I didn't even know what I had was HS until about a few months ago. And I've had it for many years now.
When I brought it up to my mom, she said she's faced it when she was younger and it's a result of weight and eating desserts. To stop both, fix my PCOS and be healthy in life.
I just wish it was not this difficult. The doc said nothing can be done and she's put me on a five day antibiotics with mupirocin everytime the flare gets really bad. She has reintroduced isotretinoin orally since two weeks (I had taken it for my grade 3 cystic acne back in 2020 and it helped clear my whole face up)
The lumps in my underarms and my groin area just make me feel so hopeless. They keep coming. And hurts like a fucking bitch everytime I move my arm or sit or get up.
To lose weight, I need to work out. My derm asks me not to work out till the flare goes down to avoid sweating and friction when it's agitated. The flare goes down with the meds, and then I try to work out and it comes back up. It's a fucking vicious cycle, I just feel lost. And to worsen it, I live in an extremely humid beach city, which ranks in top 10 of the most polluted cities in the world, lol.
Uptil recently I was ignoring the fuck out of it, thinking it's my problem and I've to deal with it and there is no way out. That hasn't changed but what my partner said made me feel different. He said - you shouldn't have to suffer through this. There has to be a way out. One dermat saying there is no way out can't be it, right?
And he was also the one who encouraged me to get medical help for my acne because that shit was horridly painful and use to affect my daily life. He was like - fuck the cosmetics reasons, if something can be done to improve your quality of life and not be in pain, why should you suffer?
And it makes me think - is there no way to find a solution for my HS? There are days where I can't help with home chores and just feel absolutely disgusted with myself and disappointed in myself for being such an inconvenience. My partner assures me and asks me never to worry about chores, etc and to rest. And also appreciates and compliments me so much and tells me this doesn't bother him. (He's helped me bandage it up and drain it many times)
But I just feel - so tired. Just tired. Very tired. It hurts to think this is how the rest of my life will be like. I'm only 27. And I just feel like an inconvenience. A nuisance. Feel like his life would be better off without me. Probably with someone who is healthy, without HS, PCOS, fitter and happier.

Hey,
​
This is gonna be long-winded and probably incoherent, but I just need to get this off my chest and if you have any insight regarding why it's constantly happening to me I'd love to hear it.
I consider myself a pretty introverted guy, but I've generally had no issues talking with girls and getting dates, more so recently of course, since I've been growing more comfortable in my own skin. I'm definitely a romantic, I never understood the attitude of guys that treat girls like trash, that just doesn't compute in my head. If I love something, I'm going to take care of it to the best of my ability.
I think we have all had that experience of "the one that got away", well mine was no different. The girl I met when I started uni was special, she was drop dead gorgeous, completely my type, witty and cracked jokes like I would, we finished each other's sentences, we had the same ideas and ambitions. Everything was going great, I was on cloud nine and I never even thought about this like that, but this girl made me think that she's the one I'm gonna marry. We were celebrating new year's at a mutual friend's house and we hooked up, it was phenomenal. Literally 2 days later she ghosts me out of nowhere, I panic. I reach out to talk to her face to face to see what's going on. She obliged reluctantly and word for word said "I'm sorry it's not going to work, you are too good for me".
Now, I've had my heart broken a few times by this point, but this... This was devastating.
I went to a dark place in my own mind, stopped talking with everyone, started doing drugs and generally engaging in self-destructive behavior. It was really hard accepting the fact that my best was never enough for her, I blamed myself constantly, I cried dozens of times alone outside. Whenever a song came up on the radio that reminded me of her my whole mood changed, even if it was jolly prior. I generally am able to keep a cool and straight face when I'm around family as I never want to talk about my own problems, mostly because I know that if I do I will fucking meltdown so I steer clear, I never want them to feel sorry for me, but even they thought something weird was going on and kept asking me questions.
It took me a good 3 years to accept what happened and start trying to move on, as you can imagine my confidence was shattered for that whole time and my self-worth was at an all time low. I started dating again, but not to find love, I don't believe in that anymore, just for sex and to feel wanted. I would tell girls what they wanted to hear, hook up and bail. Hell, sometimes they only wanted sex too, that was optimal. If I didn't get intimate with a girl on the 2nd date I would just look for someone else, I never wanted to put in any effort into actually cultivating anything meaningful or fulfilling. I would always feel like shit when I would pump and dump, because deep down I know what I was doing and that it wasn't me, but I also craved the satisfaction. Looking back, I was definitely perpetuating my own trauma.
Now, I used mainly dating apps, sometimes just start texting people I knew. But a few weeks ago I was at the supermarket and just on my phone walking, when some girl just ran in front of me at speed and knocked me off balance for a moment, she just glanced back at me and I saw how pretty she was, it sent a shock down my body. She was hurrying to get some beer, which I respected and admired. When we were on our way out I approached her to talk to her, told her she caught my eye and asked for her number. She gave me the digits, but she was so flabbergasted it was really funny and cute. We went on a date the next day, she's amazing, we mesh so well together. She's smart and responsible, takes care of her parents same as I do, we found a lot in common. I was thrilled, I never approached anyone like this and the time I felt that I had to do it - it paid off in a big way. I was falling for her and she was for me.
We went on dates, we had fun, talked and walked a lot. I bring her lunch to work, flowers sometimes. She was celebrating a sister's birthday one evening and I had taken her from the place to her apartment, she said she wanted me to stay the night, so I did. It was glorious, we both had a great time.
After that she ghosted me, she doesn't text me first anymore. I have to show all the initiative now, whenever I try to set up dates she's busy. To be fair she is pretty busy, she has 2 jobs and she's one of those people like me that don't pull out their phone when hanging out with someone, just not that attached to technology which I really vibe with. She spends a lot of time with her family, she has sisters and cousins that are all the same age and they hang out in the evenings at her place or at her sister's place and I trust that she's not lying. I've met her cousins, they are all really sweet. But I just feel like she's lost interest in me, I keep trying to get something going but her response times are getting longer and longer.
Honestly I've never seen a switch flip so suddenly, it's like she's a different person now. We used to be so intimate, not only in a sexual way but she would sleep on my chest, hug me in her sleep, squeeze me and not let me go, now she barely gives me any attention. It feels like I'm a burden on her right now. She told me that she has always had trouble with relationships because she's so busy with work and it never worked due to this, but I also feel like she could make time for me if she wanted to, but just chooses not to. I feel like I'm about to get my heart annihilated again.
I don't want to lose her, she made me believe in love again. I truly love this girl and want to build my future with her. I keep fighting the urge to reach out to her and try to make it work, but I think that pulling back might be the best play, however painful it might be right now.
Why is it that always when something good happens to me it never lasts.. Always disappointment after disappointment. What is wrong with me?

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'll be moving in to a new apartment and the living room has 4 bookshelf speakers mounted to the wall and all are nicely wired in the walls. I'm thinking of reusing them, or at least the wiring setup but wanted to gauge some opinions from you guys since I don't know much, and just started reading some posts here recently to learn a bit.
Here is a rough top-down view of the living room, with the following things to note:

• The room is mostly enclosed, except for the top right entrance leading out to an open area.
• The living room itself is about 14'x16'.
• The red boxes represent the speakers that were left there by previous owner, which include:
  • Front left and right Bose 161
  • Rear left and right Onkyo SKM-100
  • All 4 are wall mounted about 7-8ft from the floor, near each corner of the room, angled down/towards the viewer (bottom wall)

I realize those speakers are pretty old, but maybe still usable? I'm going to be coming from literally just a 32" TV, so anything will be an upgrade. My main concern is the placement of them being so high (and if they're actually going to sound better than a modern TV).

Goals/expectations for the home theater setup:

• Movies/TV
  • I have an existing Plex setup on an NVIDIA shield that I plan to keep
    • contains some Atmos content; I may opt for more given a capable setup
  • I will be upgrading to an LG C3 77"
  • Casual movie/TV watching experience, for maybe up to 4-5 people on rare occasions. Main genres being:
    • comedy
    • action/adventure
    • thrillehorror
    • YouTube playback
• Video Games
  • Some casual TV couch gaming from a 4k/120 capable PC
    • going to run a fiber optic HDMI cable to get the length I need
  • Main games being multiplayer co-op and single-player
    • examples such as Rocket League and Resident Evil
• Music
  • Compatible with an Amazon Echo for voice control and playback of music through the speakers
  • BlueTooth compatibility for direct playback from my phone would also be nice
    • main genres being rock, metal, rap
  • As long as it sounds decent and can be heard in the open area nearby, good enough for me; not trying to wake the neighbors

Main questions:

1. Are the Bose 161 and Onkyo SKM-100 usable for casual use - or just worth replacing in 2024?
2. Is the height/placement of the Bose and Onkyo problematic? (wall mounted 7-8ft off the floor)
3. What would be a decent center channel to "match" the existing speakers and recommended AVR?

