My boss "jim" and I don't have a natural chemistry. We constantly miscommunication. Like we both speak two different languages.
If we met one another outside of work. We would never be friends just bc our personalities are so different. My personality is too "big". I'm professional but I get very excited about new ideas and projects and I love working hard and what's worse - I'm enthusiastic about working hard.
He is very introverted. And just has the opposite demeanor.
I recognized early enough on that I should scale myself back with him and that less was more.
But no matter what I do - I'm always doing it wrong or I'm doing the wrong thing according to him. I have a lot of experience and I'm smart. And I always thought that my personality may not be for him but we worked well together bc we respected the others one intelligence and experience very.
But it finally landed with me - - I realized that he not only doesn't like me, he thinks I'm stupid.
For months, he already vehemently disagrees with anything I say. No matter what I say or how I say it. He never supports anything I saY or tell staff. And contradicts me with staff and has been wrong for it. He seems to be happiest when he knows I am doing menial work. I have to keep and projects I have secret. If he finds out that I am doing anything that involves using brain cells, he will assign it our from me to someone else.
And it's so hurtful but today was a real bad day as far as his open display of his contempt for me goes. All the following happened today:

1. This morning, he sent an updated staff assignment sheet showing who should contact staff for what area of.concern. he asked us all to review it b4 he published it on the intranet. He had at least 15'-20 items listed for each team member. My name was at the very bottom. Be had two items listed. He sent me a note and told me I should add more responsibilities of mine if I could think of any.
   
2. I received a salesforce question from staff. Salesforce isn't my area, so I pinged both him and my colleague who manages it to communicate it. Denise responds with an answer to the inquiry. And I thanked her. Then my boss wrote "that's an excellent approach, denise!" And it's not that he complimented her. It's that it took him complimenting her to make me realize in that moment that he has never said one nice thing to me about anything I do in the workplace.
   
3. Yesterday, Our sales team sent he and I a fairly standard support request with a non standard caveat. I responded and indicated that I could not immediately comply with the request without confirming that what they wanted wasn't a compliance violation. He replied all and said it was fine and to do it. I really struggled and ultimately decided - without consulting him - to email our CIO and legal and I CCed him and I relayed the request and relayed the concern I had. And without naming names I said I was being pushed to perform an action that I was not comfortable performing until I knew that action was compliant. Today, The 4 of us had to get on a call. I was told I was really smart for contacting them and that it wasn't compliant and good catch on my end. Jim didn't acknowledge any part of the conversation one way or another. He just said he would talk to sales.
   
4. Our team has our first stand up call as part of a new meeting series. It's a 3 min round Robin where we all go thru and quickly update the team on what we are doing. Ive been coaching denise on product implementation (unbeknownst to jim). I recently led a project of hers (in secret) while educating her on the why behind the scenes so she wouldnt need me for her next project. I directed her every action item. I provided guidance, support, timlines. Today she announced the close of the project. Jim was ecstatic and singing her praises. She looked so uncomfortavle. She repeatedly credited me with mentoring her. He would not acknowledge any claim of hers to give me credit. there was 6 minutes left on the call by the time it got to me (I was last). I ran thru my current tasks super quick.
   
5. Our weekly 1:1 meeting was next. He was20 minutes late. I was very eager to show him something I had spent weeks working on (bc I do care about the work. And I love working. I can hide my enthusiasm but it shows in my work. Multiple industry pros who I have worked with in the past have praised my project plans and audits and other efforts as "the gold standard." Our company was late to adopting agile methodology. I am an agile pro. He's been dragging his feet on committing to it but it's a directive from higher up. Today, I presented him with the "skeleton'" if you will of our teams roadmap. I built everything for him - just the bones, the automation. I added my own work to it aa a demo. The outline that all he would have to do is fill in. This was something that would have taken him hours of time to do if he had attempted building it himself. Which is why he kept putting it off.
   Before presenting these boards to him, colleagues from different departments had stumbled upon them and asked me if they could clone my work over to their own workspace and did I have any mgmt tips for them. I did not share this with him. I'm not a bragger but I do take great pride in my work. I low key worked on our boards outside of office hours. I was determined that this would finally win him over. Bc I've never quite understood how he treats me. My personality isn't for everyone, I know that. And I'm not perfect. I've contributed to miscommunications between us before. But I've tried really hard to be what he needs me to be in this organization in my role. And today I was going to do it. I was determined it was going to be our watershed moment. I proudly unveiled my boards. He waved them off. Made a remark that he thought it was so interesting to see what people got passionate about in the workplace. That he thinks it's funny that they usually think they're helping the organization when they are really making it all about themselves. He then throws in "and I say that in the nicest way possible." He then told me I had talked for way too long on our stand up call. He said I had to dial it way back next week. That the entire team did not have time to sit there and listen me ramble.
   

And I've been sitting here sobbing ever since. That pushed me over the age. Normally I can shake it off, I can separate, I like myself, I know I work hard, I know that I am smart. So I am pretty quick to let go of all the ways he chooses to diminish me on a fairly regular basis. But this was alot of hits to take in one day. I'm embarrassed to admit that he really took the wind out of my sails today. And I feel so stupid. I feel so fucking stupid. And I just want to quit. I don't want to work here anymore. This feels awful. And everyone loves him. He's every employees favorite guy. He is universally beloved at my company. So surely I must be the problem, right? And we ve talked about our miscommunication and I've done everything I can but I guess I just rub him the wrong way. I am always either not doing enough, doing roo much, or I'm doing the wrong thing. And I just needed someplace to vent while I cried my eyes out.
Tl; DR: boss is really mean to me, today he made me cry, I need to make a plan to quit

Last fall a male bluebird showed up in my yard to scope out the bluebird house that I put up. Eventually he brought his partner, and together they spent more and more time in my yard, eventually going inside the bluebird box consistently. Fast forward to spring, they came back! I was delighted. Again they spent lots of time scoping out the yard and scoping out the box. Eventually they began to build a nest in the box and I was elated.
Shortly after this, she laid some eggs. Shortly after that, the eggs hatched and I watched every day as they took care of their babies and fed them during the daylight hours.
The amount of time I watched these birds throughout the day would probably be considered ridiculous by most people. I learned so much about their behavior and their habits. They were wonderful parents and a great pair. Periodically I would take a look at their nestlings, who were all in excellent health, although one of them seemed to be less responsive than the others.
One day I watched all morning and there was no activity at the Nest. Nobody going in and out. This was very strange. After over an hour, I went out to check out what was going on with the nest. When I opened it up, I discovered the male was dead inside. This was absolutely heartbreaking. I put on some gloves and I removed the male, And I had my partner film as I examined the body. I didn't see evidence of a physical altercation, however that same day another male bluebird showed up. I know he was different because he looked different, and he was acting different. He was chasing away all the other birds and was scoping out the property the same way that the bluebirds were scoping it out in the fall. So I figured he killed the other male.
Strangely enough, the new male took over. He participated in feeding the babies with the female, and as sad as it was for the original bluebird to have died I was happy that at least there was a pair again.
A few days later, I see the same thing happening at the nest. Hours go by and nobody's going to the nest. I finally go out there and I open it up and I find the female is dead inside. My heart dropped. Two of the nestlings were very lethargic and not very responsive, whereas the other two were very energetic and responsive.
I did my research, and I brought them inside and took care of them as I contacted local wildlife rehabilitation centers in my area. Eventually I found somebody that would come and pick them up. I cared for the two that were healthy and they were healthy all the way up into the point that I gave them away. Unfortunately the other two died.
Here's the crazy part. I'm just dumbfounded at what happened and so I'm watching the Nest constantly all day. Suddenly the male shows up again. Shortly after that, ANOTHER female shows up. Together they start scoping out the property and the nest the same way that the original pair did last fall. Based on their behavior, it seems like they are not familiar with the nest the way they would be if they were the original bluebirds. While the male is easy to distinguish from the original, I have a harder time with a female and I'm using her behavior to distinguish versus physical appearance.
In my research it seems that this is extremely rare, and very unfortunate, for bluebirds to kill each other. I wonder if anyone has experience with a pair of bluebirds aggressively killing and taking over another pair's active nest. The weirdest part about it is that the second male bird seemed to care for the nestlings for many days before killing the female. So heartbreaking.
I have lots of theories but I'm interested to hear yours. I'm very interested if anyone else has direct experience with this type of behavior in bluebirds.
Also- The new male is doing something strange. He sits in one spot and sort of flicks one wing at a time, one after the other over and over again.

Olá! It's me! I'm Rickle Pick! Hello everyone!
So, I’ve been listening to some stories about Neckbeards and Kevins, as well as some Legbeards and Kevinas (Is that the correct term??). Well, most of the times I listen to those stories, I am reminded of some people I used to deal with in school. Specifically, this time, the tale of a guy, who I’ll name Roger Bacon for reasons soon to be explained. Sorry for any grammar errors, eu falo português! I also don't really know the posting rules here, so I'll just post it and see how it goes lol
This prologue is more of a compilation of stories that I think is needed before we get to the main shenanigans and awkward situations this guy put himself AND me into. If this generates any interest, I will post more specific tales of this weirdo! Long time lurker, first time poster, english is definitely not my first language and the whole shebang. I also never wrote a text this large, so go easy on me!
THE LIST:
Well, I guess it’s usual to make a list of people that appear in those stories, so I’ll make one just for you!
Me: Your basic musician-type nerdy theater kid white guy! Tall, thin with medium-light brown hair. At the time, I usually wore a leather jacket and sometimes a hat (not a fedora, a Chaplin hat. Also, where I live, hats are an acceptable attire choice lol). I kinda looked like the Once-ler from Lorax. At this time, I had just failed my second year of high school because of… honestly just lack of effort, mixed with undiagnosed ADHD and a bit of lacking in the ol’ confidence and self-respect department. At the time, I also was physically incapable of saying no and had a crippling fear of disappointing people.
Roger Bacon: 168 centimeters (or 5,5ft for the uncivilized) of pure muscle! Or at least he thought it was that way. In reality, he did have some muscles but was kinda chubby and flaccid. Not FAT fat, but athletic fat (???). He was mixed, light skinned, had shaved short curly hair, no beard (except for the inside beard) and his face was a special kind of oval, besides having a, "chiseled jaw". He always smelled like he had just gotten out of a day-long brawl with a french cologne wearing burrito. He wasn't an usual neckbeard, but he was a huge attention whore. Thought too much of himself, as we say here in Brazil: “Promised too much, delivered nothing at all.” His moto was: “Dude, I think she’s into me!”
For now, these are the characters, as the focus is to introduce you all to Roger Bacon as a person.
With the list over, let us get to the story.
FEBUARY 2018:
The year of 2018 started pretty badly for me. I had just been held back from 10th grade, had no friends and didn’t really know anyone. As most people know, high school in Brazil is quite different from America, as we start school in febuary and we share the same class with the same people all day, excluding language classes and extra-curriculum activities. This meant that, for the foreseeable future, I was alone. On the first day of school, I shyly sat on the last desk on the far right corner of the room, as I scanned my classroom to see what I was dealing with. A few groups of people sitting together, talking and greeting their friends, some loners reading or playing on their phones. The artsy girl drawing a beauriful woman on the white board. Some guy drawing a penis right beside her. Perfect balance. A normal classroom.
Another difference between our school systems is that we don’t really have clicks based on like Jocks or Nerds or Pretty Girls, it’s mostly people who connected in childhood or matched personalities, instead of connecting through roles and interests within the school. Not saying either one is better, just different. And yeah, the bullying situation is just as bad. I was bullied for my whole middle school and through first year of high school, and made a very specific group of low profile friends. So when I failed sophomore year I thought to myself “Screw it, if I’m going to be held back, that’s at least a second chance for me to grow an acceptable social life.”
All this elucidates how intimidating it could be for someone to join a new classroom full of mostly new faces. If you were unable to make a friend, you’d pretty much be on your own for the whole year unless an already formed group “adopted” you. So my mindset was to at least try and meet new people.
Well, have you ever said “I’m gonna do this thing I’ve never done before!” And got the worst possible circunstance you could get at the very first attempt? Welp, that’s just what happened. My strategy was to start small, and go talk to only one person at first, and then try to interact with a few of the groups as that was a bit intimidating (fun fact: we call “clicks “panelinhas”, spelled “pah-neh-lin-ias”, wich means “little pans”, because, you know, they’re closed groups, like a closed… pan. Idk, anyway), so I went up to this guy in front of me, and that guy was Roger Bacon.
He was almost lying on his chair, on a cool guy pose while messing around on his phone. He was also wearing a black sports tank top with a grey opened sweatshirt and the standard uniform wine-red shorts that were mandatory in our school, which made him look like a short and jelly version of Rocky balboa mixed with Kick Buttowski.
In real life, my name and his started with sequential letters, and because of this, we would sit near each other for the whole year, so I guessed he’d be the best person to interact with. I also KINDA knew him because we had basketball training after class in like 2015 and I went to the same church as him, in which I befriended his brother, Kevin, slightly, but didn’t have much contact with him because he had already graduated (I have some stories about basketball and church so tell me if yall wanna read them lol). I approached and gestured for him to take of his headphones (They were extremely loud, so I could recognize he was listening to the song In The End by Linkin Park).
Me: Hey! Aren’t you Roger? You’re Kevin’s brother, right?
RB, trying to sound stoic: “Oh, hey Rick. Yeah, it’s me… fortunately for you.”
Me: “What do you mean?”
RB explained: “Well, I’m the cool brother! Kevin was lame, and also had no friends.”
Me: “Isn’t he in a band with [insert band members]? They seem to be his friends…
RB: “They might look nice, but they’re all assholes. Don’t let them fool you! I’m the nice brother, Kevin is a dipshit.
To elucidate you: that band he said was made of assholes was the Worship band of the church we went to. It was also the worship band that I occasionally played the piano with.
I said, jokingly: “Guess I’m an asshole then! Because, ya know, I play with them more often than not”
RB: “No man, it’s just them. They’re just so infuriating! They never let me participate!”
Me: “Wow, that’s weird… I mean, I didn’t know you were a musician too! What instrument do you play?”
RB: “I play the drums, piano, guitar, bass and I also sing. But Kevin keeps me out because he wants to be the 'star brother'!”
I could tell he got a little heated, and went silent for a little while. I decided not to mention the band or his brother in his presence, 'cause ya know, that was pretty awkward lol.
I remember thinking to myself “This guy’s kinda weird”, because his brother was one of the nicest people I had ever known, and he also didn’t have the say on who played on the band, the worship leader did. I thought about confronting Roger with this, but I didn’t want to abandon my quest of finding a friend. And also, he seemed chill at first, if not a little insecure.
I was a little uncomfortable with this line of conversation, so I opted to change the subject. We talked a bit more about me having been held back, and he went on about how he was really good at math and chemistry, and how he could help me with my school stuff.
I was glad to have someone to help me, and even more, someone who apparently liked the stuff I liked. I remembered what he was listening to, so I commented on it and asked which song was his favorite, and we talked about Linkin Park for a bit. He said “In The End” was his favorite song, and then I mentioned I was a huge Linkin Park fan. He told me he was a big fan as well, but as we talked about it, it became a bit fishy. He never specifically said anything and just kinda repeated what I said. It became clear after a while that “In The End” was, in fact, virtually the only song he knew from that band.
That was the first time I noticed something strange, but only in hindsight, as at the time I just thought he really wanted to make a human connection. I remember thinking he was just excited to know someone who was open to talking to him, so I didn’t think anything of it.
Also, not everyone memorizes this stuff, and maybe he did only remember one song, for whatever reason, so I let that pass. I only felt necessary to include this information because it was, at least in some way, the first lie that Roger told me, a little sample, if you will, of what’s to come.
After we talked for a while, mostly catching up on our lives, the bell rung and our first actual class had begun, and I had the first-hand experience of this guy’s sense of humor. The teacher walked into the classroom and introduced himself as the new Geography teacher, and started a power point presentation about some of the subjects we’d be covering that year, saying “Please pay attention to this class, as you’ll need to know how our schedule will work”. Roger looked back and said “Huh, I guess this class is useless for you then, being held back and all, hahah”, which made everyone look at me and just kinda stare like I should say something, and he kept repeating the joke to anyone that showed any reaction besides just staring, adding “Amirite? Huh? Amirite?”.
I was kinda salty about this, but my people pleasing peapod brain couldn’t handle letting it show, so I just laughed and said nothing. I guessed it was a poorly thought out joke at first, but then Roger proceeded to make the same comment on every single one of the opening classes we had for both of the introductory days. There were 12 of them. He did it every time. Every. Single. Time. Sometimes he repeated it even louder, as if he didn’t think people heard it, because no-one was laughing.
“Ok”, I said to myself, “He didn’t mean to make fun of me, he’s just a little overexcited and probably is trying to make a connection and help me get acquainted to our classmates.”
Either way, I was very uncomfortable and annoyed.
Thankfully, this came to a halt when he was practically thrown out of the Literature class for interrupting the teacher mid-sentence while she talked about how important the first month of class would be for our comprehension of the whole subject. He made the joke four times. FOUR TIMES. I was beginning to think that I made a mistake, but well, the mistake was already made, at least I can try and understand him a bit, before judging.
The rest of the week went by and he didn’t get any better, but I got kinda used to it. In fact, I actually enjoyed having conversations with him at recess, when we could talk a bit more freely. And, as all things in life tend to do, it got weirder. Weirder in the sense that as we spoke more and more, I noticed a bit of a concerning pattern: every time I shared an experience I had, he’d share a cooler and more awesome almost equal experience back.
Some light examples:
I told him I went hiking for 2-3 kilometers on a trail by the beach. Then he smirked and said he went hiking for “at least 7 kilometers on a deserted beach that only his father’s company’s employees had access to and he saw a Gorilla. There are no gorillas in Brazil. Maybe in zoos, I guess, but definitely no gorillas.
I told him I was kinda sad because I had just ended a “thing” with a girl from my old grade. He “proudly” said he’s been dumped by his ex, Laura, after they dated for 11 months and made out aaaallll the time after school, and he even saw her “lady parts” once!”.
And then he went on to describe that shit for like 3 straight classes, adding more and more to the story every chance he had to speak, providing me with my daily dose of cringe in tiny bits of uncomfortable information at a time! Like a sporadic cringe snack! Sninge! Crack? Probably Crack.
ANYWAYS
There was also the time I told him the story of how I became best friends with a guy because we got into a fight in P.E.. We were arguing about some nonsense and he wanted to fight, so after he socked me on my stomach, I cheaply kicked him in the face so hard I almost sprained my ankle and then we started laughing (because I guess sometimes that’s all it takes). Phillip is my best friend for almost 10 years now.
Roger puffed up his soap dish chest went on for at least 2 classes worth of time about how he “beat up his last bully and broke both of his arms, and almost went to prison, but his dad is a lawyer and bailed him out”. Dude was 16, and I don’t think he’d need to be bailed out, but okay… He was, in fact, very badass.
Those are all approximations of actual stories he told me, because my ADHD memory is shit, but you get the gist of it.
My days were filled with endless stories filled with absolute bullshit, like a Gary Stu from a dying rpg campaign. (I have a story about a DnD game he participated in, but that’s for another time!)
Roger, not content with lying to me about anecdotal facts about his past that could be true but were almost certainly mostly bullshit (if not entirely), had a tendency to just negate reality when presented with facts in certain situations.
And example of this situation is the time we were doing a group assignment and a girl at least 3 meters in front of him dropped her pencil and he just kinda threw himself on the ground, picked it up and said “Here you go, Lana!”. She said “Thanks Roger!”, barely turning around and carried on with the assignment. Roger, then, turned to me with a sleek shit feasting smirk on his face and said:
RB: “Dude, do you think she’s into me??”
I contained a ridiculing laughter just in time to realize he was dead serious.
I said “I don’t know man… Doesn’t seem like it to me, but sure I guess.”
RB then straight up asked ME to go talk to her and get HIM her number. When I asked why shouldn’t he do it, he said it was “the wingman’s job to get the number of the girl” so that he wouldn’t “look weak for asking”
I said I’d do it, cause I genuinely wanted to see if he was right about her liking him (I hadn’t really understood the dynamics of the classroom, so I actually had no idea if he was actually right, just a gut feeling that yeah, he probably wasn’t).
I went up to her and asked for her number, explaining it was Roger who was interested in her and, as I pulled out my raging 2014’s Sony XPeria, I was swiftly interrupted by her delicately saying “Sorry! I have a boyfriend.” (She said the boyfriend part out loud, and stared at Roger)
I said “Oh, ok, sorry to bother ya!” and, as I was starting to walk back, I noticed that she turned back and glared at Roger. Later that day her boyfriend texted him, telling him that “He’s got to stop asking her out, and next time, if he wants to get rejected, he should come do it himself” He called him a moron. And then they both blocked him.
Well, that was embarrassing.
Despite having been turned down (for the 6th time now, I’d come to find out), Roger still maintained that she was “totally into him”, and it wasn’t just Lana. Any time he had even the smallest interaction with any girl, he’d say that they’re “probably into him”, or that “they made out at a party, but she was drunk and probably won’t remember”, or that they “sent him nudes last year but he’s already deleted them because he’s a good person, with morals”.
This went on for a while and, after about a month, Roger begun to dial down the crazy stories about how he’s a “badass and he gets all the girls but he’s single because he’s too good for them”. Until I started seeing a girl from another church I started going to. I met Janice () at the churches youth group, and we talked the whole time afterwards about lots of stuff. This name’s given because of her insanely similar laughter and demeanor of Janice from Friends. We clicked well and I was very interested in her, but my ADHD ass forgot to get her number, and remembered it only when she had already left.
When I told Roger, he laughed and said “I had just cockblocked myself” and that I’d “probably missed my only chance of banging a girl ever”. I was bummed, but clarified I didn’t really want to have sex before marriage or at least before making an emotional connection (I had just then begun to go to church, so I didn’t really get the rules, so it was more of a personal choice I always had in mind when thinking about dating. Also I met her at church so wtf).
He said “that was dumb” and, “even though he was a virgin, he’d dance the Devil’s Tango with the first chick he had the chance to”
“What about Laura?”, I asked. His face went from a confident smirk to an almost sad expression, and he blankly replied: “She didn’t want to, but I tried anyway at times. I even got a blowie once!” I let it go because I was very tired, as Mondays are hell on earth.
A few classes later, I went up to him and reminded him of our conversation and asked:
I said “Ooookay, but what about all those girls you told me were all over you? Didn’t they want to have some bum bum times with you??”
He was taken by surprise by this, and was visibly trying so hard to think of an answer for at least 15 seconds. He mumbled “Well…”, and like just left. Like he got up in the middle of the class, and walked away. Well that was weird!
He got back and I didn’t pry, thinking he had some kind of trauma, and I tried to change the subject.
I say “tried” because instead we were suddenly interrupted by a girl asking me if I was Rick. I didn’t know her or how she had materialized beside our desks, but later I found out that that girl’s name was Mary. She had blue eyes and was smiling mischievously, and I answered “Yup, that’s me”. She then giggled and said that “Anna wanted to make out with me after class”. Me and Roger were both very much taken aback by this, and I immediately thought to myself that this could only be some type of dare or prank (which it probably was), and was about to try and respond with the first witty joke that popped up in my monkey brain when, without missing a beat, Roger said “Rick’s already seeing someone!”. Mary was visibly surprised and said “Oh, you have a girlfriend??” with a look of disbelief on her face. Ouch. I explained that I wouldn’t say I do, I just liked a girl from church and we’re going to see a movie with some friends on Saturday, and that either way it was a pass on the making out sesh! Mary said “Oh, okay!” and started to walk back to her desk. I was about to make a joke and say that Anna could probably do better than me, when Roger interjected:
RB: “I’d like a making out sesh if she’s interested!”
Mary looked back with a visible “Lol, ew no” expression and just said: “I’m sure you would, Roger!”, turned away and sat down, laughing with her friends when she got to her desk.
Roger turned to me and said:
RB: “Dude, do you think she’s into me?”
This cycle repeated once in a while, so I’m not gonna tell you all of the situations that I felt like shaking him and trying to wake him up like Woody does to Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. Exhausting, right?
Another thing Roger tended to brag about was that he did Martial Arts. Specifically, Kung Fu (Wushu). I would come to find out that, in the year before, he made a big scene to tell everyone in class that he’d just started Kung-Fu classes and, when no-one payed attention, he started a habit of punching the wall beside his desk, audibly making “hmpft” noises. When anyone asked why, he’d say he was training, and that his Sensei (Not shifu, he actually said sensei) had asked him to do that to strengthen his fists so he could harness all the strength he had, so one day he could put a hole through a wall with his fists.
He would also punch the school’s fireproof doors because, if you didn’t know, they dent pretty easily, and he would show me and tell me to bask at his strength and ability. That until I said I’d give it a try. He told me not to, because “I wasn’t trained” and “it could really hurt my hand”. I punched the door. It made a dent.
Roger said it was beginners luck and that he’s just a good teacher. I told him I really didn’t even make an effort to pay attention, the metal was just bendy and soft. Roger never talked about it again, and started only punching walls. For that, he would feel superior because, yeah I ain’t doing that. There were consequences for his wall punching habits, but I’ll address that some other time.
The last thing I’ll say about him for now is how clueless Roger was, how much he thought of himself and how he treated everyone else like they should (and would) respecting for what he told them, and not for what he showed them.
(I plan on doing another part eventually, with the story of how his disconnection with reality, lies, schemes and generally narcissist behavior eventually exploded back into his face.)
As a last bit of exposition of our circumstances, there’s an important part of our school life that fueled Roger’s social life’s demise.
Pranking was a big part of my class’ culture. There were also some people in my classroom who were bullied. The thing is: the bullies actually made fun of literally everyone else, which made it very hard to figure out if you were considered a target or just a colleague. They’d mess with people’s stuff, tie backpacks to the windows and hide pencil cases, but they would also do it to their own group.
Essentially, the only way to differentiate those who they considered normal schoolmates from those who were bullied was the frequency of the pranks and their demeanor in general towards those people. They would apologize for the pranks, ask to make up for it, buy you lunch, make jokes, try to laugh with you. I swear some of those guys were politicians in the making. Luckily, was very good friends with one of the guys in that group, I’ll call him Turkey, who was also held back a few years before me, and he liked my sister, so I was mostly safe.
Roger, on the other hand, THOUGHT he was one of the pranksters. Every time someone pranked him or anyone else, he would laugh knowingly, like he was in on the joke the whole time, and try to make jokes, only to further humiliate himself. And they would capitalize on that as hard as they could.
You see, Roger liked to portray himself as the “Mysterious-Badass-Quiet-Protagonist-Take-No-Shit-From-Anyone-Mr.-Steal-Yo-Girl” guy. This combo of personality substitutes was the recipe for the downfall of his popularity, and the start of the longest lasting pranks I’ve ever seen in my life, which will come if yall want another post. That prank is also the reason I named him Roger Bacon.
Because he was so into Math and Science (and into himself too lol) he also always wanted to look like the smartest guy in the room. The problem is that, as our first semester went by, it became clear that he wasn’t as good as he hyped himself up to be. Shocker, right? This was proven to be true when we were doing a chemistry group test, and I was paired with him and Anna, and we needed to calculate some entropies or whatever. He made a point of telling us to do all of the “easy ones”, and he would take on the more complicated questions.
The thing is, he was trying really hard to look like a genius, to maybe impress Anna, so every time he made a calculation, he would roll his eyes up and kinda vibrate a little. I guess he wanted to look like a genius mathematics robot, but instead he looked like he was trying to imitate an autistic person having a small stroke. I didn’t mind the Good Doctor amateur impersonation, because at least it looked like he knew what he was doing. Unfortunately, it really just looked like he knew what he was doing.
Each easy question of the test was worth 1 point, and there were 4 of them, and there were 3 hard questions worth 2 points each. We got a 4/10 on that test, and lo and behold, the only questions we got right were the ones me and Anna worked on. We were a bit pissed, not gonna lie.
Until the last time we spoke, Roger still blames Anna for his complete failure at this test for, in his words, distracting him because she was obviously into him.
But that’s just Roger, I guess!
I've got A LOT of stories about Roger and other neckbeards I've encountered, and I can't wait to tell them!
Until then, thanks for reading, and have a good one yall!

