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Chapter 166 – The undisputed masters of hyperspace James felt every hair in his body stand up as the Sun jerked slightly under his feet. Meanwhile, the previous 'U.F.O.' alert had been replaced by a full on 'hostile ships' alert.
What the hell was going on out there?
A few moment later, the door to the safe-room opened, a large group of people waiting on the other side. It seemed that the active alert really had kicked the securing of all non-essential personnel into high-gear.
James stood back and watched quietly as people flooded in, taking passive notice of the people themselves. Medical personnel and people from med-enge took up a large portion of them, and they all walked in a practiced and orderly fashion. Drills for this sort of situation were not an uncommon thing on board of a military ship like this, so even though this was under much more serious conditions, the endless repetition of what to do in such a situation kept people calm and 'in their roles' so to speak. After the first large group of people had passed the doors and moved to the far-side of the room, there was a second group still waiting outside, which now began the process of gradually pushing medical beds into the promised safety.
Luckily, the Sun's intensive care units weren't exactly filled to the brim at the time, meaning there were just three patients currently sick enough that they required their beds and some machinery to be brought along with them in this part of the ship.
James' very own former surgeon Dr. Schram was next to one of them, currently monitoring a dark-haired patient who, by the look of things, appeared to be recovering from the recent attaching of a prosthetic hand.
Another one appeared to be a nervous looking young mother, whose hair was sticky with sweat that also covered her entire face as she did her best to hide any nervousness while holding a tightly bundled-up newborn against her chest, gently bouncing it with on arm while tightly clutching the hand of an out-of-uniform soldier who James recognized from a few very brief meetings with the other.
And of course, the third one...
James rushed up to the bed, positioning himself next to Tuya who was currently helping the medical personnel push Nia into the room while a female doctor with long blonde but already graying hair seemingly monitored her patient with the medical devices that were still attached to James' unconscious sister.
“Is everything alright?” he asked nervously, doing his best to stay out of the way even though he really wanted to get right next to her.
“Your sister is stable, Lt. Aldwin,” the Doctor confirmed for him without delay. “Luckily, she started breathing on her own again a few hours ago, so the ventilator is simply a precaution now. If she continues to take to the treatment as she did, she should wake up in the near future.”
James released a shaky breath that was nonetheless filled with relief at the fact that Nia appeared to be in no mortal danger from needing to be moved.
Tuya gave James a brief, encouraging smile before pushing the bed onward together with some nurses, quickly making sure that their patients wouldn't take up too much of the safe-room's space.
Forming the anchor behind the hard-to-move beds, a last group comprised of soldiers finally entered the room as well. They were mostly ground-troops who, much like James, wouldn't be of much direct use in a confrontation between ships, meaning that they were instead stationed within the safe-rooms in order to guard those inside in case they would need protection for any reason after the worst possibly occurred.
However, in this case, a few not-quite-fit for duty figures were among them as well, some of them dragging themselves into the room with as much of a problem standing up with their own strength as James had.
Koko especially seemed to be entirely out of it and had to fully rely on Andrej to hold her upright as James' entire team was feeling the aftereffects of the previous night.
Well...almost James' entire team.
“Whe...” he said as he walked up to them, glancing over the group a couple of times to make sure he didn't miss anyone as a queasy feeling rose up in his stomach. “Where is Shida?”
Among all of the many, many humans that had entered the room together to find relative safety, there wasn't a myiat in sight.
“Where-?” James tried to ask again before the gaze of Athena suddenly hit him, her icy blue eyes boring into his.
“Went to the hangar,” she said, and although she was definitely feeling the effects of the alcohol, the Captain's voice had a severity to it that James only knew from their past missions together. “She's got a job to do.”
In all honesty, she might as well have shot right through him with one of her rifles, as James stood there turning paler and paler as all blood rushed right out of his face.
They traveled around together so much and were usually so close to each other that it was quite easy to forget but...Shida wasn't like him. She wasn't some planet-side grunt; she was Lieutenant-Commander. Unlike him, she knew damn well how to fly a ship, and she was more than capable of holding her own in a space battle. Well, at least James had to assume so. It wasn't like he had ever seen her truly in action.
And, unlike the rest of the team, she couldn't have alcohol either, meaning as the only one of them, she was stone sober when the alarm blared.
His eyes twitched over to Koko for a moment. Usually, she'd be out there with her. Not only that, but as Commander, she would coordinate a large number of the ships out there. But now, she could barely stand. She could barely stand because she and James had decided to 'make the evening count'. And make it count they did. And now...she was completely down for the count.
“Whoa there!” one of the uniformed soldiers announced as James suddenly felt two strong arms reaching under his armpits, catching him and holding him in place. He hadn't even noticed himself tipping over. His legs had just lost their strength all of a sudden.
“This...can't be-” he mumbled but couldn't even get the whole sentence out as the world suddenly began spinning around him again. So far, the adrenaline as well as other chemicals both natural and not had done quite well at warding off the effects of his intoxication and had kept him going for a bit.
But now, all at once, he suddenly only felt how his stomach churned.
–
“Destruction of eleven enemy ships confirmed,” a middle-aged zodiatos trumpeted in jubilation, thrusting her trunk up into a y-shape as she lifted her head up so quickly that she almost reared up onto her hind legs for a moment. “The system's of one more are heavily damaged, leaving it incapacitated.”
Nahfmir-Durrehefren closed his eyes for a moment. Unlike his inferior, he didn't cheer or even so much as smiled. With his eyes closed, he held his breath while slowly lifting his split trunk over his shoulder. Using its end that had half of it missing, he slowly glided along the scar on the right side of his body, following the ridge of bumpy, calloused skin all the way from his brow down to his back, until he could reach no further. Even after many years of having it, the sensation of injured flesh rubbing against injured flesh never felt quite right, and yet the feeling somehow grounded him. Kept him in the moment. Gave him a feeling of purpose.
“The human ship?” he then finally asked, using the sentence to release the breath that he had been holding in a slow and controlled manner. They must have been prepared for an attack. Their hyperspace generators had been ready for a jump. They likely prepared it long before the shots were fired.
“Made a very short jump,” the answer to his question came not even a second later from another one of his officers. “Reemerged immediately around a light-second away.”
A light-second jump? Maybe they weren't as prepared as he thought. They must've barely gotten the generators fired up enough for travel.
“Immediately fire more Orderguards in their direction,” he ordered. “We cannot allow them a clean shot with their weaponry.”
“Yes, Sir,” his gunner replied with eagerness. The young bull was a good bit smaller than Nahfmir-Durrehefren and nowhere near as well-built, however he certainly didn't lack in motivation as he used his terminal to fire at the newly re-positioned enemy. He had already given his other ships the order to fire in the direction of the other two human combatants, even as they remained too far away to actually be threatened by the Orderguards. A direct hit from one of their FTL-weapons would spell an almost certain end for one of his ships, so he had to make sure to keep obstacles between them at all times.
“Once those rounds are out, remove the remaining coluyvoree,” Nahfmir-Durrehefren then added onto his orders. His fellow coreworlders were by far the lower threat and could be taken out with conventional weaponry as long as the Orderguards provided cover for his own ships.
Hopefully, they would realize they were outmatched and would use this brief grace-period that he granted them to mount their escape. Killing them was a shame, truly, but he had his orders. And he would fulfill them to his last breath if he had to.
“Be smart and fall back,” he thought to himself as he looked at the pristine white ships that hadn't been turned into scrap yet. With eleven ships destroyed and one out of commission, the coluyvoree may have technically still outnumbered his own little attack fleet, but still, they had to realize they stood no chance. There was no need for them to die a senseless death here.
Although of course, they didn't know that. Surely their hearts burned with the same sense of duty as his did, as they simply had to assume that their home was under attack, and that they were the only ones who could yet defend it.
How much he wished that he could've told them otherwise.
Nahfmir-Durrehefren lowered his gaze slightly as his ears began to flap. As always, the slit splitting his right-ear in two caused some mild, pulling pain whenever it moved a bit too fast, but he was so used to it that he barely noticed. Still, it reminded him of how he had gotten it.
“Just like old times, old friend,” he quietly mumbled to himself, thinking of the good lives that would be tragically and senselessly lost.
“Travel-sized hyperspace-stretches detected!” one of his officers yelled out, pulling him out of his melancholic yet nostalgia filled thoughts.
“They are jumping again?” he wondered, looking up to the screen. Were they already dodging? Probably. They had seen how destructive these weapons could be. However, stretches -plural- implied the other ships were moving as well. They were too far away to be afraid of the incoming fire. Maybe a strategic repositioning?
“Keep up the fire on the Flagship's new position,” he ordered first to make sure his gunner wouldn't forget to keep their cover up. Then he turned his attention to the currently more strategically important targets. “Where have the cruisers moved? Are they closer?”
As he asked, his eyes already moved over to the screen before him to confirm their position for himself. However, as they fell upon it, they found that the readings they saw there were quite...confounding.
“Negative, Sir, none of the ships have moved from their position!” his officer shouted, all the while his eyes were treated to the sight of the indicators for large hyperspace-stretches rising and falling on his screen, jumping up and down like a frequency or...like a heartbeat. The activity was so large and constant that it was hard for the sensors to even pin down how many stretches were being generated and where they emerged. Space was stretched and pulled constantly like a deflated balloon in the hands of a toddler, not truly allowed to fully settle for even a moment as stretch after stretch tugged at its integrity.
Feeling his eyes widen, he exhaled slowly, and once again ran his permanently injured trunk over his scar.
“All ships! Fire a protective volley immediately!” he then ordered. He didn't know what was going on, but he wasn't going to take any chances with it. They were going to completely protect themselves while they figured it out. There was no way he was going to let himself be blindsided while he thought.
All gunner complied immediately, and soon enough the ship vibrated ever so slightly as it shot out the massive projectile that, along with its brethren, soon formed the protective bubble of destructive energy around his forces.
“Visuals?” he then asked, causing the officer to switch her attention to a different window on her terminal.
“Should be reaching us any second, Sir,” she then finally replied. “I'm putting it through to you.”
Nahfmir-Durrehefren nodded and lifted his gaze. Viewed on a screen through the feed of a camera, void-sickness was luckily a much smaller problem, especially for someone as experienced as he was, as he looked upon the video-broadcast of the black, human ship hovering in space.
To say that he 'saw' the ship would've been an overstatement. It was so dark that any direct features were nigh impossible to make out. The only reason it was somewhat visible at all was that it blocked enough light to become perceivable as a dark shadow pushing itself through space.
Soon enough, the hazy energy around the Orderguards was already taking away his vision again as it built up, but not before he saw what had happened that had caused his sensors to become so overloaded with input.
Bright sparks came from the human ship, lighting up its dark shape against the empty space, briefly making its form appear in its full glory before turning dark again. First there was one, but it was almost immediately followed by another. Then another. Then two more. Five more. Ten more.
More and more sparks of light poured out of the ship up like shooting stars, lighting up the void for fractions of seconds at a time in a colorful spectacle that Nahfmir-Durrehefren could only truly compare to fireworks rapid-firing out of a pyrotechnics machine.
However, in reality, they could only be one thing...
“They're sending out fighters!” he announced loudly. It was unlikely that none of his officers had made the connection themselves yet, but it was important that he got everyone onto the same wavelength quickly. “Prepare ships for interception!”
They didn't have long. Luckily the Orderguards were protecting them, otherwise it may have already been too late.
“Shooting out their fighters through hyperspace...” he mumbled to himself once things were set into motion for his own ships to engage the incoming crafts, figuring that the flagship must've rapid-fire generated the small stretches for the fighters to inject into so they wouldn't be vulnerable as they emerged from their hangars and also so they would reach their targets of attack much, much faster. “Almost stupidly daring, but clever...very clever.”
However, thanks to some quick thinking, it would ultimately be pointless. Their targets were protected from them right now. And once the protective bubble fell, they would have to deal with his own fighters. And that was a fight that even the humans weren't going to win, even if the numbers were on their side.
It was still peculiar to see these new models of fighters as they emerged from his ship and into the view of his cameras. They were comparatively small and round, and in each direction an extremely long 'spike' stuck out of their hull, much longer than the ships themselves were. It really was a good thing that one didn't have to worry about aerodynamics in space, otherwise the design would've looked even more utterly foolish than it already appeared.
However, there was method to the madness, as their foes on the battlefield would soon find.
The fighters flew in a widespread formation, leaving a lot of room between each of them as they positioned themselves along the corners of the generated grid of cubes that space had been divided into by their computers. And once they had reached their place in the formation, the long 'spikes' began to show their purpose as their ends 'activated' and erupted in the Orderguards' hazy energy, forming a protective network of spheres around them just like the one that had just temporarily protected their mother ships – just on a much smaller and more manageable scale. The ship itself was then situated in a small, empty space in the middle between the spheres.
The spikes were made of a durable and very conductive alloy, specifically designed to withstand the extreme energy output on a small scale as the emerging spheres protected the ships, leaving them nigh-invulnerable to enemy fighters' attacks.
