Hello! I am in a long term relationship with Apple but have been seeing Birch for a few weeks. We are a V and I am the hinge. I went away with Apple to the beach for a few days and one of the days Birch came over and we had drinks and I slept with Birch in their bed (preplanned).
A few weeks after this Apple said to me that he wouldn't be comfortable drinking with Birch again because they thought that Birch had intentionally made them a very strong drink to 'knock Apple out' and therefore sleep with me sooner. Apple has a relatively good alcohol tolerance and he says he had this drink then felt really drunk really quickly and passed out. I didn't think about it at the time but I did try a bit of Apples drink that Birch made and it was pretty strong.
So I was very concerned about this and I told Birch that the drink they made Apple was too strong for them and Apple wasn't sure if they'd be comfortable drinking again so if they still wanted to hang out with Apple (and I specifically said zero pressure to see him again at all etc) could they make a weaker drink next time?
Birch apologised straight away and said they still wanted to hang out with Apple but wouldn't mix drinks.
So I told Apple about this and they were really upset with me and said they felt really betrayed and even thought they didn't say that the conversation was confidential that it was implied. We talked about it for a fair while and sort of worked it out but Apple is still really mad at me and says they don't know if they can be open with me again if I'm going to go off and tell other people things they meant to be private. They said it made them feel really anxious and it will affect their relationship with Birch and they'll feel awkward around them now.
I guess I can be a bit direct at times, but I also think that it's concerning and a big accusation and I thought that without putting a suspicious theory into it but just delivering the facts it would give Birch a chance to correct course while also ensuring Apples safety. I am a pretty transparent person with my own feelings and life so I generally always opt to try and fix things early and well if there's been a breach.
I said to Apple after that maybe a boundary for me going forward is that they don't tell me things about my other partners if they expect those things to stay a secret between Apple and I. If they want to share information with me I'd like the autonomy to act on it, especially if it's a safety issue.
But I throw myself on the mercy of the community - what does everyone think?

What’s in the closet, Kirsty?
He knew I hid a secret.
I smiled, tried to look confused.
He waited, crossing his arms.
I worried that he'd already seen. He had.
What else could he think about the pile?
His wife’s a cheater. She has another life. Another husband. Children.
He’d never believe the truth: I’m not a cheater; there’s no other life; no other man; I don’t know who the children are who visit me at night.
But I did have a secret. And maybe it’s fair to say another life, even if was smaller and against my will.
I should have destroyed those frames, burned the photos within. Now it looked like I saved them, cherished them. The truth couldn’t be farther. I feared to touch anything to do with… whatever they are…with one exception.
“It started last Halloween,” I said to George, my husband, my real husband.
He stopped packing for a moment, working out the impossibility of this statement. “I’m taking the girls to my parents.” He resumed the tossing of shirts, pants, etc. into our big suitcase.
“It’s true,” I said, but weakly. The children in the picture are at least six and four respectively. They were born six months ago.
“They’re not… my kids,” I said of the boys in the photos. They’re not kids is what I almost said.
George stopped and squeezed the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “Kirsty,” he said slowly, “there are baby pictures. I saw them.”
“That’s-”
He quickly raised his finger, exasperated, angry, done.
“The first picture is you holding a newborn, and…” He swallowed painfully, his throat gone dry. It always does when he’s upset. “And the father in that picture, with his arm around you, isn’t me.”
When I couldn't deny it, he nodded like he knew all along our marriage would end.
We were happy. We really were. George and I had managed to overcome the typical breakdown that often comes with raising children. Only since last Halloween had distance been made by me.
I should have told him as soon as it started.
“Girls!” he called as I followed him down the stairs to the front hall of our lovely home. We’d scrimped and sacrificed to buy and keep this place, our dream by the lake. He’d been so proud. I couldn’t tell him I wanted to leave the first night sleeping there.
Cara and Ella protested through play, ignoring the adults, continuing to jump on an old box they’d long since flattened. Rays from the western sun placed my daughters into an inspired, hallowed light, and I started to cry. He was going to take my babies away.
George opened the door, intending, I’m sure, to drop the suitcase in the car before returning to physically carry the girls out.
But he hesitated in the doorway.
“George?”
The suitcase fell with a solid thud on the floor. “There’s no way,” he said.
“What?”
“There’s no way,” he said, with emphasis on the last word, “you would have had time for…this…”
Not defining "this" as cheating was progress. “Yes!”
He glared, quieting my desperate enthusiasm. I wasn’t off the hook. “Tell me. The truth.”
“I can’t.”
He reached for the suitcase.
“No, not because I don’t want to,” I protested. “I don’t know what’s happening!” I sat on the carpeted steps and stared through blurred vision at my trembling hands. The shriek I’d filled the house with - “happening!” - had put a halt to the box's obliteration. Cara and Ella hesitated for a few seconds before leaping into action.
Cara, the oldest, six, punched her dad in the buttocks. “You have to be nice!”
Ella, four, sat beside me and patted my trembling hands. “It’s okay, mummy.”
Such lovely daughters. Nothing like the boys in those photos when they were this age.
George grasped Cara's wrists and gently walked her back into the house, using his foot to kick the suitcase from the swing of the front door.
"It's alright, girls," he said with weak resolve. "Go and play."
"No!" Cara shouted. She kicked at her father and he pulled her close into a bearhug. Gradually, the girls calmed and were convinced to return to the box in the front room.
"Kirsty," George said, "you have to tell me." He sat down on the step beside me. "Please." I would do anything to take away the hurt in his eyes. "Please."
"I can't. But… I can write it down. Maybe." I took out my phone. We shared Google Drive. When I made a new document, he reluctantly started his phone. The man was a dream. He watched his screen, and waited patiently for my words to appear.
Without preamble, I returned to the awful moment when it all began: a strange and disturbing dream. Words came like an infection from beneath a torn scab. The wound had been opened. Nothing could stop this now.
Sex with another man has never been a desire of mine. I love George. He loves me.
Plus, the man in my dream was a stranger, and not particularly handsome. He has a plain face set to unwavering boredom and unkempt male pattern baldness. Our dream sex felt obligatory, just something we had to do.
I awoke on the wrong side of midnight. November 1st and I was craving ice cream instead of the girls' gathered candy. The freezer left by the previous homeowners came with unopened ice cream. Freezer burned or not, I wanted some.
After retrieving a spoon from the kitchen, I intended to destroy a brick of neopolitan. He waited in his flannel pajamas, barefoot on the concrete floor. His arms were crossed.
"Cravings?" he said.
I dropped the spoon. It clattered down the basement steps. Before I could run away, he disappeared like someone had erased him from head to foot in one clean sweep.
Had to be a dream. That's what I told myself. The spoon stayed in the basement until daylight. Ghost or nightmare, there was laundry to do the next day.
I crossed the concrete floor fast and only felt safer when I'd closed the door to the more modern laundry room. Never thought builder's grade tiles and track lights would make me feel anything but sad.
His voice caught me sorting.
"Kirsty!"
I dropped the cup of detergent all over the floor.
"Shit."
I came out of the laundry room, figuring George had been looking for me in uncharacteristically rude fashion. He hated speaking between rooms. Shouting throughout the house was highly impolite. It must have been important, I figured.
As soon as I stepped onto the bare concrete, however, deep sadness, the kind that seems to physically leech the strength from your body, dominated the room.
"Hello?" I don't know why I said that. The basement is a low ceilinged rectangle. There are no hiding spots except for the laundry room I'd come from. After a deep breath, I walked briskly to the stairs.
"Any day now," a raspy voice breathed into my ear. I jolted and slipped forward, falling and clipping my chin off a step. It made my teeth click painfully. Nobody there, of course. I ran upstairs and George had gone outside with the girls to play hide and seek.
I wanted to tell him. He looked so happy. It's hard to convey in words the kind of smile he showed me through the window. Imagine contentment mixed with unreserved joy and hope. Yes, it's difficult to picture. So few of us can ever have such a moment. Sort of like finding a natural view completely untouched by humanity. Beyond rare and precious.
I’m rambling now to avoid writing about what followed. The point is I couldn’t tell him. I hoped it’d go away and stop.
But, of course, it didn’t, and things got much worse.
I awoke in a great deal of pain. Having already given birth to children, the feeling was familiar. Despite getting up and gasping, George continued to snore in our bed. He’s a deep sleeper, but a quick and early riser. I’ve never heard him complain about getting out of bed either, especially when there’s an emergency.
I might have woken him up but I was disoriented and confused. Part of me believed I was still pregnant with Ella. It wasn’t until I’d gone all the way to the kitchen to avoid waking up the girls, that my brain caught up: Girls. Plural. Ella was asleep in her bed upstairs.
“Ohhhhhhhh shiiiiiiiiiiit.” I knew the signs of labour. This couldn’t be happening. “Ohhhhhhhhh.”
I was definitely going to wake everyone up if this continued.
My phone was upstairs by my bedside table. We don’t have a landline. I should have called 911. I should have woken up George.
Instead, I went downstairs where I could vocalize pain without disturbing anyone. Such a pathetically passive response. But that’s how I was raised. Keep it down, don't you frown.
His hands seized mine as soon as I descended the last step. Serious and bald without dignity is how to best describe his physical appearance. Cold and cruel is what he is. The lights turned off and, in the perfect darkness of the basement, he was all that I could see.
He produces a red light from his body somehow but his touch is literally frosty.
"Kristy, it's time," he said. No joy there. Just straight facts. Something was coming. I was going to give birth to it. In the dull red glow of his being, the first boy came.
"His name is Hadad," the man said, placing a large, infant boy with a lot of hair and, I swear, a hint of beard, on the bare concrete. Hadad looked like a three month old they use as newborns on TV. He didn't cry. He hardly seemed to breathe as his dark eyes roamed the darkness. His light resembled the man's, a less intense red.
I felt another contraction, and winced.
"She comes next," the man said.
I felt so weak. "Who are you?" I asked him.
At last, he smiled and I wished he hadn't. It made me feel small, insignificant, and beneath his concern. "You know who I am," he said. "I'm your husband."
Pain wracked my entire body. Something didn't feel right. The birth of Cara and Ella had been without difficulty.
"Push," my "husband" ordered. "She is upset with you, and will kill you if you don't get her out now."
"It has to be a nightmare," I told him. Sweat poured in streams down my face. The unborn "she" in question writhed and damaged my insides. I screamed. I couldn't help it.
"Push!"
I obeyed and the second boy spilled onto the bare concrete, coated in blood and dust.
"It's a boy," I said.
The man looked displeased. "The body is male. She is Hebat. No wonder she is angry." Like the other infant, Hebat appeared aware of her surroundings and had far too much motor control for a newborn. The light pouring from her body was dull silver. Her eye sockets were two pits of concentrated despair. I had to look away.
The babies were pressed into my arms.
The man stretched out beside me. "Open your eyes and smile." I resisted. "Do it. Now." What choice did I have? The flash from his cell blinded me. They were all gone by the time my sight recovered. Only the sweat remained as evidence of the ordeal.
It had to have been a hallucination. Some very bad food poisoning maybe. The source could be as simple as an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. I had been stress eating since we'd moved in. I stood up and took some comfort in a Charles Dickens' reference.
"More of gravy than of grave about you," I said. My words seemed consumed by the dreadful weight of the air. "Whatever you are."
Whatever you are: something bad in any case. At best, I'd hallucinated prolonged and traumatic labour and needed medical attention. Yet, when I limped up the basement stairs, all thoughts of waking George vanished. There on the kitchen island sat a propped frame containing the photograph taken only moments ago.
The man looked happy. Only Hadad appeared in this picture, which meant another one was somewhere. I didn't panic. I worried more about what George would think if he saw the photos. I had to find them all.
Hebat and his father and I were mounted in a dark wood frame by the master bedroom. It'd be the first thing anyone saw if they woke up. I plucked it off the wall and, together with the first photo, tucked it under some blankets in the dresser we'd shoved in the small walk-in closet.
You might not believe this, but I went straight to sleep after. I climbed under the blanket in my sweaty pajamas, shut my eyes, and didn't have enough time to deny what had happened. I was unconscious until morning.
George placed a coffee on my nightstand. That's what I remember. He rubbed my feet while I slowly awoke. The girls were watching TV downstairs, munching on apple slices. There was forty minutes still before we had to seriously consider getting ready to take Cara to school.
George would drop her off on his way to work downtown. He chose his hours and always chose convenience for his wife and kids. Ella and I planned to spend the morning gardening. Then we would nap much of the afternoon away until George and Cara returned. A life so perfect is so very rare.
I didn't want to spoil things with a very convincing nightmare. Besides, I felt fine. Not so good that I wanted to look in the dresser to see if those photos really were there, but not ill. So I remained silent again.
November started fine. Idyllic days and nights filled with laughter and joy and television. Just as I started to believe in the dream we'd made, they came again.
The wail of a child's hunger is a powerful call for a parent. When it's a chorus, even of two, it cannot be ignored. Only I awoke to Hadad and Hebat's cries for their "mother" from the basement.
Half asleep, I drifted into the kitchen and searched for their milk bottles. When no bottles could be found, I remembered they were newborns. Milk swelled in my breasts and made my nipples ache. Just like when Cara or Ella would awaken in the night. It was a relief to feed them.
But what the fuck was I doing?
I was acting like the man in the basement and the devil babies were mine. It'd been less than a week since Halloween and that horrible nightmare illusion. I had already taken on the beleaguered newborn mother role without question.
Their cries intensified and flayed the weak resistance of exhausted reasoning.
Don't wake George. Don't wake my babies, my real babies.
"What took you so long?" the man critized, his voice monotone, the question unrhetorical.
"I… was sleeping. I went to the fridge first." Under his severe gaze, I stopped in the midst of the dark room. Hadad had quieted. Hebat cooed as if laughing at her own joke. I couldn't see them because the lights were off. They liked the dark better. Somehow I knew that about them and him.
"You should sleep down here," he said. "A mother should always be close to her babies."
The statement was nonsense but not altogether wrong. I wanted to be close to my babies, the daughters sleeping in bliss upstairs, away from the evil fermentation in the basement.
"Kirsty," he said. "Are you listening?" His hand touched the small of my back. The gentleness surprised me. I squawked and flinched away. "What’s wrong with you? They're hungry." He pressed on my shoulders until I sat on the cold floor.
They came from the shadows, already walking. I wanted to go, but I knew he wouldn't allow it. He pulled my cat t-shirt off over my head and their fierce mouths suckled, relieving the pressure of excess breast milk quickly. It felt physically good and psychologically alien.
I looked down at them once and immediately regretted it. Their emanated light had intensified to a point where perception of them hurt.
Each time I blinked my eyes were drawn to some isolated part of their bodies. The vision got closer to the point of disgust. Everything is gross if you're close enough. There is no beauty under a microscope. If you think there is then you're not using the right magnification.
Hebat's eye drew me in. At first, I saw the dark sphere, and then the strands of her eyelashes. Her gravity kept pulling until the creatures that live in eyelashes were revealed: Demodex folliculorum. I looked the microscopic horrors up.
The babies had more parasites than any child should. They wanted to show me and could somehow do so.
I asked him about it. "Why are they showing me these worms?"
He smiled, contemptuously as usual. "Trying to impress mother. Neither of them understand your horror and insignificance. You are the ant who knows they're an ant. Lucky you. They think you will be proud of the life their corporeal forms produce and host. Give them a few hours. It will pass."
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"I'm not sure what you mean. We're married. Now, prepare to smile." His cell reappeared and I noted the lack of features; it might have been a singed rectangle of spent firewood. He frowned when I failed to smile. "Smile, Kirsty. These are your children."
I managed to stave off the tears and hold the babies close. The smile was more difficult. In the inevitable aftermath of their sudden disappearance, the frames depicted an exhausted, wrinkly woman smiling painfully. It took a second to recognize myself.
The things in the basement sapped my strength. I looked dehydrated, beleaguered. The scale in the bathroom said I'd dropped six pounds. I'd weighed myself the morning before.
"Whoa, you've lost weight," George noted, thinking I'd be pleased. "This place has been so good for us, eh?'
To produce another smile proved as draining as the previous night. "Y-yes," I stuttered too late for him to ignore.
"Hey," he said, touching my forearm.
I flinched.
"Whoa, you okay? What's wrong?"
I should have told him. "Nothing. Bad sleep. A nightmare. I'll be fine."
A lie is an agreement. George wanted to agree, I think. He wanted life to be fine because he was happy for once. We struggled so hard before we came to Bridal Veil Lake. It was supposed to be our dream.
Guilty if I told him the truth. Guilty because I didn't. I began to resent his happiness, though he had done nothing but be the wonderful man he'd always been.
To Cara and Ella I became a body in motion, No brain left to guide them away from harm or answer their questions about nature and the universe.
"I don't know." That's what I told them often.
So they began to treat me like a kind of butler.
"Can I have some juice, please?"
"Sure, sweetheart."
"Mommy, can I have a snack?"
"Of course." And I'd run off to fetch it.
"Cookies."
"Yes, dear."
When Christmas came, I had two and they induced the same level of joy. Visiting the basement to feed and nurture Hebat and Hadad became a nightly occurrence. I'd learned to awaken, if I could get to sleep at all, and go quietly.
He berated me severely if I missed a night, and there were subtle threats made casually.
"I may have to squash you yet," he said, his tone as deep and cold as always.
"It won't happen again," I promised. "They’re getting big." In fact, they were no longer infants. Both had grown to the approximate age of six or seven in a few months. Still, they never spoke. Their dark eyes watched me as they ate food from the kitchen upstairs, food I'd hidden from my family.
"More meat," the man demanded.
"Of course." And I ran to the freezer and gave them frozen sausages in the package. They never complained or demanded the food be prepared a different way. No objections from my "husband" either.
Hebat tore the styrofoam and plastic wrap away and flattened the row of sausages stuck together between powerful molars. Hadad contented itself with licking them like a popsicle.
I'd stay until the photo. Then they'd release me by vanishing. Always with an exhausted breath, I'd trudge up the stairs and search for the frames and hide them in the same place.
They only smiled in the pictures. At no other time did they express any kind of emotion unless indifference counts.
My own children and husband weren't doing much better. Their concerns about my fatigue and ruminating slowly ceased as I repeated the excuse: I’m just tired. It'll pass.
Of course, I did not know when the nightmare would stop.
"When will it end?" I asked him one night, while Hebat and Hadad exercised like they had a mission.
"What do you mean?" he said.
I was surprised he answered. He usually didn't. "This. This. When can I go back to normal and not come down every night? I'm so very tired."
He frowned and I thought some punishment must be coming. Instead, he looked more confused. "I don't understand. You aren't happy? Your children grow into power and strength and will take their place in the world. They will be great and you - you, of all the tiny things, made that happen. Ask yourself what you want out of life, and see if Hebat and Haddad aren't your answer."
Too many words, all at once, for an exhausted mother. I didn't speak for the rest of the night. The infernal trio vanished, and the latter moments of the ritual I carried out with his challenge in mind.
I want my children to be strong, happy, and safe.
"Juice," Cara demanded the next morning, a Saturday, while she watched cartoons.
"Get it yourself!" I hissed, from tired to angry in a second.
"But I can't," Cara accurately pointed out. She didn't look away from the TV. Looking at me wasn't safe, and she knew it. Her and Ella held hands and sat a little straighter. It broke my heart. What had I done?
George came downstairs, attracted by my shouting. "What’s going on?"
Empathy became sadness, and the constant burden rekindled to anger swiftly. "Just children treating me like a servant."
He smiled. "Ah, yes, and how are the royal princesses this morning?"
His levity irked me. "You would know if you didn't sleep in so much."
The smile vanished from his face, and instead of the fight I seemed to want, he mumbled a quiet apology and joined the girls. They climbed onto him as he wrapped them into a cuddle.
"What are we watching?" George restarted his smile, his calm, for the girls. I hated myself. It had to end. Tonight.
After another dreary day of going through the motions, and the girls and George had fallen asleep, I went to the kitchen and chose the knife I thought sharpest.
"Kirsty," he said, his voice a whisper rising from the depths of the house.
"Coming," I whispered back.
"Mom," said another voice, a girl's, and I knew that Hebat had, at last, found herself and the wholeness of her being had been corrected.
I started to cry. I went downstairs and there she was with her brother and her father. He looked tired but some of the grimness had cracked to allow the first real contentment I've ever seen him express.
"Is that for the cake?" he asked. "We already have one."
I remembered the sharp knife. "Meat," I said. "There’s ham in the freezer."
He nodded, seeming to accept the answer.
"Mom," Hebat said, "Do you think I'm…" She gestured to herself, her face, and her body, and I understood the question, born from doubt and a desire to be validated.
I pulled her close. "You are the most beautiful girl in the whole world." We cried together. Hadad cut into a poorly made, asymmetrical cake by the light of his aura. No one cared that he did so on the floor. I brought out the ham from the fridge and we ate slices with our hands.
"It's almost done," he said. "They’re nearly grown. They are strong, and they are happy. You've done a good job, Kirsty." He watched our children fight to smear icing on each other's faces. "I'm sorry if I was mean. Or cold. I've never done this before." And he meant raising children. "It was the hardest, scariest thing anyone can try. I shouldn't have blamed you for… Hebat… It wasn't your fault."
Before I could pat his hand, he and the kids vanished. Darkness so familiar couldn't extinguish a new fear. I went upstairs and found the last frame. I held my daughter in the photo, my beautiful Hebat. He must have taken the photo without my notice.
I took it upstairs but couldn't bring myself to hide it.
I didn't see that one, George wrote into the document.
I forgot he was watching.
He typed again: Are you saying there is something in the basement?
Yes, I replied.
He stirred in the living room. I hadn't moved from the stairs, but I could tell by his stomping how angry he'd become. All of his negative, violent traits he saved for those in the world who would harm his family. George the Protector was fearsome to behold.
But he had no chance against my other husband.
"Come out! Come out you coward!" George bellowed. At first, nothing happened. The moment before calamity, even when the specific consequences aren't known, is still in slow motion. He carried on shouting. The girls rushed into the hall and didn’t hesitate to investigate.
"No!" I shouted. "Cara! Ella!"
Their feet padded down the steps. A violent commotion followed, screams and raging voices, both deep and childishly shrill.
The most unsettling quiet followed.
I chewed through the fear and the horror tearing me apart and finally moved.
No evidence of violence could be seen from the top of the stairs. The concrete looked bare and dusty and the light revealed nothing more. They were gone, all of them.
"Hebat," I whispered. "Cara? George?"
Him, I thought of, the nameless husband and felt no hint of his presence. He'd always been there. I know that now. It had nothing to do with the house. His absence was felt more than his insidious presence. Yet, I felt no relief. George and the girls were gone. I sat on the floor and cried for all my missing children.
When I finally emerged from the basement, the whole house had been filled with night. Their photos were everywhere. The others were upstairs. I gathered them on the kitchen island. How could I explain any of this to the police?
I needed help. I called my parents. It took twenty minutes before my father picked up.
"Kirsty? What's wrong?"
"Dad," I whimpered. "George is gone. Cara. Ella."
"What? What did you say?"
"They’re gone, dad. George. The girls are gone."
I heard his bed springs protest as he rolled out of bed. My mom said something I couldn't hear, and he shushed her.
"Kirsty," he said, "are you alright? Are you hurt? Are you in danger?"
Why was it so hard to understand? "Dad. George is gone."
"Kirsty, who the hell is George?"
It was my turn to be confused. "He's my- you know him. My husband…"
"Kirsty," he said very slowly, "are you on drugs? Did you take something?"
"No. Are you?"
"Excuse me?"
I hung up.
I have their photos. I have all of their photos. That's what I brought to George's parents before the sun rose. They wouldn't open the door and spoke to me through an intercom.
"George is gone," I said.
"We'll call the police."
"This is your son. These are your granddaughters."
I heard my mother-in-law say, "Who is she?"
"We don't have a son," my father-in-law said. "Go away."
I left.
Back to the house. Our dream sat empty and I live there, but none of the people in my family photos are my family.
I remember but the world never does. My parents think I'm ill and that I used AI to create the family I apparently never had.
How did I buy the house without a job or income? With deep concern for my mental health, they showed me a news story. I had won the lottery the day I turned eighteen.
His influence there, payment for services rendered.
A lie is an agreement.
What had I agreed to? I'm afraid I know the answer: I never wanted a family.
God help me. God help them.
I don't know what to do with these pictures.

