Hello,
The reason I’m posting this is really for one reason; to clear up any sort of misinformation and misunderstandings of what the DSVA experience was like, but also to speak on other NATSAP program experiences since so many people here believe that these programs are nothing more than “labor camps” and “punishments for youth”.
Allow me to clear the air a little.
Now, I’m not here to discredit anyone’s negative experience or to say your experience wasn’t traumatic in any way. I’m not here to tell you that you can’t feel the way you feel about these places. My condolences go to the family’s or friends that have lost a loved one because of these programs. May they rest in peace.
I’m here to shed some light on this topic in a perspective, from someone that lived it, that maybe you haven’t considered yet.
Let me start by sharing a lil info about me. My name is Ian. I am 23 years old. Born and raised in Wisconsin later moved to North Carolina where I live today. My life hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows. If I were to go into full detail of all the major life events that led me to who I am today, it would probably take me a whole day to share completely the full “trauma” of my “troubled youth”. Nobody likes that guy anyway, so I’ll spare you the bullshit.
Here’s some credibility to the naysayer’s, who I’m sure are gonna ride me up and down for this post.
Lacrosse juvenile detention center (WI): 14-15 years old In and out for weeks-months
New vision wilderness program (WI): 15 years old 3 months
Winnebago mental health institute (WI): 15 years old 1 month
New vision wilderness program (WI): (Yes I went a second time) 15 years old 2 months
Montford Hall residential substance abuse treatment center and therapeutic boarding school for boys (NC): 15-16 years old 6 months (Court ordered for a year, kicked out for being unmanageable)
Second nature/blue ridge wilderness program (GA): 16 years old 1 month
Mission hospital Copestone (NC): 16 years old 2 weeks
Discovery School of Virginia for boys (VA): 16-17 years old 1 year
In total:
1 - juvenile detention center 2 - psych wards 3 - wilderness programs 2 - boarding schools
I wasn’t at home from the age of 15-17 years old. All my birthdays and holidays were spent in some jail cell, institution, or some program somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
Calling ourselves survivors is absurd. There was never any real danger to your life, you and I both know that. (Again, this is directed more towards the people that have either attended some of the same programs/treatments or have attended a place very similar to it.) Especially at DSVA or any wilderness program.
We were fed three times a day with edible food, full portions, even including snacks now and then. We were given clean drinking water. We were able to practice good hygiene, like brushing your teeth twice a day, taking warm showers, given clean towels and clothes that bested the outdoors, even toilet paper to wipe your own ass. Our sleep schedule was better than that of what we have today, at least 8 hours of sleep. I remember having about 10 hours of sleep every single night. And no matter where we laid our head at night, we always had something over us to protect us from the elements. Whether it was a tarp, a tent, or for the lucky ones, a literal roof.
Everything that I have just listed above is every humans basic needs for survival. Something the programs I attended always made sure we had. To call ourselves survivors means we were battling death in order to live. When was there ever a situation at these programs where you were in a life or death scenario? Coming from someone that has hiked in -20 degree blizzards of northern wisconsin and worked in 90 degree humidity in the clay of Virginia, sounds pretty over dramatic buddy.
When I first heard of people calling themselves “survivors” that went to similar programs as me, I had to laugh. It’s such a ridiculous thing to say and I always get second hand embarrassment. I have never once in my life considered myself a “survivor” of these programs because if it wasn’t for ME and MY ACTIONS, I wouldn’t be there in the first place.
The only logical explanation I would accept for anyone here wallowing in their own self-pity is that you didn’t actually work the program. What I mean by that is that you “faked it till you made it” and you put on this smile pretending everything was all good in your world so that nobody called on you when it came time to work on yourself.
To tell you the truth, we used to pick on kids like that in my group. You were perceived as weak by your group mates if you couldn’t talk about the things that hurt you, especially with a bunch of guys that your forced to live with everyday. If you didn’t want to fess up to your issues, we made sure to call a group meeting so you could get that off your chest. Why? Because it’s not about you. It’s about the group, and if one man has a bad day, then the whole group has a bad day. We’re not saying you can’t have a bad day, but we’re not gonna let you slow down the group because of it.
That was group Dakota DSVA 2016-17 right there baby. We were always on top, always eating in the lodge, never had some kid ruining our fun because we didn’t rock with that selfish crap. You want to cry about having to dig out a tree stump with Mr. Outland all day or push wheelbarrows all day? Tough luck kid, we all had to do it at one point or another. Grow a pair and keep your head up.
Most of the kids that complained about everything were the rich kids with daddy’s money who never spent a night outside their bougie gated community. LOL. You know who you are. All mad because their parents wouldn’t let their spoiled kid buy drugs with their money anymore. Sorry you got “gooned” buddy. Each time I showed up to a program I was in shackles and chains, cry harder.
Some people here will probably think what I’ve said so far is insensitive, maybe even harsh, but I ask you, what good does it do you to complain constantly about what happened to you in the past? Have you benefited from whining about what happened to you at these places?
I used to think and react the same way you people did not too long ago. I used to have that victim mentality. I’d walked around crying “woe is me”, but nothing changed. The world kept spinning and I felt like I was left behind in a world that could never understand the mental anguish I received from these “horrible” places.
Turns out I was right, they could never understand. Why? Because they never experienced it, but we did. That makes us stronger in so many ways. I used to feel sad that I never took a cute girl to prom, only to realize that while people were finishing up high school in some boring class, I was going from state to state backpacking and hiking for miles. Living outside for months on end, battling the elements, making amazing friends, reaching new destinations and seeing amazing views. I was doing things that my peers today will probably never get to experience in their lifetime. It gave me a feeling of pride that I still cherish to this day. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
It hurt not being home. I hated my parents for allowing the courts to keep sending me to these places. I refused to write them, but I knew it wasn’t their fault. It was me who put myself in those programs, not the court, not my family, I alone made my life that way, because of my actions. Not being able to be at home with my sister, who grew up without her older brother for 3 years, that broke my heart. When my parents were allowed to visit me it was a special occasion full of celebration, especially when I got to see my little sister again. All my hard work to see my family each time made me feel not just accomplished, but a happiness that I rarely feel today. It reminds me of how grateful I am for my family, and forgiving me for the hell that I put them through in my former years.
I used to think I deserved an apology for what I went through. I’ve taken my accountability, where’s the sympathy for me? I blamed everyone else for what happened to me, and maybe there’s some truth in that, but when I considered how I got to these programs it made me realize how wrong I was. I used to think the reason I was in those programs was because my parents didn’t want to parent me, or that the court system failed me.
Nah, it’s because I was a troubled kid. With a lot of anger and a lot of pain that no ordinary therapist could even begin to scratch the surface of. I needed that tough love that I never got, and if it wasn’t for these programs, I wouldn’t be who I am today. Someone who is happy with what they’ve got.
Anyways, take what you will from all of this. I just wanted to put this out there for the world to see in case somebody sees it and realizes they relate to it. Our past doesn’t have to define us, and it can make us warriors instead of victims. Nobody’s gonna make that decision for you. It’s up to you to create a brighter future.

Hi Reddit. Just didn’t see a subreddit where I could post ridiculous shit so I figured I’d post here because the audacity is free these days.
For context, I’m a 28F and my husband and I bought our house in April of 2022, right before I found out I was pregnant with my now 18 month old daughter. It’s a nice, 7 year old home in a cookie cutter subdivision that has about 30 homes built at random times anywhere between 2008 and 2017, mine being the last. We’re tucked away in a cul-de-sac and its a quiet safe neighborhood and we love it so far. Anyways, the landscaping was rough. The beds were lined with rock and had Bermuda grass, which if you know anything about gardening or landscaping at all, you know how difficult that is to pull, especially if there’s rock over the top of the roots. We sprayed and sprayed and pulled and pulled and nothing for the last two years that we did made a difference, especially not with a baby. Now that my daughter is older, we’ve decided to remove the rock and replace it with mulch. There was also no other plants besides a Japanese maple and crepe myrtle right out front and a hybrid butterfly bush at the end of our driveway, so we had free reign to plant whatever we wanted which has been really fun. It’s going to be so much easier to maintain this way. We have a neighbor who shares a bed along our driveways, which is split by a short 4 ft fence. We have never really talked to her, but she seemed nice. On Mothers Day, she came out and talked with me and wished me a happy Mother’s Day and asked if she could get my anything from the store. I said no thank you. We talked about the driveway and the butterfly bush, as it’s technically on our side, but at the end of our shared bed where there is no fence. The bush is dying and likely diseased. It is sparse, leafing out, but the center is just twigs that are easily broken off. It’s clear it has never been pruned properly. I offered to take care of it on a regular basis but wanted to check with her first because I wasn’t sure who it belonged to. She said I could do whatever, but the phone and electrical boxes are “trashy” so she would rather not have them exposed by cutting it back too far. I explained why we’d need to do that but left it there. Fast forward to yesterday. A friend of ours picked up the rock we had while we were at work. I came home while he was finishing up and he came to me and said he just wanted to let me know that the neighbor had aired out her grievances about me. How I’ve destroyed my property since I’ve lived here, I’ve ruined her bush, and we “better not touch her rock”. He said “bake her cookies to be on her good side” and I said…. Fuck no lol. According to the county, her property line is along the fence, which is along her driveway. Meaning, the rock doesn’t even belong to her, and neither does the bush. We have irrigation with a drip line, so I’m feeling like at this point, fuck her opinion and I’m just going to pull up my line to see if it’s watering the bush, if it is, is getting cut back so it’ll look better next year. I just want middle aged adults to act like adults. We also have a CCNR which includes keeping our property looking good. The bush included. My lawn is manicured, and hers has 4ft tall dandelions - but I have gotten a letter threatening to be sued if I didn’t mow my lawn for one weekend away. This is so hilarious I just had to vent.

