noon but baby needs a nap again at 11:30. So I put my toddler in bed at 11:30 and baby nurses to sleep. Because of the toddler's nap too early it's been screwing up bed time SO bad. Baby is lucky if he gets 4 hrs total for naps
I desperately need him to nap in the crib. I can't have my toddler watching so much TV and I need the toddler's nap back at its original time.
Baby sleeps AMAZING in the crib at night but won't even let me lower him into the crib during the day. I do everything exactly the same during the day as I do at night.
I'm considering using Ferber, but, honestly I don't think they method will work for him, because once he wakes, he's awake and there's no going back to sleep.
Any tips?

Hello everyone! First I want to shoutout this subreddit for providing so much information to help me narrow down to these two!! I know the ringconn app gives a ton of information/insights and that the oura app gives more insight and less information. But my question is does ringconn give too much information? Does it feel overwhelming with not enough explanation? I’m mostly looking to use the ring for sleep tracking, stress tracking (I’m an NICU nurse), and basic functions cause I can’t wear my Apple watch at work. Thanks so much!

TCAP:
5 Marvin Lakhan: This guy is way more fucked up than people realize because he seemed completely normal. John Kennelly is more popular due to his iconic voice/phrases and getting caught at McDonalds but Marvin is seriously fucked up. He wanted the decoy to fuck the cat with him watching, had graphic instructions that he definitely knew from viewing bestiality porn, and wanted to have sex with the decoy on her parents bed and in every room so she would never forget how he violated her. He tries to play it off like he was just joking and even Chris calls him out on how explicit his bestiality thing was. Tried to claim he wasn’t gonna go ‘all the way’ despite stripping naked in order to fulfill a deal so the decoy would do sex acts with a cat. Kennelly seemed to have brain trauma or some developmental issues which I think helped contribute to his deviancy but Marvin is 100% aware the entire time what he’s doing and unlike Wunderler who might have had the slightly more explicit bestiality chat (the PJ decoy said she had nightmares for years due to how horrible it was and it’s like a top 5 slimy I think on the PJ website). Fucking weird guy who needed way more time imo. I don’t think he’s reoffended but he needed serious help.
4 Lorne Armstrong: classic Lorne, can’t even win a list he’s rightfully on. I think basically everyone knows mostly everything about Lorne but the fact he’s only 4 on this list should tell you how bad it gets. genuinely believed he was in a committed, serious, albeit highly toxic, controlling and unhealthy relationship with a 13 year old girl. His chat is fucking disgusting. He gets jealous over Kayla’s dad’s corvette stating it ‘didn’t have his penis’. Called his dick Mr. Penis, raged over a made up 13 year old ex boyfriend. It’s just so disturbing and so apparent Lorne is highly sick and still to this day has never fully accepted responsibility, resulting in him becoming the community lolcow.
3 Walter Babst: this may seem strange given it’s not Rutherford who actually taught the age ranges of the decoy, but something about Babst just disturbs me so much. His chat genuinely is one of the only ones that made me near sick to my stomach and I’ve read part of Wunderlers. It’s so gross how he de ages all of his terms, he seems genuinely upset she started her period, obviously implying he wanted to be able to cum in her without consequences which is fucking horrific. He treats her like a doll and commands her what to wear, and the worst part of all of it is Babst is a smart guy. He immediately knew he was caught and going to be arrested, and that what he was doing was wrong. He obviously had been tortured by these demons for so long and finally couldn’t resist and decided he was going to do it. What’s even more disturbing is the guy was highly over qualified apparently to teach high school and is one of the only predators to ever have a better life after getting caught. He works at still and I believe is a manager or upper management at an engineering/physics firm I think? So did he become a teacher to sort of sate the desire? Maybe he was at the phase were merely creeping on his freshmen female students and catching some inappropriate down shirt glances or gross butt staring was enough to get him off.
2 Chuck Harding: truthfully, this guy and the piece of shit at #1 are so close in how horrible and disturbing they are it almost doesn’t matter. The decoy said they’re glad Chuck is dead and most of society should be as well. He was a serial groomer, likely rapist of multiple unreported boys. He told the decoy that he could be his grandpa, he wanted to go to Disney with the decoy in public and pretend that Chuck was his grandpa. He lived in Anaheim near Disney and I can only imagine the depraved shit Chuck did living that close it was NOT a coincidence. A disturbing, completely child porn brain rotted husk of a human who seriously had no qualms with what he was doing and even gets defensive and almost confrontational with Chris. If that was it I’d argue he’s still in my top 10 but then they find not only did he have CSAM, he had tons of it, mountains of it. Not only THAT, but some of it was dated back like 35 years old. NOT ONLY THAT, it was discovered that basically for that length of time Chuck had been a part of a CSAM exchange and honestly probably creation ring. An absolute monster, truly probably the worst person they ever caught, and again you can swap Chuck with #1 if that’s how you feel. Chuck’s segment is almost not even funny just like the next guy because of how absolutely disturbing and sick these men were.
1 James Wiles: Who else. Now comes down to your individual morality of what’s more horrific, being a 40 year long pedophile participating in a CSAM exchange and again probably also creation ring, or allowing your own flesh and blood daughters to not only be raped by yourself, but your sick brother as well. It’s just beyond the pale for so many predators, because it’s real. His daughters have done interviews I’m pretty sure and they said when he died they celebrated, that one of them had to take a picture and she keeps it to know he’s actually dead. Just a complete and utter piece of trash who I am genuinely happy is dead and if hell exists he is there. Horrific, disturbing, he’s like Westerbeck the improved edition.
Dishonorable Mention slotting between #2 and #3 imo is JPW. He’s just too fucking funny for me to put here but his life is insane and he did some horrible stuff, definitely could be on here had some of these other guys not been worse.
HVP/Takedown
5 Brian: This one will be short because outside of the stuff I want to really talk about he doesn’t have a lot of personality but something so he’s going at #5 below the next guys. This dude openly admitted to having had sex with multiple minors prior to the sting and ultimately what gets him on here is he is wearing and always wears the necklace one of his victims gave him, and it definitely seemed like he wore it for his own sick pleasure.
4 Donnie: This interaction is a top 10 of all time in my book. Takedown has a lot of stinkers and boring interviews and stings because there’s no long form decoy work, but wow, this guy and Brian, also caught in this sting are just doozies to me. Donnie wanted a dad to basically pimp his own daughter out to him, have the dad watch him fuck his daughter, then engaged in sex acts with the father and then all three of them would have sex together. He openly admits in the decoy interaction to an undercover cop posing as the father he’d done this exact scenario before or something similar and is sickeningly smug and ‘kind’ to the decoy portraying the kid. He states that parents should ‘be more involved’ in their children’s sexual development and exploration that it was good the father was going to participate in the rape of his own 13 year old daughter. His interview with Chris is no less shocking as he just further admits that he’s done it before and enjoyed it. Absolutely insane interaction.
3 Michael Gentile (or Popovich): These guys are almost the same in my book, slightly different flavors of disturbing and perverted old men. I’ll focus on Gentile. Just a fucking creep pedo who definitely had done this before, wanted to film child porn in his hotel room, only lived an hour away so why did he need a room? Very, VERY adept at grooming and knew instantly it was a sting when he entered. Calls his wife the witch and expects her to bail him out. His texts and voice mails and phone calls are absolutely vile and just pure filth. Really disturbing. Perhaps could be swapped with Donnie but something about the way he speaks, his confrontational nature with detectives despite having one of the grossest chat logs and decoy encounters, his evasiveness, just makes me rank him higher.
2 Jesse Velez: a bit of a cop out because it’s disturbing how this interaction went and how fucking smug this dumbass was realizing that Chris wasn’t really prepared. He is disgusting also no doubt. He wanted a 13 year old boy to live with him and ‘no one would find out’. It’s so disturbing realizing just how manipulative and sick these guys are the second they aren’t 10000% nailed to the wall. He gets arrested and all still but I would kill to see the world where Chris has the full chat and can obliterate this smug, condescending idiot.
1 Steven Buchanan: Who else (again). A short one cause his chat isn’t super outrageous, he’s relatively young, but the most disturbing thing about him is the ‘what if’ scenario. This guy looked unhinged. I don’t know why, if it was the military, if it was just something else that broke him, but this guy was dangerous without a shadow of a doubt. I don’t believe the items that constituted the kill kit were together, like in a bag, but even having those items is highly concerning. Really disturbing to watch and think about the horrible possibility of a real girl had been persuaded to leave her house and get into this psycho’s car.