At least for now, I'd prefer to spend less than $1k and try to preserve at least the speakewiring placement already in place. I was thinking of getting a 7.2ch Denon AVR, and plug the Onkyo rears into the surround ports (not surround back). I could also get a center channel, and a sub later down the line.

Hello RP enthusiasts!
I am looking for a single player to join a fun, friendly RP-focused group playing a relatively new 5e homebrew campaign using DDB/Roll20, and voice chat via Discord, every other Wednesday evening at 6-9:30pm Central (7-10:30 Eastern).
As I mentioned, the group is primarily focused on roleplaying, so anyone looking for a combat-focused game should look elsewhere. That said, the campaign is set in a dark, challenging, high-fantasy world, with plenty of monsters and adversaries allowing for a reasonable amount of combat, as well.
The campaign started at level one; but thanks to one of our players having a change in employment, their impending schedule conflicts mean this Wednesday will be their final session in this game. Thus, there is an opening available for what will likely be a level 3 character to join the other three (a rogue, barbarian, and divine soul sorcerer) in a couple of weeks, which should give us plenty of time to work on your character and backstory, and craft an appropriate entry for your character into the party/story. On the OOC side, everyone is very friendly, so it should not take long for any new player to comfortably feel like a welcome part of the group.
Ages for the four of us range from lower and mid twenties to over forty, and all relate to each other very well. So, while I'd like to keep the minimum age in the 20's, beyond that: playstyle, mindset, and personality are more important than hard numbers.
What's the game like?
This is a game of collaborative storytelling. Barring the obvious (no obscene or meme characters, etc), my primary rule for character creation is that you must make a character who will want to work with the party and engage with the story, and with whom the party will want to engage. Come up with an idea for a backstory, and I will gladly work on it with you, and incorporate elements into the campaign. And just because your character enters play, that does not mean backstory development needs to stop. I will gladly continue to incorporate your character into the world, and vice-versa, so long as you are an engaged part of the process, and positively contributing to the story.
I also try to give my players engaging descriptions, and interactive NPC's (though no DMPC's) with distinct voices and personalities, and to augment scenes with engaging visuals. A few of the visuals I have created for the game can be seen on the application page, at: https://forms.gle/LJ9JHQqkCAcjkfY58
It is my hope that the descriptions and the visuals will help you feel immersed in the world, and help you enjoy roleplaying your character. Not everyone at our table is an actor, and any effort you make to roleplay your character is appreciated. The group is friendly and supportive, and fosters an environment where everyone can comfortably push their own boundaries (trying new voices, or whatever), should they choose, without fear of judgment or mockery. We do have fun, joke around and break character, but never at anyone else's expense, and not to the point of derailing the game.
What about the people?
I have a lot of experience with gaming, in various systems, both as player and storytelleDM, and endeavor to keep things fun and fair. I am also friendly and laid back, and a huge fan of open and honest communication, so I am always happy to listen to any thoughts, concerns, or ideas you may have.
The group is LGBTQ+ friendly, and welcomes everyone. Racism, sexism, homophobia, or other such things have never been an issue, and would not be tolerated. That said, this group is neither a hugbox nor a meme group, neither ultra-sensitive nor super-meme-centric. We are a friendly and easy-going group of gamers who enjoy role-play and realism/verisimilitude in our games. We are also very supportive of each other, in and out of game, and are comfortable with the idea that stereotypes and conflict do exist in game. So, if you get up in arms about in-game "racism" (kobolds and drow being typically evil, and treated as such, and/or the possibility of other inherent conflict based on race/background); if you dislike NPCs reacting appropriately to your PC's behavior; or if you can't stand the possibility of any other in-game conflict, this is not the game for you. If you are a nice, respectful, decent human being who is interested in collaborative storytelling, in a roleplay-centric game, with a decent bit of combat mixed in, then you should fit right in!
You might say we are semi-serious gamers. We might hang out and chat before and/or after game, but game time is for gaming. We do crack jokes and have fun, but generally keep things moving and focused on the game at hand. If this sounds like your style, then please apply via the link! https://forms.gle/LJ9JHQqkCAcjkfY58
So, what's the campaign about?
Admittedly, I have long been partial to "classic," Tolkien-esque D&D, and the worlds portrayed in the Dragonlance novels and Salvatore books. Dragonborns, tieflings, and the exotic races were never really my cup of tea, for PC's. But, I also tend to be open-minded about most things. So, when the friends with whom I have been playing 5e online for the past couple of years asked me to run a game, I decided to challenge my previous notions. Having watched certain characters done well in streamed games encouraged me to scrap some of my previous boundaries, and create a world which has become largely dominated by the "animal" races.
When the "awakened" first began to appear, during a time now known as The Great Awakening, they were typically treated as pets, as slaves, or as curiosities at best, especially by humans. Over time, as they grew in numbers, eventually they turned the tables on their oppressors, and hunted/drove much of humanity into remote areas. Elves and dwarves largely withdrew from the conflicts, though they occasionally provided shelter to refugees, either directly, or by offering some measure of protection to communities which sprang up near their own.
Now, with the continent-wide conflicts having largely subsided, much of the known world is currently run by the awakened races, who have themselves begun to segregate into various communities. And, while many humans were pushed to the outskirts of civilization, mostly existing in remote sanctuary communities, those humans currently trying to survive in the more populated areas are treated like second-class citizens, at best.
The current game does not take place in those areas, however! I am still building that world out, tailoring a larger campaign to the characters and ideas my players have given me. The campaign I am currently running takes place in a remote part of that same world, where The Great Awakening -- and the effects it has had on much of the known world -- is little more than rumor.
The Othean Peninsula is an icy expanse, isolated both physically and culturally from the rest of the world. This is an area of the world still largely dominated by humans, and the two peoples who populate the area -- a nordic tribal culture, and a more "civilized" society reminiscent of medieval Eastern Europe -- are hardened by the climate, the dangerous wilds, and the wars they have fought against each other over control of the region.
As the PC's wind their way through the landscape, there are a number of directions they could go, and interests they could pursue. Of course, they must do so while also navigating the tentative truce between the two societies, and facing the threats permeating the world around them. Last session, after getting hired to help find someone, they took a detour to investigate a break-in. NPCs from each faction in town are quick to blame the other, while at least one person believes the attacker was a more external, and possibly supernatural, threat. This week, having negotiated a more comfortable lodging situation with the individual whose establishment was targeted, the PC's may follow through on finding the missing person, or may follow up on their investigation. Or both!
There is no railroad here. There are options, and impetus; but player agency is important for the group to be able to help shape the story.
Wherever they end up in two weeks, will your character be likely to join the party, and up to the challenges which may lie before them?
If you are interested in joining our game, please fill out the application: https://forms.gle/LJ9JHQqkCAcjkfY58
As long as the application is open, you can still apply. I will update the thread once I’ve found someone!
Thanks!
(It's after 0400 as I wrap this up, so please forgive any spelling errors or editing shortcomings)

Assalamaikam, You may have heard about the region of Poonch in a recent news where 3 men were killed in custody by Army for being OGWs.
Whole of India was divided into two parts. One side was mourning because 3 innocent ‘kashmiri’ men were killed on a mere suspicion, and the other was rejoicing because they could inflict some pain on ‘kashmiris’.
What I want to tell you is this kashmiri tag has haunted us for long ,it has driven us into misery in the past and continues to do so.
Areas of poonch&rajouri in J&K are inhabited mainly by Pahari speaking muslims and Gujjar muslims. More than Kashmir, our struggle is identical to the muslims of the U.P, Bihar, and bengal. You may ask why? Well theres hindu chauvinism , 1947 violence, creation of pakistan and how it has affected our people. And I guess a common Indian Muslim(or even Hindu for that matter) is as well-versed about Kashmir like us. Local Gujjars and Muslim Rajputs, here by far have no idea about the fact that the the state we are living in is disputed, or that we were promised a plebiscite etc.
When militants in the late 1990s, and later, poured in numbers ranging from hundreds to thousands. Most of them expected us to have the same hate for the Indian army, because to them, just like a common Indian, we were Kashmiris.
Refusals were met with beatings and sometimes escalted to murders, and massacres. People were being picked up on a mere suspicion for being militant informers or army sympathisers. We breathed a little sigh of relief when in the late 2000s, militancy vanished, the army left and this vicious circle of violence ended.
It’s heartbreaking to see the Muslim world calling our dead murtads, even Indian Muslims have jumped on the bandwagon calling our dead mere pawns in the battle of Kashmir. You have every right to feel for those who you relate with but what makes our dead less worthy?
Also what should we do? Should we kill those who are responsible for pitting our elders and womenfolk to humiliation without giving a second thought to the indigenous population? Or should we leave all things to Allah? So far, the locals here have chosen the second option.