The humans may have been valiant warriors, but this was not a conflict they were going to win. “Keep pushing the fighters with more shots,” he ordered, knowing it would be bad if he gave the small fighter craft swarming around his ships the chance to freely use their numbers to their advantage too much. Luckily, the Orderguards' wide sphere of effectiveness was quite efficient when it came to pressuring small craft specifically, as they would have to divert whatever they were doing to get out of the way of the massive projectiles. If they were caught lacking, there was a good chance a whole group of them would even get inevitable caught in the path of one.
“Yes, Sir,” his gunner replied, the enthusiasm in his voice not wavering one bit. It seemed that he was eager to shoot a couple of the primates out of the sky.
The protective bubble of their fired projectiles now gradually dispersed as they flew too far apart for their spheres to still interlock with each other – leaving the stage open for the fighters to engage with each other.
Despite their reduced size, one of the zodiatos ships was easily thrice the size of a human vessel, even when not counting the enormous shield that surrounded them. This made the human ships a good bit faster and more maneuverable, however his own fighters had the advantage that they could comfortably pursue human ships in close combat as any contact with their shields would be utterly devastating for such small vessels and the chance of retaliation against the shield was absolutely minimal.
And then there was of course the supporting Orderguard fire from the larger ships – something that the humans had to worry about a lot more than the zodiatos with their own shields.
Soon enough, the barely visible human fighters pushed into the gaps between the drifting-apart spheres like shadows creeping under a door – however Nahfmir-Durrehefren's own loyal pilots were already awaiting them there.
In the corner of his eye, he also saw his ever-motivated gunner get a glint in his eyes as he realized just how splendid of a funnel the Orderguards had formed for the human ships, leaving many of them to fly in what may as well have been in single file, with a lot of momentum carrying them right in the direction of his cannons.
A dream shot for an artilleryman if Nahfmir-Durrehefren had ever seen one. And the young man was clearly not going to miss it.
As the ship shook ever so slightly as the youngster took the shot, Nahfmir-Durrehefren looked upon the visual broadcast of the engagement. Just how would the humans react to such a foe like they had never faced before? At the very least, he could respect that they were facing it head-on.
Some simple fire was exchanged as soon as the combatants 'laid eyes on' each other, and the result was expectedly one-sided. The human ships were forced to swivel and swerve in evasive maneuvers to avoid the shots while their own projectiles and explosives simply fizzled against the zodiatos' shields.
In his head, Nahfmir-Durrehefren remembered a very old saying that he had once been told while visiting a museum that told of combat.
“When given the choice between the axe and the shield, the wise warrior will always choose the shield.”
For a very long time in their modern world of spacial warfare, that choice had never existed, so everyone had run around looking to find the biggest and sharpest axe to beat the others out with it. But now the rules had changed.
And once again, the wise warriors had gone for the shield.
After their pilots had received the message of the incoming fire-support as well as its travel path along the grid, their formation burst apart and reformed in an even wider arch that ultimately resembled a slowly closing maw around the human fighters.
With the Orderguard on its way, the pilots began herding as many of their deathworld opponents into its path as possible while blocking their possible routes of escape with weapons' fire as well as their very own shields, forming a very hard to escape funnel-net to catch these flies in.
Meanwhile, many of their possible ways to back out were still blocked by the previous volley of Orderguards that gradually drifted out into space.
All his ships had to do now was to keep up their formation and fire at any humans trying to escape the trap and making themselves an easy target. The rest would be handled by the heavy weaponry. “Remember to keep a barrier between us and the larger ships,” he once again reminded his soldiers, still not eager to be on the receiving end of one of their shots.
Though still, his attention was mostly drawn to the human fighters. He was still curious how they would try to deal with this kind of opponent. After all, there would be a lot to learn from their reaction to facing an unknown force, even if their chances at victory were slim.
They must have realized by now that they were drawn into a trap. He was sure of it. They didn't seem like the kind to not notice it. But knowing one had walked into a trap only mattered if one knew how to escape it. Would they make a break for it? Maybe try to sacrifice some while letting a larger part escape?
“Show me your trunk, humans...” he mumbled silently as he observed.
And the humans indeed turned from their current course. Though, to his surprise, they didn't actually fly a curve at all. Instead, they seemed to shut off most of their engines for a moment, only using some front thrusters to turn themselves away from their current direction while still being carried onward by their own momentum.
Like that, they drifted along for a moment, turning in their motion to face their opposing fighters head on.
“A last stand?” Nahfmir-Durrehefren wondered quietly to himself, seeing just how much of their speed the human ships had sacrificed in that slow turn. Even if they still had some momentum, it would be a very close call for them to speed up enough to avoid the incoming Orderguard that they had to know was coming by now. And that wasn't even mentioning how open they were leaving themselves to fire from the zodiatos fighters with speed this low. Might they be throwing everything they had at their opponents in a last blaze of glory, consequences be damned?
Though, with an interested tilt of his head and a slight lift of his trunk, Nahfmir-Durrehefren realized after a brief moment that the humans' drifting wasn't quite as uncontrolled as he had figured, because once they had reached the angle that they seemingly desired and stopped their turning momentum, he noticed that the human fighter vessels were now drifting in rows of three, always two ships lining up behind one leading one closest to the outside barricade of his forces, and each ship in one row was just ever so slightly offset from the ones in front of it so that they didn't quite form a perfect line. Clearly there was method to it.
By now, the newly fired Orderguard heading right down the funnel was growing to a size that threatened this newly formed human formation, also slowly blocking the sight of it from Nahfmir-Durrehefren. By now, it was probably too late for them to get out of the way after they did whatever they were planning there. A blaze of glory it was...
In the corner of his eyes, there was a bit of movement catching his attention all of a sudden. On one of his other screens, the sensors were once again going wild.
“Hyperspace detected!” his officer yelled out as her head snapped up, her posture stiffening severely as he watched the same thing unfold as Nahfmir-Durrehefren himself witnessed. The detected signatures were incredibly different from the ones that typical, stable hyperspace meant for travel exuded.
They knew the humans possessed this technology, of course. Now, it was time to see how their axe would stack up against his shield.
“Have at thee...” he mumbled as the apes took their last stand.
His direct sight of the small ships was already taken away by the expanding sphere of energy heading towards their destruction at this point. However, he didn't need to see them to know what was happening right there.
Especially not as the rainbow-colored flashes shot out from their obscured position, just before the deadly sphere would make contact with the first of the fighters.
Oh, how he wondered if the shots were going to penetrate. So much so that he dared not look away, even as the bright flashing lights burned themselves into his eyes in a brief vision of infinity.
Of course, everything happened so incredibly, unthinkably fast that what truly occurred was only comprehensible after the fact, as everything moved faster than a thought could even be formed; as even a single firing of a synapse occurred almost indefinably slow in comparison to the action itself. Faster than thought. Faster than light. Faster than even the universe itself could react.
He saw the large explosion as enormous quantities of energy erupted outwards from the impact as shots indeed connected with the shields, but...something was wrong. His subconscious knew it long before any reasoned thought could be formed as the picture was burned into his eyes, but something. Was. Wrong.
There were more lines now. More lines than the ones that had shot outwards from the ships and the shots...the shots had come from the wrong direction.
He never got to satisfy his lust to know whether the shields could withstand a shot of those weapons, as far more than just one hammered into the backs of each individual ship, battering them down with an unloading of energy that was too much for pretty much anything to withstand on such a small scale. And as soon as the shields were burst apart, even more shots hammered the ships on the inside, obliterating them in fiery balls that were contained by the remaining, still-active shield generators for just a moment before those lost power as well and left the brightly glowing, super-heated remains to float in place as temporary miniature suns.
Nahfmir-Durrehefren's eyes shot around to the sensors. They had been flanked by a so far unseen regiment? Where did those ships come from? Another one of the surrounding 'funnels' must have been breached...
However, that wasn't the case. Because at all of the other opened corners and gaps of their dispersing temporary shields, it seemed like this exact phenomenon was occurring at the same time.
But if the other fronts were also only broken now, then where did those-
Suddenly, something zapped past his camera with a bright glow, leaving an afterglow in his eye. And then there was another. Then another. Then ten more. Soon enough, he had to avert his eyes as the screen stopped showing him the darkness of space with the occasional light. And it was instead filled with a brightly glowing web of lines. No...not lines. Stretches. Hyprspace-stretches – multiple dozens of them. All of them dispersing as soon as they appeared, only to be near immediately replaced by another one.
The entire void all around the zodiatos ship became light from the sparkling stretches, outshining even the system's nearby star. Meanwhile all of the sensors that could even remotely detect a stretch went absolutely haywire.
Was...was each of the fighters..?
One of the stretches then dispersed right in their view, leaving the black ship that emerged from it standing out in amazing contrast from the bright background with its near true-black color. The ship drifted there for less than the blink of an eye – only just long enough to fire off a single shot of its physics-defying weaponry – before it immediately disappeared in yet another flash of light.
A strong tremor suddenly shook the ship so heavily that the ground was momentarily pulled out from under Nahfmir-Durrehefren's feet. Reacting quickly, he managed to land back on all fours again, even if the sudden unwanted jump caused some jolting pain in his ankles as he landed. Some of his officers weren't so lucky and toppled over where they stood, grunting out in pain as their massive bodies hit the ground.
Grimacing against the pain and wrapping his trunk firmly around a nearby railing to anchor himself, Nahfmir-Durrehefren didn't need the ship's blaring alarms to tell him that they had suffered a hit. A brief glimpse at the diagnostics on his screen told him that their engines had been struck. The shot must've come from right behind them – from the inside of their ships' formation. They had...just flown past them...right through their formation...
The scene replayed before his inner eye. A hyperspace jump that was nowhere near far enough to justify using such an engine. A brief emergence to fire a shot. And then an immediate retreat back into hyperspace. Repeated, all around him, who knew how many times each second...
They could generated it that fast...and not for a moment did they appear so much as disoriented...
He was out of it for a moment, just staring wide-eyed. But then, he let go of the railing again, as his trunk found its way to his scare once more, grounding him. He let out a long exhale.
“Well, old friend,” he said to himself as he felt scar tissue rub along scar tissue, once again thinking back to the day that he had received this injury. “Guess things are going as planned after all...”
–
“12-12, A-D,” a message reached Shida's ear, causing it to slightly twitch as the voice talked right into it through the strapped-on headphones that wrapped around her head.
“I'm aware, thanks D-F,” she replied through the comm herself, having already noticed the ship as soon as she had emerged back in normal space.
The thing was huge and almost entirely obscured by whatever that weird, opaque stuff was that these things generated. As it noticed that she had emerged so closely to it, it seemed to see its best chance at getting her by accelerating to ramming-speed.
Shida pulled at her steering a bit, but it was no use. With that mass of undefined energy barreling towards her, she wouldn't have enough time to turn for a shot. Better cut her losses.
Pulling the break for a moment, she activated one of her forwards thrusters as she adjusted to the stated and predicted routes of her surrounding allies on the grid so she wouldn't accidentally intercept with any of them as she jumped away.
This caused her to drift sideways for a moment, which in turn caused the charging wall of energy to gain on her as she slowed down, while also allowing her a better view of it through her front window.
She turned her head to the side a bit and adjusted the goggles over her eyes slightly as the ball of hazy death headed right for her broadside, becoming exponentially larger to her eyes by the second. She delayed her jump a smidge just to look at it a moment longer. It was almost beautiful in a strange way. So strange, so...alien.
However, before she could get into serious trouble in case the pilot of that thing decided to actually pull the trigger instead of just rushing her, she hit the engines and jumped out of there.
It was like blinking. For half a heartbeat, everything outside of her windows went entirely black. Then, she was already in another place, still drifting sideways the same way she had done before the jump. Only now, the nose of her ship was pointed right at a target that way.
As she pulled the trigger, her brightly glittering shot flew right past one of those burning orbs that the enemy fighters were turning into whenever their destruction was contained by their own shields.
But unlike a real star, these miniature versions were by far not enough to make her shot curve and pull away from its target, meaning that it crashed right into the fighters' shield.
Those things were impressive. A direct hit with a relativity canon, and yet the fighter was still going. Those shields were tough as boars. Though...it seemed they could only pull that trick off one time before they hard to regenerate, as the rear shield burst apart with the hit of her weapon, dispersing the energy of the impact all around, leaving the ship wide open for another shot from this angle.
Still, if these things could tank a relativity shot, even if it was just a small one from an unkindness-class, there couldn't be much else that could get through those shields. Just what was that strange haze...?
“A-D-” another comm sounded into her ear, however she was already in the process of hitting the engines.
“I got it,” she said as she jumped again, quickly flashing out of the way of an incoming rocket.
As she reappeared in normal space, she could the explosion of the thing go off far in the distance within the corner of her vision, not even seconds away from actually hitting her ship had she not moved.
Say what you will, but these bastards were persistent...