I have a 5m and 2yr old. The only way my baby can nap is if my toddler is distracted, typically with Bluey. My toddler really doesn't independently play. If bluey isn't on, the toddler always wakes baby up early.
First nap is 8:30, we are lucky if I get an hour. Toddler's nap is noon but baby needs a nap again at 11:30. So I put my toddler in bed at 11:30 and baby nurses to sleep. Because of the toddler's nap too early it's been screwing up bed time SO bad. Baby is lucky if he gets 4 hrs total for naps
I desperately need him to nap in the crib. I can't have my toddler watching so much TV and I need the toddler's nap back at its original time.
Baby sleeps AMAZING in the crib at night but won't even let me lower him into the crib during the day. I do everything exactly the same during the day as I do at night.
I'm considering using Ferber, but, honestly I don't think they method will work for him, because once he wakes, he's awake and there's no going back to sleep.
Any tips?

Andy Murray once he's fully retired - so competitive Chris Hoy Daley Thompson Jess Ennis-Hill Eric Cantona Serena Williams
Which sportspeople would you want to watch?

[Part 1]
Day 3
I woke the next morning from the sunshine in my eyes. My head was resting ever so slightly on Eli's arm as we had both fallen asleep on my bed after I begged him to stay. I blanched in horror at the drool stain I had left on the arm of his white t-shirt.
I began to slowly move myself and retreat downstairs as the memories of the night before came flooding back. How I had broken, screaming in terror, and how Eli had saved me, not knowing the true reason he found me curled up on the floor crying.
As I stepped off the bed, my leg got snagged in the frilly bed cover, and I went crashing to the ground, making quite the noise as I landed. With a yawn, Eli's eyes opened, and I felt myself blushing as he turned to look at me.
We both kind of stared at each other for a moment, not speaking. Eli opened his mouth, then closed it again as if unsure of what to say.
"Coffee?" I asked quickly, filling the awkwardness of our situation.
"Please," Eli said, smiling.
In minutes, I had a pot brewing as I leaned against the kitchen counter. Eli was picking up the scattered photographs from the floor and looking at them quizzically.
"Why do you have pictures of the Harmons?" Eli asked, showing me the photos of the yellow-haired man and his family.
"Is that their names? I found them out in the barn under a blanket," I answered as I rooted around the cupboards for two mugs.
"In the barn? I cleaned it out just last week. No way I would have missed this trunk," Eli said while examining the wooden trunk with its simple rustic hinges. It was plain and unadorned with any embellishments. Basic as basic could be.
"Well, you must have missed it because it was there," I said, putting emphasis on the "was" in a way that reminded me of my mother chastising my father.
"That's so weird," he said, shifting through the photos while sitting at the table. I brought him a cup of coffee and sugar, and he began absentmindedly adding a lot of sugar to his coffee. About six scoops later, he began stirring and sipping it.
"Well, anyways, thanks for coming last night. I wasn't myself, I hope you know that I'm not some damsel in distress," I said quickly, like word vomit, and I even chuckled at the end, feeling like a total weirdo.
"What happened anyway? You didn't say last night," he said, putting the photos down in a jumble on the table.
I paused for a moment, considering how to answer. As I sipped my coffee, I stared out into the yard beside the barn where the scarecrow stood, glancing around the edge of the barn, hanging limply in his hole. His appearance once again sad and dejected instead of murderous and terrifying.
"I was just scared, I had a nightmare, and it just scared me," I said dumbly, trying not to turn crimson again under his intense gaze.
His eyes seemed to cut right through my lie, as if he were staring directly into my being before he simply glanced away out the window. We fell silent again, and I filled some moments by sipping my drink. It seemed to revitalize me; the sun and the company made me feel secure.
"Why were you here anyways?" I asked after a moment.
"I heard screaming, so I came running. I live just on the other side of the grass there, behind the barn," Eli said, pointing to the barn out the window.
"Must be really close, I didn't see any houses on the way in," I said, prying deeper into the situation.
"It's actually a trailer, maybe like two hundred yards from here. I was outside getting some air when I heard you scream. So, I came running," Eli said, finishing his cup of coffee and placing it in between us like a barrier, as if he was hiding something.
"Could you, uh, not do that?" Eli asked, with an uncertain grin on his face.
"What am I doing exactly?" I asked, startled for a moment, my stomach doing a sort of flip.
"It's just that you like stare at people. You've been staring at me for like my whole cup of coffee, I don't think you blinked the whole time," Eli said, averting his eyes shyly.
"No, I don't," I said until I realized he was right. I never noticed that about myself.
"Right, well, I've got to go. I am probably going to start painting today, so you might see me in a bit," Eli said, rising and heading to the door.
"Wait," I said, grabbing his arm for only a moment before releasing it like it was scalding hot.
Eli glanced at my hand for a moment, then at his arm, before he, too, blushed crimson.
"I just wanted to say thank you again. For last night, I mean. Well, what I mean is I appreciate it," I said, my eyes downcast in, for some reason, shame. Like he had seen me at my weakest and it weighed on my gaze appropriately.
"It was nothing, besides I didn't get much sleep with your constant snoring," Eli said, laughing at me.
"I so don't snore," I said, swatting at him but unable to control a smile creeping up onto my face.
After Eli left, I felt instantly colder, my eyes kept returning to the scarecrow. I grabbed my camera from upstairs and went out to the yard. I scanned the dirt for anything out of the ordinary. There was no blood, or anything on the dirt where the scarecrow stood just last night. I slowly made my way to the scarecrow, but nothing happened. I snapped a photo of the inanimate object, and it didn't even flinch. I poked it, but all I felt was straw underneath its clothes. I removed its mask, expecting a severed head, but it was just straw. Nothing was here but straw. I dropped the mask on the ground and took another photo proving it was just straw and nothing else.
An idea struck me as I regarded the source of my torment. If I planned to stay even one more night here, I needed to do something about this scarecrow. I rooted around in the barn, a series of tools hung from nails in the wall. On one hung what I was searching for. An old rusted shovel with a dirty wooden handle that was worn smooth from use.
I returned to the side of the barn beside the scarecrow, knowing for whatever reason this thing only came when night fell and didn't react at all when I moved or touched it during the day.
Before my morning coffee had even settled, I began to dig at the dusty earth, loose and easy to dig, it came away in shovelfuls. Within an hour, I had a fair-sized hole in front of me. Sweat dripped from my brow, and when I wiped under my eyes, they came away black from last night's makeup. Glancing at the field of grass and knowing Eli could appear at any time, I decided to head inside and shower. The hot water was a godsend, and I lingered for longer, letting the water drain down my head and back, my eyes closed, trying to forget the images from the last two nights. I should just pack up my car and leave right this minute. But how could I explain this to my family? I decided to go through with my plan and bury the scarecrow. I could last one more night if I prepared for it.
I left the shower and dressed modestly, in another one of my old rock t-shirts and a pair of shorts. I returned to the yard and with a satisfying push, I dropped the scarecrow into the pit. It fell with a nice thud, and I smiled at my power over it in the day; it's just at night when I should fear it.
As I threw the first shovel of dirt back on top, I heard a noise in the grass, and it parted, revealing Eli wearing the same pair of jeans and work boots, but he had changed his shirt to a plain black one. In each hand, he held cans of paint and a brush.
"Should I even ask why you are burying that old scarecrow?" He asked as he came to stand beside me.
"Probably best if you didn't," I admitted, leaning on the shovel.
"Well, I'm going to anyway. Polly, why are you burying that old scarecrow?" He asked, a rare smile coming to his face.
"Because it's been haunting me at night," I said bluntly.
"Mhm, yeah, okay. Fine, don't tell me. I've been meaning to get rid of it anyway, but normal people take things to the landfill," Eli said with a smirk as he turned to the house and began setting up for his painting.
I finished burying the scarecrow and stomped the dirt down flat. I finished my job by moving my car and parking it directly over top of the spot where I buried it.
Eli watched me curiously but didn't remark. I returned the shovel to the barn and went out into the yard. I decided to go for a hike around the property. I needed some time alone to think and unwind.
As I made my way through the grass, it began to confuse me. This had obviously been a large farmland, but how had the wild plants grown in such a thick, endless maze of greenery?
