Pictures of positive accu clear pregnancy test

first
Luna VI query: Set the source to the leaked files of the first reconnaissance operation of Irisa.
Done!
Luna VI query: What did Nathan do during the first hour of the war?
***
From the instant he opened his eyes, Nathan's morning was chaotic. It all began with the ground shaking beneath him, jolting him into a state of awareness. He then was greeted by the sight of Amara. She was leaning against a corner, covered in purple from head to toe as she screamed at someone through an earpiece that she was pressing with one of her claws.
His good morning was overhearing one piece of bad news after the other.
The rest of Amara's group had been ambushed early in the morning; many were dead, injured, or missing.
A war had erupted in the sky and her allies were trying to push back the enemy forces, but the battle persisted; the outcome was uncertain.
Zara was being brought to them, but Amara had lost contact with Igmila's group who was bringing her, only receiving confirmation from another group that a rescue pod was spotted at a distance.
And when he thought that things couldn't get any worse, he heard a bang followed by the AI reporting that Ryo had shot down a drone somewhere near their position.
"Open the tent!" Red had conquered Amara's body.
None of the scenarios Nathan had contemplated the previous night had prepared him for such a chaotic morning. "Give me a second."
He only wanted a chance to get his gun from his backpack and explain why he had it in the first place, even though he suspected Amara was already aware he had it. But she didn't let him. "Now!"
She had never felt so distant to him as the moment she said that single word, which led him to just comply as he stood up and followed her in silence. But this frail silence only masked his morning grumpiness, magnified by the dire circumstances and her cold demeanor toward him.
Nathan had barely caught a glimpse of Ryo and Elysira at a distance when he muttered. "It wouldn't have been so hard to say a few words to fill me in, you know."
Amara's eyes were transfixed on the smoking pieces of the drone when she whipped her head around, glaring at him with her orange eyes. "My people are fighting a war and dying. How can you demand my time when Yelara is hurt and barely escaped alive?"
"Oh, come on, I'm not demanding anything." He scoffed, shaking his head. "I just don't think it would have been so hard to tell me what you intend to do in the next five minutes."
The tip of her tail pressed against his chest, as red and purple coexisted on her skin.
"I am heading up the mountain to find Igmila." She spoke in a detached voice, pulling her tail back and turning around, and then she sprinted in the gap between himself and the tent.
He caught a glimpse of gray on her neck and all his grumpiness was gone, replaced by a cold shiver running down his spine. With his arms moving faster than his thoughts, he grabbed her by the tail, preventing her from going anywhere.
"You absolutely can't do this Amara." Nathan looked down at the tail he held with both hands and swallowed a lump of saliva in fear of her reaction. But that still didn't prevent him from finishing what he had to say, "It's too dangerous."
Amara's eyes sought his, causing him to suspect she would demand to be released or try to free herself by force, but she did something else. "All of this is because of you. Had I not come to your tent, I would be there to assist them."
Nathan caught a glimpse of green around her back spots, which let him know that there was a hint of guilt in her words. But did that justify blaming everything on him and running into danger without thinking?
If not for the awful night followed by an awful morning, Nathan might have just taken the blame and hugged her. But he too had his limits, "How is that fair? Blame me all you want, but nothing will change that you had all the chances in the world to go back and you didn't. I'm not saying that you could have done anything abo-"
"Indeed." Gray flashed for a moment before red flowed among her black spots. "This night was a waste of time." His grip faltered at her words and she pulled her tail back from among his fingers. "I should have stayed with Yelara to help her tend to her wounds."
Nathan bit his lips in frustration. How was it possible to agree with her words, yet still feel the sharp sting in his heart?
And if that was not enough, Ryo had to step in to rub salt in the wound.
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
With Elysira’s tail wrapped around his wrist as she averted her eyes from Amara, Ryo spoke, "Please don't tell me you're mad because the plant lover couldn't get it up."
Nathan blinked fast not believing his eyes. Ryo was not only shirtless but there were a lot of scratches on his neck and below. Elysira’s long strands were also a mess, but even without that, their physical closeness alone would be enough of a hint of how much fun they had at night.
When Nathan glanced at Amara to gauge her reaction, she had already crossed her arms, looking at him angrily. Which immediately made him feel as if Ryo’s not-funny joke was true although he knew it wasn't.
It took Nathan a considerable amount of self-retainment to not walk up there and rearrange Ryo's handsome face with his fist, or at least attempt to do so.
A few seconds passed before he said, "Why are you here?"
Ryo didn't even bother to look at him, his eyes focusing solely on Amara. "Information. I want her to tell me what she knows about this war."
Amara didn't look pleased to help, but she still informed him about the ambush and even alerted him that even their current position would soon be unsafe.
As If things weren't already bad enough, Ryo frowned and hurried to instruct Elysira to get his things as soon as Amara had finished talking. Nathan felt like he was in a war movie where everything was happening too fast for his emotions and reason to follow.
It was only when he saw Ryo raising his gun skywards that Nathan’s anger subsided, contained by the prospect of how bad their situation was. Ryo movements were fluid and methodical, but he never pulled the trigger on the many drones that appeared high above and, instead, retreated to take cover behind a tree.
Only now the seriousness of the situation sank in for Nathan.
He didn't even care that he hadn't explained to Amara why he had a gun yet, rushing inside the tent after exchanging a glance with her.
After crossing the circular door, he found only a few items on the ground: a pair of boots, his sleeping bag, and his backpack with all his equipment inside.
Nathan was quick, wearing his boots first before retrieving his belt, knife, and holster from the backpack. With a sequence of swift movements, he strapped the sheathed knife and holster to the belt and cinched it around his waist, securing it in place before closing the backpack and dashing out the door with his gun in one hand and the backpack in the other.
Already outside, Nathan found it weirdly reassuring that Ryo was in the same spot as before, but that only lasted until he tried to find Amara, but found nothing no matter where he searched for her.
He dropped his backpack, feeling at a loss. How could he have allowed her to venture beyond his sight when he knew that guilt was clouding her judgment?
Only when he had already cupped his hands around his mouth to scream her name that he felt a touch right above his heel—her tail.
"Psst..."
Wiping his head, Nathan saw Amara's whole body mimicking the colors of his tent, making herself quite hard to spot.
"I thought you were gone." He joined her, stooping down beside the tent as relief washed over him.
"It might be too late to join my soldiers." She didn't allow her colors to change, but the translator conveyed a hint of sadness. "I lost contact with all the teams who were coming here."
"Amara I-"
Nathan was about to attempt to make things right with her when Ryo’s assertive voice reached him. "Listen up, those fuckers are jamming our comms and they will be here at any time. Take the MLBCS and find a clearing to use it, I doubt they can interfere with the laser. Just don't forget that your immediate safety comes first or else you might not be among the living when the pod arrives."
Ryo ran back to his tent as soon as he was done speaking, leaving Nathan questioning his own intelligence. How come he had never even considered leaving the planet? A single glance at Amara and he knew why. But did he have any other option?
Staying and fighting to hold his position was something he briefly considered. But did he have a chance when even Ryo decided to leave after seeing the drones?
Mission control might give him other options, so Nathan decided to try his luck despite Ryo’s warning.
Unable to establish a two-way connection.
He confirmed the interference with the communication with a single thought, kicking his backpack in frustration even though it was expected.
Why did it have to be so hard to accept that Ryo was right and leaving the planet was his best option?
But would Ryo truly leave the planet and leave Elysira behind?
Nathan forgot Amara who was beside him and screamed, not allowing this question to stay in his mind, "Wait, what are you gonna do?"
Ryo replied as he waited for Elysira, "I'm not leaving the planet unless mission control finds a way to save Ely too."
Nathan's eyes widened, feeling like an idiot as he brought up a pop-up window showing the schematics of the rescue pods. They were designed to be fast vehicles capable of transporting a single person to the space station, but Earth's government hadn’t skimped on the design, which included various components that could be discarded, such as medical supplies and search and rescue equipment.
He used the AI to run the calculations and found that Amara would likely be able to go with him, that is if they wedged themselves into the vehicle and discarded everything else.
Nathan was about to share his findings with Ryo when he caught a glimpse of him and Elysira disappearing into the woods, abandoning their tent behind as they ran away.
A sense of urgency struck him at that moment, but it was easily forgotten when Amara's voice struck even harder, "You should go."
"What do you mean?" He sought her eyes, but she avoided his gaze, facing to the ground.
"Do what Ryo suggested." She took a small pause before she went on. "Leave the planet."
"The hell I will!" He punched the tent. "Not without you." He could only assume she was saying this because she didn't know she could leave with him. "You'll come with me, and the pod will take us to the space station."
"Your species will refuse to take me." He saw a hint of purple on her neck. "Before the mission started your people told us you humans will not get involved in our wars." She finally made eye contact, and the purple on her skin intensified. "My best chance to survive this is to hide in the mountains and wait for reinforcements."
"You don’t understand, Amara." He didn't have time for a full explanation of what humans considered not getting involved. "No one in mission control will want to leave you here to die just because of some stupid rule." He then spoke his heart out without a care in the world. "And even if they do, they will take you anyway if say I won't go anywhere without you."
A hint of yellow could be seen among her camouflaged skin, but before she could say what she would do, her tail wrapped around his neck and he felt a strong pull to lower his head and bend his knees for cover.
"The rebels are here," she whispered as her ears twitched.
Nathan was tall enough to see the slope on the other side of the tent by just standing, but Amara struggled to see from above the structure, requiring her to stretch her full height and still take little jumps to take peeks.
And it was after doing so that she dropped her camouflage entirely, letting purple run free among her black spots.
Nathan took interest in what she had seen that had caused such a reaction, and he leaned cautiously against the tent and raised his head slowly, prepared to find a few armed Irisians hidden among the trees. But what he found instead was a never-ending line of Irisian advancing downhill at a fast pace towards them.
He understood Amara's reaction now, pulling back the harmer of the revolver as he stared at her. "I need to... do something."
He made up his mind, determined to shoot. But when activated the infrared view mode and took aim at Irisians descending the slope, Nathan froze for a second. This just lasted a moment, and when found the resolve to fire, he had already lifted the gun enough that it wouldn't hit anyone and it would just be a warning shot.
He fired once, twice, and went on until all six rounds were gone, then he noticed their organized marching had stopped, all of them having activated their camouflage. Some even broke the line and retreated uphill.
When he took cover again, Amara was protecting her ears with both hands, looking at him as if he were some sort of monster. Nathan ignored her and rifled through his backpack in search of more ammunition, finding the small box with shining metal bullets after he had searched for some long seconds.
It was only when he released the cylinder to reload the gun that Nathan noticed something.
His hands were shaking.
He ignored it and pressed the extraction rod the remove the cartridges from the cylinder to make room for the new ones, clumsily dropping a few of them as he reloaded.
Amara saw this and stopped him with her tail before he had filled all the chambers.
"I cannot go with you." Her body had been conquered by purple.
"You think I'll leave you behind?" He almost reached his breaking point when she replied.
"No." Her tail touched his cheek gently. "There are too many of them, Nathan." She pulled her tail back as a hint of gray appeared. "My brother will never let me go, he lost too many ships and soldiers to give up without his prize." The gray intensified, squeezing her black spots. "If you die with me on this planet, your species might abandon Irisa forever.
"My chances of hiding in the mountains are slim, but they exist... and even if I fail I will distract them long enough for you to flee."
Her body blended with the surroundings again and Nathan felt that she was about to do something stupid, but he moved faster and grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to bend her legs and join him on the ground as she stared at him with wide eyes.
"To hell with this self-sacrifice bullshit." Nathan finally decided what he would do. "Do you think I will die that easy? Guess what, you’re wrong." His hands moved from her shoulder to her back and he embraced her. "Let me tell you what we'll do, we take the MLBCS, we find a clearing, and we go to the space station." He released her and added, almost crazily. "You go with me even if I have to drag you by the tail as you scratch me, you hear me?"
He was not kidding; he grabbed her tail with his left hand, leaving her exterior filled with colors ranging from purple to yellow.
Amara was about to reply when the tent produced a thud noise, sounding as if someone had knocked on a cardboard box. When they turned to the side, there was a tiny hole in the tent dangerously close to Amara's head.
She touched the hole with her finger, and then her whole hand pressed against the side of her head, staring at him without saying a word.
Nathan's heart skipped a beat when he realized what had just happened, and consumed by a rage like he never felt before, he pressed the cylinder of his revolver back into place with just the four bullets inside, pulling back the harmer.
This time there was no hesitation, he quickly stood up and used the infrared view mode to survey the now organized groups of Irisians who had taken a defensive formation, choosing as target an Irisian who had climbed a tree and was pointing a long gun at them.
In just a moment Nathan aimed and pulled the trigger, firing one round after another. The first two missed completely, but the others hit the tree right above the target, making this Irisian panic and release his claws from the wood, only to welcome an ugly fall on the rocks below from several meters above the ground.
He took cover again immediately, but this time noise as if he was facing heavy rain under an umbrella struck his eardrums moments after he had taken cover, making him wince every time he heard the distinct noise of a projectile going through one wall of the tent and stopping the other.
With her tail still among his fingers, Nathan and Amara exchanged several anxious glances as the shooting persisted, only calming down when the rebels realized they were wasting ammunition and the barrage of fire slowly started to lose momentum.
Nathan's heart was racing and she was going through all tones of purple when she broke the silence.
"Fine!" She spoke fast. "If you are being so adamant about tying our fates together, we can do it your way." Her tail escaped his grip, but instead of pulling it back, she coiled it around his wrist. "But we are weaker together, Nathan. I will be a burden to you when you run, and you will be a burden to me when we hide."
"Oh, to hell with that too." Despite his harsh words, just knowing that they were on the same page now was enough to give him some hope. "Sorry. I do all the running and you do all the hiding, does that work for you?"
He didn't wait for her reply and loaded the gun again, this time doing it very fast even though his hands were still shaking.
"You do all the running? I fail to understand you." She said as she stood up to take a peek at the enemies, just to recoil in fear and add, "Explain yourself fast, they are losing the fear of your loud gun."
"Sure." He grasped his backpack bottom and overturned it, emptying its contents in a quick motion. With all the items on the ground, Nathan only took the MLBCS and the little box with his drones that he promptly stored in his pocket. "We won't need any of that, which means my back will be free."
"Are you crazy, I am too heavy f-"
"You're not." Nathan was 6′3″, and he had the nanites ensuring he was as healthy as a human could be. This meant that the short Amara—the top of her head only reaching a little below his shoulder—was not a challenging weight for him to carry given her slender body.
Noticing the doubt in her gaze, he lowered his body even more, turning his back towards her in a way it would be easy for her to climb, hoping this would be all the push she needed.
"You take pleasure in testing my trust, do you not?" The tone of her voice hinted at her reluctance, but she still draped her arms over his shoulder, securing her grip in a way her claws wouldn't hurt him.
Even though they had a plan now, Nathan still felt a chill down his spine at the thought of what he would have to do. And despite knowing that he had taken everything he needed, he anxiously patted down his pocket the make sure the box with the drones was there and remembered to take a handful of bullets, filling up his pockets as some of them fell to the ground.
"Ready?" He asked, trying to sound confident.
"See for yourself." Her tail wrapped around his belly, full of tiny black spots surrounded by purple as far as he could see.
Nathan took a few deep breaths and stood up, getting a glimpse of the many groups that were advancing from both sides, trying to surround them.
It didn't even take him a full second before he started firing his revolver indiscriminately at them while his legs moved on their own, not even waiting for his eyes to decide which path he would take.
Amara's weight escaped his thoughts completely, replaced by the fear evoked by the faint noise of metal breaking the sound barrier around them as soon they left the protection of the tent.
He didn't spare a single glance behind, running downhill at full throttle with bursts of adrenalin fueling his speed. He outran the reach of their guns quite fast, hurdling fallen brunches and putting not only distance but also several tree trunks between them and the hostile force behind.
With Amara's solid grip and occasional shifting of her weight to prove that she was fine, Nathan kept his pace as his muscles burned with exertion.
For a little over ten minutes he kept going, jumping over protruding roots and ducking beneath low-hanging branches. But this couldn't go on forever and eventually, he stopped to catch his breath, bending forward and letting go of items in his hand as Amara released her grip to stand on her own two feet.
His breath was coming in ragged bursts, but that didn't keep him from starting to laugh as he stared at her, whose eyes were gentle and her entire body was filled with hints of yellow.
In a split-second though, her whole demeanor changed, all the yellow giving way to purple and red.
She asked a single question, "Is that device of yours supposed to release smoke?"
The tip of her tail was pointing at the MLBCS, which now had a small hole in it from where a whisp of smoke curled upwards, just like a candle after its flame had been extinguished.
Nathan shook his head and touched his forehead; a single word left his mouth, "Fuck."
***
This was an account based on what Nathan did during the first hour of the war. The previous narrative is based on the events of the morning of the twentieth day of the exploratory mission of Irisa. According to your current settings, no queries will be suggested.
next->patreon wiki