Last night I betrayed someone I cared about. Words cannot describe the bitterness and disgust I feel.
I am back home in Sydney, and I am safe. For those of you who have been following along, I found a way to resolve my situation with the Tremere Primogen. But I don’t think I was prepared for what it would cost me.
I had fled Australia a month ago for the safety of my sire’s haven in Valencia, Spain, travelling in secrecy in the squalor of unattended ship compartments. My return was a stark contrast, aboard the private jet I had chartered. No need for subtlety when you’ve already told the guy who wants you dead that you’re coming to see him. Would that the jet was the highest cost I paid…
When I arrived I was greeted by Thomasina, my Toreador Primogen, with whom I had arranged to set up a peaceful meeting with the Tremere Primogen so that I could negotiate an end to hostilities. Though, I was warned that if things went south my clan would not risk going to war with the Tremere just to protect me. No pressure. Also there to greet me was… my faithful assistant, Sophie…
We met the Tremere Primogen on neutral ground, at the Royal Botanical Gardens. The serene environment of the Formal Garden, where grand ceremonies are often held, bizarrely juxtaposed the tension in the air. The plan was simple; I had never practiced blood magic myself, only sold the services of Gregory, a former Tremere contact of mine, through BLVSH to other kindred. So, really, it was my contact who was disobeying the chantry and dealing behind its back. A contract who had betrayed me too, tried to kill me. For all anyone knew, I had no idea he was betraying the chantry and acted in good faith. Certainly, no one had proof I knew otherwise. And I happened to have that traitor staked and gift-wrapped, courtesy of Sandu. Wouldn’t it be easier for everyone involved if I just handed over Gregory to be executed for his crime?
The Tremere Primogen was as cold and severe as I remembered but, though he was initially skeptical, seemed to be in agreement. Upon handing over Gregory, he decided I was innocent of practicing blood sorcery outside of chantry control. But he was not yet satisfied. He said that selling the services of blood sorcery behind his back was still an injustice that needed to be righted. “I want to believe you,” he said. “I want to believe you’re an upstanding member of the court of Sydney. But I have records that BLVSH knowingly acted in defiance of the chantry. Only two people were involved in that side of the business. If it wasn’t you, clearly it was your ghoul.” Sophie… my dear Sophie…
I’m sure the Tremere Primogen knew it was me. He just couldn’t prove it. But he wanted to twist the knife, just to show who was in charge. My ghoul, he said, had endangered both our lives by putting us at odds with each other through her reckless actions. Justice demanded she be punished for it. And I… what else could I do but agree?
I saw the terror in Sophie’s eyes as they dragged her away from me. Sophie had been nothing but loyal, and yet here she was, being offered up as a scapegoat for my sins. My beautiful Sophie, she refused to turn on me, even as I turned on her. I stood there, powerless, as the Tremere Primogen reached his hand out to Sophie. Time seemed to slow as I looked on. And… all he did was touch her, and, jesus the horror of it. She practically melted before my eyes. Her skin began to drip from her body as her blood boiled. She clawed at her head as her hair came away in clumps and her eyes poured out of their sockets. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't. I needed to see the full extent of my betrayal. And the screams. God, the screams. I can still hear them in my head. If there is any justice, I always will hear them.
And… and I am free. All is forgiven. Business as usual in the uncaring nights I reside in. And all it cost me was my closest, most trusted friend. What a bargain. I’m a fucking monster, and a coward, and a failure, and a terrible friend. I was too weak to accept the consequences of my actions. I’m no better than Gregory. Here in my empty haven, with only my guilt and shame for company, I still see the hollow sockets where Sophie’s eyes were when my eyes close. I’m sorry, I failed you.
Oh, and when I got home I destroyed my garden in a frenzy of rage and self-loathing. It’s okay, I don’t deserve beautiful things. I can’t take care of them.

• Alyx.

Hi, I have been reading through my notes, correspondence with my psych and reacquainted myself with this subreddit having made a little bit of progress. I realise how deeply personal and different our work with schema therapy can be. It is a fraught process that is really hard work at times. Having made unexpected progress though, I thought maybe it would be helpful to describe parts of my context, not so much that people find it familiar or relatable, but moreso that people grab the toolset that schema therapy gives you and run with it in your own way.
Background: It's probably been just over fourth months of fairly intensive schema therapy. I am in the fortunate situation of having regular appointments with a clinical psychologist. I would say I had two points where I generated schemas. First one was the same as everyone else: Early childhood. Second one was 17-21 when I became effectively bedridden due to chronic illness.
When I have talked about this second period, I describe it as "Having to rebuild who I was from scratch, entirely based around energy efficiency". I remember staring into the pitch blackness of my bedroom during this time, absolutely flawed that the one part of me that seemed to function right was what Schema Therapy might describe as "Demanding Critic". This would have been 18-19 years ago so I had no idea about schema therapy at all, I just had this constant internal dialogue tearing strips off me for not trying harder, not getting up, not fixing myself. I was completely exhausted otherwise, but this damn thing was as active as ever? What the hell, why was it the last thing standing? It was so different from the rest of me. "If you know how to fix everything, be my guest, I'm in your hands, here's the keys!" I remember thinking. Alarmingly, the internal dialog responded: "Fine, I will". "Good fucking luck" I thought, and passed out for several hours. I didn't realise it, but I had just given Demanding Critic a parental role.
Demanding Critic used a process of elimination to tear apart, kludge, re-engineer and jerry-rig me from someone who slept for 16-18 hours a day out of necessity into someone with a degree, a house, a family, a part-time job. It took a while. It wasn't easy. It's amazing what can happen when you give seething self-hatred the keys to your entire self. Punitive critic used to be a thing, but had it's parts ripped out and reconfigured for completely different purposes. Entire ways to simulate being a conscious, involved person in social situations were constructed. I trained myself to do very complex tasks by muscle memory so I could do them while completely exhausted. The complex effects of depressive episodes could be filtered and rewired to emulate happiness. Fatalistic pessimism was employed towards emulating initiative and drive. Their logics and mechanisms were set to fire off automatically according to the myriad of different contexts I found myself in, so I didn't have to consciously engage in the moment, I could just react according to programming. The "machines" as I called them were fine tuned over years. But it seems that entire parts of myself were deactivated having been deemed too difficult to regulate, or too energy intensive. Demanding Critic was as brutal at he was creative. Entire emotional spectrums were pulverised, or at best used as catalysts for the activation of certain mechanics. They weren't properly experienced, because that used up too much energy, and I couldn't trust myself to make it through the day. Same with speculative, ill-defined senses like 'Hope'. It wasn't worth the effects of disappointment. No one could know how much pain I was in, or how much I was really suffering, or how exhausted I really was. Press on you stupid meat-bag. In your state what good is hope or despair? You'd be a poor judge of either. Press on! Hurry up and succeed. It doesn't matter what has happened to you, what people say or do to you, you can barely feel it above the pain anyway. MOVE. MOVE. MOVE.
This process was refined until a semblance of normativity took place externally, and internally I had acclimated to the new approaches that were by now a pretty seamless, responsive system. Something still wasn't right though, and with investigation came the ASD/ADHD diagnosis, then the CPTSD diagnosis. Once again unto the breech, I pushed myself to understand and recover as best I could. Except doing so meant realising what was happening around me, what interpersonal boundaries were, how I was being treated by my loved ones, everything that had really happened to me for thirty-odd years.
Kaboom.
In the aftermath I'm in a difficult, but stable situation, and undergoing schema therapy. Learning about the modes my therapist asked me to talk about the ones I identified. Demanding Critic spoke directly through the keyboard as an intense character: The Machinist. It became obvious that the system of schema therapy lent itself to treating modes as characters within a narrative, and I have just ran with it. The Machinist, interestingly enough, set down his tools and deactivated many of his machines, because if my Therapist and I found a "Better Solution", he wanted in on it, being fundamentally benevolent, and concerned with a Successful Result. Without Schema Therapy lending itself to narrative and mythos, I doubt I could have so easily deactivated the system of "machinery" required to prop me up. It's led to all kinds of shocking discoveries: The missing (No longer presumed dead) Happy Child that has been carefully hidden away amongst the deactivated components of myself. The fact that I lived entirely in the Past or the Future. The present was deemed "Too energy consumptive". I didn't know whether I had a "Healthy Adult Mode", but weirdly The Machinist could fill that roll sometimes but obviously had his limitations. Then out of the void, deactivated parts of me started to come back online. Something started to assert itself in the Present. It was very interested in emotions. Instead of casting them aside and pushing past them to get on with what i was supposed to be doing, it insisted I experience them, decode them and experiment with them. New experiments in the real-time interaction with people were enacted, with the emotional fallout, good and bad, further experimented with. This present-based-thing has been curiously self-compassionate, and has guided me through the difficulties and risks of fully engaging in real time with my emotional spectrum when relating with others, my work, and my life. All for the sake of her experiments. She is The Scientist. She is getting all kinds of results and recording all kinds of functions I had no idea I was capable of. The Machinist is head over heels in love with her, having watched her working over the least two weeks. She's kinda started flirting with him, allowing a desire for perfection to be felt over some work I was doing. "Show me what you can do". I consciously disparaged the desire for perfection, looked down and my consciousness was shocked to discover The Machinist had taken over my motor skills and indeed had made something perfectly, and was having fun. It seems I have two self re-parents.
Now, it's bonkers to read, I'm sure. I apologise. But it's working. It really is fucking working. Take what you can from schema therapy and run with it. Make it yours, whatever that means for you. It's gonna be weird. It's gonna be wild. I reckon the easiest way to engage with it has to be it's propensity for character and narrative, but maybe the path of least resistance for you is some other aspect of it I can't detect.