It gave me an eerie feeling, like I was being watched as the grass covered three-quarters of my body, like there would be something lurking out in the grass, crouched low, waiting for me.
After a half-hour or so, I came upon a clear lake, only big enough to be considered an old swimming hole, I thought as I dipped my hand into the cool water.
I took off my outer clothes and decided to go for a swim. I lowered myself in slowly and reveled at the cool water. The pond wasn't deep, but the water was clean. A small rope swing had been hung from a large oak tree that bordered the pond. It also provided a nice layer of shade that made it the ideal spot to spend the day. I floated on my back in the water for what seemed like hours. The day seemed to slip away from me. A small beach of sand sat at one side of the pond, so I lay out in the sun and closed my eyes. The warm day warmed my soul, and soon I felt myself drifting off into sleep.
I awoke to the sound of crickets and darkness. I couldn't believe it. I had slept through the day; the long nights had finally caught up to me, and now I was stuck far away from the farmhouse. I didn't know if my plan with the scarecrow had worked, and this wasn't the place to test my theory.
A full moon lay overhead, casting a silvery glow on the world before me. A sea of grass swayed gently in the wind, sending shivers down it in shuddering waves. I looked around, but I was thankfully alone, just the crickets chirping along melodically as my only companions.
I had to make it back to the house, so I started on my way, my hands trailing along the tall grass. The pale light played easily on the deep green grass. Step by step, I made my way back towards the farmhouse and the barn, throwing caution to the wind, and I started to jog along, anything to get back faster. I would have to find Eli; maybe if we were together, he could stop it like before.
If I thought the field was creepy during the day, by night, it was a whole new world. Every sound made my heart stop for a beat before restarting in protest. When all of a sudden, the crickets stopped chirping. I dropped to my knees, letting the long grass cover me from sight. Through the strands, I could make out a shape moving slowly through the tall grass, the swish of the plants as it made its passage through them. My heart dropped. Was this Eli looking for me, or was it the scarecrow come for me?
That's when I heard a voice, a voice cutting through the silence. It started off quiet and raspy as it sang an eerie children's song.
"Did you, did you, did you come for me?
Run and hide, don't you know that I seek
The world it claims that I be not clean
When I come, you'll see how filthy I can be.
Tonight, it is happening, tonight you'll see
Beneath the moon, my shadows they do creep.
In this world, at night I shall be free.
Tonight it's happening, tonight you'll see.
When I come, you had better flee, or else I'll come and give my filth to thee."
I was frozen to the spot. It hadn't found me, but it knew I was in the grass somewhere. Now, with each word, chewed up and spat out like it was unhappy with it, now it was accompanied by the whistle of something in the air and a slicing sound as it cut through the grass around me.
It finished another round of its song, but now it stood within feet of me, its blade whistling as it cut. I took a moment to ready myself, and as it raised its blade to cut through the grass I hid in, I dashed out of my hiding spot and slammed into it. But nothing resisted me; I fell through it like it was a ghost.
In a tangle of limbs, I landed hard on the ground and tried quickly rolling to my feet. The blade of its weapon pierced the earth beside me. Now I could see it was a two-handed scythe the scarecrow carried, but something was off, its hands were human. Pale milky skin like a newborn baby. I had little time to examine the creature except for the canvas bag over its head. Two large black eyes came out of the slits that leaked a dark red blood like tears.
It screeched loudly and swung its scythe, but it was slow, and I took off through the grass in the direction of what I hoped was the farmhouse.
I completely gave up all pretense of hiding and sprinted as fast as I could without looking back. The grass seemed to part for me as I ran in terror. I was just glad that in high school, I had taken track as it was paying off now.
I could hear the noise of footsteps behind me, but I never turned. I ran and ran until my lungs felt like they were going to burst Something silver flashed to my left, and I tripped over something hard and unexpected. The wind was driven from my lungs as my chin slammed hard into the earth. I scrambled back, trying to escape, but the scarecrow was on me, its blade flashing angrily in the pale moonlight.
I wanted to move, I wanted to fight, but my body was weak and unable to catch its breath, and I lay there helpless as it swung its scythe towards me. I closed my eyes in fear, but I only heard the thud of dirt before I opened my eyes. The scythe was discarded, and the scarecrow stood staring at me.
It seemed to be struggling with something, one hand reached out towards me only to be snapped back to its side. A roar of rage pierced the canvas sack over its head as it struggled against its invisible bonds. For a moment, I thought I saw something behind it, three sets of hands holding it back. One feminine in nature, and the other two must have belonged to children. In a flash, I saw a beautiful woman who looked vaguely familiar with her long brown hair and plain dress.
"Run," she moaned as the scarecrow swung around wildly.
I didn't hesitate and fled, my breath had returned, and while my body still ached from my fall, I powered on, knowing this was the only respite I would receive tonight.
In the distance, I could see a small sheet metal shape; Eli's trailer was slowly coming closer as I ran, and I beelined it for the trailer. I could hear the footsteps behind me again as the scarecrow resumed its chase after me.
I reached the old trailer and banged on the door as loud as I could; I rattled the handle, but it was locked.
"Eli, it's me. It's Polly, please let me in. Please," I begged as I banged over and over again on the door of his trailer.
Nothing responded to me, and the trailer was dark. The single window in the back held no life inside the trailer. From the trailer, I couldn't tell which direction the farmhouse was in the dark, so I fled into the tall grass and crouched low, watching the clearing around the trailer.
While I caught my breath, I watched the scarecrow enter the clearing, its scythe back in its hand as it circled the trailer. When its raspy voice began singing again low and quiet, only loud enough for me to hear.
"Did you, did you, did you come for me?
Run and hide, don't you know that I seek
The world it claims that I be not clean
When I come, you'll see how filthy I can be.
Tonight, it is happening, tonight you'll see
Beneath the moon, my shadows they do creep.
In this world, at night, I shall be free.
Tonight it's happening, tonight you'll see.
When I come, you had better flee, or else I'll come and give my filth to thee."
The song made me shiver uncontrollably at the lyrics and the voice; it sounded demented like a crazy person letting their demons out into a nursery rhyme.
I lay perfectly still; for some reason, it couldn't find me. This creature I assumed was all-knowing seemed to have some very human weaknesses. It moved and talked like a human, even had certain body parts that were from a human; it even felt human the way it chased and reacted.
The scarecrow moved on through the tall grass, and I let out a sigh of relief as it lost my trail. How terrifying that beast was. In my pocket was the keys to my car. Eli had told me that the farmhouse was fairly close to his trailer. I had to navigate to the car, then drive as fast as I can away from this place. The fact that I hadn't left already because I was worried about money was insane. Who cares, I could drive to Barb's and demand my money back. Go home and just tell my parents the truth. The whole reason for actually leaving home this summer, why I was actually here in this field shivering uncontrollably in fear. But I couldn't think about that now, not now, there will be time to deal with that later. Now I needed to focus on staying alive, getting to the car, and getting out of here.
I went in the direction the scarecrow had; he knew the land better than I did, and every noise I made in the silence of the night made my heart drop. It took all my courage there and then to take one step forward, then another. I felt like I was going to be sick; my stomach was in knots to where it felt like even if I was sick, the only thing to come out would be only bile and stomach acid.
With each careful step, I made my way closer to the farmhouse and the scarecrow. Through the darkness, I could see my goal, the farmhouse, and the barn. Within minutes, I had made it securely to the farmhouse yard.
My car still sat in the same spot overtop of the hole where I buried the scarecrow. In the moonlight, I could see that the dirt had not been disturbed.
The scarecrow was nowhere to be seen, and I cautiously made my way to my car, my keys in my hand as I approached the driver's door. I hadn't locked the car, and it opened on the first try. I turned on my car as quietly as I could, but nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.