I feel too old to feel this way, i'm 18f and in uni. It feels so dumb to even be feeling this way considering I never even dated this person, just had a sort of off and on “talking stage” for most of the year. I was fine with dealing with things when it was just me suffering, and I could rationalize his actions in my head and I still do. But now he’s done things to other people and it affected my friends and family and I know that I can’t talk to him anymore. I want to be mad at him and I am but I’m not.
I don’t know how to not have him in my life, I talk to him all the time and I’ve told him things I don’t allow myself to speak about to anybody. I talked to him about my mum's death and he actually listened over giving platitudes or acting weird. He always wanted to talk to me and call me and it was reciprocated. He didn’t treat me like a freak when I was suicidal, and reacted in an actually helpful way when I told him about cutting. I don’t know if I’ll find someone like that again, I have so much in common with him and he was my person for so long I was just thankful to have him in my life. He’s the only person who has ever cared about me in the way he does and it just has to go now, and now I’m losing someone who I trusted with everything. I feel so sad and when I’m sad I’ve grown used to talking to him about it, and now I can’t. I got a good grade in one of my classes and I was so happy I wanted to tell him, but now I can’t. I don’t know how to cope with being alone in everything again. I have other friends, but nobody who is just mine, and I don’t know. I know I have to stop talking to him, but I don’t want to lose everything I had.
It’s even worse because he’s trying so hard to make it up to me but it doesn’t matter, everyone in my life is telling me to stop talking to him, they’ve been telling me this for a long time since the first time he hurt me. If I let things I know he’d let things go back to the good parts of before, but I can’t. I want to cut him off but I don’t. I love him but I don’t want to see him anymore, and I just wish none of this happened but I can only move forward, but I don’t know how to move on. How could I move on? Do I just put a space between us and keep the door open for if he gets better? Nobody in my life likes him and it’s all valid. Best case scenario is I just be friends with him without anything sexual or romantic, but is that even possible? We’ve tried but have never just been friends, but I don’t want to lose the person closest to me. What do i do.

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

From the outside, we look like we have everything. Great house, two kids (8 and 11), at a good public school. Together 13 years. Our careers are both flexible, allowing us to travel and have plenty of free time. But I'm not happy. I fantasize about other women. I feel lonely when efforts to talk to my wife are ignored. She is very ADHD and gets sucked into her phone and work stress all the time. She works from home, so it's all day every day work stress for her. And she procrastinates, so small tasks will occupy all of her time. And she is slow to act on anything, so we are in the routine where I get up first, do the whole morning routine without her. Same with dinner, cleaning, bedtime with the kids, and grocery shopping. It feels like she takes me for granted, although, when I bring it up, she reminds me that she does a lot of other stuff, like paying bills, taxes, insurance and doctors appointments. So we're stressed with the kids. She also doesn't get my humor most of the time. I feel like a comedian with a really bad audience. And when I'm serious about stuff, her normal way of speaking is to debate and she is really good at being right.
In terms of my healing, I met her when I was chasing after sex. I was 29. I didn't understand at the time, but I would get a panic reflex during intimacy and had toxic shame around showing attraction. So I was terrible at dating. I would fawn over women, trying to do what I thought they wanted, rather than thinking about what I wanted in a woman. The more I failed, the harder I chased. I worked through some of my issues and dating got better. Once I met my wife, she had so much more going on than anyone I had ever been with, I was thrilled. Beautiful, smart, successful, from a good family, with similar view on money, politics and raising kids. She has never been very good at intimacy, but that worked with my weakness as well. I hardly noticed it was missing. It was very easy going, and I went along with her need to start a family. Now that I see all that, I realize our relationship is molded by that imbalance of me meeting her needs, and her not even knowing what mine are.
At the time, I knew things weren't perfect, and I was afraid of commitment. So, before we got married, we talked a lot about having a non-traditional marriage. I was very sex positive, and wanted freedom to have needs met by other people, if they weren't being met in our relationship. And we agree that it's unrealistic to expect one person to meet all of your needs for the rest of our lives. And we agreed to something like a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy. We could do whatever we wanted, as long as it doesn't affect what we have when we're together. This was a very flawed idea. I do talk to other women, probably more than some wives would be comfortable with. And I love that I have that freedom. But I want more, and it's just not realistic. Once being married, from my experience, other women are very non-sexual. It feels very sterile and I really miss those flirty conversations with women.
I don't think I can change my wife though. I have shared these thoughts with her, and she seems to be making a tiny effort to be more appreciative of me, and has engaged in activities around the house that normally she leaves to me. It's just such a baby step. And we have kids, who should be exposed to parents who are happy. How can I address the relationship? Would I be crazy to leave? Am I crazy to stay?
TL;DR My life is pretty good, but it's boring, a bit lonely, and not funny, sexy or playful. I feel like it's an unhealthy example to set for the kids. Until now, the relationship has been basically: I meet her needs, which are very easy to meet, and neither of us realize that I have needs of my own. It's sort of like the classic business partner marriage, or maybe boss/assistant. We do have regular sex, thank god, but it's very vanilla. And now I am realizing I do have needs, and I want to spend time with someone who can be intimate, sexy, funny, appreciative, and generally be happy with. How do I get there?

18 months of hell.
In November 2022 I got accused of a very serious crime and investivated by police. My girlfriend at the time lost her job. I had to move home because rent was getting ridiculous for the area and quality.
Christmas 2022, grandfather dies of a Stoke. At rhe same time, grandmother on other side of family nearly dies of the same thing.
Ny father can't speak at his dad's funeral, I step up, trying to support the family and keep things ordered. I do it. But I see my dad cry fir the first time in my life...
I took out a £15k loan. Which helped with credit card debt (due to my gf at the time not really working or paying for anything), then after I moved, new housemate was a fucking slob who used my good nature to treat the place like a shit tip. Leaving chocolate out for my dog to eat and everything.
Police issue is resolved, no evidence after I get a solicitor and an interview. Still to this day, I flinch when I hear sirens...
Birthday... gf St the time, while sleeping upstairs and I sleep on the sofa cause be and my friend are chatting unti lwe fall asleep ad a heavy day drinking... ex comes down.. stands over me. And hits me so hard I scream. House wakes up. Mate sees this happen. And then housemate comes down, and asks why she got in his bed... she is currently pinning me down, crying and screaming.. I tell everyone to go to bed and deal with it the next day.
Tell gf at the time that she has fucked up... She doesn't know why she did it... says she was sleep walking.. touch starved...
Had to physically remove housemate after 1) his room smelled so bad, that I had to get landlords involved and a professional carpet clean on his room and 2) he pissed on my fucking landing carpet.
Months of me paying nearly as much rent as I earn in wage, due to gf at the time barely paying me... get a housemate in who wants the place to be good to live in.. Ex decides to threaten suicide when it's just me and her, after multiple times she has grabbed and tried to hold me down knowing I am in pain from her hitting me... She locks herself in the bathroom (razors and isopropyl alcohol inside, and apparently as I find out later, our dog). I call 111, she is screaming, I'm taking on the phone to try to get control... I struggle...
Eventually she opens the door, screaming at me... 111 operator can't do anything more... I thank him and hang up.. ex gf screaming at me immediately.. im the worst person, im stupid... can't believe i believed her she might commit suicide. How stupid am I.. all of it.. I broke.. broke up with her. Hated life, hated myself. Still do.
This was November 2023.. she finally left in May 2024. Every day since I havent been able to say a word in my house. I have been belittled, broken, criticised, for the tiniest things... while I can't say a word against anyone... she left dishes to go mouldy, I cant ask her to clean after herself.... and that's the minor things..
I am alone... when she left, she took the dog.. she was ours. She slept with me every night... ans now she is gone.. to a girl who never took her for a walk unless she was the ONLY one to.. and even then.. First walk at 2:30... maybe 5pm...
I dont know anymore. I'm sick of everything.. ex even got to move out of London and keep her job.. Best I could argue was the possibility of a transfer... but I'd lose my London weighting... and fuck over my housemate...
I don't even know what I need.. I've had counselling, the Counsellor didn't turn up to half the sessions... And can't get free ones... I canr get help for domestic violence victims as its not an ongoing issue and I'm a male in my 30s. So im not priority (I get it, but im allowed to say it hurts not getting support).
I just want to be allowed to live a normal life.. I dont want this... I just want to scream.
Thank you if you read this. I'm sorry if its not the usual content.