A poem of lament, in Bak Wayab "language of the cities". (Adapted from Baruch 3:16-19)
Pronunciation is mostly as IPA, except for sh /ʃ/, ch /tʃ/, y /j/, tl /tɬ/, ' /ʔ/, and macrons mark long vowels.
From my 1700s American-inspired fantasy setting Signs in the Wilderness.
Lāsh nakāl ūtsalaw ki baktūyū, tapi machānkuts wāylukā? Lāsh nakāl ta’ay watawankāl kāwabkāl nūnshu ki aykīsh Wa’antlukāl uminchab chāsh ta’ash panchaw talāl; Bawakāl ayla kilkash itapāts tlatlubuts irkiw mabatluwāl. Apatlāw ush nimānmāl umash kitāy il nakābanmāl apāsh.
"Where are the princes and city-kings, lords of all the earth? Where are those who hunted birds and hoarded silver and gold? They hungered for limitless wealth in which men put their trust; They fretted over many schemes but their works leave no trace. They have all gone down to the grave and others have arisen in their stead."

1

Lāsh nakāl ūtsalaw ki baktūyū, tapi machānkuts wāylukā?
"Where are the princes and city-kings, lords of all the earth?"

lā-sh n-ak-āl ūtsal-w ki bak-tūyu-w where-acc loc-stand-3pl prince-exp and city-king-exp 

The verb ak "stand" doesn't normally take an object, but with the applicative prefix n- its object is a location.
The subject is in the experiencer case here, indicating that they're not really doing something on purpose, but that they just happen to be somewhere.

tapi machānku-ts wāyluk-ā all earth-gen lord-3.ess 

Nouns don't have to be marked for number, so wāyluk could be either "lord" or "lords". Here it takes the essive suffix -ā, making it "they who are lords".

2

Lāsh nakāl ta’ay watawankāl kāwabkāl nūnshu ki aykīsh
"Where are those who hunted birds and hoarded silver and gold?"

lā-sh n-ak-āl ta’a-ā-i w-tawan-k-āl where-acc loc-stand-3pl rel-3.ess-agent apass-hunt-past.rem.disco-3pl 

Relative clauses are introduced with the relative pronoun ta'a. Here it's in the agentive case, showing that they are the active subject of the verb in the relative clause.
Tawan "hunt" normally takes an object (specifically a flying thing) but the prefix w- gets rid of the object, making it intransitive. They're not hunting for any specific birds, just generally going about hunting.
The past tense suffix -k is remote (long ago) and discontiguous, meaning that the effects of this action no longer persist in the present day. The birds were once hunted; they are hunted no longer.

k-āwab-k-āl nūn-sh ki aykī-sh and-hoard-past.rem.disco-3pl silver-acc and gold-acc 

The clitic k- attaches to the first word of this next clause, meaning "and". This is used for joining clauses ("they sang and ate") not noun phrases ("I eat chicken and fish").

3

Wa’antlukāl uminchab chāsh ta’ash panchaw talāl;
"They hungered for limitless wealth in which men put their trust;"

wa’an-tlu-k-āl um-inchab chā-sh want-aug-past.rem.disco-3pl without-limit wealth-acc 

Wa'an "want" is made augmentative by -tlu, meaning they wanted very much. This particular verb is only used when the object wanted is something of the useful class, like chā "wealth".

ta’a-sh pancha-w tal-āl rel-acc human-exp rely.on-3pl 

Again, the experiencer case is used to show that the people aren't deliberately relying on wealth, but that they find themselves relying on it without choosing to do so.

4

Bawakāl ayla kilkash itapāts tlatlubuts irkiw mabatluwāl.
"They fretted over many schemes but their works leave no trace."

bawa-k-āl ayla kilka-sh worry.about-past.rem.disco-3pl plural scheme-acc 

While nouns don't have to be marked for number, kilka "scheme" takes the adjective ayla here, showing that the schemes are plural or many in number.

it-ap-ā-ts tlatlu-b-ts irki-w m-aba-tlu-āl but-one-3.ess-gen toil-obj-gen trace-exp neg-remain-aug-3pl 

It- "but" is a clitic like k- "and", joining clauses together.
With the essive suffix ap "one" becomes "they who are these ones". Their toil's traces are the subject of the clause.
When a negative and an augmentative are used together it means "not at all" or "not even a little bit".

5

Apatlāw ush nimānmāl umash kitāy il nakābanmāl apāsh.
"They have all gone down to the grave and others have arisen in their stead."

ap-atl-ā-w ush n-imā-nm-āl uma-sh one-each-3.ess-exp down loc-go-past.rem.contig-3pl grave-acc 

Here imā "go" has a contiguous past suffix, meaning that the effects still remain to this day. They went down to the grave and there they remain.

k-itā-i il n-kāb-nm-āl ap-ā-sh and-other-agent up loc-come-past.rem.contig-3pl one-3.ess-acc 

Again the locative applicative n- is used, meaning that the object of kāb "come" is their location. The others rise up in their location, they arise in their stead.

Hoping for an outside perspective since we don’t have many people to talk to about this.
We discovered we were plural about a year and a half ago, and had a rush of memories and some overt, possessive switching experiences. We met several alters who had clear names and identities.
Since then, the “host” has felt that they are actually singular and were just mistaken about what happened. Switching went from more conscious to ……. just confusing tbh. We used to know that we felt different some days compared to others, but lately we just feel like “I’ve always been this way” and can’t compare it to the past, if that makes sense.
A lot of us are pretty healthy and feel confident in life. But we need help with names. Although none of us dislike our legal name that much, no one has used it for years and it’s annoying to have to deal with that. The problem is, since communication is down and the “host” thinks they are a singlet, we can’t decide on a name.
We change the body name every couple weeks to every few years, and friends have all been supportive and understanding even before we knew we were a system, but I think it’s time to settle on just one or two for professional and general life reasons.
Any advice or your own stories would be greatly appreciated.

My grandfather sat in his rocking chair, holding his body rigid like that of a corpse. His eyes looked like those of an old dog. His lips constantly chattered and his fingers trembled with the Parkinson’s that was eating him away like a cancer. We both knew he didn’t have long left. He looked at me with his strange, yellow eyes and gave a weak grin.
“Elias, I think I should tell you the story of my childhood,” my grandfather said, a single tear rolling down his cheek. “I will tell you of what happened to me when I was only 13-years-old, when I was sent to Auschwitz with my father by my side.” This is the story he told me, unbelievable as it is. Though my grandfather has been dead for years now, his story still stays with me to this day as an unbearable burden on my heart.
***
I still remember the moment we arrived at the camp like it was yesterday. We were exhausted and starving. We had been on the cold cattle cars for five days and five nights, and we were given no food or water that entire time. Many of the sick and old died on the way. We moved their corpses to the corner of the car and my father said Kaddish over their corpses. It was the first time I saw the light of life extinguished from the eyes of so many in so short a time, but it would be far from the last.
Finally, long after the night had come, the doors to our cattle cars slid open. Pale, starving creatures in striped black-and-white rags stood around SS soldiers in black, spotless uniforms. They grinned as the Death’s Head insignia and sharp lightning bolt runes gleamed bright silver.
The SS men all had vicious German shepherds who lunged at the frightened prisoners, gnashing and snapping at the air. I saw more than a few people get bit by the vicious dogs. They had deep bite wounds and chunks torn out of their flesh, and we all learned to avoid the dogs and the SS men as much as possible after that.
***
In the dark night, we were formed into lines. Old women held the hands of their small grandchildren, and sons tried to stay with their fathers. We moved forward. Up ahead, I saw a man in a black SS uniform whistling a tune from Wagner. I would later realize that this man was Dr. Mengele.
I tried to stay with my father, but the surging crowds pulled us apart. I didn’t know it at that moment, but I would never see my father again.
If I had known, would I have acted differently? Would I have told him how much I loved him? I’ll never know, but his ashes rose up into the air later that night, and I saw it from the freezing barracks in that place of shadows.
Someone behind me whispered in my ear, “Boy, how old are you?”
“Thirteen,” I said, turning to look at the strange figure, a starving man in a striped uniform. The man shook his head.
“No, you’re sixteen. When you get up there, remember that. You’re not thirteen, you’re sixteen,” the man insisted. He was part of the prison Kommando that helped the SS with translating the many languages that streamed into the camp and also helped them organize the prisoners for slave labor or death.
I would never see that starving man again, but I followed his advice. As I got up to Dr. Mengele, he stopped whistling for just a couple seconds. The black, cloudless sky hung heavy above us, the clouds of smoke rising up from the crematoria with the smell of burning hair and searing flesh.
Dr. Mengele gave me a fatherly smile, but in his eyes, there was something as cold as frozen steel, hiding just under the surface. I could see it, I could feel it in the air, I could almost smell it radiating off of his skin. It sent ice water racing through my veins.
“Hello, son,” he said in a warm voice as he gave a faint smile, though his eyes didn’t smile, and as I think back on it, neither did his mouth. “What’s your age?”
“Sixteen,” I said confidently, looking him straight in the eye.
“Any physical deformities? Any illness?” he asked, the faint half-smile like a statue of Buddha still plastered across his lips. I shook my head.
“No, sir,” I said. He nodded and pointed to the right. I didn’t know if this was a good thing or a bad thing. I saw, to my growing horror, that most of the prisoners were going to the left, including all the elderly, all the children, anyone with disabilities and anyone who looked too frail or emaciated. In all, about 90% of the line went to the left, and about 10% went to the right.
Those who went to the left wouldn’t live out the hour. They would be stripped naked, beaten and bludgeoned to force as many people into the gas chamber as possible, then the heavy metal door would be sealed. The Zyklon B pellets would be dropped into a vat of sulfuric acid, and the vents would turn on, whirring like hornets, breathing their deadly poison into the concrete tomb.
The screams in the chamber often went on for over twenty minutes. The corpses would be intertwined in pyramids, their arms and legs caught together like rats in a rat king. The cyanide gas prevented their lips and fingernails from turning blue, and made the corpses look pink, almost healthy- except for their frozen, terrified death masks and sightless eyes.
***
In 1944, while I was at Auschwitz-Birkenau, I was coming back late from a work detail in the nearby concrete factory with some other inmates. We passed through the freezing winds and whipping snow that bit like an icepick into our bodies. There were open-air pits that belched black smoke into the air constantly. What a world we lived in, where the graveyards rose into the sky and the blackness of space descended on those below. That was the night when my faith in God finally died forever.
As I would learn later, the SS had a recent shortage of Zyklon B, the cyanide pellets used to exterminate masses of human beings and turn them into ashes and fetid, reeking smoke. The advances of the Red Army had caused issues with delivering it. And a transport of children had just come into the camp.
The SS men and the Kapos loaded these children, most of whom were no older than seven or eight, onto the beds of two dump trucks, beating them with truncheons and kicking and punching them. When the crying, bloody children were finally all settled in on the back of the dump trucks, they had drivers back them up towards the inferno of burning bodies. I watched, horrified, as they slowly angled the beds downwards.
The children began sliding out with horrible, wretched screams. They fell into the pit of fire. I watched their hair burn, their skin blacken and sizzle, the drops of fat melt and drip off their shrieking lips. Some of them tried to crawl out, but the black-clad SS men went around with long sticks and pushed the half-dead, writhing children back into the scorching flames. My grandson, I tell you truthfully that this is what I saw with my own eyes, heard with my own ears, when I was only thirteen-years-old.
The screams of the burning children went on for fifteen or twenty minutes. It felt like, at that moment, we stood in the center of the universe. God had died, He had murdered eternity and left us alone in this endless pit of suffering and death. There was no justice, I knew, and if God was real at all, then He was either evil or insane. The faraway stars of cold white light seemed to turn and look down on us, all of us, the living and the dead alike. The wind whipped past us, screaming with the voices of the damned.
Sometimes, late at night, I think I still hear those children screaming as their bodies burned and blackened. Is it any wonder, then, that I almost never sleep, and when I do, I wake up shrieking as mountains of pale, burning corpses flash across my mind?
***
One day, during selection, I saw Dr. Mengele again. He looked me up and down and wrote something on a clipboard. Later that day, I was told by the Kapo that I would be moved to the medical ward.
“The medical ward?” I asked, confused. “Why? I’m not sick.”
“The Doctor requests your presence,” the Kapo said sarcastically, giving me a little bow. He was a fat man with a face like a bulldog and red hands like a butcher. He loved to beat and rob the prisoners under him. “Move, scum. Doubletime. Get your ass to the medical barracks.” I didn’t need to be told twice. I quickly scurried away, constantly glancing back to make sure no blows from his fat hands would rain down on my head.
I wound my way through the bare, wooden barracks that acted as our homes, the homes for walking skeletons of men whose bodies were frozen and dying. Within these barracks, we were often packed so tightly together on the hard, wooden planks that one man couldn’t turn around in the night without every other man in the row having to move.
But when the freezing winter cold blew in and we only had thin blankets and our black-and-white striped rags, the body heat from the others kept us from freezing to death- at least some of the time. Corpses were taken out of the barracks every morning, prisoners who died from the cold, from hunger, from dysentery or disease, from beatings and murders and suicides. It was like a constant stream of death, a waterfall of oblivion crashing forward. The corpses came, but the fire ate them all greedily and exhaled only fetid black smoke in response.
I walked into the medical barracks. Sat on a chair, waiting, I saw my friend from the work Kommando, Moshe. His dark, serious eyes stared through me, as if he didn’t see me. He had a straight nose and high cheekbones on his aristocratic face, though he now looked as pale and starved as I did myself, no more than a bag of bones wrapped in skin and clad in rags.
“Eliezer,” Moshe said, suddenly realizing I was there. “Were you chosen for this, too?” I nodded grimly, not knowing what he was referring to, but feeling in my heart it was nothing good. Nothing good ever came from this camp, after all. Nothing but reeking smoke and ashes came from it. Nothing but the hurricane of souls whipped away in the currents of the Zyklon B came from it.
“Do you know why we are here?” I asked, fidgeting and nervous. I glanced around, seeing a clean, well-stocked medical room beyond with a surgical table in the middle. There were bunks in the back of the medical barracks where the lucky ones would live. We even got increased rations of sawdust bread and watery soup.
“Dr. Mengele wants us,” Moshe said simply, and his eyes looked through me again. His mind seemed to drift off, far away from this world of suffering.
***
My emaciated body was such a heavy thing. It felt like the weight of the entire universe was contained within that body. I despised that body, that starving, sickly thing that followed me like a shadow. I wanted to be free of it, to see the highest reality without a body, to see truth without this constant suffering and agony, the constant hunger and cold and beatings and the stench of death.
But it wasn’t to be. Dr. Mengele walked into the barracks a few minutes later, surrounded by female nurses clad in white. He looked at me and Moshe. His cold blue eyes sparkled with intelligence.
He always kept his black SS uniform perfectly cleaned and ironed. It gave an impression that some black knight from a lost tale of the Dark Ages had just wandered in. He held a clipboard in his hand. He glanced down at it, frowning. Then he spoke in clipped German.
“A-9971 and A-8991, you are hereby required to participate in a medical experiment that will test the effects of certain drugs on the body. We do this under the authority of the Greater German Reich and our Reichsfuhrer-SS Himmler. You will stay here in the medical barracks until the experiment has ended,” Dr. Mengele said. As soon as he was done, he walked briskly over to the dark room with the surgical table. He came back out with two syringes filled with some black fluid that shone with glittering rainbows. He came up to me first.
“A-9971, your arm,” Dr. Mengele demanded. I stretched out my arm. He applied a tourniquet. When the vein throbbed like a fat worm, he plunged the needle inside and pressed down on the plunger.
I felt something like lava ripping its way through my body as my breath caught in my throat. I thought I was choking and dying. My heart beat so fast in my chest that I feared it must explode. Dr. Mengele walked over to Moshe as my vision turned white. I groaned, my teeth chattering, and then I fell forward onto the wooden floor.
I must have lost consciousness, because when I awoke, it was night in the medical barracks. I found myself laying on a bunk. A small serving of sawdust bread and thin, watery soup was laid down next to me. Still sleeping, I saw the form of Moshe, his face as pale as a skull.
“Moshe?” I whispered, trying to push myself to my feet. My head throbbed. I looked down at my arm, seeing a spreading patch of blackened necrotic tissue spreading from the injection site. It almost looked like shiny scales were spreading across my skin. I looked down at Moshe’s arm and saw the same dark patches there. “Wake up, Moshe, please. I need you. I need someone. I can’t do this alone.”
But in my heart, I knew that we were all born alone and we all died alone. Moshe couldn’t help me with anything. Even God couldn’t help me here. He didn’t listen to our prayers or hear the Kaddish read for the dead. He had turned his face away from us, and every dying heart there felt that great emptiness as the life was extinguished from their eyes.
I shook Moshe gently, not wanting to scare him. His eyes flew open. He looked up at me, and I saw with horror that something was wrong. His eyes had become slitted and yellow, like the eyes of a serpent. He hissed at me. A thin stream of frothy blood bubbled from his throat as he gurgled, pushing himself up like a zombie.
“What’s happened to you?” I asked in panic, backpedaling away from the transformed Moshe. He looked like a rabid animal, his eyes gleaming with insanity. He came at me, and his teeth looked longer, sharper, more predatory. They looked like fangs.
He leapt off the bunk, soaring through the air towards me. As he gnashed his teeth, I frantically tried to push him away. His jaw snapped together with a crack like a bullwhip. He lunged forward and his bleached-white face came down. I felt the skin on my face tear with a pain like fire spreading through my head. He bit down on my cheek and ripped upwards, leaving a mutilated flap of skin hanging there.
I felt something hot and poisonous coursing through my bloodstream, but unlike Moshe, I had not gone insane. I felt my teeth lengthening, though, and my eyes abruptly adjusted to the dark. I could see every mote of dust floating through the air, see every spatter of my blood on the swept wooden floors.
A hiss tore its way out of my throat. My arm lunged forward, as if with a mind of its own. Sharp claws ripped their way out of the ends of my fingers as I threw Moshe off of me.
He ran out into the night, hissing and wailing, his forked tongue flicking out between his bloody lips. A few moments later, I heard SS men yelling at the nearby perimeter and then guns started firing. The banshee wail from Moshe grew louder, and the SS men screamed, their voices filled with panic and terror.
I staggered out of the medical barracks, seeing Moshe clawing and biting at the black-clad form of an SS man. Two others lay dead next to him, their throats torn out, the mutilated flesh sliced wide open.
Moshe leapt off of the dying SS man and loped towards the electrified fence. In horror and astonishment, I watched him swipe at it with his claws. It gave a loud pop of electricity and I saw a flash of blue light, but the black scales that now covered almost all of Moshe’s skin only seemed to glow brighter, gleaming like obsidian. Moshe remained unaffected. He ripped a hole in the fence as it continued sizzling, leapt over the razor wire and disappeared into the dark forests of Poland beyond.
After a long moment staring at the bodies of the SS men, I ran forwards toward freedom as well, following the trail of Moshe. I still had my mind, however. Whatever poison Dr. Mengele had given us hadn’t affected me like it had affected Moshe.
But still, I noticed I was healing faster. The deep gash on my cheek stopped bleeding within minutes, and a layer of thin, black scales started to cover the wound.
Over the next few weeks, I made my way to Switzerland, where I spent the rest of the war. But I heard rumors in the forests of Poland that there was a strange creature attacking isolated farms and houses. A creature with slitted eyes like a serpent’s and black scales covering his deformed, twisted body.
***
My grandfather stopped speaking suddenly, looking up at me with glazed eyes.
“Do you believe it, Elias?” he asked. “Do you believe what I’ve told you?” I nodded. He pulled up his sleeves, and there, on his arms, I saw black scales covering his skin all the way to the wrists.