Let me begin this post from a small excerpt from my essay because it exemplifies my feelings toward Invaders, as an anime, and as a series;

So what makes it special?
Well, you see. This anime is a lot more interesting than you might think. Not only from within the anime, but in real life as well. This is a story of overzealous ambition, unresolved injustice, and quiet resilience. A story penned by a talented writer who never got the spotlight...

Now, that's a bold statement I made for an anime aired a decade ago. An anime that barely anyone here have ever heard of. An anime that have been washed away from the sands of time. So, I know what you're thinking. Why?
What did I see in Invaders that the majority here didn't?
To answer that, let me start at its creation, from a subsidiary of a conglomerate, from a man in his late 20s, hailing from Chiba Prefecture, who have recently dipping into the world of light novel.
It's 2009. You have established yourself as a capable ​visual novelist, with works such as From Here and Beyond, Killer Queen and Tsukihime doujin works. You also had just debut your first novel, Ano Hibi Wo Mouichido two years ago, and you are ready to release another one under the same publisher of your previous book, HJ Bunko.
On March 1st 2009, the first volume of Invaders of the Rokujouma ( Rokujouma no Shinryakusha?!) was published. Unbeknownst to him, this series would unexpectedly change his trajectory forever. And ever since then, 47 VOLUMES, including two side stories, has been published continuously for 15 years! Yes, you heard me right, 15 years going! And no, it still hasn't been cancelled, nor gone into hiatus yet!
There is a part of me that still boggled for how long it still going for a light novel series, much lest in today's light novel climate. But I guess it made sense why HJ kept the book going as Invaders have sold 1.5 million copies in Japan alone as of April 2022. Not an impressive numbers compared to other, more established works, but it isn't an obscure LN that on one even heard of. Invaders is one of HJ Bunko's biggest seller in their library. Even more impressive when taken into account that it is made in-house (ie. not acquired from another source).
Hell, even the website promoting the anime is still up to this day!
So, why am I bringing this up? Well, it is about the same reason as to why I chose the word "adored" specifically. Because Invaders is special to me, not for its character-driven story or its cast of colorful characters, but for what it represent. This series dared to defy convention set by a genre devoid of such, and set out to do its own things, not necessarily to redefine it, but to tell a good story regardless of. And it suffered consequences as a result, but it makes itself stands out above the rest. A quiet resilience, so to speak.
Now, I am reserving the full retrospective review of the anime in-depth, and the stories behind the author, and the crew in my essay. But instead, here I will talk about the difficulties of recommending this anime to any first-time watchers. Partly due to being a harem anime (and the stigma that follows it), but also because I think it is suitable for subsequent rewatch to appreciate the slow-paced, two-parter story arc of each main girls, the character development, and the general vibe it gave, crafted by the hands of Shin Oonuma. The first-time watcher don't have that commitment and dedication like I do to see other than the surface level, even if you keep this post in mind. It's hard to discern if you will like or dislike it because the first episode will influence your perception of the series, even if you keep an open mind. I can't change that, nor forced you to watch from my perspective.
Lest I'll have to deal with people like him who misunderstood Invaders as nothing more than a fodder (and an excuse for their laziness). Oh, I am reserving my vitriol for that review specifically in my essay, and I'm not gonna hold back. In other words, Invaders is NOT your typical harem anime. It never tries to, it wants to march at its own pace, with its own feet. And I commend them for it. And to those that says otherwise, opinions be opinions and I have no control over it, but states it with facts, not bullshit.
I don't know what to do for its 10th anniversary, July 12th. Maybe a rewatch thread to expose more people to this anime that I cherished? Or releasing the essay on time, even though I have restarted it four times now? Hell, I'm still weary of posting this in the first place but this post here, that gave me a spark to write this. And a courage to do it. Heh, appropriate, isn't it?
~"~"~"~
I'm Ghost, and I proclaimed myself as a superfan of Invaders. I have watched this anime multiple times, dissecting every nook and cranny throughout its 12-episodes run. And it have opened my eyes to other animes that I would never gave a glance to. It teaches me to be appreciative for what it is, both the good and the bad, and to see it eyes to eyes without prejudice, without expectations. It isn't a masterpiece by any metric, but nor it is being a trainwreck. It has its strength, and it has its flaws. And it want to be seen for what it is, instead of what it isn't.
This is a story of strangers from all walks of life learn to open themselves, and relied upon each other.
This is a story that values appreciation of self, companionship and the media we love.
This is a story of Room 106 of Corona Apartment, and how a high school boy lives together with a ghost, a magical girl, an underground people, and an alien princess inside the small rokujouma.

This is Why I Adored Invaders of the Rokujouma!

Hey everyone, I'm facing a situation that's tearing me apart, and I could really use some advice. So here's the deal: I've been best friends with someone for years. We've been through thick and thin together, shared all our secrets, and supported each other through every twist and turn of life.
But here's where things get complicated. Recently, I found out that my partner has been having an affair. Shocking, right? But wait, it gets worse. The person my partner has been cheating with is none other than my supposed best friend!
I stumbled upon their secret rendezvous accidentally, and since then, I've been torn apart. On one hand, there's my partner, the person I thought I knew inside out, betraying my trust in the worst possible way. And on the other hand, there's my confidante, who's been carrying on with my partner behind my back.
I feel like my whole world is crumbling down. I'm hurt, angry, and utterly confused. How could they both do this to me? Should I confront them? Should I cut them out of my life completely? Or should I try to salvage the relationships despite the betrayal?
I could really use some advice on how to navigate through this mess and come out with my sanity intact. Thanks in advance for your help.