I am 29 (M) and have worked at my current job for around 18 months. E (30F) works in one of our other offices mainly, but comes into mine once a week or so. We don't work closely together, we're in different departments, but my office doesn't have many people come in regularly so I know everyone who does.
Every time we talk it feels like there's banter, the conversation flows and it has gotten flirty multiple times. My work can get busy and stressful, but when she's around the pressure eases, and the day flies by, The best day of the week is when she comes down to my office.
If I'm honest with myself, I have developed a crush on her, and it's reached the point recently where I can't seem to get her out of my head.
The trouble is we don't spend much time together, so I don't actually know too much about her, and I worry that I'm building up a version of her in my head that is too different to the real person. Every time we do chat it feels like I'm talking to someone special, and she does seem to take a genuine interest in me when we do. I've been in situations before where women have liked me and I've been oblivious, and the vibes I get from E are the same vibes I had in those situations, which is why I think this could be a possibility. I just don't know if it's worth the risk.
I know the responses this will likely get. Either 'just ask her' or 'don't shit where you eat' and I understand both of those. They're what I'm going between too.
I guess I just worry that I'm reading too much into this. That she's just a nice, fun, happy person, and I'm applying that to our interactions because I'm not that. I'm trying to be, but I'm not.
For context, I am a lonely guy. My only significant relationship ended about a month before the Covid lockdowns started, so all of a sudden I was living alone as I couldn't leave my flat. I lost touch with older friends, struggled to make new ones, and ended up all alone. My family relationships have always been contentious so that was not a real option either. I took to the bottle, gained an ungodly amount of weight (maxed out at 120kg, back down to 105 now!), and focused on my work life to the point of working 12 hour days 6 days a week. At my worst, I even put myself in hospital in a misguided attempt at peace.
I started going back into the office every day after my second hospitalisation last year, and that's when E and I began to chat regularly. It felt like she saw me as a person, someone who might be worth talking to. It felt like I'd found someone who genuinely might enjoy my company, and it's been a long while since I've felt that.
The truth is, I know I'm kidding myself. She is funny, smart, effervescent, fun and absolutely gorgeous, while I look like a potato rolled in hair, have lost any social skill I used to have, and hide behind the worst jokes you'll hear. I know she's out of my league, I know I'm misreading signals, I know that she might not even actually enjoy talking to me. I just feel like if I don't ask her I'll regret it.
At the same time, I don't want to fuck anything up. I'm truly trying to focus on myself. It feels like I'm starting from scratch at 29, but I'm trying to do the right things. I'm losing some weight, I'm back in therapy, I'm trying with people. I'm failing more than succeeding but at least I'm trying again.
I just can't stop thinking about her, and I really don't know what to do. I worry if I ask her, I'll make both of our work lives difficult, which I don't want to do. It really wouldn't be fair on her to put her in that position either. Her role at the company requires knowing everyone, so maybe she's just 'performing' at work. It doesn't feel that way when we talk, or when we message privately, but maybe that's all it is.
Equally though, what I'm feeling is genuine. It's the first time I've felt this way in a decade, and it truly makes me feel giddy and excited like I haven't since my ex. I want to explore these feelings as they're the first positive emotions I've had in a long time.
I really do want to be happy, maybe she could help me get there. Should I ask her?

Hi! I feel like a lot of the discourse about people not liking this season is in part due to people not really understanding what friends to lovers is, specifically the trope as it applies to Colin and Penelope, so I thought I might share my thoughts :)
Now I haven’t read the books - this is all based on what I gleaned from the show on multiple rewatches and as someone who has been the Penelope in a friendship for a longggg long time. Hopefully this makes sense.
Romance tropes can often boiled down to their immediate, basic truths. The popular enemies to lovers, for example: Enemy 1 + Enemy 2 + sexual tension = Lover 1 and Lover 2. Not to say enemies to lovers can’t be complex, but generally the starting point for enemies is an essential lack of trust between the parties and moments of connection (via fights) fueled by intense feelings of hatred/rage/whatever which can, in turn, translate to sexual tension. Due to the lack of trust, when they do get together it’s an explosion of that intense energy, highlighted even more-so by the knowledge that they don’t truly trust each other but they need each other which makes the heart race all the more and the passion all that more explosive.
Let’s look at Kate and Anthony as this trope. When they meet there is an immediate spark, fueled by a race in which they’re in competition. Once she hears him at the ball she decides she will do everything in her power to stop him from marrying her sister, and since he is determined to marry Edwina every interaction they have from that point on, until they have their happily ever after in the last episode, can be considered a fight. Moments like the bane of my existence and you vex me are such high intensity because it’s two people fueled by anger and sexual/romantic tension. They need each other like air but will do everything to fight it because of the anger, making the onscreen affections super intense for the viewer (especially as viewers who have just been introduced to Kate and are getting to know her through the lens of Anthony).
Now friends to lovers is, if I may say, quite a bit more complicated. A basic boiled down is Friend 1 + Friend 2 + romance/sexual tension = Lovers. But all friendships are different - if you’re new friends your pipeline to lovers is likely entirely different than old friends to lovers. If one party is in love with the other that changes the dynamic entirely; are they long distance or close? Were they childhood friends? Are they both likeable and popular or is one more nerdy and quiet or both? Do they know each other’s families? Are they best friends or just friends? All of these and more create new dynamics and emotions that can lead to love in different ways. My point is that friends to lovers is not as easy to pin down as something like enemies to lovers. So that’s why a couple like Polin may seem like they don’t have as much chemistry on screen - because their intensity shines in a different way than what we’re used to in Bridgerton.
Going into season three we know that Penelope has been in love with Colin for a long time, but during that time the two also formed a close friendship. When Colin proposed to Marina, yes Penelope whistledowned about the pregnancy to stop him from marrying her for love reasons, but also because he is her friend and she didn’t want to see him trapped in a loveless marriage. We also know that when Colin traveled between seasons one and two Penelope most often responded to his letters. Even during a scene in season two Pen specifically asks to hear more about his travels, even though everyone else in Colin’s life had asked him to stop talking about it. Pen’s crush and friendship don’t cancel each other out, they exist side by side as two parts of Penelope that often overlap but are most importantly separate entities. And she knows that.
Colin does not. In season three when Colin is talking about when they first met, Penelope looks away with anxiety when Colin suggests he knows why Penelope was so forward in making fun of him for falling off his horse and starting their friendship. She knows it’s because she had a crush on him. He states that it was because they were kids. This means it’s canon that Penelope had a crush on him since the moment they met. As a result, Colin has never experienced a friendship with Pen that doesn’t also have an underlying crush. He doesn’t know that Pen doesn’t respond to everyone’s letters all the time, or hangs onto their every word, or goes out of her way to talk to them. How Pen acts around him is how he assumes she acts around everyone - that’s why he doesn’t pick up on her crush.
It’s also why, I argue, he doesn’t realize that he loves her until the kiss in season three. He truly and genuinely takes her affections, her friendship, for granted because he doesn’t understand that someone so loyal and loving like that is rare. He doesn’t appear to have much else in the way of friends; outside of his family we don’t really see him interact with other men, and in season three the “friends” he does spend time with make comments to suggest they only started hanging out with him after his personality change to be more like his brothers - a rake who doesn’t care much for real affections. It’s why he said he would never court Penelope Featherington, or why he said “You are Pen, you do not count” when asked why he was still talking to her if he swore off women. He was super young when his dad died, so the only male role models he has for what love means are Anthony and Benedict. So, as he understands it, a man courting a woman is about sleeping around until the man finds a suitable match that pleases the family regardless of the man’s happiness. Even though he saw that Anthony fell in love by the time Colin said he would never court Pen, he didn’t see Anthony’s journey to understanding that love is not something to run from but something to cherish like we, the viewers, did. Anthony’s arc was just background noise for Colin, so it wasn’t like that would change his outlook on what Anthony’s actions in season one and beginning of season two loudly called out: choosing love over meaningless sex is idiotic and weak. It is explained in a letter that the reason Colin decided to try being like his brothers is BECAUSE Penelope stopped responding to him during his travels between seasons two and three. He decided to start guarding his heart, throwing on the rakish armor we see him dawn in the first half of season three, because he didn’t have that relationship that made him feel stable and loved anymore.
This is why Colin is genuinely distressed when Penelope walks away from him at the garden party in the first episode of season three, and why he went after her to explain that he missed her. He loves his relationship with her, not understanding that what he feels is actually love for her because he has never been aware that true love feels the way it does when he is with Pen. He sees Penelope as his best friendship, rather than the love of his life, because he literally can’t see it any other way based on how everything in his life played out to that point.
———
Okay this is way longer than I intended this to be already, but to finally make it to my main point! The Friends to Lovers trope as it plays out in Season Three Part One: Polin Do Be Polining.
What does all this mean for how Polin’s intensity shines as a couple? Due to the way their friendship has played out things like Colin taking Pen to the dance floor (not small social feat btw) in season one when Cressida bullies her, seeking each other out at social events, Pen asking about his travels - all of these are part of their relationship! It’s all part of the slow burn; it’s just less slap-you-in-the-face noticeable, to a viewer of a show about specified romance, as Kate and Anthony and even Simon and Daphne because acting like friends is an implicit part of Polin’s love story. Because they are best friends as well as eventually lovers!!
This is in full display in Season three, though put more on blast since it’s their season to get together. Colin saying he’ll teach Penelope how to get a husband isn’t a pity thing, it’s a real moment of genuine care that Colin is extending towards her.
—— “Pen wants to get a husband to be happy? Great! I’ll help to make her happy because her happiness means everything to me. Because I am her friend. Duh :)” - top ten photos taken ten seconds before disaster. ——
And it works! They start spending all this time together, and Pen has always looked gorgeous but is finally wearing clothes that she feels gorgeous in and you can see it in the way she acts, and suddenly Colin’s heart starts doing all these weird jumps around her like when she’s in the drawing room and when she wraps his hand because he has always loved her, so he doesn’t understand what these feelings that are coming up during these scenes are because they are not new feelings, just more intense ones of what he believes is pure friendship.
Penelope, on the other hand, has had her brain decide to give up on Colin Bridgerton (even though her heart hasn’t). As someone who’s been there, being in unrequited love with your friend is brutal but you can never really let go. No matter how many people they date, or the hours you spend together talking about their new crush, or the life moments share together where they do everything but love you there is always that small spark of hope in your chest that you can’t let go of lest they ever possibly realize they love you back. That chance is too precious to give up - that’s why Penelope can’t give Debling a real answer when he asks her if she would like to be with Colin in episode four. Logically she knows she should give it up but her heart just can’t. She is a hopeless romantic and her life has been spinning around Colin Bridgerton since she was 16 like the earth around the Sun. There is no other way to live, for her, if she isn’t in love with Colin. And that’s what breaks her heart the most.
It’s also why, I believe, she asks him to kiss her in that garden. She had just written about herself in Whistledown that she did the upmost embarrassing act of taking Colin’s assistance on the marriage market, and her mother dressed her down about being a spinster for the rest of her life. All of Pen’s plans, of marrying and getting out, are utterly gone for her in that moment when she goes out to the garden. She doesn’t have her prospects. She doesn’t have Eloise. She doesn’t have safety in her own home. The only thing she has left is Colin. That’s why she asks him to kiss her, because he might grant her this one kindness of making her feel alive for just this one moment before the rest of her life ends. That moment is the culmination of all of her feelings up to that point in the show. She’s given up on Colin - she wouldn’t have asked him to kiss her had she any hope left. This was her last ditch attempt to just be a girl and be kissed regardless of what he actually meant to her. It wasn’t out of desperation, it was staring down the barrel of the gun with societies’s finger on the trigger.
When she asks him Colin is taken aback. Not because he doesn’t want to kiss her but because he has never considered it before. Kissing was reserved for women you are looking to sleep with at a bar, for prostitutes in alleyways, not for his caring Pen. I’ve seen some upset over not including more of Colin’s writing in the show, as he becomes quite the writer in the books apparently, and the writing we do see is just about sex but given the way they paced the show they provided the most important piece of context for Colin’s understanding of intimacy in the writing they did use. He wonders how one can feel, despite sleeping with every kind of woman across Europe, such intimacy in physical closeness and yet such distance emotionally. It’s some level of satisfying for him to sleep around, but it doesn’t fulfill him in the way it seemed to fulfill his brothers. He cannot equate the idea of kissing to Penelope because he feels such emotional closeness to her. But when she brings it up, suddenly everything clicks into place for him. All the emotions he feels towards her, what he thought was just friendship, is so much more. Yes she is his friend, but by god he wants to kiss his friend; not out of the need to search for something but of the overwhelming feeling of going home.
Their kiss is sweet, and soft. Unlike Daphne and Anthony’s first kisses with their respective partners it isn’t this immense clashing of bodies and teeth. It’s two friends who love each other finally meeting each other as sparks fly.
———
Colin is left speechless, and confused. The kiss was amazing to him because he finally unlocked that part of him that made him realize he was in love with Penelope. The kiss was amazing to Penelope because she has been in love with him for so long, but it was also tinged with her own doubts and feelings of hopelessness. That’s why she runs away, and thanks him, because this was her last stand and he was just her friend helping her out as she believes.
But as always, a night of sleep helps clarify things. The next time Pen goes into society she is awkward but still well intentioned about getting a husband because that kiss was a long day’s worth of self pity followed by, in her terms, a moment of weakness. But it clarified things for her too. Now she can’t die without ever having been kissed, so that ultimatum she set up in her own mind was gone and everything seems much more manageable from that point on. Colin, as we know, is a wreck who is absolutely bamboozled at these feelings and we love to watch him flounder!!!
———
Now the tables have been turned. To those of who are think Penelope should have chosen Debling, this part is for you. This is when Debling really starts to court Penelope as she goes after him. She literally fights Cressida for him, because he seems like the most amenable husband for her to be able to continue Whistledown and be provided security. She isn’t looking for love in Debling because she already has love in Colin (love she believes will always remain unrequited, but that kiss can be a memory she cherishes for the rest of her life and that be that); she basically did what Anthony did at the beginning of season two. Find a suitable match that makes the most sense for her and leave searching for a love match out of it. She likes Debling, for sure, and he’s a rly nice guy!! He cares about her in a way that a suitor might, and I’m certain had they gotten married he wouldn’t have been mean to her or anything. But she would’ve been lonely. As remembered she is a romantic, someone who craves the love she reads about in her romance books. She’s spent most of her conscious life in love - marrying Debling would stop that in its tracks. In his own words, Debling tells Pen that he could try to maybe love her but that it was far too unlikely to find any room in his heart her for over his passions (aroace Debling stand rise). He specifically mentions that he is choosing her to marry because she has her own passions, separate from his, that can keep her company while he is gone both physically and emotionally from her. She doesn’t realize this until it’s too late, when her focus on the chase is over, and Debling asks her mother for her hand. It’s only then that she thinks that maybe she could hold out for love, and that power is strong enough to make her actively not want to ensure her security through Debling.
Love is treacherous, and yet we yearn for it like a sailor who cannot help but smile at the beauty of the raging sea at it comes crashing down upon him. Penelope would rather a thousand lifetimes of the chance to be in love with Colin over one lifetime married to Debling in safety.
That is why Debling breaks it off with her. Because she loves Colin, Debling knows she would choose Colin over him, and he sees Colin’s interest in her even if she does not. Like girl…. Colin literally found out she was going to get engaged, ran to the ball, interrupted the dance wherein Debling was going to ask Pen to marry him, ran after her carriage just to know if she was engaged because he couldn’t fathom letting her get away in a loveless marriage, and when finding out she was not engaged telling her he loved her even if she did not love him back because he simply had to express to her how much he loved her as he owed her that as his friend. Colin got in his knees in that carriage because he was genuinely splaying out his heart to her for her to dissect as she chose. He put himself at her mercy because that is where he believes his place to be - hers.
———
The carriage scene is, of course, the moment of highest intensity from the viewer standpoint of what we think love should appear to be. Other scenes could be Colin’s dream, and the moment in the sweets tent, etc. But those moments aren’t all of Polin’s love story. They may be the most visceral to witness, but they are just as important as the two of them laughing together in the corner of a ballroom. Their romantic trope is defined as Friends to Lovers, but that isn’t quite right - they are both. There is no big “or” between the two. Colin and Penelope are friends and lovers, and all of it is a beauty to witness.
Okay that’s it! If you’ve made it this far thanks for sticking around to hear my obsessive little thoughts. I wish you a very happy Bridgerton rewatch :)

