Couple of catch and releases up for grabs this evening. Both have COAs and pouches. Know your local knife laws. Pay pal G&S as I’m still a few swaps away from 25 flair. YOLO > chat. CONUS shipping. If bought tonight, I’ll ship tomorrow. Both really nice knives I’m glad I got to try but ultimately not keepers for me.
Timestamp and pics
https://imgur.com/a/0KVwFIO
Herman Sting 182, m398 blade steel. Been around the swap but not carried much. I believe it has a factory edge which is still sharp. Has been dissembled as it had a rainbow clip and back spacer which was removed by a previous swapper. Favoring show side but a really nice herman action. Comes with the pivot tool. Check video but I don’t see much wear at all. SV 650 OBO
https://imgur.com/a/XjUjXGm
Tactile Archer with feather milling and blue/orange inlays, magnacut. I believe I’m the third owner but I don’t think it has been carried or cut or disassembled. Centered. Really nice shape, I don’t see any wear marks. Maybe one on the clip but honestly could be stone wash. Really smooth flipper action and falls shut. I personally can’t thumb or reverse flip it well but supposedly these take some breaking in. There aren’t a lot of inlay versions out there to my knowledge. SV 650 OBO
https://imgur.com/a/wXXZJDV
Thanks for looking. Let me know if you have questions or if I’m missing anything.
Trade interests, Eutsler stoned DUK (+$), user Rosie (+ a little bit of cash), other DUK/DUKlings considered.
Feel free to send me any trades but kinda picky.

UK based.
TLDR: ongoing symptoms of MS for the last 4 weeks but I have now been diagnosed with FND.
It all started 4 weeks ago when I felt extremely fatigued and light headed. I drove home after work at 5pm and suddenly I had lost all control of the movement in my arms. It was like a partial paralysis. An ambulance was called and they took me to the stroke unit where they did a CT scan of the brain and kept me in overnight. The use of my arms came back at around 10pm.
The next day, they carried out MRI scans on my brain and in my spine, all of which ruled out a stroke. They referred me for an urgent neurology appointment (which was 4 weeks later).
Since then, I have experience at least one or more of the following symptoms daily: - loss of control in my arms - loss of control in my right leg - stabbing pains in my thigh - extreme fatigue - vertigo and dizziness - numbness of the muscles in my face - tingling and cold sensations through my upper body - muscle spasms and tremors in my hand
These symptoms can last between 30mins to 6hours.
When I was younger, I had optic neuritis which lasted just over a week and the scan showed small lesions of MS. They had mentioned if I have other spells in the future that it would likely be diagnosed as MS. With this information and all the symptoms I have experienced we all assumed this would be the case. Every symptom I had is a symptom of MS, and in all honesty, I was waiting for the neurology appointment to confirm this.
Anyway, I had the appointment this morning and to my surprise he said the scans are clear and it is not MS (he was also an MS specialist). He told me that I have Functional Neurological Disorder. I was shown a web page that outlined this and not much further advice was able to be given in terms of how to manage my symptoms on a daily basis, particularly with work.
I am being sent for further bloods to check my vitamin levels and have a catch up appointment in a month’s time.
Having researched this throughout the day, I can see what a broad spectrum FND covers. Is it just a diagnosis they give when they don’t know what is wrong with the signals to your nervous system? Has anyone had a similar experience? Is it worth going private and getting a second opinion? Will the symptoms get better?

I hope this is formatted right! I rarely ever post on Reddit so I'm sorry if I did something wrong 😭
I have been searching for this book for YEARS so I would absolutely appreciate any help I can get!! 🙏
I read this book in 3rd grade (2010-2011), it was a picture book that we had gotten at the library near me (idk if it helps but I lived on the East Coast/US). It wasn’t super old looking but I definitely don’t think it was super new either. I believe most of the book was white besides the picture on the front and maybe a little doodle on the back. The picture on the front I think had a couple of the creatures in the book of all different colors.
From what I can remember of the story, there were two groups of similar creatures. They both resembled Moomins and donkeys I’m pretty sure but they were two different colors. The red ones had ears that stood up with a mane like a donkey and the blue ones had long ears that were down and long manes. Both groups stood on two legs, had donkey tails, and had I believe paws. The only things I can remember about the story itself is that the two groups didn’t like each other because they were different colors but two of them were in love? One from each side like a Romeo and Juliet kind of thing. At some point near the end, they each went into the water for some reason (they may have fallen, I’m not sure) and came out with the parts of their bodies that had touched the water being different colors because their colors had been mixed up somehow. I have a very specific memory of this scene and the picture itself. They were holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes smiling while the other creatures all looked at them in awe. The two groups then got along and they would all color themselves with different colors using their tails as paint brushes. They may have also lived in caves but I’m not 100% sure. I know they did hang out in fields at least and lived near a little body of water like a pond.
I think the pictures had a sort of watercolor look to them as well but I'm not 100% certain on that!

What it was like, what happened, and what it is like now... My sobriety date is January 10th, 2016. I had been coming in and out of the program of AA since I was 18 years old, I had a drawer full of white chips, and it wasn't until I was 33 years old that I had finally been beaten down enough and suffered enough consequences due to this disease that I was finally ready to surrender... not because I had any hope that things would get better, but because I was frightened of how they were on their way to getting worse.
I was finally ready to follow through in working all 12 steps with my sponsor, which I did over the course of a year. I moved onto a new sponsor, and worked them through again. I was hungry for this new life and I sought out the oldest of the old timers, women who had more years in sobriety than I had on this earth. I was desperate for change because I was faced with two choices: change, or face a life without my two precious children that had been wisely removed by the court and my ex-husband because of how I'd let this disease impact our lives like a category five hurricane. I learned quickly that it simply wasn't enough that my admission of powerless and taking of the first three steps stopped the proverbial winds of destruction from blowing; like a devastated city by the sea in the aftermath, I had a job of reconstruction ahead of me that wasn't going to be cleaned up over night... it was going to be a process of years before everything would come back together, and be restored to something better than I could have ever dreamed.
What I ended up discovering through the years of consistently working this program wasn't at all what I'd originally sought out. I just wanted the chaos to stop. I just wanted to be able to put down the bottle for good. I thought this was the alpha and omega of it. But this was just the barest beginning.
The cessation of drinking was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. This program would do more than just divorce me from alcohol and substance abuse... it was going to completely transform me. Little by slowly, the working of the steps began to reshape my perspective as I had to accept a spiritual remedy or return to my own spiral of misery and the onward march to jails, institutions, and death.
Through the working of my inventory, my sponsors helped me to see that everything I resentfully blamed on my ex-husband, my abusive upbringing, my traumatic brain injury in early childhood, everyone who'd ever bullied or abused me had layers. Resentment would poison me; I had to forgive those against whom I harbored resentment not for their sake, but my own. Forgiveness, I discovered, set me free from this self-created prison. Letting go meant a greater freedom than I could have ever known.
And then, further on: most things I blamed on God for allowing to happen to happen to me, such as the loss of my precious children, my sponsors helped me to understand through my inventory were traceable back through so many actions I willfully chose that had a domino effect of consequences that I now had to face and accept as my responsibility. Whether or not other people were involved, I had to let this go, learning a new meaning of powerlessness and acceptance of things I could not change... namely, other people and their own actions... and focused on the only thing I could change: my own choices, moving forward. Understanding that the only way out was through. Bless them, change me wasn't just a catchphrase any longer... I was the only one over whom I had control. When I finally came to this realization, I was able to work through my own defects, see them for what they were, rise into the 6th and 7th steps to pray for their removal, to be taken to something better.
I was then able to identify and accept what "my part" had been in two decades of wrecked relationships with others. I was able to understand to whom I must make amends, and found the genuine willingness to do so, a long list made, a scouring of the internet and social media and looking up all the people upon whose lives I'd had a negative impact, people whom I had hurt. I owned my part, I made the amends and I was surprised at the response I got, overwhelmingly.... not one person told me to go to hell like I rightfully would have deserved, and none of them even expressed anger. Each of them shared with me in their own way how they knew I was very sick, very lost, and they knew inside somewhere I was a good person, I was just hurting and how they had always hoped that I would find recovery, find God, find a way to be who I was. They were happy for me. They had forgiven me long ago.
And as a result of working these steps, persisting through consequences I had to face and accept, finding that the only way out was through... my life was transformed. I was transformed. I got my children back... not instantly, but I began my journey in 2016 and by 2017, I had them back on weekends. By 2018, I had them back in a 50/50 arrangement. And by 2019, circumstances aligned so that they were returned to me full-time, and this was also the year the man who'd stuck by me during the worst moments of my disease and through the ups and downs of early sobriety asked me to marry him, and my girls and I had a whole new family, a whole new life... today, he is the man they call "Dad" and they have their biological father every weekend whom they call "Papa." He, too, has found recovery and is growing into a better life, he dated a great woman who adored my daughters in the same way my new husband has and he is marrying her this summer. As a show of love, she gave each of my daughters a special ring to symbolize her own commitment to them in how much she values the importance. We're now working together as a united front and a blended family for what's best for the girls and it is a blessing.
It has been a challenge, honestly, now that things have gotten better and the promises have come true to stick with a consistent practice of this program. Complacency is probably my biggest struggle, something I continually work on because it is so easy now to let all of the blessings of this program consume my life and cause the program not to take a first place priority. The reality is what it is though: if I forget where I come from, if I rest on my proverbial laurels, I will absolutely lose everything that I've gained and I will end up drunk. I am finding that it was ironically much easier to work the program diligently when I was at rock bottom and this was the only way to climb out.
As such, I know that today, my actions still have consequences, good and bad. Sometimes, as before, the consequences might not show up immediately, but they will always manifest. Fortunately, though, through the working of this program, especially in the initial few years of working through the steps and my inventory, I find that I am making more positive choices than I did once upon a time, and so just as I reaped what I had sewn early on in terms of negative consequences, I now find the same thing is true insomuch as I enjoy positive consequences perhaps to the same degree that I once experienced negative ones. The most solid part of all is the gift that the 12th step provides, practicing these principles in all my affairs, as well as Step 10 that I try my best to keep up with regularly, I am able now to much more quickly identify when I have made a wrong choice, when a resentment crops up, or when I owe someone an amends. It is just like keeping a house clean in a literal sense: doing small things each day maintains a level of consistent cleanliness that is much easier to maintain than letting things get messy and piled up and trying to go in and clean.
And most importantly of all.... when I came into this program, I reached for God and striving for the next right thing because it was either this, or worse consequences than I was already facing. As one day at a time began to flow into weeks, then months, then years, I found myself reaching for God and striving for the next right thing because I was seeing how it was bearing the fruit of my whole life improving. And now, as I am moving toward my 9th year of sobriety, so close to an actual decade... I have never forgotten these former two stages of my own evolution, which have merged into where I find myself now... reaching for God and striving for the next right thing, as it is written, "as unto Him", because I am in a new habit now of right living, right choosing, being a kind of active faith in which I know that, as a line in one of the devotional books said, "When we do the next right thing, all the power of God is behind you."
I can make these choices today especially in my classroom in devoting myself to my occupation as a labor of love, and this in and of itself being its own reward. I was nominated for "Teacher of the Year" this year, but I knew from this moment that it wasn't going to be God's will for me to receive such an accolade and I was perfectly at peace with this. Because doing the right thing as unto God for me today rests on a foundation of just how important anonymity is, in a way I never appreciated until recently. I think of the founders of AA, how Bill W. was offered an honorary PhD in Sociology from Harvard (I think this was he area), how they wanted to erect a huge monument over Dr. Bob and his wife's grave to mark them as founders... I can scarcely imagine how tempting these opportunities would have been, especially when we all have that ego part of ourselves that whispers, "I have worked hard for this and I deserve to be recoginzed!" But they turned these offers down, as so many others that came and went. Anonymity was and still is everything.
My oldest old timer sponsor--the one with more years sober than i had alive-- had to really work hard to make me see something I was stuck in around years 4-6: "I have worked SO HARD to get to where I am today!"
She told me over and over that I was missing the point: I made choices to do the next right thing, but I was incapable of getting myself anywhere but drunk on my own unaided will. It was God who you allowed to work through you.
I understand that a lot more today. I am proud of a strength I possess to be industrious. But "I" don't matter. I do my best to do the next right things because what really only matters is that God sees what I do. Through any talents, abilities, strengths He has given me, they are from Him, and they make me useful as a vessel to be of service. I am a sewer of seeds, and I may never know how my willingness to be of service impacts someone, but He does. My own anonymity protects me from me.
Of myself I am nothing, it is only through the grace of God and this program that I am where I am today. I ask daily in prayer to for Him to get me out of my way, to be made of service, for Him to show me the next right thing one moment at a time, and the power to carry that out.
And this is all that matters.