In the heart of Chicago, where the skyline pierced the heavens and the streets pulsed with life, there lived a man named Victor Kane. At 26 years old and a startling 6'3" in stature, Victor commanded attention effortlessly. His piercing gaze seemed to see through the very fabric of one's soul, and his knowing, flirtatious smirk hinted at secrets that few could ever fathom. Victor was a man of many faces, each one carefully crafted and expertly worn to blend into any situation, like a chameleon adapting to its surroundings. Each interaction with another human was as if it were another painting to be hung in the Art Institute of Chicago, a masterpiece of social maneuvering and charm.
To most, he appeared unremarkable, perhaps even a bit dim, an illusion he maintained with meticulous precision. Yet beneath this facade lay a mind as sharp as a dagger, honed by years of strategic thinking, manipulation, and the art of emotional deceit. Victor had learned from the best. His father, a man deeply entrenched in the shadowy world of organized crime, had mastered the art of bending reality to his will. A master chess player, he treated people like pieces on a grand chessboard, moving them at his whim, always six steps ahead. Victor had absorbed these lessons like a sponge, his young mind eagerly soaking up every tactic, every subtle nuance of control.
Battles with his father have left their scars, trailing off Victor like a snake's entrails as they slither through crowded streets, scanning for their next meal. They probe the aura of each passerby, tasting their energy, yet to their disappointment, they find no juicy, dirt-filled sponge of pain and suffering. They taste desires, yet nothing hits just right. Empty husks, devoid of the essence they crave. Living memories enshroud him in a cloud of black smoke, a spectral fog visible only to a witch. A demon, masquerading as a homeless man and muttering incoherent whispers, feels the snake's embrace tighten around him. He halts abruptly, turning to Victor with a knowing gaze. 'I see you,' he murmurs, 'Such discipline and composure may deceive the others, yet it's only a matter of time before they find you.' The homeless man continues his walk, pulling a black suitcase along, his tattered white shirt contrasting sharply with his black suit, and no tie to complete the ensemble.
Victor makes no comment, his mind a labyrinth of dark intentions and calculated moves. He viewed the world as a malleable entity, something he could shape and twist to suit his needs. The streets, the people, the very air he breathed; they were all part of a grand, intricate game where he alone held the key. He had no qualms about using others to achieve his goals, seeing them as mere tools in his grand design. It was a dangerous philosophy, one which required constant vigilance and adaptability. As he moved through the throngs of oblivious souls, he could almost hear the whispers of their deepest fears and hidden sins. The scars trailed behind him, living entities of their own, reaching out hungrily, desperate for a morsel of genuine suffering. Yet the city, with all its noise and chaos, offered little more than hollow echoes and fleeting shadows. Traces of happiness. Lost children in the never ending void of their own desperation. Victor's eyes flickered with a cold, calculating light. He was a master of this urban jungle, a predator in search of worthy prey. The demon’s warning lingered in his mind, yet it only fueled a burning hunger. He thrived in the shadows, where power and control were his for the taking. Each step he took was a step closer to his ultimate end goal, a twisted vision of dominance, only he could see.
In the distance, the city’s lights shimmered like false promises, yet Victor knew better. Beneath the surface, in hidden corners and forgotten alleys, darkness mirrored his own. In this abyss, he felt certain he would find what he sought: the true essence of his own hunger, the raw, unfiltered energy he could devour. Victor thrived on the underestimation of others, reveling when people perceived him as lesser. Such perceptions made his manipulations appear as innocent mistakes, acts of ignorance and oblivion. His favorite targets: those with inflated egos, individuals convinced of their invincibility.
"A person with a big ego is like an orgasm," he often mused, speaking as if to his shadow. "It's just so easy. Their first mistake: telling me we're not equals. Afterward, they reveal all the buttons and levers in their psyche. They hand me their own weapon on a silver platter, asking, 'Victor, please send me to meet Anpu. Please show me the gates of my own demise.' Their insanity begs to be freed from this curse of societal norms. Always the first mistake, then the rest follow." Laughter echoed from the snakes twining around Victor. As he whispered these musings, the words ensnared a group of Venezuelans nearby, inciting them into a frenzy of violence without understanding the spark. Victor watched, casually tossing a silver dollar their way as if to say, "Welcome to the sanctuary," his smirk a shadow under the flickering streetlights. He calls to the boys, 'there now before you boys get into trouble remember this, you're only seeing the lions teeth, yet you haven't seen what triggered it.' They stared at Victor, startled, as he bid them farewell with a two-finger salute from his left temple and continued wandering down the street.
A drone sliced through the air, its camera lens capturing the serpentine twists of the Chicago River below. Victor, watching its flight, was transported to his youth, to days spent cobbling together a demonic owl from discarded household trinkets and an owl decoy. He would pilot this macabre creation through his neighborhood, a spectral puppeteer orchestrating nocturnal ballets which both delighted and unnerved his unsuspecting audience. A sinister grin unfurled across his lips, a shadow's whisper, as memories of those simple machines mingled with the sophisticated arsenal he commanded today. In the digital age, Victor had become a maestro of manipulation, his tools refined yet no less mischievous. Social media platforms were his stage, targeted advertisements and spoofed numbers his actors, each one playing their part in his grand, deceptive symphony. With the deftest touch, he planted seeds of doubt, spun webs of misinformation, transforming allies into adversaries, stitching chaos into the fabric of daily lives with mere whispers masquerading as shouts. His schemes were crafted with such subtlety, woven so seamlessly into the warp and weft of reality, that his victims believed themselves architects of their own undoing.
The crowning jewel of his current machinations was a prototype drone, a whimsical homage to the contraptions of his youth yet imbued with the precision of modern technology. This drone, engineered to navigate from the chilly confines of his refrigerator to the steamy oasis of his rooftop hot tub, was a testament to his technical acumen. Crafted to be mended with mere baubles from any corner hardware store, it stood as a symbol of practical genius, a playful yet potent emblem of his enduring craft.
Victor glimpsed a universe of possibilities within this project, each drone a seed from which new opportunities might bloom. "Perhaps I could craft a model for a dive shop in Australia," he mused. "A sentinel to monitor the slow dance of decay among the coral reefs." Such a gift could forge pathways, perhaps even secure an internship, an opportunity to wield his 417 subclass visa before its flame flickered out. The prospect of traversing Australia's vast landscapes, of weaving his influence through uncharted territories and minds, sparked a thrill within him. Beyond the realm of circuitry and code, Victor possessed a profound mastery over the human psyche. He had the uncanny ability to read individuals, to delve into the murky depths of their insecurities and desires. With the finesse of a sculptor, he could mold a woman’s perception, convincing her of a soul-deep connection, crafting mirages of perfect compatibility. Yet, for all his prowess in the art of deception, Victor adhered to his own strict code. He eschewed physical violence, never staining his hands with assault; his dominion was the mind, his influence woven through the delicate fabric of psychology.
In Chicago's suffocating underbelly, Victor's father regarded him not with paternal concern, rather with venomous animosity. Their relationship was a battleground, devoid of affection or empathy, cloaked threats masquerading as concern. "Victor, if you don't see a psychiatrist, I'm cutting you off," he declared, his voice a cold hiss, a deeper wish for Victor's demise lurking beneath. Victor's laugh, hollow, echoing through the night, a sound devoid of warmth, knew well the true nature of the psychiatrist and the deeper machinations of his father's cruel intentions. His father viewed him not as a son, yet as a nemesis, a presence he wished to erase from existence. Surrounded by the oppressive cityscape, Victor stood alone atop his building, the L line screeching past, the lights below mere distant, watchful eyes. "Tomorrow, I bend reality once more," he whispered into the void, his voice merging with the cold wind sweeping the rooftops.
The relentless pursuit of his father's malice shadowed him into the darkest city corners where shadows moved with intent, whispering of ancient, sinister forces. Here, in the corner of his eyes an oozing of black liquid drenched an alley, a tar monster, a grotesque manifestation of the city’s darkest secrets, its gnarled face and gleaming teeth mirroring the twisted relationship endured. Against a backdrop of a city thrumming with malevolent energy, Victor pondered the fragile line between delusion and reality. "It's only delusional till it works, so is it really delusional?" he mused aloud, his words dissipating into the night where the distinction between madness and genius blurred by darkness.
Retreating from the alley, his figure melded into the shadows, each step deliberate, burdened with the weight of a cursed legacy. He was acutely aware of his dual role, both manipulator and pawn in a grander, more malevolent game, a game orchestrated by forces predating the city itself. Every movement influenced by the sinister energy pervading Chicago, a legacy of corruption and darkness intertwined with his own existence. Victor understood his every action overseen by the ancient entity had taken interest in him, an entity finding delight in his struggle, offering protection at a dreadful cost.
Emerging from the shadows back into the flickering city lights, Victor found no solace in the illumination yet his smile stretched reaching his eyes showing his gleaming razor sharp teeth. These lights did not offer hope only humor; they were beacons of a foreboding reality. He resolved to continue bending reality, wielding the cursed power both protecting, ensnaring him, and pointing out the irony of his situation. Day after day, he would play this dark game, a master of deceit entwined with an ancient force more profound and sinister than any could fathom.
With one final, lingering look at the alley where darkness reigned supreme, Victor Kane laughed, a hollow echo fading as he stepped into the nearby pub. Inside, the warm glow contrasted starkly with the night's chilling embrace, yet the shadows seemed merely to lurk at the edges, waiting. At their usual spot by the worn bar, he found Billy Smith, his old high school Basketball teammate, with two pints of beer ready. They clinked glasses, the sound slicing through the hum of conversations around them. "To the unexpected," Victor intoned, his voice laced with a hint of irony. As they settled into the rhythm of their catch-up, the conversation inevitably turned toward the unfolding news, the war in Ukraine, an event that had caught the world off guard.
"No one ever saw it coming," Billy remarked, his tone a mix of wonder and concern.
Victor's eyes flickered with a dark amusement, and raising his glass again, he offered a toast, this time in Latin, a language that carried the weight of history and secrets. "Ad profundis malorum," he declared, which translated to 'To the depths of evils.'
Billy paused, the words hanging between them like a veil being slowly drawn back to reveal a hidden scene. The toast was enigmatic, resonant with Victor’s acknowledgment of the chaos brewing both near and far, a chaos that, perhaps, only he could navigate.
As the night deepened within the grimy confines of the pub, where every corner whispered of misdeeds and the air hung heavy with the scent of stale beer and lost hopes, the laughter and chatter provided a deceptive cover for the profound game silently playing in Victor’s mind. His cryptic toast, "Ad profundis malorum," echoed a darker undertone amidst the jovial noise.
Across the bar, a woman with long jet black hair and piercing grey eyes watched Victor. Clad in a striking red full-grain leather trench coat, her presence was undeniably conspicuous, yet paradoxically, she remained unnoticed. Despite her short stature, she was fit, her features sharply defined, an attractiveness seemingly almost otherworldly amidst the grime of the pub. Curiously, not even the barkeep spared her a glance, as if she existed in a separate realm, visible only to those she chose to confront. As Billy excitedly shared his plans to open a dive shop with a taco bar on the roof, the woman’s lips moved in a whisper, her voice a soft, clear bell in the din, carrying a dire warning. "I know what you are. We found you." At that moment, a flashback surged through Victor’s mind, a haunting image of a colonial girl he once saw in the Fraser Experimental Forest. His girlfriend at the time had turned to him, her voice tinged with unease. "Victor, do you see what I see? The girl? Yeah, the girl. I can feel something following us. As if it knows what we are yet won't approach, yet I can feel it." This vivid recollection now seemed a prelude to the current moment, a chilling reminder the forces he had glimpsed back then were the same now declaring their presence.
The evening wound down with plans made and stories shared, yet the woman’s prophetic words and the ghostly memory of the girl hung unseen in the air, portending looming confrontations between the light she embodied and the shadow following Victor Kane. As the patrons began to drift away, the shadows reclaiming their territory within the pub, the mysterious woman’s figure faded into the background, her message delivered, her purpose yet unclear but undoubtedly intertwined with Victor’s fate.
The end.