A few days back I found out that this guy who played so many women lol got married and basically was on apps two months prior to his wedding.. cheating on the girl.
idk how some people like this have it easy? I’m so exhausted in my search for a spouse I’m a 32 year old woman and wallahi brothers and sisters I feel sad. I don’t have much to complain about Allah has given me so much but I feel lonely and before you tell me learn how to be happy by yourself trust me. I have mastered that too I’ve lived by myself for 10 years and had to learn to enjoy my own company.
My friends are married and I’ve tried everything. Meeting people through friends, apps, fam, relatives you name it.. lol I questioned if I’m like ugly but honestly I’ve been always told I’m pretty and fit and I love myself AH. I work on my personality too I try to be better. Allah has saved me from to potentially bad proposals and I am grateful for that but idk how to find someone.. I’m not desperate lol I would have been married otherwise. But like does anyone get what I’m trying to say? I am educated but was never like obsessed with having a career I always dreamed of having a small beautiful family of my own.
Any sisters in their 30s that went through something similar? Any brothers that went through similar hardships?

Hi everyone. My cat Lucy is about 5 and a half years old and was diagnosed with a pulmonary mass on May 2nd. About a week before then, I had noticed she was limping and brought her to her regular vet. Our vet thought it was a broken toe at most, or maybe a twisted claw. I was thankful that it was just something small that would heal on its own with time. Then, the next day, May 2nd, she had a sudden onset of neurological symptoms - circling, head tilt, right limbs collapsing - started breathing very quickly, and was crying in distress. I freaked out and went to the ER. The doctors were going to do an MRI to try to figure out the neurological symptom cause, but in the process of prepping her for that, some chest imaging showed a mass near her lungs, which they sampled and confirmed to be cancer.
She seemed stable aside from the neurological symptoms, so they sent her home with me with the plan to follow up with either neuro or oncology depending on how her symptoms progressed. A vet tech told me at one point that she had had a cat with neurological issues too, and it was a long, slow healing process. That's what I was hoping for, and for the first few days, Lucy seemed to get better. I had to give her meds for dizziness, pain, and yeast in her ears (she's a chronically waxy girl), but she made such good progress with the neurological stuff. She wasn't purring and laid down most of the time, but she laid in the sun and in her cat beds. She ate less, but enthusiastically. After a few days, she finally groomed herself again. I thought this all meant her main problem right now was this neurological thing - we just happened to find cancer in the process. They felt separate to me. She wasn't having breathing issues, so the lung cancer must not be affecting her yet - it'll just be something we deal with down the road.
I was wrong. On May 14th, I started noticing bad signs. She was hiding most of the day, eating and drinking much less, not pooping, barely peeing. I thought she was just stressed, maybe mad at me for giving her so many pills and ear liquids. She started crying before going to the litterbox and afterwards, and I still wasn't seeing much in there, so I thought, maybe she's constipated. Her regular vet agreed it could be possible, did an X-ray of her stomach, did an enema to get some hard stool out, and prescribed an appetite stimulant and Miralax. The day after that appointment, Lucy seemed worse. Whenever she wasn't under the couch, she was crying. I took her back to the ER, who told me that she was mildly dehydrated, her behaviors since the initial ER visit were very worrisome, and I should start thinking about her quality of life. I asked how sure they were, how likely it is that we just need to figure out what medicine she needs, or if she's just stressed, and they're very sure. I have accepted that she is dying.
Now, the question I meant to ask before I ended up writing out the tale of Lucy's medical journey: euthanasia. Lucy hides most of the day. She barely eats even with the appetite stimulant. She is starting to walk more slowly. She doesn't play or jump. She is normally the sweetest cat in the world, and now she does not want to be touched. She can go to the bathroom and has normal-looking poop and pee, but still cries in distress before and after, and it seems to take her a long time to poop. Her life is mostly hiding, me taking her out to get her to take meds or subcutaneous fluids, a little eating, and what appear to be distressing trips to the litterbox. But she isn't showing the very bad signs that the vets told me to watch for: no vomiting, no bloody diarrhea, no trouble breathing. Do I need to wait for that? Is it good for her to wait for it to get that bad?
I already feel like I have let her down by not pursuing further diagnostics of her cancer and neurological issues. When she cries in distress, I feel like she's saying "help me," as in, if you just figure out how to help me, I will be okay. Like if we were to do an MRI and CT scan and more bloodwork, we would find the right medication that would get her back to normal. But that's probably not true. Even if the neurological part is unrelated to the cancer and we fix it, she still would have cancer. I think the best thing I can do for her now is keep her comfortable and get the euthanasia timing right, so she doesn't suffer needlessly. But if she isn't responding to medications, hides and cries most of the time, what is the quality of her life? The thought of scheduling the euthanasia soon is horrifying - like I would be killing her early. But I've read about how hard it is when it is done too late. And I look at her now, and she is never happy.
I am going to talk this all over with her vet tomorrow. Just wanted to share it here too since I stumbled across a few posts from this community and saw a lot of caring and supportive people.