At the world’s top college of magic and technology, every day brings a new discovery -and a new disaster. The advanced experiments of the college students tend to be both ambitious and apocalyptic, with the end of the world only prevented by a mysterious time loop, and a small handful of students who retain their memories.
Surviving the loops was hard enough, but now, in his senior year, Vell Harlan must take charge of them, and deal with the fact that the whole world now knows his secrets. Everyone knows about Vell’s death and resurrection, along with the divine game he is a part of. Now Vell must contend with overly curious scientists and evil billionaires hungry for divine power while the daily doomsday cycle bombards him with terrorists, talking elephants, and the Grim Reaper himself -but if he can endure it all, the Last Goddess’s game promises the ultimate prize: power over life itself.
[Previous Chapter][Patreon][Cover Art]
“Should I be worried?”
Why would you be worried?” Kim said. “Dean Lichman loves us.”
Dean Lichman had asked the two of them to stop by his office, though his brief message had not said what for. That left Vell to concoct nightmare scenarios in his head.
“He doesn’t love all of us.”
“Alex doesn’t count as ‘us’,” Kim said. She was a looper in purely a technical sense, mostly due to her own refusal to be a team player. “Besides, she’s been behaving lately. She’s only been an asshole, not an active liability.”
“That we know of.”
“If we don’t know about it, Dean probably doesn’t either,” Kim said. “It’s fine, Vell, he probably just wants to ask us for advice or deal with some problem he has.”
“That’s not much better,” Vell said. “How weird would things have to be that the Dean is asking us for help personally?”
“Only one way to find out,” Kim said. She gestured to the door to the Dean’s office.
Kim entered first, and found it in much the same state as it always was. The desk piled high with paperwork, a small bowl of assorted candies shoved into the corner of the desk, and Dean Lichman behind it, frantically tapping away on a laptop. Vell had not been in this office for several years, and it was vastly different than the last time he’d been here.
“Ah, there you are, come in, have a seat,” Dean Lichman said. “Unless you’d rather we have our conversation elsewhere, Vell.”
“Why would I want that?”
“Well, it’s my understanding you haven’t been in this office since my, uh, predecessor,” Dean Lichman said.
“Oh, right, the kidnapping,” Vell said. “No, I’m good, I don’t really get traumatized by things anymore.”
Vell had been killed too many different ways in too many different places to have a functional trauma response. A few days ago he’d gotten his legs chewed off by a vending machine, and still stopped by it to pick up a soda on his way to the office.
“That’s a very concerning response, Mr. Harlan.”
“Yeah. Anyway, what did you need?”
Dean Lichman gestured for the duo to take a seat, and both did so. He folded desiccated hands in front of himself before beginning to speak.
“I would like to ask you two to take a look at an experiment that will be occurring later this week,” Dean Lichman said. “I don’t have any reason to believe it poses a threat, but I would like to be assured it is a safe and ethical environment, and, well, you two have a knack for identifying trouble spots.”
“You could say that,” Kim said. It was more accurate to say that trouble had a way of identifying them -and then leaping at them and ripping their heads off.
“I’d appreciate it if the two of you could simply examine the laboratory and give it your approval, or disapproval, as the case may be,” Dean Lichman said. “Though if you’re too busy, I fully understand.”
“If you don’t think this is dangerous, why are you asking for our help anyway?”
“Simply for my own peace of mind, frankly,” Dean Lichman said. “The school’s policies on animal experimentation are...satisfactory, I suppose, but I do want to take extra precautions when the subject is a creature as smart as an elephant.”
“An elephant?”
“Yes, a resident of a reserve in Thailand,” Dean Lichman said. “An older elephant by the name of Mae Noi. She has cancer, apparently, and she is submitting to experimental treatment in the hopes it will be useful for younger elephants.”
Kim’s digital face briefly flashed with a facial expression of concerned skepticism.
“‘She’ is submitting to treatment? As in the elephant?”
“Yes. Apparently the elephant can talk,” Dean Lichman said. “No, I don’t know how it works, they said it was ‘more impressive in person’.”
“Well now I kind of want to go just to see the talking elephant,” Vell said.
“Same.”
“Well, do try to take a few glances at the experiment’s safety while you’re there,” Dean Lichman said.
“Sounds like a plan,” Vell said. “Thanks for the heads up.”
“I’ll be there too,” Kim said.
“Excellent. Thank you both, and I’ll try not to take up too much of your time,” the Dean said. He then bid them both a polite goodbye and returned to his mountains of paperwork. Vell took a step out of the office and then took a sip from the soda he’d recently retrieved from the evil vending machine.
“So, what do you think?”
“I think I really do want to see the talking elephant,” Kim said.
“Obviously, yeah, we all want to see the talking elephant,” Vell said. “I mean the whole situation. You think the elephant thing is going to be the daily apocalypse for that day?”
“Well, on the one hand, an elephant seems like the kind of thing that would kill us,” Kim said. “But on the other, I feel like the fact we have advance warning means it’s not going to happen.”
“True. The universe probably wouldn’t make it that easy for us.”
“Yeah, but the elephant thing still feels pretty threatening,” Kim said. “Only way to find out is to wait a few days, I guess.”
A FEW DAYS LATER
“Hello you two,” Dean Lichman said. “And Hawke.”
“Hey,” Hawke said.
“He also wanted to see the talking elephant,” Kim explained.
“Well, that’s not a problem, it was an open invitation,” Dean Lichman said.
“Thanks. Still, sorry for not saying I was going to show up in advance,” Hawke said. “It took me a long time to make up my mind whether I was more interested in or afraid of a talking elephant.”
“They are rather large, aren’t they? I suppose that could be intimidating.”
“I’m okay with elephants on their own, it’s the talking part that doesn’t sit right with me,” Hawke said. “What if the elephant doesn’t like me? What if I’m the first person to ever get insulted by an elephant?”
“You’re less afraid of getting trampled by an elephant than insulted by one?”
“I’m a little afraid of trampling, but elephants are chill,” Hawke explained. “They wouldn’t attack unless provoked. I kind of feel like one might call me a dipshit unprovoked, though.”
“You have oddly specifics fears, Mr. Hughes,” Dean Lichman said.
“Yeah.”
In spite of those fears, Hawke happily stepped through the door to the zoology lab. It did not take a long time to locate the elephant in the room, as it was a literal elephant. The towering pachyderm was in a makeshift pen in the center of the lab, with an ample supply of food and a strange pedestal in front of her.
“Dr. Chanthara,” Dean Lichman said, with a polite wave to one of the researchers in the room. “Good to see you. These are the students I told you about.”
“Hm. Nice to meet you,” Dr. Chanthara said. He was, perhaps not unreasonably, skeptical of why three seemingly random students were in charge of a safety inspection. The fact that one of the three was a robot made him even more skeptical.
“Hi, nice to meet you too, and, uh, don’t mind us,” Vell said. “We just have an eye for weird things other people might miss.”
“Sure. I- wait. Aren’t you that kid who got chosen by a god?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” Vell said. “And her too, technically.”
Kim shrugged. She didn’t care for any extra attention on that point.
“Right,” Chanthara said. He was beginning to see why these students might know their stuff. “I suppose we should start by introducing you to Mae Noi. Say hello, Mae.”
The elephant shifted on her feet and poked her trunk at the wide pedestal in front of her twice.
“Hello. Friends,” a synthesized voice droned. Vell stepped a little closer to the pedestal, just enough to see that there were an array of buttons on the side facing Mae Noi.
“Oh, it’s kind of like a keyboard,” Vell said. He’d seen similar things used with dogs, though usually in a much simpler fashion. Mae Noi seemed to have a few dozen buttons at her disposal.
“Smart,” Mae Noi said, with another prod of her trunk.
“We initially put it into our sanctuary as a bit of a novelty, something elephants could choose to interact with,” Dr. Chanthara explained. “Mae Noi took to it a bit better than most. Especially once she found out she could use it to ask for food.”
“Food. Pumpkin. Pumpkin. Pumpkin.”
“No, Mae, no food until after experiment,” Dr. Chanthara scolded.
“Experiment,” Mae Niko said with a prod. “Pumpkin.”
“Yes, experiment then pumpkin,” Dr. Chanthara said.
“That’s not really a talking elephant, is it?” Hawke said.
“It’s more talking than most elephants,” Dr. Chanthara said.
“Elephant. Smart,” Mae Niko said. “Smart.”
“Yes, uh, right, elephant smart,” Hawke said. He took a step back, to avoid any further offense and any further risk of being insulted by Mae Noi.
“You’re very impressive, Mae, don’t mind him,” Kim said. “How many words does she know?”
“Our platform back home has around three hundred words, though she’s still learning some of them,” Dr. Chanthara said. “The ‘travel’ version we put together only has a hundred, just enough to make sure she can get her basic needs met and communicate about the experiment.”
“Right, speaking of, I do believe we should put some time into our reason for being here,” Dean Lichman interjected. “You’re welcome to stick around afterwards, at Dr. Chanthara and Mae Noi’s discretion, of course, but we should get underway.”
“We probably should get to business, yeah,” Kim said. She tapped the side of her metal head. “I’m going to scan the lab. Vell, you talk to the elephant and make sure everything’s above-board.”
“Abov- oh, right,” Vell said. “Sorry, not exactly used to being able to ask animals if they agree to animal experimentation.”
“Experiment,” Mae said.
“Yeah, experiment,” Vell said, as he turned to Mae. “So, Mae Noi, this experiment might hurt, do you know that?”
“Experiment. Hurt. Elephant,” Mae Noi prodded. “Experiment. Help. Elephant. Help. Baby.”
“Help baby?”
“Baby. Baby. Elephant. Sick. Baby. Sick.”
“We’ve explained the nature of her condition to Mae Noi as best we can,” Dr. Chanthara said. “She has several children, and is concerned they might be similarly affected.”
“Help. Baby,” Mae Noi said. “Experiment. Help.”
The way Mae Noi frantically tapped the buttons tugged at Vell’s heartstrings, but he choked those emotions down.
“So you want to do this experiment to help baby, got it,” Vell said. “Even if it hurts you?”
“Elephant. Old,” Mae Noi said. “Hurt. Okay. Help. Baby.”
“Huh. Well, that does sound like informed consent to me,” Vell said. “Passes ethical muster, at least.”
The campus rules allowed students to be experimented on, with their consent, so Vell saw no reason not to apply the same standard to an elephant.
“You speak up if you change your mind about the experiment, okay?”
“Stop. Stop. Stop,” Mae said, mashing the same button a few times. “Yes.”
“You got it. I’m going to go help my friends check things out,” Vell said. “Good talking to you, Mae.”
“Good. Talk. Friend,” Mae said. She waved goodbye with her trunk, and Vell waved back. He wandered away from Mae Noi’s pedestal and found Kim and Hawke carefully examining rows of beakers and various other supplies.
“Nothing sus yet, boss,” Hawke said.
“Nothing caustic, mutagenic, or explosive?”
“Well, something mutagenic, but it’s supposed to be,” Kim said. She had scanners built into her body much like those that had once been in Vell’s glasses, allowing her to analyze the complex chemical formulas at a glance. “They’re going for some gene editing similar to what we’ve tried to do on human cancer patients. Low success rate, but not harmful. Some adaptations to work on elephants, of course.”
“Run it by any of our chemistry and biology student friends yet?”
“A few,” Kim said. “Haven’t gotten anything back yet, though.”
“Maybe run it by Skye, too,” Vell said. “She’d recognize anything that’d mutate an animal.”
“She does love to mutate things,” Kim said.
“Benevolently,” Vell insisted. “Just show her. I’m going to check for any stray equipment.”
The presence of an unusually large test subject had resulted in the lab being rearranged and reshuffled, so Vell did a quick scan for any misplaced equipment that might pose a threat. He found, to his surprise, a tidy and well-organized environment, with any and all extraneous materials securely locked away. There wasn’t so much as a shrink ray out of place. Vell did another loop just to be sure, but returned to his friends empty-handed.
“This place has less safety hazards than my lab,” Vell said. Hawke stared at him for a while.
“Why does your lab have safety hazards?’
“I do runecarving, there’s like, hammers and chisels,” Vell said. “Those can hurt people.”
“Mm, true,” Hawke said. “So you really didn’t find anything?”
“Nothing,” Vell said. “This place is secure as I’ve ever seen a lab be.”
“It’s like I said,” Kim began. “We got an actual warning about it, so obviously nothing’s going to go wrong. That’d be too easy.”
“Maybe,” Vell said. “Things can get teleported in, or someone could cast a spell, or something.”
“Yeah, but that applies to anywhere, at any time,” Kim said.
“Kim’s right,” Hawke said. “I say we go business as usual.”
“I guess,” Vell said. “We have to branch out a little, at least. Can’t keep an eye on one room all day.”
The trio stopped sulking around the outskirts of the lab and returned to Dean Lichman and Dr. Chanthara.
“Everything looks good,” Kim said. “Probably the safest lab I’ve ever seen.”
“I’ll choose to take that as a compliment,” Dr. Chanthara said.
“We have very high safety standards here at the Einstein-Odinson,” Dean Lichman said, defensively. “Relatively speaking. Innovation requires some risk.”
“I understand perfectly. So does Mae.”
“Hurt. Okay,” Mae said.
“Not that okay,” Vell said. “Nice meeting you, Dr. Chanthara. You too, Mae.”
“Wait.”
Mae prodded one of the buttons on her pedestal and then pointed her trunk at the three of them. Hawke looked deeply concerned, but stepped forward alongside Vell and Kim. Mae Noi appraised them with massive brown eyes, and then moved her trunk back towards the pedestal. Vell noticed a distinctive scar on the bridge of her long nose just as Mae Noi pressed another button.
“Joke.”
“...Joke?”
Dr. Chanthara sighed and rolled his eyes.
“Just go along with it,” he said. “She likes to tell her joke.”
“Uh, okay,” Vell said. “Let’s hear it.”
“What. Elephant. Favorite. Part. Tree.”
“Umm...I don’t know, Mae,” Vell lied. He’d heard this joke from a kid, once. “What part?”
“Trunk,” Mae said. She gave a loud bray of amusement and then slammed her trunk down a few more times to emphasize the punchline. “Trunk. Trunk.”
“Oh, ha, I get it,” Kim said, hoping her feigned laugh was convincing. She’d never tried to lie to an elephant before. “Good one, Mae.”
Mae Noi shifted from side to side, looking pleased with herself, while the trio took a step back and stopped their feigned laughter.
“Did you give her buttons just to tell that joke with?”
“She gets upset,” Dr. Chanthara said. “I’m not even sure she understands the pun, she just likes people’s reactions.”
“As long as she’s having fun,” Hawke said.
“We’ll get out of your hair now,” Vell said. “Good luck with the experiment, feel free to let us know if you need a hand with anything.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Dr. Chanthara said. Some of his earlier skepticism seemed to have softened, but he did not seem entirely onboard with three strangers mucking about with his experiment. Vell and his friends left before they stretched what little goodwill they had any further. Mae Noi waved her trunk goodbye as the three left the lab and stepped back onto the quad.
“I’m going to try and sneak some classes in,” Hawke said. “Later.”
“I’ll check some of our usual hot spots,” Kim said, before she too left. Once again alone, Vell headed to one of his own classes, and called up Samson.
“Hey, Samson,” Vell began. “See anything interesting while we were playing with the elephant?”
“Well, I thought I clocked someone acting suspicious, but it turns out he was only sneaking around to go see his boyfriend,” Samson said. “Nothing apocalyptic, but I did get called a homophobe, which is pretty emotionally devastating.”
“I’m sure you’ll recover someday,” Vell said. “Keep an eye out. Usually the safer things look, the more dangerous things end up being.”
“Will do,” Samson said, before saying goodbye and hanging up.
***
Vell got increasingly nervous the longer the day went without its daily disaster. He thought about checking in on Mae Noi again, but then recalled Kim’s warning about it being too obvious, but then remembered that nobody had seen anything suspicious anywhere else, but then remember that Mae Noi’s lab had looked perfectly safe-
“Vell.”
“Huh?”
“You’re spiraling,” Kim said.
“I’m not spiraling, I’m just,” Vell said, with a pause for contemplation. “Considering multiple options.”
“In a spiral fashion,” Kim said. “Eat the damn french fries. Honestly, what’s the point of ordering so many if you’re just going to let them get cold?”
“It’s not like they’re going to go to waste,” Vell said. The same time loop that allowed him to eat massive amounts of french fries without fear of gaining weight also allowed him to avoid food waste. One of the upsides of life in a time loop.
“Just eat, Vell,” Kim said. “You worry too much about all this shit.”
“I’m in charge, it’s my job to worry about it,” Vell said.
“It’s your job to handle it,” Kim said. “There’s no point thinking about this shit before it happens, you spend all day thinking about an elephant and then the universe drops, like, a bat with tentacles on your head. Just deal with as it comes, Vell.”
Vell leaned on the table and managed to chomp down on a french fry or two.
“You know, next year, when I’m not running the show anymore, I’m going to call and see if you still think it’s that easy.”
“I sure hope so,” Kim said. “I’m saying all this shit trying to make myself believe it too.”
“Oh good, you’re lying to both of us,” Vell said. “That’s cool.”
“Fake it ‘til you make it, Vell, that’s how it goes,” Kim said. “Eat your damn french fries.”
Vell rolled his eyes and returned to his fries, which were now starting to cool. Thankfully he would not have to worry about finishing them. A loud crash from across campus interrupted him mid-bite and nearly made Vell choke on his fries. He painfully swallowed the half-chewed food and then looked over his shoulder.
“Son of a bitch, finally,” Vell said. A few years ago he’d found it weird whenever he was relieved about a disaster, but now he was just genuinely glad to get it over with. The waiting was as killer as the apocalypse. He tossed his fries in the trash and headed toward the sound of chaos, with Kim right behind him.
“Already told everybody?”
“Well, I may or may not have left Alex and Helena out of the loop…”
“Kim.”
“They’d find out anyway,” Kim said. “I got to use my brain parts to get in touch with them, even over wi-fi that shit feels dirty.”
“Just get in- stop.”
Vell held out his hand. Kim froze in place and did not move. Not intentionally, at least. There was a small amount of unintentional movement. The ground was vibrating.
“Always love a good earthquake,” Kim said.
“That’s not a quake,” Vell said. “That’s...footsteps!”
Vell grabbed Kim and dove out of the way just in time for something to barrel through the walls of the dining hall and stampede across the room. Tables, chairs, and more than a few students were crushed under the feet of a hulking, brown-furred behemoth as it charged. Kim picked herself and Vell up off the floor and tried to trail its progress.
“That’s a- oh fuck me,” Kim said. “Please don’t say you told me so.”
Vell got his bearings and looked across the room at the titanic form of a woolly mammoth. Though it was definitely recognizable as an archaic mammoth, the ancient creature was also heavily mutated, unnaturally large even by mammoth standards, and with multiple curled, jagged tusks protruding from a slobbering maw.
“Well that could be unrelated,” Vell said. “Mammoths can come from a lot of places, cloning accidents, time machines…”
The mammoth reached a wall, and rather than barreling through, turned around, facing directly towards Vell. A prominent scar covered the bridge of its broad trunk.
“Oh, nope, that’s definitely Mae,” Vell said. The scar was in the same place and at the same angle. Even a clone wouldn’t have an identical scar.
Once the revelation had struck, Mae took her turn. Vell found himself staring straight down the barrel of a very angry mammoth coming right at him at Vell-squishing velocity. Luckily he’d been charged at by a lot of creatures over four years of looping.
Vell jumped up and to the side, and latched on to one of the curled tusks, which made for very convenient handlebars. Kim did the same on the opposite side of Mae, and punched her in the head.
“Wait, wait, hold off on the violence for a second,” Vell shouted. He tried to wave at Kim to stop, but Mae was thrashing so violently he had to grip the tusks with both hands.
“Good plan,” Kim shouted. “Can you get Mae on board?”
Another set of tables got crushed underfoot. Thankfully the other students were out of trampling range by now, but Mae Noi’s feet were still coated in the blood of earlier victims.
“Mae’s smart, maybe we can calm her down,” Vell said. He then ducked to dodge a swat from Mae’s mutated trunk.
“Call me crazy, Vell, but I think this is more than just a bad mood,” Kim said, as she climbed up Mae’s seven jagged tusks like a ladder.
“We have to try,” Vell said. The loopers rule against hurting other intelligent life forms had some flexibility for blood-crazed mutants on violent rampages, but they had to at least try to reason first. Vell climbed up on of Mae’s tusks and looked into one of her bloodshot eyes for any sign of recognition. “Mae! It’s Vell, do you remember?”
The only response Vell got was an enraged trumpet, which he didn’t think was a “yes”.
“Come on, bud,” Vell said. “What’s an elephant’s favorite part of a tree, right? The trunk?”
The massive brown eye staring at Vell blinked, and he felt a brief glimmer of hope. He then felt a brief glimmer of his lungs being crushed as Mae swung her head and slammed her tusks into the wall, and Vell along with them. Kim punched Mae in the throat and then jumped across the tusks to grab Vell and carry him to safety.
“You okay, Vell?”
He opened his mouth to respond, and a pint or two of blood came out instead.
“Apparently not,” he mumbled. “I might be down a few ribs. And a lung. Or two.”
Kim carried Vell a safe distance from the fight and set him down on the ground, where he promptly spat out another mouthful of blood.
“Okay, uh, you just lie there and try to die peacefully, I guess,” Kim said.
“Way ahead of you.”
***
“Was that last bit as funny as I thought it was?” Vell asked. “I think the blood loss was affecting my sense of humor.”
“It was kind of hard to appreciate in the moment,” Kim said. “But as far as dying jokes go, it was pretty good.”
Vell and Kim walked into the lair for their morning meeting and joined the loopers that had already gathered.
“Okay, what’d I miss while I was dead?”
“Well, after Alex was done getting herself killed,” Samson began.
“You’re saying that as if it’s something to be ashamed of,” Alex said. “Vell also died.”
“Yeah, but he got killed trying to do something good. You got killed trying to do something stupid.”
“Trying to eliminate a threat is not stupid,” Alex said.
“We don’t kill intelligent creatures,” Hawke said. “Sometimes we punch them into a coma, but we don’t kill them.”
“When a dog bites, you put it down, I don’t see why the same principle doesn’t apply to a mammoth that’s crushed seventy people.”
“That wasn’t Mae’s fault,” Vell said. “She got mutated, or something. On that note: did you guys figure out what happened to Mae Noi?”
“Nothing,” Hawke said. “Looked like Mae smashed up the entire lab, trampled everyone involved in the experiment too. Nothing left to investigate, and nobody left alive to interrogate.”
“Typical,” Vell sighed. “At least we have an easy out. Dean Lichman was really concerned about the ethics of that whole experiment. We raise some kind of complaint, we could probably get the whole thing shut down.”
“The problem is getting the complaint,” Hawke said. “That lab was airtight, Vell.”
“Apparently not completely airtight,” Kim said. “I can camp out in the lab and raise an entirely justifiable stink whenever something capable of making a murder-mammoth shows up.”
“And what if it happens so suddenly you can’t complain about it?” Samson asked. “For all we know that could’ve been some kind of dimensional rift, or time anomaly, or something. It might not be as simple as somebody just putting in the wrong syringe at the wrong time.”
“He’s got a point,” Vell said. “We might want to shut this down before it gets there.”
“Seems like our best option is to plant evidence, then,” Alex said.
Everyone else at the table spent a few seconds brainstorming ways to prove her wrong, and much to their frustration, could not.
“Okay, fine,” Vell said. “But it needs to be something incidental, not something anyone would get blamed for. We want to cancel the experiment, not get anyone in trouble.”
“I could have a seizure on some sensitive equipment,” Helena offered. “It’ll break something and nobody would dare get mad at me.”
“Can you fake a seizure?”
“No, but I’m allergic to elephants, so I’d probably have one anyway the moment I stepped in the lab,” Helena said.
“I don’t feel entirely comfortable sending you into anaphylactic shock for a bit,” Vell said.
“Offer’s on the table,” Helena said. “I’ll live. Wouldn’t have made it through that trip to the zoo otherwise.”
“Anybody have any non-medical emergency suggestions?”
“Seagull in the air vents,” Kim said.
“Will that work?”
“It happens now and then,” Kim said. “Seagull gets in, and Dean has to close down the whole lab for potential material damage and biohazard risks if they shit in the vents.”
“Really? We’ve never had to deal with anything like that,” Hawke said.
“It may shock you to learn that sometimes minor, tedious bullshit happens that we have nothing to do with,” Kim said.
“That is kind of surprising, actually.”
“Enough. Kim, can you grab a seagull?” Vell asked. He shouldered his bookbag, and stuck a hand into the extradimensional pocket that existed within it. “I can probably smuggle it in with my bag.”
“Yeah, I can get you a seagull,” Kim said. Since she did not need to sleep, she had to find ways to keep herself entertained at night, seagull-grabbing being among them.
“Alright, we’ll go grab one and put it in the bag,” Vell said. “The rest of you, be ready to meet us when I call.”
***
Roughly three minutes later, Vell put out the call and they reconvened in front of the biology lab.
“Yeah, that was much faster than I thought it would be,” Vell said.
“I’m great at grabbin’ birds,” Kim said. Seagulls were among the easier birds to snatch, even. They were suckers for food, and many of them were attracted to her shiny metallic body anyway.
“Let’s just get this over with,” Vell said. “I want this thing out of my bag ASAP.”
Even though the seagull was safely within a pocket dimension, Vell would swear he could still feel the bird thrashing and squawking inside his bag. He tightened his grip on the shoulder strap and led the way towards the zoology lab entrance. He grabbed the handle and held it as he froze for a second.
“Vell, what’s up? Is this bird escaping?”
“No, the handle’s vibrating,” Vell said. It was shaking the same way a wall near an incredibly loud speaker might. He pressed his ear to the door and listened closely. He opened the door immediately, and let all his friends hear the frantic trumpeting of a panicked elephant.
Inside the lab, Mae Noi was stomping her feet and trumpeting as loud as he long trunk would allow. She swayed from side to side in her pen, bumping against the walls not quite hard enough to damage them, but hard enough that it was clear she was doing it on purpose.
“What the heck is happening here?”
“Ah, Vell,” Dean Lichman said. He hustled over to Vell’s side and gestured to the entire room. “Maybe you can figure out what’s going on.”
Mae Noi stopped braying long enough to start mashing her trunk against her pedestal, mashing out the word “Bad” over and over again.
“Our test subject, Mae Noi, has been throwing an absolute fit ever since she got here,” Dean Lichman said. “Dr. Chanthara, these are the students I was telling you about earlier.”
While Vell reintroduced himself to Dr. Chanthara, Kim and Hawke stepped up to examine Mae Noi and her enclosure. It was a far cry from the peaceful, orderly scene they had examined on the first loop. They were half an hour earlier this time than before, but Kim found it unlikely that they had been able to calm Mae Noi down, clean everything up, and get back to work in such a short amount of time. They hadn’t mentioned any of this panic on the first loop either. They were soon joined in their confusion by Chanthara and Vell.
“We’ve tried everything; food, water, her favorite toys, even videos of her children,” Dr. Chanthara said. “We’ve even offered to call off the experiment, but she won’t listen.”
“She is an animal,” Alex said. “Sometimes they do things arbitrarily.”
“Not Mae,” Dr. Chanthara said. “Some of our sanctuaries residents from traumatic backgrounds can have outbursts, but Mae was injured in the wild. She’s never been like this.”
“Maybe some experiment on the island is upsetting her,” Vell said. “A sonic experiment only she can hear, or something…”
Vell stopped and thought about it. If there had been such an irritant, it would’ve been there on the first loop too. Everything always repeated exactly the same, except for-
“Could you, uh, take a step back for a second?” Vell mumbled. “I want to try talking to her.”
“Don’t get close,” Chanthara warned him.
“I’m not, I’m not,” Vell said. He didn’t need to get very close to tell a joke.
The massive brown eyes of Mae Noi stayed locked on Vell as he approached, and she continued to mash the “Bad” button on her pedestal.
“I know, I know, bad,” Vell said. “But, uh, do you want to hear a joke?”
Mae Noi stopped. She locked eyes with Vell for a few seconds, and then cautiously tapped a button on her pedestal.
“Joke.”
“Right, joke,” Vell said. He tried to recall the exact sequence of words Mae had used on the first loop. “What elephant favorite part tree?”
Mae didn’t blink.
“Trunk,” Vell said.
After a moment of contemplation, Mae Noi let out one final, fervent, trumpet, and then started mashing buttons on her pedestal again.
“Bad. Help. Help. Experiment. Bad. Help. Bad. Help.”
“Yeah, bad help, one second,” Vell said. He turned away from Mae Noi to look at Dean Lichman. “Hey, uh, excuse me, Dean? Hey, uh, if I remember correctly there are some pretty complicated rules on having intelligent animals on campus, yes?”
“Well, yes,” Dean Lichman said. After hearing of some questionable ethical practices involving an octopus back in first year, he had instituted a few clauses into the school’s ethical code of conduct regarding intelligent animals like elephants, octopuses, and dolphins. “Mae’s presence here is a bit of an outlier, but there were workaround, given her apparent consent to the experiment.”
“Yeah, about that, is she, uh,” Vell began. “Is she registered as a student?”
“Yes.”
Vell pursed his lips. It took a few seconds for his friends to catch on.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Samson snapped. He turned his back on the crowd and leaned against a wall while Hawke put his head in his hands.
“The first rule of looping,” Alex said quietly. “Loopers are randomly selected-”
She looked up and locked eyes with Mae Noi.
“From all registered students.”