Something landed heavily on top of the roof of my car, making it dent inwards slightly. With horror, I saw the scarecrow swing its scythe into the back window of my car. With a crash, the glass shattered inwards; I put my car into gear and roared away down the lane. In my rearview mirror, I couldn't see anything, so I swerved back and forth, trying to shake the creature from the roof of my car when the scythe crashed in through the front window, making a hole just large enough for it.
The glass spidered, and I couldn't see out the window very well. I swerved down the road, but the scythe remained in the car, allowing the creature purchase. In a panic, I spun my wheel wildly, trying to dislodge it, but I lost control, and soon felt something crash into the front of my car. The airbag went off in my face, and I hadn't been wearing my seatbelt. I slammed hard into something else, and my vision went dark. I was in a daze; I must have passed out because I don't remember a lot of what happened next. I felt the car door open with a crunching tear, and it landed loudly as it was torn off. My body being grabbed and tossed on the ground. I felt no pain, just a gentle numbness. I felt blood on my head as I raised my arm to touch my face.
Then just blackness, complete, and empty just feelings, fear, unease, sadness. My eyes opened, and the scarecrow was overtop of me. Pain on my chest and my vision went dark again. Coughing as something poured down my throat. I couldn't breathe, why couldn't I breathe?
My eyes opened one last time, and I saw the scarecrow pouring a dark liquid from its mouth directly into my mouth and eyes. My vision was red and bloody before I closed them one last time.
The words of its song echoed into the emptiness of my thoughts.
"Did you, did you, did you come for me?
Run and hide, don't you know that I seek?
The world it claims that I be not clean.
When I come, you'll see how filthy I can be.
Tonight, it is happening, tonight you'll see,
Beneath the moon, my shadows they do creep.
In this world, at night, I shall be free.
Tonight it's happening, tonight you'll see.
When I come, you had better flee, or else I'll come and give my filth to thee."
The darkness enveloped me, and I felt myself slipping away, the sounds of the night fading into oblivion.
Day 4
When I awoke, it was morning, and I found myself lying in a hospital bed. My head throbbed with pain, and my body ached all over. The memories of the terrifying night flooded back to me, and I shuddered involuntarily.
A nurse entered the room, her kind eyes filled with concern. "You're awake," she said softly, her voice gentle like a soothing balm. "You're lucky to be alive. You were found unconscious by the side of the road next to your car. Do you remember what happened?"
I tried to speak, but my throat felt raw and dry. I croaked out a few words, barely audible. "The scarecrow... it attacked me..."
The nurse frowned, her brows furrowing in confusion. "Scarecrow? What scarecrow?"
My heart raced with panic as I realized the truth. Had it all been a nightmare? But the pain in my body felt too real, the memories too vivid to be mere hallucinations.
I tried to explain, to tell her about the terrifying creature that had pursued me through the night, but she only looked at me with concern, as if I were delusional.
"I'll get the doctor, and there is a young man who brought you in. He has been here all morning," the nurse said with a sly wink.
After a few minutes, she came back with Eli and a doctor, both of whom smiled gently at me through the window. The doctor came in first and went over my health with me. I had a concussion and bruises all over my body. A generous-sized cut from some glass on my scalp had been stitched and bandaged. My mind flashed back to the night before. How the scarecrow had filled me with its gooey red blood.
"Did you find anything else?" I asked cautiously, trying to avoid another scandal like with the nurse.
"No, as long as you have someone to pick you up and take you home, you are free to go. That nice young man out there said he would take you back home," the doctor said, pointing to Eli as he rose with a slight grunt.
I glanced at Eli, and he waved uncertainly at me. The doctor went out and began talking to Eli for a few minutes.
While I waited, my mind began to have strange thoughts. Something was wrong; I felt weird. My vision turned red, and I began to see images before my eyes.
The Harmons. They flashed before my eyes in real-time—the husband hugging his wife, then swinging his kids around, chopping wood outback next to the barn while his wife cooked in the kitchen.
As Eli entered the room, the visions stopped suddenly. Like my saving angel for the third time now, I was extremely grateful to Eli.
"Heyyyyy," Eli said, elongating the word in a sort of familiar yet awkward way.
"Hi," I said, closing my eyes and letting my embarrassment pass in only a few seconds.
"Why is it that fifty percent of the times we meet, you're in serious trouble?" Eli asked, coming to sit on the edge of my bed.
"Oh, you know me, bad luck, I guess," I said simply, becoming aware that under my blankets, I was in a backless hospital gown, and he was inches away from me.
I pulled the blanket up to my chin as a sort of cover for my appearance, but Eli didn't seem to notice. He continued talking to me. It was actually really sweet the way he seemed to care for me.
"Anyways, the doctor said I could take you back to the farmhouse to rest," Eli said.
"No," I said suddenly, becoming serious.
"What? Why not?" Eli asked.
"I just, I just can't right now. I'll tell you later. Just, we can't spend the night anywhere near the farm," I said, grabbing him by the arm, hoping to sway him.
"Well, I mean, if you want, we can grab your stuff, and my house can literally go anywhere," Eli said in an offhand manner, as if he had expected this.
"Promise?" I asked, trying not to seem too afraid.
Within the hour, we had returned to the farmhouse. The hole I dug was still covered over, and I stared at it as we parked in Eli's black pickup truck.
I ran inside and quickly got changed into my only clean clothes, grabbing everything I had from the farmhouse. I paused at the dinner table, looking down at the photographs of the Harmons and thinking back to that weird moment in the hospital with that odd vision.
The day was getting longer, and I hurried back to Eli, waiting in the pickup truck. I threw my bag in the back and climbed in beside him. He smiled and backtracked down the lane. We turned to the left and went down a side road where we came upon my poor old car. It had crashed directly into a tree, and the whole front part of the car had been destroyed. Fluid leaked all over the road, and I almost shed a tear for my departed friend. We had traveled far together. I grabbed a few things from the car, but something was off about the car. The front door had been knocked off and was discarded on the far side of the road. It looked impossible; the door hadn't even hit the tree.
Eli hooked his truck up to his trailer, and we sped off, leaving the property behind us. We headed into town and found a pullout on the side of the road with a set of bathrooms to camp at for the night. Eli's trailer was messy but cozy. He had laundry strewn over most surfaces, but it didn't smell bad.
The room consisted of a small kitchen with a bed in one corner. There were also a lot of posters and artwork on the walls. I examined one of a pretty girl with long raven-black hair. It was a realist painting, obviously taken from real life.
"Who is this?" I asked as Eli made us some food.
"That is just a friend," Eli said, glancing at the painting he had done.
"Well, she is a pretty friend," I said, enjoying watching the back of his ears turn bright red.
"Dinner's ready," he said, pouring the mixture of food he had made onto a pair of plates.
Eli served me and handed me a can of Coke to drink. I thanked him and sat on his bed. It was the only serviceable piece of furniture in the whole trailer. We both sat in silence for a moment while we ate. I could tell something was bothering Eli as he kept making glances toward me.
"What? What is it, Eli? Just say it," I said between bites.
"Tell me what happened, Polly. Tell me why you were burying the scarecrow, why you were passed out in the road with straw in your hair. Tell me why you were muttering about the Harmons and a scarecrow when I found you," Eli said suddenly, as if he were unloading a machine gun.
I looked Eli square in the face and relented. I told him about the last couple of nights at the farmhouse, about how the scarecrow had been tormenting me every night. About how he had saved me and how last night I had fled through the fields to his trailer and then to my car. I told him about the vision I had about the Harmons in the hospital. By the end of it, I was in tears. I felt so foolish and childish.
Eli took it in stride. He asked a few questions during my retelling, but by the end of it, he was silent. Tears fell down my face and landed in my lap. We had both put our plates on the counter, and Eli hugged me. He put his arms around me, and I nuzzled into his shoulder, feeling comforted again in him at the lowest points of my life.
With a gentle hand, he wiped away my tears, and I smiled, letting a nervous laugh escape my lips. I looked up into his face and felt his stare before I saw it. His pale blue eyes shone with comfort, and then his lips were on mine as he kissed me quickly before pulling away slightly.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. That was insensitive of me. You're sad, and I took advantage of that," Eli said, moving back slightly.
"Shut up," I said, and grabbed his shirt, bringing him back in.