I had unprotected sex on the 10th of April and took a plan b that night, I also started birth control the next day. I stopped the birth control after about a week after because of how bad the side effects were. Then on May 2nd, about three weeks after, I started what I think to be my period which was 6 days earlier than expected, I’m irregular so I’m not sure what to think of that. It lasted my full 6 days, even going into 7 a bit, but was different than my normal cycles. Normally I get bad cramps but this month the cramps were unbearable, I was nauseous and lightheaded due to how bad they were. I took a high dose of Ibuprofen and drank hot tea which normally helps but didn’t, even heat didn’t help. The bad cramps only lasted for the first day, the rest of the days were just moderate to none. The bleeding was heavier than normal even going into the 4th and 5th days when it normally dies down. I figured my period was a bit different because of the hormonal pills I had taken. On the 18th, so about a week and 4 days after the bleeding, I decided to take a pregnancy test to ease my mind because I started to become paranoid with no answers. The first box were the clearblue first response I believe, on the digital I got a positive but on the dye test I got negative, not even the faintest of lines, within the same 20 minutes with the same “batch” of pee I had held from before I bought three more clearblue digitals which all came out negative. I gave it a couple of days and tested again last night, this time using first response. The digital came out as a positive but the dyes had still not even a faint line so were still negative. I haven’t had any symptoms or haven’t felt anything out of the ordinary, I’m going Friday to a clinic for an ultrasound but I need other opinions.

combination skin, sensitive skin (assuming) (East African Male) Might be a long post,
TLDR- everything I do correlates to my skin and I don’t know what to change. Is it my diet, most I eat is refined carbs: chicken, tuna or eggs. Or is it lifestyle, working out, playing basketball? or is it my skincare regimen
skincare currently-
Face reality set
Esthetician Recommended, have clear skin then back to breaking out, then clear skin, then more dark spots that take forever to go away because i’m African American Morning- FR Hydrating cleanser (double cleanse most days) (substituted cleanser for Noble 2% zinc soap thinking it might be some fungal acne) FR SA toner FR 8% Mandelic Acid FR Cran Peptide Moisturizer FR Benzyl P 2.5% FR Sunscreen
Evening -Hydrating cleanse (double cleanse most days) -SA toner -Mandelic Acid -BP 2.5%
Diet- Dairy free, gluten free, Peanut Butter, sesame, Soy, corn
(allergy test 2 weeks ago came back positive these foods, better safe than sorry) Maybe I have an ED now, but it’s okay once I figure out why i’m breaking out
I tried a lot of skincare the past 3 years, 10+ different brands and regimens, tret didn’t work, adapalene also, this routine gives me the closest to clear skin but i do the same skincare and can’t maintain it (regular extractions).
I listen to my esthetician but i feel like at this point it gotta be something else
Anytime I have hair in my face, it never ends well, stopped using hair oils and only used a different shampoo.
I honestly don’t know what to do, I get those red bumps (inflamed) under the skin on my foreheads and sometimes those cysts, every whitehead starts out as an inflamed spot, I workout and wash my face with water if I sweat a lot till I go home,
Always oily, going outside makes me oily, being home makes me oily, waking up i’m oily, am I using too much products?

when I was three years old, I never really wanted to hang out with any kids in preschool. I never really socialized with them or wanted to play with them. I just wanted to do my own thing in the corner or draw/color quietly by myself the teacher always come up to me and try and get me to go play with the other kids, but I never did. when I was four my parents started fighting every single night. when I started kindergarten, I had no friends. My parents never really acknowledged my existence and my siblings were too cool to hang out with their five year-old brother. I was always the kids sitting on the ground counting grass or just staring off into space thinking about nothing when I was seven in second grade I was sent to the guidance office almost every single day because I did not know how to regulate my emotions, my mom never ever paid attention to me because she was always working. My dad wasn’t in the picture and my siblings were in high school and too busy. We didn’t really have any other family around. I remember one day and third grade getting off the bus and no one was home, I sat on the porch and waited for hours until the neighbor finally noticed and called my mom. she was at the bar drinking with her friends at 3 PM on a Monday fourth grade. I remember having a lockdown and we all thought it was a drill. The principal came over the speaker and cleared everything. The teacher opens the curtain and I just see my dad handcuffed getting put in a police car, when I was 12 and in middle school, my mom would just disappear for months at a time. I would come home from school do my homework watch tv alone in my room. The principal had noticed I never brought lunch from home or got lunch from school. The school psychologist ran some testing on me and determined I had an eating disorder. when I started high school things got worse I got a job all by myself working at a grocery store. I was so proud of myself and when I told my mom, I got a very weak good job. when I was 16 I came out to her as gay and she did not take it very well. She started screaming saying I’m never gonna be happy and I’m never gonna find anyone that I love. when I was 17 I met a boy that I had loved. He was three years older than me and we started dating. I still didn’t have any friends so I grew really attached to him. He was the only person that ever gave me attention or love. Eventually he got really sick of it and broke up with me. That has led to me right now sitting in the chipotle parking lot at 9 PM on a Tuesday alone, not knowing what I’m doing with my life. each day goes by and I just never know what I’m doing.