UK based.
TLDR: ongoing symptoms of MS for the last 4 weeks but I have now been diagnosed with FND.
It all started 4 weeks ago when I felt extremely fatigued and light headed. I drove home after work at 5pm and suddenly I had lost all control of the movement in my arms. It was like a partial paralysis. An ambulance was called and they took me to the stroke unit where they did a CT scan of the brain and kept me in overnight. The use of my arms came back at around 10pm.
The next day, they carried out MRI scans on my brain and in my spine, all of which ruled out a stroke. They referred me for an urgent neurology appointment (which was 4 weeks later).
Since then, I have experience at least one or more of the following symptoms daily: - loss of control in my arms - loss of control in my right leg - stabbing pains in my thigh - extreme fatigue - vertigo and dizziness - numbness of the muscles in my face - tingling and cold sensations through my upper body - muscle spasms and tremors in my hand
When I was younger, I had optic neuritis which lasted just over a week and the scan showed small lesions of MS. They had mentioned if I have other spells in the future that it would likely be diagnosed as MS. With this information and all the symptoms I have experienced we all assumed this would be the case. Every symptom I had is a symptom of MS, and in all honesty, I was waiting for the neurology appointment to confirm this.
Anyway, I had the appointment this morning and to my surprise he said the scans are clear and it is not MS (he was also an MS specialist). He told me that I have Functional Neurological Disorder. I was shown a web page that outlined this and not much further advice was able to be given in terms of how to manage my symptoms on a daily basis, particularly with work.
I am being sent for further bloods to check my vitamin levels and have a catch up appointment in a month’s time.
Having researched this throughout the day, I can see what a broad spectrum FND covers. Is it just a diagnosis they give when they don’t know what is wrong with the signals to your nervous system? Has anyone had a similar experience? Is it worth going private and getting a second opinion? Will the symptoms get better?