Hi all,
I (20F) have been in a choir for a couple of years now. I joined when I was 18 years old, and I became friends with this guy almost immediately. I quite quickly found out that one of the first friends I made there had a crush on me. The first problem: he was 35, whereas I was 18. He has become one of my closest friends over the last 2 years. All of my friends are way older than I am, so this isn't that uncalled for in my life. He didn't act on anything and it was just a given that he liked me/was interested.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago; we were cycling back home together after having drinks with our choir, after which we almost always keep talking to each other for at least an hour. This time, however, we had a bit more to drink and ended up kissing. We didn't talk about it the next time we saw each other, but it was like nothing happened. We have kissed a couple of times since, and it was nice but after that, we did talk about it, and we both don't want anything more.
The second "problem": he has an open relationship. I am not one to judge; it works for them and I am happy for them that it does, but I don't want to be the other woman in an open relationship. I don't want anything to do with that, making my decision of not wanting anything more even more clear (next to the fact of him being 17 years older, of course...). We've had a lot of conversations about how his relationship works, and it has always come down to communication. He tells his girlfriend when he does anything with another person: sex, kissing, a date, anything. It's considered to be cheating when he does not tell her about another person in his life.
Last week, I was at his place with some other friends from the choir. His girlfriend was there as well. I know her, and we are both awkward people so it's not like we don't like each other, but we also don't get along great. However, this time it wasn't more awkward, which is where it gets weird. If she knew about her boyfriend kissing a 20-yo, I feel like she should be more awkward around me and also around him and me together. But she wasn't, which makes me think that he did not tell her, breaking the very foundation his relationship is based on. I don't feel weird about kissing him, we are still good friends and it is nothing more for me, but this makes me feel really weird. Why would he keep it a secret? If he's embarrassed, then why would he kiss me again?
My question: should I confront him? I don't want to scare him off by saying that he's (in his own previous words) cheating on his girlfriend with me because he didn't tell her, but I also feel really werd in this situation.
Sorry for the long post, I feel like this needed a bit more detail.

Hi all,
I (20F) have been in a choir for a couple of years now. I joined when I was 18 years old, and I became friends with this guy almost immediately. I quite quickly found out that one of the first friends I made there had a crush on me. The first problem: he was 35, whereas I was 18. He has become one of my closest friends over the last 2 years. All of my friends are way older than I am, so this isn't that uncalled for in my life. He didn't act on anything and it was just a given that he liked me/was interested.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago; we were cycling back home together after having drinks with our choir, after which we almost always keep talking to each other for at least an hour. This time, however, we had a bit more to drink and ended up kissing. We didn't talk about it the next time we saw each other, but it was like nothing happened. We have kissed a couple of times since, and it was nice but after that, we did talk about it, and we both don't want anything more.
The second "problem": he has an open relationship. I am not one to judge; it works for them and I am happy for them that it does, but I don't want to be the other woman in an open relationship. I don't want anything to do with that, making my decision of not wanting anything more even more clear (next to the fact of him being 17 years older, of course...). We've had a lot of conversations about how his relationship works, and it has always come down to communication. He tells his girlfriend when he does anything with another person: sex, kissing, a date, anything. It's considered to be cheating when he does not tell her about another person in his life.
Last week, I was at his place with some other friends from the choir. His girlfriend was there as well. I know her, and we are both awkward people so it's not like we don't like each other, but we also don't get along great. However, this time it wasn't more awkward, which is where it gets weird. If she knew about her boyfriend kissing a 20-yo, I feel like she should be more awkward around me and also around him and me together. But she wasn't, which makes me think that he did not tell her, breaking the very foundation his relationship is based on. I don't feel weird about kissing him, we are still good friends and it is nothing more for me, but this makes me feel really weird. Why would he keep it a secret? If he's embarrased, then why would he kiss me again?
My question: should I confront him? I don't want to scare him off by saying that he's (in his own previous words) cheating on his girlfriend with me because he didn't tell her, but I also feel really werd in this situation.
Sorry for the long post, I feel like this needed a bit more detail.

To be clear, I think the stuff between the battle scenes is great and I really enjoy the magical lessons and research, as well as the training and ideas they come up with.
I've just finished book 2 and it was decent, as well as the first book, however I'm getting less and less interested due to the insane plot armor of every character and lack of anything bad happening.
When the books started I didn't know what to expect, so every fight made me worry if someone might die, or something might go horribly wrong, which kept me glued to it. However, as book 2 progressed there were several very dangerous scenarios and scenes where I was thinking "someone is gonna die here!" or "something shocking is about to happen!", the tension built up and... then it just ended up completely flat and diffused.
When the final battle of the book came around I was barely interested anymore, because I knew that the only people who were going to end up killed were random background NPCs and nothing bad would happen to the mc or anyone they knew.
Just a few notable examples of tense situations that amount to absolutely nothing:
Alex is working with a dangerous noble with a vendetta against him who has been carefully built up as an antagonist throughout the books. The antag tries to get him fired and he has a heated argument with him in an alley. The next work day he comes back to the shop to find investigators there and everyone looks at him. Is he about to be accused of murder after that argument? Is he about to be fired because he was framed for messing up at work? Nope, the antag was conveniently killed off by the mana vampire, solving one problem with another.
The mana vampire ambushes a familiar and the small group rushes in to save it without any preparation. An important character is drained by the vampire. Does the important character die? Does the familiar? Either would be a huge motivation for revenge and raise the stakes against the mana vampire. Nope, plot armor saves them both despite the unfavourable circumstances
MC looks extremely guilty when a demon is summoned to stop the protest to allow priests onto campus. He could be falsely accused of summoning it to stop them when people find out he has the mark. Nobody saw him spying on it and nothing happens.
MC takes some big risks and trusts some people with his big secret. He figures out some of them might react badly, especially given that the mark of the fool is essentially helping him to cheat through many of his classes. Isolda in particular has been working hard to compete with him and then finds out he cheated through to beat her. Everyone including Isolda just says they're chill with it and don't give a shit.
Everyone goes to a party wearing impractical fancy clothing and are ambushed by the big-bad monsters that have been hyped up for the past two books as being extremely dangerous. Monsters are easy and all of them go down, eliminating the final active antagonist left to bother the mc
So my question is. Does this ever improve? Because I'm leery of going into book 3 for more of the same.

As discussed in the first post, this is my ongoing compilation of the remaining questions Christopher has answered online between August 1st 2023 and April 30th 2024 which I've not already covered in other compilations.
As always, questions are sorted by topic, and each Q&A is annotated with a bracketed source number. Links to every source used and to the other parts of this compilation will be provided in a comment below.
The previous post focused on details about the writing of Murtagh. This installment will focus on The Writing and Publication of Eragon, including the early abandoned starts and drafts the preceded the self-published version and Christopher's journey towards getting traditionally published. In this post the topics are arranged in almost a chronological order. The next post will focus on the writing of the Fractalverse, and so will be posted on /Fractalverse.

Writing and Publishing Eragon

The Original Idea

[When I start to write a new book] I have an image. There’s always a strong emotional component to the image, and it’s that emotion that I want to convey to readers. Everything I do after that, all of the worldbuilding, plotting, characterization, writing, and editing—all of it—is done with the goal of evoking the desired reaction from readers. In the case of the Inheritance Cycle, the image was that of a young man finding a dragon egg (and later having the dragon as a friend). [10]
Who's your favorite character to write? Well, for me, it's the dragon Saphira. She's the reason I got into writing a dragon. She came first? She came before Eragon? Like she was the catalyst? The relationship came first, her and Eragon. [33]
I was specifically inspired by a YA book called Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher by Bruce Coville, which is a delightful book. I just loved that idea so much of finding a dragon egg, I was like, "Well, what sort of a world would a dragon come from?" And I knew I wanted the sort of bond between rider and dragon that Anne McCaffrey had, but I wanted the intelligence of the dragons that you find elsewhere, and the language and the magic. And I wanted sparkly scales because it just seemed like dragons are fabulous creatures and they ought to have sparkly scales. That's the fun thing about writing your own books. You can make them exactly the way you want to make them, and hopefully then that appeals to the audience as well. [30]
All of that kind of was swirling around in my head, and I wanted to write about dragons in a way that kind of combined a lot of elements in a way that, "I like this", and "I like this piece", and "I like this piece", but I kind of wanted to have all these different pieces in one type of dragon, and no one had quite done it exactly the way I wanted. [30]
I live in Montana, and our library is an old Carnegie or Rockefeller library, and especially back in the 90s, it didn't have that many books. So once I read all the fantasy in the library, I thought I had read all the fantasy there was to read. Because I was not the smartest kid in the world sometimes. And I kind of thought, "Well, it's the library. They have all the books that exist, right? All the books that matter are in the library." And I really had no idea what to read after that. So I decided to start writing myself and to try and write the sort of story that I would enjoy reading. And of course, what I enjoyed reading was books about flying on dragons and fighting monsters and having adventures. [35]
Reading and literature was always important in our family. My father's mother was a professor of comparative literature and wrote books on Dante and all sorts of stuff like that. Was the myths and folklore part of your life at this time? Yes, but I should clarify that it wasn't formally introduced to me. It was in the house. People weren't wandering around talking about. It was just like the Aeneid is sitting on the shelf. I would go read things. I have a great uncle. He's 90 now, my mother's uncle. Guy is still sharp as a tack. It's amazing. But he gave me a set of cassette tapes of Joseph Campbell, who did Hero of a Thousand Faces. So that was my exposure to his theories of the monomyth and the eternal hero and all sorts of things like that. That got me very much interested in and thinking about the origins of the fantasy that I was reading because I was reading Tolkien and David Eddings and Anne McCaffrey and Raymond Feist and Jane Yolan and Andre Norton and Brian Jaques, and all of these you know authors who were popular at the time. I was very curious where does this come from. Tolkien, of course, felt like sort of the origin in a lot of cases but then I was discovering that, there are earlier stories that even Tolkien was drawing from. That was really a revelation to me. I really sort of got enamored with it. A lot of fantasy is nostalgic and that appealed to me because I was homeschooled and my family didn't really have a lot of relatives in the area, so I felt very unmoored from the rest of society. I think I was looking for a sense of tradition or continuity with the past and fantasy helped provide that. That's an incredibly articulate thought for a 15-year-old author. Or has that come with age? No, it was something I was feeling at the time. You were conscious of it at the time? Well, listening to the Joseph Campbell stuff, I was looking: Where are our coming of age traditions? Where is the great quest to go on to prove yourself as a young adult, as a man? Where's the great adventure? What do I do in life? Those are all things that are part of the adolescent experience and always have been which is why so many mythic stories about coming of age deal with those questions. I think it's a universal thing. That's why Harry Potter, Eragon, Twilight, all of these have appealed so much because they deal with adolescence. They deal with finding your place in the world as an adult when you're starting as a young adult or a child. [28]
What games have taught you to be a better writer either in creating characters or worldbuilding or plotting even? All of my gaming experience was computer games, video games. One that had a huge influence on me was the old Myst series. Personally I love solving puzzles, so that's the first thing. And also the concept of the series, especially with the second game, Riven, it's all based around people writing books that create new worlds. And you get to go in them and solve puzzles and understand how that world works. And that just tickled every single part of my brain back in the day. Now, I'm going to be slightly unkind here, and I apologize if the author [David Wingrove] is listening to this, but there were a couple of novels based off of Myst. And I was such a fan of the series that I got the books, and I started reading them. And my first thought was, "I could do better than this." And so I decided to rewrite the first Myst novel. And I created a document in MS Word, and I got exactly three sentences into my rewrite. And I thought to myself, "okay, I think I can do this, but I could never sell it. So I better go write something of my own." And the next thing I did was Eragon. So video games kind of had a direct influence on me writing. But actually reading something that I felt was not particularly successful was such an inspiration. Because it was like, "this got published, I know I can at least get to this level." And it was published. And then maybe I can shoot for a little bit higher. [pause] I think some people have had that experience with Eragon. [26]

Early Abandoned Starts

I had the original idea, the concept of boy finding dragon egg, and I tried writing a couple of very short versions of Eragon when I was fourteen, and none of them panned out so I stopped writing for a while. [28]

Real World Version

What do you remember about the early days of writing “Eragon?” Originally, Eragon was named Kevin and the story was set in the real world. But I only finished around 10 pages. [16]
I wrote three versions of Eragon before I wrote the version that had the unicorn, which was the first major draft. The first version was set in the real world, and that's why he's named Kevin. And the reason it was set in the real world is I was inspired by Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher, which is set in the real world. [32]
I was specifically inspired by a book called Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher by Bruce Coville. By the way, Bruce knows this. If you haven't read it, it's a great book about this young man in the real world who, spoiler, goes into an antique shop and buys a stone that ends up turning out to be a dragon egg. And I really loved that idea of a stone that was actually a dragon egg and the young man becoming joined with the dragon. And so I tried writing the story. And I got exactly five pages or six pages into it and I ran into a brick wall, because a boy finding a dragon egg is a good event, but it is not a good story. And I needed to figure out what was going to happen after that. I didn't know that at first. [36]

Arya Opening Fantasy Version

But then I was going down the rabbit hole of, "Well, if there's a dragon, where did the dragon come from? What if it were an actual fantasy world where the dragons were native?" And then that led me to then write a second beginning--I didn't get very far with this--that was more of a traditional fantasy story, and it opened with Arya and a couple other elves escaping a dungeon with a big battle, and at the very end of the battle, they send the dragon egg away, and Kevin finds it. But I didn't have the rest of the story, so I stopped writing it in that format. [32]
So I tried writing a second version of the story. So the first version of that story I wrote was set in the real world. Second version was more of like a fantasy world. [36]
I had the original idea when I was fourteen. I even wrote an early version of the story where it was set in the real world. But I soon realized that it was a lot more interesting to have a dragon in a fantastical setting. [8]

Research Break

I tried writing before and I always failed because I would only get like four to six pages into a story and then I didn't know what to do next. And that was because I didn't actually have my story. All I really had were the inciting incidents, like a boy finds a dragon egg in the middle of a forest. Great. But that's not a story, that's just one event. What happens as a result? So before starting Eragon, I was very methodical about this. I read a whole bunch of books on how to write, how to plot stories. [35]
I realized I wasn't getting anywhere. And I didn't know how to do what I was trying to do. Now, fortunately for me, my parents had noticed that I was getting interested in writing. And all of a sudden, books appeared in the house. There was no comment, no one forced it, these just magically appeared, and I read them. Some of the books that were incredibly helpful to me were these books that were called The Writer's Handbook, which was a collection of essays published each year by The Writer's Digest magazine. I had one from 1998, and I had one from, I think, 1993, or something like that. And there were essays from Stephen King and John Grisham and I think Ursula Le Guin and all sorts of other authors about what it was like to be an author both professionally and creatively. And that was incredibly helpful to me because again, the internet was not a resource. But the book that really made the difference for me was a book called Story by Robert McKee. It's a book for screenwriters and it's all about the structure of story. And up until that moment, I had never really consciously thought about the fact that stories have structure and that you can control that structure for the effect on the readers. So I devoured that book and I said, okay, I'm going to try this again. [36]
Did you very much sit down and study structure and character development and etc? I did. It wasn't a formal course or anything, it's just that my parents started buying these books and they started showing up. In fact, I still have them here on my shelf. This bookcase to my right is full of research books, technical books, language books. I read a book called Story by Robert McKee, which is a screenwriting book, that was and often has been very popular in Hollywood. It's a fairly technical look at story structure. I would never say do everything he says because of course you shouldn't necessarily follow any one formula, but that book really got me thinking about the fact that stories do have structure, which I hadn't really thought about before that. And that one can control that structure, and that this gives you something to work with. Before Eragon, I tried writing a number of stories and I never got past the first four to six pages, ten pages, because I never had the plot. All I would ever have was the inciting incident which, in the case of Eragon, is a young man finds a dragon egg. Ok, fine, but that's not a story. So when I read that book, then I was like wow, so I can control the structure of this. [28]
The problem with all of my early writing was that I’d get an idea and just start — I didn’t actually have a plot. But I was a pretty methodical kid, so I started reading about how to write. Fortunately, my parents are observant, and these kinds of books magically began appearing in the house. And I read all of them. [16]

Unused Arya Outline

So at this point, I was 15, that's when I graduated from high school and I was very methodical about it because I hate failing. So I said, okay, I'm going to create a fantasy world. And I did that. And then I said, I'm gonna plot out an entire book in this fantasy world. And I did that too. And then I said, but I'm not gonna write this. This is just a thought exercise. I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna stick it in a drawer. And I still have that to this day, that world and that story, I still have it sitting in a drawer somewhere. [36]
Then I spent some time and I created an entire fantasy world and I plotted out an entire fantasy novel in that world and I did not write it. I just stuck it in a drawer and that's where it's been sitting for 25 years now. And then I just did that to prove to myself that I could plot out an entire book. [35]
Before writing Eragon, again I was very methodical even as a teenager, I created an entire fantasy world. Wrote pages and pages about the worldbuilding, and then I plotted out an entire story in that world just to prove to myself that I could plot a story, create a world, and then I didn't write it. I put it aside. I still have it all saved. Put it in a drawer. [28]

Kevin

Writing The First Full Draft

And then I decided okay now I'm going to plot out a trilogy, because all great fantasy stories are trilogies. I'm going to do it as the heroic monomyth, because that is, at least my understanding back then, is this is one of the oldest forms of stories. I know it works on a general sense. It's going to give me a safety net, and then I'm going to write the first book as a practice book just to see if I'm capable of producing something that's three, four, five hundred pages long. And that's what I did. That was about two and a half months of worldbuilding, plotting, creating this. Then I wrote the first book and that was Eragon. That was my practice book. I never actually planned on publishing Eragon. It was only after I'd put so much work into it and my parents read it that then we proceeded with it. I was aware of story structure. I continue to read lots of books on it. [28]
And then version three is the version that everyone generally knows. And that's where I spent the time to plot out the whole series before writing, because having a idea of where you're going seems to help with the writing, at least for me. Usually. [32]
I originally saw Eragon as a practice novel, which is part of why it’s a very typical hero’s story. I knew that structure worked and it gave me the safety net I needed. [16]
The first draft went super fast. It went really fast because I had no idea what I was doing. And I just wrote that sucker. I wrote the first 60 pages by hand with ballpoint pen, cause I didn't know how to type on a computer. And then by the time I typed all that into the computer, I knew how to type. I did the rest in the computer. But this was back in the day when computers were fairly new. We had a Mac classic, which only had two megabytes of RAM. And the problem is that the operating system chewed up some of that memory. And my book file was around two megabytes large. So I actually had to split the book into two because I couldn't open the whole file on the computer or the computer would crash. So I had to open half the book and then close that and then open the other half. [35]

The First Draft

Once I finished the first draft, I was super excited and I thought, "well all of these things on how to write say that you should read your own book and see if there's any tweaks you wanna make." But I was really excited because I was getting to read my own book for the first time, and I thought this is gonna be awesome. And it didn't take very long while reading it to realize that it was awful. It was horrible. And just to give you an idea of just how bad that first draft was, in the very first draft of Eragon, Eragon wasn't named Eragon, Eragon was named Kevin. And there was also a unicorn in that first draft at one point, so you know it wasn't very good. [35]
If I heard correctly as I was reading, Eragon wasn't originally called Eragon? No, in the first draft of the book he was called Kevin. There's a reason! Look I have an explanation for it, okay. The explanation is that my original inspiration was Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher which is set in the real world. The original version of Eragon that I was developing was set in the real world and when I decided that it would make more sense to have a world where the dragons were native to and switched it over to this fantasy world and began to develop that, I just kept the name that I'd been working with, which was Kevin. Naming a main character is hard, especially when you get used to a certain name. I don't want to say I was lazy. I want to focus on the world building and writing the first draft and I'll worry about the name later. [28]
There is an early version of Eragon that no one's seen, that even my editor at Random House never saw. And that was my first draft. And in that first draft, Eragon encountered a unicorn in the Beor Mountains on the way to the Varden. And the unicorn touches him and essentially affects the transformation that he goes under during the blood oath ceremony with the elves in the second book, in Eldest. And his whole storyline with the Varden once he gets to Farthen Dûr is completely different because now he has these abilities and he and a team of people ends up getting sent on a scouting mission in the dwarven tunnels to go find the Urgal army and then they have to flee back through the tunnels to warn everyone of this huge army and I had a underground cave full of lava, and multiple shades, and a huge Urgal army. There was there was a lot of dramatic stuff. Finding the Ra'zac in Dras-Leona was completely different. This is the draft where Eragon was named Kevin. [32]
I haven't thought about that version in ages. I think Arya was awake all the way from Gil'ead to Farthen Dûr in that version. That's right, I had to completely rewrite that. It's an unpleasant ride for her. No, no, no, she was awake and healed. She was awake. That's right, God, I had to rewrite most of the last chunk of the book now that I think back, it's been a long time. [32]
The worst thing is, I think Kevin would actually take a larger budget [to adapt to film]. No, stop. Why would Kevin take a larger budget? Because the battles were bigger, there was more stuff going on. Seriously, there were more creatures, more travel. Yeah, I think Kevin would actually take more money than Eragon. [32]
You said that Eragon's name was originally Kevin. Was Eragon's name originally Kevin? It was. And I really regret I didn't stick with it because I think that as many books as I've sold, the series would have been at least twice as successful if it had been about the adventures of the great dragon writer Kevin. Especially just seeing Kevin on the front cover. Imagine the appeal to the modern youth. Kevin the dragon writer. I mean Eragon, it's confusing with Aragorn. Oregano. Oregon. But Kevin, Kevin stands out, Kevin's original. That's why I had to move away from it. [31]

Releasing the Kevin Cut

So do you wanna share some of those drafts with us, Christopher? Just kidding. Well, I actually had a fan reach out to me. He's one of the big members of the online fan community on Reddit and elsewhere. And he's kind of interested in some of these early versions from almost an archivist point of view, a scholarly point of view. Which is certainly an interesting idea. I mean, there is an early version of Eragon that no one's seen, that even my editor at Random House never saw. ... I cannot describe how much the Internet absolutely needs for you to put out an edition of Eragon that just says Kevin. Should this be like Mistborn or Way of Kings Prime? This is the Kevin edition of Eragon. The Kevin cut. Oh my god. It's "Eragon: Kevin's Version". ... We absolutely need Kevin's Version of Eragon. That's something we need. It's bad. It's bad. Look, there are certainly people who can look at Eragon, the version we have now, and say, "we can tell this was a younger writer." I look at it and I can tell. I could do so much more now with the material than I could then. But if you think that about the published version of Eragon, man, if you saw the unpublished version, the early version, it really is the raw writing of a homeschooled 15-year-old, who wrote a 500 page book about Kevin. I don't know, the internet is very unhinged these days. They would love this. It needs to exist somewhere on the internet. [32]

Publishing

Editing

So I wrote Eragon, and then I read the first draft and it wasn't particularly good, so I spent a good chunk of a year rewriting it as best as I could. I didn't know what I was doing but I was trying. I've heard it said that being displeased with your own work is actually a good thing because it means you know what is good work, and if you're not happy with your work because it's not good, it means you could at least have a goal to shoot for. If you read your work and you're like this is the best thing that's ever been written, you're never going to get any better. [28]
But I could see that the book needed work, so I decided to try to fix it as best I could, and I spent the better part of that year revising, rewriting, changing Kevin to Eragon. And then I gave the book to my parents and fortunately for me, they actually enjoyed what I had done. And they said, we think you have something, let's try to take it out into the world and see if anyone else wants to read it. [35]

Self-publishing

[We] decided to self-publish the book as a joint venture since we didn't know anyone in the publishing world. That was again a good chunk of a year where we were editing the book as best the three of us could. Preparing it for publication, formatting, I drew the cover. [28]
Now you have to understand, my parents were always self-employed, have always been self-employed and we were always looking for things we could work on together as a family business. And Eragon was like the perfect opportunity for that. They'd had some experience self-publishing a couple of small educational books my mom had worked on. Because she was a trained Montessori teacher, and so she was trying to use that expertise to write some material herself. But I don't even think we sold 100 copies of those. So we spent another good chunk of a year preparing the book for publication with doing more editing, doing the layout, designing the cover. [35]
The first set of 50 books showed up while we were watching Roman Polanski's Macbeth, which seemed fitting because those first 50 books were all miscut from the printer. And as a result, we had to rip the covers off, send them back for credit from the printer, and then burn the insides of the books. So we had a proper book burning in our yard, and I actually saved some of those burnt pages just as a memory of that event. [35]
Self publishing wasn’t as viable then as a pathway to a career as an author as it is today. Why did it work for you? Everything completely changed because of e-readers. If you wanted to read an e-book, you had to have a PDF on your computer. There were no distribution systems like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Back then, the lowest amount you could print and not have the book be too expensive was probably about 10,000 copies. But we were fortunate because print-on-demand had just become a thing, so books were just printed as needed. Self publishing is a lot easier these days. Of course, today’s marketplace is a lot more crowded as a result. [16]