*Note: This post was originally deleted from /helloicon and am just reposting here to make sure it is documented and not being censored or deleted.
Edit: I know very well that the community tends to downvote any sort of negativity surrounding the project. However, instead of immediately downvoting me, take the time to digest what I'm trying to say. If any ICON team members want to provide any counter-arguments (though I am certain they will not be able to justify every single thing I will have to say, especially in part 2/3), i would love to hear them. Some sort of transparency and communication from the team would be nice for a change. I believe this isn't just a trivial thing either. This is something that warrants a response from the team. There have been questions that have been buried and ignored when this initially happened. The community deserves better.
If anyone has been here from the start, my name might ring a bell. I was the Lead communications/community manager for ICON for quite some time. I helped cultivate and manage the communities during its peak. In comparison, here is a blockchain project that had similar popularity and trading volume to ICX.
I will make a separate post later going into greater depth about all the things, but for now, I'll stick to basically one thing I wanted to address first. In short though, I absolutely have no faith in this project or team anymore. I think the ICON team has consistently demonstrated a complete lack of transparency, poor judgement, and a company that is embarrassingly slow at adopting new strategies and adapting to the constantly evolving landscape.
There's a whole laundry list of reasons I could get into, but as I stated earlier, i will get into most of it in another post. First thing I want to address is ICON's first dApp, Blue Whale Foundation. I am waiting to see if I get replies from past Blue Whale Foundation members so I can just verify some things before writing more extensively about it, and get confirmation on some things.
For those that don't know, Blue Whale Foundation (BWX) was ICON's first dApp, and it was promoted directly by Min and two senior ICON council members were Advisors for Blue Whale Foundation, including ICONLOOP/PARAMETA's CEO. https://medium.com/biomanforcerose/ico-analysis-5-reasons-why-you-should-have-a-look-to-blue-whale-foundation-4bb55ef3bff3
I don't know if this was ever addressed, but BWX appears to have been a pump&dump/exit scam after the successful ICO launch. Majority of the people on Blue Whale's team immediately departed after the ICO, leading me to believe that they knew this was an empty shell of a project. Blue Whale abruptly closed operations in 2022, leaving many people frustrated and angry. I believe the BWF team recruited me to give BWF an air of more legitimacy. To be clear, I had zero knowledge of what was going to happen, and I was compensated a very modest and flat monthly rate for only a few months, and did not receive any bonus or incentives for making the ICO successful. I believe that other people involved may have gotten paid significantly more than I did, and that they simply used me for my likeness and status within the ICON community to legitimize and get ICON supporters to invest. For anyone that ended up buying because of me, I truly am sorry, and I had absolutely no idea that this was going to be the end result. I should have done more due diligence, but even if I did, I don't know if it would have made a difference because some of the damning information wasnt available until after the ICO. Also, because Min and ICON Council Members approved, endorsed, or were involved in the BWF project, I thought this ICON vetted this project and team. I had always felt terrible once I realized what the BWF team has done, but I didnt fully realize until I left ICON and blockchain space completely. Last I heard from BWF team was that they were going to take some time off after the ICO launch and I didnt hear back from them again. They actually left me in the dark completely for some time, and I was emailing them confused asking what I am supposed to be doing. For a month before the ICO, it was radio silence despite my repeated attempts to get a hold of them, and i finally heard back a month later when they told me that the team went on vacation or something? I can pull up email logs later.
Unfortunately, it seems like this was a pump and dump exit scam after the ICO launched. The ICO raised nearly $4million USD, and I believe the other members on the team could have earned potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars. The amount I earned? Very low, but somehow was actually a bit higher than what ICON was paying me monthly which was like barely above minimum wage at the time.
I will share more details in a future post regarding this, but I mainly want to apologize to anyone that bought and ended up losing money on $BWX. I had no idea that this was BWX's true agenda, and all of the information was deliberately kept from me from by the BWF team. I recently did some digging on the founder of BWX, Will Lee, and he states that he is a "serial entrepreneur", but in reality, I believe he is more of a serial griftescammer, and don't know why ICON and Min endorsed this project and the founder in the first place. I believe it was either gross negligence and incompetence from ICON or it was fraud considering that the ICON council members received compensation from the ICO.
Anyone that knows me knows I have been maybe one of the strongest advocates for ICON, and I would even go as far as saying that despite ICON's no communication policy, I believed I played a major role for ICON maintaining and even growing the community even during the extended bear market period. Maybe it was a coincidence, but there was a dramatic decrease in engagement and interest in the ICON project when I decreased my involvement and eventually left all together. Maybe it was a coincidence? Or maybe it wasn't. What I do know is that other projects i consulted on at the time immediately saw lifts in their community numbers when I gave them a hand.
I want to make it clear that while this is primarily about BWF, this is just one of many things that ICON handled poorly, did not address or take accountability, and showed how little they cared about its community considering that many people that bought BWF were likely those involved in ICX.
I didnt have time to proof read this because I'm sleepy and need to take a nap, so sorry if my thoughts are a bit disjointed or if this is just filled with some grammatical errors.
This is also just one of many many red flags and issues that I have with ICON, and why I no longer have faith in this project. I will post a part 2 and maybe part 3 later that are directly related to ICON, the team, amongst many other things, including my personal experience working for them.
edit: also just wanted to say hi to all the amazing and cool people in the community that were around when i was around. while i cant say too many great things about icon, i can say that a lot of you guys here are genuinely awesome people who helped keep my sanity intact. and im sure there are some that hated me too, and its understandable. My unspoken role at ICON was being the person at whom people can direct their frustrations and anger at, but hopefully, you don't hold it against me. To any new people, welcome, but I want you to know that if you do end up sticking around, be mentally prepared for an endless, repeating cycle of being disappointed, getting your hopes up a tiny bit, only to be let down again. Then repeat.

I (F28) am part of a group of girls who meets to play board games and sometimes Switch games on the weekend. One of the girls (F26), who we’ll call Sarah, has been my friend for 5 years. The past 3 years in particular we've become inseparable, and I've considered her to be my best friend. She's very religious, I believe in god but have had some issues with organized religion, and we've discussed our views on this respectfully at length over the years. (This will come in later, and I have absolutely nothing against people who are really into organized religion I just had to take a break for personal reasons.)
She had been dating our mutual friend (who we met around the same time) for about a year, before breaking up with her a month ago pretty suddenly. Her ex (F25), who we’ll call Hana, is in the group of girls who comes over on the weekend. The whole group was surprised by the breakup, as prior to this they had been pretty seriously planning a future wedding and they seemed to have very few issues. Sara told her that she needed to work on herself, and maybe they could get back together in the future but that she wouldn't blame her for moving on.
When I talked to her about it, she said she hasn't been as involved in her church as she would like to be in this relationship and she wanted people in her life who put more pressure on her to go to church. So I tried my best to be more supportive of her, and when she'd ask my opinion on things in life I’d redirect her to her churches stance. She started going to church every Sunday, and I even went with her once to show my support. (But let her know that I was only comfortable with the one time.)
After that, she became obsessed with figuring out her sexuality. (Which I totally get, but the whole process was very strange.) She'd talk to me a lot about the boys at church. She seemed very focused on finding a boy who was hot enough to convince herself that she was sexually attracted to them, or rich enough that she could take it easy but didn't want to sleep with them or let them sleep with anyone else. All the while texting Hana her “self progress” everyday, and getting upset if she perceived Hana’s behaviors as moving on too quickly.
I told her list of requirements in a partner seemed unrealistic. (He had to be solid 9 or 10 physically, wealthy, didn't care if they ever had sex for the rest of their life, and let her do whatever she wanted on their dime.) And most importantly, to me, she wasn't treating Hana fairly. She told Hana that she wasn't going to date at all, and was purely figuring her life out. Meanwhile she had been telling everyone else in the friend group that she didn't want her back, but was just scared no one else would take her.
The comment was made gently, but directly, and I could tell it upset her but she changed the subject immediately.
A few days later, we introduced a new girl to girls night. She was a gem, but had happened to sit next to Hana by chance. The two didn't know each other, and maybe spoke a total of three times one on one. When the event ended, Hana gave her a quick hug and welcomed her to the group before asking Sara if she could walk her to her car. Sara declined passively, and everyone left.
I thought everything went well, but then Sara then called me. She ranted that they were disrespecting her by flirting right in front of her, which was super surprising to me. They hadn't flirted at all in my opinion. When I tried to calm her down, she accused me of trying to set them up. I said I wasn't doing anything of the sort, and she seemed to calm down.
After that she was very distance, and only invited me to spend time with her church friends as opposed to our usual one on one hangouts. I originally didn't think anything of it, but when I was there Sara began to openly discuss LGBT stuff with her church group in reference to both herself and me. This is a church known for opposing LGBT. I panicked (I didn’t know these people), and remarked that obviously we weren't trying to attack their beliefs. They all gave me a harsh look, most of all Sara, and stated that every girl in the group was LGBT. Sara then explained that she had invited me for that reason. I was beyond uncomfortable due to the lack of heads up, and they were all very cold to me after that.
The next day her Ex, Hana, called and told me that she wanted the new girl uninvited from the group. I was surprised, and asked if Sara had asked her to call me about this. She immediately began to dodge the question, and I told her that I couldn't handle Sara’s break up drama anymore. Hana asked what I meant by that, and I asked if Sara had mentioned why she wanted the new girl removed. This caught her off guard, and she realized that she hadn't been given any reasons. I asked if she'd give the new girl another chance, as she hadn't done anything wrong, and she reluctantly agreed.
After that Sara became more cold than ever, and texted me that I wasn't being a good friend. I asked how, and she didn't respond.
I tried meeting her one on one to see how things were going, and she was very distance. She seemed to be leaving her church, and was almost treating me like I was bigoted for asking about it. When a week ago it was her biggest priority. I dropped it, and tried to ask if she was okay overall, and she shrugged it off.
A few days later, she sent me a text that said that I no longer fit into her life, and not to come by her house. She then blocked me everywhere without any reasons. I tried my best to support her in finding herself, but feel like I was punished for being supportive of what she said she wanted last week just to have her decide the opposite by the next time I saw her.
I don't understand what went wrong, and I'm devastated.