A bit of a rant post, but also trying to see if its possible to report a seller for terrible customer service. I had ordered an item from this seller , my item was marked as shipped for roughly 2-3 weeks, with zero movement whatsoever. It had been pre transit the entire time.
I message them, asking for an update, I wasn't given one regarding any delays until I went and reached out myself. They state it's due to QA reasons and it will be another week or two, I had no issues with this. However upon another week passing with no updates. No change in USPS status, and the delivery window being well exceeded at this point, I opened a case with Etsy and got a refund.
Seller immediately messages me, saying that USPS had picked up the item already and that I will need to close my case with Etsy before the order is canceled.
I checked the status of USPS. STILL pre transit. I told the seller this, he says that the status does not update in real time and should update that afternoon (not true on any order I have ever ordered online, they even time stamp the updates, lol). Etsy was pretty quick to resolve my case so they refunded me, and let the seller keep what I paid, (they waived my klarna total for the amount of the item as it was part of a large klarna order with multiple sellers)
I let the seller know that they had already closed it, seller says that the only way to proceed is for them to send me a new custom order for the total of the item (which would effectively mean they would get paid twice for a bad job, as they were able to keep the total amount of the item already paid even though I was refunded) so that they can keep the same shipping label and have it delivered faster as the post already grabbed it.
Upon messaging them back asking how to do this, I get zero response.
I go ahead and leave a 1 star review. Which in my opinion is justifiable.
The seller responds and says I acted in bad faith, tried getting the item for free, that we had made an agreement to get the item shipped to me the day the case was opened, just blatant lies. Looking at their other 1 star reviews (which I should have done when ordering) it looks like this guy is a raging manbaby that will berate anyone that leaves him a bad review, gives excuses, and in short is nothing but "buyer wrong, I didn't do anything ". The whole experience has me peeved, and it looks like several other people had experiences similar to mine, never receiving their items, items marked as shipped for weeks with no updates, no communication, etc.
How do I report a sellers customer service? Or just report them in general? Or am I SOL on that front. I'm not usually a Karen when it comes to things like this, but the entire interaction kinda pissed me off.
Interactions with seller https://imgur.com/a/80WobDL
My review and the seller's response https://imgur.com/a/uayMkgY