To start off, let me say that I have played through the trilogy some ten times now, and have always sympathized with the Quarian race. They are complex, interesting, varied, and beautiful people with a tragic backstory and a huge, overarching conflict that defines them as a species. The Quarian/Geth arc of ME3 is my favorite part of the entire franchise, and I'm willing to be lots of you agree.
However, I would like to point out that the "Quarian problem" could have and should have been solved practically overnight by any major species. Through Tali, the Codex, and the Admiralty Board, we learn that Quarians would have large difficulties in settling a new world. Their immune systems are weak, and also self-destructive when introduced to a new environment. For the time being, they cannot live without environmental suits, and a single breach can mean debilitating sickness or death. Their flotilla also has to be extremely thrifty with resources, mining their own water, growing their own food, repairing old ships, etc.
However, despite all of these problems, there's one simple fact that would make caring for the Quarians almost laughably easy in-universe: their numbers. The Codex states that there are only 17 million Quarians at the time of the trilogy, down from the several billion who lived on Rannoch and nearby colonies. For reference, Ecuador in real life has a population of 17 million people, and relatively speaking, it is a very small country. Ecuador makes up just 0.2% of Earth's population in real life, and would make up just 0.15% of Earth's population in Mass Effect, which is 11 billion.
You mean to tell me that in a galaxy stated to have trillions, plural, of inhabitants, there is not one civilized planet that has room for 17 million extra people? Hell, a quick Google search says that 13.9 million immigrants came to the United States, just one country on one planet, between 2000 and 2010. Last I checked, the United States is not suffering from an overpopulation crisis. Again, that is just one nation on a single planet in real life that has taken in almost as many immigrants as the entire Quarian species combined in ten years.
Now, I am not saying that taking in all 17 million Quarians would be trivial. Even if it is a tiny number proportionally, it is still a very large number on an absolute scale. A planet would need housing, medical care, and food for the Quarians, but considering how vast the galaxy is, and how plentiful natural resources are, finding/and or building places for Quarians to live on a planet should be relatively simple. If any planet out of the hundreds, or maybe even thousands of civilized worlds made a concerted effort, they could take in the Quarians at any time. Humans, Turians, Asari, Salarians, and maybe even minor species like the Hanar or Volus could afford such an expense quite easily.
And it's not even like the Quarians would just be deadweight once they're settled somewhere. They're shown to be extremely capable software specialists and mechanical geniuses, thanks to living in space for centuries. Any race that takes the Quarians under their wing would absolutely dominate the tech market afterwards and probably make a massive profit, to say nothing of the cultural enrichment that would come from allowing a grateful Quarian people to mingle with another species for the first time since the Morning War.
There is only one explanation for why nobody has allowed the Quarians to come live with them: bigotry. The galaxy hates the Quarians for creating the Geth, which led to countless deaths. However, I think it's pretty fair to say that the Quarians paid the price for their mistake, considering billions of them were slaughtered and they lost their homeworld, as well as all their colonies. They have been living in poverty for centuries, surviving off of the scraps that the other races throw away, and whenever they try to settle themselves, the Council runs them off like they were vagrants pitching a tent on their perfectly-tended lawn. It is pure racism that has kept the Quarians bound to the Flotilla for all this time, not any medical or logistical problem.
If humanity wanted to prove to the galaxy that they were the good guys everyone else needed, they should have allowed the Quarians to come live on Earth or another habitable planet in human space. Think of how high that moral high ground would be! "Wow, all you supposedly 'enlightened' societies let these poor people drift in space for centuries, when it was this easy to let them settle somewhere? You guys suck! By the way, can we have a seat on the Council now?"
Thank you for coming to my TED talk, and let me know what you think. Mayne I've grossly over or underestimated some number, and taking in all 17 million Quarians would be an insurmountable challenge, but I truly think it would be almost pathetically easy, given a little time and effort. We could afford to let the Quarians come live on Earth in real life, right now, no sprawling interplanetary empire or futuristic tech required.
So yeah, I should go.