I got another badge of honor! Willy Gude finally blocked me on X from calling him out on his bullying 🤣 They both can’t own up to their sh*t talking and spend hours talking about Z in her car while watching Z’s stream. I’m not defending Z’s actions as of late. but Willy and Jess are fxcking obsessed, egotistical monsters who have zero remorse. They can’t take criticism which shows zero development as a person. There should be a study about these two clowns.
Please Tory, Lara, Serge, Michael, Jay - I only have hope for you guys and pray you distance yourselves from these two heartless bullying monsters. They shouldn’t be praised for what they do. All they do is publically mock and bully you if you cross them.
This is what I posted on X and after FilmThePoliceLA Willy Gude posted his spiel:
Maybe you and Jessica Palmadessa shouldn’t have berated him week ago in her car. That’s what became of his actions. There’s a pattern to you as well. Anyone that cross you, you destroy their character. You’re not any better for a 50 year old man. You’re also a sick fxck.

I recall his name being “Philman.” There was an M. My mom used to watch Regis and Kathy Lee, and I used to watch Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? I noticed the change before knowing what the Mandela effect was. All the ones noticed prior, are so many, they do come back and hit me. Like this one. I thought since when is there a B in his name? Strangest thing. And went on wjth life feeling weird that I had a definite memory that was different than current reality. I also dont remember him dying in 2020, but maybe I just wasnt paying attention. When I just looked up his name, I thought he would still be alive. Bizarre.
Name mandelas are super frustrating. Like Sally Fields not Field. Reba McIntyre not McEntire. Sally Jesse Raphael not Jessy (I watched her talk show alot growing up.. Jessy is mind boggling). Scarlett Johansen not Scarlett Johansson. Phillip K Dissik not Philip K Dick. Christopher Reeves not Reeve. Sean William Scott not Seann. Steven Segal not Seagal. Freddie Prince Jr not Prinze. Shia LaBoeuf not LaBeouf. Gordon Ramsey not Ramsay, although I even think it may be Ramesey. Leanne Rhymes not Leann Rimes. Shannon Doherty not Shannen.
Madonna’s first name was never Madonna!!!! Ok???? It was 100 percent Esther. I was obsessed with her album Ray of Light and liked reading and looking through the album sleeve. Her name was not Madonna!
Jim Carrey flip flopped for me. It was Carrey to Carey back to Carrey again.
What are some more!?

There have been a lot of convos recently about VPR needing to break the fourth wall or that they've "finally broken the fourth wall" 🙄, but I think only Summer House is really breaking the fourth wall and I think that's because they all have actual jobs. In last season's reunion Paige was yelling at Carl and Lindsay about how they don't have jobs and everyone was up in arms that they do, the same job as Paige, influencers. But, and the merits of this can be argued but I'm not interested in arguing it, Paige really does have a job. She not only records an insanely popular podcast but she does social media content, has a sold out tour, merch and other influencer deals, and most importantly her podcast is NOT related to Summer House. All the VPR cast podcasts are about VPR. Giggly Squad is about everything BUT Summer House. West works for Complex. Jesse is in finance. Ciara is a model/nurse. Amanda and Kyle work at Loverboy which is a beverage manufacturing company. Danielle is a "CEO/Founder" (lmao) of an app. Carl and Lindsay truly are the only ones who just post content on Instagram for money. Which isn't the end of the world. So while being on a reality show lifts the cast's profiles and helps their careers move along, they have other things going on. And I believe that makes it easier for them to point out how the cameras are affecting their REAL lives, aka break the fourth wall, because they have real lives outside of being on a tv show. Carl being able to point out the cameras and how that forces conversations, or every time Kyle looks right at the camera when he's breaking down and goes ugh, when Carl and Lindsay wanted to leave the house early last summer and they showed the producer forcing them to stay and have a conversation. Summer House just benefits more from more truthful stories about how aware they are that they're on camera.
This is in comparison to the overproduced VPR, where everyone's livelihood is intrinsically tied to whether the show is renewed or people care about them talking about the show on a podcast. And it's so hard for them to break the fourth wall because then they would be pointing out they have NO incomes or prospects outside of filming a reality show. They can't talk about that the weird tension they're having is because they're all worried about their storylines because they think it will make the show feel weird.
ETA: I believe similar to the Office where they acknowledge the camera but it isn't their main focus, it adds a certain richness to the storytelling. Because yeah of course people will act differently when they know they're being filmed. Let's acknowledge that basic fact and move on to the actual action. What's not fun is like WWE, where you're very clearly watching someone perform for a camera and create a storyline, but you're supposed to pretend it's real life. that's what VPR and some of the housewives are doing now and it's not fun. Reality tv is supposed to be fun!