Ok, so... I'm gonna start this by saying I blame myself and hate myself and I'm heartbroken.
Malcolm has been living with me in my car for over two years now. I got him when he was a tiny baby, I was told he was 3 weeks old or so, and I put him on my shoulder and we were inseparable. He is a loose rat, lives in the car, everything is organized around his (and his "brother's" comfort. He sleeps on me, loves to cuddle, and is the light of my life. He is a very special rat. For the past month I've been staying with my mum but the rats have been in the car. I take them into the house for a few hours every day, usually from around 7pm until 1am - during the day they sleep and after 1am I sleep, so it seemed like a reasonable arrangement. It's still fewer hours than I'm used to spending with Mal, but I told myself it's ok. Today I couldn't find him in the car. I started to panic - I only opened it once today to find something in a bag in the back, but he didn't spend time on that side of the car, so it would have been very unlikely for hom to fall out. He'd never fallen out of the car before. My parents kept telling me to wait until tomorrow to find him because it was too dark, but I just couldn't. Finally I found him. I don't know why he was there, but he was in a crevice where I usually keep things, he doesn't go there. It soon became obvious why he didn't come to me when I was looking for him - his hind legs are not working. I have so many questions. Did I cause him to become stuck when I moved that bag? How long was he there? Did he get there before his legs stopped working? Did he have a stroke? Pulled muscles? Something else? And was that caused because he was stuck? Or was he stuck because his legs weren't working? There was a way for him to leave, there was plentynof room for him to crawl out, so I'm guessing... oh god, so many questions, so much confusion. So much blame. So much wishing I could turn back time and pay better attention. Now he is not eating. He drank water and nibbled on a little bit of chocolate (I thought he deserved to be spoiled for the horrors he went through) but he stopped wanting even the chocolate. He also keeps falling off surfaces, he just... slides off a couch sometimes. Like, drags himself until he falls. I have to keep an eye on him. I'm not letting him sleep in the car again. But... it has occurred to me that I have never watched my own pet grow old. I have had many pets in my life, but not MY pets. The pets my family had either didn't get to grow old or I wasn't there when they did. I knew that rats living in captivity are lucky if they get past 2y, but I always naively expected Mal to be special in that regard, too. I lived in constant fear that my neglicence (I have ADHD and it's always been a problem) will kill him and I preemptively hated myself for that. That's why I quickly started blaming myself for this, even though I don't actually know what happened and maybe, just maybe, was his life happy the way it was. But the other option is that my rat is old and deteriorating. And I'm not ready.