We are about to see what's going to happen in the next chapter and I couldn't be more anxious.
Gojo and Yuji are my favorite charac ters in the series and I think I can provide in this post arguments about why Gojo is coming back.
As you already know, the story presented 3 protagonists, each one with more narrative development (Yuta, Gojo, Yuji). But we also know that at the end of the day, Yuji is the one who takes the crown as the true protagonist because he is always the one who has iconic and highly relevant fights. Mahito and Sukuna (the two great villains of the series) are Yuji's fundamental enemies.
Now, Gojo returning to the scene does not destroy Yuji's reputation as a protagonist at all. In fact, just as the villains have Sukuna as their most powerful weapon (Divine Flame...), the good guys have Gojo (Purple). And if the Merger turns out to be something or someone absolutely powerful, what better than Purple or UV to defeat it?
Gojo can come back in many ways (even a combination of them): Shoko uses a Binding Vow to heal him, Utahime helps with her CT, Gojo uses a Binding Vow to revive, something to do with the Soul, etc etc etc. In fact, it wouldn't be strange if at the end of the day, it was Yuji who ended up absorbing the Merger and had to ask his sensei to kill him to end everything once and for all (teamwork effort). So I don't think it's wrong to bring Gojo back; it does not present narrative destruction at all and it complies with Gege's interview where he says that 1 survives and 3 die (very tragic ending but you have to remember that Gege is Isayama's friend).
Speaking of that author, AOT has an ending where the strongest soldier survives with one less eye and lives in a time free of titans. I don't want to force too much but: who is the strongest sorcerer? Who can lose an eye? Who said that the way to save humanity is to eradicate CE from the world? (Yuki)
I would like to read your comments and if in the end it turns out that none of this comes true then it will remain like another post stained with despair. Greetings!
https://preview.redd.it/h7i3fbtacv1d1.png?width=726&format=png&auto=webp&s=00b14b671dd065b2590650473e5da8526fc4cdb2

An the title says, I am starting a new homebrew story in the world of Monte Cook's games Numenera, a Sci-Fantasy setting with any number of strange sights and experiences in it.
If you have never played Numenera, or the Cypher System before, that's fine! My friends and I would be happy to show you the ropes. It's not a super crunchy system, and it provides for a more cinematic and dynamic storytelling than I find I can get in D&D 5E. I would much rather have someone who meshes well with the table and can learn Numenera, than a Numenera expert who isn't focused on the same kind of stories as the rest of the table.
I am very much interested in players who are outgoing, and want to tell stories filled with drama. We all like to have fun while a character 'chews the scenery' and expresses themselves to the NPCs in the world, and tells their deepest secrets to the other PCs.
To apply, you would need to answer a short questionnaire, have a 20-30 minute voice chat with me, your humble GM, about what kinds of things are important to you in TTRPGs, and then if all has gone well, meet the rest of the table for a hangout and discussion of 3 campaign pitches and potential characters and connections.
If you are looking for a game that focuses on the interplay between characters as they take on strange adventures, I encourage you to give Numenera a chance, and apply today.

i posted this on the ocd forum but just joined here. wanted to get some comfort. i feel so ungrounded because my brain has been saying “no matter what anyone says, you are alone, they are fale, and everything is fake.”
here it goes!! :
Hi! I’m a 21F and have had OCD since about 8th grade. I also have Panic Attacks and Anxiety. I was on Lexapro for about a year, then got off in October. This is important because I’ve heard getting off can make anxiety and everything else 10x worse once you hit that 4-6 month mark. I have had a mix of Harm, Relationship, Religious, Existential, Health, etc OCD, basically my whole life. I also had a weird hyperawareness of being in first person, and everything looking like teeny tiny particles in 8th grade, not sure how it went away. I had a small period of time Freshman-Sophmore year of high school where I somehow managed to forget I had OCD?? Miss that tbh.
Anyways, starting about three months ago my anxiety started to SKY rocket. For context, my bf came back from a 7 month deployment, so that caused some weird stress/ excitement. I also had a VERY social life during, aka I was drinking steadily. It was during this I was getting off meds too, then fully off by December of last year. I had/ now have horrible panic, guilt, OCD, fear of living day to day because I had no idea what was/ is going on. I tried everything, cutting alcohol, confessing, vitamins, working out. The whole shabang. It never really went away. I had about one “normal week” because I had a super stressful situation occur that I think drew my attention away, but anyways, it came back full force and 10x worse. Basically, I have been in a constant state of derealization and hyper aware of my existence for the whole three months but SO powerful the last three weeks. Like WAY too aware. Here are what most of my thoughts are now: •••”Other people experience this too. What if I am the only real person though? So everything people say to help is fake and so are they.” •••’’What if I am truly alone?” •••’’Am I going to feel like this forever because I really don’t want to.” •••”No one else sees in first person and I am the only existing being.”
The first person view reaaalllllyyyy gets me and the thought of being truly alone, and everyone being fake. I get that that is just how it “is” but for some reason my brain isn’t taking that answer. I am so scared of everything now, of existing, of feeling this. I don’t get why it is happening to me. I know DR can come from high anxiety, and when that high anxiety started, I had just hit the four month mark of being off my meds. (Heard that anxiety symptoms after getting off meds can come back 10x worse after a while too) I just want to go back to being happy again. I’m starting back Lexapro soon (within the week) but I want this to go away. I want to love the life I had three months ago. Anyone else feel anything similar? Especially the fear of first person?
To leave this off, a youtuber who has went through something similar said this quote and it is me to a T. “I was so afraid of dying and death, but so unwanting to living like this.”
Also, I am doing ERP, plus starting that medication soon. I have been trying the acceptance of uncertainty and “so what?” thinking. I still hate this. I am a prisoner of my own mind, and existence. I used to love life and love and sadness and adventure and turmoil but it’s like a flip switched.
Help!!!

Somebody requested that I write down some resources for Dzogchen in the sidebar, so I thought I would do a post as well to give a sort of background and offer anyone else the chance to get in on the conversation or building of resources too...
But first,

A Word on Secrecy, Safety Maturity, and Cults

I'm writing this post out by request of someone who messaged me, with the intention of reaching a wider audience, or all beings, who could benefit from learning about these teachings. I have to caution, though, that they may not be for everybody, and in that regard, I would advise gentleness, with yourself and others, with regards to this path. Please take care of yourself, and keep a measure of your own mind with regard to your mental health and these practices. I wish that those who read this post are only those who it may help, and I apologize preemptively to all those it may hurt, or if I've made any mistakes in my writing.
With that in mind, I can maybe share a little bit about the secrecy aspect of what is called Vajrayana. Someone who learns about these practices but does not genuinely practice them can generate obstacles to their own awakening; specifically with Dzogchen, there is a real danger of intellectualizing the practice such that one covers over their own mind with a sheen of thoughts and fabrication, blocking one from advancing towards awakening. In that regard, this particular practice is called self secret. From what I know, many Lamas won't introduce one to the practice if they aren't sure the student has the capability to grasp it, and also - the student won't be able to practice it or understand it if they're not able to.
On the subject of cults - I have to note that Dzogchen practice can be very personal, but that is not a license for any teacher to abuse you, in any form, ever. Things that happened in the past - students getting slapped, hit with shoes, etc. - happened in the past - but that doesn't make them appropriate teachings devices today. A genuinely compassionate teacher won't take advantage of your practice to abuse you, steal your money, degrade you, control you, or anything like that. If they try to - it is more likely that you've stumbled on a cult, and should get away as fast as you can.
As for what makes a good teacher - others have asked this question before, and u/krodha in particular has written out a good description many times, although I can't find the quote he usually uses unfortunately.
As far as general safety in the practice goes, Lama Lena has written this (and I'm shamelessly stealing it from her website):
"The responsibility to take care of your own mind rests with you; not the lama, not your mom, not your cat. So, take it upon yourself to be safe and use common sense."
Please, read that whole page and heed the warnings.