Barred From Each Other: Why Normative Husbands Remain Married to Incarcerated Wives—An Exploratory Study – page 1
Tomer Einat1, Inbal Harel-Aviram1, and
Sharon Rabinovitz2
Abstract
This study explores men’s motivation and justification to remain married to their criminal, imprisoned wives. Using semistructured interviews and content-analysis, data were collected and analyzed from eight men who maintain stable marriage relationships with their incarcerated wives. Participants are normative men who describe incarceration as a challenge that enhances mutual responsibility and commitment. They exaggerate the extent to which their partners resemble archetypal romantic ideals. They use motivational accounts to explain the woman’s criminal conduct, which is perceived as nonrelevant to her real identity. Physical separation and lack of physical intimacy are perceived as the major difficulties in maintaining their marriage relations. Length of imprisonment and marriage was found to be related to the decision whether to continue or terminate the relationships. Women-inmates’ partners experience difficulties and use coping strategies very similar to those cited by other normative spouses facing lengthy separation.
Keywords
marriage, female inmates, normative spouses, incarceration, romantic accounts
Introduction
One of the most significant “pains of imprisonment” for female inmates is the separation from their husbands (Farkas & Rand, 1999; Severance, 2005a, 2005b). This disconcerting and frustrating deprivation often negatively affects women’s ability to function as wives while in prison and after release (Dodge & Pogrebin, 2001; Pollock-Byrne, 1990). When a man is imprisoned, the marriage usually remains intact (Dodge & Pogrebin, 2001; Shapiro, 2003; Travis, McBride, & Solomon, 2003), whereas women’s incarceration often results in their abandonment by their partners and termination of their marriage (the term marriage in this study relates to formally wedded couples and common-law couples; Hairston, 1991; Sergin & Flora, 2005).
The abandonment of women prisoners by their spouses has been recognized by researchers and practitioners as a noteworthy component of women-inmates’ subculture (Dodge & Pogrebin, 2001) and a significant factor of their rehabilitation and reentry into society (Visher & Travis, 2003). However, relatively few studies have addressed this topic in depth (Dodge & Pogrebin, 2001; MacKenzie, Robinson, & Campbell, 1995; Sobel, 1982). Furthermore, close examination reveals that prisoners’ marital relationships were addressed mainly from the inmates’ point of view (Girshick, 1996; Hairston & Addams, 2001) and focused, almost exclusively, on male inmates (Accordino & Guerney, 1998; Fishman, 1988; Girshick, 1992). In other words, the study of marital relationships between inmates and their spouses’ neglected women inmates, and the few studies examining female inmates overlooked 50% of the individuals involved in these relationships and possibly affected by them—the husbands.
Thus, in the preliminary research for this paper, we could not find a single empirical study that had focused on the rationale behind men’s decision to terminate or maintain their marital relations with incarcerated wives nor on the impact of such a decision on their emotional and behavioral state. The aim of this exploratory study is to fill this literature lacuna and explore the motivations and justification of men to remain married to their criminal wives imprisoned in Neve Tirza prison—the sole prison facility for women in Israel. By examining these topics, the current study seeks to identify and analyze the significance of marital relationships to women-inmates’ spouses and to describe the dynamics of marital relationships between men and incarcerated spouses, both from men’s perspective, a step that previous research has not taken before.
The following sections will provide information about Neve Tirza prison as well as cover topics relating to marital stability among inmates and offender reentry, drawing on the criminological and correctional literatures.
The Neve Tirza Prison
Neve Tirza prison is the sole women’s prison in Israel. The facility is located in the Central District of Israel, next to the city of Ramla in the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area, the largest metropolitan in Israel. The prison houses 225 criminal (as opposed to security) inmates at full capacity. Yet, at the time of the research, it housed no more than 180 prisoners. Fifty-two percent of the inmates have been previously jailed, and the average incarceration period is 2.7 years (SD = 2.70). Approximately, 58% of the prison population are incarcerated for drug-related crimes (substance abuse, drug dealing, and possession), 16% are incarcerated for violent crimes, 16% for bodily crimes, 45% for fiscal crimes, and 13% for other offences (Einat & Chen, 2012).1
The ethnic ratio of the prison population is 62% Jews and 36% Arabs, who are Israeli nationals, and 2% foreigners. The marital status of the inmates is 63% single (n = 113), 32% (n = 58) divorced, and 5% (n = 9) married (Einat & Chen, 2012)— comparable, albeit not identical, to U.S. and U.K. prisons. In U.S. prisons, 85% of all women in local jails (4% widowed, 13% separated, 20% divorced, 48% never married), 83% in state prisons (6% widowed, 10% separated, 20% divorced, 47% never married), and 71% in federal prisons (6% widowed, 21% separated, 10% divorced, 34% never married) are not married (Greenfeld, & Snell, 2000). In U.K. prisons, 24% of women-inmates are married or lived together with a spouse prior to their imprisonment, 63% are single, and 12% are either widowed, divorced, or separated (Hamlin & Lewis, 2000).
In Israel, 85% of the women-inmates are eligible for a monthly 30-min family visit and a 24/48-hr furlough. Fifteen percent of the prisoners, who are ineligible for home furloughs, are entitled to a monthly, 12-hr conjugal visit (Ben Avraham, 2012). Such furlough/visitation policy differs significantly from other parallel policies in Western and non-Western correctional facilities (for a comprehensive review, see Einat & Rabinovitz, 2013).
Incarceration, Marital Stability, and Inmates’ Reentry
Incarceration prevents meaningful interaction and limits physical and emotional connections among spouses (Booth, Johnson, White, & Edwards, 1984; Sergin & Flora, 2005), and often changes individuals in ways that make them incompatible with their partners (Comfort, 2008; Nurse, 2002; Rindfuss & Stephen, 1990). Physically separated spouses experience deficits of emotional interaction (Hill, 1988), which increases the number of disagreements and lowers marital satisfaction (Booth et al., 1984). In addition, these physical and mental processes negatively affect the emotional status of the inmates inside the prison (Faith, 1993; Jiang & Winfree, 2006; Thompson & Loper, 2005) and harm the likelihood of their successful rehabilitation and reentry into society after release (Gunnison & Helfgott, 2013; Horney, Osgood, & Marshall, 1995; Laub, Nagin, & Sampson, 1998; Vaillant, 1995; Ward, 2001). Ironically, and irrespective of the negative impact of incarceration and separation from spouse on marital stability (Massoglia, Remster, & King, 2011) and of imprisonment and marital dissolution on prisoner reentry (Laub & Sampson, 2001), several enforcement systems raise various barriers that prevent partners (and families) from remaining in contact while a spouse is behind bars. For example, in the United States, more than 60% of state and 80% of federal inmates are imprisoned in facilities located more than 100 miles from home (Mumola, 2000). Wives (as well as other family members) may lack the time and means to travel these long distances with children on a regular basis (Christian, 2005; Christian, Mellow, & Thomas, 2006). Consequently, 57% of male state-prison inmates in the United States had never had a personal visit with their children since their admission to prison and only a quarter of male inmates with families reported weekly contact by phone or postal mail with loved ones (Mumola, 2000). Pelka Slugocka and Slugocki (1980) qualitatively analyzed female inmates’ viewpoints regarding the relationship between incarceration and marital stability. Most of their research participants (86.3%, n = 282) maintained that imprisonment was the sole reason for the destruction of their marriage, whereas 13.7% (n = 45) asserted that it was the combination of husbands’ personalities and their imprisonment. Moreover, the research revealed that the divorce generated feelings of despair and frustration among the female inmates, and harmed their rehabilitation and successful reentry into society.
Hairston’s (1991) review concluded that the stress and strain that male imprisonment imposes on family ties are due, mainly, to denial of sexual relations and inability to engage in and share day-to-day interactions and experiences. As time passes, the spouse at home visits the prisoner less frequently and many marriages fail. Similarly, Kiser (1991) found that most male prisoners perceived their separation from their families—alongside the realization that they themselves had brought undeserved hardship to their families—as the most difficult aspect of doing time. Therefore, encouraging inmates and families to maintain relationships would benefit most inmates, their families, and the prisons.
Bobbitt and Nelson (2004) portrayed the positive aspects of various family involvement programs (i.e., La Bodega de la Familia and the Greenlight Family Reintegration Program) on drug abuse, recidivism rates, family strength, avoidance of illegal activity, possession of jobs, and obtainment of stable housing. The researchers’ main conclusion was that families can be a powerful material and emotional force for positive change for members making the difficult transition from institutional life back to the community . . . and can significantly assist probation and parole officers in their quest to successfully reenter ex-criminals and ex-prisoners to the community. (Bobbitt & Nelson, 2004, p. 8) In support of that conclusion, Horney et al. (1995) found that living with a normative wife limited significantly convicted felons’ involvement in illegal behavior after release from prison.
The importance of marriage to recidivism rates and reentry was discussed in several cornerstone criminal theories. Hirschi’s (1969) social control theory assumes that individuals are prevented from engaging in delinquency by four social bonds: involvement, attachment, commitment, and belief. When these bonds are weak, and the appropriate motivations rise, individuals are more likely to engage in delinquency.
Individuals with high affection and respect (attachment) are less likely to engage in delinquency because they do not want to harm the approval of people they care about. In their age-graded theory of informal social control, Laub and Sampson (1993) emphasize the importance of quality and strength of current social ties (such as strong bonds of attachment to a partner) in adapting to life transitions more than the occurrence or timing of discrete life events. Hence, marriage by itself may not increase social control, but close emotional ties and mutual investment increase the social bond between individuals and can decrease criminal behavior. Although this issue has been a source of controversy (e.g., Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990), Farrington and West (1995) also concluded that a stable marriage was nevertheless related to adult social conformity, even in adults who were identified at high-risk as children. Whereas these theories emphasize emotional ties and support, the cognitive transformation theory focuses on the conscious transformation of one’s identity in the process of desistance from crime (Giordano, Cernkovich, & Rudolph, 2002). Thus, through associations
with a spouse who sees them as noncriminals, inmates are exposed to and receive reinforcement for socially approved attitudes and behaviors (Agnew, 2005) and are likely to receive support for not only avoiding illegal behavior but also developing normative self-perceptions.
In summary, identification of various problems faced by men married to incarcerated spouses with regard to the preservation of marital relationships may significantly promote the understanding of the impact of incarceration on marital continuation/dissolution and assist in developing effective policies directed at their maintenance. Such policies appear to be highly important due to the existence of a (correlative or casual) link between continuation of stable romantic relations among normative men and incarcerated spouses, reduction of the negative effects of various “pains of imprisonment” (Faith, 1993; Jiang & Winfree, 2006; Thompson & Loper, 2005), and inmates’ successful reentry and desistance from crime after release (Horney et al., 1995; Ward, 2001)
Method
Research Tool
We used a flexible research design (Briggs, 1986). This methodology enables access to unpredicted subject matter and helps examine it from the perspective of the research sample (Silverman, 1993). Flexible design enabled us to incorporate unexpected contents, accommodating data as they emerged, thereby enhancing the quality and authenticity of the findings (Stake, 1995). The qualitative semistructured interview, based on guidelines that ensure that all interviewees are subject to similar stimuli and create a common basis for data analysis (Maruna, 2001), was found most appropriate for this study. To ensure reliability, all interviews were conducted by the researchers only.
While the semistructured interview maintains a subjective framework, it enables the interviewer and the interviewee to correct misunderstandings or vagueness during the course of the interview (Rubin & Rubin, 1995). This flexibility contributes to the quality and credibility of the interview (Briggs, 1986; Suchman & Jordan, 1990).
Each interview began with a similar open-ended broad question: “Could you please tell us about your romantic relationship with your spouse prior to her incarceration?” Only after the interviewees had answered the question, did we initiate a series of questions on the main difficulties of maintaining romantic relationships with an incarcerated spouse and the strategies used to do so: “How would you define your current romantic relationships with your spouse?” “How do you maintain romantic relationships with your incarcerated spouse?” “Does your spouse’s conviction and incarceration affect your mutual romantic relations?” “What are/were the main romantic crises you experience/d with her and how do/did you deal with them?” “What is your main motivation for maintaining marital relationships with your spouse; do you experience moments where you want to end your marriage?” “Do you experience any regrets as regards to your decision to maintain marital relationships with your spouse?”
Participants
Out of 180 prisoners incarcerated in the single Israeli female incarceration facility, Neve Tirza Prison, only 9 (5%, of whom 8%-4.4% agreed to take part in the study) maintained stable romantic relationships longer than 3 years. One male partner declined to participate in the study after being informed by his incarcerated spouse about the purpose of the study and its procedures, resulting in a final sample size of eight men and a response rate of 88.9%. Thus, the research sample includes almost all partners of female inmates who maintained stable romantic relationships for 3 years and more in Israel.
The participants were eight husbands—six were married to prisoners and two kept stable, romantic—although nonmarital—relations with their imprisoned spouses for more than 3 years (years of relationships range—3.5-35; M = 17.06, SD = 10.14, median = 17.5). Hence, the latter were acknowledged by the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) and by the Israeli ruling as common-law husbands (Israel Prison Service, 2012). Six of the eight couples had mutual children (compared with 61% of the prison population; Einat & Chen, 2012).
The ethnic distribution of the research sample (as well as the participants’ incarcerated spouses) was 75% (n = 6) Jews and 25% (n = 2) Muslim-Arab, all of whom were Israeli citizens. This ratio resembles the ethnic distribution of the general Israeli female inmates’ population (62% Jews; 36% Arabs; Einat & Chen, 2012). Participants had a mean of 9.6 years of education (SD = 1.4); the mean age of the participants is 48.9 (SD = 9.0). The distribution of the socioeconomic status of the research participants—as perceived and described by them—is high (37.5%; n = 3), moderate (12.5%; n = 1), and poor (50%; n = 4). Eighty-seven percent (n = 7) of the participants had no criminal record and 12.5% (n = 1) have been jailed. All participants were legally employed and maintained secured normative housekeeping. The women whose husbands we interviewed have been incarcerated for 21.8 months (M; SD = 9.42, compared with 27 months in the general prison population) and convicted to serve 41.4 months (M; SD = 43.1, compared with 31 of the prison population; Ibid). Twenty-five percent of the women have been previously jailed (compared with 52% of the prison population; Ibid), and 25% were drug abusers (as opposed to 65% drug abusing inmates out of Neve Tirza Prison’s general population). Hence the women whose husbands participated in this study differ substantially from the general female inmate population.
Content analysis revealed five major themes about marital relationships between normative men and their incarcerated wives: (a) perceptions of marital relations with incarcerated wife, (b) perceptions of wife’s criminal conduct, (c) difficulties in marital relationships with incarcerated wife, (d) preconditions for the continuation of marital relationships between normative men and incarcerated wives, (e) ways of preserving the marital relationships with incarcerated wives.
Perceptions of Marital Relations With Incarcerated Wives
Commitment and motivation. Research has repeatedly shown that commitment and motivation are the basis for a good and stable marriage, one which successfully tackles situations of crisis (Hawkins, Carroll, Doherty, & Wiloughby, 2004; Mace, 1982; Sabatelli & Cecil-Pigo, 1985). Commitment and motivation, which reflect the mutual responsibility of the couple to the preservation of their marriage (Clements & Swensen, 2000), are also identified as the best predictors of the quality of such relationships (Sabatelli & Cecil-Pigo, 1985; Surra, Arizzi, & Asmussen, 1988). Similarly, the findings of the present study indicate that the incarceration of their partners led the participants to recognize their obligation to the women and to their marital relations:
All in all, it [the wife’s imprisonment] connected us together as a couple and united our family. That’s the way we behave in our family—when there’s a problem we become united. (I., a 47-year-old Muslim husband, married to an inmate sentenced to 14 months)
During the incarceration, I felt as if I become a part of her, as if we became one. During this time, our romantic relationships grew stronger and stronger. We went through hell and it made us stronger. It intensified our love. (D., a 34-year-old Jewish common-law husband, romantically-related to a prisoner sentenced to a period of 3.1 years)
We overcame all our problems together, and we will overcome all obstacles, including the incarceration, together. It [the imprisonment] even made our romantic relationships grow stronger, made us show how committed we are to each other. (C., a 37-year-old Muslim husband, married to an inmate sentenced to 1.5 years prison.
Nonetheless, and somewhat in contrast to these statements, our findings also suggest that the imprisonment of female spouses generated major dyadic crisis, which, at least temporarily, destabilized the romantic relations. Specifically, all participants noted that the incarceration raised frustration, tension, and lack of trust, which led them to consider and reconsider their motivation to preserve the marital relationship:
There was a lot of tension and pressure the moment they arrested her. We had lots of
arguments, did a lot of shouting and cursing. (T., a 52-year-old Jewish husband, married to an ex-addict sentenced to prison for 14 months)
I love her very much and can’t deny it. But her arrest caused a lot of chaos between us, a lot of stress and arguments. I even remember a moment where I wanted to hit her. (A., a 43-year-old Jewish husband, married to an inmate sentenced to a period of 22 years).
I. expressed a similar viewpoint:
I was quiet disappointed and I stopped trusting her. The fact that she did not share her behavior with me was more disappointing than the acts themselves. I can’t say that she betrayed me . . . after all she did it for the sake of both of us so it’s not a matter of unfaithfulness. But she didn’t tell me right at the beginning, and this is a shame.
Love. Love is one of the most significant elements in the preservation of and long-lasting marital relationships (Mackey & O’Brien, 1995; Sharlin, 1996) and is attributed greatly to successfully dealing with short- or long-term romantic crises. Love is also a meaningful element in partners’ mutual acceptance and support (Meeks, Hendrick, & Hendrick, 1998; Sokolski & Hendrick, 1999). In accordance, the findings of this study reveal that the participants perceive love as a noteworthy character of their marriage and an important factor in their decision to preserve marriage relationships:

Barred From Each Other: Why Normative Husbands Remain Married to Incarcerated Wives—An Exploratory Study – page 2
You’ve got to understand, what we’re talking about here is great love. That’s the whole story. The idea of leaving her never came up. It was never mentioned or discussed. Our romantic life could never be dismantled just because one of us did something wrong. Separation is totally irrelevant. [After exposing her crime] I never felt as if I don’t love her or want her less. It’s all a matter of pure commitment—built on pure love—and this is something you do not abandon. (A., 53)
I decided to stay with her for two reasons: great love and great commitment. I swear that [after her incarceration] it never crossed my mind to leave her. I’m with her until the end. Our love is priceless. I don’t care for other women; I’m just waiting for her. I always knew from the second I met her that we will be together until death. I will not desert her regardless of the situation. She is the best thing that ever happened to me. (D., 34)
I told myself, you’re not going to leave her no matter what happens. We’ve been together since we’re 17, we love each other a lot and we’re committed to each other. Let it be clear—I decided to stay with her just because of us, and not because of the kids and the house. I love her very much. She is the love of my life and my best friend and I’m staying with her no matter what happens. (S., a 53-year-old Jewish husband, married to an inmate sentenced to a period of 27 months in prison, continues in the same vein.
Interestingly, in addition to the decisive description of all research participants of their marriage in terms of love and devotion, six participants related to these relations and their spouses in adorable and admirable ways. These participants perceive their women partners as being unique and exceptional, each a veritable femme fatale, and describe the relations with them in various flattering and admirable ways.
She is everything to me. When I look to the right—I see her. When I look to the left—I see
her. I see her and no one else but her. I admire her. She is pure gold. There is no one like her
in the world and that’s why our love is so strong. (Y., a 60-year-old Jewish husband, married
to a first-timer sentenced to 4 years)
And this sentiment is echoed in two other statements:
I admire my wife. She is bigger than life itself. I can only thank God that she’s mine/that I have her. (S., 53)
She is a very special woman and a friend. She is special, not like any other woman. (A., 53)
While these quotations illustrate the high appreciation and admiration of the women spouses, the next ones portray the specific personal characteristics that make the women so admirable:
She is the most clever, intelligent, and lovely woman in the world. She is energetic, active, and dominant. An amazing woman. (T., 52
She is a good soul. She is warm and emphatic, [mentally] stronger than any man I know, very reliable. She has so many virtues: understandable, intelligent, supportive, funny, and very ethical. (D., 34)
She is [mentally] a very strong woman. She is remarkable . . . outstanding. She knows everything—regardless of the fact that she’s in prison. (Z., 55)
She is a good human-being: She takes care of everyone . . . pays attention to everyone . . . she loves to help people. (A., 53
All the participants love and admire their partners and perceive them as an attached and inherent part of their past, present, and future married lives. These statements clearly demonstrate that love is perceived as an essential component for the preservation of good marital relations—in general and in times of crisis. Moreover, regardless of female-spouses’ criminal conduct and imprisonment, most partners describe them as ideal and wonderful women, using words of admiration. As such, continuation of the marriage to them may be perceived as an obvious and rational act.
Perception of Wife’s Criminal Conduct
Numerous studies have argued that most female inmates are abandoned by their male counterparts, be it because of the forced disengagement and/or the shame in their “betrayal” of the law, their families, and their “traditional gender roles” (McGowan & Blumenthal, 1978; Stanton, 1980). Evidently, such desertion is solely dependent on men’s discretion, irrespective of the female inmates’ desires (Dodge & Pogrebin, 2001; Pelka-Slugocka & Slugocki, 1980).
Somewhat in contrast to these studies, our findings indicate that although all participants acknowledge that their spouses committed various criminal offenses and morally reject it, they do not perceive them and their criminal conduct as shameful and disgraceful. Specifically, the participants (deliberately or unintentionally) describe their spouses’ criminal behaviors in a forgiving manner, explaining it as a “sad tale” (i.e., an outcome of harsh and complicated life-story; Scott & Lyman, 1968). By doing so, they invalidate the female inmates’ moral and criminal responsibilities, detach their criminal conduct from their character, and defend their dignity and importance:
My wife did not do all these things. She meant to do no bad. I know that she doesn’t act out of evilness . . . she is a good person . . . a victim of herself. She didn’t really want to kill me . . . It is not her fault . . . her friends are bad . . . they pushed her to act this way. I can’t believe and I don’t believe that she did what she did independently. (A., 53)
They [the police] found some financial inconsistencies in the bank and instead of exposing the truth and framing her brother, she took responsibility. I knew she did everything in order to save her brother. She is a good soul and her family members abused her. All she did was done in order to protect her family and not because she’s bad. She is a good soul . . . a queen who made a mistake in order to save her brother. (S., 53)
She did not take it [the money] for herself . . . She gave it to her family. She has a big family and someone had to take care of them. Looking back, I think she had no choice. (I., 47)
Six participants use neutralization techniques (Sykes & Matza, 1957) to support their contention of their partners’ morality. The men resort to “denial of injury” and “denial of responsibility.” In their simplest form, the former technique suggests that this was a no-victim crime and the latter proposes that the criminal actions were caused by forces beyond the perpetrator’s control (Enticott, 2011).
After all, what did she do? What crime had she committed? It’s not that she enjoyed the money. It’s not that she is walking around wearing lots of jewelry. She’s a modest individual and all in all she did not take big sums of money. Maybe they [justice system] can define her as an offender, but for me she is P., my beloved wife, and that’s that. (C., 37)
n fact, what did she do? She got involved with the gray market, something that could happen to anyone, and they forced her to do what she did. It could happen to me, to you, to anyone. She made a mistake but she is only human. But it’s not a crime and she’s not a criminal. (Z., 55)
No! My wife is not a criminal. She didn’t break the law. In my opinion, all she did was make a single mistake. The fact that she’s in prison does not make her a criminal. (I., 47)
Difficulties in Marital Relationships With Incarcerated Wife
Numerous studies have repeatedly argued that three factors underlie most crises in marital relationships: diminished (or extinguished) love, reduced (or lack of) intimacy, and weakened (or nonexistent) commitment (Mace, 1982; Sabatelli & Cecil-Pigo, 1985; Sharlin, 1996; Sokolski & Hendrick, 1999; Surra et al., 1988). Our findings deviate somewhat and indicate that regardless of lengths of imprisonment and/or marriage, the major difficulty experienced by most (n = 7) participants relates to lack of physical intimacy. All other inconveniences and difficulties characterizing marital relationships in crisis (Huston, Caughlin, Houts, Smith, & George, 2001) appear to be irrelevant to the interviewees:
During the last six months [time of spouse’s incarceration] everything has obviously changed, because of her physical absence. We meet once a month [conjugal visits] and it is not enough. I miss the physical intimacy, the physical togetherness. I miss it. It is difficult. I currently and practically live with no romantic relationships. I miss her body and her smell.
(I., 47)
I miss her smell. She has amazing smells, nothing I experienced with other women. I miss having sex with her. I miss being hugged by her, feeling her head on my shoulder. (D., 34)
[You can’t believe] how much I miss her. I miss her hugs, I miss the physical contact with her, I miss going to sleep with her. (T., 52)
An additional difficulty, raised by six (75%) participants, relates to lack of support by family members, friends, and acquaintances. In some cases, participants report that people totally ignored or terminated relationships after the incarceration. The participants view this kind of behavior as an outcome of shame and/or disappointment:
It wasn’t easy with my family [because] they wanted me to divorce her. They didn’t understand how she could do that and didn’t accept her. They were really furious. They decided to break off relations with her. My reaction, by the way, was to completely break off my relations with my family. (Z., 55)
Some family members and all my neighbors told me that I should be ashamed of my wife. In school, my children suffered daily harassments from other children, from the teachers, and even from the headmaster. All of them wanted us to forget her as if she were dead. They think she should be “dead” . . . deleted! (S., 53)
Two very close friends of ours were informed [by us] about the trial and the offense. It was very embarrassing. Yet, their reaction was even more embarrassing and made us want to bury ourselves deep in the ground: In the most difficult moment of our life, they deserted us. They had a very dramatic discussion with my wife on the phone with lots of shouting and yelling and then, decided to stop talking to us. These people are not human-beings. You cannot call them friends. (Y., 60)
None of her friends called or asked us how we feel. None of our friends came to visit her in prison. Is this friendship? This is disgusting. It’s very difficult to live with the notion that suddenly, when you are in trouble, everyone disappears. Suddenly, no-one wishes to be your friend. (A., 53)
Preconditions for the Continuation of Marital Relationships Between Normative Men and Incarcerated Wives
All research participants have pointed out two central factors that could have had a negative effect on the marriage, perhaps even leading to their termination of this relationship: (a) length of prison sentence and (b) length of marriage prior to the imprisonment.
Length of prison sentence. Most (n = 7) participants assert that because their spouses were sentenced to relatively short terms of imprisonment, they did not consider leaving them. However, they also state that if the sentence had been longer, they may have considered terminating the marriage and finding a new relationship:
I don’t know what would have happened to our romantic relationships if she’d been imprisoned for, let’s say, 20 years. I believe I would have separated from her. It’s like disappearing from someone’s life for a very long time. Time is definitely a significant factor.
(I., 47)
On the day of the verdict, when the judge said “4 years,” I felt as if my hands were freezing. If it were 10 or 15 years, then I’d probably acted differently. I doubt if I would have stayed with her . . . with all due respect to love. (Z., 55)
These findings strengthen previous findings (Holt & Miller, 1972; Walker, 1983) revealing a decline in visiting patterns among wives of long-term prisoners compared with wives of short-termers, as well as deterioration of marriages over long periods of incarceration.
I had a very dramatic discussion with my wife on the phone with lots of shouting and yelling and then, decided to stop talking to us. These people are not human-beings. You cannot call them friends. (Y., 60)
None of her friends called or asked us how we feel. None of our friends came to visit her in
prison. Is this friendship? This is disgusting. It’s very difficult to live with the notion that
suddenly, when you are in trouble, everyone disappears. Suddenly, no-one wishes to be your
friend. (A., 53)
Preconditions for the Continuation of Marital Relationships Between Normative Men and Incarcerated Wives
All research participants have pointed out two central factors that could have had a negative effect on the marriage, perhaps even leading to their termination of this relationship: (a) length of prison sentence and (b) length of marriage prior to the imprisonment.
Length of prison sentence. Most (n = 7) participants assert that because their spouses were sentenced to relatively short terms of imprisonment, they did not consider leaving them. However, they also state that if the sentence had been longer, they may have considered terminating the marriage and finding a new relationship: I
I don’t know what would have happened to our romantic relationships if she’d been imprisoned for, let’s say, 20 years. I believe I would have separated from her. It’s like disappearing from someone’s life for a very long time. Time is definitely a significant factor.
(I., 47)
On the day of the verdict, when the judge said “4 years,” I felt as if my hands were freezing. If it were 10 or 15 years, then I’d probably acted differently. I doubt if I would have stayed with her . . . with all due respect to love. (Z., 55)
These findings strengthen previous findings (Holt & Miller, 1972; Walker, 1983) revealing a decline in visiting patterns among wives of long-term prisoners compared with wives of short-termers, as well as deterioration of marriages over long periods of incarceration.
Length of marriage prior to incarceration.
The men’s decision to remain married was determined, to a significant degree, to the duration of the relationship prior to the woman’s incarceration. Our findings show that all participants perceive the total length of the relationship prior to spouses’ incarceration to be positively correlated to their decision to remain married:
If we’d been married for a year and then she’d begun committing crimes, I would have separated from her. But now, after so many years of marriage, there is no way I would leave her. The length of our romantic relationships is a critical factor. That’s why I couldn’t see any option of leaving her. (I., 47)
Please don’t forget that I didn’t meet her yesterday, we’ve been together for almost 10 years. We went through many things together. It’s a lot of time and obviously, I won’t leave her. (D., 34
Ways of Preserving the Marital Relationships With Incarcerated Wives
All participants (N = 8) report that to deal with their pain of separation and maintain marital relationships, they use two tactics—frequent phone calls and making all visits
that the prison allows.
The men receive four or five phone calls a day from their imprisoned partners. Both partners await these phone calls and cherish them, as the frequent and continuous delivery and receipt of information create a semblance of the exchange of information that occurs when living under the same roof. Symbolically, the ongoing communication, and hearing the partner’s voice, signifies a continuation of everyday [dyadic and nondyadic] normal life:
We constantly maintain telephone contact. I’m like a child, again and again waiting for her phone calls. It doesn’t matter whether I am with friends, at work, or at a restaurant, I wait for her to call me all the time. She calls me three times a day, in the morning, noon, and in the evening hours. (T., 52)
We talk on the phone all day and every day. We actually do everything through the phone: We talk about her feelings, what happened to her in prison during the day, what happened to me at work, and how we miss each other. That’s basically it. (D., 34)
I love it when she calls me. I look forward to her phone calls. That’s how I really know what is going on with her in prison. (S., 53)
The second tactic is routinely coming for the bi-weekly 30-min visits to which all prisoners are entitled, whether or not they are also allowed home furloughs (IPS, 2012). The visits take place on Saturdays and Sundays, and all families gather in a relatively small, closed, and sealed space. There are open visits in which the inmate can be in physical touch with the visitors and closed visits, conducted through an armored-glass division. All participants welcome the visits, perceive them as the best temporary way of realizing their marriage, and look forward to them:
I visit her every two weeks. Up to now, I haven’t missed a single visit. We were limited to 30 minute in-person visits every two weeks during her first year. After that they let us have a 12 hour conjugal visit each month. Now she can come home [on furlough] for 24 hours every month. That time of being together in the home refreshes our love. In addition, we talk on the phone four times a day. I wait for these calls because I love talking to her. We talk about her day, about my day, about things that happened to both of us at work, about intimate thoughts. (A., 53)
I visit her every two weeks, sometimes with her parents and sometimes alone. We sit together, talk, laugh, and try to make use of our [joint] time. (Y., 60)
I come to visit her every two weeks. I never missed a single visit. Occasionally, I bring our son with me. We wake up at 5 in the morning and drive 4 hours just to see her for 30 minutes. And then we have to drive 4 hours back. But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. (C., 37)
Discussion
Incarceration affects all aspects of family life, including the health and well-being of inmates’ spouses and children, and the maintenance of family attachments. It can also lead to marital dissolution (Comfort, 2007; Goffman, 2009; Lopoo & Western, 2005; Western & Wildeman, 2009). Most studies concerning the impact of imprisonment on inmates’ marriages have focused on the effects of men’s incarceration (Chui, 2010; Wildeman, Schnittker, & Turney, 2012), whereas only scarce attention directed at the effects of women’s incarceration on their families. This appears to be quiet odd [and disturbing] in light of research findings showing that most incarcerations of men rarely result in marital breakup (Dodge & Pogrebin, 2001; Travis et al., 2003), whereas most women sentenced to prison are abandoned by their partners and their pre-incarceration romantic relations are terminated (Hairston & Addams, 2001; Sergin & Flora, 2005).
The current study provides important information about the characteristics, motivation, and justifications of men to preserve marital relationships with their imprisoned spouses. Out of 180 prisoners incarcerated in the single Israeli female incarceration facility, Neve Tirza Prison, only nine (of whom eight took part in the study) maintain stable marital relationships longer than 3 years. All these inmates except one, who was sentenced to 264 months, had no criminal records prior to current imprisonment, and were only sentenced to a relatively short time of incarceration (M = 21.8 months). Interestingly, all spouses (but one) have no prior criminal record and therefore can be considered normative (i.e., law-abiding).
The interviews yielded five overarching themes: (a) perceptions of marital relations with incarcerated spouse, (b) perceptions of wife’s criminal conduct, (c) difficulties in marital relationships with incarcerated spouse, (d) preconditions for the continuation of marital relationships between normative men and incarcerated wives, (e) and ways of preserving the marital relationships with incarcerated partners
The discovery that the wife had committed a crime, the following arrest, initial stages of incarceration, and mainly the concealment of the crime from family and community members are experienced as stressful crises. Yet, participants describe incarceration as a challenge that brought the couple even closer, enhancing mutual responsibility and commitment.
This study elucidates the shock and devastation that comes with the discovery that one’s wife had committed a crime, and then with the following arrest and the initial stages of incarceration. The psychosocial effects of finding out about the crime linger well beyond the time of initial shock. Thus, although four (50%) of the participants were interviewed 2 years or more after they had first learned of their wives’ criminal actions, they still referred to the great difficulty of discovery and its long-lasting negative impact. Specifically, all participants testified that the incarceration of their female partners raised frustrations, tension, and lack of trust that led them to reconsider their motivation to preserve their marriages. They clearly described the disruption the revelation caused and the resulting strain on their marital relationship.
Although the romantic relationship was undoubtedly stressed by the discovery of the crime, the arrest, and the incarceration, all participants seemed to have had the resources to meet this challenge or found appropriate support to do so. Our findings indicate that the incarceration led the husbands to recognize their obligation to their partners and to their relationship. Similarly, clinical experience and several empirical studies suggest that some couples facing hospitalization, critical illness, or serious injuries perceive their marital relationship to be improved since the medical episode (e. g., Dorval et al., 2005). The trauma often creates a powerful intensified family bond and feeling of mutual empathy (Eggenberger & Nelms, 2007) and intensifies the desire to protect each other (Burr, 1998). Whether this kind of interaction may stabilize and strengthen a relationship after arrest is to be determined in future research.