The stress of the last six months has nearly killed me. Besides the general cratering of the outside world—political strife, climate change, inflated rents, corporate greed, and the baffling resurgence of crew socks—my internal life was falling apart, too. I'm at the point where I can't see a way out of the darkness, and that feeling has only grown in the last few days.
My struggles ramped up exponentially in the last two weeks. It started when my long-term girlfriend and I called it quits after five years. There was no definitive relationship-altering fight or infidelity. It was simply the boring banality of the "roommate-ification" of our lives together. We both felt the shift but never talked about it. Turns out communication is important.
Truthfully, we'd stayed together for so long because we couldn't afford to live apart. Our rent had nearly doubled the last time we re-upped our lease but even that was a bargain compared to what was out there currently. We were trapped by our need to have a roof over our heads.
My job had stagnated, and I couldn't find anything better. I was stuck. Like me, she'd been job hunting as well. Unlike me, she had a master's, and her prospects should've been higher. They weren't. For five months, she applied to hundreds of jobs and couldn't break through. If she got a rejection email, it was a win. Most of the time, the companies never responded.
Finally, she found a great opportunity at a Fortune 500 company. It was an involved process. She nailed the five interviews, and her "test project" was well received. She was offered the position, and it came with a massive pay increase—double her current salary. I was proud of her—she needed a win. We celebrated with pizza and beer that night.
Two days later, she dropped the bomb that she was breaking things off. The relationship ending wasn't a surprise. The timing was. The discussion was brief, and there was zero chance of reconciliation. She declined when I asked if she could stay until the lease ended. Mentally, it would've been too much for her. Two days after that, she moved out, taking half the rent with her. I was stuck in a lease I couldn't afford on my salary for the next six months.
My free time evaporated as I took on two extra gigs to help make ends meet. In addition to my office nine to five, I drove for a delivery app on the weekends and took a part-time night job stocking shelves at a local grocery store. When I wasn't hustling for housing, I slept or ate. I did nothing beyond that. Nothing brings me joy. There is no spark.
This drudgery has become my daily routine, and it's killing me.
To help cover some cost gaps, I've started selling off some of my stuff online. It was just me here, and I decided that the Spartan lifestyle would have to work for now. Anything I could fetch a decent amount for went up for sale. My apartment is so empty now every noise causes an echo.
Before my shift at the grocery store, I agreed to meet someone who wanted to take a look at my kitchen table. It was a lovely table – my ex had obsessed over it – but I didn't see a need at the moment. Now that I was a bachelor, my TV trays became my default kitchen tables anyway. I wasn't planning on any dinner parties in the future anyway.
A couple showed up later than they said they would. It was a bored-looking guy and a fastidious young woman. She made friendly small talk as she looked over the table. Her boyfriend (I think) stayed quiet and played bodyguard. I gave him a friendly nod at one point, and he just looked away. She said they'd take it without trying to talk me down. I took the small win.
She asked if I could help carry it down to their truck. I was running late, but feeling helpful, even for a fleeting few seconds, was worth it. Her silent boyfriend and I hauled the table through the hallway and even managed to avoid hitting the walls the entire way down.
I placed it in their truck, got my money, and turned to leave. The girl said thanks, and the boyfriend finally returned the nod. I gave a weird half-wave to them both and started to walk away when I heard the passenger window being rolled down.
"Hey man," the boyfriend said, his voice higher pitched than I thought it would. "What was up with your brother giving us the evil eye in the lobby when we got here?"
I turned around, "Huh? I don't have a brother."
"A cousin then?"
"My family lives about a thousand miles away. What happened in the lobby?"
"A dude that looked just like you was hiding in a dark hallway in the lobby and staring at my girl's ass."
"Jacob, really," she said.
"I'm sorry that happened, but I had nothing to do with it. We do have the occasional homeless guy meander in. Maybe you saw one of them," I said. "Did he say or do anything bad?"
"Jacob, I asked you to not say something," the girl said, burying her head in her hands.
Jacob's frosty attitude to me made sense now. "He said something about running up that ass. I dunno, he was mumbling. I told him I'd beat his ass if he didn't stop staring. Seemed to shut him up."
"Oh. Well, congrats," I said. "I'll tell the manager. Thanks for letting me know."
"You should do a better job keeping jokers like that out of the building."
"Jacob, he's not a security guard."
"He should still be a man and protect his home."
"Have a good night," I said, ending the conversation and heading back up to my apartment. I had about five minutes to change and head out before I'd be late. Last thing my ego needed was to be fired from my backup job.
Thankfully, I was able to slip into work and not get spotted by my boss. That was the last of the good news, though. We had a massive weekly order come in, which meant I'd be there late, plus someone had called out. Worse, our hand truck had a flat tire, and I spent the next few hours torturing my muscles, schlepping heavy boxes around the store. I soldiered on, counting down the minutes until I left and fantasizing about going to bed for the night.
If wishing for sleep wasn't a sad statement to my mental well-being, nothing was.
I came home after my shift at the grocery store and plopped down on the couch. I had contemplated selling it, but it was an older Ikea number, and I didn't think the value would replace my desire to sit. I could feel my body sink into the cushions, and the day's tension seep out. I was beat and tired to the point that turning on the TV was a chore.
I picked up my phone and thought I'd doomscroll until sleep overtook me. I didn't expect it to be a long scroll, as even the methadone that is my phone has failed me lately. As I lowered myself from a slumped position to a supine one, I heard footsteps outside my apartment door. This was not unusual, but the noise I heard sounded like kid footsteps. That was unusual, as nobody on our floor had kids, and it was almost midnight.
Despite my body screaming at me to not move, my brain suggested I check it out. I rolled myself off the couch and eventually stood up. I listened again and heard the kid running down the hallway. I walked over to my door and looked out the peephole. I didn't see anyone.
"Maybe I'm dreaming," I said to myself. "Maybe I'm not staring out a peephole, expecting to see a kid running down the hall at midnight, but instead, I'm cuddled up in my bed, snoozing." I pinched my arm and felt the pain. I was definitely in the waking world.
I turned to head back to the couch when I heard the running again, this time louder. I opened my door and peeked out into the hallway. Nobody was there. The door from the apartment across me opened up, too. Gloria, a young at heart grandma who was friendly/constantly buzzed in a wine mom kind of way, gave me a once over.
"You heard that, too?" she asked.
"Kids?"
"No rugrats around. I assumed it was some drunk assholes stumbling home from the bar."
I laughed. Gloria was, as always, blunt. "I didn't see any assholes," I said.
"Then you're not watching the right kind of internet videos," she said with a wink and a hoarse cackle.
I blushed. How do you respond to that? I just kind of nodded in agreement and shrugged.
"Gotta get your jollies while you can," she said before adding, "You need some rest, dear. You look like hammered shit." She shut her door and went back inside.
She was right. I felt like hammered shit. Since I wasn't going to solve the case of the mysterious runner and was sure it wasn't some lost kid, I decided to call it a night. I went back inside, shut down the apartment, and crawled into bed.
I thought about watching one of the "right kind of internet videos" but fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
***
"Your problem is you think the world owes you something."
John, my elderly coworker at the grocery store, was standing by while I unloaded a pallet of cereal. I liked John, and when I first started, we instantly clicked. He's quick with a joke and fun to talk to. He's also about thirty years older than me and speaks with the Boomer combination of accumulated wisdom, backhanded compliments, and fringe conspiracy nonsense. Still, regardless of how couched the kindness is in gobbledygook, he's usually coming from a good place.
"What?" I said, putting a box of Captain Crunch on the shelf.
"You're complaining about your situation, right? Saying it ain't fair. The world took a paddle to your hind quarters? Hey brother, that's the way the cookie crumbles. Gotta just pick yourself up and start over. You're smart enough – figured this job out right quick – you can do it."
The job was wheeling pallets around the store and stocking shelves. It wasn't much to figure out, but I understood his meaning. The other stuff wasn't necessary, though. "I'm just in a funk. I don't see a way forward."
"Hey, so you've bottomed out. No shame in that. Happens to us all. Silver lining, you can only go up," he said before adding, "Unless some other bad shit happens to you like your car dies or your apartment building burns down. But after that, it's only up."
"The apartment building burning down would be a blessing," I said, hoisting another little Captain on the shelf. "The rent is killing me."
"Have you tried negotiating a lower rent? They used to do that when I was your age."
"I think they'd evict me if I even asked."
"Hell, then you'd have at least thirty days, maybe forty, before they'd kick you out. Plenty of time to turn things around."
"Uh-huh," I said, "Any chance you could give me a hand here?"
"My back is screaming like a pretty young thing after prom," he said, holding his back for emphasis.
I didn't push. "Hey, I meant to tell you about some weird shit that happened the other night."
"Lay it on me. I love the strange."
"So, after my shift the other day, I got home around midnight and was flopped on the couch. I heard someone running down the hallway outside my apartment. I wasn't the only one. A few other neighbors heard it, too. When we checked, though, nobody was there."
"That ain't strange," John said, waving his hand, "that's a man who's plowing another man's wife running for his life."
I laughed. "That's not the weird part. So, for the next two nights, it's the same thing. Around midnight, someone runs down the hallway. Only this time, they're trying the door handles as they pass. So, I asked the front desk to check the security cameras, and they do."
"They see a man running away holding his clothes?"
"There wasn't anyone running down the hall," I said, "But the weird thing was, you could see the door handles turning on the video."
"Damn, that's a good one," John said, "You sure it wasn't just a camera glitch. These new ones from overseas aren't as reliable as they want you to think. Chinese probably using them to spy on you, too."
He continued as my brain tried to reconcile John's two opposing comments. "Weird shit happens at night, man. Before working here, I only worked the day shift. Even when they offered me more money to work nights, I turned it down. Even when they promised me a promotion, I turned them down."
In a previous life, John had worked as a paramedic. He came by it after serving in a medical unit in the army. He'd told me he loved the rush of the job, but after a while, the death and hurt in people's eyes got to be too much to handle. But he worked there for almost twenty years. So, the man had a tolerance for shenanigans and odd occurrences.
"Why'd you agree to work nights here?"
"Shit, we're home before the witching hour. This is like late afternoons, at best. But if it was overnights, hell no. Captain Crunch can anchor his own ship to the shelves. I'd take my ass to 7-11 for a day shift before agreeing to work an overnight."
"Something happen to you during the army?”
“I got the clap,” he offered.
I sighed. “What turned you off nights?"
"Oh. I heard enough stories from coworkers to know I didn't want to experience any of that hoo-doo shit," he said, "trying to save someone's life is hard enough without adding in demon kids and ghosts."
"Did your coworkers see demon kids?" I asked, moving on from the good Captain to the Trix rabbit.
He nodded, "They saw too much. I find it odd, even with all the surveillance we have now and all the science we know about these days, that the night still scares us. You ever know someone who worked a night shift?"
I had. My ex. During college, she worked the overnight desk at a hotel for a while. She quit because the job gave her bad vibes. I told John as much.
He pointed and laughed, "See! Don't you find it odd that every person who works at night always has a story of something eerie happening to them? Every person, buster. That's what they call an irrefutable fact."
"Maybe the ghost running down the hallway is an old employee still doing his rounds."
"In that case, keep that door double locked. I'd even wedge a towel under the door just in case."
"Maybe they're friendly? Casper-like in that way."
"You ever heard someone tell you about a friendly ghost outside the funny papers?"
"I'm sure it happens," I said, "The scary ghosts are more popular though."
“We think we know everything there is to know but we are just babes in the woods when it comes to night things.” John shook his head. "Imma tell you one or three things that happened to a guy I worked with back when I first got hired on to chase after corpses in the ambo. Guy's name was Gil. Quiet man, kept to himself. Didn't rock the boat or demand a bigger paddle. Just rowed with us. Good cat to learn under," John said, finally handing me a cereal box.
I took it, and he kept going, "Now, Gil, ya see, he had a little wifey that would pester him about working days. She was a cop and worked evenings at that time, so they never saw each other. When married people can't align their genitals every now and then, it spells doom."
"A little too much information but sure," I said, shelving another box of Trix.
"Probably part of what happened with you and yours," he said. He wasn't wrong, but that didn't mean I wanted to hear it.
John kept on, "Gil finally got approved to move to nights. Little pay boost and a happy, 'fulfilled' wife should've made that man happy. But it didn't. I saw him a few months later, and he had changed. He might've been quiet when he was working with me, but he'd talk to you if you engaged. When I saw him that time, though, oh boy. He looked sick."
"Wasn't a fan of working nights?"
"Wasn't a fan of living anymore is the feeling I got," John said, "After some prodding, he got to talking with me some. Told me he missed days because the nights were messing with him. I thought it had to do with the schedule change, but that wasn't the case. He said he saw things in the dark he couldn't explain. Things that would turn James Brown into James White, ya dig?"
"I...dig," I said.
"Told me they got a call to an abandoned apartment building one night, around three in the morning. Wasn't unusual. Old buildings in the city are where hop-heads congregate and share drugs. Sometimes, the drugs are too much. Sometimes, they find a person passed out or, worse, dead. When you work in the ambo, you aren't scared of death like a civilian. You've been around it. Probably seen a few folks take their last breaths. It doesn't bother you the way Mother Nature intended it should."
He handed me another box, continuing his assist streak, and kept going, "Ambo pulled up, Gil stepped out and looked for someone to talk to. Nobody there, though. Not uncommon. Some people want to help but not be involved. There's not a soul around. He calls out, but nothing comes back. Tells me he turns to get back in the ambulance when he hears a scream from inside the run-down building. They're calling for help. He's gotta go in the abandoned building in the dark."
"No thanks," I said.
"But it don't bother a medic like that. Gil's done a million of these calls. No big deal. He runs into that building but doesn't come back out until twenty minutes later. Just goes missing. After five, the crew heads in to back him up but can't find him. Gil tells me his crew called the cops. It was like he had vanished."
"What happened?"
"I asked him and he got real quiet. Said he fell into some place that looked like here but wasn't here. Said he felt their eyes on him. Judging him. Told me they followed him home and wouldn't leave him be."
"Who?"
John shrugged, "He didn't say. Shut down after that and left. Just walked past me like I was shit on the sidewalk. He quit about a week later. Heard he had a stroke a year later and was a tombstone owner three months after that. Good guy, though."
"Your aversion to overnights makes a little more sense."
"Never in a million years. You don't want something like that coming after you."
"In my case, could it get much worse?" I said with a half-smile.
"Man, I wouldn't even joke about that," he said, making the sign of the cross, "You don't want that shit attachin' itself to you. With your luck, you'd bring him in here, and it'd hop over to me. I can't have a ghost crimping my style."
After a bit, he got called away to sign off on a delivery. I finished out my shift and headed out to the parking lot. When I exited the building and spotted my car, I froze. My doors were all open, and the interior lights were on. Someone had broken in.
I glanced around the lot to see if the thief was still around, but there wasn't another person near me. I walked over to the car and peered inside. My glovebox had been ripped open, and my registration was pulled out, but nothing else was missing.
I found little hand prints in the dirt all along the body and the windows. I held mine up for comparison, and they were about half the size. It must've been some tweens or teens who did this. Maybe they were going to steal some things and got cold feet. I contemplated calling the cops, but since nothing had happened and they wouldn't do anything anyway, there was no reason to delay sleep any longer than I had to. I closed all the doors and climbed inside.
I started the car and heard something rattling in the AC vents. I pulled out my phone and shined the light at the vent. There was a small piece of paper inside. I looked around my car for some tool to pull it out and only found an ink pen and a bent-up paperclip. After McGuyvering the vent for a bit, the paper finally came out.
I held it up and unfolded it. There was a handwritten note. It simply read, "I know you're here. I know you're hiding him. I will find you both, and then it'll be your turn to run the race. We all have to run at some point."
I had no idea what that meant, but my body still provided goosebumps. Who was trying to find me? Who was the second person? Why leave a note in my AC vent? What the hell did run the race mean? I hadn't run a race since elementary school and wasn't planning to do so any time soon. Did they mean the rat race? Because I was basically marathoning that motherfucker already.
"Jesus Christ," I said, shaking my head. "What else, universe?"
As if it were a well-practiced comedy routine, the universe responded. My back passenger door swung open, and I heard footsteps running away from my car. I sprung up and scrambled to get out. There wasn't anyone else in the lot that I could see, but very clearly, someone had been hiding in my backseat.
My nerves were shot already, and this was not something I wanted to deal with at the moment. My brain decided that to avoid a breakdown, I needed to shift into automatic mode and just get back to the safety of my apartment. I'd be more prepared to deal with this – whatever it was – in the morning.
Either that or I'd jump in front of a bus. Both sounded satisfying, albeit in different ways.
***
"There he is," Gloria said as soon as I turned down the hallway. I looked up and noticed a small cabal of my neighbors standing in a semi-circle, waiting for me. They all look displeased.
"Hey guys," I said, confused. "I miss an invite for a block party?"
"What do you have to say for yourself?"
"About?"
"Don't play dumb," another neighbor said, jabbing their finger in my direction.
"I'm not playing," I said, realizing the self-burn only after the words escaped my lips.
Gloria showed me the screen on her phone. It was a static shot of her door from across the hall. She pressed play, and nothing happened for a beat until something darted across the screen. That was the whole thing. I looked up at her, my face twisted up in confusion.
"Well," she said, "What do you have to say?"
"What was that?" I asked.
"That was you!" the pointing neighbor said, pointing harder than I thought possible.
"What?" I said, laughing. "Are you all serious?" They didn't laugh, and I realized they weren't joking. "How can you even tell it's me? It's a blur. Never mind the fact I've been at work for the last five hours. Plus, this blur is half my size. I get we're all weirded out about the Phantom Runner, but it's not me. I swear to God. I don't even have the energy to think about running, let alone the physical desire to."
"Then explain this," Gloria said, slightly swaying from the half bottle of Pinot Noir coursing through her blood. She rewound the video and froze it on a specific frame. I couldn't believe my eyes, but I was looking at...me. Or, rather, something pretending to be me.
"What the fuck?" I said, my jaw dropping.
"Still think we're lying?" the pointer said smugly.
"No, but, guys, this isn't me. I... I've been at work. Wanna see my schedule?"
I reached into my phone and pulled it out. There was an email with my work schedule that confirmed what I was saying. They relaxed, and, for the first time, anger gave way to fear. Their very plausible explanation was suddenly invalid. It left two implausible answers floating in the ether: either I had a pint-sized doppelganger terrorizing the hallways of my apartment, or a ghost was haunting the building.
"I'm...gonna go inside," the pointer said, walking back to their home. Everyone else drifted away until it was just Gloria and I standing alone in the hallway.
She looked at me and sighed, "I feel like an asshole," she said. "Sorry I accused you of causing the racket."
"If I had seen the video, I would've thought the same thing," I said. "We're good."
"What do you think it is?" she asked.
I shrugged and let out an exhausted sigh. "Honestly, Gloria, I've had a screwed-up night already, and this is the cherry on top of the shit sundae; forgive my language. I don't have the mental bandwidth to even comprehend what's on the video at the moment."
"Think it's after you?" she asked, though I suspected the wine had forced her to put that idea out into the universe. As I had already seen, the universe seemed to take requests on my behalf.
"Maybe it's after you?" I said, coming off a little meaner than I intended, but I didn't care. I left her there to contemplate that scenario and went into my apartment.
As soon as the door shut behind me, I felt on edge. Just because I didn't have the mental bandwidth to discuss the doppelganger didn't mean it wasn't dominating my thoughts. I saw the frame of the video. The damn ghost looked exactly like me. What could that possibly mean? I know I had wished for death, but I was very still alive. I had rent due to prove that.
Did I happen to live in a place haunted by a ghost that looked strikingly like me? Was it some kid with a passing resemblance just causing chaos? Was it something else I couldn't even comprehend – an alien? A clone? A secret government project?
There was a thumping coming from the hallway. The mini Usain Bolt was at it again. I knew the neighbors would ignore it. Since they had all thought it was me, which was proven to be untrue, they would avoid the running man from now on. While curious and confused by the creature, they'd never put themselves in harm's way to discover what it was. They were not a brave lot.
Neither was I, but maybe my life crumbling around me had forced my hand. I walked over to my door and swung it open. I hit record on my phone, stuck it out like a periscope, and glanced around the hallway. Nobody was there. No neighbors were looking. No person was running.
"You gotta stop, man. I need to go to sleep," I said to the empty space. No response, not that I was expecting one.
I turned to walk back in, and I caught something out of the corner of my eye. A face at the end of the hallway peeked around the corner. For a quick second, we locked eyes, and it was like I was looking into a mirror. This thing was me. But...how?
I tried to get it on video, but it ducked back into the shadows. I took that as a cue to shut and lock my door. My heart was racing, and I didn't want to think about this anymore, but I couldn't help it. There was a me in the hallway who enjoyed pestering my neighbors. Worse, they liked to run for some ungodly reason.
I put my phone on the counter, the video still rolling, when there was a knock at my door. It echoed in my near-empty apartment. I tried to ignore it and convince myself it was something else, but it wasn't. The ghost was knocking on my door. Even with my brain paralyzed, I couldn't help but think that it was awfully polite to knock.
Another knock, this one more forceful. I wondered if the neighbors thought I was making this up?
"I know you're in there," a voice said. It sounded just like me. "This is about the race. We all have to run the race. It's your turn now."
I froze. My legs went wobbly like a boxer on the brink of a blackout, but I stayed tall. I opened my mouth to speak and found the words dying in my throat. I grabbed a nearby bottle of water and took a chug.
"We all have to run the race."
"What race?" I choked out, "What are you talking about?"
"Open up. They're in there already, and I need to get them."
I glanced all around my empty apartment. I didn't see anyone else in here. I didn't hear anything. Whatever this thing was, it was lying. I grabbed my phone and held it in my hand. I wanted to document this to prove that I wasn't crazy.
“Did you leave the note?”
“I know they’re in there with you,” it repeated.
"There's no one in here," I said.
"They're hiding. I think I know where. I can hear them."
"You've gotta get out of here," I said. "There's nothing here, and you're scaring people."
"I'm scared, and you should be! You have to run the race, man! Open up, and I can show you."
The handle started to shake. I peered through the keyhole and only saw the top of the other me's head. They began to shoulder the door, and it crunched against my nose. I screamed out in pain and stumbled back. I tripped over my feet and landed hard on my ass.
The thing slammed into the door two more times, shaking the walls. The strength seemed unnatural. On the third hit, the door burst open. I finally got a view of the thing. It was me. Scaled down by half, but it was me. We both seemed shocked.
"You're so much taller up close," the other me said.
"Who the fuck are you?"
I felt a buzzing in my feet that seemed to climb up my body until it reached my brain. There was an intense pain that rippled through the folds of my mind. Through the pain, I could hear a disembodied voice whisper, "We all must run the race. We all have to run. Chase it. Chase yourself." It felt like my skull was going to split in two. I clutched the sides of my head and let out a primal scream that hurt my own ears.
Then it was gone. But I could still feel the echoes in my mind. "We all have to run the race. We all have to run." The thought would waver between making no sense and making complete sense. One second, I was questioning what was happening to my mind, and the next, all I felt was the desire to continue the race.
"There he is!" the other me yelled, pointing at the hallway.
I glanced over and saw another version of me standing in the hallway. It was half the size of the other me that had broken into my place. When tiny me locked eyes with my intruder, he ran for the open hallway closet.
The other me followed, screaming that it would catch the little bastard if it was the last thing he'd do. I pushed myself up to my feet and felt queasy. I watched as the other me ran head-first into the closet without slowing. I expected to hear a loud thump as it hit the back wall but none came.
"We all have to run the race," the voice in my head said, soothing my nerves. "It's your time to run the race."
I moved down the hallway, each footfall echoing loudly in the empty apartment, each step bringing me closer to the closet door. Something was drawing me there. The voice's words echoed in my mind as well: "We all have to run the race. It's your turn now."
I grabbed the door and stopped. Something was compelling me to move forward. To go into the closet. To chase myself. To run the race.
"No," I whispered and yanked my hand from the door. I pulled out my still recording phone, and stared into the camera. My face was devoid of color, and you could see the fear etched into me. "I'm freaking out because...because…"
I stopped. I felt an invisible hand grab my body and tug. "Because...because if I don't run the race, something bad will happen. I have to chase it. I...I have to."
My phone dropped from my hand, and I didn’t care. The force pulling me forward stopped but my body kept going. I could feel the last strands of my rational mind splintering. My thoughts became focused on one thing: I had to catch myself, find out what was happening, and run the race. If I ran, maybe I'd win.
I needed a win.
I walked into the back of the closet and felt a door handle sticking out of the wall. I'd been in that closet a million times before and never had seen this. But a sense of calm washed over me. This….this was supposed to be here. This was perfectly fine.
I turned the handle and pulled open the invisible door. In front of me was a hallway that looked strikingly like the one outside my apartment. At the end of the hallway, I saw Gloria step out of their home to leave for the night. She was huge. Twice my size, easy.
Another door opened, and I saw...me—a giant version of me. The Hulk version of me was getting ready to go to the grocery store for work. I watched as the giant Gloria and giant me joked and laughed. I was stunned.
I stared, and a new thought came to me. I have to find the smaller me and talk to it. I needed to find out if there's a way out of this...this….
"It's your turn to run," the voice said.
Calm embraced me. "It's my turn to run," I repeated. As the giant me took off and the giant Gloria re-entered her apartment, the hallway beckoned.
"We all have to run the race," I said softly, "It's my turn now."
I started running.