Promotion

My family and I were going around the western half of the United States with the self-published edition of Eragon. I was cold calling schools, libraries, and bookstores to set up events. I was doing two to three one-hour long presentations every single day for months on end at various times. You have to understand that because my parents were self-employed, the time they took to help prepare Eragon for publication was time they weren't working on other freelance projects that would have been bringing in money. So by the time we actually had Eragon printed and in hand, if it had taken another two to three months to start turning a profit, we were going to have to sell our house, move to a city, and get any jobs we could. Because of that financial pressure I was willing to do things I probably would have been too uncomfortable to do otherwise. Like doing all those presentations. [28]
We were doing a lot of self-promotion. I was cold calling schools and libraries and talking them into letting me do presentations. And that worked pretty well because the librarians could take pre-orders for us. If we went into a bookstore, by hand selling, I could maybe sell anywhere between 13 to 40 books in a day. 42 was like the best I ever did, but usually it was around 15 or so books, which just didn't cover printing costs and travel and food and all of that. But going into the schools, we were doing about 300 books a day, which was excellent. [34]
Can you tell me a little bit about how you and your family self-published the first Eragon book and what marketing strategies you did? Oh, it was all nepotism, you know. I wouldn't have gotten published without my parents. There's nothing as powerful as a publishing company that's four people sitting around a kitchen table in the middle of rural Montana. So yeah, without Nepotism, I wouldn't have gotten published. You have to embrace something like Nepotism if you really wanna succeed in today's world. In fact, people don't realize that you actually get a Nepotism card. There's a secret club. You go to New York and there's huge network opportunities. There's branches of the club everywhere, especially strong in Hollywood, of course, in music. Taylor Swift is an example. So if you can get into the nepotism club, I won't say you're guaranteed success, but you got about 80% chance of actually making it that you wouldn't have otherwise. Do you think your mom and dad would be willing to be my mom and dad? No, absolutely not. No, no. You don't have brown hair, so it doesn't work. You have to have brown hair to be a Paolini. Okay, I'll try to find a different way in, I guess. [31]

Getting traditionally published

So you were very much looking for that partnership? Well we were wary. But the thing is is we were selling enough copies of Eragon that to scale it up we were going to have to start duplicating all the things that a regular publisher does. We were actually looking at partnering with a book packager or a book distributor just to get more copies out. To do everything a traditional publisher could do for me was a huge amount of work so it made sense to pair with Random House or someone else at that point. But it was still nerve-wracking because the book was being a success and then handing it off to another company, we didn't know if it was just going to end up in the remainder bin two weeks after it came out. [28]
People in the book world were starting to take notice because of course, if you've been to public school, you may remember the Scholastic Book Fairs and all of the Scholastic reps in the different schools were seeing me come to the schools and selling these books and hearing the kids talk about it. And it was getting attention. So we would have gotten a publisher, I would have gotten a publisher eventually. [34]
The book sold enough copies and bounced around enough that we'd heard that Scholastic—because Scholastic does all the Book Fairs in schools in the US—was interested and that we might get an offer from them. Before that happened though... [34]
Eventually another author by the name of Carl Hiaasen ended up buying a copy of the self-published edition of Eragon in a local bookstore. Which now that I'm older, I'm rather shocked at because it takes a lot to get me to buy a self-published book. It's got to look really good. [35]
Carl Hiaasen wrote the young adult book Hoot as well as many adult books. He comes up to Montana, I think he's got a vacation home here in the valley, but he was up here fly fishing and he bought a copy of Eragon for his then 12 year old son, Ryan. And fortunately for me, Ryan liked the book and Carl recommended it to Random House and it sort of bounced around among the editors for a couple of months before my editor-to-be grabbed it and said, "Yes, we will. I want to take a chance on this teenage author and we're going to offer him money for a trilogy that only exists in his head and see what happens." [34]
How did you find an agent? We had the offer from Random House, and like two days later, we had the offer from Scholastic. And so we knew we didn't know what we didn't know. My dad participated in some online self-publishing forum sort of thing. So he posted up a question and said, look, this is the situation we're in. Does anyone have any advice? And another one of the members said, "well, I was just at this publishing writing conference and there was this young agent there and I was really impressed with his presentation, or him talking about the industry." So my dad got his information online and did what you're never supposed to do, which is he called the agent directly and left this long rambling voicemail message because it was lunchtime in New York and you take your lunch breaks in New York. And only at the end of the message did he say, "oh, yes, and by the way, we have two competing offers from two publishing houses." And when I asked him, I said, "why did you do that?" He said, "well, because if he's any good as an agent, he's going to listen to the whole message before he deletes it." And we found out later that he nearly deleted the message. Because my dad started off like, "I got this teenage son, and he's written this book", and yeah, that, OK. So it was like two hours later we got a call from Simon. And Simon said overnight me a copy of Eragon and if I like it I'll represent you. And Simon has been my agent for 21 years now. [34]
It was a big risk for Random House. And it was a big risk for me because the book was successful, self-published, and we knew that giving it to a publisher, you lose the rights to a degree, and most books don't turn a profit, and it could have just ended up in the remainder bin. So what really worked in my favor is that Random House, and specifically Random House Children's Books, and specifically the imprint of Knopf, which is where I'm at were looking for their own Harry Potter, essentially. Scholastic was publishing Harry Potter. And Scholastic also gave me an offer for Eragon, but I could tell that Random House was the one that really loved the book and Scholastic was doing it because they thought it was a good business opportunity. Scholastic actually offered more money than Random House. But I went with Random House and it was the right choice. And I found out after the fact that Chip Gibson who was the head of the children's department at the time basically chose to use Eragon as sort of something to rally the troops and put the entire children's division behind it, and I was the very fortunate recipient of that love and attention. Which of course would only get you so far if people didn't enjoy reading the book. But fortunately for me, they did a great job marketing it and then people actually enjoyed the book. Which is why when people ask me how to get published, it's like, what am I supposed to say? The answer ultimately is you write a book that people want to read, and that's a facile answer, but it is true. If people want to read it, it makes everything else easier. The agent wants you, the publishers want you, and ultimately the public wants you. [34]
And I didn't realize how much was behind that email, because large publishers do not just casually say, "hey, we want to publish your book". There was a whole plan there, and they had a plan. And so they did. Eragon came out and then I had to figure out how to write a book with everyone expecting the sequel. [36]
So you kind of went and peddled your books at schools, as I understand, right? It seems to have paid off though, because it eventually landed in the hands of bestselling author Carl Hiaasen, but not right away. First, your book got in the hands of his stepson, and the kid liked it so much that he told Hiaasen about it, who then got Eragon fast-tracked with Penguin Random House. I really admire the way that you went for the weakest links, manipulating the minds of our youth and using them to shill your book for you. It's a tried and true marketing strategy from Girl Scout Cookies to coupon books, and I applaud you for your ingenuity. My biggest question here is, do you pay Carl Hiaasen's stepson the agent royalties he so rightfully deserves? He tried to collect one time, but I had to hire a couple of guys to drive him off. But, no, you always go for the weakest link. Back when I was self-published and all that I even tried to get Eragon reviewed by Entertainment Weekly, so I called up the subscription number on the back of the magazine and told them I'd made a mistake and asked them to transfer me over to corporate, and managed to get right to their book reviewer and tried to talk him into reviewing Eragon. So you always go for, as you said, the weakest link. Which is corporate. Ryan, Carl's son, though, yeah, I probably owe him a ridiculous amount of royalties. I'd say so. He made you. Oh, he did, absolutely. Without him, I'd be nothing. I guess the lesson here for aspiring authors is that it's not really about finding your target audience, necessarily. You just have to find your target prolific author's stepson and let the kid take it from there. Yeah, absolutely. As I said, that's part of the nepotism package. The sort of networking inside the industry. This is the stuff that you can never access otherwise, and you'll never get published otherwise. So it's not like you can just grow up in the middle of nowhere in Montana, self-publish a book, and then just become a success, by promoting it. You have to have connections. That's genius. I think you could have had an incredible career in designing loot boxes for mobile games based on how good you are at manipulating the world. Absolutely, microtransactions are God's work. [31]

Gaining Confidence

Was anxiety something you felt moving to this deal with Random House? Was that quite pressuring? Yes, it was a big change to go from writing for yourself as a teenager, homeschooled, living in the middle of nowhere, to knowing that there was a large audience for your next book and that they had expectations. I got criticized quite a bit, critiqued quite a bit when Eragon came out for, shall we say, my lack of experience on the technical side of things with the writing. I'd say some of those were certainly fair critiques. The great advantage of youth is that you don't know how difficult things are and you have a lot of energy. The great disadvantage of youth is you don't have experience, and there's no fixing that aside from time and effort. All of that was definitely in my head when I really started work on Eldest and it was pretty nerve-wracking quite honestly. [28]
When you finished the book, I mean your parents believed in it obviously. Did you too? Or were you like, "You know what, maybe the second book, maybe go all in on the second one?" I didn't feel like I was actually an author until my third book was published. Because the first one, well, that could be a fluke. Well, the second one, yeah, but you know. But once the third book came out, then I was like, okay, maybe I'm actually a writer. But even then, even after I finished the series, I still felt like, okay, now I have to write something that's not Eragon, just to prove that I can. So every book has been its own challenge and has been a way for me to keep feeling like I'm growing as an artist and learning to become a better and better writer. [2]
It took me, I wanna say almost 10 years to feel like I wasn't an imposter and that it wasn't just gonna get yanked away. You know what my dream was when Eragon was was going to get published by Random House? Like this was my pie in the sky because I didn't think it was going to happen. But this was my dream. I did all the math and I was like, man, if I could somehow someday sell 100,000 books, which is impossible. But man, if I could sell 100,000 books, that's a darn good living. Man, I could really make a living off that. I could support a family and 100,000 books. Man, that'd be amazing. And then it kind of took off from there. [33]

It was the start of a new year, and with that Seouls 4 major school saw a large increase of new students. Everyone was talking about the gang who used to rule over Seoul suddenly disappearing, and nobody was taking ownership of it. (read the Extra info at the bottom, it will help a lot, and it'll explain how things work for new people)
---------------------------North Seoul High--------------------------- A tall, blonde, guy was making jokes with a few of his classmates, most of them where about the Soviet union and WW2. Ivan Alexander (u/Away_excitement3116)
In the corner of class a tall, silver haired boy was training without his shirt on, a few watched while some tried to look away from his muscular build. Klein (u/ProfessionalLuck268)
Simply sitting at his desk doing his schoolwork was one boy, most would says he's normal. But then again, being to only normal guy makes you kind of special. Yuseong (u/Outer-god369)
A tall black dude was talking with his friend, trying to improve his language skills as h had only recently come to Korea. His shirt hiding his very muscular build. (u/TheGloryBe_throwaway)
There was a large group of students talking, making jokes, laughingand just having a good time, in the center of attention was the short curly haired- Ren Yuzaki (u/LeoIsAngry)
There was a boy sleeping on his desk, standing next to him was another boy dressed just like a body guard. He would scare off anyone who got close. The boy sleeping was Kai Edward Tristan (u/KaiAugustInsi)
Some skinny guy was watching the popular newtube channel (How To Fight), he was inspired by Hobin due to the fact they both got bullied a lot. He now wats to be just like him. Kim Suho (u/federal_tip9311)
--------------------------South Seoul High----------------------------
The class watched as an boy with Orange hair, and black leather gloves was polishing his newest Trophy. It's seemed like that was the only thing interesting him at all. Dexter (u/Greensvenner1234)
A short and skinny boy is playing with his Lego bricks. While most see it as immature he's doing it to get a better understanding on a buildings stability and weak points. As he loves working on construction sites. Seok Mujuk (u/domengoenfuego)
Sitting in some expensive designer clothes, was a boy who normally couldn't afford it. But after beating up some bullies who harrased others, and then them offering him their money he gladly took it. Kai Wang (u/wesjsndsjsnss)
"Come and hit me!" a Dude screamed while his Classmates punched and kicked him, yet he was still standing as if nothing had happened at all to him. Lam Lee (u/Dull-tax-4713)
Sitting away from all the noice, enjoying his favorite manga was Kim Jin (u/random_guy_Q)
Amongst the people who tried to punch Lam Lee was one boy who actually manged to hurt him a bit, he didn't notice was Lam was hiding it but his attacks where effective. Adam (u/Theman2326)
---------------------------East Seoul High------------------------------ A boy with gum in his hair was playing games on multiple phones, yet he obviously didn't enjoy it. That's because he was forced to farm stuff for bullies. Su-Jin Park (u/RainProfessional8105)
People stared as there was some guy who brought a few stray cats and dogs with him to class. Some people enjoyed the animals, others saw it as weird. Zanegs (u/Warrenchae)
Some nerds ran up to an average sized boy with white hair, calling him sir and giving him some money, he told them that they are safe as long as the money keeps flowing Hyuk Hwang (u/Rutsch3r)
There was someone silently talking to himself, but not silent enough. Other people could hear h but they didn't understand what he was saying. Myul (u/Longjumping-date-367)
He was not a student of this school, yet he would still come here everyday. He fought someone drunk dude from this school who he now follows around. Ran Yong-Su (u/Any-Lingonberry-3589)
Some drunk dude, he got I trouble a lot for drinking while on school grounds. Beat up some guy once while drunk, who's now following him around. Chao Ming (u/Even-Caramel-9309)
Staying way from other, watching movies about martial arts while simultaneously reading a martial arts magazine was Forgettable (u/Forgettabletiger)
--------------------------West Seoul High-----------------------------
A football (it's called football not soccer) just ended in a 30-0 win. His teammates where all gathered around him praising him for his amazing shots and dribbling. Hyoma Kurona (u/Fungiloo)
Skipping school so he could work in his parents teashop, was a boy who was fascinated by his Chinese roots. Vincent Lee (u/Base_loose)
A boy was going around with a group of scary looking guys. He would try to beat up people and then have them join him. He war cruel to them yet made them yet on rare occasions asked if they are hurt. Jintaro Suzuki (u/SlashDaOne)
Talking to his teacher as if they where best friends was one boy who didn't care about social rankings and as everyone as a friend. Hae Minsu (u/Real_Abrocoma_9377)
After unsuccessfully flirting with a few girls, this boy decided that training his body again was the best way to get their attention. Jin Na (u/Causality_A)
This boy gets along with many people, yet he gets nervous when you ask him about his glove and weirdly large pinky fingers. Ryuk Eun-Soo (u/Elegant-Ad-2431)
---------------------------------Extra Info----------------------------------
Here are a few rules and things you should keep in mind.

1. How does anything work? Just make a comment saying what your characters is doing or what he wants to do. I will respond with a scenario. Onec your scenario is finished I'll tell you, you can act again in the next part.

If you fight another OC, it will be put into the next part as these are special fights.

1. You're allowed to do anything, you want as long as ng as it's in character.
   
2. You can be permanently crippled, lose limbs and die.
   
3. Random encounters are a thing. They have different rarities, common ones are like you meeting some thugs, while more rare encounters could result in you meeting people like Gun.
   
4. After an successful encounter you're rewarded with all kinds of thing, stat buffs, special items, Uniqe Abilities. The more rare the encounter is, the better the rewards. You can also fail the encounter.
   
5. Stats are important even outside of fighting. You can raise every single stat by training or from rewards.
   

Strength: how strong your hits are, how much you can lift/Carry around. And other physical tasks. Speed: how fast you attack, move and think. Potential: is basically how fast you grow from training, Someone with higher potential will gain more than someone with low potential from the same amount of training. Intelligence: your battle IQ as well as your overall IQ. If your int is low your plans will almost always fail even if your plan is really good and detaild. And someone with high int will almost always be successful even if their plan is bad. Endurance: Your Defense, and how much energy you have.
Stats are also hidden, this is so you have to be careful around every person you don't know. High Intelligence character might find out your stats. And some cards also let you view stats.

1. If you want to do something in secret DM me. This way only you and I will know about it. This could be a betrayal or maybe a secret plan.

7.1 Fight other OCs is something risky, the winner can decide what to do with you. They can to the things mentioned in (2) but they can also try to recruit you.
7.2 Beating an OC will give Special rewards. So it's encouraged by keep in mind that you can suffer a lot if you fail.
If you don't remember something about your OC just DM me

This collaboration project between CommonPresent Games, Five Frights, 3D FredWare Studios, and an anonymous music producer have all collaborated to make the ultimate conclusion to the Five Nights at Bingo's games.
Explore the abandoned Bar & Grill that was said to be nothing but an urban legend... 55 years after it's closing.
Your name is Cory. You go to explore the ruins, inviting your friends Clyde and Jack to come along with you.
A large sinkhole has formed underneath the building in the show stage, leaving the place in ruins and mostly caving in, especially in the middle of it.
INTRODUCTION CINEMATIC
You arrive there at 11:30 PM, and you text Clyde and Jack to come. They say that they will be there by 12:00 AM. You then walk in, and you explore the place, and then you enter the security office at 11:59 AM. You then get a text from Clyde saying that he is almost there, and that he gave Jack a ride, as well.
NIGHT 1 - It is now officially 12:00 AM. The building has entered it's lockdown state, not letting anyone or anything get in.. or out. You run to look at your phone, and then you very quickly connect it to the barely functioning security cameras in the building, and once you go onto the Show Stage camera, you will see Moltenstein emerge from the old sinkhole, who is a melted together fusion of the extremely rotted Bingo and Blossom animatronics.
DIALOGUE: What even was that thing?! I have to get out of here! This bulletin board right here says that lockdowns can take 14-21 days to end?! 14-21 DAYS?! It's okay.. I can do this. I brought my portable wireless charger for my phone. I just need to get that.. thing... away from me.
Moltenstein will sometimes appear at one of your doorways. You have a left doorway, a right doorway, and an opened ceiling vent. Turn off your phone's flashlight if you see it, in order to get it not to kill you, and activate a nearby camera's flashlight in order to attract it towards that camera's location.
There are only 6 functioning cameras. They are all the Show Stage, New Lobby, Left Hall Entrance, Right Hall Corner, and the Dining Area.
The Show Stage is where Moltenstein will emerge from. It will then make it's way towards the New Lobby, Left Hall Entrance, or the Dining Area.
The Dining Area's camera is broken, forcing it to face the right side hallway, where there is a vent entrance nearby.
All of the cameras have an internal flashlight that was applied during the investigation of the premises right before it's closing. These internal flashlights all work surprisingly well on the still functional cameras, and they are good for attracting light sensitive animatronics nearby. Moltenstein is very, very sensitive to bright lights.
Your phone's flashlight will always be on by default. Hold down CTRL in order to shut off your phone's flashlight, making it incredibly hard to see, but stopling Moltenstein from killing you, and sometimes even making it leave.
Your phone will lose 1% battery power every 2 seconds (you instead will lose 1% of your phone's battery power every 5 seconds whenever your flashlight is turned off..). Using a camera's internal flashlight will make it lose an extra 3% of it's battery power.. immediately. You can recharge it to get an extra 35% but this takes roughly 5 seconds to do......
NIGHT 2 - Ugh.. I need to get out of here! I am starting to see things. I can't do this anymore, come on!! Why me??? It's whatever.. Clyde and Jack called me this morning, and they said that they were worried. I told them about my situation, and they said that they have notified the authorities, but they didn't believe them. Those people really think that this place is fake. How funny of them...
Memory Citrus and Memory Lizzy can now be seen. These are just hallucinations, however. If you ever see the original Citrus flying through the Dining Area, put down your phone quickly, or Memory Citrus will jumpscare you, causing for you to throw your phone onto the ground in panic, attracting Moltenstein towards the light, giving him a 20% chance to kill you after somewhere in betweenn 7.26310-8.54790 secondssss.
If you ever see the original Lizzy standing in the middle of the lobby, put your phone down quickly, otherwise Memory Lizzy will appear floating in front of both of your doorways, and all of your cameras, making you unable to see them, all while you lose 1% of your power every 0.552 seconds. This effects lasts.. just about..... 10 seconds. And yes, this does cause your phone's flashlight to glitch out as well, luring Moltenstein to your location.
NIGHT 3 - This has to be the last night.. Surely the police have realized that I have very suddenly gone missing... Right? Please, just let this end. No more!
Memory Buttercup can now sometimes appear in one of your doorways. Shine your phone's flashlight at her in order to make her go away, or else, she will jumpscare you very suddenly, causing for you to have a heart attack.. and... well, die.
Memory Caesar and Memory Chuck seek to both be always found together now, and they can now sometimes appear in one of your doorways. Pull out your phone and look at it in order to deter them away from the security office that you are hiding inside of.
NIGHT 4 - Hey, hey! It's me, Jack! I just wanted to tell you that Clyde called the police... yet again.. and now they are starting to take us WAY more seriously! They said that they are attempting to locate your phone.. But it needs to stay charged up to at least 50% from now (12 AM) up until 6 AM, or we will not able to locate you, AND YOU WILL DIE. You gave us the wrong directions for what reason, anyway, you idiot?!
If your phone's battery drops down below 50%, you will be immediately just.. killed by Moltenstein.
NIGHT 5 - Hey, hey! It's me, Jack! We got your location! The police are headed there, now... Let's go, man! You're gonna make it home, by tonight!!! But.. You need to stop yourself from using the camera's built-in internal flashlights. Apparently, the cameras share a union power generator system, hence why they still work, and they only have about.. 8 charges left. It is pretty crazy, actually, right??? So just.. be careful, dude. Bye, now!!!,,,
If you use the camera flashlights 8 times, they will be disabled, and Moltenstein will be immediately teleported to your door, and he will kill you after approximately 2.5-3.5 seconds.
NIGHT 6 - Listen, man. I'm sorry, okay? But you entering that establishment has awakened and set free the mess in there, and I cannot afford to be chased down by that thing... You see, my grandpa was at that place for a re-evaluation of it's safety.. for... an incident. And that was not even his first time there! I'm sorry.. But you will not be making it out of there alive. I have released an overwhelming amount of a special secret gas recipe into the building, causing your hallucations to feel the most real possible, meaning that they have a 50-50 chance of giving you a heart attack and.. well, kill you. I also adjusted the union power usage to only allow for 6 camera flashes, and.. now, you must also always keep your phone charged. You can NOT recharge it. Have fun, Cory.
(This night ends at 4 AM, as the police and Clyde will break into the building and save you at that time.. exactly.)
ALL ENDINGS
Good Ending - During Nights 1-5, keep your phone's battery above 30%, and do not ever use any more then 6 camera flashes in each night. This will give you access to the Old Lobby, where you will find Buttercup, Citrus, Lizzy, Caesar, Chuck, and an unused Endoskeleton during the Night 6 Escape Scene. You will then get the option to scrap or take with you each and every single one of them as you walk up to them, letting them rest now as nothing but legends if you scrap them all. You will then see a scene of Jack getting trapped inside of the building, right as you guys escape...
Bad Ending - Follow Jack's instructions, and leave with Clyde and the police on Night 6 without making any discoveries. You will then see a scene of Jack escaping the building, right as you guys escape...
Happy Ending (Canon) - During Nights 1-5, keep your phone's battery above 30%, and do not ever use any more then 6 camera flashes in each night. This will give you access to the Old Lobby, where you will find Buttercup, Citrus, Lizzy, Caesar, Chuck, and an unused Endoskeleton during the Night 6 Escape Scene. You will then get the option to scrap or take with you each and every single one of them as you walk up to them, but if you take them all with you, you will then see the location rebuilt with the recovered and repaired Bingo, Blossom, Citrus, Buttercup, Lizzy, Caesar, Chuck, and the brand new Tropico The Toucan animatronics. Tropico The Toucan is an amazing newly built counterpart friend for the now happy Citrus The Toucan animatronic character.
We will be collaborating on FNaB 6, just as we did with this game, to introduce the continuation to the game series, and it's amazing and wonderfully unique storyline. We have amazing plans for this next entry of the series, and they will all be shared on here.. very, very soon.