Shared Kit 

Brittle Form Kit: 

Forged Form Kit: 

呪われたテクニック:ギャンブラーのガーディアン (Cursed Technique: Gambler's Guardians)

The Gambler's Guardians CT is a shikigami technique that employs the use of chance and a deck of cards to summon guardians to combat opponents. The user cannot choose which shikigami is summoned as the medium between summoning these shikigami is a deck of cards that the user always has. The user may withhold these cards to be used as a later date or to lead to the use of the user's DE.

Drawbacks Of Gambler's Guardians

1. Due to its unpredictability, you may not draw the right card for the situation or even be unable to summon a shikigami at all.
   
2. It's a very risky, yet powerful technique as the cards must physically be drawn for the shikigami to be summoned.
   
3. All the shikigami's main weakness is fire as they will become a pile of ash in a matter of seconds [as this is the main and almost only weakness for all the shikigami, it will not be repeated and only shikigami specific weaknesses will be mentioned going forward].
   

呪われた道具:プレイヤーの野望 (Cursed Tool: Player's Ambition)

The Player's Ambition Cursed Tool is a tool that is created directly from the user's CE. It is tied to the user's CE and can always be created again by the user whenever it is destroyed. The cards in this deck are extremely durable as if made of a titanium alloy while still retaining its flexibility. These cards can be very useful for other Sorcerers as the deck always has a full suit of cards [that never repeat until all have been used once] that can cause a lot of damage. As for the user, these cards serve as both the medium and a powerful offensive tool for combat. However, just like modern decks, two jokers have been placed. These two jokers are required for the user to activate their DE, if the user does not have a DE then these two jokers are used as diversions to trick or further damage opponents. When the shikigami is summoned, the card drops to the card and expands to the required size for the shikigami to exit the card as if it's a portal. Both the size and the body of the shikigami depends on how quickly it exits the card.

ギャンブラーのガーディアン:エース (Gambler's Guardians: Ace)

The Ace shikigami is a shikigami that helps smooth the flow of the user's CE and increase the user's CE output. The shikigami is in the form of a large skinny robed figure that bears the symbol of the card that is drawn [A spade for the Ace Of Spades, a heart for the Ace Of Hearts and so on]. Aceis quite physically powerful and smart as it will get very creative with its attack and almost never do something in the literal sense. The Ace is extremely lanky and has arms that almost drag on the ground on the floor. The boost from this shikigami lasts for a varying amount of time depending on which Ace is drawn. The Ace takes advantage of its long arms and powerful enhancement boosting abilities to quickly attack in swiping strikes from a distance. Ace is the manifestation of the user's grief and regret of indulging in their addiction as they have lost the love and warmth of those who were close, yet pushed away.

ギャンブラーのガーディアン:スペードのエース (Gambler's Guardians: Ace Of Spades)

The Spades variation of the Ace shikigami can be seen as the more base version of the Ace as it still retains all regular details aforementioned, but with the added detail of skin as white as snow and hands the size of a shovel’s blade. The enhancement ability aforementioned is not changed much as it still can enhance the flow of CE in the user and boost the overall strength of itself. Although it can now enhance the durability of different objects to the level of a titanium alloy.

Gambler's Guardians: Ace Of Hearts

The Hearts variation of Ace sees some very drastic changes when compared to the Spade variation. The Ace Of Hearts can be seen with the same snow white skin, but this time it seems to have brought red outlines where its nonexistent veins should be. These “veins” are visible all along its body. The Ace Of Hearts no longer smooths the flow of the user's CE, but instead is able to reverse some damages to both it and the user. The Ace Of Hearts takes advantage of this healing factor with its higher amount of agility, but this healing factor and agility come with the loss of strength. The Ace Of Hearts is much weaker and not suited for close hand to hand combat, but instead will use debris from the fight to throw at the opponents while at points jumping towards the user to heal them. The Ace Of Hearts is able to climb up buildings extremely quickly and is another very useful part of the user's chance filled arsenal.

Gambler's Guardians: Ace Of Diamonds

The Ace Of Diamonds is the more defensive variation and it will always put its life at bay to keep its master safe. It is much more bulky than its previous variations and uses this bulky-ness to shield the user with its body. The Ace Of Diamonds has the same snow white skin and the same blood red “veins”, but with the added factor of its major difference in size when compared to the other variations. The Ace Of Diamonds is also the most physically powerful variation as it can throw things like cars with ease, possibly even buses if it tried. This variation of Ace can reinforce its own skin to that of diamonds, at the cost of being unable to apply any boosts to others.

Gambler's Guardians: Ace Of Clubs

The Ace Of Clubs is the much more offensive variation of Ace as it trades away some of its high durability to gain more agility and muscle strength. Combining this increase in agility and muscle strength with its newfound aggressiveness and large hood, it can quickly apply large amounts of pressure onto anything as it mercilessly attacks the target. The Ace Of Clubs will also use it's surroundings heavily to apply further pressure, whether that be from grabbing and throwing the target into something, or picking up something and using it as a weapon.

Gambler’s Guardians: Two

These shikigami mainly focus on supporting the user as all of their variations focus on buffing their capabilities in some form, whether that be applying a protective CE shield over the user or simply healing the user. However, these shikigami are very weak and require something to protect them or else little value will be gained from summoning them. The shikigami almost look like [biblically accurate] angels about the size of a bike, the only difference is that they are made purely of the card they were summoned with, hence why their durability is so low and can very easily be shut down.

Gambler's Guardians: Two Of Spades

The Two Of Spades variation is [just like Ace Of Spades] the base variation of Two. The Two Of Spades summons two smaller shikigami that both can apply barriers of CE onto objects or even people. These barriers are not the strongest and can barely survive a single hit from something such as a grade 2 and above, but they can allow for some defense especially as it can tank at least a single hit which can potentially save the user's life.

Gambler's Guardians: Two Of Hearts

The Two Of Hearts variation allows the shikigami to be able to reverse damage to anything, but not the position [ex. If a wall was knocked down and shattered, these shikigami can reverse the damage it sustained to an extent, but not being it back to its upright position unless they somehow lift it back up] to a certain extent. No, these shikigami can NOT reverse death, the worst injury they can reverse on a human being or animal is a broken bone [unless the bone is completely shattered]. Anything more can potentially cause more pain for the user while killing the shikigami in the process.

Gambler's Guardians: Two Of Diamonds

The Two Of Diamonds variation can apply a much more durable shield than Two Of Spades, at the cost of its own speed and tapping into the user's CE reserves. This allows for a much stronger shield that can repair itself as long as the user’s CE reserves are full. These shields can survive multiple hits from a semi-grade 1 and potentially a few hits from a grade 1 sorcerer or curse. However, if the shikigami attempts to keep up the shield for too long, it will overload itself and burn up in a flash of CE. The CE used to summon these shikigami will be returned if this happens.

Gambler's Guardians: Two Of Clubs

The Two Of Clubs is the fastest variation of Two, but at the cost of its own durability. These shikigami often will apply a shield onto itself [rather than the user] and fly into a target to cause physical damage, taking advantage of its shield and speed. However, because it is so weak durability wise, so are its shields. Its shields cannot survive more than 2 hits from most sources without shattering. Even though these shields are weak, the shattering effect that happens when they break can potentially harm others [this includes the user].

Gambler's Guardians: Three

Three is a trio of shikigami that look similarly to the finger bearer cursed spirit, but Three are pure white with either black or red accents depending on which card was used to summon them and the symbol of the card on its back. They are also smaller than the finger bearer, reaching a height of about 4’4. Three is more so focused on being a supporting attacker to overwhelm an opponent, rather than taking the attention off of the user [with the exception of Three Of Clubs]. Three is very much average in all ways, but makes up for it with its speed, being able to quickly overwhelm a target.

Gambler's Guardians: Three Of Spades

The Three Of Spades is very fast and can even sneak up on opponents as it is able to dig its claws into objects and hold itself on ceilings or walls. Three Of Spades is very overwhelming as it takes advantage of its speed and strength to even break through walls to catch an opponent off guard, but will ultimately choose to protect the user even if it means death. Most of the time, Three Of Spades will stick closely to the user, but in a hidden position where they cannot be easily noticed while even hiding their own CE to an extent.

Gambler's Guardians: Three Of Hearts

The Three Of Hearts shikigami is the same looking shikigami, the only difference is that one of them specializes in physical attacks, one specializes in psychological confusion, and the last specializes in attacking the soul. The one that specializes in physical attacks is slightly above average in strength, speed and durability, but can grow claws on both its hands and feet to attempt to cause bleeding. The one that specializes in psychological confusion can release a gas that, if inhaled, will cause the victim to have hallucinations that could go from minor to severe depending on how much of the gas is inhaled. Finally, the one that specializes in attacking the soul is below average in physical strength and durability, but makes up for it with its speed and ability to cause irreversible damage.

Gambler's Guardians: Three Of Diamonds

The Three Of Diamonds are much more durable and physically powerful and the form they take represents that. They have a lot more visible muscle on them and the accents are less tattoos and actually are an unknown metallic material that is highly durable. This armour does not cover its whole body, but it does allow protection on the shikigami's arms, legs, and partially their chest. The armour is on these parts as it is a physical attacker rather than using some other ranged attack. The Three Of Diamonds are also a bit bigger than that of the rest of the variations of Three, reaching a height of 4’11.