Hey all, I (25M) had COVID in december 23, and probably again in February 24, in total I had it 5 or 6 times, first time for 3/4 weeks in April 2022, then mostly milder in the acute phase.
In February 24 I thought I was fit again after a week, so I went to the gym, but there I felt really bad and ended it, at home I got a fever and felt really bad in general. The next 4 weeks I was having some coughs, some nasal congestion, but all the time tachycardia, my RHR was at 90, instead of about 60. And I was much more exhausted. And my BP was always really high 180/110 from then on. (Right now I am on betablockers and losartan (ARB))
cMRI 15.3.24 LVEF40-50% slightly reduced And some LGE in the myocard indicating myocarditis but no active edema or inflammation
From the beginning of April I was feeling much worse, I could not stand working anymore, getting dizzy upon walking and I started having a lot of palpitations. (Premature atrial contractions, PACs, about 10%)
These days, I am having these palpitations, mostly PACs, sometimes in trigeminy, sometimes only one per minute or even less. Fatigue and upon walking sometimes severe dizziness/ brain fog and SOB. In my back I always have a pain which sometimes flares out to my left shoulder and sometimes also chest pain, but that it he only thing that had a peak and then pretty much got better. My heart rate upon sitting varies between 50 and 80. My oxygen saturation is basically always at 95%. Before it was basically always at 99%.
Do some of you have these symptoms or similar symtpoms and recovered or gotten better at least?

So I neglected my physical for a long time, but happy to say I've been getting into bodyweight work lately thanks to communities like this and people like K Boges, and I think this really is what I wanna be doing. I've been doing mainly chinups/pullups for a couple weeks, squats for a couple days, and soon pushups, and that's the foundation of everything else (if not most of) what I wanna be doing.
The problem is due to the long periods of inactivity and poor form/posture in the past I've been running into underlying tendon issues which have prevented me from advancing in bodyweight and movement/mobility work. For example, I've been doing GTG (grease-the-groove) on chinup negatives (up to 5 sessions of 2 reps), and resting squat/asian squat progressions (~5-6 sessions of 2 reps), and I came across signs of golfer's elbow on my left, and low hamstring issue on my right outer knee (biceps femoris).
So, on that chance that I'm doing overuse, or not enough rest in between, I've decided to pause everything and focus on tendon recovery and strengthening for at least a couple weeks, so I can progress more smoothly in the future.
For starters, I've been doing low load, low volume, slow, and eccentric wrist and leg curls/pauses, and bridges for the above-mentioned issues, and seeing positive results. Also doing external shoulder rotation as I had a rotator cuff injury on my right once.
Now what I wanna know is, what other majofoundational tendons can I work on, or what other movements can I target, to ensure a good baseline for tendon strength for me to progress with when I resume proper training? What does your tendon work routine look like? I tried to look up how many we're supposed to have and it's like some 4000 tendons lmao, thus the question. Tendons be everywhere
And yes, I would rather do this and jump right back into what I was doing, than take it real slow and wait for tendon strength to catch up. I'm on a little break anyway, so might as well focus on strengthening other areas in the meantime. But I am open to listening if you think I'm wrong to do so. It's just that I die a little every time I kill any momentum.

We all know what kind of person the fresh, self-proclaimed “Half-baked” magician Aoko Aozaki is; someone that is pretty carefree, enjoys her life to the fullest, a rootless wanderer, a jerk with a heart of gold, and is a person that never runs away, never back down from almost anything, such as getting involved in the moonlit world and throwing her original life away, as well as the fact that she will not hesitate to do something even if it means making the entire world her enemy when she revived Soujuurou using the fifth magic.
But have we ever thought about why she’s like this present day of the setting? Many people would probably just say that “That’s just her character” and leave it at that, but perhaps it’s for a reason that if you dug a bit more deeper, is actually pretty sad if you think about it.
Touko mentioned to Aoko that what she had done would potentially result in the heat death of the universe all for “reviving” Soujuurou by moving his death to a time in the future without really thinking about the consequences, however she stated that she will take responsibility when that time comes.
Leaving her semi-immortality aside, what if possibly that her personality being like this is because she knows her future isn’t gonna be good despite currently holding the title “Fifth Magician”, and that she is trying to live her life to the fullest and not leave behind any regrets when her time finally comes?
Fate really is a cruel mistress isn’t she?
Probably because of this she has a very different view on life, she respects how every individuals live their life, but will get displeased at seeing life being wasted in front of her eyes, as how Shiki demonstrating his eyes to her and she got angry at him just casually taking a life by destroying that tree, because it goes against her current principle.
If you still don’t get what I’m saying, it’s like “I have only a year left, therefore I’m going to make it count before my time comes”. It’s like that.
That honestly makes her story pretty sad if that’s the reason of her character in the present day setting of Nasuverse.
What do you think? I mean Nasuverse is a setting that is filled with pain, sorrow and suffering, so I wouldn’t be too surprised if I was right in some way.