I had a strange relationship with deconstruction as my dad was trained at a university level to do apologetics. He was an LDS chaplain in the Army, and every night for scripture study, we got discourses on the nuances of our faith and justifications for every question we ever had. I didn’t swear until I was 18 years old, or drink caffinated anything until about that time as well, because it was never a matter of justification. It was what my family, my tribe, my people did, to go to church on Sunday, and to be worthy. I was senior patrol leader and assistant to the bishop if that clarifies who I was. I didn’t have “God will reveal it in due time” parents. I had “Here’s the answer, here’s contemporary discussion about it. Here’s some reading material if you want to learn more” parents, except for they were wicked smart, and had biased conclusions.
I was called to serve in the Mexico City East mission. Shortly before opening my mission call, I broke up with my girlfriend at the time. i left BYU-I and went home to prepare. I received my endowments after lying to my stake president about my worthiness to enter the house of the lord. I came clean, and he threatened to not let me go out for a year because I was unclean. The prick made me talk to a therapist to be cleared for the mission field. The therapist had a brain and let me go out. When I was giving my mission farewell speech, I wrote it to include the teachings of many religions in it. I had drawn inspiration from the 13th article of faith “We believe all things, hope all things-“ and wrote a poem about how Adam and Eve related to the Resurection and Atonement of christ. My dad tells me the stake president was shifting in his seat like he wanted to pull me down from the pulpit. Prick.
The CCM was a pleasure to attend because of my district. The guys in my district there held a secret thanksgiving feast after hours when we were supposed to be in bed with food we had smuggled out of the cafeteria. We had look outs so we wouldn’t be caught by the patrolling teachers. My district was placed under surveillance because of politics against our spanish teacher who we could tell actually cared about us, and we were transferred into a classroom with one sided mirrors, and microphones hanging from the ceiling. An apostle came to speak to the entire CCM, and I thought we would get a chance to meet with him directly, or that he would be even remotely accessible in some way. He was kept away from us, separate and removed even though we had the same mission. I played a lot of volley ball, and got into shape enough that I touched the rim of a basketball hoop for the first time while I was there.
My first companion was a native speaker, and liked to spend the mornings in the cyber (Internet Cafe). He would make sure I was on LDS.org while he looked at softcore porn on instagram. We would spend hours there, and I was disappointed that this was the mission.
We went to a previous investigators house, and while there, we saw preparations for an animal sacrifice. These guys were putting alcohol, cocaine, and blowing smoke onto a white chicken, and placed in into a cardboard box with a bunch of black chickens. They showed us a room full of weapons, with blood and feathers strewn all over the floor. We noped the fuck out, and went home.
I requested an emergency transfer after spending most days in the cyber, watching my companion deface JW’s property, and being an all around dick to me by telling me how to shower and how to sleep.
For his replacement, the person that would help me with his bastion of knowledge, they gave me a white guy who spoke as much Spanish as I did because he was only a transfer further into his mission than me. They made this poor kid senior companion to me before his first transfer was over. Why? Because the kid was a workaholic.
The first thing this elder and I did when we got to our apartment was to pick up and leave to go to the house of a member who had just died. We sang at the wake. I sang in a language I didn’t know, for people I didn’t know, with a companion I didn’t know. We sounded pretty damn good. The elder began setting appointments with the non-believing family members during the service. I just sat and watched the mindless kids chase the family dog.
This elder skipped lunch every day, and made me do the same. We knocked every door in our area twice that transfer. One time, he got very sick, and was delirious out in the sun with me while we were walking. I made us go home for lunch that day, and he made me promise to wake him up after thirty minutes so we could get back to the Lord’s work. Three hours later he woke up, chewed me out for letting him sleep that long, and then begrudgingly thanked me for making him rest.
One time, while walking, this Elder expressed to me that he also had some questions, but he was afraid to share the details because he knew my own testimony was fragile. I pressed him for details of his plight, and he revealed to me the darkest part of church history that he had learned while we were in the CCM, that Joseph Smith had drank alcohol while in Carthage Jail before he died. Thoughts of Fanny Alger, of Mountain Meadows Massacre, and of my own mother’s rather recently implemented looser interpretation of the word of wisdom all flashed through my head. This guy was supposed to be my teacher? All I could do was express how sorry I was for his confusion, and told him to have faith. Heaven knew I couldn’t help him.
One night with this companion, it was storming hard, and the streets were flooded. This guy refused to let us go home. We climbed along fences to avoid getting our already wet shoes soaked, and waded through a foot of water to get to the doors that were slammed in our faces. There was a loose wire on a door bell, and when I rang it, I was shocked by the completed circuit the water made. Rejection after rejection piled up. Finally, my “senior” companion said that this was the last row of houses. On the last house of the last row, there was a family that was all deaf. The father opened the door, and was suprised to see us and didn’t know who we were. I remembered the sign for Jesus from my grandparents who started and ran the ASL endowment ceremony in the Saint George temple. The family was thrilled we knew the sign. When I asked if we could come in, the family politely waved goodbye and closed the door on our faces.
Another time when it rained, something fell into my eye. It was one of those freak nature accidents, and small enough that I couldn’t figure out how to get it out without a mirror. The thing stayed wedged in the corner of my eye for hours before we got home and I could finally get the foreign object out. Looking at it on my finger, I could see it was a small green spider. Days later, still in pain, I pulled what I can only assume was accumulated webbing from the spider that I’d crushed against my eyeball off of my lower eye lid. The pain stopped after that.
I bought a $500 camera. It was stolen within a month.
This Elder and I had the good luck before transfers to baptize two children. They would have been baptized anyways, so I didn’t do any actual converting, but I taught a few lessons, got in the water and did the dunk. Bucket list item, check.
I didn’t have enough time for laundry on P-Day, so I’d wash my outfit and dry in on the radiator through the night. Transfers happen, and my new companion lied to our land lords about the electricity bill, paying it in full but not giving a reason as to why it was so high. I didn’t care anymore, I just needed something clean to wear, but these land lord had treated me and my previous companion well, better than the previous landlord who had stolen our cleaning supplies. I felt these people deserved honesty. My senior companion capitulated eventually, and he and I butted heads regularly after that on the morality of things. I think in hindsight he was a smarter and better man than I was.
The new land lords, the “Lagunez Family”, were wonderful. They included us in their activities, and I felt like I had some people in my corner. When I eventually came home from my mission, a daughter of the family had written me a goodbye letter. She is currently serving a mission. They made some great music, and I have “Infiltradors” on CD, the official name of the band the father of the family was a part of (he was the drummer).
I knew the whole area by heart by that point, so I navigated us to our appointments. Half of the landmarks I watched for to know our location were interesting buildings with unique colors. The other half of my landmarks were dead dogs whose decaying corpses had become second nature to see. I began marking how much time had passed by how deeply a certain dog on a certain dirt path’s chest was caved in.
There was an apartment complex in my area that I had been told not to proselytize in because “It’s dangerous.” Turns out, those people didn’t have any money, so the church didn’t want them. That complex was past the dog and to the east about ten blocks.
My companion and I knocked on a door, and visited a man who was missing his legs. His daughter was there, putting dirty water on the aching wounds. He had a single room for a house, and wheezed when he spoke. He couldn’t afford medication. He still went out and worked all day for his daughter, and gave her whatever money he made, trusting her to keep him alive somehow. The church expected this man to pay tithing. The church expected me to tell this man to pay tithing.
I got the chance to hike up a mountain. At the top, I played chess with a chess set I’d procured from one of the best rapid chess players I’ve ever met. He had been the ward mission leader. He was a good man, a good father, and I wish him the best.
I found another man who was deaf and spoke sign language. I sat with him, and convinced him to come to church all by myself while my companion talked with some tienda tender. I was so excited because this was my own personal project and it was going well. The man came to church, and I sat with him through sacrament meeting. In Sunday school (I can’t believe I did this), I accidentally drooled on the guy. I was just talking so he could read my lips, and I guess I forgot to swallow at some point because a dolup of spit landed on his arm. I apologized profusely, and he played it off, but I never saw that investigator again.
My companion and I knocked a door one day, and a man answered. He wore tattered clothes, and maggots were burrowing into and out of his feet. He muttered something about the stars, missing his wife, and he began to tear up. My eyes stung from the stench. The door closed. Somehow, I knew the man would be dead in a matter of weeks.
I had lost hope that I was doing anything worth while. I looked down on the Doc Martins that had stayed with me five months at this point. I was angry with myself for being so useless in the field, angry with the church for giving me leaders that didn’t listen to my needs or perspective, angry with my mom for drinking while I had to teach people that it was a sin, angry with my dad for giving me the skills and knowledge to justify anything, even pedophilia in the early days of the church, to the point where I could look someone in the eye, and knowing the kind of man Smith was, tell them he was a good man and a true prophet of God. Suddenly a man approached us. He said he recognized us as missionaries, and asked about our message. This never happened. People didn’t just come up to us unless they were crazy or dangerous. But this was a public place, and this guy was genuine. My companion talked to him, and gathered his story, but I was plotting something else. I was done with not caring about these people in a way that mattered. I was tired of walking in another man’s shoes, a man who wasn’t me, who believed different things than me. The chopped leg, the rotting dogs, the infested feet, it all swirled into a single thought in that moment.
What would Jesus do?
I walked over to the man, and in broken Spanish asked him to stand next to me. He did so, and I compared my shoe size to his foot. It was a perfect match. He protested, but I didn’t let him get a word in edge wise. I took off my shoes, put them on his dirty feet, and laced them up nice and tight. Those shoes had cost a ton, and had been meant to last the whole mission. All I had left at this point were my fancy dress shoes that gave my blisters back at the apartment. I didn’t care. I walked home in my socks that day, happy as a lark.
Covid-19 hit a month later. I was one of the few they brought home instead of quarantining. After having served only 6 months. I told God if he wanted me to stay home, he’d have to make them release me.
They released me. I think I was one of maybe a hundred missionaries that were released due to Covid. The church realized their mistake pretty soon after I was released. Once Covid infrastructure began to develop, they didn’t release any more. I guess I didn’t serve a full two years, but I did serve a full mission.
My brother served, and he nearly killed himself due to intense depression brought on by Covid quarantine and poor leadership (I’ve got a few mission president stories, but those are for another time).
I learned lying to someone’s face from my mission, and spent the rest of my time at BYU-I as “nuanced” until the last two years, over which the most epic hoe phase imaginable became my new mission. I spent those years terrified of getting a call from the honor code office.
I’m married now, with my degree irrevocably in my possession. I have friends and loved ones that are in the church and are working on their mission papers. I’m beginning to feel powerless again. I’m seeing the decay again, not on legs, feet, or dogs anymore, but in the souls of the people who the church raises to do their dirty volunteer work. I see them like the animal sacrifices I saw being prepared. I’m not sure what shoes I have left to give to those people that I know are going to be in pain.
My parents are out completely now. It was a long time coming, but they are out and so much happier. I’m working on building a new relationship with my family, one based off of the fact that we won’t be together forever, so we have to make the most of our time together now.
Happy Sunday guys, best of luck to you all. And most importantly, chupa la piña.

It was the start of a new year, and with that Seouls 4 major school saw a large increase of new students. Everyone was talking about the gang who used to rule over Seoul suddenly disappearing, and nobody was taking ownership of it. (read the Extra info at the bottom, it will help a lot, and it'll explain how things work for new people)
---------------------------North Seoul High--------------------------- A tall, blonde, guy was making jokes with a few of his classmates, most of them where about the Soviet union and WW2. Ivan Alexander (u/Away_excitement3116)
In the corner of class a tall, silver haired boy was training without his shirt on, a few watched while some tried to look away from his muscular build. Klein (u/ProfessionalLuck268)
Simply sitting at his desk doing his schoolwork was one boy, most would says he's normal. But then again, being to only normal guy makes you kind of special. Yuseong (u/Outer-god369)
A tall black dude was talking with his friend, trying to improve his language skills as h had only recently come to Korea. His shirt hiding his very muscular build. (u/TheGloryBe_throwaway)
There was a large group of students talking, making jokes, laughingand just having a good time, in the center of attention was the short curly haired- Ren Yuzaki (u/LeoIsAngry)
There was a boy sleeping on his desk, standing next to him was another boy dressed just like a body guard. He would scare off anyone who got close. The boy sleeping was Kai Edward Tristan (u/KaiAugustInsi)
Some skinny guy was watching the popular newtube channel (How To Fight), he was inspired by Hobin due to the fact they both got bullied a lot. He now wats to be just like him. Kim Suho (u/federal_tip9311)
--------------------------South Seoul High----------------------------
The class watched as an boy with Orange hair, and black leather gloves was polishing his newest Trophy. It's seemed like that was the only thing interesting him at all. Dexter (u/Greensvenner1234)
A short and skinny boy is playing with his Lego bricks. While most see it as immature he's doing it to get a better understanding on a buildings stability and weak points. As he loves working on construction sites. Seok Mujuk (u/domengoenfuego)
Sitting in some expensive designer clothes, was a boy who normally couldn't afford it. But after beating up some bullies who harrased others, and then them offering him their money he gladly took it. Kai Wang (u/wesjsndsjsnss)
"Come and hit me!" a Dude screamed while his Classmates punched and kicked him, yet he was still standing as if nothing had happened at all to him. Lam Lee (u/Dull-tax-4713)
Sitting away from all the noice, enjoying his favorite manga was Kim Jin (u/random_guy_Q)
Amongst the people who tried to punch Lam Lee was one boy who actually manged to hurt him a bit, he didn't notice was Lam was hiding it but his attacks where effective. Adam (u/Theman2326)
---------------------------East Seoul High------------------------------ A boy with gum in his hair was playing games on multiple phones, yet he obviously didn't enjoy it. That's because he was forced to farm stuff for bullies. Su-Jin Park (u/RainProfessional8105)
People stared as there was some guy who brought a few stray cats and dogs with him to class. Some people enjoyed the animals, others saw it as weird. Zanegs (u/Warrenchae)
Some nerds ran up to an average sized boy with white hair, calling him sir and giving him some money, he told them that they are safe as long as the money keeps flowing Hyuk Hwang (u/Rutsch3r)
There was someone silently talking to himself, but not silent enough. Other people could hear h but they didn't understand what he was saying. Myul (u/Longjumping-date-367)
He was not a student of this school, yet he would still come here everyday. He fought someone drunk dude from this school who he now follows around. Ran Yong-Su (u/Any-Lingonberry-3589)
Some drunk dude, he got I trouble a lot for drinking while on school grounds. Beat up some guy once while drunk, who's now following him around. Chao Ming (u/Even-Caramel-9309)
Staying way from other, watching movies about martial arts while simultaneously reading a martial arts magazine was Forgettable (u/Forgettabletiger)
--------------------------West Seoul High-----------------------------
A football (it's called football not soccer) just ended in a 30-0 win. His teammates where all gathered around him praising him for his amazing shots and dribbling. Hyoma Kurona (u/Fungiloo)
Skipping school so he could work in his parents teashop, was a boy who was fascinated by his Chinese roots. Vincent Lee (u/Base_loose)
A boy was going around with a group of scary looking guys. He would try to beat up people and then have them join him. He war cruel to them yet made them yet on rare occasions asked if they are hurt. Jintaro Suzuki (u/SlashDaOne)
Talking to his teacher as if they where best friends was one boy who didn't care about social rankings and as everyone as a friend. Hae Minsu (u/Real_Abrocoma_9377)
After unsuccessfully flirting with a few girls, this boy decided that training his body again was the best way to get their attention. Jin Na (u/Causality_A)
This boy gets along with many people, yet he gets nervous when you ask him about his glove and weirdly large pinky fingers. Ryuk Eun-Soo (u/Elegant-Ad-2431)
---------------------------------Extra Info----------------------------------
Here are a few rules and things you should keep in mind.

1. How does anything work? Just make a comment saying what your characters is doing or what he wants to do. I will respond with a scenario. Onec your scenario is finished I'll tell you, you can act again in the next part.

If you fight another OC, it will be put into the next part as these are special fights.

1. You're allowed to do anything, you want as long as ng as it's in character.
   
2. You can be permanently crippled, lose limbs and die.
   
3. Random encounters are a thing. They have different rarities, common ones are like you meeting some thugs, while more rare encounters could result in you meeting people like Gun.
   
4. After an successful encounter you're rewarded with all kinds of thing, stat buffs, special items, Uniqe Abilities. The more rare the encounter is, the better the rewards. You can also fail the encounter.
   
5. Stats are important even outside of fighting. You can raise every single stat by training or from rewards.
   

Strength: how strong your hits are, how much you can lift/Carry around. And other physical tasks. Speed: how fast you attack, move and think. Potential: is basically how fast you grow from training, Someone with higher potential will gain more than someone with low potential from the same amount of training. Intelligence: your battle IQ as well as your overall IQ. If your int is low your plans will almost always fail even if your plan is really good and detaild. And someone with high int will almost always be successful even if their plan is bad. Endurance: Your Defense, and how much energy you have.
Stats are also hidden, this is so you have to be careful around every person you don't know. High Intelligence character might find out your stats. And some cards also let you view stats.

1. If you want to do something in secret DM me. This way only you and I will know about it. This could be a betrayal or maybe a secret plan.

7.1 Fight other OCs is something risky, the winner can decide what to do with you. They can to the things mentioned in (2) but they can also try to recruit you.
7.2 Beating an OC will give Special rewards. So it's encouraged by keep in mind that you can suffer a lot if you fail.
If you don't remember something about your OC just DM me

So I'm the younger sibling(16M) here and my older sister who is 18 is doing nothing. Let me tell you how she was 3 months ago - 1)Wakes up at 4:30AM to play badminton and runs 5 KM every day 2)Always been an extrovert , goes shopping twice every month with her 2 friends (FASHION IS IMP TO HER) 3)Also she gave INMO last year and always came 1st position in every class par didn't clear the cut off for JEE(general h ) due to chem but she said "JEE is a stupid exam and I don't regret not clearing it but mera 2 saal ka effort paani m ni jane dungi" Everyone was shocked ki she didn't clear JEE(got 83%) bcs she cleared NTSE and RMO and she is the brightest mind in all our khandaan! 4)She plays with street cat group she formed (she fed them regularly) 5)She reads a lot of novels and sci fi books since we were kids(her wall has only 2 rows left for more books) 6) She never had a bf or crush(she shares everything with me and her friends so we know bcs it's hard for her to keep secrets in her stomach lol) 7) She talks a lot and is an amazing artist and cares about everyone in the family.
Now: Since the start of April, She is slowly cutting off all the things she used to do and this week she got me really concerned. 1)She stopped going out for shopping and only bought few skincare items online(she hates online shopping) and she has stopped talking to me,her friends,mom, dad, teachers everyone! and she wakes up at 8 Am, (which is very late according to her) and I feed the cats now since she does not come out of her room. 2) Her room looks like no one lives there, the books are untouched, her stuff on table is scattered, the bedsheet is straight like no one slept there, the walls and her bookshelf have spiders and lots of dust(SHE'S A CLEANLINESS FREAK) , the room feels extremely dull (vibe bohot negative h room ki ) 3)She does not eat or eat very little. 4) We left her alone a week ago & when we came back the house looked like no one lived there and she was just in her room sleeping(it was 2PM) and she looked like a ghost in her white night gown(she never takes naps bcs she hates lying on her bed during day and SHE HATES THAT GOWN) when we asked what you did when we were gone she said - nothing and she has actually done nothing no academic studying either !(she loves studying, weird but yea) 5) Her plants in balcony are dried and some are dead! (SHE LOVES HER PLANTS!) and one cat she calls her "Honey" came in her room, cried and left. 6) In mid April she introduced all of us to her boyfriend(22M) and he's extremely RICH, like crazy rich, he picks her up in ASTON MARTIN and that's his own money! The craziest thing to all of us is they don't talk or text on mobile. IF she wants to meet him, she just goes at his office or house and his manager just gives him a call and he comes within 2 minutes no matter where he is which is extremely strange to me! At first dad wasn't sure of their relationship bcs of the age gap but my sis said "I LOVE HIM AND SO DOES HE, WE ARE TOGETHER" which is unlike her, she never said the word "love" for anyone. Her bf even introduced his friends, family to her by saying "SHE's THE LOVE OF MY LIFE" in a party infront of our parents which took us all off guard but they just smiled at each other and my sis looks nonchalant but when she's with him anyone can tell they're so in love with each other.
But but now, she hasn't visited him for 2 months straight, they meet 3 times a month atleast so at first I thought something happened between them but when he came to our house on 1 May, they looked normal and my sis talked to him normally rather he asked us if anything abnormal happened to her or if she did anything which we denied but but is this some normal teenage girl behaviour or smth srs? Anything her bf asked her she denied, like going on a date, hiking or a trip and told him she will meet him soon as soon she feels fine. I tried talking to her and her bf did too but she says "Everything's fine just not me so am just thinking these days".

17 days ago, a member of this sub posted about Ivanna Sakhno joining M3GAN 2.0, we got some comments on the post, and then 3 days ago the OP deleted the post, thereby also removing everyone else's comments from visibility.
I believe that OP is in the habit of automatically deleting their posts after 2 weeks. Since I haven't been given a reason for this, I'm here restoring the comments (which were deleted without consulting their authors), but not the original post (whose author wanted it deleted).
I could restore the comments because I commented myself: by accessing your comments on your own Reddit profile, you can see threads to which you contributed even if the original post has been deleted, including other people's comments on that thread. You just can't get the original post back.
Should any of these comment authors wish their comment to be removed, please say and I will edit it out. Also, if there really is a good reason to delete this entire thread, please contact me or a mod and we'll do it. But my default assumption is we probably want this discussion to be preserved, and the OP's deletion of the entire discussion was a mistake, so here it is.

‘Ahsoka’s Ivanna Sakhno To Co-Star Opposite Allison Williams In Atomic Monster & Blumhouse’s ‘M3GAN 2.0’

Sorry, this post was deleted by the person who originally posted it.
Top-level comment from Jazzlike-Movie-930•17d ago•Edited 17d ago: 4 upvotes:
Here are my theories on which character she will play in M3gan 2.0:

1. She will play Gemma’s rival toy company engineeroboticist.
2. She will play an intern at the Funki Toy company or rival toy company.
3. She will be the voice of Am3lia (the rumored antagonist) of M3gan 2.0.
4. The last theory I have is unlikely but possible. She plays an adult version of M3gan and M3gan looks human. That said, M3gan will probably have that child doll face again in M3gan 2.0 so that makes this theory unlikely.

It should be a big role she landed though and I look forward to seeing her in M3gan 2.0.
Reply Budd96•17d ago•Edited 17d ago: 3 upvotes:
The both 1 and 3 would be a high possibilities for her role in Sequel.
But I still believe she's going to be AM3LIA's Roboticist.
Reply from Jazzlike-Movie-930•17d ago: 1 upvote:
I agree that #1 is probably the most likely option but I would not be surprised if she voices Am3lia. If she is the voice of Am3lia, then Amelia needs to look like a teenage or young adult robot doll or look like an older sister to M3gan.
Reply from Budd96•17d ago•Edited 17d ago: 1 upvote:
Well, M3GAN and AM3LIA are both going to be older in Sequel, both of them will not have relations to each other.
Reply from AntiAmericanismBrit•17d ago: 3 upvotes:
Congratulations to Ivanna for landing the role and congratulations to the M3GAN team for getting her.
We have absolutely no idea who she'll play, but if theories are fun, I don't think they'll mind a bit of wild mass guessing going on.
I agree "adult M3GAN" is unlikely for this actress, because we're told her part is major. It's possible the film might end with an "in the future all grown up" scene, but we have no reason to think that will be the main part of the film (I mean Violet McGraw is 13 now, not 23), and therefore any actor involved in the "all grown up" scene (if it happens) won't count as a major part. (Well it might become a major part in the THIRD film if they go that way, but not in the second.)
Voice of a robot is possible, but would they really hire Ivanna just for her voice? Unlike Jenna Davis, Ivanna doesn't seem to have much of a history of doing voice work. She's very much an actress who gets seen on the screen. So I think the odds of this one are quite low (but I might be proven wrong).
but Shin Hati is a villain in the Star Wars franchise, and if an actress plays a villain in one film, she's more likely to be a villain in another. (But not necessarily!)
I'm not sure if rival roboticists and bosses etc count as "major" parts if all they do is set a robot going and then get off the set. A colleague might if they're hands-on enough. It depends how major you mean by major.
Right now I think the simplest explanation is the Amelia rumour is wrong and the plot will be completely different from what we were expecting. But let's see what they tell us later.
Reply from Budd96•6d ago•Edited 6d ago: 1 upvote:
I don't think AM3LIA plot rumor is wrong at all, there's some truth to it, if the AM3LIA is rumor is wrong, who took the Schematic Files than rival roboticist, it can't be Gemma it wouldn't make sense taking the Schematic Files when she was the original creator of M3GAN, it could be M3GAN herself, but she has some limitations to control any robotic systems that don't have AI integrated, she's probably need human help to create her a new body, that's where Ivanna Sakhno's Character comes in to help.
Reply from AntiAmericanismBrit•3d ago: 1 upvote:
well a lot of options were left open with the files Kurt stole. The main Doylist (real-world) reason for having that in the original film was so M3GAN could call him out on it in the elevator as part of her gaslighting setup.
It might also suggest a history of Kurt leaking Funki secrets to the competitor that made Furzees from Purrpetual Petz and thereby making Funki management feel the competitors are too good at getting stuff quickly, which means M3GAN needs to be launched fast, hence pressure to cut corners. But I think in the case of Furzees that clone could be done quickly from the off-the-shelf product anyway without needing the files (the files might actually slow them down, because they'd get Gemma's listening model tech and the point was to take that out to make the toy cheaper).
Anyway, as of end of M3GAN:

1. We don't know whether or not Kurt managed to leak those files before he was killed,
2. If Kurt did not manage to leak the files, we still don't know whether or not they might still be found by his relatives or by investigators going through his things after his death,
3. Even if Kurt didn't leak them and nobody looked at his docs, it might still be possible for someone else to get hold of the same files off of Funki's system,
4. If somebody does get hold of the files, how easy would it be to use them? When I write code for internal use only, I sometimes fail to explain it properly, meaning I'm probably the only one who can actually use that code without considerable effort. Films depicting stolen code as instantly usable are not actually realistic. I think it would be a great sub-plot if whoever gets the files can't make sense of them until M3GAN-online pops up to help them out with the job. Either that or they have to work for a very long time which explains the delay between the films. Or they have to work for a very long time and then M3GAN-online helps them finish.
5. We also don't know if the files are needed at all. Maybe M3GAN-online can tell whoever she likes how to build a robot designed by M3GAN herself that is better than the one described in those files. Or something drastic happens to totally change the attitude of Funki or Gemma or Cady and they're the ones who rebuild M3GAN. Or something else.