Klaus Schwab is 'stepping back from his executive role' in the WEF ( https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/21/world-economic-forum-davos-founder-klaus-schwab-to-step-back-from-executive-role.html )
He was used at the end of his position in a very strange way. All those terrible quotes and seeing him looking like an evil Darth Vader type... that was really strange.
I never could figure out how making WEF seem so villainous served their goals...
Now it's obvious they knew he could be used that way since he would be out before long anyway. But what was the point of it?
I've always speculated that the complete and total absurdity associated with everything related to "Covid" and the push for the vaccines was so they would target a very specific demographic:

• Gullible/naive people
• Unintelligent people
• Follower types
• People with no backbone or ability to resist peer pressure
• People who would harm themselves and their own families for 'the greater good'
• People who would turn against their own kind
• Weak people unable to withstand hardship
• Addicted consumers who would shoot up a needle directly in their body in order to keep consuming nonstop

Sorry, no one wants to hear that but if you think about it --- that was their target demographic. To anyone thinking and/or paying attention, they made it ridiculously obvious that those shots were a bad idea.
Here were some clues:

1. Widespread censorship of citizen thoughts and opinions
2. Widespread censorship (and worse) for people in the science/medical community
3. Constant assertion of easily disprovable lies
4. Insane & bizarre measures to coerce people
5. Economic things that made no sense
6. Sending sick people as young as 20 into nursing homes even though the hospitals had already been emptied (and then censoring anyone who showed others that the hospitals were empty)
7. Blatantly exaggerating risk in obvious ways (testing only sick people in order to claim a high IFR)
8. Pushing the PCR test to a whopping 45+ cycles (a test that will detect anything with a high enough cycle threshold)
9. Making sure we knew that the people on the inside weren't following their own orders (elite/politicians had large unmasked parties, non-stop footage of authorities not wearing masks but pulling them up for the camera and off right after, etc., newscasters peddling fear vacationing maskless around crowded pools in Florida and other places that reopened or never shut down) etc.
10. Pushing unhealthy lifestyles, division, and hate during a time we were supposedly in "the worst pandemic of our lives"
11. Using expected deaths to trick people into thinking the death count was unexpectedly high. (~80 years ago began a massive global ~25 year baby boom. You can't have a baby boom without a death boom later on -- it's simple math. Anyone that explained this was shamed, censored, and banned.)
12. Intentionally death protocols -- separating people from their families and then administrating medications that killed them
13. Blocking treatments that appeared to work
14. Encouraging people to go out in the streets and protest in crowds while simultaneously shaming others for stepping outdoors
15. Arresting people for harmless activities, like walking their dog, being alone at a beach, or fishing at a pond, etc.
16. Lying about the shots being "approved" when they never were, and when called on it they said, "Well the approved shots are the same as what's being given to people so that's good enough!" Without telling them that they would be excluded from the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program(!) ... And for the few who bothered to look it up, they claimed there was a "Countermeasures Program" to
17. Bold, blatant lies, coverups, and censorship with regard to vaccine side efficacy, adverse events, and death.