Gambler's Guardians: Three Of Clubs

The Three Of Clubs variation can all merge together, forming a much larger and stronger shikigami, reaching the height of 5’8. Each summoned shikigami has a different part of the Clubs symbol on their back, when the three parts decide to form or the user tells them to merge, they become the powerful shikigami as mentioned before with the finished symbol of Clubs. More info on this combination will be stated below, for now information on Three Of Clubs will be talked about. The Three Of Clubs focuses more on hard hitting attacks, rather than stealthy ambushes. It loses its stealth, but instead it has a new merging gimmick and slightly increased strength and durability when compared to Three Of Spades.

Gambler's Guardians: Three Of A Kind

The Three Of A Kind shikigami is the result of when all three shikigami of Three Of Clubs merge together. The Three Of A Kind is very powerful and uses the same fighting style that the user does with the added benefits of a massive strength, durability and speed boost. The Three Of A Kind can apply a lot of pressure and can even revert back into the three separate shikigami it was before on command to dodge a potential hit from an enemy. However, the longer the shikigami are in this merged form, the weaker they will get as they have a time limit that is represented by the tattoo of the clubs on its back slowly fading from the top of the clubs down. It does slowly regenerate while not in the merged state and when it isn't even summoned. Trying to push past this state can allow a few extra seconds of strength, but ultimately will end with this shikigami to burn up in a flash of CE and the card used to summon it will be burned from the deck.

Gambler's Guardians: Four

Gambler's Guardians: Four Of Spades

Gambler's Guardians: Four Of Hearts

Gambler's Guardians: Four Of Diamonds

Gambler's Guardians: Four Of Clubs

Gambler's Guardians: Five

Gambler's Guardians: Five Of Spades

Gambler's Guardians: Five Of Hearts

Gambler's Guardians: Five Of Diamonds

Gambler's Guardians: Five Of Clubs

Gambler's Guardians: Six

Gambler's Guardians: Six Of Spades

Gambler's Guardians: Six Of Hearts

Gambler's Guardians: Six Of Diamonds

Gambler's Guardians: Six Of Clubs

Gambler's Guardians: Seven

Gambler's Guardians: Seven Of Spades

Gambler's Guardians: Seven Of Hearts

Gambler's Guardians: Seven Of Diamonds

Gambler's Guardians: Seven Of Clubs

Gambler's Guardians: Eight

Gambler's Guardians: Eight Of Spades

Gambler's Guardians: Eight Of Hearts

Gambler's Guardians: Eight Of Diamonds

Gambler's Guardians: Eight Of Clubs

Gambler's Guardians: Nine

Gambler's Guardians: Nine Of Spades

Gambler's Guardians: Nine Of Hearts

Gambler's Guardians: Nine Of Diamonds

Gambler's Guardians: Nine Of Clubs

Gambler's Guardians: Ten

Gambler's Guardians: Ten Of Spades

Gambler's Guardians: Ten Of Hearts

Gambler's Guardians: Ten Of Diamonds

Gambler's Guardians: Ten Of Clubs

Gambler's Guardians: Jack

Gambler's Guardians: Jack Of Spades

Gambler's Guardians: Jack Of Hearts

Gambler's Guardians: Jack Of Diamonds

Gambler's Guardians: Jack Of Clubs

Gambler's Guardians: Queen

Gambler's Guardians: Queen Of Spades

Gambler's Guardians: Queen Of Hearts

Gambler's Guardians: Queen Of Diamonds

Gambler's Guardians: Queen Of Clubs

Gambler's Guardians: King

Gambler's Guardians: King Of Spades

Gambler's Guardians: King Of Hearts

Gambler's Guardians: King Of Diamonds

Gambler's Guardians: King Of Clubs

Extension Technique: Full House

This Extension Technique allows the user to overload their cards with CE, allowing the capabilities of the shikigami to be heightened [ex. More durability, faster, stronger, special gimmicks have a stronger influence, ect], but burning the card after being used. When this happens, the card is less likely to be pulled again or even just not even to be pulled from that deck ever again, forcing the user to attempt to artificially create another deck they can use from their CE.

Domain Expansion: Joker's Last Cabaret

When this DE is activated, both the user and the opponents will be placed in the midst of a casino filled with different cards flying everywhere extremely fast [fast enough to cut the skin on a human being]. As soon as one of these cards draws blood and they land flat on a surface [face down], the corresponding shikigami of that card will be summoned with the person the card had hit as their target. These shikigami will not target any other person until the original target is felled. Once that target is defeated the shikigami will explode into a flurry of cards, allowing for more shikigami to be summoned. The user can concentrate CE to slightly direct the cards into a target, but then these cards that were directed turn into blank cards that have no other use than as a physical weapon rather than an intermediary. The Joker cards will burn up after this DE is summoned, meaning this DE can never be used again unless the user can focus enough CE onto another set of Joker cards.

There was a wedding this weekend. But it was a couple in college and their idea of a wedding primarily centered around being newly 21 so lots of toasts and alcohol, also, religious, with homilies and hymns. Such an event is not a great place for someone with a debilitating, poorly controlled depressive mood disorder, characterized by terrible general and social anxiety.
When I first started dating my s/o, they had a story they would tell me on repeat about going to a family wedding some years ago and losing it, crying, big crying, during the ceremony, and their plus one at the time was embarrassed to have gone with them. The rest of the wedding involved getting drunk to bury emotions. The story would come up out of the blue like a trauma flashback. ...It probably WAS a trauma flashback. Having a mental health meltdown so publicly, in a nearly silent event hall, where everyone knew who they were was one of their great terrors, and they lived it.
Life post-ketamine has been very different. Still, my s/o was freaked out that there was a wedding to go to but felt obligated to say yes. The rehearsal dinner the day before involved everyone being instructed to give a toast, and there were a LOT of guests.
Instead of being overwhelmed and getting hammered, then more emotionally unstable due to alcohol, then freaking out at giving toast, my s/o took some air and decided it was better to leave the rehearsal dinner early, skip the bar, and call it good. They made it through the dinner and introductions and a hoard of college students with slumped shoulders and circles under their eyes fidgeting with their first ever suit or gown, not knowing how to walk around in nice clothing. It was an anxiety inducing event for sure, to be surrounded by self-esteem impaired kids who were all going for the booze but without the benefit of self control from experience at fine dining parties, with what looked like over 100 people, and everyone asking for public sharing of personal details, also a pro photographer yelling to smile! They held up well, discussed current work projects and some new construction, introduced me to people I had never met, and put out some effort to show pride in me and make me look good socially. I was pretty stunned.
But that night they panicked a little that they would fall apart again at the actual wedding, and everyone would think they were some kind of weak fool. The story went back on repeat after being gone for over a year.
For about an hour, they were trying to negotiate with me to support using drugs or alcohol to dull the experience, some lashing blame, general disarray of thinking and planning. But they assumed it would be the same as last time, they couldn't live through that embarassment again, falling apart in front of 100 people and being obligated not to leave. The
The next morning they had calmed down, apologized for being so strung out, and we strategized and bought a wine bottle shaped jug of grape juice for the table, so the glasses would be full of something wine-ish and no one would try to force alcohol into their empty glass, and demand they toast and drink, which would definitely put them into a downward spiral.
The wedding later that day was worse in terms of anxiety induction. The hymns, and religious speeches, and a nearly hour long preacher lecture to the couple was a prelude to the too loud background music and people all around yelling to be heard while everyone in fine clothing tried to eat the catered tacos and liquid cheese pour over nachos, with their hands, while avoiding necktties and lace.
And it was fine. No emotional upheaval, no panic due to the crowd, no horror at meeting people.
After four hours, they had congratulated the happy couple, dinner with relatives, family photos, signed the Bible, written note to the couple for the memory scrap book, caught up with relatives, and had real conversations for about two hours of the event. When it was clear there was no emerging timeline for cake cutting, they asked to take a quick walk outside where we could hear each other and we made an exit plan. They had enough bandwidth to compliment the mother of the bride and father of the bride and congratulate them, beg off early due to being a little overwhelmed and blamed their social anxiety diagnosis, and stopped to say goodbye to close relatives.
Since we missed the cake, we pulled in at the nearest gas station and they pounded down a nasty Hostess type pastry cake as a stress relief/token of achievement and we had a good laugh.
They felt depressed for a couple hours afterward, talking about how gross it felt to be surrounded by people who were parading polite personas and be expected to wear the same mask. That the religious content had been much more than they'd been expecting, e.g. required singing about how we are all God's weapons against devils (an interesting choice for a wedding.) Church was never a safe place for them, it was social group where you "can pray away mental illness," and remaining mentally ill was a sign of further personal failure. So feeling low and blue wasn't so much a symptom as a very normal response to being sat down through prayers and hymns and recitations, etc.
And then they played with their kitten to have the kitten run around chasing toys until exhausted and happy sleepy, gave it dinner and asked if I wanted to snuggle and catch up on the news on TV.
And things were fine. They reflected that they didn't fall apart, that they never expected to be able to handle an event like that. That leaving a little early was not much of a sin and they'd been talkative, likeable, well-dressed, and nice company.
The next day there was no recovery or fall out. They did a big favor (1.5 hours driving) for an acquaintance who was rushing in from out of town for an elderly family member who broke their leg. This favor did not stop them from getting some work done, kitten care, and schedule planning.
What a change. From a mental health melt down and subsequent years of relived trauma, improving to the point where the big follow up was them giving me an eyeroll in the car and saying "next time, I'm asking about how many hymns and homilies there will be before I RSVP."