The only thing we do know is, Shakno's character will be "major". I'm not sure what counts as "major" in this case but normally it's things like: appearing in many scenes throughout the film, heavy effect on the plot, and perhaps some character development along the way. I'm not entirely sure that just rebuilding a robot in a couple of scenes is enough to make the character "major". But that doesn't rule out the possibility of Shakno's character rebuilding the robot plus also playing some other role that makes her major, like babysitting Cady for an extended period or something. We don't know; could be anything.
Reply from leytonk_tx•10d ago: 3 upvotes:
Wouldn’t make sense to cast Ivanna who doesn’t do voiceover work at all and is purely an actress for a voice role. I’m going on a hunch just by her previous roles and what she’s good at that she will be the primary antagonist of some kind. Makes the most sense. Uncertain about this Amelia plot, idk if that is even true or if Ivanna’s looks will play a part in her role (porcelain skin, very wide eyes look that could play well into any type of doll/robot) so who knows. Anyways theatomicmonster on instagram reposted Adam Hendricks story from a couple days ago. Peep the directors laptop screen.
Top-level comment from Budd96•17d ago•Edited 17d ago: 2 upvotes:
I believe she's going to be Gemma's Rival/New Doll's Roboticist.
Top-level comment from Ok-Effective4500•6d ago: 1 upvote:
But as who?
Reply from Budd96•6d ago: 1 upvote:
The plot is not revealed yet, her role is currently unknown, but seeing her Play as Antagonist in other films, her character most likely going to help M3GAN to creating a new body and hunting down Gemma and Cady.
She coud be either rival roboticist or she's working from secret military government who worked on building Super-Integelligient Machines.
That's my guess for what she's going to be.

Alright Apes,
I was out walking my dog, ready to get back home to go to sleep, and then it happened. I did one last check of superstonk to get my dopamine hit that is our community and well, I got more than I asked for. Now I have too much energy to sleep because I am so fucking hyped for what I found. So here I am.
This beautiful post popped up at nearly midnight my time.
When it said watch in reverse, I had mixed emotions because one of my favorite post was the one with the opening to the White Stripes glitch mob remix. Go watch the video if you haven’t already. That’s one of my favorite songs for very personal reasons and the idea that GME was about to unleash something that caused a glitch was very exciting to me. I wanted that to be the foreshadowing that RK left us with.
But I like every other GME theory I read, it consumes me. I’m obsessed. So what the heck, let’s go watch everything in reverse.
Lucky for me I realized very quickly that when you go to the X iphone app and watch the latest video in full screen, you can just swipe up to see the next video. So, the next hour of my night was planned out.
That was an hour ago. I am so hyped about what I saw that I’ve decided to sit down and write out the my whole interpretation of what I saw. I don’t have answers for every single post but there does seem to be a theme that matches the theory that these are meant to watch in reverse.
Buckle up.
One last things before I get started. I think DFV has been here all along. I think he has read all of the DD and I think he made his memes with all of that in mind. I highly doubt he knows anything for sure but is just a fan of the DD. Just like I am. And there is one DD I fell in love with from the first moment I read it. I think he did too and this is his thesis. He has read all the tea leaves and doesn't think anyone has put it together like he has so he is sharing his interoperation of the DD, the market conditions, and the news and is going to do one last DD himself.
Ok. Here we go.
Oh, and this is not financial advice.
Ok. Here we go for real.
ET: This might actually be him saying goodbye for now. Hopefully not forever (still kinda sad we never got a ET 2).
Horse Gift: Not sure how to interpret this one. Maybe foreshadowing that he found (or was gifted) the GME bull thesis and at that point, he wasn’t sure if it was a good thing for a bad things. “We’ll see”
Coldplay Backwards: GME had to pull back for him to find the right time to get in.
Forest Running: And then it started running.
Original Sheet Music: Then he started meme. The memes were “MIRACULOUS”.
My favorite post – The White Stripes Glitch Mob video intro: Seriously, if you haven’t watched the video, go now. It’s hype af. This is the video that marks the Jan 2021 glitch. The sneeze.
MIB Kitty: And then GME became RK’s galaxy.
That’s not a Knife: He was the memelord at this point but shorties wanted his gains.
Westworld’s Bernard: Then the bear thesis’ started coming out but we can’t see what we are programed not to see. We were already programed at this point thanks to the bulleproof bull thesis.
Ocean’s Gang in Prison: And then we got thrown in a prison together when so many people bought at high prices.
Beavis and Butthead: We were obsessed with Cohen at this point. We hung on to every tweet. Sex for Dummies was a very popular one. Lot’s of theories popped up with this tweet.
A Few Good Men: DFV visits Congress!
Elaine Dancing: Is this him celebrating his gains and/or not getting thrown in prison?
Aladdin: They tried to take his gains away?
Truman > Mourinho’s In Big Trouble: He was gagged.
ASIP In Therapy: RK went to therapy and found he loved making memes and GME?
Newman: Talking about his experience as his new life as the United States GameStop memer and all the requests he was getting for memes.
Eddie Murphy: Chronicling his time as a memer
SNL The Shooting AKA Dear Sister: Not sure on this one.
Steve Wilkos: RK is ours and we are going to stick beside him
Succession: RK was reading so much about how he was the villain
Borne: More struggles with his identity as the GameStop memer and deciding what to do next.
CNBC > .50: Why does everyone hate RK?
The Dude: Not sure on this one.
Garden State: foreshadowing the jam that he’s about to get into this his next (older) posts
Every Everywhere All at Once: more foreshadowing.
Stand by Me: There’s a game of chicken going on. Shorts vs HODLers?
School of Rock: Reminding us what where here for. This journey isn’t going to be perfect but it’s Rock and Roll.
TeddyBears – Punk Rocker: He has both hands off the wheel now but he’s still along for the ride.
You Can’t Stop What’s Coming: Self-explanatory with likely last-minute cameo of the Chicago (where was Citadel founded?) BEARS thanks to the world’s most famous coke rat market manipulator.
Sicario 2: He’s asking us if we are ready to be the “villain” with him.
Flip Mode: If you really want to party with the Kitty, show him what you got (make some more memes people!!!)
The Shining: Our view of RK at work making his memes for the past 3 years.
500 days of Summer: Talking about why he does what he does. Because it’s going to last forever (more foreshadowing).
Luca: Him laughing at us not knowing everything. Just forget about it if you don’t understand, he has more for you.
Signs 1: This is where things get interesting. This is where we start seeing the signs. Connecting dots. We found something legit in all the DD.
Signs 2: The signs all pointed to GameStop. It’s all about GameStop and what they are going. Nothing else matters.
Signs 3: Are we the aliens? All of our best DD writers talking to each other were some of my favorite moments over the past 3 years. [There are theories about what these signs said and I will go back and fill that in later, I’m getting sleepy]
Signs 4: He is asking us if we believe the DD.
Signs 5: RK is one of us. Assuming we are the Aliens in these signs videos, he is telling us he is one of us.
The Modern Animal: We need to get a little crazy if we are going to take on the big city (NYC? Wall Street?)
Broad City: We made our own language. Memes. SuperStonk is a place for best friend with time to shoot.
GooseBumps: I THINK THIS IS WHERE WE ARE TODAY. RK is letting his briefcase of memes open and warning bears.
Everyone’s favorite Boss: Here some the SIGNS (memes for those who are not keeping up). He is going to his us ONE MORE TIME.
Pay Attention: NOW FUCKING PAY ATTENTION because he isn’t going to do this again.
Kill Bill: It’s time to fight and we are bad asses.
JigSaw + Kansas City Shuffle: Are you ready for the game? Because GameStop has you covered. Everything up to this point has been the inciting incident and catalyst of the Kansas City Shuffle. There is a very short scene where he says, “are you watching closely”? I saw a comments days ago that I can’t find and the very high level paraphrased version is that scene is from the Prestige and all of those hats were a result of him cloning himself. I think that represents the synthetics that plague our market. (I will find that comment that explains it better and go back to watch the movie myself and update this).
Shawshank: RK is telling us all it really takes is pressure and time to break out of their prison. While he was in prison, he went back to get his financial education. We also need an activist (investor, RC). There is a lot more nuance we can try to extrapolate form this one. I’ll save that for later.
Radiohead Karma Police: They have run the price down far enough. They have been leaking gas this whole time. It’s time for the match to be lit.
Neo: This is where Neo figures out how to work the matrix. The market is fake and everyone is mad. We all know it. When it comes to the market, we all took the red pill, and we see it for what it is.
Bullet Scene: Might need some help deciphering this one. I think it’s about how we (maybe not us but the general public) perceive the market. We see cause and effect but that’s now how it works. I think he is telling us that we don’t fully understand the market but our instincts are right and we just feel it. I think we as a community have that instinct.
Fury: Every boss is going to feel like the last one. They are going to pound us with misinformation, price manipulation, and anything else they can come up. But they are just taunting us to whoop some ass.
Trueman Show: They are going to hit us with everything they have but HOLD ON!
Me, Myself, & Irene: Them tanking the price is going to change how we feel and who we are.
Red Right Hand: Might need some help with this one too. The red hand man is stalking someone and the other person can’t do anything about it? Not sure who is who here.
Beat Saber: Might need some help with this too. Is he calling all freaks to show up because we are about to go to war?
Keith and Jake SNL: Everyone thinks Keith is crazy lol
Seinfeld: Calling out the memestock docs for being stupid. He had to some back and tell everyone to “Shut Up Bitch”
Shut Up Bitch: He delivers his best line to the people making him out to be a Vilian.
Coffee Mug Breaks: He is asking us to convince him to do it again.
Bane: RK is saying everything is going as planned.
Oceans (again): RK has been waiting for this time and it was all part of the plan.
Snoop: There was so much drama at GME. People had to be fired because they were someone dressed up as something else. Moles?
Spiderman: It’s time for Keith Gill to become Roaring Kitty again.
Pizza Slices: Guy on the left is a shorty. He is getting mad with how popular things got with the thesis and how many people bought.
Missy Elliot ft Luda: Giving us confidence that he has a worldwide audience and he is about to kill all the rumors.
In Love with RC: He is telling us that RC is the right guy. Don’t doubt him.
Guardians: Everyone already knows who is in charge. Stop fighting to be in charge.
CNBC again: Some of the misinformation actually said RK is in charge. He is not. He is busy drawing dicks (memes).
Oceans (again): I think he is saying that no one person is in charge. It took everyone to give GME all that money. Or maybe it AVOCADO-IN-MY-ANUS all along?
Breaking Bad: His side still hasn’t been told?
Fight Club: RK finally accepting he is DFV
Nice Guy: He is still a nice guy despite what people are saying.
Day and Night: I think he is talking about his struggles day and night over the last 3 years.
Dave: He could’ve ignored it all but he couldn’t stand it. He’s about to keep it real with us.
Star Wars: help me fill in the blank on this one.
Ozarks: help me fill in the blank on this one.
Grim Reaper: The hedgies are trying to figure out what is going on with GameStop. They are I a holding pattern and will be coming with more hitman when what happens in the rest of the tweets goes down.
*******This is where shit gets real********
The Prestige: Alright. Put your tinfoil hat on tight. Here is my interpretation of this one. The magician makes something disappear, but the audience wants to be fooled so we are not actually looking for the secret. So, when something disappears we don’t clap because it’s not as impressive. But as soon as it comes back, the fights is on**~. I think the NFT marketplace is going to come back~**. But I think it’s going to come back as something else. I think they built the blockchain infrastructure for something other than the NFT marketplace. That is when shit is going to go crazy. Don’t believe me, keep reading.
Brand New GME: They finally embrace what everyone has been calling them. They show up one day looking sexy as fuck and blow everyone’s minds.
Prisoner: And now the prisoner (GME’s true price) has true FFFRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM.
The fallout: The hedgies are going to beg us to sell our shares at 14 grand but the nature of us is pure CRAZY. We all knew who was calling on the phone.
Parking Lot Killer: That is who was calling. They are coming for the bears.
Requel: And just like that the requel begins production.
Old Computer Game: Now the question is, with this brand new, sexy af version of GME are we selling or are we staying? I think it’s going to be so fucking amazing we “>Stay”
Kittyman: When this all goes down, RK will return again.
How did they do it?: GME (or we?) seems stupid but apparently whoever it is really good at paperwork and the RK is so happy he’s doing backflips.
What do they need to do it?: They are going to need all of us and the target is up. HODL.
Kingsman: Shorties will then be locked in the room with us and they are going to come in fierce numbers.
The Town: They need our help we can’t ask questions but we have some sick ass rides to get there with.
Morning Affirmation Cat: Help me with this one. I’m tired.
Troy: Sick ass scene. GME just needs to land the killshot.
Pikey Reaction: They pulled the price back so far that it’s a loaded spring and when the shots are fired, it’s going to be raining money. Now “come hang so we go out with a bang”. Does he have your attention now?
Stop Fighting: NOW we can stop fighting.
Pirates of the Carrabin: The Pirate comes back from the dead (NFT Market Place?) and GME presses the red button to go into hyperdrive. This solidified my theory.
Tombstone: It’s not for revenge. It’s for something bigger. It’s a reckoning. Maybe a Glass Castle?
Standoff: Now that the red button was pressed, we have all the shorties in a stand off. But it doesn’t matter because the result of the red button is going to destroy it all? DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION NOW?
Avenger Initiative: We have to do it together. It’s not just one person.
Sherlok Holmes: When GME says run, RUN! And remember what it’s running for. You monther, father, children, sisters, and brothers. The DOG DAYS are over.
Drive: We think were all good here right? It’s all over. Guess again. We are going to have every governmental agency coming after us and our gains. We are going to be on the run.
Bloody Blade: Help me with this one.
But First: The overture. This will be how it starts. We must go backward to unlock the secret. Once we do, the dragon wakes up and it’s game on for the game of thrones. We are going to break the wheel.
Still Here: It’s done when we say it’s done. This tweet closes with the song from the whole days evil cept being blown up with green fire. Sick.
Thanos: This was the actual first tweet just like the ET was the actual last tweet. He has read all the tea leaves and doesn't think anyone has put it together like he has so he is sharing his interoperation of the DD, the market conditions, and the news and is going to do one last DD himself.
Hope you were sitting up in your red chair and paying attention.
Apologies for any typos and poor formatting. I've never made a post like this and I'm too tired to figure all of that out. I'll come back tomorrow and clean it all up with that and fill any gaps you guys help me out with.