My Practice

I've been working with Dzogchen for about 3.5 years now, since approximately the end of 2020. I'd been interested in Mahayana practices for the better part of a decade before that, but mostly just practicing Samatha by the way of Anapanasati and Metta, and also through the framework provided by *The Mind Illuminated*. I had been curious about Dzogchen for a bit, mostly from reading about it on Wikipedia and just, in general, being interested in seeing what the fuss is surrounding vajrayana, tantra, and the "highest system" called Atiyoga.
By chance, I happened to see a comment on Dzogchen from someone who basically said "If anyone is looking for pointing out, feel free to message me." So I sent them a message giving my general background and motivation for the practice, and they invited me to join them on meditationonline.org - which had been a place they'd been doing meditation for a few years (and still do, I suppose I'd consider myself part of that sangha). I happened to meet the individual who I'd been messaging, a Nyingma lama called Dawai Gocha, and received pointing out, along with teachings for the next few years... up until the present day.
My main practice now is Dzogchen - I gradually transitioned into this from Anapanasati over the course of about six months - and most of my sessions are now just me resting in awareness - Rigpa. I generally do augment this however with other practices, like Satipatthana, mantra recitation, and other practices from the three main vehicles, simply because I like to do them and find them helpful on the path.

What is Dzogchen?

I can't say anything that has not already been said by others, in particular, meditation masters with vastly more experience than I have - but to put it simply, Dzogchen practice can encompass a large number of different types of ancillary practices, and one central practice, which the ancillaries are meant to accomplish. The main practice is resting in the Rigpa.

How to Learn

"Get pointing out instructions from a qualified teacher before embarking on Dzogchen and Mahamudra. A teacher can address pressing questions as they arise and give you a map and tools for the journey. As practitioners, we can rely on those who have hiked the trail before us." - Lama Lena
Since the awareness nature is always present in every being, it is both simple to learn and simple to maintain the practice - being that one just simply is introduced to the awareness nature, and then abides in it at all times.
As far as being introduced to that awareness, in my experience there are many avenues, such as getting pointed out in person( verbally or non verbally), in visions, through texts, in dreams, etc. In one of her videos, Lama Lena goes through, I think, five different days that transmission/pointing out can happen.
But in my experience, getting pointing out, repeatedly and periodically, from a teacher is the most effective (and probably the most important) way to learn, like having someone coach you through riding a bicycle, until you finally internalize the fundamentals and are able ride on your own. Even someone that can check your progress, humble you, and keep you from common pitfalls, can be extremely helpful. Dzogchen, to me and from what I have read from e.g. Tulku Urgyen, is very simple, so simple that many people are able to miss it extremely easily. Whether we miss it because we're so worked up, or because we are subtly fabricating something and fixating on the fabrication - there is a miss, and from what I know, it's better to realize that than carry on doing whatever else. The harsh reality of Dzogchen practice is that fixation, because we're so habituated to it as human beings, is extremely easy, and being led astray by fixation means your meditation becomes a conditioned Samatha practice. On a lighter note though - from my perspective, one we learn to continually distinguish between Consciousness from Wisdom, we are on very solid ground, and it becomes easier and easier to recognize when we've become fixated.
On the subject of teachers - I would consider myself to have had many teachers. My main teacher, I mentioned before, is a lama I talk to live over the internet, but I would also say I've received teachings from recordings, from books, and in dreams. For clarity, I will state again: having a teacher that you can use to verify your practice is very important so as not to fall into common pitfalls. Whether you are confirming your experience through texts, reasoning, pointing out videos, whatever - doing it repeatedly will help because otherwise, as a beginner, one can be lost for minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, etc. without finding awareness again. I've seen people on Dzogchen who, unfortunately, even though they got pointing out from great teachers, were not able to full internalize the practice because they got lost in thoughts and then never were able to find recognize awareness again, and so need the pointing out once more. Others get the pointing out repeatedly - practice a lot, and attain good results over time. In that way, from my perspective, having continual access to the teachings is very important.
Fortunately, we live in a good time for this.
I'll get to recommend specifics later but - this is my perspective - although some people say that you can't get transmission over recordings or the internet, or from books - I actually do doubt that that is that case, just from experience. But, I must caution that all of my experience in this realm comes from after the point in time that I received live pointing out, so I would not take what I say as gospel. Once again, anything I say would defer to a knowledge and reputable teacher.
This all being said - regardless of how one feels at a specific time or place, there's no reason to ever refrain from confirming one's experience or view against the words of masters. There are others that have said this, who have more experience, but until we are Buddhas ourselves and phenomena have exhausted, there is no reason to ever stop practicing. Ever. If you are practicing, there is no need to make effort, and all phenomena will come and go without trouble until they are fully exhausted. Namkhai Norbu says almost exactly this in The Cycle of Day and Night.

Finding A Teacher - Resources

"Do not expect to travel this path guided only by books and the internet! Use the internet to find a teacher, then connect with them." - Lama Lena
It's taken a while to get here, my apologies for that.
For finding a teacher, I think any lama that has accomplished a three year retreat will be proficient in either Mahamudra or Dzogchen (both Atiyoga - subtle differenes but the same essential practice), and will likely be able to give pointing out instructions.
Not all may do so at first. Some may want a more personal relationship, some may require Ngondro, and some may say "sorry I don't really give those teachings". Some may require a baseline knowledge of the practice first - for example the Tergar program does.
That being said, there are many places to receive pointing out for free and in public.
Off the top of my head, I can name four that are always open and free: Lama Lena on Facebook and Youtube, The Rangdrol Foundation (run by the reddit user u/jigdrol), MeditationOnline.org, and The Pristine Mind Foundation . I know there are others, but at least to me on reddit and personally, these have been the most visible. I do know that Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche and James Low occasionally give pointing out instructions and videos on the practice. As well - many other lama do on occasion, and especially Bon lamas - practitioners and Yogis from the Tibetan Indigenous religion, through teachings series or classes. Some may even do so if you are able to get a phone call with them.
Personally, I recommend finding someone who you can learn from personally, and allowing them to teach you whatever they can.
Edit: Here is a recent list of online teachers compiled by Dzogchen
Lama Lena Dzogchen Youtube Videos
Lama Lena Introductory Videos
Meditation Online Videos (Almost all Dzogchen)
Once you've received pointing out, there are also numerous public books, and texts one can read to deepen their understanding and/or background in the teachings, a few of which I've read and can list below. I'll also try to find some links that I care share too.
Many texts on Dzogchen, Mahyana and Vajrayana in general can be found on the excellent Lotsawahouse.org
A list of a few books that I've read and can personally recommend. Please note - these books (with the exception of Transcending AFAIK) are best read after having received transmission:
The Cycle of Day and Night by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu
Dzogchen: Heart Essence of the Great Perfection by HH The Dalai Lama
Zurchungpa's Testament by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Vajra Heart Revisited by Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
Transcending Ego: Distinguishing Consciousness from Wisdom by Thrangu Rinpoche
Also, I've not read the Trilogy of Rest by Longchenpa but heard that they're excellent.
Anyways, this about wraps up the post. If you have any questions or additional comments, they are very welcome. I wish all of your the very best of luck on your paths, and that all beings may reach enlightenment.