I could go on and on... But if you were offended by my prior list, look through those 17 examples and just try to tell me the first list is wrong.
It's not. This is the sad truth no matter how upset it makes anyone. It is what it is, and we were all attacked from within by our own governments...
And there's something critical about the way Klaus Schwab intentionally played the part of a cartoon evil villain. They didn't cast him that way and dress him up like a Space Invader for nothing. That played a role in this psychological operation -- it's just hard to tell precisely what.
For those of us who pay attention, it will likely become clear later -- as most people (from the first list) are caught up in the next Current Thing. Those who haven't yet succumbed to the long term effects of what was done to them. One of the most profitable mass poisonings in history.
(You may have noticed Pfizer & Moderna heavily investing in treatments for cancer and heart problems. This is no coincidence.)
PS. For the coincidence theorists out there -- don't forget that in the court of law people are convicted based on 'coincidences' and 'circumstantial evidence' all the time. Here in California juries are ordered to treat circumstantial evidence on the same level as direct evidence. When a series of coincidences add up to form a pattern -- they aren't coincidences anymore. And we're WAY past that point now.
But will they ever be held accountable? No, the naive & weak who allowed (and even encouraged) them to do this would rather stand in their defense than to admit they were wrong and hold them accountable. And that is probably why they were targeted in the first place. "Useless eaters" as Klaus Schwab's right hand man called him. (Their words, not mine.)

Hello!!
Sorry if this ends up being a long and unformatted post, but I need help from someone who understands a bit more than I do.
I (21F) unknowingly got a UTI back in October when I got my IUD put in. I'm assuming that's when it happened, because when they did my analysis I had two types of bacteria causing my uti, proteus mirabelis and klebsiella pneumoniae, and those two (specifically klebsiella) seem to come specifically from medical settings, and since my doctor was in a rush (I was his last patient of the day before having to go to the hospital for a delivery), I don't think he was being as careful as he should've been with washing hands and stuff. I didn't know that I had a UTI until almost a month ago when I went into the ER for excruciating pain, the worst pain I've ever felt.
I had none of the common symptoms of UTIs, but I was increasingly losing my appetite, vomiting, nausea, fatigue, severe pain in my right side and back... the whole nine yards. I thought it was either side effects from the IUD being put in (I was told these were all side effects to except for up to a year after insertion, don't really know if that's true) or from my PCOS, which often unfortunately causes pain in the same area that's so intense I am nauseous or vomiting as well.
When I went into the ER, they did a urine test (the urine was pretty bloody so they concluded I had an infection before even testing it, but they still tested it anyways), as well as doing a CT scan and ultrasound to make sure there wasn't anything else (cancer) going on.
In that CT scan, they found a 1cm kidney stone. However, they didn't tell me about it directly. They sent me home, stated that I had a UTI, and said that the antibiotics should take care of it in 7 days (I unfortunately don't remember what antibiotic it was now, but it's a general one that helps with the most bacteria since they didn't know what I had yet). I only found out about the stone after reading my chart and seeing pictures of the CT scan, where you can clearly see it.
After 7 days of that antibiotic, I started feeling bad again 24 hours after I was finished with them. I did a telemedicine visit, but what they ended up prescribing me is known to be ineffective with the types of bacteria I had, so I didn't even really bother and ended up just going to a minute clinic. At the minute clinic they did another test, said I still had a UTI, and put me on bactrim. I'm sensitive to bactrim, and it ended up giving me an ear infection... and then it still didn't completely fix the UTI either. I went to a minute clinic the third time after trying bactrim and they gave me amoxicillin, which finally seems to have worked for the UTI.
Unfortunately, today I had to give a tour to some employees. I work outside at a large property, and by the end of it the severe pain had come back in my right side and back and while it has dulled now, almost 10 hours after, it's still there. I took a UTI at home test and it came positive for leukocytes but not nitrites, which when I looked it up, says it may be due to antibiotic use, UTI, or kidney stone. Go figure.
I've been drinking lemon juice like crazy (I've heard that it can help you pass kidney stones), but I haven't passed anything so I'm assuming my leftover pain is from that. I'm not really sure what to do from here, because if the ER didn't even mention it, I'm not sure if any urologist will take me seriously and just will brush it off. I've never had kidney stones, so I'm not even really sure what the treatment is for it (I keep reading that it's painful... ladies with IUDs, is it better or worse than getting that inserted?) The bottom line is that I can't keep living like this, I'm confused why no one mentioned or seemed concerned about the kidney stone (the minute clinic people didn't really seem to care either), and I don't have insurance so it's getting really costly to keep going to the doctors and having them brush me off. I'm at my wits end, and it's making my depression bad again. Can someone please either give me knowledge you have past googling stuff (googling isn't really getting me anywhere past surface level knowledge, and no doctor really is explaining it to me) or what to do next?
Again, sorry this post is so long. I'm just hoping that someone reads it and is able to help me.

Hello!!
Sorry if this ends up being a long and unformatted post, but I need help from someone who understands a bit more than I do.
I (21F) unknowingly got a UTI back in October when I got my IUD put in. I'm assuming that's when it happened, because when they did my analysis I had two types of bacteria causing my uti, proteus mirabelis and klebsiella pneumoniae, and those two (specifically klebsiella) seem to come specifically from medical settings, and since my doctor was in a rush (I was his last patient of the day before having to go to the hospital for a delivery), I don't think he was being as careful as he should've been with washing hands and stuff. I didn't know that I had a UTI until almost a month ago when I went into the ER for excruciating pain, the worst pain I've ever felt.
I had none of the common symptoms of UTIs, but I was increasingly losing my appetite, vomiting, nausea, fatigue, severe pain in my right side and back... the whole nine yards. I thought it was either side effects from the IUD being put in (I was told these were all side effects to except for up to a year after insertion, don't really know if that's true) or from my PCOS, which often unfortunately causes pain in the same area that's so intense I am nauseous or vomiting as well.
When I went into the ER, they did a urine test (the urine was pretty bloody so they concluded I had an infection before even testing it, but they still tested it anyways), as well as doing a CT scan and ultrasound to make sure there wasn't anything else (cancer) going on.
In that CT scan, they found a 1cm kidney stone. However, they didn't tell me about it directly. They sent me home, stated that I had a UTI, and said that the antibiotics should take care of it in 7 days (I unfortunately don't remember what antibiotic it was now, but it's a general one that helps with the most bacteria since they didn't know what I had yet). I only found out about the stone after reading my chart and seeing pictures of the CT scan, where you can clearly see it.
After 7 days of that antibiotic, I started feeling bad again 24 hours after I was finished with them. I did a telemedicine visit, but what they ended up prescribing me is known to be ineffective with the types of bacteria I had, so I didn't even really bother and ended up just going to a minute clinic. At the minute clinic they did another test, said I still had a UTI, and put me on bactrim. I'm sensitive to bactrim, and it ended up giving me an ear infection... and then it still didn't completely fix the UTI either. I went to a minute clinic the third time after trying bactrim and they gave me amoxicillin, which finally seems to have worked for the UTI.
Unfortunately, today I had to give a tour to some employees. I work outside at a large property, and by the end of it the severe pain had come back in my right side and back and while it has dulled now, almost 10 hours after, it's still there. I took a UTI at home test and it came positive for leukocytes but not nitrites, which when I looked it up, says it may be due to antibiotic use, UTI, or kidney stone. Go figure.
I've been drinking lemon juice like crazy (I've heard that it can help you pass kidney stones), but I haven't passed anything so I'm assuming my leftover pain is from that. I'm not really sure what to do from here, because if the ER didn't even mention it, I'm not sure if any urologist will take me seriously and just will brush it off. I've never had kidney stones, so I'm not even really sure what the treatment is for it (I keep reading that it's painful... ladies with IUDs, is it better or worse than getting that inserted?) The bottom line is that I can't keep living like this, I'm confused why no one mentioned or seemed concerned about the kidney stone (the minute clinic people didn't really seem to care either), and I don't have insurance so it's getting really costly to keep going to the doctors and having them brush me off. I'm at my wits end, and it's making my depression bad again. Can someone please either give me knowledge you have past googling stuff (googling isn't really getting me anywhere past surface level knowledge, and no doctor really is explaining it to me) or what to do next?
Again, sorry this post is so long. I'm just hoping that someone reads it and is able to help me. I might cross post it, just not sure yet. Thank you.