Xue Feng Though the modern medicine has limited knowledge of human bodies, what we have known is enough for us to admire the excellent human body structure and functions. Each system and organ in the human body is designed by the Greatest Creator. Even those trivial body parts have great functions. For example, there are several types of hairs on human bodies with distinct forms and functions. The head hair is designed to protect and beautify the head. It can grow long. According to the Bible, “But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.” The eyebrows can divert sweat and rain, preventing them into the eyes. That’s why they are lined above the two eyes. Eyelashes can prevent the dust and other things from entering the eyes. That’s why they are lined on the sides of the eyelids. Also they stand forward in a special curve because it wouldn’t hinder the eyesight or pierce into the eyes when closing the eyes. If the eyebrows and eyelashes are too long, they will hinder the eyesight. That’s why they wouldn’t grow as long as the hair or beards. The nasal hairs can filter the inhaled air. That’s why they grow inside the nostril and stand sideways and outwards. If they stand inwards, the other things will find it easy to come into the nostrils and difficult to go out. The armpit hairs can prevent the partial friction and help the sweat evaporate. Without the armpit hairs, we have to raise our arms. Otherwise the skin under the arm will become inflamed because of the friction and moist. Required by the function, the armpit hairs cannot grow as long as the head hairs, or as short as the eyebrows. Besides, they are soft and curving. If they are rigid and coarse, they will hurt the skin. And cilia grow on the intestinal epithelium. The cilia grow downward and vibrate together. The vibrating waves move downward from upward to help move down the intestinal contents. Cilia also grow on the airway and bronchus epithelium. However, they grow and vibrate in the opposite direction as those on the intestinal epithelium. Only in this way can they move the sputum upward to the throat and spit them. If they grow downward, the airway and bronchus would get stuck by the sputum and the humans would die from it. Now I wish to take two simple reflections of human bodies as an example. When foreign matters enter the nostrils or airways, they will arouse two protective reflections, sneeze or cough, which is designed to repel the foreign matters. But due to different situation, these two reflections differ in their approaches. The foreign matters in the nostrils are not urgent so the sneeze reflection can be prepared in a composed way. First, inhale slowly; open the mouth, and the soft place move upward to block the nostril. Then breathe in enough air through the mouth, and the pleural body contracts sharply to emit the air in the lungs quickly. When the emitting reaches its peak, the tongue rises abruptly to block the mouth to repel the air to go out swiftly through the nostrils. In this way the foreign matters in the nostrils are driven out. However, if the foreign matters enter the airway, it is an emergent situation. If the foreign matters are not driven out timely, the life will be put at risk. The inhaling is strictly forbidden because it will make the foreign matters go deeper and cause suffocation. So the cough doesn’t include the inhaling. Instead, the glottis closes immediately. At the same time, the pleural body contracts suddenly and adds the lung air pressure extremely. When the pressure is at its strongest point, the glottis opens suddenly and the lung air sends out explosively, compelling the foreign matters in the airway to the throat via the glottis. At this time, the soft place rises to block the nostrils. The foreign matters are spit out through the mouth. If the tongue and the soft place perform the same way as in the sneeze, the foreign matters emitted out of the airway will enter the nostrils, causing another trouble. In these two reflections, the body parts must cooperate closely. Any failure in the coordination will lead to the failure of the reflection, causing serious consequences. So these activities are not done freely. Instead, they are done as required by their functions and set procedures. These procedures are not learnt or practices. The program has been rooted in our brain nerve structure (nerve nucleus) when we are born. Otherwise, the babies will not survive. The advanced computer science has made it possible to simulate these activities. However, the simulation requires 3 conditions: 1. Device simulating the inhale and exhaling of human mouth, nose, throat, pleural and the sensing device; 2. The central control equipment simulating nerves and body system (compute, input and output devices). The above two devices are hardware. And software is also needed, namely (3). A program composed in strict compliance with the requirements to control the performance and procedure of each link, and arrange them in perfect coordination. All the three conditions are imperative. Otherwise the reflections can’t be realized. The program itself is not a substance structure. Instead, it is a smart use and spiritual result. There will be no such a thing as the program without the smart use. So we have to ask, the program is composed by the humans and stored in the computer, how about the control program in the human brain. Is it also composed by someone and stored in the human brain? Sneeze and cough are the simplest examples. There are numerous automatically controlled physical, bio-chemical and pathological human body activities, which are even more sophisticated than reflections of cough. Even today, some of them remain mysteries to us. So how are these sophisticated control programs composed? And where do they come from? Now let’s have a look at the sensory organs on human bodies. Why do we have two ears? The reason is that one ear is not able to identify the direction. With the ears lying on two sides of the head, the sound reaches the ears in sequence of time. Based on the slight receiving time difference, the brain can judge where the sound comes from. The auricle is the most outward component of the ear. It can introduce the sound into the external auditory canal. Within the auricle there is a thin layer of cartilage helping to retain the form of auricle, giving it wonderful elasticity and protecting it from the clashes. Without the cartilage, the auricle is just two useless pieces of skin hanging on the head side. If the thin bone is inside the auricle, it will break easily even if when you are sleeping on your side, damaging the auricle. There is fuzz on the outer segment of the external auditory canal preventing the sand and dust. The inner segment secretes cerumen to prevent insects. When foreign matters enter the external auditory canal, it will trigger head shaking, instead of sneeze or cough, to get the matters out. Because the external auditory canal is a blind passage, it is impossible to repel the foreign matters with air. Why don’t the foreign matters in the nostrils arouse the head-shaking reflection to repel them? That’s because the nostrils of humans almost lie in the middle of the head. The shaking is not able to produce enough centrifugal force. Besides, the human nostrils face downward and it is improper to repel the foreign matters by shaking the head. The sound is produced by the mechanical vibration of objects and is transmitted by the air fluctuation, or the sound waves. The human ears are actually working like a precise mechanical vibration monitor. In the inner ear there are a number of keyboards with different sizes, producing nerve impulses produced by echoing with corresponding frequencies. The brain, in accordance with the features of these impulses, identifies the strength, tunes and timbre of the sounds. We must note though there are many sensory organs in human bodies, only the inner ear is protected by the most solid and firm bones. In fact, it lies in the cave part of the temporal bone. Of all the sensory organs, only the ears monitor the mechanical vibration, which needs a relatively fixed position. Otherwise, it is not able to monitor the sound. If the inner ear lies in the soft tissues, when the sound wave arrives, the inner ear will vibrate with it. Thus it can hear nothing. Now the inner ear lies in the firm bone and it can’t sense the air vibration. So it is imperative to reduce the density waves to the mechanical vibrations before sending them to the inner ear. And there is such a reduction device at the middle bottom of the external auditory canal, which is called the eardrum. The eardrum has enough space to receive the air pressure. It is thin enough to vibrate when the sound wave arrives. Meanwhile, the eardrum is strong enough to push the transmission device. The long handle of the middle ear cartilage is attached to its inner side, the tensile force of which makes the eardrum sink inside slightly to maintain certain tension. This allows the eardrum to accurately reduce the arriving sound waves into the mechanical vibrations. No matter what the temperature is, the vibration function is not impacted. After the sound waves are reduced into the mechanical vibration, some rigid objects are needed to transmit the vibration to the inner ear. Of all body tissues, the most rigid objects are the bones. However, the bones are heavy in general and covered by the soft tissues, which are not suitable for the audio vibration. However, in the tympanic cavity between the eardrum and the inner ear, there are three unique tiny bones with delicate forms measured in millimeters. They are almost completely exposed to the air in the tympanic cavity. These three tiny bones are connected by ligament and form a transmission chain in curve with excellent audio vibration function, able to transmit accurately the vibration of the eardrum to the inner ear. The transmission device can properly multiply the weak vibration and reduce the strong sound wave. All of these structures are the super designs required by the acoustics. There are even smarter designs in the hearing organ. For example, to make the eardrum vibrate freely following the arriving sound waves, the two sides of the eardrums must be exposed to the air. As a result, there is a tympanic cavity full of air in the middle ear. If the cavity is filled by liquids, just as other cavities are, the eardrum is not able to vibrate because the liquids can’t contract. Besides, the cavity does not only need to be filled with air, but also needs to be connected to the outside world with a proper passage, to balance the static air pressure in the cavity with the outside air pressure. Otherwise, the air in the cavity will gradually be absorbed, causing the eardrum to sink excessively or damaging it. When the outside air pressure changes, (such as in mountain climbing, diving, the airplane takeoff or climate change), it will arouse uncomfortable feelings or lead to hearing malfunction. But the middle ear can’t be opened to the outside world directly, just like the external auditory canal or nostrils can. The reason is that the direct exposure will make the arriving waving sound reach the two sides of the eardrums at the same time via the external auditory canal and middle ear passage, counteracting the sound pressure. Thus the eardrums will not vibrate at all, unable to produce the hearing. So it is a difficult problem to connect the middle ear and the outside world. However, the human body, with a smart design, solves this problem. The middle ear is opened at the two sides in the upper rear of the pharynx via a half-opened passage (the so-called auditory tube). The auditory tube is locked in common times and only opened temporarily when taking the swallowing actions, balancing the air pressure in the middle ear shortly. After the swallowing action is over, the auditory tube is locked again. Apart from eating, human body would regularly take swallowing action unconsciously, even when he or she is sleeping. Thus the air pressure in the middle ear can be adjusted from time to time and avoid the hearing from being hindered. Besides, when swallowing, the swallowing segment and the soft palate will definitely rise, blocking the mouth and nostrils against the outside world. So on the moment when the ear and throat are opened shortly, though the air in the throat can enter the middle ear, the sound waves from the outside world are blocked against the middle ear. As a result, the hearing will not be interfered and can receive the outside sound and voice. Only the throat in the body can meet the special demand of the hearing organs. The throat is originally designed as part of the digestion and breathing system, it does not belong to sensory system. However, it can cooperate so smartly with the hearing organs. We have to admire the extremely delicate body-wise design. The vestibule in the inner ear controls the balance of the body. In the vestibule there are 3 semicircular canals. When the body loses balance, the mutually-vertical semicircular canals produce the balance impulse, which triggers the corresponding reflection via the balance center in the medulla brain. Why are there 3 semicircular canals instead of 2 or 4? And why are they mutually vertical? The reason is apparent. Humans live in the 3-dimensional space. There are 3 mutually-vertical movement directions, namely, front and rear, left and right, upward and downward. So the 3 mutually-vertical semicircular canals can monitor the movements. The number less than 3 or more than 3 would be insufficient or redundant. We can see the delicate and smart structure and function, and the supreme wisdom in them. They can’t be the accidental results. As the most important perception of human bodies, vision provides more information than that provided by all other perceptions. The vision is the perception of image and space and the visual organs must have the most precise and accurate structure completely different from other sensory organs. As a result, in the perspective of the embryo-genesis or neuro-anatomy, the main structure of the eyes is not just the common receptor. Instead, it is part of the cerebral cortex. The so-called optic nerves are completely different from other cerebrospinal nerves. In essence, the optic nerves are inner structure in the brain, transmitting the most sophisticated visual information. The eyes function like a precise camera. The retina composed of the photoreceptor cells is just like the films. The crystal, iris and the cornea works like the lens, diaphragm and the filter. However, the precision and automatic adjustment of the eyes is no match of any high-quality cameras. For example, the lens in modern cameras is made of special glass or hard plastics with fixed focal distance. When taking pictures for the landscapes with different distances, the lens position must be adjusted. Otherwise, the image will not be produced on the films. But this is an awkward approach. Imagine when the eyes are watching landscapes with different distances, the eyeballs have to protrude or recess alternatively, which looks ugly or damages the health and function of the eyes. However, the crystal in the eyes are transparent and elastic colloid, which can adjust automatically the focal distance in accordance with the distance of the objects to make sure all the objects can be imaged on the retina, without changing the position of the crystal. Such automatic adjustment function can’t be fulfilled by any camera. If we observe the eyes in the perspective of modern TV technologies, the eyes are more like the television camera, but thousands of times more precise than the television cameras. The TV image is composed of dense pixels (the mixed dark or brilliant light spots). Till now, the best TV image only contains less than 1 million pixels. However, the human eyes can produce image containing 20 billion pixels. Only the eyes can see the details of objects. No matter how clear or accurate the image is, it is still a plan view image. Then how the eyes can provide the dimensional image is a key issue of providing the complete vision. But it is not an easy task at all to convert the flat view image into the dimensional one. For a long time, people have been puzzled by how the conversion is done. Of course, we later knew the smartness and delicacy of the human body shown here. The two eyes send the flat view images they receive into the same nerve center, which contrasts and analyzes the images and judges the distance of the objects based on the slight visual angle difference caused by the position difference of the two eyes. Thus the dimensional image is produced. That’s why people have to have 2 eyes to establish the complete vision. Based on such understanding, humans have invented the dimensional movies. But the above is only the external process of how vision is formed. People have little knowledge about how the visual center works inside. We have to admit that the mysteries of human body structure and functions are beyond the intelligence of mankind. As a matter of fact, the distance judgment with two eyes is the triangulation technique which is precise and automatic. The accurate measurement needs two premises. First, the two eyes must focus on one object at the same time. Otherwise, there will be double vision, which means the one objects will be seen as two objects. As a result, the complete neuromuscular system is equipped on the outside of the eyeballs, making the eyeballs the most flexible and accurate organs. The ciliary muscle inside the eyeballs can adjust the conversion rate of the crystal at any time to focus on the object and form the clearest image. Second, the retina of the two eyes must be strictly symmetrical. Otherwise, the image contrast of the two eyes will become impossible. Furthermore, the images received by the two eyes must be transmitted at the same time to the same visual center for contrast and analysis. There are two visual nerves on the left and right side of the brain, supervising respectively the two sides of the vision field. The objects in the left of the vision field are reflected, via the eye pupil, on the retina of the right sides of the two eyeballs. The corresponding images in the two eyes, via the visual nerve, are sent to the visual center on the right side of the brain. The objects in the right of the vision field are reflected, via the eye pupil, on the retina of the left sides of the two eyeballs. The corresponding images in the two eyes, via the visual nerve, are sent to the visual center on the left side of the brain. The two visual nerves contrast the corresponding images coming from the eyes and produce the full-field dimensional images. The pairs of human parts are often symmetrical on the outside. Only the retinas are symmetrical in the same position. Namely, the left side is symmetrical to the left side and the right side symmetrical to the right side of the two retinas. That’s because the light rays come in directly. Otherwise, the visual centers can’t receive the corresponding images or get the coordinated vision. The structural symmetry of the retinas in the two eyes must be accurate to the utmost. Otherwise the images in the two eyes will not comply with each other and the ambiguity will occur. Besides, the corresponding images from the two eyes must be sent to the same visual center. Thus the optic nerves must have the corresponding special structure to realize the cross-transmission of the images. This is the unique “chiasma opticum” unique to the optic nerves. This function is not possessed by any other nervus cerebrospinalis because they don’t handle the information of images and space. If we use the computers and monitoring cameras to simulate the process of human vision, the input network of the computers has to have a similar chiasm. No other design can do it. Judging from the above, we can find all the human organs, structures and functions have shown the supreme wisdom. And these are the ways they should be. Some people think that human body has some useless organs, such as the thymus gland, appendix, tonsil and coccyx, in order to prove the human structure is imperfect. Some people used to believe that these organs were not that useful. Instead, they tend to arouse diseases such as appendicitis and tonsillitis. If these organs are cut off, it will not have much impact on the human body. In the past, people used to classify spleens and other organs into the useless organs. There was a list of useless organs in the past which included over 100 organs. But the list was long not because these organs are useless but because people at the time were ignorant. As more we know about the organs, most of them have been deleted from the list and there are only a few still remain in the list. Some people think that these organs are the leftovers of human evolution, which are called the “waste back organs” and use them as one of the evidences of evolution theory. This is a complete misunderstanding. Till not we have understood there are no such things as the “obsolescent organs”. It is simply the lack of knowledge of these organs. Take the thymus gland as an example. In the past, people didn’t know its function. Now we have understood it is the warning device of the human body against the inner and outer infection sources. As a result, the thymus gland contributes a lot to the human health. Another example, if the coccyx fractures, it will cause serious functional disturbance. So the coccyx is also an imperative part of human body. Some people might say these organs can trigger diseases. Then all human organs can lead to diseases, even brain and heart are of no exceptions. Why don’t we say the brain and heart are useless? Some organs, though they are not as important as the heart and brain and wouldn’t endanger life immediately when eliminated, are also useful. Just like if the hands or feet are lost, though not fatal, the human body is handicapped. After knowing the supreme and smart design of human structures and functions, you might want to know how they come into being. Who has designed and made such sophisticated and precise organs? We cannot avoid the question. Any truth-seeking person would admit that the extremely delicate organs and structures are not produced naturally or accidently. For instance, if someone gives you a top-class camera and tells you it is a natural one without designer or manufacturer; do you think his words are scientific and acceptable? The human body, which is even more delicate, accurate, flexible and practical, must have a supremely wise and capable creator behind it. On a spring Sunday morning in 1954, I saw a young stranger sitting in the chamber of a Church. When we started to talk, I knew that he was a student at Peking Union Medical College. He said to me, “Since I studied anatomy and physiology, I have felt the human body is really a wonder. It is not possible to understand it unless we interpret the wonder with a God.” He came to the church to seek an answer. The wonder of this young man is not the only example. I remember that when I was studying anatomy and physiology in school, some students surrounded our physiology teacher and kept asking him questions. Finally, the teacher, annoyed by so many questions, told us, “Please stop the questions because they will lead to religion in the end.” Because of the special political background at the time, the teacher’s warning silenced all the students. But his warning impressed me deeply and remained in my memory till today. My thought at that time was that the teacher was right because all the things were created by the God. Though he was not a Christian, he had to admit the truth and the further probe into the human body mysteries (part of the Universe mysteries) would definitely lead to the existence of the God (religion) in the end. Otherwise, it would be impossible to explain the wonders of the human body. The Bible says, “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.”(1:20 Romans 1) Was the teacher demonstrating his scientific spirit? No. The scientific spirit means the truth and boldly pursuit of the truth without avoiding any controversy. The teacher knew very clearly that one more step forward would lead to the God but he dared not move onto the path towards the truth. Instead, he asked his students to stop there. It has shown that many people refuse to admit the existence of God not because they don’t have the scientific spirit but because of the social pressure, individual consideration for their interest and prospect, just as what the teacher was doing at that time. Nevertheless, the existence of the God would not change. And we cannot live in such considerations for the reality forever. One day in the future, when we have to face the ultimate choice, we will have to face the supreme master who has created the Universe and the human beings. The Bible says, “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” If we don’t accept the immoral God now, we have no excuse when it comes to the day. When we talk about the origin of all things in the Universe, some young people often ask, “You have said the humans are created by the God, then who has created the God?” The analogizing logics seem to be reasonable. But it is not true. Because the God is the creator instead of the created, you can’t link these together. The table is made by the carpenter. But you cannot say the carpenter and the table have the same origin. Human benings’ understand of the God is only limited to the enlightenment from the God to the humans. Otherwise, humans cannot understand the mystery of God’s nature. The God says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” (Exodus 3:14 and Revelation 1:8). For the God, there is only the eternality, and there is no time, beginning or ending. Even in the scientific field, too many analogizing questions won’t be tolerated. One scholar was talking about the belief in the God with his students. One student asked suddenly and proudly, “Where does the Universe come from?” The scholar answers, “The Universe is created by the God.” The student continued to ask, “Who has created the God?” The scholar answered, “The God is Alpha and Omega and I am not created.” The student said, “This is not scientific at all.” The scholar then asked the student, “Where does the Earth come from?” The student answered, “The Earth comes from the Sun.” The scholar continued to ask, “Where does the Sun come from?” The student answered, “The Sun comes from the Galaxy.” The scholar asked again, “Where does the Galaxy come from?” The student hesitated and answered, “The Galaxy comes from the nature.” The scholar continued to ask, “Where does the nature come from?” The student couldn’t answer this question and said in anger, “The nature is the nature and comes naturally.” The scholar then laughed, “This is not scientific at all.” So we can conclude that the “scientific” answers are not scientific. Another example is that the sciences tell people that substances are composed of the molecules. Then what are the molecules composed of? The molecules are composed of the atoms. But what are the atoms composed of? They are composed of the electrons, protons and neutrons. Then what are the electrons, protons and neutrons composed of? Till now, we cannot find an answer to this question. The atomic physicists are now working hard to find the “elementary particle”. They are called “basic particles” because the scientists don’t expect the substances to be divided limitlessly. So they believe that one day they will find the ultimate component, the “elementary particle”. Of course, the scientists will not ask such question of “what is something composed of?” This is the extremity and everything ends here. The materialists claim that the Universe is limitless and that the materials are eternal and can be divided limitlessly, etc. They are simply the groundless conclusion of the philosophers. And there is an extremity in their logics, the materials. They say that the materials are Alpha and Omega but can’t tell where the materials come from. Now let’s have a look at the math. All numbers come from 1, followed by 2, 3…. You can’t ask what the 1 is because 1 is 1, and not other numbers. It means that 1 is the origin of all numbers. The Greatest Creator has created all things and the Greatest Creator is the origin of them. It will be meaningless to ask where the Greatest Creator comes from.

My daughter is about to be two months old as we’re still having issues getting her to sleep through the night. Of course we prefer to hold her but realistically it is so difficult to do that and make sure we’re getting some sleep as well. My husband works two jobs too so obviously my priority most nights is to make sure he sleeps but I also don’t function very well if I can’t get at least 4 hours and he’s always worried about my sleep etc.
We’ve been practicing transfer to her crib and we’ve had some successes… but only for 1.5-2 hours at a time. I’ve tried a heating pad on the mattress first to make sure it’s warm, dry diaper, sound machine, soft music, full belly, swaddle.. everything. People keep telling me to swaddle and let me just say we have tried. Over and over. This girl hates to be swaddled. The problem isn’t her arms so much as it is her legs. She keeps kicking them up and activating her startle reflex and it wakes her up 9 times out of 10. I want to just hold her legs down so she stays sound asleep but obviously that’s not good for her either.
If it was safe to co-sleep I 100% would but even with the safe sleep 7 I worry. I’ve been tempted on getting a weighted sleep sack but those are expensive and there’s the worry about her breathing with something heavier on her chest.
I have a couple months before I go back to work so Im just trying to figure out how we can get through these nights where she’s at least getting four hour stretches and my husband and I won’t have to take turns staying up and holding her while she sleeps.
I guess I’m just looking for others experiencing the same things and if you have, what did you do to remedy it??? What’s the magic secret???
TDLR: My daughter kicks her legs up so much when she sleeps it wakes her up. Swaddling does not work. Solutions? Advice? TIA!