Previous Part
At some Point Bianca and I both fell back asleep. It was all I could do at this point, getting whisked away back to those mines seemed inevitable so I might as well sleep. The morning did not go well, largely due to Bianca, who threw me off the couch with a scream when she woke up.
“What’re you doing!”
Bianca squeaked, hand darting towards her pants pocket where her dagger would usually be. I woke up very quickly somewhere between the couch and the floor. I was fully awake by the time I was pushing myself back to me feet, raising my hands in a gesture of surrender.
“What’s going on?! You’re fine you just fell asleep on my couch!”
“Why were you… why was I?”
“Hey, calm down alright. We had a few drinks last night and I guess we both fell asleep on the couch together, that’s all that happened.”
I explained, leaving out the part where she pulled me back when I tried to go to my own room earlier.
“Yeah… yeah ok. Ugh my head is killing me.”
Bianca groaned, taking a breath or two then putting her head in her hands. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was probably hungover so I just went to the kitchen to make something for her.
I decided on toast and some bananas, it was always a go to for me after a long night. In hindsight I probably should’ve seen her reaction coming. Look at what she did in the caves because that guy grabbed her, it can’t be that much better waking up on someones shoulder and not quite remembering it. The whole thing did give me second thoughts though. If she was such a live wire did I really want her stressing out over the trials and whatever that would bring? I suppose it was too late for that though, she’d already moved herself into my house so she could keep watch, for all the good that did seeing as Shaoni waltzed right in last night.
I still had a lot on my mind when the smell of burning toast sobered me up. I swore and ran over to salvage what I could of the blackening toast.
“What’s burning in here?”
Bianca asked a little worry creeping into her voice. She still had her head clasped firmly between her hands as she walked into the kitchen.
“Breakfast”
I replied flatly, holding my arms out to either side gesturing to the mild chaos I was causing. Bianca gave me an questioning, “thanks” and grabbed the plate I had made for her while I tried to think of what to do next. Like it or not, Shaoni had people coming to pick me up and take me back out to those caves today. I had to come up with some kind of game plan and right now, it seemed letting Frank and Stein know was the best idea.
Bianca stayed back at my place nursing her hangover when I left to visit the mad scientist duo. I had no problem with that, in fact it was probably best because I’m sure she would’ve insisted on going with me if she heard I planed to take Shaoni’s “invitation”. I wasn’t sure if Shaoni would let me take Bianca with me and personally I’d rather not push her buttons and try to negotiate bringing a plus one.
“Have you seen Bianca at all?”
Frank asked hurriedly as I came in. I was afraid of this, She hadn’t told them anything and just disappeared.
“Yeah, she pretty much moved the contents of her room to my couch yesterday. Something about keeping an eye on me, she’s fine though, I wouldn’t worry.”
I answered, a little worried myself that I’d catch hell from them if they knew she was currently working her way through her first hangover on that same couch. Frank seemed to calm down at that and finally got to asking the important questions like why was I back in the house… again.
“So let us get this straight, you just plan to go right to Shaoni?”
Frank and Stein said together in disbelief as the three of us sat at the kitchen table.
“It’s not like I really have a choice in the matter, besides I can’t really fight her if she wants me to go somewhere. If I try a stunt like that things go from bad to worse for me.”
They both shook their heads in solemn agreement, recognizing I was right.
“Anyways, I had a thought on the way over here, Thunderbirds are something from native American legend right? Well, if we’ve found a real one wouldn’t she have ties to a tribe or something in the area? She was sleeping here when they woke her up in the mine, maybe there was a reason for that, maybe she was close to home?”
I explained, hoping g they’d catch on to what I was asking.
“What exactly are you getting at then Keith?”
Frank questioned, furrowing his brow with an intrigued look on his face. Stein just remained silent but I could tell he was thinking, maybe even coming to the same conclusion as I had.
“What I’m thinking, is we check reservations in the area. Maybe they know something about the creature from their legends that just so happened to be sleeping nearby. I know it’s a stretch but maybe we could learn something useful. I’d go myself but I’m not going to have the chance. You guys though, you guys could take Bianca and Rocco with you and ask around.”
I explained, hoping I was onto something. I was pulling at straws but it was the best idea I had at a moments notice. Plus it would get Bianca out of town for a little while when I was figuring out what exactly Shaoni’s trails would mean for me.
“Keith that’s… no that actually makes sense let me check some maps.”
Stein agreed, walking away and into the basement. He came back a few minutes later with a map in his hand.
“There’s a Seneca reservation not to far from here, maybe 30 miles. That’s not the only one but I have a friend there from years ago, someone I helped. There’s a good chance he’d be willing to return the favor.”
“Great, then I’ll count on you. I’ll let Bianca know, I’m sure she won’t be happy about it but I’ll feel better if she’s with all of you.”
I walked out in a rush to get back home, almost stepping on Rocco on my way to the door. He made a frightening chittering hissing sound at me as he leapt out of my path. I briefly wondered where he was going and what he was up to, probably better I didn’t know though. As I got onto the bike and headed back towards home I hoped I’d be able to talk Bianca into going along with this plan. I was sure she’d rather come with me but after this morning I wasn’t sure she was ready for that. Don’t get me wrong I’m sure she wants to help and I know she means well but she’s jumpy and snaps at the littlest things. I didn’t want her to make things worse by accident or get hurt because she froze up again. My mind was made up as I drew nearer to my house but as it turned out I’d never have the chance to talk to Bianca. As soon as I rounded the corner I saw the rusty pick up waiting in front of my house, I’d arrived just in time to meet Shaoni’s “helpers”.
The men looked normal, just like the people in the cave. Come to think of it they could very well be those same people. I waved them over as I came to a stop in-front of the house.
“Can I just go in and grab a few things?”
I asked the three men sheepishly as I walked up.
“No, your late as it is, we’ve got to get going.”
A scruffy looking man with a gruff voice said from the drivers seat. Two men got out from the back of the truck and grabbed my arms, pulling me into the back seat. They weren’t rough with me but they were very firm. Like they wanted to hurt me but were ordered not to so they just made a show of force. After I was loaded into the back I saw the reason for their demeanor. One of the men, the one in the front passenger seat, was wrapped in bandages. The bandages covered his abdomen and snaked up around the back of his neck. It was pretty obvious to me that this was the man Bianca had stabbed. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say these four were probably the same ones we had encountered in the cave. As I turned and looked out the window I saw Bianca’s face peaking out of it. She looked angry and scared, like she knew exactly what was happening but she didn’t move. Bianca just sat there, watching me be taken away and I cursed myself for not being just a little bit faster on the ride back.
We took a way out of town I’d never seen before, turning away from the road leading to the dirt path we had biked down on our expedition into the forest. Instead we drove back through town, past Bianca’s house and the Eagle’s Roost before hanging a right onto a road I’d never been down. Eventually the road made its way into the forest and ended at a wooden sign warning that the road was impassable ahead. The driver stopped the truck and got out as another man emerged from the woods, holding up his hand and opening it to reveal the eagle tattoo I’d become so familiar with. The driver rolled up his sleeve and showed his own similar tattoo. Without a word he got back into the truck and the other man moved the sign off the road. It didn’t fill me with confidence to see the entrance to this place watched in such a way. It would make sense to have it hidden but being so brazenly out in the open meant they didn't really care who saw it. Not that anyone would think anything other than that the road was impassable but still. The truck eventually pulled off the road and into the woods, following a newly made track that lead to the entrance of the old mine that we escaped from just 2 days ago.
“I think you know your way in.”
The driver growled at me, parking the truck and signaling me to step out.
“Your just letting me walk myself in? Couldn’t I just run?”
“You could but do you think you could outrun her?”
He asked threateningly, pointing up at the sky. I knew exactly who he was talking about and no, I didn’t like my chances of running from Shaoni.
“She gave us all orders to leave any runners to her.”
At that moment I decided it may be good idea to be on my best behavior.
“Yeah that’s what I thought.”
The driver barked back at me as I obediently walked towards the entrance.
Walking into the mine I realized it had undergone a huge transformation in a very short time. The walls were now host to several torches that lit the pathway back down to the coliseum. It felt like I was walking into the dark ages as I made my way down into this pit by torchlight. Although I had to admit it was homey in an “evil layer” kind off way. The coliseum was lit up with torchlight as well but its not what drew my attention. Where the awful metal structure met the stone roof of the cave I looked into a brewing storm. Lightning flashed across the roof but there was no sound of thunder. Raindrops shown in the shadows cast by the lightning but I felt none of them on my skin. I had to admit, it was a pretty impressive trick. Paintings adorned the walls, all of them seeming to be tribal in nature. Many seemed to be various depictions of the thunderbird.
“Well at least she doesn’t have an ego”
I chuckled to myself as I walked into the center off the coliseum.
There were four other people waiting in the center of the floor. A clean shaven, well dressed man relaxed against the wall of the arena. He had perfectly trimmed slicked back blonde hair and a chiseled face. His rippling muscles seemed to be for vanity rather than strength. Just by looking at him I could tell I wasn’t going to like him. The only one of the bunch I knew, Robert, stood on the far side of the coliseum, watching me approach. He looked about the same as he had from the brief glance I got at the Eagle’s Roost. Balding white hair and a unkempt beard hung off his sagging face. Despite his age he carried himself with purpose, like he deserved to be there and wanted everyone else to know it. Then there was the blonde bombshell that was making her way towards the chiseled blonde guy. She seemed incredibly confident in herself but none of it was a show. Her confidence came from a place that made her absolutely sure of it. The final person stood in the corner and seemed to be talking to himself. He was a middle aged man of native American descent with a mess of black hair atop his head. He carried a look in his eyes that spoke of wisdom beyond his years.
I walked past all of them and took a seat on the floor, trying my hardest to ignore them. The effort was ultimately wasted as the muscular blonde guy walked over and held out a hand.
“Hey, my names Brooke, you are?”
My blood turned to ice as he said that, it couldn’t be the same Brooke Bianca told me about, could it? I stared dumbly at him for a moment before I responded.
“I’m… uh… Keith. Any idea what we’re doing here?”
“No clue, only know that the thunderbird wanted us here so we came. Hopefully she makes good on her promise, to me at least.”
His voice sounded like the “to cool for you” bully from any 80’s movie, it was almost annoying to listen to him.
“So you’ve met everyone else I take it?”
“Yeah, the weird guy in the corner is John, we don’t know much about him but apparently him and that Robert guy, the old one with the beard, worked for the thunderbird. Katrina, that beauty over there is a wild card, no-one seems to know anything about her but she looks like she’s hot shit and well, just plain hot.”
As Brooke gave me the run down of everyone in the room I quietly wondered to myself if Shaoni had given everyone the same offer as me. The way Brooke had said it, “promise”… that wasn’t how I would’ve phrased it. Maybe Shaoni cut everyone here a unique deal.
“…Anyways, I’m gonna go see if I can’t figure out that bombshell’s deal, I’ll see ya later Keith.”
Apparently Brooke had been talking to me the whole time but I only tuned in for the tail end of it as he walked off toward Katrina. I wondered where exactly Shaoni was, I had expected her to be here already but, as it turned out I wouldn’t have to wait long.
A thunderous boom cracked out above our heads and we all looked up at once, but the sound was coming from outside. I heard the flap of wings as Shaoni came in for a landing somewhere above our heads. It went so silent we could’ve heard a mosquito cough, then Shaoni stepped into the room. Not from either entrance but from a balcony above us I hadn’t seen before. She was wearing the same thing she had been when I ran into her in the cave, once again looking like a hardened, tattooed Pocahontas.