Something I was thinking about when I watched the final moments of the most recent EFAP was Mauler’s observation that the internet content creator landscape used to be different when AVGN clones ruled Youtube and his question of how that shifted into video essayists and commentary channels. I thought about that for a while and I thought of some reasons why the landscape changed that I would like to share.
Managers
Something that people might not be aware of is how many Youtubers have people managing their content in the form of things like setting up brand deals and other services that I am not familiar with. Some of them are very public about what they do, some of them are more private. The important thing is how managers worked in the past.
One thing that I liked about Machinima, ScrewAttack, and Channel Awesome that the creators probably didn’t like is that they forced the older creators to stick to a set schedule of uploads and some of them forced creators to follow a set formula. This meant that the manager would make sure that if a creator uploaded a video every Friday at 2pm, they would have an upload every single Friday at 2pm.
How would this work if the creator wanted to take a week off? Well, the creator would have to have a video to upload in advance. What if the creator wanted to spend 3 weeks on a super-duper big video? Well, they could absolutely do that, but it would be a passion project and they’d still have to follow the set schedule for regular uploads.
This created a content landscape that I actually enjoyed a lot as a consumer because it’s probably the way it should be for reviewers. Every week, or every day in rare cases, a movie reviewer would need to review a different movie, which meant that a reviewer might have to force themselves to sit through a movie they don’t want to see like Fifty Shades Of Grey to give it a chance to subvert their expectations and earn a glowing review, or dig deep to find a new indie movie to review to fill that quota if they really didn’t want to sit through Fifty Shades Of Grey.
The promise of Patreon and creators becoming more independent was that creators would exclusively make videos on topics they wanted to do, but I personally think that was the wrong way to go. I’ve maintained a position that I prefer it when content creators are encouraged, or even forced, to talk about things that they don’t want to talk about because oftentimes that’s when reviewers are most interesting. Some of my favorite Roger Ebert reviews were when he reviewed a children’s movie like Space Jam or Pokemon: The First Movie, and some of my favorite Zero Punctuation reviews are when he has to pick out a random indie game and commit to reviewing it regardless of what the indie game turned out to be, like when he reviewed Hell Pie.
What I think has happened is that the lack of managers has encouraged content creators to upload whatever they want, whenever they want, which has usually translated to videos about ‘easy’ topics, like videos about Disney movies, being uploaded weeks, or even months, apart, which has made the content creation landscape, at least for reviewers, a lot less interesting, and a lot less engaging.
It’s actually one of the reasons why EFAP has been losing my interest lately, because although they upload a stream every week the topics they choose are generally ‘easy’ topics because I genuinely think the hosts don’t have the ability to make an EFAP on something more obscure, or even just ‘difficult’ like Baby Reindeer, very interesting, or they just won’t do streams on those topics because, as Rags said: “This is our show, and we can do whatever the fuck we want.”
Honestly, my hot take is that I liked you better when you couldn’t do whatever the fuck you wanted all of the time. In fact, one of my favorite Rags moments on EFAP was when he clearly didn’t want to be involved with the debate with Twin Perfect.
Sponsors
I remember the Adpocalypse and how Youtubers transitioned to sponsors over relying heavily on ad-revenue. What that event transpired into is that audiences were far more accepting of basically any form of making money that Youtubers would use. Patreon became a very dominant part of Youtube, but sponsors also became extremely common and audiences would even cheer in the comment sections when creators would have their first Raid: Shadow Legends sponsorship.
Sponsors are what I want to talk about because I have seen Youtubers show that they have a bunch of videos on their computer that they simply aren’t releasing to the public because they don’t want to upload a single video without a sponsor on their main channel, as well as Youtubers having a second channel where they upload ‘slop’ content without sponsors that most of their audience is usually unaware of or isn’t interested in.
The problem is that the appeal for pretty much all content on Youtube is the personalities of the people creating the content, which is less about the actual personalities and more like “That’s an actual person doing what they actually want to do, that’s so cool,” but that is usually undercut by the presence of sponsors. The fact that Youtubers will sit on a video they made and not upload it unless they can get a sponsor to pay for it always seemed strange to me, especially for Youtubers where the image they present is “I’m just a normal, chill guy who makes Youtube videos for fun,” which needs the caveat of “Uhhhh, I’m actually really poor and if I don’t take this BetterHelp sponsor I can’t afford my rent this month. Please understand, I’m barely making any money on Youtube,” when a sponsor is included in the video.
As weird as this sounds, there are communities of creatives online that don’t expect to ever make any money putting hours, days, weeks, months, and years of work into a project. There are modding communities, bloggers, game developers, fanfiction writers, and artists that only want comments saying “You did a good job,” and Youtubers used to be that way, or they used to present themselves that way before sponsors became as common as they are now.
I don’t say this often enough, but I remember when Youtubers would make videos about not just random pictures on Deviantart, but on fanfictions and pornographic videos. They’d do those videos for things like clout, which is something that I don’t see too often on Youtube.
People might say that there are a bunch of Youtubers that talk about obscure media and Youtubers that make things without any expectation of earning money, which I say “Well, yeah, but that’s not what I’m talking about,” and then I’d point to things like AVGN’s Atari Porn video, and old videos where commentary Youtubers would branch out from their niche to say “Hey, just for fun, we’re going to check out this weird fanfiction story,” or how Yahtzee would include fun projects he created at the end of his Zero Punctuation videos, like how he’d dub over scenes in video games like Half-Life and Painkiller, or how he made a slideshow with Garry’s Mod that depicted a love story between Heavy and Medic.
What I’m saying is that a large part of what made Youtube fun was that not every video from an established creator with 100k subscribers needed to be monetized, or even created with the expectation of being successful or well-received by the community. There was a time when the expectations people had for, say, Jim Sterling was for a high-quality Jimquisition video to be produced and uploaded to the main channel once a week, and for the other days to feature a minimally-edited video where he showed himself trying out a game or reacting to a trailer on his main channel.
In the past I said that I would like it if EFAP would talk about comments and read fanfictions on-stream and I was mocked for it, but I stand by that statement because, although EFAP clearly doesn’t want to do it regularly, when they do read comments on-stream it tends to result in some of the best content because it showcases a side to them that I like. Instead of being totally normal dudes talking to each other about a movie they saw or reacting to a video, they have to use text-to-speech or read the comment using a silly voice or, well, use just a little bit of creativity when reading those comments out-loud.
What I’m kinda saying is that, yes, I think we all like professionally-produced content, and we all accept that sponsors for videos are necessary. But, like, I don’t like how for most successful Youtubers only the monetizable content, often with sponsors, is presented on the main channel, while the other content doesn’t exist, is uploaded to a secondary channel, or is locked behind some kind of paywall.
It just feels strange that these normal, chill, relatable people have gotten themselves into a position where they can earn real money, in some cases a lot of money, to stand in front of a webcam for 10 minutes talking about their favorite movies, chat with a group of friends, or even just play their favorite video game, and in quite a few cases they won’t do any of those things unless there’s a way to monetize it. Imagine how it looks to say “Well, I can’t talk about this cool fanfiction story I read on my main channel to my audience that enjoys my content about that franchise because I can’t get a sponsor for it.”
I wonder if Rags, a regular host of EFAP, appreciates the irony of him criticizing Chris Stuckmann for advocating that filmmakers “Get as much time and money as possible to make their films in the ideal circumstances and for the process to be easy,” when he’s in the position that he’s in where, on EFAP, he has as much freedom as he wants in the ideal circumstances to make money with EFAP, and it’s easy, yet he still will complain if he’s asked to step out of his comfort zone, even a little bit, on stream.
Insecurity
A while ago I had a theory about Cancel Culture which was that usually Cancel Culture is incredibly exaggerated by the audience of the people being canceled, and that most of the people being canceled are perfectly fine. The go-to example is the poor lady who made a joke about AIDS before going to Africa that got off the flight and got fired from her job due to her joke going viral. What people often don’t mention is that she got fired because it’s a terrible look for the company’s PR person to be involved with such a massive PR disaster, and that she got hired at another company a very short time later. Plus, like, she made a racist joke and people were calling her a racist, it wasn’t like she was targeted for absolutely no reason.
My theory is that people think that Cancel Culture absolutely ruins the lives of celebrities and influencers online because of their intense reactions to being canceled. An early example being Seth Macfarlane, who was mocked for his poorly-received hosting of the Oscars and who seemed incredibly bitter about it, making Cancel Culture a plot point in multiple episodes of Family Guy, talking about how bitter he was about it in interviews for years, and even apparently getting emotional support from his friends and family after the ordeal, even going as far as to ask celebrities to say “I liked what he did and I thought he was hilarious, and very handsome.”
What I’m saying is that I think that in the early days of content creation on Youtube the people making videos were more willing to appear on camera and embarrass themselves, like with Spoony screaming at a big gaming event on camera, because even though they were aware of Cancel Culture being a thing they weren’t going to be reduced to tears by someone saying “You’re totally cringe and annoying,” and even went as far as to incorporate those kinds of comments into their video because it was extremely easy content to create. You probably know what I’m talking about, where a creator would read out “This content creator is SOOOOOOO CRINGE,” in a video in a silly voice which you can’t really do as easily with “OMG, I love your content,” and make it entertaining.
That’s changed a lot today with content creators seeming to project an extreme amount of insecurity in every video they’re a part of, which gets even worse in formats like podcasts. It feels like every commentary creator is a chill dude that isn’t offended by anything and only wants to have a good time talking about things they like because, well, that’s what they need to be to avoid being criticized too severely, but they constantly allude to being a very immature and thin-skinned person that is mainly concerned about earning money, to the point where they’ll say “I’m not even having fun producing content at all.”
In college I remember one of my professors saying: “When you were high school kids you were insecure and weren’t confident in your abilities enough to volunteer when you were asked. You’re adults now, and when you graduate you can’t do that at a real job. Part of growing up is being confident in yourself, and if you don’t want to do that, you can always work in fast food where you never need to grow up, while the other adults in your friend group are becoming doctors and construction workers.”
It’s something that I realized with Youtubers which is that a decent amount of them started their careers young and never had to ‘grow up’ the way that my professor said that we needed to. Even with millions of subscribers you still see a lot of Youtubers struggle to commit to any statement they make, and I hear “I’m just a dumb Youtuber who doesn’t know anything and is stupid and socially-awkward and is fat and smells bad,” too many times from rich and successful people.
The thing is, when you’re a teenager, or you’re in your 20s, that insecurity is charming and relatable because you're trying to find a place in the world and discovering the role that you will fill in society. But, when you’re 30 and your role is “I tell people about the latest internet drama and make references to Spongebob,” or “I talk about Star Wars for hours at a time,” even if you make $2 million every day there’s likely a part of you that says: “I don’t like who I am. I don’t like what I do for a living. Yes, I’m rich, but I don’t like why I’m rich, and I don’t like my audience.”
I think that this insecurity leads to people trying to make their content more ‘mature’, but the way they do it isn’t by presenting themselves as a more confident person, or by making a clear separation between the personality in their content and their actual personality so that they can have a good work/life balance, it’s by creating the same content with very superficially mature elements. So, you end up with the video essayists of the past that gained fame by describing the events of a movie and then giving their opinion on whether they liked or disliked it doing the same thing but with quotes from smart people, like Socrates, and making conclusions like “Some people are gonna like this movie, some people are going to hate it. The important thing is that everyone involved with this movie tried really hard and had fun.”
The thing is, teenagers and 20-year-olds get value from a relatable person that comes across as an insecure loser who is too afraid to take a proper stance on anything to commit to a statement. When someone is actually mature they find more value in someone who is willing to do a good job and defend the job that they did, even if they’re like Neil Breen who thinks they did a good job but clearly did a terrible job. A 20-year-old might declare that Twin Perfect’s debate with EFAP wasn’t embarrassing because he was just being himself or something, but a 40-year-old might not tell Twin Perfect that the debate was embarrassing, but they would no longer respect him, and I imagine a lot of 40-year-olds don’t respect a lot of Youtube video essayists because of how eager they seem to be to engage in self-deprecation.
Conclusion
Despite everything that I’ve said, I do think that the content landscape on Youtube is generally ‘better’ than it was in, say, 2010. We weren’t getting a 4+ hour video by The Little Platoon about Rebel Moon, for instance, in 2010.
What I would compare modern Youtube and classic Youtube to is the 1970s movie scene vs. the 1980s movie scene, which Quentin Tarantino has labeled as “The worst period in movie history,” which the EFAP crew have pushed back on.
The thing is, in the early 80s we got Blade Runner, in the same way that nowadays we got the 4+ hour Little Platoon video, but the theatrical release of that film was famously sabotaged by the company that wanted Harrison Ford to provide voiceovers for the film that ‘ruined’ it, or at least, ruined the ending of the movie.
Throughout the 80s films were made which satisfied audiences more than films from the 70s did because Spielberg was producing hugely successful films that are still highly regarded, but there was also a bunch of shady practices going on and a bunch of notoriously poor studio decisions made in order to appeal to a wide demographic, such as the fiasco with Supergirl and Masters Of The Universe, or changing the ending of Brazil.
In the 1970s we not only got more challenging films, but there was also a thriving independent cinema scene that gave us Death Race 2000, Eraserhead, THX-1138, and Duel. There was also Jaws, Star Wars, and A Clockwork Orange, which were big-budget movies that took serious creative risks that paid off immensely which just wouldn’t happen in the 1980s, or would happen very rarely.
I think that I do prefer Youtube back in, say, 2015-2017 when it seemed like we generally got the best of both worlds, challenging content about a diverse range of subjects with production values comparable to what we have now.
To close this, I would like to include a paraphrased interaction I saw on a podcast featuring a pretty big Youtuber that I think illustrates why Youtube has changed in the way that it has.
Youtuber: Look, I don’t need to work as hard on my videos now because not every video needs to be an event. I just want to take it easy now, pump out a video whenever I feel like it, get paid by the sponsors, and then spend time with my family, is that so wrong?
Host: It kind of is. I know your audience of teenagers will be like “He just wants to spend time with his family, dude, have a heart,” but a lot of Youtubers, especially younger Youtubers look up to you for inspiration. If you’re in that position and your attitude is “I’m going to half-ass every video that I make from now on and if anyone calls my content lazy I’ll use my 8-year-old daughter as a shield against criticism,” that’s the attitude that a lot of young Youtubers are going to have. They’re going to half-ass their content and when criticized, they’re going to find their own excuse, like “I have a kid now,” or “I have to eat,” or something.
Youtuber: That’s not my fault, though. I never asked to be a role model.
Host: That’s not how that works. You don’t get to decide whether or not people look up to you, have expectations of you, and emulate your approach to content creation. You only release 2-3 videos a year, and with your status every video should be a major event, but instead every video is half-assed, as you admitted, and then you use your daughter as an excuse for why you don’t put as much effort into your content as you used to. I think you need to have someone in your life, like a friend, that actually makes you feel some shame for your content and encourages you to do better, rather than your social circle being composed of supportive people like your family and the people who pay you through Patreon.
Host 2: He did have that. He fired him two years ago, remember?
Host: Oh, yeah, you fired your friend, or made him quit, whatever the story was. Did that not make you feel bad at all?
Youtuber: Friendships end, that’s just life.
Host: That’s the attitude that I hate that comes across in your content. You can’t just brush aside everything and bumble through life, except if you’re an internet personality, apparently.
Host 2: It worked for the MCU.
Host: It’s not working for the MCU anymore, though, and it isn’t working as well for this Youtuber. It’s probably going to get worse and when he decides to do more work and make better videos, like he used to do, it’s probably going to be too late, or he’ll need to make really good videos to get the views he once did.
Youtuber: My videos are really good, though.
Host: You admitted to half-assing them.