I’m 26 and I’m 99% I have endo. I started birth control at 13 due to bad cramps and was on it for over 10 years. I went off of it and everything was fine at first but my periods kept getting worse and worse. For the past year or so my periods and the week prior are unbearable. For the week before, it’s the worst depression I’ve dealt with and I have zero energy and I’m EXTREMELY irritable. Then the day I’m going to start my period I get cramps so bad they drop me to my knees, I’ve passed out from them a few times and I get disoriented from the pain. The pain radiates to my lower back (which is the worst pain of it all), to my hips and all the way down my legs. I have a lot of GI issues and usually get bad cluster headaches. Nothing helps. I’ve tried muscle relaxers, excedrin/tylenol/motrin, weed, heating pads, hot epsom salt baths, massages, stretching. I get minor relief from some of the things but it barely scratches the surface. I’ve finally had enough after how bad it was tonight and I’m going to be looking for a gyno to talk to. I’ve been dreading it and putting it off because I have a lot of medical distrust and doctors don’t have the best track record with helping with this sort of thing. I just wanted to vent to people who can understand how bad the pain really is. Thank you for reading!

I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to ask for this kind of advice, but it's the first place I thought of.
I work from home in customer service for a large company that is constantly expanding without hiring new people. For this reason, existing employees are currently having their assigned schedules stripped away so that new ones better aligned with "business needs" can be assigned based on our metrics (highest metrics = first to pick, lowest = you get what's left).
As fucked up as this system sounded, I'd been dying for a new schedule and worked my ass off for a shot at some sort of work/life balance. When schedules were finally announced I got exactly what I asked for, with the stipulation that I'd need to do some additional training I'd previously declined as it meant almost doubling my workload for no additional pay. I agreed to this ONLY because my new schedule was an absolute dream, and (in my mind) just as good as a raise.
A week later, we get an email saying that the start date for our new schedule was being pushed back. I was annoyed, but I got over it since there was no mention of those schedules being changed. I go through with my training - it's hell - and continue working as usual while counting down the days until I'm able to clock out while the sun is still up. For those few weeks, my manager was out of office several times on 3-4 day vacations. Our team would occasionally receive forwarded emails from other managers with important info that she wasn't there to give us.
A week ago, I get a message from my manager a few minutes before I get off asking why I hadn't submitted my new shift preferences list as it would be due that evening. I checked every single email I'd received since it was announced that our new schedules were being postponed - I got nothing. I let her know this, and she says she can't find the email either and will just use the one I submitted originally. Again, I'm annoyed, but I figure my new new schedule can't be too different as my metrics had been consistently high.
I got that new new schedule today, and it is more or less my current schedule without the consecutive off days (think 10 hour shifts, off Mon, Wed, Fri). Out of maybe 20 possible schedules, it was more than halfway down my original preference list. I checked and double checked, and my metrics are actually higher now than when my dream schedule was awarded. I genuinely have no idea how this happened, and I waited around for half an hour after I got off in hopes of asking my manager but she marked herself out of office not long after I sent an email asking for clarification. No prior notice she'd be away, and no word on when she'll be back.
What am I supposed to do about this? I'm infamously bad at putting my foot down, but I can't imagine continuing at this company without getting the scheduled I worked for.
Tl;Dr: I was promised a new, easier schedule based on my high metrics. I agreed to take on additional work for this easier schedule. I just found out that - despite me taking on the additional work and still keeping my metrics high - I will actually be getting a different, shittier schedule. Who do I yell at and how loud?

So this studio is kinda infamous in my town for being a bit much. For two main reasons, the really beginner unfriendly warm up and just the attitude of the teachers. I chose this studio as it had regular hoop lessons and my usual studio doesn’t. I really wanted to try their beginners class, but when I got there it didn’t feel so beginner friendly.
Before getting on any equipment we did a 15 minute warmup which is kind of expected! But oh my god were they insane. We were doing sprints, burpees, push ups, planks and more. I was extremely surprised at first as myself and a few others (aside from people who regularly went to the gym) were pretty much dying. Then after that warm up you’d do a FIVE MINUTE dish positions. I felt like I was going to puke afterwards, my limbs were shaking and I was sweating so hard it was dripping off me. As was other people, and I’m not un fit! We also couldn’t take breaks inbetween either in fear of being barked at by instructors. Myself and others were so exhausted that trying to do things on the actual equipment felt impossible.
That going on to the instructors themselves, they were friendly enough at first, but the woman who led the hoop in my group just really intimidated me. (Remember this was in an absolute beginners first time hoop class)
When it came to getting onto the hoop and trying out moves, if you made a small mistake or got confused she would get very nippy. I have dyspraxia but I still love aerial, and my usual teacher is so helpful as especially I can’t tell my left and right. I told this instructor beforehand as well too. When I was on the hoop I was getting a bit confused as she kept telling me to move my left leg over to the right side of the hoop. I got muddled and did the opposite and was told
“Look you can just get off the equipment right now because you’re clearly not listening to me”
I was mortified to say the least as I felt so stupid and embarrassed. I wasn’t deliberately trying to do it wrong? Maybe if I’d been doing aerial for years and she was my coach I could maybe understand that attitude. But not to a complete beginner
I’m a visual learner and I also get a lot of help when somebody can come close and stand by whilst I get in, guiding my body. It’s why I love my local studio because they’re so understanding and will go the extra mile to accommodate every student, wether it be disability or body types. I tried to keep up with this class regardless as I loved hoop but after a while I just couldn’t cope anymore exhaustion wise. The extreme workout before was putting so much strain on my body and I ended up pulling a muscle and stopped going there all together.
Then a couple weeks ago I was looking for studios to attended some open training for a show I was performing in, and I booked a session at that studio again as they had a spot available on a day I was free. I paid my money and then get contacted back saying they’ve cancelled my session because I haven’t come back to their studio for lessons anymore and they only want regular students with them to train at their studio. Also never got my money back either
Anyways big wall of text but this irritated me and I wanted to rant about it to people would understand what I mean. Anyone have similar experiences?

I very rarely have lucid dreams, but the ones I have tend to stick with me. I still remember one of my first I had around the time I was in middle school. I was taking a nap in the living room, and at some point, the dream became lucid. Instead of simply continuing on with the dream, I instead found myself in a circular room with a plethora of doors of all colors. In usual dream fashion, I seemed to innately know I was inside my own mind, each door leading to another possible dream.
The lucidity of the dream all but wore off as I embarked on an adventure exploring the depths of my own mind. All in all, it would've been a good dream. Unfortunately it all came to an abrupt halt as suddenly all the doors swung open at once, and the dream doors now all led to a single, impossible room and at it's center was a black hole straight out of science fiction, consuming everything as it made an extremely loud grinding noise that felt like someone taking a jackhammer to my skull.
I immediately woke up, sleep paralysis taking a firm hold of me, the light of the afternoon sun doing absolutely nothing to ease my panic and terror. Eventually. It subsided and the fear gave way to the understanding that I had just experienced something terrifying, but ultimately harmless. I didn't know at the time, but this was my first hint something wasn't right.
The next lucid dream I had (at least the one I remember) started a bit silly. I had read somewhere that, in a lucid dream, you should NEVER look in a mirror (something about your brain exaggerating your own self image causing your reflection to look imperfect and uncanny) Unfortunately my excited curiosity got the better of me and that was the first thing I did. What I saw made me laugh, thinking that knowing how fucked up my face was gonna look was going to keep me from being scared.
For the first few moments, it did. I couldn't Help but laugh at the exaggerated proportions of my own face, how my eyes were so tiny and my cheekbones were impossibly stretched. This is where things get difficult to describe in words. You know how when you face two mirrors together, how they reflect each other infinitely? It was like that, only I was the mirror… looking at the mirror… looking back at me. As I said, it's hard to put it in words but what I saw shook me to my core. The overwhelming sensation that was seeing something not meant for me. That my own bug eyed reflection had simply been a warning that I gleefully sped right past.
Once again I awoke and promptly filed what I had just experienced into “damn dreams are WEIRD” and for a while, things were normal again. Standard affair of “suddenly naked in places I'd rather not be naked” or “Suddenly having to go back to high school in my 30s” or the long running classic “I'm still in the navy and back on a ship”
That was until the third lucid dream. Like the others, everything was normal until I was walking down a sidewalk and suddenly, I inexplicably started crying. That's when two women rushed over to me and tried to help, but suddenly I was lucid. With lucidity also came the gravity of the situation. Here was two kind strangers I had created, given life and empathy to, that would simply cease to exist once I woke up. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I kept repeating to them, bawling my eyes out.
That's when I heard the voice.
“Something wrong, my little shepherd?”
It came from the back of my skull not masculine or feminine, not high or low pitched, it simply was.
“Who’s speaking to me?”
“We’ve met twice before. You’ve seen my mouth and have looked into my eyes. You tend your flock as you slumber and I consume them when you wake. A beautiful symbiosis beyond the veil of your reality. Awaken now my shepherd and I will sate my appetite. “
I no longer want to lucid dream

Basically I attended the MoMac BScN program back in 2005. Quit school due to outside issues.
I've since applied to Durham College's weekend flex RPN program, been accepted, paid my deposit, etc.
My question is, I have a few electives from when I attended mohawk and McMaster and I'm wondering if it's worth seeing if they'll give me credit for them. The RPN program has three general electives. I'm ASSUMING these are the courses I'd have to attend on the Friday for, so if I can get credit for them, that would be less time I'd have to be on campus since I'm commuting from the Tri-cities. Additionally it would also amount to less school to deal with allowing me to focus on the core nursing program.
My concerns are twofold - one being obviously the time between 2005 and now is a bit of a stretch and if it would even be worth trying to get credit.
My second concern is that when I applied, I was only required to provide my high school transcript. I'm concerned that if I provide my university/college transcripts, that this could effect my admission to the program or standing, as my marks suffered a bit due to the aforementioned unrelated to school reasons why I left.
Any insight you fine people might have?