The whole thing is my fault. We had been together 5 years. I knew a year or year and a half ago that it wasn’t going to work out but I didn’t know how to do it. My hand was finally forced since we were going to move soon. I had actually agreed to the move until I realized she meant it to be permanent in that city. It shouldn’t have taken that to make it happen though. Hell I broke up with her roughly 3 years ago and she convinced me to stay and try to make it work. I should have stayed with my gut then. I was to weak.
I have hurt her so much. I’ve shattered her. Probably caused scars that will last into future relationships. All because I was to weak. Because I wanted to keep the peace. I blindsided her because I always said what she wanted to hear. To try and make her happy. To keep the peace so I could do what I wanted or not get in a fight. My weakness has caused her so much more unnecessary pain. Wasted so much of her time.
Why couldn’t I do it? I do love her but I think long term this wasn’t going to work. I couldn’t see us being married and living happily ever after. I couldn’t see raising kids with her. But I couldn’t tell her that. She’s a wonderful beautiful kind person. We have so many good memories but my last memory will be her tears and the pain in her voice. Because I was too weak. She could be healed and likely forgotten me by now.
She begged me not to do it, was willing to give up so much to stay together. I can’t take that though. I can’t take away everything she wants in life to be with me. I can’t hold that gun to her head that I may break up if she ever wants to move. I can’t hold her back.
I stand by the decision that breaking up is the right move but the pain on her face made me want to go back on it. She doesn’t deserve what I did to her.
We lived together, had a dog, furniture, a joint card. Now I’ve blown it all up because I knew when I started it that it wasn’t going to last. She kept saying it doesn’t make sense and how could it? How do my actions make any sense. The only thing that came of them is more pain than if I had been honest to start.
That’s all gone now. The dog is hers. The dog won’t understand why I’m not there anymore. Why I can’t play or cuddle.
She’s going to think it’s her fault when it’s all mine. There’s no way to convince her of that though.
My family and friends keep saying they’re sorry to me like how? After what I’ve done how?
I knelt my head to God tonight for the first time in awhile and didn’t even pray for me but just for her to find all the happiness she deserves.
I’m sitting in a gas station parking lot at 4am after losing $400 at the casino. I can’t sleep or distract myself anymore. I think this is the worst thing I’ve ever done which probably isn’t all that bad it’s not violent or anything.
Idk just needed to vent all that out. Thanks for reading.
Edit: just to be clear, I’m not suicidal and I have some place to go but I’m choosing to stay out to try and process.

19M, 90-100kg, from a SEA country.
Got some discolouration and roughness of skin around the chest area last October. It typically presented as a brown-ish color on my skin. However, after exercise, it would be red instead Was diagnosed with Tinea Versicolor and received topical antifungal Mycoban. It helped to control the spread but not eliminate it. Since then, i had tried oral antifungal medication and a special antidandruff shampoo but both are not very effective in their results.
Recently, the nature of my work resulted in me having to wear unclean clothing for days while staying outdoors. The rash spread to the rest of my chest, back, neck, nether regions and arms. They seem to congregate closer to the folds on my body as well as my armpits and belly buttons. Apart from the brown-ish spots, they also present with extremely dry skin which has caused a lot of pain for me. Currently, i require painkillers and loads of moisturiser to be able to sleep, and i only average 3-4hours a day because of the pain.
Under the sun, my skin itches badly. I also develop red patches that have bumps on it. These patches are extremely painful under sun. I have photos but I am not allowed to post under this subreddit. They can be found in my profile (SFW)
Please tell me if this is tinea versicolor and how i could finally save myself

First of all, thanks to everyone who takes their time to read all of this, it means the world to me!
I (m30) met my GF (f30) a year ago on an online dating platform and we are now in a happy relationship since 10 months. She is all I could have ever dreamed of and is the love of my life. I am planning my proposal right now but there is something I just have to get rid of, my RJ. I had massive mental health issues in the past (severe depression) and suffered low self-worth.
My first 2 relationships shared the same „problem“. I had my first girlfriend at the age of 20. At the beginning of our relationship we talked about our sexual pasts. I was a virgin back then and she told me a number of people she slept with. Over the next months, due to conversations on parties, it became clear that the number she told me was a lie and the real number was much higher. I even found out, that she slept with a friend of mine, 3 weeks before we started dating. I started to develop trust issues and did something I am not proud about, looking through her phone. I found out the feeling that she is lying to me was right all along, she had slept with many more guys than she told me about and was even cheating on me, which is why we broke up.
My second girlfriend was the second woman I had slept with. Same problem as before (apart from the cheating stuff). We talked about our past experiences and, as time went by, it became clear that she also lied about her past experiences and has had many more guys, than she told me. Apart from that she was very abusive, attacked me both verbally and physically and drove me into mentioned depression over a course of 7 years. I broke up with her 2 years ago.
At this point it is important to state that both of my exes started the conversations about past experiences. It is nothing I check out when I start to date someone.
I now was 29, had encountered RJ in 2 relationships and thought it was due to my lack of sexual experiences myself. To prevent it from happening again I started dating and gained experience myself, until I met the love of my life 12 months ago.
Our relationship is perfect, aside from my RJ. When we started dating we showed us pictures of each others and I noticed a picture of her with a musician. I asked her, if they had hooked up and she told me no. She also told me that she never had a ons or any „casual“ sex experiences and doesn‘t like such stuff.
2 months into the relationship I stumbled upon her reddit profile (I didn‘t take her phone at this point). I was curious and read the things she had posted and comments she wrote, since it is all online and public. Then I saw the comment, which led to the situation I am in today. She had commented a post that she did have sex with the said musician. The moment I‘ve read this my heart sunk into my stomach and I was instantly reminded of my 2 previous relationships. So I did a mistake again. I took her phone while she was sleeping and looked for pictures, read chats etc. I found out that she also was lying about past experiences. She did had ons and casual sex and also lied about another guy she had told me she had dated, but didn‘t have sex with. In fact, they did have sex, several times. I confronted her about the musician and told her I looked through her phone. She was shocked and disappointed that I checked her phone (and I totally understand that, it isn‘t the right thing to do) but my gut feeling told me something was off and my feeling was right. She admitted that she had sex with the musician, but also didn‘t tell me the whole truth. She lied about the way that ons started out, but I didn‘t tell her that I know the truth. It shook my trust in her. Not my general trust, but the trust about everything she told me about her past. To this day she doesn‘t know that I‘ve read a lot more than just the chat with the musician, because back then I told her that I only read this chat (it was wrong for me to lie to her and I was no better than her, I know!).
Now to the real problem. This triggered something big in me, like a trauma or something. It has been 8 months since I‘ve searched her phone and not a single day has passed at which I haven‘t thought about this musician. I think about it a few times a day and sometimes I even imagine how they had sex when I am having sex with her. It is driving me crazy and I am slowly going insane because of it. Sometimes we randomly talk about things from our past and I catch her lying to me since I know better because I searched her phone. I don‘t tell her that I know better in these situations. I know she ist just lying because of 2 reasons:

1. she does not want to destroy my picture of her and fears that I might view her differently.
   
2. she wants to safe me from getting jealous/sad
   

What is in the past ist in the past, she didn’t know me back then so she did nothinh wrong back then. She could tell me the craziest sex stories and I would just love her the way she is, the most beautiful soul I‘ve ever met. But knowing that she is lying all the time about these things is slowly killing me from the inside. I can‘t get these things out of my head and I‘ve already told her about my past and how important the truth is for me because of that. She still decided to lie to me when I confronted her about the ons with the musician. I can‘t get over it because I know I‘m still getting lied to concerning this particular topic and my brain tries to figure out what the truth is all the time. I made the experiences that if my gf talks openly about a past story the puzzle in my head gets completed and I can stop thinking about it. I already started to search for a therapist (I will DEFINITELY start therapy again) but I feel like I need to confront her one more time to find peace and get her to lay down the lies and start being honest about her past.
She had an abusive ex, too. It is a very sensitive topic for her to search the phone because her ex did it all the time. He controlled who she is allowed to speak to and locked her up in the flat to make sure she can‘t have any interactions with another male. This is why I am afraid to confront her because I don‘t want to trigger her but we both fucked up (me looking through her phone / she constant lies about her past).
What should I do? Should I confront her? I tried to eat it up but 8 months have passed and it didn‘t get better, I feel like I need closure.