Barred From Each Other: Why Normative Husbands Remain Married to Incarcerated Wives—An Exploratory Study – page 3
The participants use several cognitive and emotional devices to help them overcome the double difficulty of explaining and coming to terms with their wives’ criminal acts, and thereby maintaining their marriage. The first device is the rose-colored prism through which the men were able to see their wives as they did when the romance was young. Through this prism, the men refracted and embellished their partners’ characteristics, describing them as archetypal ideals. This finding reveals that the criminal act and the incarceration promoted positive bias typically seen in early stages of intense romantic love (Murray, Holmes, & Griffin, 1996a, 1996b), although the couples had been in very long and stable relationships (M = 17.1 years). The men perceived their partners as unique and exceptional, prototypes of femme fatale, and described the relations with them in flattering and admiring terms. Romantic love is often driven by strong emotions and wishful thinking—as “painted blind,” to use Shakespeare’s phrase (Fletcher & Kerr, 2010). After “talking the talk” of the early, romantic falling-in-love part of the relationship, “walking the walk”—maintaining a long-term and enduring commitments—seems to be powered by strong biologically based attachment emotions (Maner, Rouby, & Gonzaga, 2008). The device used by the participants, the glorification of their partners, reverts to patterns of the time of first love and courtship, not typical of long-tern relationships. Our findings reveal that in times of extreme crisis, this “chivalrous” behavior reappears, even after many years of marriage.
A second device for maintaining romantic relationships with incarcerated spouses is expressing high commitment and devotion. The need for close romantic relationships appears to be exacerbated by confrontations with the fragility of life (Von Fremd, 2006). Incarceration might be perceived as life threatening, as it imposes multiple mental and physical threats to the self (Goffman, 1961). Studies drawing on the terror management theory (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991) indicate that reminders of death increase people’s sense of love and closeness to their romantic partners (Mikulincer, Florian, & Hirschberger, 2003), commitment (i.e., dedication, devotion), desire for intimacy, and love for a romantic partner (Adams & Jones, 1997; Florian, Mikulincer, & Hirschberger, 2002).
A third and final mechanism used by participants to maintain their marital relationships with their incarcerated spouses is to explain their wives’ criminal acts by motivational accounts (Scott & Lyman, 1968; Sykes & Matza, 1957). Normative men describe their wives’ crimes in ways that allow them to minimize guilt, maintain a positive self- and partner-image, and deflect potential stigma. Thus, normative men’s narratives regarding spouses’ crimes are similar to offender narratives that may be best understood as social constructions of the criminal event and of their own social and self-identities, instead of fact-based records of what really happened (Bruner, 2003; McAdams, 1985). Although condemning their spouses’ illicit behavior, participants used rhetorical and linguistic constructions that made the partners’ indiscretions seem inoffensive, reasonable, routine, and sometimes even acceptable. By referring to various excuses and justifications and by using neutralization techniques, participants attempted to construct identities of spouses as being decent, respectable women regardless of their actions. Interestingly, these accounts often drew on themes that described their spouses’ actions as consistent with gender expectations and thus emphasized their spouses’ femininity. Similar to the justifications used by the men in the current study, female offenders cited in other studies used defense of necessity, denial of responsibility, and appeal to higher loyalties at much higher frequency than male offenders. The women claimed that their actions were borne out of necessity, caused by forces beyond their control or to care for, support, or prevent suffering from family and friends, attesting to the fact that gender constrains the way individuals describe their own crimes (Klenowski, Copes, & Mullins, 2011).
Participants view their partners’ criminal acts as not related to their “real character.” Maruna (2001) argued that to enable released prisoners to make the transition to the community and adjust to life outside of prison, they are required to consciously reformulate their identities. He observed that those who desisted from crime tended to describe redemption narratives in which they viewed their “real selves” as noncriminals and their previous criminal behaviors as the result of mistakes, bad choices, and negative influences. They separated and differentiated themselves from their previous mistakes, crafted a moral tale from their experiences, and expressed a desire to use their experiences to help others (Bahr, Harris, Fisher, & Armstrong, 2010). The cognitive transformation theory focuses on the conscious transformation of one’s identity in the process of desistance from crime (Giordano et al., 2002). Thus, through associations with a spouse who sees them as noncriminals, inmates are exposed to and receive reinforcement for particular attitudes and behaviors (Agnew, 2005), and are likely to receive support for not only avoiding illegal behavior but also developing normative self-perceptions.
Increasingly, studies are considering the consequences of incarceration for family life, almost always documenting negative consequences. Incarceration often involves sharply diminished socioeconomic resources, both during and after a sentence (Geller, Garfinkel, & Western, 2011; Swisher & Waller, 2008). Incarceration also involves considerable stigma (Braman, 2004). Inmates’ spouses also suffer from emotional and adjustment problems (Hagan & Dinovitzer, 1999), reduction in spousal involvement with their children, change in family roles, increased household responsibility, and increased burnout and depression (Comfort, 2007, 2008; Nurse, 2002; Swisher & Waller, 2008; Turney & Wildeman, 2012). These difficulties were found in qualitative as well as quantitative studies based on male inmates and female spouses. None of these difficulties were mentioned by the current research participants, who referred to physical separation and lack of physical intimacy {despite conjugal visits and home furloughs] as the major difficulty in maintaining the romantic relationship with incarcerated female spouses. All other inconveniences and difficulties, characterizing marital relationships in crisis (Huston et al., 2001), or relationships between female spouses of incarcerated males, appear to be irrelevant to the interviewees.
The participants of the current study emphasize the importance of physical contact with the inmates, both explicitly and indirectly, when referring to prerequisites to the continuation of the relationships (the duration of the separation) and to ways of preserving the relationships. Out of the three means of maintaining contact available to the normative men and their incarcerated spouses (i.e., visits, letters, and phone calls; see also Boswell & Wedge, 2002; Chui, 2010), the participants adhere to a routine of frequent phone calls and visits, which provides interaction opportunities (Hill, 1988), involvement, and information exchange that enable a gradual accommodation to subtle changes in both partners—inside and outside the prison.
Finally, our findings indicate that in some respects, inmates’ partners experience difficulties and use coping strategies very similar to those cited by spouses facing lengthy separation due to military deployment or life-threatening illness. Identifying commonalities between the problems faced by inmates’ spouses and those faced by normative individuals in other social situations might prove fruitful for understanding the impact of ongoing incarceration on marital dissolution and also for developing effective policies directed at reintegration. Almost 40% of marriages of incarcerated males dissolve after the incarceration period ended, suggesting that an individual’s release from prison and reintroduction to home life produces additional stressors that are detrimental to a marriage (Massoglia et al., 2011). In this line of reasoning, one should acknowledge that reentry is not an event but a process (Maruna & Toch, 2005). Many released prisoners (as well as probationers and parolees) experience various setbacks—such as difficulty in obtaining employment, acquiring housing (Delgado, 2012; Rodriguez & Brown, 2003), stigmatization (Tewksbury, 2005), substance abuse and mental health problems (Petersilia, 2003), and loss of social standings in their communities (Gunnison & Helfgott, 2013)—during the process and may violate parole. For example, 67.5% of ex-prisoners, 43% of felony probationers, and 62% of parolees in the United States were rearrested within 3 years (Beck & Shipley, 1989; Gunnison & Helfgott, 2013; Langan & Cunniff, 1992; Langan & Levin, 2002). Consequently, many researchers and correctional administrators embraced the concept that offender reentry could (and should) be promoted by appropriate support and treatment (Bahr et al., 2010; La Vigne, Visher, & Castro, 2004).
One factor that could contribute to successful adaptation to normative life and reentry is stable marital and familial relations (Kurlychek & Kempinen, 2006). In line with the social control theory, informal monitoring by a spouse and, more significantly, maintenance of cohesive marriage have a preventive effect on crime and assist individuals in desisting from drug use and other delinquent behaviors (Laub et al., 1998; Laub & Sampson, 2001; Vaillant, 1995). The current study provides a preliminary look at the experiences of men who share long and stable romantic relationships with incarcerated women. They report using coping strategies and describe major difficulties and preconditions, all of which allow a unique insight into spouses’ perceptions and motivations to preserve these relationships. Such insights may point to future research direction as well as serve to develop effective policies directed at maintaining stable, long-term romantic relationships with female inmates and, possibly, reducing their chance of recommitting crimes and enhancing successful rehabilitation
Policy Implications
The results of the study reveal that all normative men married to incarcerated spouses suffer from similar difficulties in their effort to preserve marital relationships. Although it could be hypothesized that as a group, these men differ significantly from most of their peers who abandoned their spouses after their imprisonment, the nature of the difficulties represents a challenge to correctional, criminal justice, and social-welfare practitioners and administrators. Therefore, to address the problems and the unique needs of this particular group, and to improve and develop services within and outside the prison service system, we can suggest several recommendations. The first is to reconsider visitation policy. Normative men and their incarcerated spouses, ineligible for home furloughs, should be warranted more conjugal visits. Simultaneously, imprisoned married women, eligible for home leaves, should be entitled to longer and more frequent furloughs. Such visitation/furlough policy would assist in providing relatively stable and reasonable marital relations. Second, this study emphasizes the need to bring marital health to the forefront; a psycho-educational component could be incorporated into the regularly scheduled rehabilitation programs in prison. Couples consisting of normative men and imprisoned women should receive intensive dyadic and familial support. Such assistance and therapy appear to be particularly relevant in cases where the women are incarcerated for long prison terms, when the length of marriage prior to incarceration is relatively short, and in the early stages of imprisonment—when the men are most likely to terminate the marital relations. With enough studies of this nature, policies may eventually be formed that mandate marital therapy training for counselors in prisons and easier access to marital strength initiatives for inmates and spouses on all prisons and within the community as well.