I’ve always hated the smell of gun oil. It clings to everything it touches, soaking deep into the fibers of my clothes, the lining of my backpack, the coarse hair on the back of my hands. Yet here I am, kneeling on the cracked linoleum of our mudroom, a Remington .308 laid across my thighs, and the stench of gun oil sharp in my nostrils. The early morning light barely scratches at the edges of the blinds, dim and gray like the belly of a dead fish.
My dad Frank is in the kitchen, clattering around with the coffeepot and mumbling under his breath. Today we’re heading up to the woods of Northern Michigan, same as we did every year before Leah… before we lost her.
I can’t help but feel the old scars throbbing as I load bullets into the magazine. It’s been ten years since that hunting trip, the one that tore my family into before and after. Before, when Leah's laughter was a constant soundtrack to our lives; after, when every silence was filled with her absence.
We were just kids back then. I was ten, Leah was eight. It was supposed to be a typical hunting trip, one of those bonding experiences Dad was always talking about. But things went wrong. We got separated from Dad somehow. One minute we were following him, the next we were lost, the dense woods closing in around us.
Dad says when he found me, I was huddled under a fallen tree, my eyes wide, my body frozen. All I could mutter through chattering teeth was "Dogman."
It was only later, after the search parties had combed through every thicket and hollow, that they found her. What remained of Leah was barely recognizable, the evidence of a brutal mauling undeniable. The authorities concluded it was likely a bear attack, but Dad... he never accepted that explanation. He had seen the tracks, too large and oddly shaped for any bear.
As I load another round, the memory flashes, unbidden and unwelcome. Large, hairy clawed hands reaching out towards us, impossibly big, grotesque in their form. Yet, the rest of the creature eludes me, a shadow just beyond the edge of my recall, leaving me with nothing but fragmented terrors and Leah’s haunting, echoing screams. My mind blocked most of it out, a self-defense mechanism, I guess.
For years after that day, sleep was a battleground. I'd wake up in strange places—kitchen floor, backyard, even at the edge of the nearby creek. My therapist said it was my mind's way of trying to resolve the unresolved, to wander back through the woods searching for Leah. But all I found in those sleepless nights was a deeper sense of loss.
It took time, a lot of therapy, and patience I didn't know I had, but the sleepwalking did eventually stop. I guess I started to find some semblance of peace.
I have mostly moved on with my life. The fragmentary memories of that day are still there, lurking in the corners of my mind, but they don’t dominate my thoughts like they used to. I just finished my sophomore year at Michigan State, majoring in Environmental Science.
As for Dad, the loss of Leah broke him. He became a shell of himself. It destroyed his marriage with Mom. He blamed himself for letting us out of his sight, for not protecting Leah. His life took on a single, consuming focus: finding the creature that killed her. He read every book, every article on cryptids and unexplained phenomena. He mapped sightings, connected dots across blurry photos and shaky testimonies of the Dogman.
But as the tenth anniversary of Leah’s death approaches, Dad's obsession has grown more intense. He’s started staying up late, poring over his maps and notes, muttering to himself about patterns and cycles. He’s convinced that the dogman reappears every ten years, and this is our window of opportunity to finally hunt it down.
I’m not nearly as convinced. The whole dogman thing seems like a coping mechanism, a way for Dad to channel his guilt and grief into something tangible, something he can fight against. But I decided to tag along on this trip, partly to keep an eye on him, partly because a small part of me hopes that maybe, just maybe, we’ll find some kind of closure out there in the woods.
I finish loading the rifle and set it aside, standing up to stretch my legs. I wipe my greasy hands on an old rag, trying to get rid of the smell. The early morning light is starting to seep into the room, casting long shadows across the floor.
Dad comes out of the kitchen with two thermoses of coffee in hand. His eyes are bleary and tired.
“You ready, Ryan?” he asks, handing me a thermos, his voice rough from too many sleepless nights.
“Yeah, I’m ready,” I reply, trying to sound more confident than I felt.
We load our gear into the truck, the weight of our supplies and weapons a physical reminder of the burden we carry. The drive from Lansing across the Lower Peninsula is long and quiet, the silence between us filled with unspoken memories and unresolved grief.
—
The drive north is a blur of highway lines and the dull hum of the engine. I drift off, the landscape outside blending into a haze. In my sleep, fragments of that day with Leah replay like scattered pieces of a puzzle. I see her smile, the way she tugged at my sleeve, eager to explore. The sunlight filters through the trees in sharp, jagged streaks.
Then, the memory shifts—darker, disjointed. Leah's voice echoes, a playful laugh turning into a scream that pierces the air. The crunch of leaves underfoot as something heavy moves through the underbrush. I see a shadow, large and looming, not quite fitting the shapes of any creature I know.
Then, something darker creeps into the dream, something I’ve never allowed myself to remember clearly.
Before I can see what it is I wake up with a start as the truck jerks slightly on a rough patch of road. Dad glances over. "Bad dream?" he asks. I nod, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, the remnants of the dream clinging to me like the cold.
"Yeah, just... thinking about Leah," I manage to say.
As we drive, Dad attempts to bridge the silence with small talk. He asks about my finals, my plans for the summer, anything to keep the conversation going. His voice carries a forced cheerfulness, but it’s clear his heart isn’t in it. I respond when necessary, my answers brief, my gaze fixed on the passing scenery.
The landscape changes as we head further north, from flat expanses to rolling hills dotted with dense patches of forest. It's beautiful country, the kind that reminds you how vast and wild Michigan can be, but today it just feels oppressive, like it’s closing in on us.
—
We finally arrive at the cabin, nestled deep in the woods, its weathered wood blending seamlessly with the surrounding trees. The place hasn't changed much since the last time I was here—a relic from another time, filled with the echoes of our past. I can still see Leah running around the porch, her laughter ringing out into the forest.
Dad parks the truck, and we step out into the crisp air. The smell of pine and damp earth fills my nostrils. We start unloading our gear, the tension between us palpable.
“Let’s get this inside,” Dad says, his voice gruff as he hefts a duffel bag onto his shoulder.
I nod, grabbing my own bag and following him to the cabin. Inside, it’s a mix of old and new—the same rustic furniture, but with new hunting gear and maps strewn across the table. Dad’s obsession is evident in every corner of the room, a constant reminder of why we’re here.
As we unpack, we exchange strained attempts at normalcy. He talks about the latest cryptid sightings he’s read about, his eyes lighting up with a fervor that both worries and saddens me.
“Did you hear about the sighting up near Alpena?” he asks, laying out his maps on the table.
“Yeah, you mentioned it,” I reply, trying to muster some enthusiasm. “Do you really think there’s something to it?”
Dad’s eyes meet mine, and for a moment, I see a flicker of doubt. But it’s quickly replaced by grim determination. “I have to believe it, Ryan. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
We finish unpacking, the silence between us growing heavier with each passing minute. I step outside to clear my head, the cool air a welcome relief. The sun is starting to set, casting long shadows across the clearing. I can’t shake the feeling of unease.
"You can take the upstairs room," Dad mutters. His voice is strained, trying to sound normal, but it's clear the weight of the past is heavy on him. I nod, hauling my backpack up the creaking stairs to the small bedroom that I used to share with Leah. The room feels smaller now, or maybe I've just grown too much since those innocent days.
I unpack silently, setting my things aside. The bed is stiff and cold under my touch. As I settle in, I can't help but glance at the corner where Leah and I would huddle together, whispering secrets and making plans for adventures that would never happen. I push the thoughts away, focusing on the practicalities of unpacking.
After settling in, I go back downstairs to find Dad loading up a backpack with supplies for our hunt. The intensity in his eyes is palpable, his hands moving with practiced precision. I know this routine; it's one he's perfected over countless solo trips since that fateful day.
"We'll head out early," he says, not looking up from his task. "Gotta make the most of the daylight."
I nod, though unease curls in my stomach. I'm not just worried about what we might find—or not find—out there. I'm worried about him. Each year, the obsession seems to carve him out a bit more, leaving less of the Dad I knew.
—
The morning air is sharp with the scent of pine and wet earth as Dad and I head into the deeper parts of the forest. The terrain is rugged, familiar in its untamed beauty, but there’s a tension between us that makes the landscape feel alien. Dad moves with a purposeful stride, his eyes scanning the woods around us. Every snap of a twig, every rustle in the underbrush seems to draw his attention. He’s on edge, and it puts me on edge too.
As we walk, my mind drifts back to that day ten years ago. I can almost hear Leah’s voice echoing through the trees, her high-pitched call as she darted ahead, "Catch me, Ryan!" I remember how the sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting dancing shadows on the ground. Those memories are so vivid, so tangible, it feels like I could just turn a corner and see her there, waiting for us.
Dad suddenly stops and kneels, examining the ground. He points out a set of tracks that are too large for a deer, with an unusual gait pattern. "It’s been here, Ry. I’m telling you, it’s close," he whispers, a mixture of excitement and something darker in his voice. I nod, though I’m not sure what to believe. Part of me wants to dismiss it all as grief-fueled obsession, but another part, the part that heard Leah's scream and saw something monstrous in the woods that day, isn’t so sure.
As we continue, Dad's comments become increasingly cryptic. "You know, they say the dogman moves in cycles, drawn to certain places, certain times. Like it’s tied to the land itself," he muses, more to himself than to me. His fixation on the creature has always been intense, but now it borders on mania.
We set up a makeshift blind near a clearing where Dad insists the creature will pass. Hours drag by with little to see but the occasional bird or distant deer.
The sun rises higher in the sky, casting long, slender shadows through the dense canopy. I shift uncomfortably in my spot, the forest floor hard and unyielding beneath me. My eyes dart between the trees, hoping to catch a glimpse of something, anything, to break the monotony. Dad, on the other hand, remains steadfast, his gaze fixed on the treeline as if he can will the dogman into existence by sheer force of will.
A bird chirps nearby, startling me. I sigh and adjust my grip on the rifle. I glance over at Dad.
“Anything?” I ask, more out of boredom than genuine curiosity.
“Not yet,” he replies, his voice tight. “But it’s out there. I know it.”
I nod, even though I’m not sure I believe him. The forest seems too quiet, too still. Maybe we’re chasing ghosts.
As the sun begins its descent, the forest is bathed in a warm, golden light. The air cools, and a breeze rustles the leaves. I shiver, more from anticipation than the cold. The long hours of sitting and waiting are starting to wear on me.
“Let’s call it a day for now,” Dad says finally, his voice heavy with disappointment. “We’ll head back to the cabin, get some rest, and try again tomorrow.”
I stand and stretch, feeling the stiffness in my muscles. We pack up our gear in silence and start the trek back to the cabin. The walk is long and quiet, the only sounds are the crunch of leaves underfoot and the distant calls of birds settling in for the night.
—
Dinner is a quiet affair, both of us lost in our thoughts. I try to make small talk, asking Dad about his plans for tomorrow, but it feels forced. We clean up in silence.
After dinner, I retreat to the small bedroom. The fatigue from the day's hike has settled into my bones, but sleep still feels like a distant hope. I lie down, staring at the ceiling, the room cloaked in darkness save for the sliver of moonlight creeping through the window. Downstairs, I hear the faint sound of Dad moving around, likely unable to sleep himself.
I drift into sleep, but it's not restful. My dreams pull me back to that fateful day in the woods. Leah's voice is clear and vibrant, her laughter echoing through the trees. She looks just as she did then—bright-eyed and full of life, her blonde hair catching the sunlight as she runs ahead of me.
"Come on, Ry! You can't catch me!" she taunts, her voice playful and teasing.
I chase after her, but the scene shifts abruptly. The sky darkens, the woods around us growing dense and foreboding. Leah's laughter fades, replaced by a chilling silence. I see her ahead, standing still, her back to me.
"Leah?" I call out, my voice trembling. She turns slowly, her eyes wide and filled with fear. "Ryan, you have to remember," she says, her voice barely a whisper. "It wasn't what you think. You need to know the truth."
Leah’s words hang in the air, cryptic and unsettling. Before I can respond, she turns and starts running again, her figure becoming a blur among the trees. Panic rises in my chest as I sprint after her, my feet pounding against the forest floor.
“Leah, wait!” I shout, desperation lacing my voice. The forest around me seems to close in, the trees towering and twisted, shadows dancing menacingly in the dim light. I push forward, trying to keep her in sight, but she’s too fast, slipping away like a wisp of smoke.
Suddenly, there’s a rustle, a flash of movement in the corner of my vision. Leah screams, a sound that pierces through the heavy silence. It happens too quickly—I can’t see what it is, only a dark blur that snatches her up.
“Leah!” I scream, my voice breaking. I stumble, falling to my knees as the forest spins around me. My heart races, and the terror is so real, so visceral, that it pulls me back to that awful day, the one that changed everything.
I jolt awake, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
I sit up, wiping the cold sweat from my forehead as I try to steady my breathing. The room is still dark, the shadows cast by the moonlight seem to flicker and dance on the walls. My heart is still racing from the nightmare, the echo of Leah's scream lingering in my ears.
As I struggle to calm down, the floorboards outside my room creak. The door opens slowly, and I see the silhouette of my dad in the doorway, a Bowie knife in his hand, his posture tense.
“Dad, what the hell are you doing?” I whisper, my voice shaking.
“Shh,” he hisses, holding up a hand to silence me. “I heard something. Something moving around in the cabin. Stay quiet.”
I swallow hard, my mouth dry. I glance at the clock on the nightstand—it’s just past three in the morning. The cabin is silent, the kind of deep, oppressive silence that makes every small sound seem louder. I can’t hear anything out of the ordinary, but Dad’s expression is deadly serious.
He motions for me to get up, and I do, moving as quietly as I can. My heart is racing, a mix of lingering fear from the dream and the sudden, sharp anxiety of the present moment. Dad leads the way, stepping cautiously out of the bedroom and into the hallway, the knife held ready in front of him.
We move through the cabin, checking each room in turn. The living room is empty, the furniture casting long shadows in the dim moonlight. The kitchen is just as we left it, the plates from dinner still drying on the counter. Everything seems normal, untouched.
We finish our sweep of the cabin without finding anything amiss. The silence is heavy, punctuated only by our soft footfalls. I can see the tension in Dad’s frame, his grip on the knife unwavering. After checking the last room, we pause in the dimly lit hallway, the air thick with unspoken questions.
“There’s nothing here,” I say, my voice low. “Are you sure you heard something?”
He looks at me, his eyes searching for something in my face. “I heard growling. Deep and close. It was right outside the window.”
“Maybe it was just an animal outside, a raccoon or something?” I suggest, although the certainty in his voice makes me doubt my own reassurance.
“No, it wasn’t like that. It was different,” he insists, his voice tense.
I nod, not wanting to argue, but the seeds of worry are planted deep.
The look in his eyes sends a chill down my spine. It’s not just fear—it’s desperation. The kind of desperation that comes from years of chasing shadows and finding nothing. I can see the toll this hunt has taken on him, the way it’s worn him down, turned him into a man I barely recognize.
We head back to our rooms. As I lie down, my mind races with thoughts of my dad. I can’t help but wonder if he’s losing it, if the years of grief and guilt have finally pushed him over the edge.
Dad wasn’t always like this. Before Leah’s death, he was the kind of father who took us fishing, helped with homework, and told terrible jokes that made us groan and laugh at the same time. He was solid, dependable. But losing Leah changed him. The guilt twisted him into someone I barely recognize, someone driven by a need for answers, for closure, that may never come.
I try to sleep, but my thoughts keep me awake. I can hear Dad moving around downstairs, probably pacing or double-checking the locks. His paranoia has become a constant presence, and I don’t know how to help him. I don’t even know if I can help him.
—
The next morning, the sunlight filters weakly through the cabin windows, casting a pale light that does little to lift the heavy mood. I drag myself out of bed, feeling the exhaustion of another restless night. Dad is already up, hunched over his maps at the kitchen table, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep.
“Morning,” I mumble, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I pour myself a cup of coffee. “Did you sleep at all?”
He shakes his head, not looking up from his notes. “Not much. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I heard last night.”
I sip my coffee, trying to shake off the remnants of my nightmare. “Maybe it was just an animal, Dad. We’re deep in the woods, after all.”
He finally looks up, his eyes intense. “Ryan, I know what I heard. It wasn’t just an animal. It was something else.”
I sigh, not wanting to argue. “Okay, fine, Dad. What’s the plan for today?”
“We’re going back out. I found some tracks yesterday, and I want to follow them. See where they lead.”
I nod, feeling a mix of apprehension and resignation. I can see how much this means to him, how desperate he is for any kind of lead. “Alright. Let’s get packed and head out.”
We spend the morning preparing, loading up our gear and double-checking our supplies. Dad is meticulous, going over everything with a fine-toothed comb. I try to match his focus, but my mind keeps drifting back to Leah and the dream I had. Her words echo in my head, cryptic and unsettling: “You need to know the truth.”
We set off into the woods, the air crisp and cool. The forest is alive with the sounds of birds and rustling leaves, but it all feels distant, like background noise to the tension between us. Dad leads the way, his eyes scanning the ground for any sign of the tracks he found yesterday.
As we walk, I can’t help but notice how erratically he’s acting. He mutters to himself, his eyes darting around as if expecting something to jump out at us. His grip on his rifle is tight, his knuckles white.
“Dad, are you okay?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady.
He glances at me, his expression unreadable. “I’m fine. Just focused.”
He stops frequently to examine the ground or the bark of trees, pointing out marks and signs that seem meaningless to me.
“Look at this,” he says, crouching down to examine a broken branch. “See how it’s snapped? That’s not a deer or a bear. That’s something bigger. Stronger.”
I crouch next to Dad, squinting at the broken branch. To me, it just looks like a regular broken branch, the kind you see all over the forest. "I don't know, Dad. It just looks like a branch to me," I say, trying to keep my voice neutral.
Dad's eyes flicker with frustration. "You're not looking close enough. It's the way it's snapped—too clean, too deliberate. Something did this."
I nod, not wanting to argue. "Okay, sure. But even if you're right, it could be anything. A storm, another hunter..."
His expression hardens. "I know what I'm looking for. This is different."
I sigh, feeling the weight of the past and the tension between us pressing down on me. "Dad, I had a dream last night. About Leah." The words hang in the air between us, heavy and fraught with unspoken emotions.
Dad's eyes widen, and he straightens up, his entire demeanor shifting. "What kind of dream? What did you see?" His voice is urgent, almost desperate.
"It was... strange. We were in the woods, like we are now, but everything felt different. Leah was there, running ahead of me, laughing. Then she stopped and told me I needed to know the truth, that it wasn't what I thought."
Dad grabs my shoulders, his grip tight. "What else did she say? Did she tell you anything specific? Anything about the creature?"
I shake my head, feeling a chill run down my spine. "No, that was it. She just said I needed to know the truth, and then she was gone."
Dad’s grip on my shoulders tightens, and his eyes bore into mine with a mixture of desperation and hope. “Ryan, you have to try to remember. Think hard. What did the creature look like? Did you see anything else?”
I pull back slightly, uneasy with his intensity. “Dad, I told you. I don’t remember. It was just a dream. A nightmare, really. My mind’s probably just mixing things up.”
He lets go of me and runs a hand through his hair, looking frustrated and lost. “Dreams can be important. They can hold memories we’ve buried deep. Please, try to remember. This could be a sign, a clue.”
I rub my temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache. “I’ve tried, okay? I’ve tried for years to piece together what happened that day. But it’s all just fragments, like pieces of a puzzle that don’t fit. The dream… it felt real, but I don’t think it’s telling me anything new.”
Dad’s face falls, and he looks older than I’ve ever seen him. He turns away, staring into the forest as if it holds all the answers.
—
As we make our way back to the cabin, the sun begins to set, casting long shadows through the trees. The air grows colder, and I shiver, pulling my jacket tighter around me. Dad is silent, lost in his thoughts, his face drawn and haggard.
Back at the cabin, we unload our gear once again in silence. Dad disappears into his room, muttering something about going over his notes. I decide to explore the cabin, hoping to find something that might help me understand what’s going on with him.
In the attic, I find a box of old family photos and documents. As I sift through the contents, I come across a worn journal with Dad’s handwriting on the cover. Curiosity gets the better of me, and I open it, flipping through the pages.
The journal is filled with notes and sketches, detailing his obsession with the dogman. But there’s something else—entries that talk about Leah, about that day in the woods. His handwriting becomes more erratic, the words harder to read. One entry stands out, dated just a few days after Leah’s death:
“June 15, 2013 – It was supposed to be a normal trip. Keep them close, Frank, I kept telling myself. But I failed. Leah is gone, and it’s my fault. I heard her scream, saw the shadows. I tried to get to her, but… the thing, it was there. Too fast. Too strong. My hands… blood everywhere. No one will believe me. I can’t even believe myself. I have to find it. I have to protect Ryan. I have to make it right. God, what have I done?”
Before I can read further, the attic door creaks open, and Dad’s voice slices through the stillness.
“What are you doing up here?” His tone is sharp, almost panicked.
I turn to see him standing in the doorway, his face pale and his eyes wide with something between anger and fear. I clutch the journal to my chest, my mind racing. “I found this… I was just trying to understand…”
In an instant, he crosses the room and snatches the journal from my hands. His grip is tight, his knuckles white. “You had no right,” he growls, his voice trembling.
“Dad, I just wanted to know the truth!” I shout, frustration boiling over. “What really happened to Leah.”
His eyes flash with a mix of rage and anguish, and before I can react, he slaps me across the face. The force of it knocks me off balance, and I stumble backward, my cheek stinging.
For a moment, there’s a stunned silence. We both stand there, breathing hard, the air thick with tension.
“I’m sorry,” Dad says finally, his voice barely a whisper. “I didn’t mean to… I just…” He trails off, clutching the journal to his chest like a lifeline.
I touch my cheek, feeling the heat from the slap, and take a deep breath, trying to steady myself. “Dad, what aren’t you telling me? What really happened that day?”
“Stay out of it, Ryan,” Dad growls, his eyes dark with anger. “You don’t know what you’re messing with.”
He turns and storms out of the attic. I’m left standing there, my cheek throbbing, my mind racing. What the fuck is going on? What really happened to Leah? And what is Dad so afraid of?
—
That night, I sleep with my rifle within arm's reach, more afraid of my dad than any dogman. The slap still burns on my cheek, and the look in his eyes—rage, fear, something darker—haunts me. I lie awake, listening to the creaks and groans of the old cabin, every sound amplified in the stillness. Eventually, exhaustion pulls me under, and I fall into a restless sleep.
The dream returns, vivid and unsettling. I'm back in the woods, chasing after Leah. Her laughter echoes through the trees, a haunting reminder of happier times. This time, though, I push myself harder, refusing to let her slip away.
"Ryan, catch me!" she calls, her voice playful.
"I'm coming, Leah!" I shout, my legs pumping, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
The forest around us is a twisted, shadowy maze, the trees seeming to close in on us. Leah's figure becomes clearer, her blonde hair catching the dim light filtering through the canopy. She stops suddenly, turning to face me, her eyes wide with fear.
"Leah, what is it?" I ask, my voice trembling.
"Look behind you," she whispers, her voice barely audible.
I turn slowly, dread creeping up my spine. In the shadows, I see a figure, its form indistinct and shifting. It’s not quite animal, not quite human—something in between. The sight of it sends a jolt of terror through me, and I wake up with a start, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
I’m not in my bed. The ground beneath me is cold and hard, the smell of damp earth filling my nostrils. Panic rises as I realize I’ve sleepwalked into the woods. I scramble to my feet, my eyes adjusting to the dim light. The moon casts a pale glow over the surroundings, revealing what looks like a long-abandoned animal lair.
The walls are covered in giant claw marks, deep gouges in the wood and earth. The air is heavy with the scent of decay, and a chill runs through me. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched.
Carefully, I start to move, my eyes scanning the ground, desperate for a familiar landmark. That's when I see them—faded scraps of fabric caught on the jagged edges of the underbrush. My steps falter, a sense of dread washing over me as I bend down to examine them. The fabric is torn, weathered by time and the elements, but unmistakably familiar. It's part of Leah's jacket—the bright pink one she wore on the day she disappeared.
As I strain to make sense of it all, a rustling sound behind me snaps my focus. My heart leaps into my throat. I spin around, my hand instinctively reaching for the rifle I don't have—because, of course, I didn't bring it in my unconscious state.
The shadowy figure that emerges from the trees is unsettlingly familiar, mirroring the menacing forms of my nightmares. But as it steps into the moonlight, I recognize the worn jacket, the weary posture. It's Dad.
"Ryan!" he calls out, his voice a mix of relief and stern concern. "I've been looking everywhere for you. What the hell are you doing out here?"
I exhale slowly, the terror ebbing away as reality sets back in. "I—I don't know, Dad. I must've sleepwalked again." My voice is shaky, my earlier dream still clinging to the edges of my consciousness.
Dad stares at me in disbelief. "You haven't sleepwalked since you were a kid, Ry. This... this isn't just a coincidence." His eyes dart around, taking in the surroundings—the eerie, claw-marked den, the unsettling quiet of the woods. "How did you even find this place?"
I shake my head, struggling to find an answer. "I don't know, Dad. I just... I woke up here." The uncertainty in my voice does nothing to ease the tension.
His eyes lock onto the tattered remains of Leah's jacket in my hands, and something inside him snaps. The color drains from his face as he stumbles a few steps backward. "This... this is where it happened," he murmurs, his voice barely a whisper. “This is where we found Leah."
“I thought you said you don’t remember anything from that night,” he says accusingly.
"I swear, Dad, I don't know anything about this place," I insist, my own heart pounding.
“It was you, wasn’t it? You’ve been hiding this from me.” His voice is frantic. “You... last night, the growling, it was you.” His voice rises, tinged with hysteria.
I step back, my pulse racing, feeling the chill of the night and the weight of his accusation. "Dad, I don't know what you're talking ab—”
"No!" he interrupts, his voice breaking as he points a trembling finger at me. "You knew, you always knew. It was you, Ryan. All these years, the evidence was right there, but I refused to see it. You were the dogman. You killed Leah!"
His words hit me like a physical blow, absurd and horrifying in their implications. "Dad, you're not making any sense. You're talking crazy! I was just a little kid! How could I–" I protest, my voice shaky.
He steps closer, his presence looming over me, the outline of his figure distorted by the shadows of the trees. "Think about it! It all makes sense now. You led us here, to this place, because you remember. Because you did it."
"Dad, stop it!" I shout, my heart pounding in my chest. "You're scaring me. You need help, professional help. This isn't you."
But he's beyond reason, his eyes wild with a haunted grief. "I have to end this," he mutters, more to himself than to me, his hand tightening around his rifle.
His finger hovers dangerously over the trigger of his rifle. My instincts kick in, and I know I have to act fast.
I lunge toward him, trying to knock the weapon away, but he's quicker than I expected. We struggle, our breaths heavy in the cold night air, the sounds of our scuffle the only noise in the otherwise silent woods. His strength surprises me, fueled by his frantic emotions. He shoves me back, and I stumble over a root, my balance lost for a crucial second. That's all he needs. He raises his rifle, his intentions clear in his wild, pained eyes.
I dive to the ground just as the shot rings out, a deafening blast that echoes ominously through the trees. The bullet whizzes past, narrowly missing me, embedding itself in the bark of an old pine. I scramble to my feet, my heart pounding in my ears, and I start running. The underbrush claws at my clothes and skin, but I push through, driven by a primal urge to survive.
"Dad, stop! It's me, Ryan!" I shout back as I dodge between the trees. Another shot breaks the silence, closer this time, sending splinters of wood flying from a nearby tree trunk. It's surreal, being hunted by my own father, a man tormented by grief and lost in his delusions.
I don't stop to look back. I can hear him crashing through the forest behind me, his heavy breaths and muttered curses carried on the wind. The terrain is rough, and I'm fueled by adrenaline, but exhaustion is setting in. I need a plan.
Ahead, I see a rocky outcrop and make a split-second decision to head for it. It offers a chance to hide, to catch my breath and maybe reason with him if he catches up. As I reach the rocks, I slip behind the largest one, my body pressed tight against the cold, damp surface. I hear his footsteps approaching, slow and cautious now.
As I press against the rock, trying to calm my racing heart, I can hear Dad's footsteps drawing closer, each step crunching ominously on the forest floor. He's methodical, deliberate, like a hunter stalking his prey.
“Come out, Ryan!” Dad’s voice is ragged, filled with a blend of fury and pain.
My heart pounds against my chest, the cold sweat on my back making me shiver against the rough surface of the rock. I know I can't just sit here; it's only a matter of time before he finds me.
Taking a deep breath, I peek around the edge of the rock, trying to gauge his position. I see him, rifle raised, scanning the area slowly. This might be my only chance to end this madness without further violence. I need to disarm him, to talk some sense into him if I can.
As quietly as I can, I move out from behind the rock, my steps careful to avoid any twigs or leaves that might betray my position. I'm almost upon him when a branch snaps under my foot—a sound so trivial yet so alarmingly loud in the quiet of the woods.
Dad whirls around, looking completely unhinged. "Ryan!" he exclaims, his rifle swinging in my direction. Panic overtakes me, and I lunge forward, my hands reaching for the gun.
We struggle, the rifle between us, our breaths heavy and erratic. "Dad, please, stop!" I plead, trying to wrestle the gun away. But he's strong, stronger than I expected.
In the chaos, the rifle goes off. The sound is deafening, a sharp echo that seems to reverberate off every tree around us. Pain explodes in my abdomen, sharp and burning, like nothing I've ever felt before. I stagger back, my hands instinctively going to the wound. The warmth of my own blood coats my fingers, stark and terrifying.
Dad drops the rifle, his eyes wide with horror. "Oh my God! What have I done?" he gasps, rushing to my side as I collapse onto the forest floor.
As the pain sears through me, a strange, overpowering energy surges within. It's wild, primal, unlike anything I've ever experienced. Looking down in horror, my hands are no longer hands but large, hairy, clawed appendages. The transformation is rapid, consuming—my vision blurs, senses heighten, and a raw, guttural growl builds in my throat.
In that moment, a flood of understanding washes over me, mingling with the horror of realization. These are the hands of the creature from my nightmares, the creature whose face I can never fully recall because, as I now understand, it is me.
What happens next feels detached, as if I'm no longer in control of my own actions, watching from a distance as my body moves on its own. I turn towards my dad, his face a mask of terror. He stumbles back, his eyes wide with the dawning realization of what his son has become.
The forest around us seems to fall silent, holding its breath as the nightmarish scene unfolds. I can hear my own growls, guttural and deep, filling the air with a sound that's both foreign and intimately familiar. The pain in my abdomen fuels a dark, violent urge, an urge that's too strong to resist.
With a ferocity that feels both alien and intrinsic, I move towards him. My dad, paralyzed by fear and shock, doesn't run. Maybe he can't. Maybe he doesn't want to.
The encounter was brutal and swift, a blur of motion and violence. My dad barely puts up a struggle, as though resigned to his fate.
Not that there is anything he can do. The creature that I’ve become is too powerful, too consumed by the wild instincts surging through me. I tear him apart, limb from bloody limb, my hands—no, my claws—rending through fabric and flesh with disgusting ease.
The sound of my dad’s screams, of tearing fabric and flesh is drowned out by the animalistic growls that echo through the trees.
When it’s all over, the red mist that had clouded my vision begins to fade, and the fierce, uncontrollable rage that drove my actions subsides. I'm left standing, my breaths heavy and erratic, in the eerie stillness of the forest. The transformation reverses as quickly as it came on, and I find myself back in my human form. My clothes are ripped to shreds, hanging off my frame in tattered remnants. At my feet lies what’s left of my dad, his body torn and unrecognizable.
I glance down at my abdomen, expecting agony, but instead find my wound miraculously healed. No sign of the gunshot remains, just a faint scar where I expected a bloody mess.
Shock sets in, a numbing disbelief mixed with a gut-wrenching realization of what I've become and what I've done. My hands, now human again, tremble as I look at them, half-expecting to see the claws that had so effortlessly ripped through flesh and bone. But there's only blood, my father's blood against my skin.
I stand there for what feels like an eternity, trapped in a nightmare of my own making.
Eventually, the shock wears thin, and a cold practicality takes hold. I need to get out of here. I need to cover my tracks, to disappear. Because who would believe this? Who would understand that I didn't choose this, that I'm not a monster by choice?
With trembling hands, I do what’s necessary. I bury my dad in a shallow grave, the physical act of digging strangely grounding. I cover him with leaves and branches, a pitiful attempt to hide the brutality of his end. I take a moment, whispering apologies into the wind, knowing full well that nothing I say can change what happened.
I leave the forest behind, my mind a whirl of dark thoughts. As I walk, the first hints of dawn brush against the horizon, the sky bleeding a soft pink. It’s hauntingly beautiful.

I recently got married to an incredible woman. I can't wait to spend my life with her, every day feels like a gift. She has a really incredible family, in a way that I have never really experienced in my life before now. Her nuclear family especially has basically adopted me, and I have grown to love them immensely. They're coming over for dinner tomorrow, in fact, and I can't wait to make dinner for them.
My wife is also very close with many members of her extended family- she and her cousins all grew up around the same time, traveled together, talked together, played together. There are no major rifts between the cousins or between aunts/uncles (that I'm aware of), they are all very open with their love for each other and it's always a celebration when we get together. Very recently many of them just attended our wedding, and it was an amazing time.
I am new to generally-healthy, long-term family dynamics. I don't know what my role is in the situation I'm about to describe to you, and I'm looking for guidance from unbiased third-parties to help me figure out if/how I should speak up or toe the line for the sake of family (blegh).
(All names changed).
Essentially, around 10 years ago in college, my wife (Nancy) was assaulted by her cousin's cousin, Brian. (I don't know the name of this relationship- it's her aunt's brother-in-law's son). I don't know the details of the assault, but my wife describes a set of five major SA incidences in her life, and she regards this as one of them. This SA happened in a field, next to a family gathering. She has told me just a couple of the things he said to her while it was happening (e.g., "imagine what your dad would think if he saw us") and it is just downright disgusting. It makes my blood boil. My wife has not told the family at large, though some people know a little.
We did not expect to have any contact with Brian, ever. He is a distant-enough relative that I expect we will be able to avoid seeing each other in the future, but unfortunately (I wish it were just fortunately), my wife's cousin (Stephen) is getting married in a couple weeks, and he was pressured by his uncle into inviting Brian, and he accepted. So we will in all likelihood see Brian there.
This is a major event. It will be a fairly large wedding in a very fancy venue with lots of well-to-do people attending. It is kind of a low-key honeymoon for us also (since these weddings are happening back to back), in CA. We have taken a week off work and we're incredibly excited to visit places we've never seen before and check out the west coast (we live on the east coast USA).
When we first found out that Brian's attendance was a possibility a few months ago, I discussed it with my wife's nuclear family. My wife is very strongly in camp-don't-make-waves-on-my-behalf. She does NOT want to take the focus away from her cousin Stephen or his fiance, or even come close to risking their big day. I understand this and have prepared myself to say nothing here, and put on a unified front with her, because ultimately it is up to her and I love her tremendously.
Her nuclear family was trending toward a similar position- make as little impact as possible. They came up with a ruse to suss out if Brian were even going to be in attendance- my wife's sister setup a cousins-group karaoke night for the night after the wedding and requested a list of all people in the wide-cousins-group for the sake of "logistics" of setting up karaoke, but in reality we just wanted to make sure Brian wasn't going to be there. We learned yesterday that was wrong.
Basically, I'm struggling with the fact that this family apparatus that I love so much is allowing a situation to exist where we're effectively protecting Brian by hiding the truth of what happened from Stephen and the family at large. And my wife (and me by extension) has no choice but to either accept this is happening or risk starting a domino effect that could cause resentment for ruining such an important day. It could cause a rift in that whole side of the family.
But to add more disgusting behavior, Brian has ALSO assaulted Stephen's sister, Jane. Jane is an incredibly gifted, successful, and wonderful human, who will also be in attendance at the wedding. Very few people know about Jane's assault or my wife's. Brian DID get in trouble for assaulting a woman in college, however, so it IS known outside of EITHER of those instances that he is capable of horrible things.
Stephen definitely does not know about either assault. I keep thinking if I were in his shoes- I would be beside myself if I found out later that someone who assaulted my sister and cousin was allowed to attend my wedding. I would be VERY upset with people for not telling me so I could address it. Because of this, I have an urge to pull him aside and just say something like "hey man, I understand family dynamics are very hard and nobody knows I'm telling you about this so please keep your source here on the downlow, and I understand whatever choice you make here.." but I don't think I have the relationship capital yet, as I have spent the least amount of time with Stephen. But ..again.. I would feel horrible if I were in his shoes and I found out later. But he could also never know if we just don't say anything, which adds even more to the mind fuckery.
In my mind, it's less about "protecting" my wife or Jane, and more about "fuck that guy, he doesn't get to be in this safe/loving place, celebrating with family". I don't fully understand the trepidation, and I don't know which course of action BEST supports my wife, which is ultimately my biggest concern. FINALLY, there are OTHER vulnerable family members, and I feel like THEY have a right to know that they need to have their guard up.
Thank you for reading this whole thing.