This is my first reddit post and honestly it's a lot so please bear with me. I'm still trying to figure out how to process everything and make sense of it all. I guess we will start at the very beginning. My boyfriend,( we will call him michael) and I just passed 6 months together. Honestly, hes been great. We clicked pretty fast and have a great bond. I feel safe and comfortable around him and can communicate in a way ive never been able to before. It just kinda works. I definitely fell hard and fast for him and from what I could gather, the feeling was mutual. We had met on tinder in early October and went on our first date in November. We made it official shortly after our first date.
After we started dating, he had briefly mentioned that he had a friend who had a bit of a crush on him. I told him I didn't mind and I trusted him. As long as he kept things respectful to me, it didn't matter. He then explained that her crush was a bit obsessive and he actually wanted to push her out of his life and needed advice. Apparently, this friend, (we will call her beth) was pregnant and wanted Michael to be her baby's God Father. He said that she would follow him and got jealous when he was with other girls. I found this kind of odd but he swore they were just friends, so I told him the best way to let her down gently and let him do his thing. About two weeks later, he told me she was out of the picture. I didn't really care either way but the communication was cool.
Anyways, I pretty quickly forgot about all of that because it was irrelevant and I wanted to focus on our relationship. One night when we were hanging out, he got a snapchat notification. He turned away from me to respond to it but I didn't think much of it, just asked who that was. He said it was just a friend (we will call this one Jen) and they were catching up. I had never heard of her before but I didn't care, I just said cool and dropped it. Just like before, I quickly forgot about that conversation because again,it was irrelevant and I had better things to think about. I trusted him so why should I care who he talks to? He is his own person after all and I understand the importance of friendships.
Fast forward about another two weeks later, him and I had our first argument. I dont remember what it was about. Most likely something small and pointless because I had a stressful day at work but nothing too serious. We did not talk much that day. Later that night, I apologized and we talked it over. Everything was fine. He then told me that earlier in the day, an old friend that he had removed off social media readded him and messaged him. We will call her Molly. Apparently she had just noticed she was removed and was upset and wanted to know why. He told me that he sent her a message explaining that he didn't see her in his life long term and doesn't feel the need to keep someone around who won't be around forever so he didn't want to be friends anymore. He then removed her again. At this point I thought the way he acted was odd. I had never heard of molly before, he waited until he had already removed her before telling me about the conversation, she only came into the picture when we had our first argument and it got me thinking about the other girls who were just friends. I definitely started to over think a bit and was more than curious about who these people were and what their relationship to him was. But he swore they were all just friends. So I continued to believe him.
We went a long period of time without anything coming up so once again I forgot about it and moved on with my life. Him and I were doing great. We were young dumb and in love. I felt truly happy, something I hadn't experienced in a long time. I felt like I genuinely found someone who was right for me and I didn't need to second guess whether or not he was gonna cheat on me. He occasionally would ask to see my phone but I didn't have anything to hide so I allowed him. I had set a boundary with him that if he ever felt concerned or needed reassurance, he needed to bring it up to me first. After we talked it over then he could see my phone, but we would always go through it together. This seemed fair to me. My phone was never off limits, there just needed to be open communication. Anyways, he would always offer for me to see his phone in return but I would decline. I didn't feel the need to and I had learned from past experiences that if you go digging, you will most likely see something you can't unsee.
Then one day he needed to have his wisdom teeth removed. I dropped him off in the morning for his surgery and I was told I needed to hold on to his personal belongings and wait until the operation was over. No big deal. I know this is wrong and I shouldn't have but finally curiosity got the best of me and I looked on his phone. At first it wasn't malicious. I genuinely was just curious. But of course, I saw things I wish I could unsee. It started off on tiktok. In one of his conversations with a friend, he poured his heart out, explaining how he was still so in love with his ex and missed her like crazy. Of course it stung a little to see the things he said but I knew there was someone before me so it wasn't that surprising. That was until I saw those messages had been sent in mid October. So of course i was like huh.we started talking early October and dating early November. So clearly he wasn't over his ex when he met me. But I was willing to forgive it. It wasn't a deal breaker. But Instead of putting the phone down to protect my peace and his privacy, I kept looking. And boy did I find a lot. I found lots of old text messages from contacts that were not saved. Most of then were hard-core sexting and flirting. This dude literally acted like a dog.And yeah it was again hard to see but it was before me and he wasn't like that anymore. With me, he was gentle and respectful and never treated me like an object. Some people just go through a phase and that's okay. Again, it wasn't a deal breaker. But finally i found some very passionate, lovey, intimate messages with an unsaved contact. I was immediately drawn in by the kind words and heartwarming love messages. Whoever this was, they cared for eachother very strongly. I almost immediately felt heartbroken. Not because she was a past love interest, but because he had never spoken to me the way he spoke to her. I read all the way from the top of the conversation. Months worth of love confessions, paragraphs of strong feelings, longing to be with one another, etc. But finally halfway through in one of the paragraphs I see a name. Molly I was shattered. Molly was the girl who supposedly was removed months before him and I even met. The one that was "just a friend" who messaged him and he removed her because he didn't want to be friends anymore. Yeah clearly they were more than just friends. I was livid and felt crushed. Why did he feel the need to lie about something so unnecessary? I wouldn't have been mad if he had told the truth about who she was. But then it got me thinking. Was Beth truly just a friend? Was Jen truly just a friend? What was the actual relationship? I gathered up as much as I could but then the nurse came to the lobby to tell me he was awake and ready to go home. I kind of panicked and in my hurry, I forgot to delete the screenshots out of his phone.
We get in the car and I give him his phone, he's still pretty loopy. Obviously I had a million questions to ask him but I knew he wasn't in the right state of mind to have that conversation so I put my feelings aside and decided it could wait. Well he wanted to take pictures of his bloody swollen face and send it to his uncle. In the process, he sees the screenshots i had forgotten to delete off his phone and immediately screams what the f*** is this? I tried to talk calmly and explain that now wasn't a good time to talk about it and it could wait. He kept pressing "what the f*** did you do? Who the hell is this?" In my mind I thought "uh dude, you tell me." But didn't want to escalate it while he was drugged up. I decided the best option was to simply say that I wasn't mad , I stilled planned on taking care of him while he recovered and that we would need to have a conversation when he was in a better state of mind. He just started sobbing. Oh boy. I kind of ignored it as much as I could. I drove us to the store to get ice cream and other soft foods he could eat before taking us back to my apartment. I helped get him set up in my bedroom and he still was crying. So much so he started coughing out blood. It smelled awful and got everywhere. He was a wreck. I felt bad for everything. I felt guilty for going on his phone behind his back, for leaving the screeshots on his phone and for him crying. It took several hours but eventually I got him to calm down. I kept my word and continued to take care of him until he was recovered.
Finally when enough time had passed I decided it was time to sit down and talk about it. I explained that obviously I had found messages and i wanted an explanation. He told me molly was just a friend, and very clearly it was more than that. I also explained that I had a suspicion that he was not fully honest about his relationship with Jen and Beth either. He looked me dead in the eyes and said he had no idea what I was talking about and they were just friends. I remained calm and explained that I won't be mad at him or leave him. I told him I didn't want to fight. I just felt as though I deserved to know the truth if I was going to continue to be with him, especially since he was still in contact with Beth and Jen while we were dating. We continue to go back and forward for several hours with no progress. I decided then if he didn't feel I deserved the truth, I would find out for myself. I took the screenshots I had found and reached out to the contacts one by one.
Let's start with Beth. She was the quickest to respond. I briefly explained who I was and that I was hoping to ask some questions about my partner because I felt like i was being lied to and was hoping she could fill in some of the gaps. She texted back and simply asked "do you work at blank" I responded that yes, I did. She then asked if I lived at a specific apartment complex. I said yes and was creeped out. She knew where I worked and lived. She then asked if she could call me. I agreed. For some context, he told me that she was a friend he had met in school. He explained that she had gotten out of a rough relationship and he wanted to make sure she was okay when it happened. That's how they became close. He explained that they would hang out all the time and eventually she became obsessed with him. Well during my phone call with her, I heard a very different story. Yes, they met in school and initially started off as friends. But, slowly with time as they started to spend more and more time together, they started to catch feelings. He said I love you first. And she proved this with screenshots. She also sent me pictures of them holding hands and kissing. She explained that they never officially started dating but they definitely were more than just friends. Their relationship was much more physical and romantic than platonic. She also told me that they had hooked up about 3 times. She explained that they had eachothers location and pretty frequently they would make plans then he would last minute cancel. So she would see what he was doing and would see him at two very specific addresses. Visiting my work or my apartment. She eventually asked him where he was and he told her that I was his cousin and was trying to get out of a rough relationship so he was helping me. I felt sick. No wonder why she was "obsessed" he was borderline dating her, telling her he loved her, and then started to ditch her when he made things official with me. Then it killed me to realize that even though they never had an official title, he was dating the two of us at the same time. I didn't know what to do. I ended up apologizing to her for everything he did and told her I never would have agreed to be his if I knew he was entertaining someone else. Michael overheard this phone call between us and looked like he had seen a ghost after. All he did was started crying, said she was lying, and that she was only a friend. I asked "so....these screenshots and pictures are all made up?" No response. He knew he was busted.
I decided I needed to take some time to process that information and I didn't want to say something I would regret. I let him stay at my place because he had nowhere else to go and I went to stay with a friend. He kept calling and texting but I couldn't deal with it. I cried all night. I was a mess. I should have just accepted that I was cheated on and lied to but I couldn't leave. I needed to know the truth. So I kept reaching out. Next up was Jen. I never was able to reach her, but I found out through Michael and Beth that Jen was Beth's best friend. But even more than that, I found out the three of them had a threesome together. He had told me previously that he had never been interested in a threesome and would never want to have one. Then I found out not only did he have one and lied about it, but it was with two girls he told me were just friends.
I went back to my apartment the next day and tried to talk stuff out. He just continued to say they were just friends. I finally snapped. I screamed and cried and told him that I just wanted to know the truth. That I deserved the truth. He looked me in the eyes, pinky promised me no more lies. We talked for a while and basically he explained that he never had an official title with Beth. They were very close but he basically just used her to pass time because he had nothing better to do. He said he loved her because that's what she wanted to hear and he treated her like a partner without ever having any real feelings for her. He knew as soon as he met me that he wanted me but didn't want to hurt her so he just kind of pushed her to the side but kept her in the picture. I felt so sad for her. He used her. He led her on. He treated her like an object and then threw her to the side when he met me.I asked why he lied about having a threesome. He said he felt ashamed Apparently they started to do it and then he chickened out so he didn't really count it. That made sense to me. I was pissed that he lied but at least it made sense. Next I asked why he told me Beth and Jen were just friends instead of being honest about the relationship. He said he never had feelings for either and they never had the official title so he didn't think it was important and he did not want to scare me off. I explained to him that although I understand why he lied to me, I didn't forgive him. I warned him that I would not tolerate anymore lies and obviously for the time being I did not trust him. I told him I wouldn't break up with him but if I found out he lied again, he would lose me. I also told him I considered what he did as cheating since he was seeing us at the same time after him and I became mutually exclusive. After we concluded our conversation about Beth and Jen, I started thinking about molly and the messages I had seen. I asked him what their relationship was, he said just friends. I freaked and told him to give me his phone. I found their old messages and told him to read them. "Hey goofball, you awake? Well if you're not I have something impossible to say to you. You are my sun, my moon, and all my stars. I love you lots and want you to know that no matter what happens I will always care about you. To me you are perfect. Amazing. And attractive asf. You are also very sweet and caring and adorable. Don't think about the negative things about yourself that will drag you down. You are way more than that. This is an official goodnight and I love you goofball." This is just one of the MANY messages sent back and forward. He reads the conversation and just goes oh. He then says he didn't remember any of that happening. We began to argue and the story he tried to spin was that his life must have been so traumatic that his brain literally deleted his past memories and replaced them with false memories where he didn't do these things that he is ashamed of. He got caught in lies and after so long was just like...whoa I did that? I had no idea I didn't remember. Technically I didn't lie because I told what I thought the truth was the way I remembered it. I told him I wanted to break up and he cried and begged me to forgive him and stay. I listened.i tried to move on and make things normal again but I couldn't stop thinking about all the lies and what else he might have been lying about. Then randomly one day, Molly added me back on social media. She was the last and took over 1.5 months so honestly I figured I'd never get ahold of her. I was genuinely surprised to see her show up on my friend list and reached out. Once again back story, he told me that she lived in Wisconin and they had never met. He said he was also using her for nudes and to pass time, same way he used Beth. He had told me that he removed her off social media months before him and I even met and aside from that one night she reached out, he hadn't heard from her in forever. I found out from her that she did not live in Wisconsin, she lived in the same state as us That to her, they were definitely dating and in love. I also saw a messaged saved on snapchat where he had been texting her in October (after we met) and even sent her the same pickup lines he had sent me. he had cheated with not just one, but two (at least that I know of) other girls.
At this point I had been broken so bad I didn't even feel the pain anymore. I just went numb. I had no more tears left to cry and couldn't be bothered to care anymore. I stopped eating and taking care of myself. I just went to work, came home, slept and repeated. I had watched the man that I loved and adored, one that made me feel so safe and happy turn into a monster right in front of me. He wasn't him anymore. I finally could see him for who he was. But I still didn't leave. He told me that he had only ever slept with three girls. I later found out it was actually six. He told me he had never been in love before. I later found out he tells basically every girl he's ever talked to that he loves them AND genuinely was in love with his ex before me. He told me after his ex and him broke up, he had a rebound but he only hooked up with her once before ghosting her. I found out they actually dated for several weeks, hooked up several times, and she had taken cute couple pictures with him and posted them on social media. He said that he never wanted to take those pictures, she made him put his Hands on her and pose and if he didn't cooperate, she would throw a tantrum like a child. One last thing I think that is important to mention,when we went on our first date, I told him I don't do hookups. We stayed out late and hit it off really well so I offered for him to stay the night at my place. I said I was okay with cuddling and whatever but I did not want to have sex. He seemed okay with it. I went to bed and then when I woke up, my pants were off and he was inside me. He claimed he didn't know I was asleep and thought I wanted it because apparently my butt kept rubbing against him while we were spooning.
It's been about a month since all that and I'm still just meh. I haven't exactly forgiven him but I also don't hate him. Things are normal. I act normal we still do couple things. But I can't help but wonder if he is just using me the same way he used them. I mean after all, he lives in my apartment rent free and asked me to buy him a truck for his birthday. He says I should forgive him because he genuinely doesn't remember doing these things and he didn't mean to lie to me. He said he's so ashamed of who he was but isn't like that anymore. He doesn't associate with who he was and wants to be given a chance to show that he is different. But can I ever forgive him? Should I? Where do I go from here? I feel so lost and confused. I dont think I'll ever be able to trust his word again. I dont feel secure. He broke me so bad I can't even feel anymore. Am I crazy and somehow making this a bigger deal than it is? Can I ever have the man I fell in love with back? I'm sorry if this was confusing. I'm typing this all out in one sitting. Please help me because I genuinely am so lost and I don't want to tell any friends because I don't want them to hate him.
TLDR: My boyfriend cheated on me with at least two other girls that I know of at the moment and has lied to me about too many things to count. His argument is that It doesn't actually count as cheating because he technically didn't date these people and he didn't remember doing it.