“Welcome everyone! I take it you’ve gotten to know each other?”
She thundered down to us as we all shot to attention.
“I’ve gathered you here to give a gift to one of you, but you must prove yourselves deserving. I’ve told some of you what I intended to do here and others may be hearing it for the first time. So for those of you who are gathering here for the first time pay attention. There will be three trials held here, one to test your morals, one to test your strength, and one to test your judgement.”
At this point Brooke spoke up in the way only a spoiled little shit like him could.
“You made me a promise! You never said anything about trials! I got all the way out here to this shitty little backwater and now your telling me I’ve got to compete to earn what you owe me?! Sorry, but I’m going to need more than that.”
Shaoni looked like she could’ve ended him right there. She was the judge and jury here, if Brooke wasn’t careful she’d become the executioner too.
“What you asked me for is in this town, that’s all I will say on the matter.”
Shaoni responded with less venom than I had expected judging by her expression. She didn’t actually seem to care that she had to tell him something to shut him up. It was the insult of being interrupted that struck a nerve. I was a little concerned by what she said, if he was looking for something that was in town and Bianca was there… could he be looking for her? “…Today though, just enjoy the company of one another. You’re all welcome to stay here at the camp I’ve had prepared for you outside. If you wish to return to town you may but you will be watched. No-one is to leave town until the trials are completed.”
Shaoni finished, I hadn’t really been listening to her welcome speech. She said everything I cared about when she told us what the trials where going to test for, after that I kind of tuned out. Shaoni disappeared in a flash, just like she had back at my house the day before and with that the five of us were alone again. I left, heading back outside to see this camp she mentioned. The others talked with each other but I really had no desire to. That didn’t stop Robert from running to catch up with me, wheezing when he got there.
“Hey you’re the one who ran out of the bar the other night! She’s said a lot about you, I’d almost think she had a favorite.”
Robert huffed out between breaths, punching me in the arm in a friendly but wholly unwelcome way.
“I’ve heard you know nothing about the supernatural, I’d be happy to tell you what I’ve seen working with Shaoni.”
Robert offered, fishing for any reason to hold a conversation with me.
“No, that’s alright really, I’ll manage. What do you guys do anyways, working for her I mean? I get the sense she could really run this whole operation on her own if she wanted.”
“She probably could do this alone. Most of the time we don’t work directly with her, this is a special case for those of us she’s got helping with the trials. There’s maybe 50 of us total and not just here, I mean 50 of us overall. She’s very selective with the followers she keeps so there isn’t many of us. We tend to sit around up-holding her ideals till she asks something of us through dreams, like the ones that brought you here.”
Robert explained, confusing me a little bit. I found it hard to believe a crew of 50 people got everything here done. I guess it wasn’t to outlandish when put in perspective though. If you told me Shaoni got all this done herself I probably would’ve believed you so 50 people organized by her, yeah I could see that.
“Wait, so you guys barley ever actually work with her, and what are her ideals exactly?”
“Have you heard the legends of the thunderbird? A lot of it depicts the thunderbird as a spirit of justice that fights evil spirits from the underworld, that’s really watered down but you get the point. I’ve never seen her do anything like that but she does uphold a certain sense of justice and that’s what she expects of us. Sure, she seems really intimidating but she wants to right wrongs that no one else will, it makes her a little harsh but she has to be. We just do that same thing when we aren’t getting orders right from her. Maybe you think she’s in the wrong here because she pulled you into this but we really want to help, sometimes there’s a price for that.”
Robert lectured, you could tell he really believed in what he was saying though. He may have been older but when he was telling me about the thunderbird and what she stood for he was filled with vigor again. Maybe he’s not as bad as I thought, I wanted all these people working for her to be some kind of weird cult like in Imalone. The more I heard the more I doubted that. They were people who followed her for a reason, not just because she gave them some kind of power. In reality I think what she really gave them was purpose. That sort of thing is more than enough for most people to follow someone.
When I broke away from Robert and got outside I found a huge camp had been set up while we were in the cave. Tepees of various sizes had been constructed all around the entrance to the old mine and one big canvas tent had a huge table running through it filled with food. For 50 people these followers of the thunderbird sure worked fast. I hadn’t decided if I wanted to go back to town yet. I hoped Frank and Stein had convinced Bianca to go with them, at least then they could get some answers while I was stuck here. If they were gone though what reason did I have to go back? As long as I was out here surrounded by people who work with Shaoni maybe I could get some answers of my own. I wasn’t really sure what information about Shaoni would do for us but she was a mystery to me. Everyone was here for a reason, I agreed to take on a burden, Brooke was here because of some promise Shaoni made, and I’m sure the rest had similar stories. Shaoni gained nothing from any of that though, besides this burden I had agreed to take. I’m not sure why, but it felt like figuring out what She stood to gain from this was important. If I could do that maybe I could put the pieces to this puzzle together. Two people had pointed out I knew nothing about the supernatural as well, Shaoni and Robert. That didn’t seem to matter to much to me but if all the others here had some experience in it maybe it should. It seemed like we were all on a level playing field though, Brooke hadn’t heard about the trials and neither had I. Robert and that strange John guy probably had some idea but they worked with Shaoni, I would expect them to know. Katrina, the blonde was probably just as surprised as Brooke, if I had to guess. None of us knew exactly what the trials would test for, so why did everyone keep brining up not knowing about the supernatural like it put me at a disadvantage?
“Why indeed.”
A familiar voice said, sending lightning through my veins and breaking my train of thought. I just about tossed the turkey leg I’d been eating directly at the source of the noise.
“Shaoni, you have got to stop doing that.”
I said, crawling back into my skin after she scared me out of it. Shaoni still looked just as she had when she addressed us earlier, adorned in her animal skins and feathers. It took me a second but it finally clicked that she had said something strange when she sat down next to me.
“Hang on a minute, can you read my mind? Was I thinking out loud or something?”
“No, you just looked lost in thought and I figured I’d chime in.”
“Oh, alright… why?”
I squeaked out, abruptly realizing that this was Shaoni, the thunderbird who was sitting next to me. There was a second there where I wasn’t as intimidated by her as I normally was but it had passed quickly.
“I wanted to know how your doing, I know all this can’t be easy to take in.”
“I’m doing fine, I think I’m adjusting pretty well but I did want to ask you some questions.”
An amused look ran across Shaoni’s face at this. She wasn’t being as commanding as before either, she almost seemed to genuinely care about my well-being.
“Would you walk with me, I’ll answer your questions on the way.”
Shaoni asked, standing and waiting for me to follow her. Not seeing any better options I stood up and left alongside her.
We walked around the perimeter of the camp, out of ear shot of anyone else. I’m sure she did that on purpose, though I wasn’t sure if it was so no-one could hear my screams if I asked a question she didn’t like or if she just wanted privacy.
“Why me Shaoni? Why chose me out of everyone, was it just a coincidence?”
“Straight to the point hmm. Think Keith, when I found you in the position you were in you needed my help. Sure, I planned to dispose of the cultists that were threatening you anyways but I stopped to help you. You saw me descend from the sky, swoop down, and bring them to their knees, I extended an offer to you and you just took it. You didn’t bargain or ask for anything more after I shattered your perception of what does and doesn’t exist, just accepted my offer. Most people would have bargained, tried to look for a better deal for themselves but you saw what the price of my help would be and paid it, no second thoughts. That interested me Keith, you recognized what had to be done and didn’t try to avoid the cost, that’s why I chose you.”
“So I appealed to whatever sense of justice you have? That’s it, that’s the only reason?”
She looked almost hurt as I asked this and she stopped walking. I definitely stepped on a nerve, I expected her to snap but she didn’t, She just asked very quietly,
“Do you think I’m a monster Keith?”
I was stunned by the question. Could I really say she was a monster? What had she done so far? Save me, that’s what, was that really so monstrous? Sure it may have come at a cost but nothing is ever free. Shaoni even came to warn me about the trials ahead of time, just barely ahead of time but it was something.
“No Shaoni, you’re not a monster just… someone with the powers you have… it’s terrifying for a normal person. Can you really say I’m in the wrong for being afraid of you?”
Even as I said it I knew it was a lie, at least partially. I wasn’t just afraid of her, I wanted her to be evil and she just wasn’t, not really. Maybe she was a bit intense but everything she had done to me so far couldn’t be called evil.
“Fear is only natural when you see something like me, but I’m not a monster. The thunderbird has always stood for justice. That’s what I represent, I can’t be everywhere but I make it a point to uphold justice where I am. Those who I’ve chosen to follow me hold my justice in their own town, in their own lives. I can be harsh but I am just.”
She said this with such intensity I had no choice but to believe her. Her conviction to justice was zealous but I still wanted to pry a little bit more.
“So what does justice mean to you then? I don’t mean to be disrespectful but I want to hear it from you,”
I asked, growing a little more confident in talking to Shaoni. For once I didn’t feel like she would kill me on a whim. Give her a reason, and Shaoni would do it without a second thought but I don’t think she cared that much about my questioning.
“Justice is black and white, right and wrong. Normally there’s a pretty good system in place to punish those that deserve it but sometimes things slip through the cracks, that’s where I come in. I take care of the heinous acts people get away with, people that think they’ve gotten away with murder, so to speak.”
“So your a vigilante then? That’s what I’m hearing here.”
“I wouldn’t be so crass but yes, I suppose you could call me a vigilante but I promise you that’s an oversimplification. Suffice it to say my opinion on matters of serving justice is respected.”
Shaoni seemed a little uncomfortable at the word “respect”, I think a better word would’ve been “feared”. I wasn’t going to say it to her but I knew she suspected it. I could see something about that really hurt her. I couldn’t put my finger on it, the reason Shaoni didn’t want to be feared. Despite being the scariest thing I’d seen so far she didn’t want to be known for that.
We talked for a while longer about a whole lot of nothing. Eventually we got back around to the camp and she bid me goodnight despite the fact it was 3 in the afternoon at the time. She was probably right though, I was going to need the rest if I wanted to be ready for the first trial tomorrow. I found my way to a tepee conveniently marked with my name. I didn’t remember it being marked before and I didn’t understand the point of giving us specific tepees, privacy I guess? The fur sleeping bag was a rustic but welcome touch and despite lacking the amenities of a usual home the tepee was quite comfortable. As I settled in for the night I heard a rustling on the far side of the tepee, then a voice, one whose heavy accent I recognized immediately.
“So, turns out they don’t check under the truck. Ya got me here with you now.”
Rocco said, emerging from a blanket in the corner. That revelation didn’t exactly set my mind at ease. Rocco must’ve sensed my apprehension to the fact that he was anywhere near me right now.
“What?! I’m here to help out! I heard you going on about a trial or somethin’ so I figured I’d tag along under that truck when they picked you up, can’t have enough back up ya know.”
He continued, pulling a belt with several tools out from under the blanket as he spoke. I wasn’t pleased to have him here but maybe I could make use of him.
“I was hoping you’d go with Bianca and the other two but honestly, it might be nice to have a friendly face around here. Just… try to stay out of trouble.”
“Trouble? When do I ever get into trouble?”
I hoped he was being sarcastic, you can never tell with him. I bit my tongue as Rocco walked out into the camp, silently praying no-one would see him. With that I settled into my sleeping bag and tried to think of what I could expect from the first trial tomorrow.