Hi all, as the title states - I am looking for feedback on my pay plan. I've worked at a large new and used Subaru dealer in MA for the past 2 years. Our current pay plan is as follows:
\ 100% commission based with some bonus opportunities from the dealer and manufacturer, no hourly/base pay **

• $200 mini on new/used, or 20% front end profit after they take $1,000 pack off the top (uncapped)
• after you sell and deliver 15 for the month, you get an extra $30 retroactive
• if your survey scores from the new cars (survey sent from manufacturer) scores remain at 95% (any return below 9/10 tears your score down drastically) you get an extra $850 for the month (from my dealership)
• once you have 3 new cars for the month, the manufacturer pays $70 per new car, and if your survey scores are high enough you get an extra $50 per new car (total of $120)
• our BDC department is oddly structured as a management position here rather than an entry level position (everyone in the role was previously a sales person as well). We call it the INT department, basically internet sales. Their department works with customers over email/text/phone calls (not in person) for scheduling test drives, they also follow up on every lead from online traffic (sales people do not have access to any online leads, we can only meet a customer by answering the phone, greeting a fresh customer when they arrive to the dealership, or by referral from a previous customer). However, if BDC collects a deposit on a vehicle and then hands the deal off to a sales person (the sales person is then responsible for getting all paperwork/insurance info/trade appraisal completed, and once the vehicle is registered we then spend about 60 mins going over each and every button and feature in the car with the customer...) I expect to be with a INT handoff customer about 4-5 hours all-in-all in most circumstances - and my commission is capped on every BDC handoff to $200 - even if there was $7,000 profit after they took their $1,000 pack off the top.

Right now, just about every single car leaving the lot is a $200 mini... we are selling new cars below employee pricing, and I don't think I've hit 15 once so far this year - it's been very rough to say the least. We have no receptionist at our dealership, which means that us sales people are responsible for answering/redirecting all incoming phone calls, as well as taking messages for others. We are also responsible for stocking in new vehicles, snow removal, writing online car descriptions (that one is funny to me because it seems like a task more designated for the INT team, but who am I to decide that?), and so many more tasks that most other dealerships have other employees to take care of. I am feeling so much frustration because management has been promising us for more than 6 months that volume is expecting to be ramping up and it hasn't - if anything, it's been steadily slower and yet they have hired two new sales people (14 of us total now). I am only paid for the vehicle I sell and I feel the work here is not matching the compensation. Hell, even when the market was "great" I did not even clear $7,500 for a 5 week month delivering 18 cars.
I absolutely LOVE my coworkers, and I really do look up to my GSM and SM's - they have taught me so much and do so every day, however they aren't paying my bills. If things do not change NOW, I will lose everything my apartment, my car - it's not like I'm not putting in the hours and the hard work. My closing ratio is high and my surveys/reviews are excellent - the traffic is horrifically low, and its like another slap in the face blowing every deal out to a mini on top of it. I feel as though they are expecting sales people to take the hit and ride out the slow market, all while higher-ups are reaping volume bonus incentives.
I guess my question here is: what is your pay plan like? what are your thoughts on mine? can you give me any advice? thank you in advance for reading all of this, and I really do appreciate any and all feedback. wishing you all a busy and prosperous May!

Just FYI had receptive unprotected anal intercourse a couple days prior to the development of this fresh hell.
But seriously, wtf is happening to me. Could this be herpes?? I went and got a blood test which said I have HSV 1 and possibly HSV 2 (HSV 2 reading is right on the cusp which has high rates of false positives) but apparently that’s useless bc like 80% of ppl have HSV 1 antibodies in their blood?? Apparently if I notice a bump I need to get that swabbed but how tf am I supposed to make that happen when it seems like not a single healthcare provider carries HSV PCR swabs and the window to get it swabbed is like two days.
A run down on my symptoms…when it first started (like a day after the last time I had sex, although I’d had sex multiple times in the few days before that too) I noticed pain in my anus which was gradual at first but after a day or two turned into a lot of pain and absolute hell during a BM. Then I noticed some white/yellow discharge coming from my anus to the point that it was wetting my underwear…then about a week passed and I notice what looks like a rash or possibly lesions around the area, which is when I go get that HSV blood test. I start taking Valacylovir for like a week and I’d say it clears up pretty quickly after that. But it had already been fading before the valacyclovir. Discharge went away. That was in January. Ever since, there’s still some pain every now and then during a BM or wiping and I have noticed the occasional possible red lesion mark around the anus (although not nearly to the extent of the first ordeal). I had cast doubt on HSV just because there’s not much on the internet about HSV inside the anus but I’m starting to wonder if that is in fact the cause of this?
I’ve been to an STD clinic, an urgent care clinic, and a proctologist and nobody seems to know what’s happening. Of course when I was at the proctologist my asshole decided to be perfectly fine that day and so he couldn’t find anything wrong. I’m currently using diltiazem ointment he prescribed me, wet wipes, aquaphor before a BM. I think I’m gonna retry the valacyclovir and see if that does anything. Anyone who does anal have any experience with this???

Hello!
From 2009-2011 when I was 24-25, I had a series of abnormal paps--it started with ASCUS/HPV+ with colpo, then HSIL w/ neg colpo, then back to ASCUS/HPV+ with no colpo (w&w), then LSIL w/neg colpo, then HSIL and FINALLY, they decided to give me a LEEP, from which I had CIN III with positive margins. (In my opinion, they should have given me a LEEP the first time with HSIL, but I was young and healthy and they thought I would clear it.) Even with the positive margins, they just continued to watch and wait.
Anyway, all of my paps post-LEEP were fine (until a random ASC-H HPV- one in 2015, w/negative colpo, that was likely due to a benign polyp.)
So here we are in 2024, I am 40, I have had one child in 2020 (no complications, born at term). I have dutifully gone for my pap every year and they usually co-test me. I have been normal since 2015, and HPV- since they started testing regularly for that when I turned 30 in 2014. Now, I thought I would have to go yearly for the rest of my life. I just went for my well-woman exam today, and my new doc told me that they should have gone to a 3 year pap cycle years ago since all of my paps have been normal for almost 10 years.
I feel weird going every three years? Like, it was so much trauma from 2009-2011 with the constant back and forth, and I did have a friend pass away from cervical cancer a few years ago. So I guess I'm a bit paranoid. What else have other folks done once they've had a few normal paps? Is it weird to not be doing yearly? Is it okay?
For context, I'm a healthy 40 year old, married with one kid, one partner.

At the fisrt, sorry for my english, i'm a little oxidated, but i'll try my best. (it's not my original lenguaje)
But first, a little of context:
It's an story by 7 years. I did meet my (not still) ex-husband on a convention of Anime, i did in cossplayed by Electra and he was Tony Stark, he was had a girlfriend and I was in a toxit relationship (story i'll tell in other time). But in that day, i swear, i did wish had him, i did fall in love. We talk just a little moment, we take a photograph and we keep going with our lives.
One year latter, when i'd brake up my relationship, i fall down in a horrible depression and 1 try to unsiscribe by the life. I'd try to grow up and join a group of single peopple just search fun. I'd was surprised to find that boy again in that group.
Uno month latter, we'd be in a relationship. After two years, we was marrige. Whitout anything more than love, we start this new stage, in the night of weddings, i got pregnant.
At that moment, i wasn´t know i had anxiety and depression cronique, and during pregnancy it only gets worse, and our relationship wasn't the best, we fight a lot, especially because I felt very unprotected by my partner: when we went out there were men who made bad comments to me and I even had to walk home alone after work, not to mention that there were a couple of occasions in which, due to the times , I could only prepare food and run to work, without eating a bite, to be surprised when I returned that he alone finished the food without leaving me anything.
Added to that, the first four months of pregnancy and marriage, he was without work, I had to take care of the household alone; Added to this, to lighten the burden a little, a relative did us the favor of renting us well below the value he had, his house which was uninhabited. Imagine my shame when he asked for the rent and I didn't have the money to pay because my husband didn't go out looking for work. If they hadn't given him an ultimatum, he would have spent years like this, until he asked for a job at the only company where they don't fire anyone.
All of this caused me to spend the entire pregnancy stressed and worried.
The last straw was the day my baby was born, which coincided with my husband's birthday. I had a complicated birth, in which they had to do an emergency procedure: I was hospitalized for two full days, alone, without eating or drinking anything (For those who don't know, the medical service in Mexico is beyond terrible). Not to make it long, my birth was more than complicated; and my mortification was no less when all my relatives, when they were able to come see me, kept telling me how mortified they were, on the other hand my husband looked like a child at Christmas because they brought him gifts for his birthday, even my best friend from school.
When my baby was born, I was aware that I wasn't feeling well, so I decided to take some time to recover before returning to work. And for those who are wondering, it's not like I had a great job, our economic position was not good at all, but my depression only got worse since my baby was born, the complications of childbirth made me feel terribly guilty just thinking about it. that something could have happened to my baby.
Day after day, even though I did not work and did not contribute financially to the house, I made an effort to ensure that the little money that came into the house was enough for everything: milk, diapers and food. Despite everything, I always made sure to prepare a good breakfast and lunch for my husband to take to work, I got up before him so I could have that attention with him; Imagine my disappointment when he often returned with the food intact from when she prepared it for him and told me that he had preferred to buy something to eat. This only made me feel like I was useless. Added to the fact that on more than one occasion he even left the front door of the house open for us: a woman who had just had surgery and a newborn baby, in a neighborhood where, in open secret, it was hot for organized crime, added to the fact that I I felt insecure around him.
My family kept making comments to me about how bad my husband felt for me, how bad I looked (comments that I questioned, because my family never liked my husband). Despite the bad things, he had his attempts to be thoughtful and considerate (in the wrong way or causing me more problems, but I understood that it was his way of showing that he cared).
This was when I began to understand that my husband was like that, disconnected from reality, it was his shell of protection since he practically grew up in foster homes with "relatives" or "acquaintances", many of them were very violent and mistreated him, making him feel alone and vulnerable. I learned much of this from him, the rest his mother herself came to tell me and the rest was a matter of adding 2 + 2.
When I assimilated this and that the situation would not improve, when my baby turned 9 months old, I decided to look for a job, fortunately I found a way to work from what I studied (because yes, I have a degree), and with very humanitarian bosses. those who didn't even mind me occasionally taking my baby to teach classes with me (because yes, I ended up teaching at a basic level). Thanks to this, the situation at home improved a little, but the arguments did not stop over small things, more than anything everything he did or did not do bothered me. I guess it was because of the exhaustion of dealing with everything alone, and for anyone wondering, no, he practically didn't help me with the baby issues; With the household chores (just washing the dishes and sometimes sweeping the common areas), I took care of the rest, in addition to always making sure the house was safe for a one-year-old baby.
One of the breaking points for me (this occurs in the dark time of the pandemic when we all lock ourselves at home), your company was one of the last to send them to rest, however, since my sector was related to dealing with children, I was one of the first sectors to confine themselves to home, so now I was doing homme office. One morning I realized that the man not only lost the keys to the house, but he took mine to leave, locked them and left them stuck outside the door, leaving me locked in with my baby without the possibility of getting out if anything arose. emergency. If it hadn't been for my father, who came to visit me to see how he was doing, who knows what would have happened. Get an idea of ​​how little he cared about the safety of his family.
These, among other things, added up over the years, until I began to ask him, as a last chance to save our marriage (because at this point, I felt broken and discouraged), I insisted that we seek help, couples therapy or at least individual therapy, but he didn't listen to me or wasn't interested. Until the first time I packed my and my baby's things, he realized that I was serious and that I would leave him, he still didn't want therapy, not even when I was honest with him and told him that there were many things that I couldn't do. forgive him, especially for the pregnancy; What did happen was that he began to collaborate more at home and finally began to take responsibilities with our son.
The facts:
What ended up being the final break was a day of extreme heat, where the weather was useless and there were no technicians operating in the area. My son, now 3 years old, is very hot and in any heat his nose tends to bleed a lot, especially that weekend he was very tired, despite that, the only solution I could think of was to put the pool inside the house ( to avoid having it under the sun), I clarify that at that time we lived in a small two-bedroom apartment, which yes, I admit was an impractical solution but it was the only thing that occurred to me. Even before I did it, I notified him of what I was trying to do, not to ask for permission, but just to notify him so he wouldn't be taken by surprise.
When he got home, he didn't say hello, he didn't say anything, he just left his things and left the house to get a taxi. When I caught up with him to ask him, he said he was going to his mother's house to get an air conditioning unit that he planned to bring to install to solve the problem, to which I gave him my list of problems with it, because we didn't have permission to make modifications to begin with. Thus in the department, adding the amount of electricity it used, transportation, among others. To which he also responded with his list of drawbacks that he saw with my solution. The point is that the argument escalated and ended with him throwing the water into the garden and me locking myself in the room with my daughter, enduring the heat of the day.
Neither of us spoke to each other the rest of the day, in the morning, the first thing I did was pack my things and my baby's things discreetly. I called my parents to tell them what had happened and they were more than willing to receive us (something that did not make me so calm because, yes, one of the reasons why I married him in a hurry was that my parents were a cornerstone of my anxiety and depression).
The next night, with my things packed, I waited for my husband to drop the bomb, tell him that he was leaving with our son, he cried a lot, he begged me for another chance; That time I didn't shed a single tear, not because I didn't love him, despite everything, I followed him and I still love him, but I realized that I was loving him more than I loved me and my daughter. . I didn't cry because I spent years crying alone and falling asleep with tears.
I asked him if he would prefer to end the relationship peacefully, where we could still rescue our friendship, before reaching a point where I couldn't even tolerate seeing him.
That was the only time when he finally said that he would take therapy, but I no longer believed him. I know he did it just to convince me, but in the end he wasn't going to do it. So I decided to leave the next day with my things. It was the last time we talked about it.
At the moment:
We have a year apart, we decided to give ourselves a few months to settle in and calm our spirits. Despite this, we have still kept in touch through our daughter, when it is her turn to visit or when she brings him an errand.
I don't deny that I still love him, and now I'm the one who would like our marriage to be fixed, but he is the first to say that he feels better now.
Now that I am living with my parents, my symptoms of anxiety and depression have not improved at all, on the contrary. I don't know if I ever feel like going back to him was a desperate attempt to get out of my parents' house, because he was the only person who made me feel understood and that there was nothing wrong with being who I was (I did). which has mainly contributed to my mental health), because I clarify, my son has a disability and since his diagnosis, he has not contributed much either, I have been with the support of my family in the face of that, but not with my ex-husband or the his family, so I use practically all of my salary on my son and his basic needs; His father gives me alimony for him, but only the equivalent of $20 dollars a week, against medication a month that costs about $100, plus his therapies and special attention.
So I ask.
AITAH for asking my husband for a divorce for refusing to go to therapy?
I really appreciate that you take the time, I know that it is not a short or brief story, I will try to answer your questions in the comments if I have not been clear in any aspect. Right now I'm a mess, I'm discouraged because my situation is currently not good, my profession wears me out emotionally and mentally, added to the condition of my son who makes me feel like I'm not doing things right...
I need to know that there is something in life that I haven't done so badly. In advance, thank you Reddit community.