Gotta rant here because I have nowhere else to say it.
I had pretty good vision about 2 years ago. Perfectly clear. I didn't need glasses. Could see and focus well. But sometime around August 2022, my vision started deteriorating fast.
I remember it started when I was in a white bathroom and looked around and noticed a shadow in the corner of my vision in the right eye. Thought nothing of it. Sometimes you just see things right? Well as days progress, I keep seeing this shadow more and at some point I realized it is whats known as a floater. I was devastated at this point because now this is something permanent that I must live with for the rest of my life. But I figure I could live with it so long as it doesn't get worse. But as the weeks go by, it does continue to get worse. The shadow becomes more visible and defined. Now it's more of a cobweb/stringy line that moves back and forth as I look left/right. And soon enough, I start to see the exact same thing happen with my left eye. A little shadow at first, but now its a big cobweb line that shifts left/right with my vision. I tell my parents and they dismiss it. "Oh I have those too, it just happens with age you will learn to ignore it". I'm sure we have all heard this before. BUT I CANT IGNORE THEM. Grab two pieces of dark thread you would use for sewing clothes. Now tape those threads over your eyes so the string dangles down in front your eye balls. Every time you move your head, you see the strings move right? Thats basically what I have been seeing 24/7 since this began. I literally CANT ignore them I see them EVERY TIME I MOVE. It's just not something my brain is able to adapt to. The change is too sudden.
But of course, no one will listen. I just need to give it more time. So I did. Floaters continued to get worse. Now it's not just the dark lines, I am seeing a whole bunch of the clear ones too. If I squint and look at something bright, it doesn't even matter the color, I can see thousands if not millions of these clear floaters. Most of them are individual dots while some are connected into lines and shapes.
So at this point I decide to go get checked by an eye doc. This was maybe around Nov/Dec 2022. They do an exam and tell me everything looks good. They can't even see my floaters. And I get the same speech. "you will learn to ignore them"
Pardon my language but I am just fucking sick of being told that. It's been nearly 2 years now and I haven't learned to ignore anything. It feels like it keeps getting worse. I have so many clear floaters now that I am seeing them in many lighting conditions. Even looking at my pc screen I can see them sometimes. Not to mention my vision has just become worse over time. Pretty sure I need glasses now for night time especially. It has become difficult to focus in on solid colors. Especially blue light. A blue LED at night time just looks like a fuzzy ball now.
It just feels like my eyesight has deteriorated so fast and suddenly and everyone is telling me this is normal and OK. When I do a google most results say "you typically get floaters when your over 40". Why do I have to get SO MANY at such a young age (25 when it began)? I ask my brother who is 7 years older than me and he says he only has a few and barely notices them. But somehow, I got the shittiest roll of the dice and lost my clear vision already. I hate it so much. I hate that theres no one who will listen to me. I hate that I will never see clearly again. It has truly taken a lot of joy out of life for me. I try to look on the bright side of things. There are people who are blind and have it way worse than me. But it still doesn't change the fact that I still have to deal with this for the rest of my life.
I am seriously considering things like vitrectomy or going to another country and trying some experimental nanopartical treatment. I know the risks. Cataracts, retinal detachment, etc. But I mean if my vision is already going to shit then I am willing to take whatever small chance there is to get it back. I just want to be able to look at nature again, watch a movie, or stare at the clouds without these floaters anymore.

"You should go to Hallett. We went last year and it was fun. A good track for Miata's"
My friend Gerry the Texan who along with his team brings several Miata's to races all over from Road America to Houston to Seibring. It's a great bunch of people who are having a blast racing Lemons. He told me that and it got me to thinking. We wanted to go to a new track this year and after the disappointment at Barber going somewhere and having some fun sounded good. Also Hallett is noted for having a smaller field so we could be competitive. I always say that Barber is more like a pro level Lemons race in that it attracts the faster and better prepped teams. Road America was like that too.
But first we have to fix the car. As typical, we wait until the race is almost upon us to start. There's the matter of how bad the car is bent from the last race where Manny hit the wall. They thought it was good but we need to check this.
After pulling the rear sub frame in hopes of replacing it we learn that a 90 is a bit different than a 91 subframe or a 2001 subframe. Supposedly it all interchanges but after looking over the differences, Youngest adds a few reinforcements at places the internet gurus say are the weak points and we put the rear end together and put it back in the car. Then we check the alignment. To my great surprise the rear camber and caster is spot on. I was shocked, but the crew did a great job that night fixing the car while it was up on jack stands. Using just a tape measure they got the car really close. Toe was out but the borrowed porta powers got the bent subframe where it needed to be.
We changed the oil and brake fluid, bled the system where we took the rear apart to drop the subframe.
Another project we attempted was to swap in a larger fuel tank. Manny who has been helping with the repairs found a article on the internet that said you could bolt in a NB fuel tank out of a 2001 or so Miata and gain a gallon of fuel capacity. Yeah, that is not possible. The tank has a hump where the car does not and would involve cutting a hole in the car which would be a bit noticeable. Not worth it for such a little gain. Good news is I now have two extra NB tanks if anyone needs one. A gallon would not seem to be that much but we are still dreaming of two stopping the car at certain tracks, stretching our mileage to only stop every two hours and 25 minutes and make a seven hour day with one less stop. It's not all about raw speed, strategy can make a difference. One less stop per day could potentially add ten laps in a weekend of racing at certain tracks.
After we got the subframe in and the car aligned Youngest pulled it all apart again. He was not happy with the bushings holding the rear differential in place. The rear has to move a bit so it is not solid mounted, it actually can pivot a slight bit. He felt the bushings holding it were letting it move too freely.
Once again we put the car back together.
All during this time Manny and FabGuy have been working hard on a new car. Manny got a little crazy on Co-part. First one Miata shows up at our shop. Then another. Then another. I started joking with the guys "Hi I'm Manny, I might have a Miata addiction". Yeah. So after a lot of looking we have three wrecked cars, one being a automatic that was absolutely destroyed. It had zero good body panels and even the front subframe was pushed back where it had got up on something in a wreck. I think the only things we saved off that car was a rear axle, engine, transmission and the hard top which was cracked but usable.
We then robbed enough body parts off of one to put on the other so we ended up with a mostly maroon car with a drivers side red fender, red door and silver hardtop. I say we but all we did at the shop was to take the cars apart, everything else went to Manny's garage where he and FabGuy installed the cage and built the car. They did bring it over a time or two to put in the air to install a few parts or when we aligned it. The build and fitment were top notch on the car, lots of nice parts went in, like a better seat and belts than we use on our Miata. Like most builds they were literally bolting parts to it the night before we loaded the car to head west.
Finally both cars are prepped and it's time to get on the road. Manny has a business where he uses two rollbacks and moves cars mostly to and from car lots and auction lots. So he gets the newer one of the two trucks and shows up at the shop Thursday morning. RacerGuy and I are already there and have hooked our camper to RacerGuys truck. I am leaving my trucks at home, but taking our race trailer and our camper. The plan is to hook the camper to RacerGuys diesel F250 and hook the race trailer to Manny's newish Chevy 4500.
The plan nearly goes off the rails when Manny shows up and I get to looking at his truck. Being in the business I can't not help but look at tires. His drives are terrible, two are bald, one is soft and one showing wire. I go to air up one of the bald ones and it's not having it. Air is leaking out as fast as it was going in. In Manny's defense his employee was driving this truck and Manny had not seen it in weeks. I had already loaded tire tools and extra spare tires for every truck and trailer in the caravan except RacerGuy's truck and I would have got a spare for it too if I had thought about it. With nothing else to do, we all jump in and start busting tires. Forty five minutes later we have four new drives on the truck and we are in a much better spot to make the long drive. I hadn't done any big truck tires for a long time, sold that part of the business. Still got it, just like riding a bike.
We find I40 and start clicking off miles. Manny has already told us the limiting factor which is that GM put a really tiny fuel tank in his truck so we are forced to stop every 160-180 miles for fuel. It slows us down but it's not all bad, we find a roadside BBQ joint that looks like a camper up on blocks that has a huge parking lot and a ton of customers lining up. Of course we try it out, the best BBQ comes from little places like that, not the ones with massive buildings.
We cross Arkansas and I think it was the first time I ever went that way westbound on 40. Came back the other side when we brought the box truck back where we bought it in California. We finally make Oklahoma and bent north to go to Tulsa. Did not see the Tulsa King anywhere, stopped in a Super Walmart and stocked up on groceries for the weekend. Hallett is in the middle of nowhere, so we are planning on eating at the track.
We get there and make our way into the paddock. This will be the first time we have every camped inside the track. They have a cross over with gates that close during when the track is hot and a tunnel for access when the gates are closed. The tunnel looks kind of tight, I'm happy to not test the posted height limits. It says our trailers should fit. Yeah we will wait.
We hustle to get the camper leveled and the generator cranked up. For the next three days it will run non-stop to keep the fridge cold and our lights on. We run the a/c but for the most part temps are very nice.
The next morning we are up and on the road after the drivers meeting. We go to Pawnee, take in some sights then hit Stillwater for some parts and pieces at a hardware store. We also gas up all our empty gas cans so we are ready for race day.
Back at the track Manny and Fabguy are unloading their car off the back of the rollback. It was nice carrying one and towing one car. They go out and practice a bit, come in and make some changes then go out again. It's a new build and everyone has realistic expectations about the car. We are all expecting issues as it takes a while to find the weak spots and fix them.
We get our car out and practice. We send three of the four drivers out and have them run a few laps. I'm about to get ready and go out when RacerGuy comes in and says he felt something pop. We get to looking and the adjuster is gone off the alternator. Look a little more and the bolt has broken off in the alternator. So we have a spare motor in the trailer but it is missing the adjuster. Looks like we need the adjuster, the bolt and the alternator. We make a few visits around the paddock to look for parts but none of the other Miata teams have what we need. Youngest goes into the trailer and in a small miracle finds the adjuster laying under the spare motor loose. He and Coach head into Tulsa on a parts run while Manny agrees to put me into their car for a few laps so I can get a feel for the track. I've watched a hundred laps on Youtube but nothing is like actually driving the track. I go out and don't push things too hard. It is a very worn surface with some patches, particularly in the groove of turn two. Manny's car drives a lot different than ours, you can really tell you have more power and grip. Their tires are a lot wider as well as having 30-40 more hp. They have been working on the car all day and just finished taking off the lines where they installed a remote oil filter, they were not Lemons grade and were leaking.
Just before dark Youngest gets the parts on the car. We also install a helmet blower, we are going to try to use the air to defrost the windshield. All reports indicate rain is coming Sunday.
Then it's dinner time. Our friends from Minnesota have brought pure Lemons art down in the form of a Chrysler Magnum wagon powered by a slant 6 that is mid mounted. It is a engineering feat and runs out nicely. Adam the team leader and I have been planning and they are cooking for us for tonight and we are cooking for them Saturday night. They show us up by putting on a feed with steaks and salad. I'm feeling bad about the fact we are serving hamburgers, coleslaw and potato salad the next night. It was great.
Saturday morning dawns and we are up and moving around. I give up waiting on a shower as the line is too long inside and try the outdoor shower. It has no roof, just walls. It was ok. The next morning I tried it again and it was freezing, no hot water!
I skip breakfast and get ready to get in the car. I want to get on the grid early as I still am not feeling great about the track. The laps in Manny's car did not give me much to make me feel really attuned to the track as I was learning both the car and the track at the same time. I want all the practice laps I can get in our car. The line up is me, Youngest, Coach and then RacerGuy bringing up the finish for the day. FabGuy is gridded about ten cars behind us and he is under team orders to take it easy to start the race.
We get out and start doing pace laps. Soon enough it's green and the race is on. A few laps in Fabguy blasts by me. So much for taking it easy. Going into turn 2 I see a car off track. I mean he's not a little off the racing surface, he's 150 feet off the corner and just about in the tree line. I wonder what happened there. I am starting to get the hang of the track and pick up some speed. Then I mess up early on and miss the line completely going into turn 9 from 8 and run off the track. I fire the car back up and quickly exit and head to the penalty box.
"what happened?'
"I missed the line and ran out of asphalt and talent all about the same time"
The judge kind of laughs, "keep it on the track" and sends me back out. Youngest has made it to penalty and looks the car over from my adventure in the dirt and grass and gives the go ahead. If you are going to mess up do it right at the entrance to pit road, it really cuts down your time off track!
I run clean the rest of the stint. I tiptoe around the corner I went off but run hard the rest of the track without pushing so hard I get off again. Then Youngest, then Coach. We are having one of the best days we have ever had at the track. Besides my adventure off track no one else has messed up. Our stops are clean and quick. Our times top to bottom are very similar and consistent. Something strange is happening. We are in the top 15 overall and since we managed to get put in B class we are doing very well. Only 50 cars at Hallett this weekend, the smallest Lemons field we have ever competed against.
Fabguy pulls off to go to the gas pumps. We are fueling on pit road but they are going to just fuel at the pumps this race. They aren't planning on winning anything so why go to all the trouble of getting all your gear on and doing hot pit stops? Fabguy comes off a little hot and the officials come over to tell them they were over the ten mph paddock limit. Manyy drives the car up to the penalty and Fabguy comes up and they are told they are good to go. Later Manny gets off the track and goes to penalty. They start in on him not serving the penalty for going too fast in the pits. "we served that penalty" The judge goes off "do you really want to argue about this" Later when they realize the team was right and the previous judge had not marked it off the offenders list before going on break. In a first the judge apologizes to them.
With about two hours left in the day their Miata is towed off. The engine is super hot and will not crank. All signs look bad. Later it cools off and will crank, but cranks with ease, signs of a engine that has lost all compression. Their weekend is done and Fabguy heads out to get a headstart on getting to work early Monday. The rest of us will pull an all nighter after the race Sunday.
I start doing the math and realize it's going to be very tight. We make our calcuations based on a normal 7 hour race day. Today is a 7.5 hour day which is a bit longer than normal when racing Lemons. I figured out the stints and got it wrong. We realize our mistake and run Coach a bit longer before we put in RacerGuy. It's going to come right down to the limit of our fuel mileage. We start planning dinner and cleaning up the paddock with about ten minutes to go when all the sudden we realize the car is not out there. We run to the pumps and find Racerguy there. He ran out and limped the car to the pumps but could not get all the way there. By the time we get the car pushed around to get fuel the race is over for the day. I feel like a total idiot, I could have ran another five minutes easily in the car in the morning and not had this problem.
But the good news is that somehow even after I went off the track and and then we ran out of gas was that we were still very good on the day. We had enough of a lead on the car behind us in Class B that we still had a 7 lap lead even after running out of gas. Even better our paddock mates in the Chrysler are putting a shellacking on Class C as well. Their Magnum wagon is running a Richard Petty scheme, they all have uniforms and the requisite trademark Petty cowboy hat and STP logos, only this time it means "Slow Through Paddock" signs and all. They actually shouted this out when doing the morning driving meeting when they were going over the rules. "STP, Slow through Paddock!" every time the officials discussed that rule in the drivers meeting.
We put everything away, rain is moving in. We are in shock about how well everything is going. Surely we will find a way to loose this race tomorrow. Will other cars be faster in the rain? Will we shoot ourselves in the foot and have poor driving and get multiple black flags? Will something break on the car which has been running great all day long? And who the heck is this Coach guy? All that and more when we wrap up this in the next part of this story. Stay tuned!

Hi, I’m bonzos-number-1-fan You might know me from such theories as; "Theory of Fears; or, Zur Furchtlehre", "What R# Means: The ABCs of Fear" or, "Padlocks, How Do They Even Work?".
I’m back with another essay about this show. Today’s subject is a little different from previous ones. Rather than explaining what I think something in this show is, I’ll be explaining what I think it isn’t. What I’m going to be talking about is the very popular theory that CAT1/2/3 means the supernatural aspect is a Person/Place/Object.
Because I’m talking about other people’s ideas here I do want to start off by saying I understand why this theory is attractive and I don’t think anyone is stupid or anything for believing it. I just personally think there are angles from which it doesn’t work and that the sum of them makes it fairly certain to be untrue. I could be very wrong about that, and my other theories, or I could be very right. I don’t think either scenario matters much. This essay isn’t about being right but about talking about a big thing in the community. I just happen to not believe this one and people have signalled interest in hearing why.
So with all that out of the way I’m going to start by establishing the terminology being used. Then I’ll break down what this theory is positing and follow it up with the ways I think it does and doesn’t work. That’s basically it but with 16 episodes and supplemental material to cover it’s still not going to be terribly short.
Huge thanks to @brettanomycroft for proof reading/editing this madness.

Spoilers for The Magnus Protocol up to and including episode 16.

 

What is a CAT#?

A CAT# is the first 4-5 characters of an OIAR's incident report header. While these are not often referenced in the main body of the show, each incident we hear is accompanied by one in the show's description and transcript. As an example this is the case number for the first incident of episode 1.

CAT1RBC5257-12052022-09012024

Reanimation (Partial) -/- Regret [Email]

The first line is the case number. CAT1 is this incident's CAT#. The RBC (R#/Rank) and 5257 (DPHW) have been topics I've discussed in essays I linked at the start. The second line is the header and is formatted “Section (Subsection) -/- Crosslink [Format]”. CAT#s is all we're concerning ourselves with today but I will be using this terminology going forward.
Now we know what they look like, what is it we know about them? Well, not much at all. From the show itself we know there are CAT1s, CAT2s, CAT3s and CAT23s. From the Klaus excel sheet that was found as part of the ARG (and can be found here) we also know there are CAT12s and CAT13s. With that information we can say with some certainty that CAT1, CAT2, and CAT3 are non-mutually exclusive groupings. It's very likely not a linear scale of some description—i.e CAT23 isn't between CAT2 and CAT3—because CAT13 doesn't fit such a scale. Which means that where there are two numbers in a CAT# that incident likely fits both groups rather than being a new group. This also strongly implies that an incident could be CAT123 although we have yet to see that demonstrated.
We also know that CAT is short for "Category". In the Klaus sheet these numbers are located in the "Kategorie" column. "Kategorie" being German for "category". This unfortunately doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know. CAT#s denote some form of grouping.
There is only one other fact we know about CAT#s and that's this:

ALICE
Right, so, after each entry there's four numbers. That’s the DPHW. So, “dolls comma watching” is… 1157. Then you cross reference with the table here, that would be a 2-C, and then you type that into the box here, along with date of incident if there is one and today’s date.