This is my first script. Please be kind. If it sucks, it sucks, but I had fun writing it nonetheless.
Please link me if you use/fill it. I would love to hear your take on it. Free to monetize, Youtube, Patreon, whatever, I just want to hear it. :)
Please give me credit: RE: My Darling / Remy Darling

Scene setter: Italics
SpeakeVA: Bold text with "quotes" outside of the sentence/phrases
Internal monologue: Bold/italics
Action of character or SFX: ((Double Parenthesis))
Response from a character: ((pause))

Speaker: You are Killian James a.k.a. Hook. Your eyes are the color of the sea, your hair is dark as night, and you are dashing, troubled, and flirtatious. The lilt of an accent gives you a melodic tone, and your personality is dark, playful, and direct. You are comfortable in three-piece suits, and are a dangerous man with many secrets.
Listener: Your name is Wendy. Your friends have convinced you to go to a bar downtown in the more dangerous part of the city due to rumors, only they end up bailing without you. You are going to go home after you finish your drink. The bar is called Never Land, Where, according to your friends rumors, the owner is a mysterious man that they all seem fascinated with. Apparently, he is tall, dark, and handsome – a devil of a man that goes by a strange name. They call him… Hook.

((SFX – The club is above this basement 'torture chamber' area-you can hear the music of the club playing muffled. The basement area is clean and not dungeon-y but is more of a modern torture chamber with drains for easy ah… clean up))
SCENE: There is a man chained/tied up. Hook enters the room, looking almost bored that he needs to be there. He takes off his jacket, handing it to one of his henchmen, leaving the vest on, before he unbuttons his cuffs and starts rolling the sleeves up.
“I’m not pleased that our shipment is late, Mr. Jukes. It was supposed to arrive on a super yacht named the ‘Jolly Roger’ today with a bunch of rich snobs who were none the wiser. Your men guaranteed me that it would arrive with the staff and be loaded off on the dock shortly after, however, that is yet to come to fruition, and I am not a patient man.”
((SFX: VA puts on leather gloves, stretches fingers and gets comfortable in them))
“I am aware that they have taken a detour due to a storm, Jukes – but your mismanagement of my time, and my money, are not to be forgotten. Bad form, Jukes! Bad form!”
((SFX: dragging knife sound – //our character uses a tactical Hook knife. It’s typically for gutting deer – not really necessary to know, it’s just to flesh out the character for you//, Hook approaches slowly))
“I know it won't happen again. Don’t worry, Jukes, since this is your first time having erred with me, I shall simply leave you with a small reminder. I expect the shipment to be directed to our port swiftly, otherwise, I won’t be nearly as lenient again.”
((SFX chains straining, screaming that becomes muffled screaming, as Hook takes his knife and leaves the man with a Cheshire Grin/Glasglow Smile up one side of his face, heavy breathing for a moment, as he returns and throws his knife down on the table))
“Get me my other three-piece suit from my office and a clean shirt. I’ve got this bastard’s blood all over me. He's not to be given his freedom until I hear that the shipment has come in from the Jolly Roger. If it does not go to plan – we will have to take further, more drastic actions and I don’t want to have to find this cad, Mr. Jukes, again. Do I make myself clear?”
((henchmen answer))
“Good.”
((SFX – him pulling off the leather gloves and getting changed))
“One of you stay here and watch him. Tonight I’ll be on the club floor. I’m not to be interrupted until The Crocodile has made contact. Is that understood?”
((pause))
“Good. That is all.”
((he leaves))

((SFX – transition to this however you like))
\*modern day, bar scene/sounds (*no* jazz or classical music - it's a nightclub), people mingling in the background. In enters our VA/Hook.*

“Tinkerbell, pour me my usual, will you, dear?”
((Tink is quick, and slides him his drink. Sip, sigh, and pause as he looks around)) (( This internal thought is not necessary but if you want to, go for it ))
\*internal thought*\** Who’s this? Oh my, sweet lamb, you are definitely in the wrong place.
“Tink, one last thing, could you possibly tell me anything about that young woman there? The one in light blue.”
((listening intently for a moment))
“Hm. Lovely. Thank you, dear.”
((SFX – he puts down his drink, footsteps/fine Italian leather shoes approaching the young lady who is at the bar))
“Well, well, well… Isn’t that a beautiful dress on an even more beautiful woman. That color of blue really suits you. You… are a piece of art. A fascinating and intriguing piece of art. However, you don’t quite seem like you belong here.”
((pause))
“Someone as divine as you, as *innocent* as you, dressed as you are, doesn’t really seem to fit in. Not in this kind of place. You look more like you would fit in one of the high-class jazz lounges uptown. Martinis, a piano player, velvet couches and the like. Do you think that you fit in amongst these gentlemen of fortune and these women dressed in their slinky club clothes? Look around, do you see the patrons here?”
((short pause as she looks around))
“Don’t you see? You are simply dressed too elegantly for a place like this. No, you, my dear, are definitely not the type that belongs amongst these fiends. You belong uptown. Not here, amongst the dregs of society like us. Your mannerisms are too graceful, you walk with pride and your chin up – this is not the body language of one of my people.”
((pause))
“Well, I happen to own this establishment, Never Land, so I am rather familiar with the likes of the people who tend to come through its doors, and I have never seen you before. You seem quite unforgettable. Could I have the pleasure of having your name?”
((pause))
“Wendy… What a lovely name for such a lovely woman. Well, Wendy, darling – my name is Killian. My friends call me Hook.”
((pause))
“So many questions! What an inquisitive slip of a thing you are. Perhaps, we could talk over a drink?”
((*VA snaps fingers* Bartender Tinkerbell approaches immediately and waits)) ((ListeneWendy begins to decline))
“Don’t fret, darling. It’s just a drink. Should you find yourself not interested in our conversation or in me, you are more than welcome to leave and go back uptown to the *safe* areas of the city, where the likes of people like me and my ilk will be of no bother to you ever again. But should I pique your interest, perhaps allow me the grace of your presence again in the future.”
((pause))
“Just one drink. And nothing more.”
((ListeneWendy accepts))
“Delightful! Tink, if you could get us another round. One of whatever the lady was drinking, and my usual.”
((short pause as he takes her in before sighing and leaning in closer to speak to her))
“Darling, do tell me, why have you wandered into the seedy underbelly of our city? What is it exactly that you are searching for? Mystery? Intrigue?"
((whispers // into her ear))
"...*Danger*?”
((VA leans back and there is a sly curling of his lips into a crooked smile))
“Mm, that blush really does make me think that you truly are as innocent as I originally thought, Darling. Albeit, I am sure you knew what kind of danger you could get into coming to a place like this. You may be looking for danger, but it seems danger has found you instead.”
((pause))
“Oh, yes, danger. There is plenty of danger here. However, it seems like that’s something you seem to be searching for. Should I inquire as to –“
((VA leans in once more))
“What *kind* of danger you are looking for? See, Darling, that’s the thing about danger… You may only want a little but you never truly know how much you’re going to get.”
((pause))
((VA - practically whispered across her lips or ear, you imagine how close you want to get))
“Ah, yes, Wendy, darling. I happen to be very… Very… Dangerous.”
((Listener steps back))
((he gives a low chuckle))
“Do I … make you … Nervous?”
((short pause and VA steps forward as Listener shakes her head defiantly))
“Or perhaps, I am not the kind of danger you are looking for?”
((closer))
“Do you even *know* what you are looking for, my little lamb?”
((dangerously close to her))
((pause))
((drinks come at this time delivered by Tink – VA returns to less invasive persona))
"Ah, thank you, Tink. You’ve impeccable timing. Shall we? I’d love to take this to a VIP booth I prefer to sit in. It will give us a little more privacy and won’t be as loud. Come now, pet."
((footsteps/music/whatever SFX have them move to a slightly quieter place, sit in a booth))
"Do you mind, Darling? I’d much rather be sitting next to you than across the table. That way I can hear you better. Yes, that’s it, just move in a little further."
((this gives no escape for Listener as James/Hook is between the easy exit and her – SFX of her moving over if you want to get technical and him sitting next to her))
((pause))
“Ah, *that*. The name Hook… It is simply from a childhood long ago. Raised in an orphanage with many other lost boys like myself. It’s a truly heartbreaking story, I’m sure, but I’d like you to remember our first meeting in a different light. Not melancholy and deep, dark secrets. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps, if you decide to embark on a journey with me in the future, or are willing to grace me with your presence again, we can discuss it then.”
((Listener nods, nervously))
((he leans in))
“But you, Wendy, darling –“
((whispered // reaches out to draw a finger down her jawline as he looks from her eyes to her mouth))
“You still haven’t answered me.”
((pause))
“About what *kind* of danger you are looking for…”
((pause // leaning in))
“Are you looking for something – just a wee bit threatening? Perhaps something that will get the heart pumping momentarily?”
((pause // leaning in))
“Or perhaps, a singular thrilling night before the sun rises and the fun is over?”
((pause // leaning in))
“Or… are you looking for something darker? Something much more dangerous. Something soul shattering that will devour you whole? Something that makes you question your morals… Your boundaries… Something that will burn you to ash and will leave you begging me for more even once I break you?”
((kisses Wendy))
“Do you know what kind of danger you want yet, darling? That last one… It is not a wise idea for a sweet little lamb like you, but I promise... You’ll love it.”

Tier List: https://imgur.com/a/SPm0Fjl
This one hits different. Right from the start, with those ominous vocals giving the whole thing a feeling of foreboding and momentousness. Donald Trump lurking around the stage for his titlecard, even staying onscreen as his titlecard goes away is hilarious and a great visual touch. Then we get Hillary sitting in her debate chair; this battle committing so hard to a location both rappers are present in is pretty unique.
"I've been in this game too long; I'm a public servant! Have been since I met MLK in person!" Serviceable opening on paper, but the guest actor, Kimmy Gatewood, makes it stick out with her performance. Love the intensity of her voice and facial expressions. "I'm a woman of the people; that's for certain. You're a man of the people who don't like turbans!" This is a great line, very accurate, and I love the look on Hillary's face. "I was living in the West Wing while you were professional wrestling. Got skin like Russian dressing from too much Russian investing!" Good lines, in particular I really dig the Russian dressing/Russian investing parallel. Also, while I don't think Kimmy bears a super strong resemblance to Hillary Clinton(the guest actress from Clinton v. Henry VIII was much more on-point) she does look a lot like her as she does the Russian dance in the background. Something about her wide-open smile. "You been going bankrupt since the 90s; if I was in Iran you couldn't find me." Very true on both counts, very solid line. I don't know what more there is to say. Is it gonna be controversial to acknowledge the reality that Trump's gone bankrupt lots of times and probably couldn't point to Iran on a map, even now that he's been president? "You don't care about the job, Trump, you just think the desk is shiny." I think it's accurate that Trump really only cares about the prestige, but this still seems like a pretty weak attack. Hell, you could argue the vast majority of presidential candidates care more about the prestige than actually doing anything. "I said that I respect your children but that wasn't quite right, yo! Looking like some extras on American Psycho!" This line is pretty fucking great. I didn't get it when this battle first released, but I've seen American Psycho more recently, and comparing the Trump kids to the useless trust fund posers surrounding Patrick Bateman is hilarious. The hyper-aggressive hip thrusting Hillary's doing is also a great visual. For the most part this portrayal doesn't resemble Hillary much, but I think there's some truth in how she's portrayed as being very try-hard here. "First name is Hillary, middle name Rodham, last name is Clinton, and lyrics I got 'em! You fire celebrities on The Apprentice, motha fucka I fire Bin Laden! (Crack!) cough" Being tryhard again. The lines are pretty good, the flow is pretty good. The reference to her coughing is a fun touch. "How do I say this? You're racist! Ooh, you must get so pissed that your hands are too small to stop and frisk!" The asking/answering of that question at the beginning is really funny, and I like the way they worked Trump's small hands into this attack on him for being racist. "So you use your fingers to touch chicks. (She's only 12 years old.) That's enough, shit! (But she's married, sir.) Just gotta get pushy. (That's your daughter.) Well, grab her by the pussy!" One of the highlights of the battle, love the way they worked in the secret service agent here. Pointing out Trump being a creep at child beauty pageants and towards Ivanka are great lines of attack. "That's assault, brotha! Don't tell me the victim's at fault, sucka! You don't know shit about steaks! Yucka! But the ones on the 8th are great! Motha fucka!" Really fun delivery, good attacks, I like that they threw the Trump Steaks jab in between the more serious sentiments. I don't know what the fuck is going on with the background in this section, though they're really going hard on the tryhardness of Hillary. "Better save the date; I'm gonna rock the vote! Bad bitch on the scene like Murder, She Wrote!" Hillary trying to compare herself to that character is pretty cringe, as is highlighted by her attempting to dab with the biggest "look, aren't I cool, kids?!" look on her face. Real "Pokemon Go to the polls" moment. "So go ahead, Donald, let me see you flow. I brought Michelle's speech; borrow some quotes!" It's a pretty great line, though this line is moreso an attack at Melania than Trump himself; she should have ended with a more Trump-focused attack.
"Let me just say I respect all females. But your rhymes are trash; put 'em next to your emails." The first line is funny in how flagrantly untrue it is, the second line is just plain funny. Good opener. "Our country's in crisis. Who wants to vote for the mother of ISIS? That might not be exactly true, but I don't do politeness." Trump talks out of his ass and lies a lot, yes. "(Believe me!) You wanna talk about misogyny? Your Bill's worse than Cosby! He left a mess on that dress like you left in Benghazi!" The comparison of the rapist Bills is a great line, and I'm not sure whether the whole Benghazi thing was actually something that was Hillary's fault or just a Fox News talking head talking point, but it's a good line regardless. Also by this point it's clear that Lloid's Trump impression is on-point, much better than Peter's. "(Terrible!) You wanna break the glass ceiling, Hillary, I sense it. But the only crack you'll find is my ass pressed against it." The gesturing Lloid is doing during the "I sense it" line is fucking hilarious. The second line is also pretty funny, and did turn out to be true. "The numbers are in and I'm right on your tail. You don't have the stamina, baby, you're frail! This will be just like '08 when you fail! But Trump will appoint you to jail!" Fun parallel to Hillary's "First name is Hillary" segment from before going on here. The lines themselves are fine, nothing amazing. The second-to-last one turned out to be true, the last one did not. "How do I say this? You're a 2. And you almost lost the primary to a socialist Jew!" It's pretty funny how Trump mimics Hillary's "How do I say this?" bit, and "you're a 2" is such a simple but funny jab. He's got a point that Hillary was so weak a candidate that Bernie Sanders came outta nowhere and was able to put up a serious competition in a race that was supposed to have no real competition for her. "What do the American people gotta yankee doodle doo, to get it through your fat face, that they're just not that into you?!" The use of 'yankee doodle doo' is funny and he's got a real point that Hillary needs to accept she's very unpopular, though that 'fat face' line is such a pot calling the kettle black moment. No doubt intended as such. "They want a strong male leader who can stand up to China! Not a crooked, little, wishy-washy bleeding heart vagina!" These lines, of course, exist purely to point out that Trump is a giant sexist. The "China, China, China... bloody vagina!" in the background is a very funny touch. Little bits like that just add so much to this battle. "I'm gonna run these streets like I run my casinos; more police and less Latinos!" These lines, of course, exist purely to point out that Trump is a giant racist. "While you bury us in debt buying poor people socks, I'll create jobs, tearing down mosques!" Trump is against programs that help the impoverished and hates Muslims. "Then I'll use all the best rocks from the site to build a wall, dip it in gold and make Mexico pay for it all!" The thing Lloid does with his eyes as he smiles when he says "build a wall" is just... SO Trumpian. This really is one of the greatest Trump impressions I've ever seen, Lloid did an amazing job. As for the line... Trump says he's gonna build a wall. He built a partial wall. A partial, really unimpressive wall. "I'll make this country great again! We'll all be living large! And I'll tell Congress you're fired, and put Charles in charge!" Trump's slogan is MAGA and Charles in Charge was a TV show whose main actor is a Trump supporter. Also apparently there was a Supreme Court judge named Charles Trump once wanted nominated. Alright. "'Cause this whole system's rigged! And we all know the riggers! For the last eight years this country's been run by- (CAW!)" The point of this line is that Trump is a giant racist. I like the touch that the crowd is cheering wildly for Trump while Hillary looks disturbed in the background.
Then Lincoln comes soaring in on an eagle, as he did in Obama v. Romney. "Are you fucking kidding me with this blah blah blah? I've half a mind to feed you both to my oversized - (CAW!)" The use of 'CAW!' as a censor is amusing. "I've heard more thoughtful discussion up in TMZ! You two got brother blocking brother on their Facebook feed!" This isn't fun anymore, it's just real. "I'm so sick and tired of this ridiculous shit! If this is the best my party gets, then my party should quit!" The Republican Party is a nightmare and Lincoln would be ashamed of it today, is what is being said. "I'm sorry, did I say something that you found funny? Wipe that creepy-ass smile off your face and beat this dummy!" Clinton is a shitty politician who didn't take Trump seriously enough, and she comes across as cold and inhuman. And in case you somehow failed to pick up on it before, ERB makes clear here their endorsement for which candidate to vote for. "And if she does win the White House, be a man and hold the door. Don't get your fans stirred up in some sorta Twitter civil war!" Too real, especially after January 6th. "Here's an equal opportunity smack down in the sequel! That's of the people, by the people, for the people, eagle!" Some people have debated whether Lincoln slapped Trump twice in place of slapping Clinton at all because he's a gentleman and wouldn't hit a woman, or because ERB favors Clinton over Trump. The latter is definitely true, but the former is also probably true. So... both! Then Lincoln yells "Eagle!" and fucks off.
Let's talk about bias. There's two camps of people I've seen in discussions about certain ERB battles, especially this one, and they both irk me. So let's address both of them.
First off: YES, ERB is biased against Trump. And are biased against Republicans generally, and much more sympathetic to the Democrats. They've made that completely obvious from the beginning. And you know what? That's totally fine! They're right to be biased against them! But for some reason, some people in the fanbase can't just admit that. For some reason, there's a lot of people in the fanbase who will bend over backwards trying to explain how it's actually totally unbiased(false) and they attack both sides equally(false) and people complaining are being salty(true). But if you think ERB is unbiased, then society has failed you, because you are a woeful media illiterate. They're screaming Vote for Hillary, Don't Let Trump Win! at you and somehow you haven't managed to decipher what they're saying. I hope for your sake you're, like, twelve years old if you actually think they're unbiased. Here's an important lesson for you to learn as you grow up: 'biased' does not equate to 'bad'! For example, you SHOULD be 'biased' against Hitler! If you look at someone like Hitler and compare him to someone like MLK and treat them as equally valid figures whose ideas are both worthy of consideration, then you're at best a useful idiot and at worst a Nazi apologist! Stop feeling like you have to defend ERB's honor by feverishly denying any claims of bias!
But even worse than those jokers are the fuckers who love to bitch about how ERB has gotten "too political" or "too woke" nowadays. NEWSFLASH, DUMBASS: the very FIRST battle was John Lennon vs Bill O'Reilly, and Bill O'Reilly literally says "Because I'm evil! Heart blacker than Don Cheadle!" Their very foundation as a series is shitting on Republicans! They didn't suddenly 'go woke' just because they stopped doing gay jokes and shat on Trump even more explicitly than they already did to Romney.
Anyway, I've got mixed feelings about this battle. The 'mixed' part of those feelings come from how heavy it is; I have to be in a certain mood to want to listen to this, and most times I see this pop up in my playlist I just skip on to the next one. It's uncomfortable. It's real. Maybe a little too real. But then again, maybe they were right to take it so seriously. It's still a great battle, even if it can be a little hard to come back to. The only big issue I have with it is that Lincoln coming in at the end is kind of a drag. It was funny the first time; this doesn't recapture the magic. He doesn't really have any great lines either. I tend to stop listening by the time he comes in. But besides that, this battle has an amazing instrumental track, great visuals, peak performances from both Lloid and Kimmy, and good, sometimes great, writing.
I used to think Trump won this battle despite always having been anti-Trump. Revisiting it now, I'm not sure why I thought that. Maybe it was because his part was just so entertaining, even moreso than Hillary's. Maybe it's because I, like many others, harbor a strong resentment and bitterness towards Hillary Clinton(muh Bernie) that would lead me to not be entirely honest about her performance here. Maybe it's just because that hardly anybody said Clinton won back in the day; Trump had either a majority or a clear plural majority of votes in polls, then Lincoln with a fair amount, then Clinton with a small fraction. Now I see that that is utter bullshit. The only reason anybody votes for Lincoln is either because of the Last Word Effect or because they want to be centrists about it and not side with either candidate; even if you could argue he was the best part of Obama v. Romney, here his verse falls well short of both Clinton and Trump's. On the question of Clinton v. Trump... I can kind of see how someone might think Trump won on account of how hilarious he was, but a ton of his stuff just makes himself look bad, and if we're being honest I think Clinton had better burns and more substantive lines of attack. I say Clinton>Trump>Lincoln.
inb4 someone says I got "too political" in my presidential election battle analysis

I need to write this out cause I’m sitting in bed ruminating on what I think is to come and can’t think straight…need to organize my mind of things I think will happen in each ep.
Ep 5: Telling their families. Fight with Eloise she tells her she needs to tell him but doesn’t force her hand in this confrontation. Portia getting some angry Colin when he goes to declare he is gonna marry her and then be like oh yeah and do we have your permission cause I already told my family first. Maybe this leads to a heart to heart with Pen/Portia after Colin leaves. Drawing room scene this episode? Engagement party towards end of ep 5? Eloise ultimatum before engagement party.
What if Colin finds out about LW from Penelope after she faints at the engagement party. He takes her to his room or something. Or he visits her at her home to check on how she is feeling. MVP Rae helps. She just can’t keep it inside anymore and confesses because she knows she can’t marry him without telling him not because of an ultimatum but because he deserves to know and to decide. Consent in all things and all ways works both ways. I need him to know. She tries to tell him her reasons, he doesn’t want to hear it, he gets angry and says hurtful things.
He leaves. She cries. He take some space but they reconcile because he loves her. He finds out she has always loved him. Not sure we will get Colin’s love confession too… but I mean hopefully his confounded feelings are clear to him to be love and not just like cause we all know he loves her. She promises that she is done with LW. She apologizes for the hurt she has caused and explains her truth in the choices me made without excuses just honesty. She gives up LW for Colin. She publishes a goodbye issue and that is enough for Eloise to let it go Tick Tock wise but they are still broken up as friends.
Ep 6: They get married at the beginning of this episode. We better get an actual wedding for POLIN. And a wedding on the show that’s not filled with drama. I need a wedding with no LW secret hanging over them. I need it! Everyone is on a hunt for LW because the Queen is sad no issues are coming out and so does that bounty to find her. Pen and Colin are married and move to their house and have lots of sex including the mirror scene. I cannot have them do a mirror scene before he knows the truth. The whole point is to see her ALL of her and vice versa. No lies please Shondaland. They are enjoying marital bliss. Cressida has the pressure of being sold (married) to some old man so she declares herself to be LW due to the Queens Bounty. Pen ain’t gonna let her steal her life’s work and breaks her promise to Colin by publishing one more last issue and calls Cressida out. Colin catches her doing this. End of episode.
Ep 7: Now this is where we see the really angry Colin. He is pissed that she endangered herself, did this without talking to him, and broke her promise. They have it out in the carriage. Unless the writers decide to go for a carriage kink I cannot foresee sexy times in Carriage 2.0. They continue to have it out at home and they are both crying, angry, and FINALY really honest. Colin about his jealousy and Pen about her fears, insecurities, and what LW has been/meant for her all these years and that she felt she had to give it up to not lose Colin. Love Confession from Colin? Stay x3 this episode. Colin supporting her writing and her supporting his.
Ep 8: LW bargain/alliance with Queen to save her family. Colin having Pen edit his writing and telling her he is working on a book. Pen being a new version of LW? Heir Plot is left for S4? I kinda don’t want Pen and Colin to be weighed down to the Featheringtons but I kinda also want Pen to save her family this way and them to bow down to her supremely cause I’m petty vs having LW/Pen at the Queen’s mercy.
Epilogue: They leave for Greece or any city that’s not one of the 17 Colin fucked around in for their honeymoon. J/K…sort of…not really.
I have read the book…but I do I wonder if the TON won’t know till next season? Like do they even need to know? The consequences of them knowing in the book versus in the show. Stakes are so much higher on the shoe. This season just Eloise and Colin and maybe the Queen