I was almost followed into my apartment building last night but I'm not clear what this person's intentions were. I'm a woman in my 20s living in Brooklyn, I'm from NY, and have heard and been warned about walking home alone, but still have never experienced something like being followed, until last night. I was coming home from work and I got off at my regular train stop and started to walk to my apartment which is about 2 avenues from the train. I had both my earbuds in, but I wasn't listening to anything. I start to pass the park that is about a block away from me and I can feel and hear someone behind me, shuffling their feet as they walk. Not a problem, there was plenty of people around, both in the park and on the streets and sidewalks around it. It was about 7:30pm and still light out but the sun was going down. I get to the traffic light at the corner of the park when I notice this person is still behind me. I turned my head to the left slightly so I can see this person in my peripheral vision and I could see they were wearing a brown hoodie and had long brown hair, but still couldn't tell if it was a man or woman. I turned back to the street, crossed when the light changed and made a left, the next block was my street. I wanted to test if this person would pass me or walk in the same direction, so as I made it to my block I abruptly turned right and this person did the same. I'm now on the right side of my street but would have to cross to the left side where my apartment is, so as I was walking straight up my block I really quickly turned left and squeezed through a tiny space between two parked cars to cross the street, and I notice this person speeds up and does the exact same thing in the exact same spot!! This is when my heart started pounding. I started speeding up a little bit and I'm about 4 apartment buildings away from mine, and I hear this person's shuffling feet keeping pace with mine and speed up as I do, and I hear a single manly deep breath behind me. This is where I feel a little dumb, instead of continuing to walk up the street to a cafe or stop and tell someone (there was a few people walking on the sidewalk) I thought, "ok, our front lobby door locks whenever it's closed all the way, and if you don't have a key you can't get in, I'll just get inside there, close the door, and see what happens." So I get to my front 2 steps, jump inside the open lobby door, and immediately turn around and slam it shut. As I do this, this MAN WALKED RIGHT INTO THE DOOR and I come face to face with this man behind the glass. He was maybe in his late 20s to early 30s, light-skinned black man, with long brown almost waist length braids. He looked feminine and was actually quite pretty, but the look on his face was strange, like he was not fully there. His eyes were wide but the rest of his face blank, and he never looked away from me. Now get this, he never opens his mouth to say anything, but instead keeps those wide eyes on mine, holds up both of his hands, in one he's holding his iphone, which has a dead battery symbol on it and in the other hand is an ID, but it doesn't look like him on it. I totally should have read it, maybe it had the address to the same apartment on it, but I didn't even care, I just yelled "NO!" The thing is he readily had the ID in his hand, he didn't go into a pocket or a bag, he just had his hands up and ready to show me. I watched him never change his face, turn to his right and leave. I called my roommate to let her know, and she had a friend walk her home about two hours after I got in, so I wasn't alone for the rest of the night. I wish I took a picture of him with the ID and phone, but I was just weirded out that he tried to step inside right behind me but didn't try to come back in again or say a single word. I thought maybe I dropped my ID and he was returning it, but I checked and mine was in my wallet. Maybe he was asking for me to lend him a phone charger, but why would he follow me inside for that?! Was I overreacting?

So 2 years ago I got diagnosed with “LSIL may be a more advanced lesion present” I then had another pap last year that said HSIL, then had a colpo that said HSIL with glandular involvement on all 4 samples took during procedure. The transformation zone was clear of everything. I’m worried about the glandular involvement I am also high risk HPV positive but wasn’t specifically tested for which HPV strain. I don’t have insurance as of now and am jumping through loopholes trying to get this took care of. I went thru one clinic and they said I needed to repeat a pap, she dropped the sample on the floor but did tell me my cervix looks very inflamed. This has been a nightmare! I have 4 children and worried everyday things are getting worse. Has anyone had a similar situation as mine? I’m open to hearing the good and bad of similar experiences. Thank you.

🚀 Unlock Exclusive Insights on FFIE: Get deeper analysis and expert views on FFIE's latest market trends before you read on. Click Here to Dive In 🌟
Technical Analysis
Faraday Future Intelligent Electric Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIE) closed at $1.39 on May 21, 2024, experiencing a drastic drop of 22.78% with a decline of $0.41. The stock has been highly volatile, reaching a price low of $1.24 and a high of $1.66 in the last trading session alone, with a 52-week range between $0.038 and $117.36. Despite the significant price swings, today's performance seems indicative of a correction after a sharp run-up driven by meme stock dynamics.
The stock's 50-day moving average stands at $0.18, which is considerably below its current price, signaling a prior long-term downtrend disrupted by the recent spike. The 200-day moving average is significantly higher at $7.14, denoting significant volatility and historical declines. The RSI14 at 70 suggests the stock is approaching overbought territory, potentially indicating a pullback. Additionally, the ATR value of 32.96 suggests high volatility.
A MACD of 0.08 represents short-term bullish momentum, but considering the RSI and recent price action, caution is warranted. There is no discernible support level, while resistance is pegged at $1.65, a figure that has briefly been tested but not maintained.
Fundamental Analysis
The company currently has a market capitalization of approximately $58.94 million, reflecting its status as a small-cap stock. Trading volume reached 220.14 million shares, significantly exceeding the average volume of 81.29 million shares, underscoring heightened investor interest possibly spurred by speculative trading activities.
Faraday Future's financials depict a troubling picture, with an EPS of -$129.06 and a PE ratio of -0.01, denoting persistent losses and negative earnings performance. The upcoming earnings announcement scheduled for May 23, 2024, will be a critical event, potentially shedding light on the company's operational status and forward guidance.
The stock has been part of the meme-stock rally, as highlighted in the news segment, leading to a significant but seemingly speculative rise in its share price. Despite short-term gains, the company's fundamentals remain weak, casting doubt on sustainable value creation.
Stock Performance Predictions
Given the overbought condition indicated by the RSI and the lack of strong fundamental support, FFIE might experience continued volatility in the short term. For the next trading day on May 22, 2024, a slight rebound or further sell-off could occur depending on trader sentiment and market conditions.
For the upcoming week, leading into the May 23 earnings announcement, heightened volatility is expected. The results of the earnings report could be a pivotal factor; a negative announcement could pressure the stock further, while any positive news might temporarily buoy prices.
Intrinsic Value and Long-Term Potential
Assessing the intrinsic value of FFIE is challenging, given the severe financial instability indicated by its earnings metrics. The EV sector presents growth opportunities; however, Faraday Future's current financial health undermines confidence in long-term prospects. The company's reliance on speculative trading patterns rather than robust business fundamentals suggests a risky long-term investment.
Overall Evaluation
In conclusion, FFIE stock is categorically a 'Sell' candidate. Despite some short-term bullish momen [...]
👉 Dive deeper into our analysis and predictions! CLICK HERE NOW

Hello everyone. My mother was diagnosed a few years ago with FSHD and the illness has been slowly progressing leaving her almost wheelchair-bound. She is still walking around the house using a walker, but I can see that this illness in unpredictable and we never know how the next day will look like. Recently my uncle, my mother's brother, was diagnosed with the same illness as he has been showing similar symptoms: difficulties to raise his arms, general muscular weakness, he can't close his eyes completely and so on. Since I've learnt that I've a 50% chance of inheriting the disease in December I took a genetic test and I'm waiting for the results. It's a matter of a few weeks really. I'm currently 23 and I'm not showing symptoms of FSHD. I've done physical exams and my strength is normal. I've heard that in 90% of the cases you start to show symptoms before you turn 20. Indeed my mother was born with winged scapulas, she could never whistle or close her eyes completely but the most obvious symptoms appeared when she was in her 40s. The same has happened for my uncle: he was healthy in his youth and showed clear symptoms only in his 40s. This makes me really scared to know the result of this test because it would really change my life. I suffer from anxiety and depression and if I were to be positive I would be so scared because this illness is unpredictable. It would kill me to be constantly in fear of being able to run and jump one day and then waking up the next morning without being able to even lift my arms. I really don't want to live this kind of life and the anxiety is basically eating me alive. How can I prepare myself for a possible positive diagnosis?

Hello everyone. My mother was diagnosed a few years ago with FSHD and the illness has been slowly progressing leaving her almost wheelchair-bound. She is still walking around the house using a walker, but I can see that this illness in unpredictable and we never know how the next day will look like. Recently my uncle, my mother's brother, was diagnosed with the same illness as he has been showing similar symptoms: difficulties to raise his arms, general muscular weakness, he can't close his eyes completely and so on. Since I've learnt that I've a 50% chance of inheriting the disease in December I took a genetic test and I'm waiting for the results. It's a matter of a few weeks really. I'm currently 23 and I'm not showing symptoms of FSHD. I've done physical exams and my strength is normal. I've heard that in 90% of the cases you start to show symptoms before you turn 20. Indeed my mother was born with winged scapulas, she could never whistle or close her eyes completely but the most obvious symptoms appeared when she was in her 40s. The same has happened for my uncle: he was healthy in his youth and showed clear symptoms only in his 40s. This makes me really scared to know the result of this test because it would really change my life. I suffer from anxiety and depression and if I were to be positive I would be so scared because this illness is unpredictable. It would kill me to be constantly in fear of being able to run and jump one day and then waking up the next morning without being able to even lift my arms. I really don't want to live this kind of life and the anxiety is basically eating me alive. How can I prepare myself for a possible positive diagnosis?

I had taken a pregnancy test around the 12th of May and it had come out a faint positive, since then, I have had extreme bloating, cramping, spotting, bad body aches, lower back pain, fatigue, food aversions, etc. Since then I had taken multiple other pregnancy test just to confirm if I am pregnant or not and they have come out negative. I think I may be testing too early. Can someoneplease give me advice I’m driving myself crazy here lol