Which is not a lot to go on at all but it does raise an important question. How is a CAT# assigned? There are two major assumptions you could make here. The first is the “objective method” and that it’s a factor of either the section, subject, DPHW or a combination thereof. This means that they are pre-assigned in the same way that DPHWs are. This method has an inherent trait in that it means every header manifests as the same sort of thing. While it’s not a problem to say that every Doll (Watching) is the same— that could just be the rules of the setting—it does make CAT# itself somewhat redundant. The terminology of the headers will often describe something inherent about the CAT#. We have a CAT3 case that’s Dice (Bone) -/- Fate but dice are objects so why would you need to restate that?
The second is the “subjective method” in which the assessor chooses the CAT# based on the incident itself. The subjective method has a larger assumption built into it in that they know what CAT#s are. They don’t know what DPHW is and have shown no indication of knowing what CAT# is either. So I’d say it’s less likely that CAT#s are subjective rather than objective. However, for the purposes of this essay I will assume that both are as likely to be true as each other and will refer to them both. Different cases show different flaws when one of these is true over the other, so both will get discussed.
 

What is Person/Place/Object?

Person/Place/Object is the theory that the three single digit CAT#s stand for Person, Place, and Object respectively. Combinations of these digits represent that an incident falls into each category. A CAT1 incident indicates that the supernatural element of an incident is a person in some respect, while a CAT23 would indicate both a place and an object.
As I have mentioned this isn’t a theory with a single theorist or origin to point to. As such this theory isn’t a monolith and there is variation in how these categories are presented from theory to theory. Sometimes “Person” is literal and other times it includes any sentient thing, “places” aren’t always strictly physical locations, and the narrative framing of what “objects” are may shift. As such I will be taking the broadest interpretation of these categories as their definitions.
People will include animals and other sentient beings. Places will include metaphysical locations. Objects won’t need to be physical in nature. This is both the fairest I can be to all theories and also the strongest I can make this theory. The broader I can make these definitions, the more different ideas can be represented and the more wiggle room the CAT#s get.
What I’ll do next is run through all the incidents the show has mentioned and explain them as I see it. We’ll start with the ones that fit this theory well because they require little explanation. Then when that’s established we’ll talk about the places I think this theory falls down.
 

Which Incidents fit well?

CAT1:

CAT1RBC5257 Reanimation (Partial) -/- Regret: There is something like a zombie in this incident. That’s something like a person and so fits well.
CAT1RB4824 Injury (Needles) -/- Intimidation: Needles is definitely a person, no question there.
CAT1RB2275 Mascot (Kids) -/- Murder: Bonzo walks, “talks”, and probably thinks. He’s a person.
CAT1B4728 Mascot (Kids) -/- Frenzy: Bonzo is still doing that stuff so is still a person.
CAT1RB4426 Transformation (Snake) -/-Horde: There was a person and they turned into snakes. Snakes count as people here too. Given the amount of snakes this is the most CAT1 CAT1.
CAT1RB-6451 Hunt (Aristocratic) -/- Compulsion: Lady M is the most person on this list.
CAT1RB1565 Tattoo (Influencer) -/- Cardiac: Definitely involves a person doing something supernatural.
 

CAT2:

CAT2C8175 Infection (Full Body) -/- Arboreal: This incident takes place in a time and space bending garden. Makes perfect sense for CAT2.
CAT2RB2377 Disappearance (Undetermined) -/- Invitation: A spooky theatre is a location for sure.
 

CAT3:

CAT3RBC1567 Transformation (Full) -/- Dysmorphic: In this instance the object in question is the tattoo. Which I think is really stretching the definition of “object” but I’m still going to give it to the theory.
CAT3C7494 Collection (Blood) -/- Musical: A magical violin is definitely an object.
CAT3RB3354 Dice (Bone) -/- Fate: Bone dice are inarguably objects.
CAT3RB4622 Gambling (Application) -/- Murder: It’s another stretch to call an app an object but, again, happy to give it to the theory.
 

CAT23:

CAT23RAB2155 Transformation (Eyes) -/- Trespass: In this incident’s case the location is the Magnus Institute and the object is the box RedCanary stole. I think there are some problems with this one but there is enough to get through.
 

Which Incidents Don't?

CAT1:

CAT1RBC5257 Reanimation (Partial) -/- Regret: You’re not misremembering, I did say this fit well. Because on the surface it really does make sense, but I think if you push just a little it makes very little sense. Why? Because any category you want to place this in is easily justified in the incident itself. There is a zombie-esque thing but also a Frankenstein-esque figure for CAT1. CAT 2 would be the location of the graveyard itself. It was chosen by the presumed creator of this zombie-like creature and is depicted similar to the one in Marked, a CAT23 incident. If this theory is correct and the Marked graveyard is supernatural I can’t see a reason to discount that possibility here. CAT3 fits too because the presumed creation method is that they were Frankenstein-ed which does require some sort of surgical apparatus. But whichever choice you make you’ve not really clarified the incident at all.
This issue is further seen in the methodology of assigning CAT#s.Objectively it has the same problem all objective assignments do. Reanimation implies there is going to be a reanimated person so restating that doesn’t add much. If we look at the subjective method then this is chosen largely at random. There isn’t enough of an indication in this incident to clearly state which CAT this is. So it’s neither helped in the assessment of the incident and doesn’t provide anything for response because all choices are justifiable.
 
CAT1RB4426 Transformation (Snake) -/- Horde: Not misremembering here either. There is a problem with this one in that it’s demonstrated to be an infection. This makes the source of the affliction basically unknowable. The source could qualify it for other CATs but the larger issue here is that what CAT1 means here and what it means elsewhere are not that comparable. Needles, Bonzo, and Lady M are all sentient and independent. The afflicted we see in this case are normal people until they get very rapidly sick, summon a portal to the snake dimension in their throats, and die. Which leaves CAT1 translating to “something in the rough shape of a person” which is a really wide range of interpretations. Which is something I feel has little practical utility in either assessing or responding to these incidents.
 
CAT1RB1565 Tattoo (Influencer) -/- Cardiac: Still not misremembering. While you can say that Ink5oul or Madame E are the person in this instance there is a major conflict here with CAT3RBC1567 Transformation (Full) -/- Dysmorphic. If Daria’s transformation was CAT3 because tattoos are objects then there is no reasonable justification that this isn’t at least CAT13. It’s the same person, doing the same thing, to a very similar result but in a different CAT. The headers are entirely different, and so this/that may be misfiled, but it highlights a problem with Daria’s incident. If the incident with the Tattoo header isn’t an object then tattoos are probably not objects under this scheme.
If this is objective then this is always a person, or on people, which makes a great deal of sense. However if that’s the case then the objective method for Daria’s case sort of falls apart because there wasn’t really a secondary object there. Additionally, because all incidents with that case’s header being objects is a huge stretch. So if this incident, or that incident, is misfiled it doesn’t really matter. In either case (or even if both of them are misfiled), it largely disproves that tattoos are objects, creating a larger issue with that theory as it affects more than just this case. Subjectively as far as we’re aware Sam filed all three of the Ink5oul incidents. So he chose an object in Daria’s case but then opted against it here despite there being no real reason to that we can see. You could say that now Ink5oul has been in it more, he thinks Ink5oul has some sort of supernatural power themselves which makes them a CAT1; that would still make this CAT13 as episode 11 was CAT23.
 

CAT2:

CAT2RC1157 Dolls (Watching): This is a big one in my opinion. It’s not only the first incident we’re told about, but it's both Sam’s and our first exposure to an explanation of the OIAR’s filing system. It’s also one I see ignored in most of the posts that posit the Person/Place/Object theory. That is understandable as we don’t hear the incident itself but we do hear enough of it to show that there is a flaw in the theory.
What we hear about this incident is entirely focused on the doll itself and questions about its nature. It’s a split between Dolls (Watching) and Dolls (Human Skin) with the former being chosen as the latter is only implied. Dolls themselves are objects which would make this CAT3, and if the doll is sentient a CAT1. However, this is placed in CAT2 indicating that it's actually caused by the location in some respect. In order for that to make sense you have to make 3 major assumptions. Assumption 1: despite no indication in the conversation about this incident suggesting anything outside of the doll being strange there was actually a “haunted house”. Assumption 2: despite there being sections far more descriptive of locations—i.e Architecture—Dolls is more suited to this incident. Assumption 3: despite this being Sam’s/the audience’s first exposure to this system it leaves out the real source of the incident when, narratively, this is an explanation of it. Those are some fairly major assumptions to make to justify a theory.
This also has issues with either method of assigning CAT#s. If CAT# is objective then every Dolls (Watching) is actually a location. Unlike with something like Reanimation (Partial) that doesn't make much sense as dolls themselves are objects. In the subjective method, Alice assigned this as a location but their discussion of it centred solely on an object and she didn't explain to Sam why she did it.
 
CAT2RC3338 Agglomeration (Miscellany) -/- Congregation: This might be my favourite example of issues I have with this theory. To explain it we’ll look at this from both the objective and subjective methods while taking into account outside knowledge of the show from an audience perspective.
Everyone I’ve seen posit this theory attributes CAT2 to Hilltop here.They do this solely because of TMA. There is nothing in this episode that makes Hilltop out to be anything special in any way. But because Hilltop is special in TMA the audience is primed to view this location as special. It may very well be but there is no reason to think that. In fact, I’d argue there's reason to think otherwise based on this episode, but that is a little off topic for this essay. However from an objective perspective it can’t take Hilltop into account because not every header of this sort will take place in Hilltop. They could only manifest at special locations but that seems like a stretch. If it is true, why does this unique combination of words not include a word that describes it as a location? Subjectively it could be a misfile. Celia would be the only person who knows what Hilltop is in TMA— assuming some of the theories on her are correct—but that doesn’t make Hilltop important in and of itself. It also means she ignored large parts of this incident when filing it just to focus on that element. As this case is the one Alice uses to teach Celia the system with, then this also relies on Alice knowing or not correcting Celia. In either scenario this case is full of people of definite supernatural quality, lacks a location of supernatural quality, but has 100s of objects of dubious supernatural quality. Something doesn’t make sense here if this theory is correct.
 
CAT2RBC3366 Architecture (Liminal) -/- Hunger: This one is interesting because it shows a flaw not in the theory per se but in the methodology as a whole if the theory is correct. If CAT# is what the theory says it is why is this just CAT2? It being CAT2 at all is redundant when its header describes a location but in this incident we see it’s populated by supernatural creatures. I call them Uncannybals—as should you—and they’re monsters living in the shadow realm. That seems like very important information to include. So it should be CAT12 as there are both people and a place. The OIAR methodology already has the problem that you can’t include multiple headers but CAT#s, if they worked like this, could be used to alleviate that issue. The way it’s implemented here just makes it virtually pointless to include at all.
 

CAT3:

CAT3RBC1567 Transformation (Full) -/- Dysmorphic: This was largely already covered. So simply put if Transformation (Full) -/- Dysmorphic is an object because of the tattoo, and Tattoo (Corpse) -/- Compulsion is an object because of the tattoo, but Tattoo (Influencer) -/- Cardiac isn’t an object despite being virtually identical to this case then CAT3 doesn't mean object.
The method problems are the same as above too. Now this case is the one most likely of the three to be misfiled. So you could say that Daria's case is misfiled and would actually be CAT1 if filed correctly. Tattoos aren’t objects, this case is a mistake. Then you could explain that Marked is CAT23 because corpses are objects (so 13 if he was alive). Objectively this header always being CAT3 still poses problems because we know there are Transformations that don’t require objects. Which brings us back to the problem of “why are the headers so bad at describing these things?”. If it’s subjective Sam decided that object instead of person made more sense here. Seemingly based on the fact that there is a tattoo. Later on he changed his mind about this but choosing it in the first place seems like a stretch. If he knew what these things meant in order to choose them, object seems like a very unobvious choice.
 

CAT23:

CAT23RC5246 Tattoo (Corpse) -/- Compulsion: This one is fairly clear to me. I’m going to be very generous and suggest that the corpse here is the object based on the above. The reason this one is a problem is that there wasn’t a location here. I’ve seen people say that it must be the graveyard but that’s confirmation bias IMO. It wasn’t a large feature of the episode, didn’t do anything coastal graveyards don’t do, and had no overt supernatural properties to it. I don’t personally think anyone would categorise this as CAT23 based on the incident alone but because CAT23 people will justify it to fit. That’s not inherently a problem because sometimes you have to make assumptions but given all of the above I don’t think that assumption is a reasonable one to make.
Objectively all compelling corpse tattoos are found in magical graveyards—or morgues, tombs, goth bars, and other corpse hangouts—and I think we can all agree that’s sort of wack. Subjectively Sam decided the graveyard was magic despite there being nothing to suggest that.
 

Klaus’ CAT#s:

This is a bit of a special section. I briefly mention Klaus in the intro but I didn’t mention that some of the incidents we’ve heard have been found on the Klaus sheet. The canonicity of these aren’t 100% and I would say the show takes precedent so this is supplemental rather than definitive. I think I’ve more than shown that this theory doesn’t hold up. This is more of an academic exercise.
The big thing to know here is that Kluas’ cases lack headers entirely but that some Klaus cases have notes and it’s these notes attached. It’s only one’s with those notes I’m interested in for this because of how they relate to things we’ve heard. One case is CAT3RBC1567 with the note “tinte”. CAT3RBC1567 is Daria’s case and “tinte” is German for “ink”. So this is very likely that case. There are 4 other cases with that note and they’re two CAT1s, a CAT3, and a CAT13. So even if Daria’s case is misfiled not all of those are the correct CAT# for that assumption. There are also two CAT1s and a CAT2 marked “Herr B”, which is “Mr B” in English. These aren’t tied to a Bonzo case we’ve heard yet but one of them does take place in Bland Theme Park, Somerset. That’s not definitively Bonzo but it’s a good hint at it.
Additionally there are 6 CAT2 cases that have the note “Katzen LOL” or “Cats LOL” which you’d expect to be CAT1s if there are cats involved. In a similar vein there are one CAT1 and five CAT2s marked “Kreigsvolk” which is literally “War People” but more likely “Army” or “Soldiers”. Again, you’d expect more CAT1s if CAT1 is people.
I’m not saying any of the above is the backbone of my reasoning here but these are things that are showing up in the show and they do seem to be pointing the same direction as what I’m saying. Ignoring them entirely I think the theory doesn’t hold up but with them I think it’s very clear.
 

Conclusion

I don’t have much of a wrap up here. Anyone who’s been reading my posts for a while has known that I’ve never thought this theory worked. It’s not something I ever get too deep into because I’m also obviously happy for people to have ideas I disagree with, as am I happy for them to disagree with my ideas. That’s just healthy theorising. I’d been considering writing this for a while though but was mostly held back by not wanting to come across as some sort of arbiter of what is and isn’t correct, and didn’t want to seem like I was calling anyone out specifically. However a few people now said they wanted to see this and there are enough instances of parallel thought on this theory that it’s impossible for me to really single people out now. So here we are.
Just to reiterate for people that did/do believe this theory I don’t think anyone was stupid and/or wrong for thinking it. I hope if the above has convinced you that I’m right about it that you’re not dissuaded from making and sharing future theories. I’ve have 3 or 4 terrible CAT# theories and a few R# theories too. My current ideas on DPHW and R# might be awfully wrong in the long run and that’ll be okay.
That’s me anyway, hope this was at the very least an interesting read if it didn’t manage to be a convincing one. Bonzo! Bonzo!! Bonzo!!!

I came across this sub by accident - through what was clearly a fake post - some cringelord dreaming up a vigilante fantasy - but a lot of people ate it up! I scrolled through the sub and found a bunch of other fake posts, mixed with some actually really good content.
Hearing about people sticking it to some old blowheart is one of the true remaining joys in life - control your sub people - don't be duped and downvote the clearly fake shit!
I got one from Memorial Day a few years ago - I think about it every year - it's not a whopper but at least it actually happened.
My HOA board is 100% boomers - driving around in golf carts, taking pictures - complain about noise past 8pm, etc. Dumb as shit when it comes to technology and choosing vendors. They have been the victim of some idiotic scams. Political season - their tiny lawns are covered with republican candidate signs for everything from President all the way down to School Board.
A letter was sent out a week before stating "for the duration of the holiday weekend, the only flags that can be affixed to the exterior of the residential condo units are American flags, including ALL historical American Flags." God only knows what they were intending with this.
The only flags in the neighborhood at the time were a few errant Trump flags, and our condo - with a Gadsen flag and a pride flag - original Gilbert Baker design. I knew it was going to be a problem (because it was when we first moved in) and I was willing to pay some small fines for this new rule. Talking to the Trump flag neighbors - they also planned to keep theirs up. But my wife didn't want to make more waves and convinced me to take them down in the afternoon - the Friday before.
But it didn't sit right - I thought about it for the rest of the day and went to put them back up on Saturday afternoon - but my wife didn't let me. We got a letter in our mailbox that morning from the HOA, reminding us about the flags, and that the Holiday Weekend is Friday through Sunday.
It came with a $50 fine (for Friday morning) and a warning that they would issue additional fines and "other administrative actions" if we didn't keep them down. I checked with the Trump flag guys and they didn't get a notice - I was pissed.
I told my wife that the flags are going back up and I will pay a fee each year and demand that the rules be enforced for everyone or no one. But, since we had reserved the clubhouse on Sunday for a party, she didn't want them yanking our reservation... and I didn't put them back up.
...But then it occurred to me. The notice clearly stated that the American flag rule applied to flags hung from the condo units... and we had site control over the entire clubhouse and pool area. I checked the CC&R's and the reservation - there was no expressed limititation on decorations.
My wife gave me the approval to go to war since we weren't technically breaking any rules. I texted everyone who was coming "bring a pride flag with you to the party... in fact bring every flag you have."
This wasn't a pride party, it was a Memorial Day BBQ, but the pride flags and flags from around the world outnumbered the American flags 10 to 1. We had hundreds of flags and you can see the clubhouse and pool from almost all of the units in the neighborhood - it looked like a storage yard at the UN.
The board was livid. Many of them came down to the clubhouse and took pictures, they threatened to call the police - one of them said they were going to levy a separate fine for each flag. But we cleaned the place up and were out by 8pm.
I know the board met the next day (on the holiday) but I never received a single letter about it. I paid the $50 fee and know that I am forever under their microscope. They quietly amended the club rules regarding "excessive decorations" but did not issue the flag rule for July 4th or any subsequent years. I figure there are too many places to rightfully put a flag in this neighborhood and they don't want to look like fools again.
My relationship with the HOA board has improved since this interaction. I don't think I'd go as far as to say they are scared of me, but they certainly know I might create a giant headache for them in the most ridiculous way possible.
I'll caveat all this to say that not all boomers are bad - remember some of them were hippies in the '60's and '70's. One of the ladies on the board - her brain is so fried from acid decades ago that she became love incarnate.
She bought a pride flag just to bring to my party and stayed all day. Come to find out she knows the names of all the dogs in the neighborhood and she knocked on my door the other day to tell me a joke she made up about my German Shepherd - not funny at all but it was so sweet I fucking cried.
Boomers amiright?