About me; Married dad, home repair career, moved across country 2 years ago.
I don't expect many views here, I know I'm just whining, and I know I'm not the only one feeling like I'm feeling. But, I'm just tired. I want to be back home. I hate my career choice/ path. I'm so overwhelmed.
Most recently, I switched from an easy, cushy, maintenacen supervisor position that was 2 minutes from home, to a handyman start up that needed a decent guy to help grow the business. I was urged to do so by a family member, I'm 2 days in and I realize I fucked up. I'm so fucking overwhelmed because the woman who owns the business is taking on jobs that are way too big IMO. Since before I officially came on, I have been following behind a fixing fuck ups that one of the other guys has done. I don't know why, but despite having done this work for 16 years, I suddenly have 0 confidence in what I'm doing. I feel like I'm fucking stuff up, despite getting calls to the owner about how happy they are with that I've done.
I've got a stupid ass tear in my eye right now from frustration. I want to just find a job that I can completely disconnect from at the end of everyday. Which is easy for everyone else(it seems), but I constantly run though every single thing that I worked on during the work day. I cannot disconnect, when my daughter reads to me at home, I cannot focus on that because I'm stuck in my head thinking about how frustrated I was at one second during the day, or I'm thinking about how I could have done something better, or how I need to go back and do something else because I didn't think it was up to my standards. I'm a perfectionist for alot of things.
I should have just stayed at my old job, I think to myself. But that wouldn't help me because all though the job was easy, I was the supervisor in charge of 3 properties and my mind would never let me have a second off. Thinking about things that need to be done, things that may happen in the future, things that would most likely never happen. "Don't take that home with you" My manager and my tech would say.. fucking easy to say. I was on call, and when I wasn't on call, I was on call because the tech would need assistance alot of the times. My mind doesn't just shut off work, especially being in this line of work where I feel like I have to please everyone. I've never heard of a complaint of my work, but In my head, noone likes the stuff I provide.
I couldn't take a vacation because All of my saved up pto this year was going to go toward 2 weddings and helping someone move from a few states away. I probably could have dealt with my last job if I had taken a break for myself. Maybe. I couldn't take any time off between jobs because I have to provide for my family. My wife works for money part time at home, but she works 24/7 homeschooling our daughter and housekeeping. True saint of a woman, who I love more than anything. Her getting a full time job isn't an option because we aren't comforatble putting our daughter into the public school near us after a sick fucking pervert teacher kissed her and other kids.
Well, I'll end this with who knows of a job that a non college educated person can switch to that pays 65000 a year atleast and that is easy to not bring home? I'm desperate

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.

Hi! I’m a 21F and have had OCD since about 8th grade. I also have Panic Attacks and Anxiety. I was on Lexapro for about a year, then got off in October. This is important because I’ve heard getting off can make anxiety and everything else 10x worse once you hit that 4-6 month mark. I have had a mix of Harm, Relationship, Religious, Existential, Health, etc OCD, basically my whole life. I also had a weird hyperawareness of being in first person, and everything looking like teeny tiny particles in 8th grade, not sure how it went away. I had a small period of time Freshman-Sophmore year of high school where I somehow managed to forget I had OCD?? Miss that tbh.
Anyways, starting about three months ago my anxiety started to SKY rocket. For context, my bf came back from a 7 month deployment, so that caused some weird stress/ excitement. I also had a VERY social life during, aka I was drinking steadily. It was during this I was getting off meds too, then fully off by December of last year. I had/ now have horrible panic, guilt, OCD, fear of living day to day because I had no idea what was/ is going on. I tried everything, cutting alcohol, confessing, vitamins, working out. The whole shabang. It never really went away. I had about one “normal week” because I had a super stressful situation occur that I think drew my attention away, but anyways, it came back full force and 10x worse. Basically, I have been in a constant state of derealization and hyper aware of my existence for the whole three months but SO powerful the last three weeks. Like WAY too aware. Here are what most of my thoughts are now: •••”Other people experience this too. What if I am the only real person though? So everything people say to help is fake and so are they.” •••’’What if I am truly alone?” •••’’Am I going to feel like this forever because I really don’t want to.” •••”No one else sees in first person and I am the only existing being.”
The first person view reaaalllllyyyy gets me and the thought of being truly alone, and everyone being fake. I get that that is just how it “is” but for some reason my brain isn’t taking that answer. I am so scared of everything now, of existing, of feeling this. I don’t get why it is happening to me. I know DR can come from high anxiety, and when that high anxiety started, I had just hit the four month mark of being off my meds. (Heard that anxiety symptoms after getting off meds can come back 10x worse after a while too) I just want to go back to being happy again. I’m starting back Lexapro soon (within the week) but I want this to go away. I want to love the life I had three months ago. Anyone else feel anything similar? Especially the fear of first person?
To leave this off, a youtuber who has went through something similar said this quote and it is me to a T. “I was so afraid of dying and death, but so unwanting to living like this.”
Also, I am doing ERP, plus starting that medication soon. I have been trying the acceptance of uncertainty and “so what?” thinking. I still hate this. I am a prisoner of my own mind, and existence. I used to love life and love and sadness and adventure and turmoil but it’s like a flip switched.
Help!!!

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.”

I’m getting bored with my current game and considering starting up a whole new community. I like to create multiple households at once so I can bounce back and forth and have them interact with each other. I glanced at a list of the 18 different emotions, and wondered if maybe I could work with that for inspiration. Craft each Sim to be “themed” to a specific emotion, by selecting traits/jobs/abilities/life states etc. and then come up with interesting combinations to move into a household together.
I decided that some of the emotions are unworkable. How to theme a Sim around “asleep”? Or “uncomfortable”? Some are a bit more questionable, like “scared” or “bored”.
Here are some of my ideas, please let me know yours!
“Angry” - easy one, that’s a Werewolf. Hot-headed, mean, or jealous for traits?
“Inspired” - a Musician, since Pluck For Inspiration is such a quick way to get there. Creative or art lover traits.
“Embarrassed” - perhaps an Alien? With poor impulse control who pees himself regularly. Loner or unflirty trait.
“Fine” - a Vampire with the Dampened Emotions ability.
“Dazed” - this one is a bit trickier. Maybe someone whose favorite hobbies are Unwinding at the Bubble Blower and getting into fights? Could be an Engineer or robotics enthusiast who gets zapped a lot.
“Possessed” is also weird, but fairly obvious. Lives in Strangerville and has a taste for the Bizarre Fruit.
“Energized” - works out all the time, Active trait, Athlete career. Drinks a lot of coffee.
“Playful” - Comedian career, tells lots of jokes. Goofball or childish traits.
“Focused” - a University student who gets focused on studying and reading, perhaps who goes on to become a Tech Guru or a Scientist.
Still considering:
“Happy”
“Sad”
“Confident”
“Flirty”
“Tense”

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