Hey guys. Ive been in a relationship for about 1 year and a half now and I’m experiencing extreme insecurities that I didn’t have before. First off, When my partner and I started dating I never had this issue, but recently it feels like he is doing it on purpose to make me feel bad about myself and it triggers my Biopolar episodes. Every time we are out, and a woman passes him, he always checks her out, looks down at her butt, or breasts, and even one time he made a comment when he saw a woman with large breasts he went “God Damnnn” as if I wasn’t right next to him. Another time, he broke his neck to look back at a waitress that passed us, staring at her ass as she walked. Just Last week, a nurse was flirting with him and instead of brushing her off, he continued the conversation, and watched her ass as she walked away. I was furious and started screaming and yelling when we got home! I had a whole Manic episode and started running away from him being bat shit crazy because I felt betrayed. Why does he have to stare? My mind goes straight to, I’m Not enough for him and he craves these women sexually over me. He compares my body to theirs and feels unsatisfied. So being me, I started doing the same thing, I would stare at taller, muscular men and make comments like wow! He’s so fit or tall! And he would spazz out on me. He got pissed. I feel joy in making him feel less than , just like he makes me feel! I know I’m being crazy, but during these episodes my feelings feel 100% valid. How would you guys react?

There are so many cute/funny moments on the show, but if you HAD to pick the three that make you laugh the most, what would they be?
Here are mine:

1. Joey and Jesse changing baby Michelle's diaper in the kitchen. Between fanning her fanny, wrapping her in paper towels, and the way they hold her... It is comedy gold.
   
2. When Kimmy tells Jesse, "Even baboons know their own babies!" I cannot even take it. It makes me crack up every time especially when her comment is followed by Jesse's,"Out!"
   
3. When the boys and girls switch roles and DJ and Stephanie have to make them lunch, I die when DJ bites off every corner of the sandwich and tells Jesse, "There! Now you're safe!" You can tell they were both trying not to laugh.
   

My mom (52F) was diagnosed with CKD in 2021. At her last appointment her GFR was 12. It was a reality hit for me (31F). Since that appointment (about 3 weeks ago) I’ve tried to alter my life style. We have the same blood type and she’s agreed to let me go through the testing to see if I’m a match.
But I haven’t lived a healthy lifestyle. I’m overweight, have been pretty sedentary and never took too much care of my diet. I’ve also had appointments in the past where I had mid-high blood pressure (not bad enough to be diagnosed or need medication, just some readings) or it’s been mentioned by doctors/nurses about the risk of being pre-diabetic.
I have no idea if there’s any chance that I’ll still be able to qualify even if I change my lifestyle around. Was looking to see if anyone here had a similar experience?
Since then I’ve cut out most sugar (from 3-5 cans of Pepsi a day to 0), started watching my caloric intake as well as my nutrients and macros to minimize my sugar and watch my protein, carbs, etc. I’ve switch to a more raw/real foods diet, cutting out a lot of the more processed items. I’ve also started walking, I take my dog for a 2km moderate paced walk 5-6 days a week. I have already lost a bit of weight but was looking to see if there’s anything else I can do.
Thanks for any help/advice/info someone might be able to provide.
TLDR: want to qualify to donate, haven’t lived a very healthy lifestyle looking to turn it around. Is it possible/have you done it?