Hi, I’m bonzos-number-1-fan You might know me from such theories as; "Theory of Fears; or, Zur Furchtlehre", "What R# Means: The ABCs of Fear" or, "Padlocks, How Do They Even Work?".
I’m back with another essay about this show. Today’s subject is a little different from previous ones. Rather than explaining what I think something in this show is, I’ll be explaining what I think it isn’t. What I’m going to be talking about is the very popular theory that CAT1/2/3 means the supernatural aspect is a Person/Place/Object.
Because I’m talking about other people’s ideas here I do want to start off by saying I understand why this theory is attractive and I don’t think anyone is stupid or anything for believing it. I just personally think there are angles from which it doesn’t work and that the sum of them makes it fairly certain to be untrue. I could be very wrong about that, and my other theories, or I could be very right. I don’t think either scenario matters much. This essay isn’t about being right but about talking about a big thing in the community. I just happen to not believe this one and people have signalled interest in hearing why.
So with all that out of the way I’m going to start by establishing the terminology being used. Then I’ll break down what this theory is positing and follow it up with the ways I think it does and doesn’t work. That’s basically it but with 16 episodes and supplemental material to cover it’s still not going to be terribly short.
Huge thanks to @brettanomycroft for proof reading/editing this madness.

Spoilers for The Magnus Protocol up to and including episode 16.

 

What is a CAT#?

A CAT# is the first 4-5 characters of an OIAR's incident report header. While these are not often referenced in the main body of the show, each incident we hear is accompanied by one in the show's description and transcript. As an example this is the case number for the first incident of episode 1.

CAT1RBC5257-12052022-09012024

Reanimation (Partial) -/- Regret [Email]

The first line is the case number. CAT1 is this incident's CAT#. The RBC (R#/Rank) and 5257 (DPHW) have been topics I've discussed in essays I linked at the start. The second line is the header and is formatted “Section (Subsection) -/- Crosslink [Format]”. CAT#s is all we're concerning ourselves with today but I will be using this terminology going forward.
Now we know what they look like, what is it we know about them? Well, not much at all. From the show itself we know there are CAT1s, CAT2s, CAT3s and CAT23s. From the Klaus excel sheet that was found as part of the ARG (and can be found here) we also know there are CAT12s and CAT13s. With that information we can say with some certainty that CAT1, CAT2, and CAT3 are non-mutually exclusive groupings. It's very likely not a linear scale of some description—i.e CAT23 isn't between CAT2 and CAT3—because CAT13 doesn't fit such a scale. Which means that where there are two numbers in a CAT# that incident likely fits both groups rather than being a new group. This also strongly implies that an incident could be CAT123 although we have yet to see that demonstrated.
We also know that CAT is short for "Category". In the Klaus sheet these numbers are located in the "Kategorie" column. "Kategorie" being German for "category". This unfortunately doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know. CAT#s denote some form of grouping.
There is only one other fact we know about CAT#s and that's this:

ALICE
Right, so, after each entry there's four numbers. That’s the DPHW. So, “dolls comma watching” is… 1157. Then you cross reference with the table here, that would be a 2-C, and then you type that into the box here, along with date of incident if there is one and today’s date.

Which is not a lot to go on at all but it does raise an important question. How is a CAT# assigned? There are two major assumptions you could make here. The first is the “objective method” and that it’s a factor of either the section, subject, DPHW or a combination thereof. This means that they are pre-assigned in the same way that DPHWs are. This method has an inherent trait in that it means every header manifests as the same sort of thing. While it’s not a problem to say that every Doll (Watching) is the same— that could just be the rules of the setting—it does make CAT# itself somewhat redundant. The terminology of the headers will often describe something inherent about the CAT#. We have a CAT3 case that’s Dice (Bone) -/- Fate but dice are objects so why would you need to restate that?
The second is the “subjective method” in which the assessor chooses the CAT# based on the incident itself. The subjective method has a larger assumption built into it in that they know what CAT#s are. They don’t know what DPHW is and have shown no indication of knowing what CAT# is either. So I’d say it’s less likely that CAT#s are subjective rather than objective. However, for the purposes of this essay I will assume that both are as likely to be true as each other and will refer to them both. Different cases show different flaws when one of these is true over the other, so both will get discussed.
 

What is Person/Place/Object?

Person/Place/Object is the theory that the three single digit CAT#s stand for Person, Place, and Object respectively. Combinations of these digits represent that an incident falls into each category. A CAT1 incident indicates that the supernatural element of an incident is a person in some respect, while a CAT23 would indicate both a place and an object.
As I have mentioned this isn’t a theory with a single theorist or origin to point to. As such this theory isn’t a monolith and there is variation in how these categories are presented from theory to theory. Sometimes “Person” is literal and other times it includes any sentient thing, “places” aren’t always strictly physical locations, and the narrative framing of what “objects” are may shift. As such I will be taking the broadest interpretation of these categories as their definitions.
People will include animals and other sentient beings. Places will include metaphysical locations. Objects won’t need to be physical in nature. This is both the fairest I can be to all theories and also the strongest I can make this theory. The broader I can make these definitions, the more different ideas can be represented and the more wiggle room the CAT#s get.
What I’ll do next is run through all the incidents the show has mentioned and explain them as I see it. We’ll start with the ones that fit this theory well because they require little explanation. Then when that’s established we’ll talk about the places I think this theory falls down.
 

Which Incidents fit well?

CAT1:

CAT1RBC5257 Reanimation (Partial) -/- Regret: There is something like a zombie in this incident. That’s something like a person and so fits well.
CAT1RB4824 Injury (Needles) -/- Intimidation: Needles is definitely a person, no question there.
CAT1RB2275 Mascot (Kids) -/- Murder: Bonzo walks, “talks”, and probably thinks. He’s a person.
CAT1B4728 Mascot (Kids) -/- Frenzy: Bonzo is still doing that stuff so is still a person.
CAT1RB4426 Transformation (Snake) -/-Horde: There was a person and they turned into snakes. Snakes count as people here too. Given the amount of snakes this is the most CAT1 CAT1.
CAT1RB-6451 Hunt (Aristocratic) -/- Compulsion: Lady M is the most person on this list.
CAT1RB1565 Tattoo (Influencer) -/- Cardiac: Definitely involves a person doing something supernatural.
 

CAT2:

CAT2C8175 Infection (Full Body) -/- Arboreal: This incident takes place in a time and space bending garden. Makes perfect sense for CAT2.
CAT2RB2377 Disappearance (Undetermined) -/- Invitation: A spooky theatre is a location for sure.
 

CAT3:

CAT3RBC1567 Transformation (Full) -/- Dysmorphic: In this instance the object in question is the tattoo. Which I think is really stretching the definition of “object” but I’m still going to give it to the theory.
CAT3C7494 Collection (Blood) -/- Musical: A magical violin is definitely an object.
CAT3RB3354 Dice (Bone) -/- Fate: Bone dice are inarguably objects.
CAT3RB4622 Gambling (Application) -/- Murder: It’s another stretch to call an app an object but, again, happy to give it to the theory.
 

CAT23:

CAT23RAB2155 Transformation (Eyes) -/- Trespass: In this incident’s case the location is the Magnus Institute and the object is the box RedCanary stole. I think there are some problems with this one but there is enough to get through.
 

Which Incidents Don't?

CAT1:

CAT1RBC5257 Reanimation (Partial) -/- Regret: You’re not misremembering, I did say this fit well. Because on the surface it really does make sense, but I think if you push just a little it makes very little sense. Why? Because any category you want to place this in is easily justified in the incident itself. There is a zombie-esque thing but also a Frankenstein-esque figure for CAT1. CAT 2 would be the location of the graveyard itself. It was chosen by the presumed creator of this zombie-like creature and is depicted similar to the one in Marked, a CAT23 incident. If this theory is correct and the Marked graveyard is supernatural I can’t see a reason to discount that possibility here. CAT3 fits too because the presumed creation method is that they were Frankenstein-ed which does require some sort of surgical apparatus. But whichever choice you make you’ve not really clarified the incident at all.
This issue is further seen in the methodology of assigning CAT#s.Objectively it has the same problem all objective assignments do. Reanimation implies there is going to be a reanimated person so restating that doesn’t add much. If we look at the subjective method then this is chosen largely at random. There isn’t enough of an indication in this incident to clearly state which CAT this is. So it’s neither helped in the assessment of the incident and doesn’t provide anything for response because all choices are justifiable.
 
CAT1RB4426 Transformation (Snake) -/- Horde: Not misremembering here either. There is a problem with this one in that it’s demonstrated to be an infection. This makes the source of the affliction basically unknowable. The source could qualify it for other CATs but the larger issue here is that what CAT1 means here and what it means elsewhere are not that comparable. Needles, Bonzo, and Lady M are all sentient and independent. The afflicted we see in this case are normal people until they get very rapidly sick, summon a portal to the snake dimension in their throats, and die. Which leaves CAT1 translating to “something in the rough shape of a person” which is a really wide range of interpretations. Which is something I feel has little practical utility in either assessing or responding to these incidents.
 
CAT1RB1565 Tattoo (Influencer) -/- Cardiac: Still not misremembering. While you can say that Ink5oul or Madame E are the person in this instance there is a major conflict here with CAT3RBC1567 Transformation (Full) -/- Dysmorphic. If Daria’s transformation was CAT3 because tattoos are objects then there is no reasonable justification that this isn’t at least CAT13. It’s the same person, doing the same thing, to a very similar result but in a different CAT. The headers are entirely different, and so this/that may be misfiled, but it highlights a problem with Daria’s incident. If the incident with the Tattoo header isn’t an object then tattoos are probably not objects under this scheme.
If this is objective then this is always a person, or on people, which makes a great deal of sense. However if that’s the case then the objective method for Daria’s case sort of falls apart because there wasn’t really a secondary object there. Additionally, because all incidents with that case’s header being objects is a huge stretch. So if this incident, or that incident, is misfiled it doesn’t really matter. In either case (or even if both of them are misfiled), it largely disproves that tattoos are objects, creating a larger issue with that theory as it affects more than just this case. Subjectively as far as we’re aware Sam filed all three of the Ink5oul incidents. So he chose an object in Daria’s case but then opted against it here despite there being no real reason to that we can see. You could say that now Ink5oul has been in it more, he thinks Ink5oul has some sort of supernatural power themselves which makes them a CAT1; that would still make this CAT13 as episode 11 was CAT23.
 

CAT2:

CAT2RC1157 Dolls (Watching): This is a big one in my opinion. It’s not only the first incident we’re told about, but it's both Sam’s and our first exposure to an explanation of the OIAR’s filing system. It’s also one I see ignored in most of the posts that posit the Person/Place/Object theory. That is understandable as we don’t hear the incident itself but we do hear enough of it to show that there is a flaw in the theory.
What we hear about this incident is entirely focused on the doll itself and questions about its nature. It’s a split between Dolls (Watching) and Dolls (Human Skin) with the former being chosen as the latter is only implied. Dolls themselves are objects which would make this CAT3, and if the doll is sentient a CAT1. However, this is placed in CAT2 indicating that it's actually caused by the location in some respect. In order for that to make sense you have to make 3 major assumptions. Assumption 1: despite no indication in the conversation about this incident suggesting anything outside of the doll being strange there was actually a “haunted house”. Assumption 2: despite there being sections far more descriptive of locations—i.e Architecture—Dolls is more suited to this incident. Assumption 3: despite this being Sam’s/the audience’s first exposure to this system it leaves out the real source of the incident when, narratively, this is an explanation of it. Those are some fairly major assumptions to make to justify a theory.
This also has issues with either method of assigning CAT#s. If CAT# is objective then every Dolls (Watching) is actually a location. Unlike with something like Reanimation (Partial) that doesn't make much sense as dolls themselves are objects. In the subjective method, Alice assigned this as a location but their discussion of it centred solely on an object and she didn't explain to Sam why she did it.
 
CAT2RC3338 Agglomeration (Miscellany) -/- Congregation: This might be my favourite example of issues I have with this theory. To explain it we’ll look at this from both the objective and subjective methods while taking into account outside knowledge of the show from an audience perspective.
Everyone I’ve seen posit this theory attributes CAT2 to Hilltop here.They do this solely because of TMA. There is nothing in this episode that makes Hilltop out to be anything special in any way. But because Hilltop is special in TMA the audience is primed to view this location as special. It may very well be but there is no reason to think that. In fact, I’d argue there's reason to think otherwise based on this episode, but that is a little off topic for this essay. However from an objective perspective it can’t take Hilltop into account because not every header of this sort will take place in Hilltop. They could only manifest at special locations but that seems like a stretch. If it is true, why does this unique combination of words not include a word that describes it as a location? Subjectively it could be a misfile. Celia would be the only person who knows what Hilltop is in TMA— assuming some of the theories on her are correct—but that doesn’t make Hilltop important in and of itself. It also means she ignored large parts of this incident when filing it just to focus on that element. As this case is the one Alice uses to teach Celia the system with, then this also relies on Alice knowing or not correcting Celia. In either scenario this case is full of people of definite supernatural quality, lacks a location of supernatural quality, but has 100s of objects of dubious supernatural quality. Something doesn’t make sense here if this theory is correct.
 
CAT2RBC3366 Architecture (Liminal) -/- Hunger: This one is interesting because it shows a flaw not in the theory per se but in the methodology as a whole if the theory is correct. If CAT# is what the theory says it is why is this just CAT2? It being CAT2 at all is redundant when its header describes a location but in this incident we see it’s populated by supernatural creatures. I call them Uncannybals—as should you—and they’re monsters living in the shadow realm. That seems like very important information to include. So it should be CAT12 as there are both people and a place. The OIAR methodology already has the problem that you can’t include multiple headers but CAT#s, if they worked like this, could be used to alleviate that issue. The way it’s implemented here just makes it virtually pointless to include at all.
 

CAT3:

CAT3RBC1567 Transformation (Full) -/- Dysmorphic: This was largely already covered. So simply put if Transformation (Full) -/- Dysmorphic is an object because of the tattoo, and Tattoo (Corpse) -/- Compulsion is an object because of the tattoo, but Tattoo (Influencer) -/- Cardiac isn’t an object despite being virtually identical to this case then CAT3 doesn't mean object.
The method problems are the same as above too. Now this case is the one most likely of the three to be misfiled. So you could say that Daria's case is misfiled and would actually be CAT1 if filed correctly. Tattoos aren’t objects, this case is a mistake. Then you could explain that Marked is CAT23 because corpses are objects (so 13 if he was alive). Objectively this header always being CAT3 still poses problems because we know there are Transformations that don’t require objects. Which brings us back to the problem of “why are the headers so bad at describing these things?”. If it’s subjective Sam decided that object instead of person made more sense here. Seemingly based on the fact that there is a tattoo. Later on he changed his mind about this but choosing it in the first place seems like a stretch. If he knew what these things meant in order to choose them, object seems like a very unobvious choice.
 

CAT23:

CAT23RC5246 Tattoo (Corpse) -/- Compulsion: This one is fairly clear to me. I’m going to be very generous and suggest that the corpse here is the object based on the above. The reason this one is a problem is that there wasn’t a location here. I’ve seen people say that it must be the graveyard but that’s confirmation bias IMO. It wasn’t a large feature of the episode, didn’t do anything coastal graveyards don’t do, and had no overt supernatural properties to it. I don’t personally think anyone would categorise this as CAT23 based on the incident alone but because CAT23 people will justify it to fit. That’s not inherently a problem because sometimes you have to make assumptions but given all of the above I don’t think that assumption is a reasonable one to make.
Objectively all compelling corpse tattoos are found in magical graveyards—or morgues, tombs, goth bars, and other corpse hangouts—and I think we can all agree that’s sort of wack. Subjectively Sam decided the graveyard was magic despite there being nothing to suggest that.
 

Klaus’ CAT#s:

This is a bit of a special section. I briefly mention Klaus in the intro but I didn’t mention that some of the incidents we’ve heard have been found on the Klaus sheet. The canonicity of these aren’t 100% and I would say the show takes precedent so this is supplemental rather than definitive. I think I’ve more than shown that this theory doesn’t hold up. This is more of an academic exercise.
The big thing to know here is that Kluas’ cases lack headers entirely but that some Klaus cases have notes and it’s these notes attached. It’s only one’s with those notes I’m interested in for this because of how they relate to things we’ve heard. One case is CAT3RBC1567 with the note “tinte”. CAT3RBC1567 is Daria’s case and “tinte” is German for “ink”. So this is very likely that case. There are 4 other cases with that note and they’re two CAT1s, a CAT3, and a CAT13. So even if Daria’s case is misfiled not all of those are the correct CAT# for that assumption. There are also two CAT1s and a CAT2 marked “Herr B”, which is “Mr B” in English. These aren’t tied to a Bonzo case we’ve heard yet but one of them does take place in Bland Theme Park, Somerset. That’s not definitively Bonzo but it’s a good hint at it.
Additionally there are 6 CAT2 cases that have the note “Katzen LOL” or “Cats LOL” which you’d expect to be CAT1s if there are cats involved. In a similar vein there are one CAT1 and five CAT2s marked “Kreigsvolk” which is literally “War People” but more likely “Army” or “Soldiers”. Again, you’d expect more CAT1s if CAT1 is people.
I’m not saying any of the above is the backbone of my reasoning here but these are things that are showing up in the show and they do seem to be pointing the same direction as what I’m saying. Ignoring them entirely I think the theory doesn’t hold up but with them I think it’s very clear.
 

Conclusion

I don’t have much of a wrap up here. Anyone who’s been reading my posts for a while has known that I’ve never thought this theory worked. It’s not something I ever get too deep into because I’m also obviously happy for people to have ideas I disagree with, as am I happy for them to disagree with my ideas. That’s just healthy theorising. I’d been considering writing this for a while though but was mostly held back by not wanting to come across as some sort of arbiter of what is and isn’t correct, and didn’t want to seem like I was calling anyone out specifically. However a few people now said they wanted to see this and there are enough instances of parallel thought on this theory that it’s impossible for me to really single people out now. So here we are.
Just to reiterate for people that did/do believe this theory I don’t think anyone was stupid and/or wrong for thinking it. I hope if the above has convinced you that I’m right about it that you’re not dissuaded from making and sharing future theories. I’ve have 3 or 4 terrible CAT# theories and a few R# theories too. My current ideas on DPHW and R# might be awfully wrong in the long run and that’ll be okay.
That’s me anyway, hope this was at the very least an interesting read if it didn’t manage to be a convincing one. Bonzo! Bonzo!! Bonzo!!!