I (M42) and my spouse (F40)
I just had the shock of my life, and possibly the most dramatic upheaval imaginable. I'm scared, concerned and i wonder if anyone else has a similar experience. This is concerning my soon to be ex-wife. Not an easy read or even to type, but strap yourselves in. We were married for 13 years, had known each other for 23. She was a child that grew up in a war in her home country, and was effected by it more than she let on. During the last 4 years of our relationship, she started developing incredible anxiety and depression. She would become like an exposed nerve, and every perceived slight became something she would ruminate on for days at a time. We had some events in our marriage that were incredibly stressful. Our son was born prematurely, our daughter when she was born was also traumatic. She was always highly strung when i knew her. i was very much the calming influence to her and it was a role that developed in our dynamic. i would be her rock and safe place. Things started to change, and dramatically so. I travel with work and she would look after the kids. i would be home large parts of the year, but i would have to go away sometimes for 4 weeks at a time. When covid hit, we were both home for a better part of 18 months, and i started to notice things that concerned me. She began to become incredibly paranoid about neighbours. She was certain they were spyi ng on us somehow (even though they were 80, and not at all interested in us). This spiraled from the neighbours commenting on the length of our grass. It effected her, and she became fixated. Any new neighbours she instantly distrusted, and she believed they all spoke badly of her.none of it was true, but in her state of hypervigilance, she was misinterpreting signs. A strange look, or half glance was enough to make her feel unsafe and scared. This slowly devolved into her being fearful of being spied on in the shower, people who walked dogs the same time each morning past our house were doing it to spy on us, etc. I could see it was draining her, and making her very ill with stress so we discussed maybe going to therapy, which she did. During the years we were together, she had been on various anti-depressants to cope with depression. I always chalked it down to post natal depression and the stress being a mother brought to her, especially when i went away. She attended therapy, but would stop when it became uncomfortable. She then opened up to me one day regarding it. It turns out that she was molested as a child by a family friend, and had buried it. that coupled with seeing her childhood friend die from an explosion (which i knew about) had effected her more than we knew. The therapy seemed to make it worse, and since that point things took a massive nose dive. She was an incredibly bubbly, happy and cheerful person to everyone. or so i thought. She would sometimes drop the mask at home, and i could see the turmoil developing. I hate to admit it, but i was blind to it for many years. she had masked it from the very beginning. Her paranoia got worse and worse. she came off of her antidepressants and started using weed vape pens to be able to cope with the incredible anxiety. I watched her drift apart from me over the last two years, her kindness towards me vanishing and almost a resentment towards me. She would complain about the new house we had bought and that she hated it because of the neighbours. We discussed moving, but she realised in her more lucid times that the issue would follow her whereever she went. The last year together she would speak about moving to another country. I said i would, but after my parents, who are old, passed. i didn't want them to not see our children in their final years. We had grown apart, she had this strange push-pull dynamic with me. One day she'd love me and be this caring person, the next cold and distant. I tried incredibly hard to pull us back together whilst dealing with her delusions of paranoia that were still ongoing, but the more i tried (and at some points i was quite combative and forceful) to get her to communicate, the more she pulled away. There was hardly any intimacy, which i yearned for and would comment on. She would initiate it sometimes, but for me, i'm ashamed to say, i complained about it a lot. She would have sex with me on occasion, and then if we argued later say "i didn't really want sex, it was like rape". This hurt me to my core, and made me bitter about how we were. The arguments became worse and worse. She started resenting me for trapping her. That was her reality. i had trapped her in the relationship. It wasn't true, but she was upset i travelled with work and could escape when she couldn't. It was never escape for me, i travelled because i had to. Her and the kids were all i wanted to be with. Travel to me was a chore.
Slowly she withdrew more. The more i tried to help and talk, the more she withdrew. All the time she was still paranoid, and now believed the neighbours were spying on her with cameras in the garden. the "cameras" were garden lights.
After three years of constant paranoia and her anxiety, it was starting to effect me. We couldn't go out in the area as she hated the neighbours. Yet to their faces she was bubbly and happy, smiley and almost overly kind. Yet when we were alone, the mask would slip and all her thoughts about them would spill out. Our social life started to be affected,
Anything i said was misunderstood or taken in such a way that i was insulting her. If i said she was silly for thinking in a certain way, i was calling her stupid. Anytime i tried to logic something out with her regarding the neighbours (for example she believed they were watching her shower) it was dismissed. I actually showered and told her to ask if she could see me from the garden. She was confused when she saw she couldn't.
The delusions became worse, and she became more and more paranoid. The textured glass in the bathroom was the wrong way around in her eyes, so people could see in. The motion activated light at the bottom of the garden was a camera, for sure. things like this.She withdrew more and more. I had to go away on a work trip, and the day before i left she asked for a divorce. I was hurt, but said "we can talk about it when i get home" when i arrived at the destination i was working across the world, i messaged her. No response. I tried multiple times until eventually i got a text "The kids will be taken away from me, and i will be sent back to my home country" I rang my father who lived very close to us to find out what was happening.
She had asked him to take her to the police station. She said to report the neighbours for spying, which she did try to do. they obviously didn't listen. She was taken to hospital by my father as she was having a mental breakdown and behaving strangely. I told my boss i had to fly home as something was happening. he booked me the earliest flight and i flew back. I was arrested from the plane. She had accused me of Rape, Control and coercion and ABH. Things i would never do. I was arrested, questioned and told not to go back to my home or to contact her. In one day i lost everything. I was in shock and was an emotional wreck. Worst of all i was concerned and scared for my wife and kids. She blamed me for her emotional state. said i had caused everything and had abused her constantly for years. After a week of staying at my friends house, social services got involved as the kids were missing school. It turns out she was taking the kids to hotels because she was terrified of staying at home. The kids told me later that "mummy thinks men are after her" instead of telling any authorities this, she said it was because she was scared of me. Social services believed everything she said. I was under investigation for the allegations, although not charged. The investigations were ongoing for three months, and in that time i wasn't allowed to contact her at all. Unfortunately in my fear i contacted her repeatedly. She had me arrested for harassment, and i was charged and convicted. I wasn't ever abusive in the texts, but i did contact her a lot.
I secured access to my children through a rushed family court order. I also placed a block on her leaving the country without seeking my permission with the children, as she had taken my passport details to apply for the kids passports without my knowledge. I did this due to her erratic behaviour and i knew she wasn't stable. My father thought i'd over-reacted, but my ex was so good at masking she hid how she really felt even to him. Oscar level masking.
Looking back i realise how bad it was. She ran from her home country at 18 and always ran. she always wanted to move jobs if something went wrong. She would cut off long term friends in an instant if she felt any pressure form them. Her first instinct would always be to flee anything. Any littlle insignificant thing or slight would become something she'd chew over for weeks, often applying the worst case scenario that would then become her reality. The truth was she was constantly afraid. I think at the end i became something she was afraid of too. My determination to keep us together and keep her from falling apart became too much for her. I wasn't always kind and was exasperated a lot. I was too demanding on someone that was exhausted, anxious and clearly unwell. Unfortunately i didn't realise this until too late. I still see the children, but have zero contact with her. She filed a restraining order due to the harassment conviction which i will adhere to. I'm currently going through family court again to secure further rights. She applied for full custody and has said some very terrible untruthful things at court to almost destroy me and remove me from her life. I'm a broken man because of it all, but staying strong for the kids.
I hope there will be some sort of resolution in the future, but i realise that she's scared of me now as she is scared of everything. She told me near the end that she trusts nobody. This broke my heart. The court on the last visit realised that something wasn't right. they have ordered a investigation into our family, and it will hopefully be reported in June when we go back to court. Her medical documents have been re-visited and statements taken. My father witnessed some very strange behaviour and has reported it. We just have to see what happens. She has requested to sell the property we lived in, and i'm slowly watching the life we built implode. She also has asked for the order that stipulates the need for permission to leave the country lifted. June will be the crunch time.