Buckle up, this is going to be confusing and long. I have to say from now that I actually have major "memory gaps" from alot of what happened and most of what I'll say from now is information I had to gather from people who were around me when this happened.
Last week, in school, I was sitting with my friends in the cafeteria area. I looked at my watch and realized the date of the day and thought "my dad is coming back today from traveling" (he was in another country), I just remembered a past memory of him yelling at me and abusing me. Now the thing I don't understand is that suddenly I kept having multiple "flashbacks", both visual and auditory, of the abuse my family put me through, including my dad. I wanted it to stop but I realized I couldn't, I was literally paralyzed on the outside. I tried to nudge my friend beside me but I could barely twitch my finger. (she was distracted with my other friend and had her head turned away from me). The best way I could explain the "flashbacks" is that it was like if you had multiple Tvs around you playing multiple movies, aka memories, all at once at high speed and volume.
I realized my heart was beating very fast and loudly, and even in less stressful situation than this one, feeling my heart makes me anxious. Luckily one of my other friends came to sit with us and noticed how I was. I tried with all my strength to talk to them and tell them what's happening but I was "paralyzed" and couldn't tell them. I was already extremely distressed and realizing how badly I couldn't react made me start crying involuntarily and they called the doctor assuming I was ill. Obviously the doctor realized I wasn't sick and told me to just drink juice. The more she asked questions and the more I didn't respond, the more she got frustrated at me. By that point they called my sister who also got mad at me for not talking. By then, the break had ended for a while and I don't know how but I ended up in my classroom, I think i just literally walked there but I don't remember doing that at all. Then I sat down on a chair next to the supervisors table and, once again, I don't remember what happened but I realized time had passed and there were multiple people surrounding me and one of my friends was on her knees infront me trying to talk to me. And when I realized I don't remember her walking up to me at all, talking to me, kneeling down beside me, I was so frightened and just started sobbing. I don't remember much from here but I do know, from my friends, that the supervisor told everyone to go back to their class. I should mention that my class was less than a few feet away from the supervisors seat, she doesn't have a private office.
I just started sobbing and sobbing and the only person I wanted was my closest friend, who I'll call "S", who knew me more than anyone else. I was scared of my dad so badly even though I knew he couldn't do anything in school. Again, I somehow ended up in another area near the supervisor's table and I was hugging S so hard her arms turned red. My mind felt hazy and then I glanced behind her for a second and I fucking saw my dad just standing there. I knew there was no fucking way he was there, I go to an all girls school, 3 floors up, and he was in a different country, but I was so confused. I half believed and half didn't. I was so horrified and I kept telling them he was there but they told me no one was there (from my friends' narration).
This kept going on for a while until I just somehow ended up in the bathroom, laying down on the floor, and a few teachers and people from the administration were surrounding me. I genuinely don't remember how I ended up there. It got so bad my sister had to call my therapist, and I yelled at the phone that my dad was there and he was going to hurt me but even I knew that was ridiculous but I couldn't help it. We had to hang up on her through. After a long while I managed to stand up and I was beside my class, my class door has a window thing you can look through and then it hit me that all of my classmates are seeing this and it scared me again.
My friends told me later that someone opened the door and I ran in and grabbed one of my closest friends who also knew about my dad's abuse and yelled at her something like "tell them I'm not lying tell them tell them" but the thing is I don't remember who "them is" or what I meant by lying I really don't. They kicked everyone in the class out and I ended up just sobbing for a while again. I don't remember much and my friends had to leave so I don't have any information of what happened. I ended up going home and they gave my mom a warning.
So fast forward to yesterday, on Tuesday. I was having a completely normal day, and then an hour into school, I just felt "weird" and started banging my head hard and alot on my table. Luckily the tables aren't that hard, I don't know what the material they're made out of is called but they can't really do much, it's hard but weak. My friends sitting beside me had to grab me with all their strength because, again from their narration, I kept trying to fight against them to hurt myself. The administration came in and kicked everyone out and I just kept trying over and over again to harm myself. Apparently I even tried to take my clothes off but they stopped me. But everyone saw what my upper body looked like I think. And I ended up downstairs 3 floors down in the principals office, I don't remember how I ended up there. I was screaming crying and begging for S and my favourite teacher, they wouldn't bring S but they did call that teacher. She kept hugging me and comforting me. Then they tried to make me leave to my driver who was outisde the gate. When they got me out to the gate i for some reason just ended up on the floor sobbinf and I don't know why. Then I looked behind me and my dad was there. It wasnt a delusion or whatever he was there. Enough time had passed for him to have time to come. They also called 3 male teachers from the boys section to carry me. When my dad held I can swear I screamed like I was tortured alive. The more he held me the more I was distressed and scared. I don't know what happened but he left and they called my mom to pick me up instead. (I live with both my parents but my dad has a busy job and had to go back to work for emergencies whole my mom stays at home). I went back home and the rest is too much irrelevant details I don't wanna focus on. Theres only one week of school left with exams, in the exams time we stay only 2 hours in school and leave, there's no classes or anything like that. And now the school is refusing to let me go back to my classrooms, they said I'll have to take the exams in the administration room.
I genuinely have no idea what's going on with me, I've done so much research but I haven't even found anything that could be a basic assumption or theory or idea or whatever of what's going I'm so confused I hate this and I'm stressed and now everyone at school knows I'm being abused by my dad. Please if you have any idea what's goin on with me, even if it might sound ridiculous or whatever please please tell. And I know I have to go to a psychiatrist or psychologist but we're still in the middle of dealing with that so yeah. Also no one in my family has a history of mental illness especially with something like this.

On that morning, I found myself in a science class. The details of the assignment escape me now, for all that remains etched in my memory is the intense dread that was about to unfold. In the blink of an eye, everything changed. The events that ensued happened so quickly.
It was awesome in the way that it was awe-inspiring, but the awe was for the sheer magnitude of abject fear. Without warning, my ears popped from a sudden and drastic change in air pressure. In the following instant, a jarring rumble shook the entire classroom, accompanied by a deafening blast that robbed me of breath. Instinctively, we abandoned our unfinished finals and we hastily made our way toward the aisle between the rows of desks, surprisingly maintaining a semblance of order.
The blaring fire alarm pierced through the air as our teacher wasted no time in guiding us out of the classroom. I felt like a lamb lead to slaughter. We followed the teachers' lead, navigating the corridors toward the nearest exit. As I turned a corner, my mother's classroom came into full view, and what I beheld was a nightmare made manifest.
A surreal terror gripped me, freezing me in place. My mother's classroom door, blown off its hinges, lay against the opposing wall in a splintered heap. The space between the door and frame was filled with an enraged inferno, desperately and forcefully bellowing from within. I was the observer who was now left to bear witness to this wake.
I don't know what compelled me to charge into that blazing fortress. Was it a delusion of invincibility? A desperate belief that I could save her like a superhero? Or was it a simple act of need, driven by an unexplainable force? I cannot say.
I pushed through the wall of flames and smoke, and I descended the staircase in a manner fitting of an infant; erratic, frantic, and without coordination. And there, at the bottom step, an unusual coldness enveloped me. Though darkness cast by the smoke enveloped everything, a faint glimmer from a small window illuminated my mother's desk.
A person who was wailing in apparent agony was across the room, however. The acrid stench of burning flesh and hair assaulted my senses, threatening to overpower me. Gradually, my eyes adjusted to the darkness, granting me an unwelcome gift of sight. The horrifying images etched themselves deeply into my psyche—charred bodies strewn across the floor, their limbs twisted and contorted. Some still smoldered, consumed by thin lines of crimson crawling greedily along their blackened skin, reduced to ash.
The scene was catastrophic.
It was repulsive.
A nauseating sensation crept up from within, that familiar prelude to vomiting. I fought to suppress it, driven by a compelling instinct to find the crying emanating from an overturned desk in the far corner of the room.
"That must be my mom... she's still alive!" I thought so naively.
My path was obstructed by the lifeless forms of a classmates.Deep down, my gut warned me to leave the scene to my imagination, but I ignored its plea. Almost reaching the desk, my attention was drawn to yet another body lying in my path. This one was slightly larger than the others. It took only a moment to realize the unthinkable—this was my mother. Her right side was gruesomely absent, her eyes clouded with milky white, and her jaw hung slack. She had lost an arm... and a leg.
Dead.
My mother lay lifeless at my feet.
The sound of sobbing erupted again, originating from behind the desk. No discernible words, just heartbreaking sobs. Setting aside my grief for the moment, cloaked in shock, I left my mother's side to aid this person. The true magnitude of the disaster had not yet fully sunk in, the rationalization that no human could have survived.
The crying grew louder as I approached, echoing not only in my ears but in my thoughts. It drowned out the clamor of the alarms, urging me to forward. It was as if I had been ensnared in a waking dream, where the cries became my sole focus, blotting out everything else.
Reaching the desk, I cautiously peered behind it, my eyes drawn to a huddled figure in the corner. His blackened skin mirrored the others, and he possessed little remaining hair. Tremors coursed through his body as he faced the wall, his arms extended limply, hands hanging delicately from his forearms.
"HEY," I yelled, "We have to get out! There's a gas leak!" No response. Perhaps the explosion had damaged his hearing.
Instinctively, I reached out and grasped his hand. The moment our skin made contact, the crying ceased, and the tremors subsided. A new sense of startled unease washed over me. Slowly, he began to turn his head towards me, his neck moving with jerky, disjointed snaps. And then, I beheld his face. Wet leathery skin clung to his emaciated skull, while his wide eyes, milky grey and white, mirrored my mother's. Through a slackened jaw, browned teeth peered out of a mouth devoid of lips. His broken nose sat withered upon his face. His leathery skin continued down his nude and skeletal frame, with patches peeling off, revealing a putrid yellow fluid oozing from the infected wounds.
I stood there in shock, witnessing his convulsions and heaves. His head, rocking like that of a newborn, fixated on me. He took a long ragged, strained breath and released a sound unlike anything I had ever heard before. No, that's not the right way to describe it. The sound triggered a sensation within me, a feeling that wasn't entirely my own. I was engulfed by an overwhelming grief, an intense pain that consumed me entirely. Guilt as I had never known flooded me, threatening to drown me in its depths.
I recoiled from the desk, stumbling backward until I fell onto my mother's charred remains. A cloud of ash billowed forth, caressing my face as I gasped for air. I inadvertently inhaled the plume of my mother's ash. I vomited, tears and bile streaming uncontrollably. I began crawling on hands and knees as I distanced myself from the nightmare.
I crawled, then ran once I regained my footing. I ran out of that room, through the engulfing flames, through the school, and past my bewildered classmates.
Just keep running.
Eventually, I collapsed in a local park, where the police discovered me. I remember the cold, crisp grass caressing my face, leaving behind wet stains from its melting lash.
The officer who found me sat silently beside me in the field, offering no words of advice or encouragement but his simple presence was comforting in hindsight. He didn't rush me even when we both were shivering to our core once the cold lay with our bones.While the officer drove me home, I awoke to a reality that felt both distant and surreal. The following year slipped away in a haze, an amalgamation of twisting memories and blurred moments.
I found myself residing in my mother's home, under the temporary custody of my aunt and uncle. My aunt handed me a substantial sum of cash from the life insurance payout. It was an overwhelming amount for a seventeen-year-old to possess while grappling with the weight of responsibility. I failed so miserably.
The passing months merged, as if time itself was nothing more than a fleeting illusion. I teetered on the precipice, constantly oscillating between moments of intoxication and near unconsciousness. My days were spent in a perpetual state of chasing a fragile equilibrium. And so, as predictable and anticlimactic as it may sound, I succumbed to the overwhelming grip of a heroin overdose.
It was my aunt who discovered me in that state, a sight she never deserved to witness. She was far too good to be exposed to the wretchedness that had consumed me.
Preparing the syringe, I found a suitable vein, and sent the liquid bliss coursing through my veins. Was it my fifth hit? Sixth? More than I had ever done before. The rush surged through my body with an intensity I couldn't handle. My balance faltered, and I collapsed onto the couch, my head spinning in a disorienting haze. I slipped into unconsciousness, unaware of the vomit that spilled forth from my mouth. At the moment, I believe I was on the brink of death.
I vaguely remember my aunt's scream as she walked through the front door. I'm sure I looked just like the death I was longing for.
Rehabilitation became an inevitable path I had to tread, accompanied by a watchful eye to prevent any further harm. I grappled with a profound sense of worthlessness, despite the earnest efforts of those around me. Weeks bled into months, and progress towards my recovery became a slow, agonizing burn. No matter the tools and coping mechanisms I acquired, no matter the mental acrobatics I performed, I found myself sinking deeper into the abyss.
The insidious cravings for substances clung to my heart with sickening tenacity.
Over the following year, I retreated into seclusion. Depression became my constant companion, blurring the days together into an indistinguishable haze. I traded one vice for countless others, escaping reality through endless hours of pornography and video games, despising every fiber of my existence late into the solitary nights. Even in sleep, I found no respite.
My nights were tormented by relentless nightmares, unyielding in their pursuit of stealing away what little rest I had left. At my emotional nadir, I ceased to care for even my most basic needs. My body, an instrument of survival, was now perpetually hunched, bent by the weight of my deteriorating state. I had become a repugnant wreck, a physical manifestation of the turmoil within my mind. I was a mirror reflecting the distorted image of my decayed mentality.
The battle against my demons was impossible, and I was losing myself in the process. My life soon embarked on a transformative journey though, emerging from the tattered remnants of an existence that had unwittingly become my solace.
It began with a simple spark, an eruption of laughter that echoed through the air.
It was not a mere chuckle or a fleeting smirk; it was a belly-deep laugh that reverberated within me. The sound itself felt foreign, stirring a mixture of confusion and exhilaration. At that moment, I felt an immense pride swell within me.
Soon after, I shed my former self, transitioning from a reanimated corpse to an animated being. My newfound addiction became growth, and I pursued it with unwavering fervor. I constructed a fortress, a barricade capable of withstanding the relentless onslaught of my mind. I tamed the internal chaos that had consumed me, gradually reclaiming control over my destiny. With every step, I crawled my way up that treacherous mountain, resolute and unyielding.
Knowing that I had to venture beyond the confines of my childhood home to nurture my emotional development, I made a decision without hesitation. I relinquished my home to my aunt, packed my belongings, and began a new chapter with a journey to Florida.
I found refuge in a modest vacation cabin nestled amidst the serenity of the Everglades. I resided in splendid isolation. There were no neighbors for miles around, and the land I occupied belonged to a kind couple who were seldom present. The cabin was ensconced within a dense, humid forest—a lush sanctuary that provided me ample opportunity to confront my innermost thoughts, contributing to the arduous path of my recovery. Though the reclusive lifestyle persisted, I reveled in newfound freedom. The forest that encircled me was a testament to nature's magnificence.
It thrived with resplendent beauty, teeming with life and vibrant hues. The symphony of birdsong permeated the air, intertwining with the gentle hum of insects as the sun gracefully bid farewell to the sky, descending beyond the western horizon. It was a captivating contrast to the desolate nights I had once known. Occasionally, I would venture to an ocean-fed creek a mere stone's throw away from my dwelling, indulging in the peaceful art of fishing.
It was precisely what I had yearned for.
My life had become my own once again. Though the memories of that fateful night still carried a tinge of pain, they had become more bearable, more manageable. I was on the cusp of uttering those elusive words: "I am happy."
Until the nightly lamentations returned, the anguished cries piercing the silence, a relentless reminder of the entity that hunted me.
Sleep became an elusive luxury, for as darkness descended, the haunting wails shattered any chance of rest. The cries persisted, growing louder with each passing week. They invaded my sleepless nights, penetrating the silence of my room. I lay there, consumed by desperation, pleading for the torment to cease.
The cries filled my head and blocked out everything. It forced me to feel a torrent of forgotten pain. My barricade was fracturing. My rancor was waking up. My war returned with a windfall that left me breathless.
I broke so quickly.
So quietly.
Like sand in the palm of my hands, my joy slipped away through my fingers. My laugh died in my throat. The cries became a force that unleashed a deluge of forgotten anguish, shattering the barricade I had erected. Fatigue wore me down, transforming me into a mere shadow of my former self.
I became a captive in my mind. Yet, within the depths of my despair, a spark of hope still waivered amidst the chaos. I vowed to confront the source of this nocturnal torment, to unravel its strangling grip on my life. Then, one fateful night, I stirred from a nap that had inadvertently consumed me.
A strange sensation tugged at my mind, rousing me from my slumber. The room was shrouded in an eerie silence, the clock displaying the time as 1:26 am. With a sense of cautious curiosity, I rose from my seat and made my way toward the front door, spurred by a newfound audacity.
Perhaps I believed that by directly confronting this apparition, I could dispel my fears and bring an end to my relentless experience.
That night, the air was eerily calm, devoid of the usual screams. I pressed my face against the small window on the door, peering into the darkness beyond, half-expecting to find only an indistinct shadow. But to my astonishment, there it stood, staring back at me with an intensity that sent shivers down my spine. Our faces were separated by a mere fraction of an inch of glass, locked in a macabre face-to-face encounter. A cacophony of screams erupted, shattering the once-tranquil air and sending tremors through the very foundation of my home.
The feeble glow from the kitchen illuminated his face, etching its haunting contours deep within the recesses of my mind. His quivering jaw moved erratically, a grotesque dance of opening and closing with each labored breath. Each exhale birthed a clinging mist, smearing the glass with intricate patterns reminiscent of inkblots, transforming its pristine surface into a testament of eerie artistry.
His vacant eyes remained fixed ahead, devoid of recognition as if ensnared within the merciless clutches of unyielding madness. With unsteady steps, he gradually retreated, his form eventually shrinking into a crouched position mere feet away from my door. There was no denying the undeniable presence before me. Fear, curiosity, and a twisted fascination intertwined within me, forming a turbulent whirlwind of conflicting impulses.
Who was he? What did he want? Questions plagued my mind, but answers eluded me. It was as if this apparition had materialized from the depths of my darkest nightmares, haunting my reality with its unsettling presence.
Though an unsettling truth sat within me, there was no denying the raw reality of his existence. This was no figment of my imagination; it was a chilling encounter with a realm beyond comprehension. My scream tore through the air, an instinctual response fueled by a surge of primal emotions. No coherent words could encapsulate the overwhelming turmoil within me.
I had escaped across the country to flee from this torment, yet here it was, huddled just feet away, mocking my desperate attempt at solace.
It felt like a cruel joke my own mind was playing on me. "LEAVE ME ALONE!" I shouted, my voice cracking as tears streamed down my face.
"PLEASE, JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!" My cries resembled the agonized wails of a wounded and trapped animal, raw and untamed.
Outside, the creature continued its relentless screams, rising to its feet with an eerie, disjointed movement. It approached my door, its contorted posture resembling a grotesque bending of the body, skin tearing as it leaned. Yellow fluid oozed from its wounds.
"LEAVE ME ALONE!" I yelled again, unleashing a surge of pent-up emotion that had been dormant for far too long.
But my plea fell upon rotting ears that could not comprehend or sympathize. It reached my door. I had rehearsed this moment in my mind during my early days in the forest.
Over and over, I had imagined how I would confront and eradicate this embodiment of my deteriorating sanity. Suicide was not my desire, but I had chosen this entity as the symbol of my mental decline, the entity that needed to be eliminated. Driven by panic and instinct, I grabbed the fire axe hanging above my table, my body moving mechanically as I propelled myself toward the barrier that separated us. A wordless scream of terror, revulsion, and hatred erupted from deep within me as I crashed through the door, my clenched teeth unable to contain the overwhelming intensity of my emotions.
The creature was struck by the door, its body forcefully pushed backward, eliciting a feral gasp from its throat. Now, I was determined to end it.
"Kill it." "Kill me." "Candle." "KILL." The words reverberated in an unsettling loop within my mind, out of sync with each other, fueling my purpose as I prepared to face the culmination of my anguish.
In a whirlwind of uncontrolled movement, I tumbled down the steps, my body flailing as I crashed onto the unyielding ground. Before I could fully process the fall, I found myself on my feet, instinctively rising without conscious thought.
And there it was, face to face with me, its breath uncomfortably warm and sticky against my skin. The putrid stench of decay invaded my nostrils, causing me to recoil in fear and repulsion. Backing up until I was pressed against the wall of my house, I felt my courage waver, my resolve crumble. I realized I was not strong enough, not capable of facing this. Then, it screamed, convulsed, and trembled before me, its milky eyes fixed on an unseen horizon.
Its hands stretched out, reaching for something beyond my comprehension. With that scream, a surge of courage and rage flooded my being. It was the same as it had been all those years ago in the school, an overwhelming flood of emotions that were not truly mine to feel.
It's difficult to articulate, but I embodied those emotions and allowed them to engulf me, to consume me.
"Kill."
The word reverberated relentlessly in my mind. Springing forward with a primal scream, I swung the axe with all my might, the blade sinking deep into its side. The sensation of bone deflecting the force of my strike is etched into my memory, never to be forgotten.
Blood and other fluids sprayed from the wound as it took a few faltering steps to the side, pushed by the momentum of my assault. The creature ceased its cries, its tremors, its breath. Time stood still as it finally turned to look at me. Fear rooted me in place, holding me captive in its gaze. We stared at each other, locked in a moment that felt like an eternity.
Foul breath washed over me once more, seeping into my senses. Beyond that, nothing happened. We simply stood there, locked in a silent exchange. I willed my frozen bones to thaw, my mind transitioning from terror and frenzied rage to... something else.
It wasn't pride, but rather a different, indescribable emotion. Yet, it carried a sense of triumph, I believe.
Unbeknownst to me, it had reached out and gently grasped my arm, its touch going unnoticed until it began to speak.
"I never... meant to... scare you..." he rasped, his voice torn and ragged, struggling to emerge between shallow breaths. "I'm sorry... this has to... happen to... you..." its words filled with agony and desperation. Tears welled up in its eyes, a flicker of pain crossing its face as its ragged hand clutched at the axe lodged in its new laceration. "Please... kill... me..." he wheezed, his plea reverberating in my mind and reaching my ears simultaneously. With its other hand, it gripped the axe and brought the blade to its neck. "Kill me... candle... kill. NOW!"
The final word echoed like an explosion within my head as its hand pressed against my face. Everything plunged into darkness for a fragmented moment as I swung the axe. Suddenly, I felt myself hurtling through space, a void engulfing me. The air grew cold, and the wind whipped past, intensifying the disorienting descent.
I screamed in a frenzy of confusion and terror, my voice lost in the abyss. Downward I plummeted, faster and faster, the nauseating sensation overwhelming me. In the distance, far below, a growing light pierced through the darkness. Fresh tears streamed down my face, blurring my vision and making it difficult to gauge the proximity of the light, and how much time remained before I would be halted by the unforgiving ground. But it was rapidly approaching.
I squeezed my eyes shut, unleashing a defiant scream that echoed through the void. In the face of imminent death, I summoned every ounce of defiance within me. "I want to live." The words echoed in my mind, a fervent plea repeating like a mantra. I curled into a protective ball, bracing myself for the impending impact that would mark my brutal end.
Seconds stretched into eternity as I awaited the inevitable. Then, with a soft and gentle thud, I collided with the ground, the impact far less severe than anticipated. A feeble whimper escaped me, carrying away the remnants of my shattered pride. Slowly, I uncoiled my limbs and remained still, a mix of confusion and exhaustion paralyzing me.
Was this death? Or had I somehow managed to survive? At the very least, I was conscious. I reached out with my hands, feeling the texture of the hardwood floor beneath me. Rolling onto my back, I extended my arms as far as they would go, searching for walls that eluded my touch, instead only finding a formless nothingness. I released a weak, triumphant sigh, throwing my arm in the air, and darkness claimed me once more, my consciousness slipping away.
When I awoke, I found myself in an unfamiliar hallway, illuminated by an ethereal light. Glancing around from my position on the floor, I took in the details of my surroundings. The hallway stretched endlessly in both directions, its warped and aged dark wood floors covered in a thick layer of dust.
On each side of me, two doors stood, adorned with handles veiled in shadows. Illuminated by flickering candles, the doors cast dancing shadows on the faded white paint. Ornate red and gold walls framed the hall, extending into the distance without interruption.
The air hung still, thin, and cold, creating an atmosphere of eerie stillness. Summoning my strength, I pushed myself upright, drawing a reflexive breath, only to find that my lungs refused to cooperate. I couldn't draw in the air, an unsettling revelation that further shook my already fragile state. Yet, amidst the disquietude, an unexpected acceptance settled upon me.
"Maybe I truly am dead," I mused, "and perhaps this is limbo or some other realm beyond the realm of the living."
Standing before the doors, I reached out and brushed off the accumulated dust, my fingers tracing patterns on the bronzed knobs. With hopeful anticipation, I attempted to turn the knob of the door on my right, but it remained resolute, refusing to yield.
Disheartened, I turned my attention to the door on my left, hoping for a different outcome. Yet, once again, my efforts proved fruitless. The doors remained firmly shut, denying me entry. A sense of resignation settled over me as I contemplated the possibility that I had indeed entered a realm of limbo or purgatory, where the deceased wander aimlessly, seeking answers and respite.
If there were lessons to be learned or tasks to be fulfilled, I had yet to discover them. But the absence of purpose, the prospect of eternal nothingness, weighed heavily on my soul. With a deep breath, I made the conscious decision to venture further into the darkness, forsaking the dwindling light behind me. Hours turned into an indeterminate passage of time as I traversed the boundless corridor, my hand tracing the cold surface of the wall for guidance.
Fatigue and hunger eluded me, further reinforcing the notion that I had in fact died.
If this was the extent of my existence, an eternal cycle of aimless wandering, I yearned for something more. The prospect of mere nothingness, devoid of purpose or meaning, felt like a reality abandoned by the gods themselves. Determination and desperation mingled within me, urging me to maintain my pace and to keep moving forward despite the gnawing uncertainty.
And then, a sudden burst of light ruptured the darkness behind me, catching me off guard. The icy tendrils of fear gripped my chest, causing me to flail and stumble, my yelp swallowed by the void. With a surprising display of grace, I rolled with the fall and swiftly turned around, propelled by a desperate longing. Desperation fueled my actions as I lunged for the handle of the nearest door, seeking an anchor to halt my momentum.
The handle remained steadfast, unyielding, as it abruptly halted my chaotic trajectory. Reality began to fracture, the veil of ignorance slowly lifting. Could I truly be dead? The realization dawned upon me, shattering the feeble illusion of safety and acceptance.
I wasn't okay. I wasn't safe. The weight of my unease bore down upon me, threatening to consume what little resolve remained. In the face of uncertainty, I whispered the truth that echoed within my being:
"I'm not okay."
With a surge of determination, I clutched the doorknob with both hands, pouring every ounce of strength into my attempt to pry it open. I threw my weight against the door, pulled, hit, kicked, and pleaded in a desperate frenzy.
But the door remained steadfast, unyielding to my relentless assault. Exhausted and defeated, I crumpled against the door, collapsing to my knees, and buried my face in my folded arms. The tears flowed freely once again as a sense of hopelessness enveloped me.
What was the point? There was nowhere to go, no escape from this interminable realm. I was trapped, imprisoned within my own personal purgatory. This was my punishment.
I rolled onto my side, curling into a tight ball, clutching my legs close to my chest. I surrendered to the inertia that consumed me. I ceased all efforts, resigned to my fate. Time lost all meaning as I lay there, motionless, accumulating layers of dust upon my immobile body.
Months or perhaps years passed in this stagnant state. The weight of my surrender bore down upon me, and I grew stagnant in body and spirit.
But amidst the stillness, a small voice emerged from the depths of my being, offering shards of defiance. It urged me to continue, questioning why I should give up. The relentless nagging of that voice eroded the staleness of my resolve.
And so, with great effort, I yielded to the persistent beckoning within. I began to stir, my brittle bones creaking and cracking in response to the tentative movements. Every inch of my being protested, muscles screaming in protest, as I defied the inertia that had held me captive. The desire for something different, something more, ignited within me.
My body clung stubbornly to the remnants of my self-imposed stagnation, resisting the momentum of my will. But I knew I had to move. "Just move." I whispered those two simple words to myself, a mantra to defy the stillness.
And with each painful twitch and every tear in my flesh, I pressed forward, compelled by the belief that there had to be more to this existence. The hallway, once shrouded in darkness, was now ablaze with the furious glow of burning candles, illuminating every inch of the endless walls adorned with white doors.
Shielding my eyes from the searing exposure, I recoiled from the scorching heat that radiated from the flames. The blinding light pierced through the cracks between my fingers, growing in intensity with each passing moment. But as I cautiously peered through the gaps in my fingers, a sight greeted me that filled my heart with renewed hope.
There, at the end of the hallway, lay a continuation beyond the confines I had known. A surge of determination coursed through my veins, igniting a fire within my soul. Clinging to the wall for support, I willed my feeble legs to carry me forward, pushing past the pain that resonated with each step. I moved with a shaky shuffle that evolved into a stiff, determined speed walk.
In retrospect, I can only imagine the nightmarish image I presented. But at that moment, all I wanted was to reach the end, to embrace the promise it held.
With each passing door, I caught glimpses of their numbered plaques. 37, 39, 41, 43... The numbers ascended, propelling me forward as I squeezed my eyes shut, running with unwavering determination. The intensity of the light multiplied, searing through my closed eyelids, triggering a symphony of pain that reverberated through every fiber of my being.
Perhaps I should have gauged the distance to the end, but in my blind pursuit, I collided with the wall with a resounding thud. The impact broke my nose, sending shockwaves of agony coursing through me, and I tumbled to the floor, disoriented and wounded.
As my body sprawled upon the ground, the once-illuminated candles in the hallway extinguished one by one, enveloping the space behind me in impenetrable darkness.
Yet, amidst the obscurity, one candle remained defiantly aflame—the candle beside the door labeled #158. Its flickering glow drew my gaze, anchoring me to the present. Candle. The word reverberated within the recesses of my mind, its significance echoing relentlessly. And then, like a distant echo from the past, a strained and familiar voice permeated my thoughts.
"Kill Candle," it urged, a haunting reminder of the encounters I had faced. The voice, bearing the same ragged quality that had sent chills down my spine before, emerged from the darkness, piercing the silence with its command.
A low, ominous rumble stirred in the distance, a sound foreign and unsettling to my ears. It started as a mere murmur, barely perceptible, but gradually swelled in volume, intensifying with each passing moment. The air itself seemed to thicken with unsettling energy, a growing force that permeated the surroundings. It was the sound of impending doom, a creeping darkness that threatened to swallow everything in its path. As the rumble resonated through the depths of my being, a profound unease settled within me.
It crawled beneath my skin, coiling around my bones with a chilling grip. The sensation of impending nothingness clawed at my very core, filling me with a deep-seated dread. It was a fear unlike any I had ever experienced, a realization that I stood at the precipice of an inevitable and irrevocable end.
The weight of this knowledge settled heavily in the pit of my stomach, a visceral stab of anxiety that sent tremors through my entire being. It was a fallible end, an abrupt cessation that promised a complete and utter halt to existence.
Each passing second amplified the intensity of this foreboding, like a storm gathering strength before it unleashes its fury. The world around me seemed to hold its breath as if bracing for the impending collision with an unimaginable void. In the face of this encroaching darkness, I stood transfixed, caught between fight and flight. The rumble grew louder, reverberating with an eerie resonance as if the very fabric of reality quivered under its weight.
It was a sound that defied explanation, an insidious reminder of the fragility of existence. And as the seconds ticked by, each one laden with a mounting sense of doom, I could not shake the feeling that something irrevocable was drawing near.
With trembling hands, I clutched the doorknob, desperately trying to twist it open. But it remained stubbornly locked, unmoving against my frantic efforts. The rumble grew louder, reverberating through the corridor, an unstoppable force closing in on me. Panic surged within me, urging me to shake the door with wild desperation.
But still, it resisted, unyielding to my futile attempts. "Kill. Candle." The words thundered in my mind, echoing over the impending chaos that threatened to consume me. It was a command, a directive to extinguish the flame. In a moment of clarity amidst the chaos, I realized what I had to do. I reached out, smothering the candle's flame with my bare hand.
And at last, the door swung open, as if I had unlocked an ethereal barrier. But as the door gave way, I was violently thrust forward, pulled into the void that lay beyond. The deafening roar receded, replaced by a disorienting rush of motion as I spun and flailed, completely at the mercy of the unseen forces at play. Control slipped from my grasp once more, leaving me to surrender to the unknown. Abruptly, the tumult ceased, and I found myself standing outside my own house, a surreal tableau frozen in time.
There, I witnessed an enigmatic moment, a version of myself suspended mid-swing, the axe poised to strike the creature's neck. It was a fractured moment of the reality I had left behind, a moment frozen in space and time.
Taking a hesitant step forward, I was abruptly hurled back into my own body, the fractured fragments of my existence reuniting. Time resumed its course, and I felt the weight of the axe as it carried out its intended purpose.
The blade connected with a solid, metallic impact, tearing a new rift in the fabric of reality. I was again plunged into a jarring darkness, the whirlwind of confusion was the only thing familiar anymore. My axe had struck something tangible, something solid.
The musty scent of familiarity, reminiscent of my high school days, filled the air, punctuating the otherwise suffocating silence. In an instant, my vision returned, but with a disorienting rush accompanied by dizzying vertigo.
I found myself standing in the classroom where my mother used to teach, a place I hadn't set foot in for years. Confusion clouded my thoughts as I turned my gaze to the left, and there she was, my mother, staring at me in disbelief.
A collective gasp rose from the students, their eyes fixed upon me with a mixture of fear and horror. The weight of their stares pressed upon me, making me acutely aware of the unusual circumstances I found myself in. At that moment, my attention was drawn to my own hands in an unfitting sense of embarrassment. And there, I noticed the axe embedded in the gas line, emitting an ominous hiss that sliced through the eerie silence.
My eyes darted back to my mother, and on her desk, illuminated by a solitary burning candle, my gaze fixated. The word echoed relentlessly in my mind, its significance growing with each repetition.
"Candle. The candle. The candle..."
In a reflexive surge of urgency, I released my grip on the axe, discarding any semblance of thought, and propelled myself toward the desk, driven by a desperate need to extinguish the flame.
But my efforts were in vain, for as my fingers reached out, a catastrophic chain of events unfurled before me. In an instant, the classroom erupted in a fierce conflagration, an inferno that devoured everything in its path. The sheer force of the explosion shook the very foundation of reality, hurling me against a wall, my body crumpling behind a nearby desk.
Charred and broken, my form bore the scars of the blast, yet my consciousness stubbornly clung on. I felt pain unparalleled to any other I'd experienced so far. Amid the chaos, I gathered myself and began to crawl toward my mother's mangled figure. She lay there, torn asunder, yet desperately still clinging to life.
With every ounce of strength left in me, I painstakingly dragged my injured body toward her, my movements a testament to sheer determination. My hand reached out, seeking connection, but instead encountered a severed limb.
Undeterred, I reached my mother and she extended her remaining arm, seizing my hand with a desperate grasp, our bond unbroken even in the face of such devastation. "Mom!" I sobbed, my voice choked with anguish. Tears streamed down my face as I knelt over her broken form. "Mom... I'm sorry!" I cried out, my words punctuated by deep sobs.
"I'm so sorry, Mom!"
Her eyes met mine, and in that delicate moment, she mustered all she had to utter a sweet whisper. "I love you," she managed, a feeble attempt at a smile gracing her lips.
But as her grip weakened, her hand slipped away, surrendering to the pull of gravity. I collapsed once more, pressing my head against her scorching shoulder, the flames from her burning clothes licking at my tear-soaked eyes.
At that moment, the searing pain of loss eclipsed any physical pain I might have felt. A surge of bile rose in my throat as the full weight of the tragedy unfolded upon me. The realization struck with cruel clarity—I hadn't succeeded in extinguishing the candle.
I had failed once again, repeating the cycle for the 158th time. The weight of my failure bore down on me, crushing my soul into a cloud of fine dust to be carried away with the hellfire that consumed my surroundings. I needed to escape from the desolation I had wrought.
Crawling on hands stained with her blood, I retreated to the corner of the room, seeking refuge behind a desk. My arms hung limply at my sides, my body trembling with a mixture of guilt and revulsion. I didn't want to touch anything, especially not myself. I recoiled from my own skin, my hands, the instruments of her demise. I wanted to shed my skin as it pressed its decrepit form ever closer to my heart.
"I killed my mom," I whispered, the words heavy with self-condemnation. I trembled uncontrollably, consumed by my otherworldly screams of anguish and sorrow that shattered the air. Suddenly, a voice pierced the chaos from behind me.
"Hey!" it yelled urgently. "We have to get out! There's a gas leak!" A hand reached out and grabbed mine. As I turned to face the source, a jolt of recognition coursed through me—I was staring at myself. Another version of me, yet somehow different, younger. At that moment, I realized with terror that I had become the embodiment of the nightmare.
I screamed a primal cry of disgust and horror, forcing the other me to retreat in a frightened flurry. Days have passed since then.
I write these words with dwindling autonomy, pleading for help, for someone to find me, the other me.
Find him. I beg you, whoever reads this, to search for him, and tell him what he must do. Please, tell me what I must do. The grip on my self-control weakens with each passing moment. The relentless compulsion to find the other version of myself consumes my every thought. I fear I can no longer hold myself back for another day. I need to give you more time. I need more time. He needs to break this cycle.
He must reach the candle.

I just found out you can hear other players mic if you save the clips and view them later. Yes, I’m behind.
But holy crap it’s so funny to hear y’all complain and bitch like me. Except for this business of questioning ranks. Let’s be real. This game sets you up to have the most unhinged rank if you’re in the average.
I was specifically looking for my all clears and you guys are so sweet when it happens. Then I face someone in my rank that accuses me of being a plant and damn that feels good too. Oh yeah, I got where you quit for that match too if you remember it 😎 Not the first one, so I take it as a compliment.
But, what defines a “plant?” I’ve seen high level players in PC with low tiers and assume. But what else is included? Being stuck in the 6s and 7s because you don’t t-spin feels planty..? I’m going to lose everytime someone can set up a play and crush me. Happens a lot.

So weird and I’m not sure why although I can speculate. So I came here for a destination wedding and planned to stay for an extra week after to coincide with my bestie and mutual friend being here too. My bestie’s family lives here while our mutual friend has her mother here at the same time.
The wedding weekend was wonderful and we had an amazing time. Prior to the holiday, my bsf was gushing about how much time we are gonna spend together, all the things we are gonna do etc. for the past two days (almost running on the third) I have not seen her at all.
She will message to say let’s make plans to meet but when I follow up, she doesn’t come through. She will take hours upon hours to respond and in that time I am literally waiting to see if she is coming or not (I still do my own things anyway). So I’m just left hanging for ages and then she will say a last minute thing like ‘oh I’m going dinner with my family now, join us’ knowing that I’m not ready and had no clue what the plan was. Almost as if to invite me on a plan where she knows my hands are tied when it comes to preparing for it because it’s so last minute. And I’m not a spontaneous person. It takes me ages to get ready. Now I’ve asked a bunch of times what the plan is for the next day and she comes with an unrelated response without answering my question. I’ve been asking for the past few days that I want to go to the beach and this is the only day to go since there is an event happening that we all spoke about going to. Yet, no response. Nothing.
My mutual friend is with her mother so I get that but even she was enthusiastic about the beach the other day but now is not responding to me either.
So I guess I’ll spend another day alone but it really wasn’t what I expected. Had my friend simply told me she had to spend time with family and wouldn’t have time to meet up then I would understand and not have extended my trip for this long. I just feel incredibly sad and lonely and will probably cry some more tonight.
TL:dr I think my friends are avoiding me and not wanting to spend time with me while we are all here on this holiday even though they said we would spend the whole time together. Feeling like a burden and incredibly lonely. How should I communicate with them about this?

Sex Male
Age 35
Height 5ft 6in
Weight 145
Current medication: none
So I’ve had some annoying wrist pain on my ulnar side. It was aggravated from doing too many yoga poses like chatranga and upward facing dog.
I work a physical job that involves lifting heavyish stuff all day and now I’m feeling it when I do end up lifting. The pain is not particularly bad but its achy and feels irritated when my wrist takes certain positions. My pt said it may be the tfcc but strangely ulnar deviation does not seem to irritate it too much but when I radially deviate I feel some irritation.
This is mainly an annoying injury. I have stopped doing yoga for stints of time(the longest was 2 weeks) it feels better but when I try to go back to doing some of those poses it ends up hurting again even when I modify them!
So what do I do? I’m a very active person and love my yoga practice. Is my physical job preventing healing from happening? I have an appointment with my pt again soon but just curious if I can get any pointers from the good folks over here.
Much thanks 🙏

There are a few mistakes in this article (ie. 10 scholarships to give) but it IS the first interview I have seen since his announcement as the new head coach.
https://malibutimes.com/waves-hoops-coach-schilling-has-a-zeal-for-basketball

For seven years, Ed Schilling worked as a trainer, helping pros get ready for the NBA Draft and NBA season

New Pepperdine Waves men’s basketball head coach Ed Schilling is passionate about his sport.
“I have a great desire to see players get better and teams improve,” said Schilling, a coaching veteran who has coached everywhere from the high school gymnasiums to NBA arenas. “That really gets me on fire. A lot of times, if players can see themselves getting better on the court, they’ll allow you to try and help them get better as men. That is ultimately what it is all about.”
Schilling, 58, an Indiana native, got his basketball fervor from his dad, Ed Schilling Sr., who coached hoops in the high school and college levels. Schilling said his father, also a college professor, who passed away in 2020, had an intensity to educate on the court and in the classroom.
“He loved to teach,” Pepperdine’s coach said. “He was a teacher at heart. Every single day he went to teach, he was excited. We both love to teach. I’m a teacher at heart.”
Schilling expects his love for the game to be evident has he leads Pepperdine’s men’s hoops program. The coach laced up his sneakers and hit the court running soon after he was hired for the coaching gig in early April.
Schilling solidified his coaching staff in the middle of last month and is working to complete the Waves’ roster before practices in June.
Schilling’s coaching staff includes Scott Rigot, Tyus Edney, Peyton Prudhomme, Mike Doig, and Jeremy Grubbs. The quintet are all seasoned coaches with experience teaching the game in college and high school.
For a considerable time, Schilling said, he dreamed about the type of coaching staff he desired.
“I wanted guys that are good coaches, who can get out on the court and really help players get better,” he said. “I also wanted guys that mesh well together. It’s not about building an all-star team, it’s about building a team that works well together. I wanted a group that played off each other’s strengths and covered up for each other’s weaknesses. That is what I was looking for. I feel like I did that.”
Pepperdine ended last season with a 13-20 record. The team’s coach for six seasons, Lorenzo Romar, was let go after the Waves’ final contest. Several players also transferred out of the program since then.
Four players from last season’s squad — guard David Mager, forwards John Squire and Boubacar Coulibaly, and center and forwards Aladji Gassama and Martin Gumwel — are still on the roster. Guard Aaron Clark and forwards Stefan Todorvic and Alonso Faure have also transferred to Pepperdine. The team has signed one recruit, and still has 10 scholarships available, so Schilling and his coaches have been busy hosting potential players and their families on campus and showing them around Malibu.
Schilling envisions the Waves taking the court next season with a talented roster and a playing style spearheaded by the best players’ strengths. He said competing in the West Coast Conference is a challenge he welcomes.
“Ideally, we want to play positionless basketball on offense, and we want to be challenging and tough to score against,” he said. “In this league, you have to be able to defend or you are not going to win. You have to be able to score too, because there are some high-powered offenses in this league.”
Schilling played for his dad in high school and played at Miami University (Ohio) in college, where was backcourt mates with future NBA champion Ron Harper.
“I broke all the assist records because I figured out it was really good if I passed the ball to [Harper] to take the shot,” Schilling said.
Schilling suffered two ACL injuries during his college years, and started his coaching career right after college. He coached high school basketball and spent time as an English and physical education teacher.
“The one thing I had when I started coaching was incredible passion for the game,” Schilling remembered. “I was 22 years old and trying to figure things out. My practices were about four and a half hours. I’m glad I didn’t play for myself back then.”
Schilling soon moved up the coaching ranks. He coached at the University of Massachusetts under legendary coach John Calipari. When Calipari accepted a job to coach the NBA’s New Jersey Nets, Schilling joined his coaching staff.
Schilling was then the head coach at Wright State and later an assistant on the University of Memphis coaching staff.
Then, for seven years, Schilling worked as a trainer — helping pros get ready for the NBA Draft and NBA season.
Schilling returned to the coach ranks as an assistant at UCLA for four years. Then, he was an assistant coach at Indiana University for two years and had the same role at Grand Canyon University for four years before he became the Waves coach.
Pepperdine President Jim Gash said in a press release that Schilling has demonstrated the highest levels of leadership and player development and preparedness during his years coaching.
“His extensive coaching experience throughout his career has exemplified the visionary leadership, strategic thinking, adaptability, and emotional intelligence required to navigate the world of college athletics,” Gash stated.
Schilling said the best thing about coaching is the opportunity to impact lives. He is excited to step on the sidelines and lead the Waves.
“I feel fortunate to be here,” he said. “There are not many places in the world like Pepperdine.”

I sometimes read about things on reddit but never made an account. I don't know why but I thought maybe I would try to sign up and talk about some things. The thing is I don't know any of you, but I feel alone with my thoughts. I get lost in deep thought and just life. All the things in life. To give some background I believe in God, and I believe that Jesus Christ is my savior. I pray about these things but still I feel alone with my thoughts and feel like I can never talk to anyone else in fear of being judged and treated like some outcast. That is why I present myself as anonymous. I also want to say I know I am straight but am confused on why I do the things I do. Also, I would like this to be organized but I am not a good at making post look nice so sorry for the mess.
To begin things off I will be going into some really deep and personal things. Yes, I have an addiction to pornography. The past months I have made great strides to overcome it. I know it's a problem though when I can't go a week without it. The most I've been able to do is 4 days. I have been viewing it once or twice daily since at least I was around 13 years old. Once I had to access to it. I can't stress enough how tremendous of an addiction it is when I have really trained my body and mind to need it. To even say no to it is extremely hard and takes a lot of effort especially since how easy it is to view it. It's going to take some time to really overcome it. I wish I could just all the sudden not do it anymore and overnight change but it's not so simple.
I was introduced to pornography at a very young age I feel like. I was 6 years old when a neighborhood kid showed me what it was. Just like that it hooked me. Not so sudden but slowly it would wiggle its way in my life. I am going to say some things I truly hate that happened. I don't remember how it began but me and this neighborhood kid started to explore with each other. Even as kid I hated it. I felt great shame, but I did it because it produced good feelings and I wanted to keep feeling the pleasure. We did certain things, nothing like penetration but more of touching. I remember also we would tuck in our lips and pecked. It's hard for me to even type this out really. I think my mind has blocked a lot of things that happened between us in those moments.
I don't blame him for what we did. But I know this stuff that happened was his idea and I just went along with it because it did make me feel good things at that age and I wanted to keep replicating it. His dad was a drunk and his parents were divorced. His dad had porno movies on DVD. That is how the neighborhood kid got into it, I assume. We would reenact scenes from some of the porn videos we watched. Unfortunately, I acted like the female.
Being a straight male in my 20s I don't think anyone understands how severely this stuff has messed with my mind. Causing me confusion on if I could truly be gay or bisexual. I don't think I am because I don't practice gay things, nor do I watch gay porn. That being said, I slowly became more and more open to watching trans porn. At first, I was disgusted by it when I first learned of it. But when I got bored of, I guess normal porn I needed that "new high", something different and more in my mind, forbidden. Some of the acts I watched actually gave me enjoyment which really concerned me. I know what I am watching. Some things I still don't like. But I do get enjoyment when both the guy and the trans person have their parts touch and rub. I don't know why. I cannot watch the guy get pegged nor can I watch the guy suck the trans person off, those are huge turn offs for me.
The thing is me and that neighborhood kid did have our parts touch. I think that left some sort of impact in mind. That is the only explanation I have for how I can get enjoyment out of watching that certain act. Is it possible to be straight and somehow get enjoyment out of what is in my mind effectively a different version of gay porn? Because there are 2 dicks involved.
I love females very much. I love their bodies. I cannot describe it into words. I am very attracted to females. This alone for me confirms that I am not attracted to men. But then why am I getting enjoyment from trans porn? It is very confusing to me.
I hate that I have allowed myself to get addicted to porn. It has wired my brain in different ways. When I resist when my body wants to feel pleasure it's so powerful that I clench my hands into fist resisting the urge. It takes a lot of strength to say no. I don't know who can relate. Unfortunately, pornography has been a huge part of my life in secret. Basically no one knows how bad it is nor understand how much it has consumed me in a negative way. I feel alone. This fight seems unwinnable. I repent a lot. Sounding like a broken record. Like some drug addict going back to their old ways then asking for forgiveness again and again. It seems so pointless, but I still try to persevere. The past months I have had made great progress than I have ever in the how many of years of my life I've watched porn.
I hate that I did things with that neighborhood kid. I know we were kids but still I wish none of it happened. I don't hate him or blame him. We were kids, both victims of the evils of this world. To be exposed to these things at a young age. So messed up. I wish my heart and mind could be pure. I wish I had better self-control over my addiction.

Hi everyone! My gf who I’ve been with almost 2 years now has hypothyroidism (or hyper I don’t remember tbh).
We are currently in a pretty rough patch of our relationship seems likes she is very irritated and hates me out of no where. She has mentioned she’s very overwhelmed and it just seems like she’s very emotional lately but unable to put the emotions in words. She’s been through a lot of stress at work and I thought maybe that could be the case.
I’ve been doing a lot of research on relationship stuff and then I decided to look more into hyper and hypo thyroid symptoms.
I didn’t know that thyroid basically regulates emotion to some degree. I’ve seen it described as your emotions being drunk. Especially when under stress this can get worse. I guess I’m reaching out on here to get a better understanding. I don’t think she knows too much about this either other than to take her pill (I think I mentioned to her that one of the common symptoms is muscle and joint pain, which would explain why her knees always hurt and she was surprised to hear it could be from thyroidism).
So, personal experience or not, have you had this affect your relationships in anyway? Friendships? I don’t know for sure if it’s what’s happening to her now, but I would like to hear what you think, and maybe anything that I can do to support her the best I can :)

Buckle up, this is going to be confusing and long. I have to say from now that I actually have major "memory gaps" from alot of what happened and most of what I'll say from now is information I had to gather from people who were around me when this happened.
Last week, in school, I was sitting with my friends in the cafeteria area. I looked at my watch and realized the date of the day and thought "my dad is coming back today from traveling" (he was in another country), I just remembered a past memory of him yelling at me and abusing me. Now the thing I don't understand is that suddenly I kept having multiple "flashbacks", both visual and auditory, of the abuse my family put me through, including my dad. I wanted it to stop but I realized I couldn't, I was literally paralyzed on the outside. I tried to nudge my friend beside me but I could barely twitch my finger. (she was distracted with my other friend and had her head turned away from me). The best way I could explain the "flashbacks" is that it was like if you had multiple Tvs around you playing multiple movies, aka memories, all at once at high speed and volume.
I realized my heart was beating very fast and loudly, and even in less stressful situation than this one, feeling my heart makes me anxious. Luckily one of my other friends came to sit with us and noticed how I was. I tried with all my strength to talk to them and tell them what's happening but I was "paralyzed" and couldn't tell them. I was already extremely distressed and realizing how badly I couldn't react made me start crying involuntarily and they called the doctor assuming I was ill. Obviously the doctor realized I wasn't sick and told me to just drink juice. The more she asked questions and the more I didn't respond, the more she got frustrated at me. By that point they called my sister who also got mad at me for not talking. By then, the break had ended for a while and I don't know how but I ended up in my classroom, I think i just literally walked there but I don't remember doing that at all. Then I sat down on a chair next to the supervisors table and, once again, I don't remember what happened but I realized time had passed and there were multiple people surrounding me and one of my friends was on her knees infront me trying to talk to me. And when I realized I don't remember her walking up to me at all, talking to me, kneeling down beside me, I was so frightened and just started sobbing. I don't remember much from here but I do know, from my friends, that the supervisor told everyone to go back to their class. I should mention that my class was less than a few feet away from the supervisors seat, she doesn't have a private office.
I just started sobbing and sobbing and the only person I wanted was my closest friend, who I'll call "S", who knew me more than anyone else. I was scared of my dad so badly even though I knew he couldn't do anything in school. Again, I somehow ended up in another area near the supervisor's table and I was hugging S so hard her arms turned red. My mind felt hazy and then I glanced behind her for a second and I fucking saw my dad just standing there. I knew there was no fucking way he was there, I go to an all girls school, 3 floors up, and he was in a different country, but I was so confused. I half believed and half didn't. I was so horrified and I kept telling them he was there but they told me no one was there (from my friends' narration).
This kept going on for a while until I just somehow ended up in the bathroom, laying down on the floor, and a few teachers and people from the administration were surrounding me. I genuinely don't remember how I ended up there. It got so bad my sister had to call my therapist, and I yelled at the phone that my dad was there and he was going to hurt me but even I knew that was ridiculous but I couldn't help it. We had to hang up on her through. After a long while I managed to stand up and I was beside my class, my class door has a window thing you can look through and then it hit me that all of my classmates are seeing this and it scared me again.
My friends told me later that someone opened the door and I ran in and grabbed one of my closest friends who also knew about my dad's abuse and yelled at her something like "tell them I'm not lying tell them tell them" but the thing is I don't remember who "them is" or what I meant by lying I really don't. They kicked everyone in the class out and I ended up just sobbing for a while again. I don't remember much and my friends had to leave so I don't have any information of what happened. I ended up going home and they gave my mom a warning.
So fast forward to yesterday, on Tuesday. I was having a completely normal day, and then an hour into school, I just felt "weird" and started banging my head hard and alot on my table. Luckily the tables aren't that hard, I don't know what the material they're made out of is called but they can't really do much, it's hard but weak. My friends sitting beside me had to grab me with all their strength because, again from their narration, I kept trying to fight against them to hurt myself. The administration came in and kicked everyone out and I just kept trying over and over again to harm myself. Apparently I even tried to take my clothes off but they stopped me. But everyone saw what my upper body looked like I think. And I ended up downstairs 3 floors down in the principals office, I don't remember how I ended up there. I was screaming crying and begging for S and my favourite teacher, they wouldn't bring S but they did call that teacher. She kept hugging me and comforting me. Then they tried to make me leave to my driver who was outisde the gate. When they got me out to the gate i for some reason just ended up on the floor sobbinf and I don't know why. Then I looked behind me and my dad was there. It wasnt a delusion or whatever he was there. Enough time had passed for him to have time to come. They also called 3 male teachers from the boys section to carry me. When my dad held I can swear I screamed like I was tortured alive. The more he held me the more I was distressed and scared. I don't know what happened but he left and they called my mom to pick me up instead. (I live with both my parents but my dad has a busy job and had to go back to work for emergencies whole my mom stays at home). I went back home and the rest is too much irrelevant details I don't wanna focus on. Theres only one week of school left with exams, in the exams time we stay only 2 hours in school and leave, there's no classes or anything like that. And now the school is refusing to let me go back to my classrooms, they said I'll have to take the exams in the administration room.
I genuinely have no idea what's going on with me, I've done so much research but I haven't even found anything that could be a basic assumption or theory or idea or whatever of what's going I'm so confused I hate this and I'm stressed and now everyone at school knows I'm being abused by my dad. Please if you have any idea what's goin on with me, even if it might sound ridiculous or whatever please please tell. And I know I have to go to a psychiatrist or psychologist but we're still in the middle of dealing with that so yeah. Also no one in my family has a history of mental illness especially with something like this.
Ps. As I've said most of what I've written is from what people told me they saw when they were there so I can't guarantee I'll be able to answer most questions.

I still have the same feelings for you. I do however learn. If I leave town again and things are how they are, I'm convinced now that my problem was that I have always been too good to women. Contrary to popular lies and rumors used to run my name through the mud and take everyone and everything from me I have never treated anyone badly. What I have learned is that that is my major mistake. You have made me see women don't want to be treated as an equal. Doing right by them is where I always fuck up. So congrats I don't think I will even be decent towards anyone else I allow in my life thanks to you and that's if I get stupid enough to allow anyone in my life again. You taught me this lesson when you intentionally hurt me by intentionally copying Joycelyn to the letter. Have fun taking her spot and getting passed around and set the fuck up until they put you in prison for the rest of your life like the group you picked over me has planned. Now, I look down on you and consider you a fucking retard, both of which I never did before. You wanted me to resent you well congrats you are close to getting it. Just figured I would let you know how I see things at this point. Women like you destroy good men then bitch you don't well one. Well you had one and not only do you not want to be treated well you turned a good man bitter. I'm finally of the mentality that women should be treated the way you seem to prefer being treated so thanks for the lesson.
Ps you deserve what happens to you for choosing it