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CW: CSA
Hey. We're having a tough one. A really, really tough one. Long end of the short stick is, we believed that none of us actually held onto the memories of "the event" that made up our childhood sexual trauma.
Well. It was events, plural, and as it turns out one of us - previously unknown - does remember and deals with a whole load of pain because of it.
Jesus, I need a drink. But I feel... weirdly, calm in a way. This sucks. This objectively fucking sucks on every single level and I sorely miss 24 hours ago when I didn't have the memories in my head that I do now. But I have every tool I need to get us through this. A supportive mental health team that understands what's happening to me right now. Strong peer support. Several safety plans for every which way we could try to self destruct. A whole hell of a lot of DBT skills that are going to keep us stable and safe until we can get to a point where processing is safe.
This sucks. This sucks so fucking bad. But the worst things that could've happened to me have already happened. The aftermath is going to fucking hurt, but I'm capable of steering us out of this. I'm going to make sure we come out in one piece, no matter what I have to do.
And, also, thank God for vodka spritzs. Let me have my fucking laughs, I'm going through it.

• Gabriel

Salutations fellow sinners,
If you are righteous, this plea is not for you; but regardless, grace, not pieces within you even yet.
In the words of those before me, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those this may not apply, my opinions are just that, and quite contrary to what we are sold on the television set. The world stage is a large one, but different people often see the same subject in different lights, and, therefore I shall speak openly, without reserve, and in light of God’s Words of truth, the greater light, bet–
Yet, while mercy has been displayed continually by our father, love he and thank thee, merci’ – we failed to follow suit. Mitigating sacrifice was established through the last sacrifice; and it was not Paul, Saul, David or Bugatti. But in order to know God, you must know the Son. A sinner of the statute of the life I have lived can shed light on the power of repentance and the saving grace of our God, the Creator, thanks to the Son. This is the first call, all call, last call to fellow sinners; a call to pause and reflect because the signs of times are all around us, and this time we can’t walk out of the stagecoach.
In the beginning, God made two lights- one greater and one lesser, but both lights nonetheless. Both residing externally Sun and Moon, and internally, both a comprehension of plurality of masculine and feminine, as well as greater and lesser light. But regardless, both lights nonetheless, and light always wins; now or later, preferably sweeter and sooner than the Phoenix. Along the path to redemption there are inevitably trials and tests commensurate with our desires – but the beauty of our Father’s plan, he always brings us back to the brighter light, once we comprehend – for only he and we know the affliction of our heart. He keeps working on us until our hearts are purified and fully understands his design for our lives. There will always be good vs. evil both internally and externally until balanced, but in reality, it is God vs. man because only God is good, and let us be honest, are we really trying to challenge that? But God keeps promises in bringing us back even in our ignorance, and I can attest to that. He is our strength at all times, both high and low; yielding in our hearts to what he’s trying to teach our soul. He loves us regardless of how far we are or fall, and will not abandon us, no matter what live now says, fear not.
Sometimes lessons are sobering for those who are stubborn; we may not understand, but he knows how to teach us through the environment around us. Jesus, our brother and while a, also the, son, came to emphasize the importance of yielding to God for correction. His yoke is indeed lighter; showing us how to attain it through following; following requires doing, which demands denying ourselves more often and practicing faith knowing in your heart the brighter light always prevails. Reiterating if we have a missing piece, a hole to fill, it is God we’re searching for; it can’t be filled with earthly matters. If we lose faith, we lose sight of what he’s doing in our lives and those we are in contact with. Making sure the light prevails, for when we tumble in the darkness, the light only surfaces on occasion.
Nonetheless, our hearts become like a twisted ball of yarn the more we sin and stray from the path he tries to keep us on. He has to untangle each strand, leading us back one by one. Reintegration and restoration, trust and love, resurrecting a passion for life. The prodigal kids, here we come; and he does it for all of us, not just some. He’s a master potter, shaping and molding us throughout life; some more stiff necked than others, but that’s par for the course. Just like the oxen, being worked in amongst the fodder, break the weights and the neck will move further. The moment we surrender and turn back in plea, truly searching and seeking out thee; he always relents and helps us to rebuild. It is a bitter sweet double-edged sword for when you realize that we cause our own dismay amplified by false portrayals around us, it becomes quite evident what must change. The weight on our brother’s shoulders, both then and now – for he fought without lifting a finger for us and did not succumb, but prevailed. The last sacrifice, unfathomable and deserving of appreciation; but fear not friends, for he has been risen, many times before. Once we accept that we are being groomed to receive the promises guaranteed to all, that he wants all of the sheeple, not just the spotless, life makes more sense. He is coming to bring us all home, around to the full light. A combination of both as intended, a mastery of self-awareness; Love prevails, God never fails.
We are indeed all like Atom, after all we do live in Atom’s Sphere, and are made up of none other than, atoms here, and yes, just as we have been told time and again, hallowed my dear. Hence the Alpha and the Omega, first and last, because this whole life is made up of just that. Yet, while science is fascinating and adoration of awe; don’t forget to give credit to the maker of it all. Hence, we must seek and be able to answer “Who am I” in order to identify origination; that is where we find God. We as the body are the temple, not a box. He is the One and the Three, the tree for both you and me; tomorrow’s vision may not be a Friday, but there will be a day. God is the master mathematician, and he's not a big fan on division. You see our God is a God of multiplication and addition, not a fan of taking away and starting over; who wants to destroy their crop, unless a last resort? Speaking of which, have you seen, who owns the largest amount of crops? Will be interesting to see, how someone with so much acreage could see famine right down the street, and what they’ll do to address the civil unrest. Quite contrary indeed, similar to a drug dealer killing their clientele with highly synthetic pleas. But if that’s what it takes, we know the lord doesn’t hesitate, do you serve the lord, God, or the local magistrates. Ever considered why cows are so sacred? The opposite of Mo’ Mo’ is Woe Woe; we need more Mo and less woe, man. Between Wesley and Presley, Stanley and Springsteen, the Stones and Roses; we should see by now; but even while written on the walls, we become selfish and thinking ‘me above all’.
This pissing matches in the desert are just continuations of ancient-day slaughter. David vs. Goliath based out of sheer foolery and fighting over the daughters; ashes to ashes, dust to dust- our Christ, your Christ, their Christ ours, is already alive, residing inside us, awaiting to be unlocked from behind the bars. Yet, is that how we receive grace, by taking it? Controlling the funds, ports, or oil and calling ourselves kings or gods of the kingdom. Casting lots without him and creating general allotments. Kicking out those who were before us, how has that worked so far. He promised he wouldn’t leave, and indeed it’s been true. He’s been living in the structure of our being, both me and you. Why do you think the pollen heightens or hurricanes roar stronger; how flowers and trees come to be before we; unprecedented spectacles will only be warnings so much longer. Do we think that ‘it is what it is’ and just move on? Or do we halt, stop, ponder seek and see. For even the great magician couldn’t see this set, so much time with deceit and perversions, not enough time in the foreground yet, living the life you forced others to see; not this one, not I, not the Leo in me. Go back and see for yourself, take a peep at the reel, yes … read. The Republic, Phaedo, The Symposium, The Torah, Quran, Testimonies, Revelation, Mayan, Chinese, Indian, Norse, Native American principles – yet we still sometimes fail to see, the children of God – yes, that is you and me.
The Lion of Judah paid the sacrifice for us to live, by combining the three sticks into one, into One hand, the Father. Three, one, One, the fifth star complete. We were told in the book of Ezekiel “Say unto them, thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.” All right there on Calvary; so that others may, LIVE. . . if they believe! But faith is a personal profession and proclamation, between man/woman, wholeness in singularity and God. Why was that taken away from us, from the people? For the people, by the people, forsaken the love we first had, our sweet May flower, Satsuki.
It is a part of the lessons as the road trips us up sometimes, Lara sold to the captain for a lot more than 30 shekels this time. But step away Mr. R.A., this auction is believers only; Lady Beth is in a bud bidding battle, 26 and gone. Smoke stacks spitting, dualities into the sunny skies before night; loads on the roads bringing tears to our eyes. Ancient times and can’t forget behind locked inside the cages; the ringmasters and toastmasters, telecasters and forecasters, singing on an empty stage. Cheating is cheating regardless of state, zip, or theatrical stage, for them, your friends, or colleagues esteemed, 897, 598, 8; quit with your shows and lies and make-believe pies and let my soul’s mate, great. Hope comes from more than batteries and neon, don’t go spending money on needles and guns just yet, neither hot nor cold, and yes . . . Lo key, Loki blues not at all much hotter. Take a look at the wood of holly and you’ll see how the dream works; fishing moon to moon, but be careful who you pray to goonies. For that whistle could be a thistle, and barefoot with blue jeans.
But there is only One judge and jury, so who are we to kick people out, when no one owns this land that we reside on amongst earth; just like the artic, no visa required. So how do we turn our backs on our brothers and sisters fleeing in need of higher glory, for a glory of a nation, belongs to the Father. The hunger games have begun; yet, just as warned by the Son, and Sun, we have been more focused on abiding by man-made rules. We could have even listened to Kat or the Tules, but sure didn’t see that one either. For even in Genesis, the very first book, it takes searching and hunting with arrowheads for the stars to line up. Creating a multi-faceted, yet singular story; “and the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness called Shur”, sure sounds familiar. Like Jesus and the Samaritan by the well, but what is Samaritan; but darkness of the night, yet we are still the pupil of the eye. Nonetheless, a child of God and who is man to judge? Again, we find in Genesis, for the beginning doesn’t make sense until the end, “wherefore the well was called “Beer-la-hai-roi” – oh, hey Roy, let’s stop drinking whiskey, I would like to drink from the fountain of life so I can see. Behold, it is between Kadesh, which means clean, and Be-red, which sounds a lot like anger. Faith, Hope, and Love overcomes death even yet.
For man rests on the outskirts of our spirit, the flesh and bag of bones. For the spirit is strong, but the flesh is weak and yet our God is omnipresent amongst all, with no favoritism and no hate. What a beautiful date, for only God is great, and we are works in progress; the good stuff, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, it does not matter to he who creates. Our souls will be purified and set free after redemption and cleansing. Some along the way have manipulated that fact for political gain, financial gain, status, time and time again. Like now, again – don’t believe it? Start searching and you will see it.. But ole Lewis was crafty, both on and off stage, not really wanting you to see behind that veil or the sage. Jesus told us to seek, and we would find; and oh, you do… once earnestly like, Mr.
The Sign of Jonah we have already seen, and continue to see, for those with eyes or ears and those who are not asleep. For we know that “Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep.” “They cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah.” “He said to them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.” Mind you, a brew of “he” – we all have a little Hebrew inside of us, some even a little Peter.
The men knew he had fled from the presence of the Lord. “I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord and he heard me, out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heard my voice. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains: the earth with her bars was about me forever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving, I will pay that, that I have vowed. He was the last sacrifice, and no more are desired or required. Instead, deny that last drink, or staying out too late seeking sin and adulteries; spoken from wisdom, it causes death all the faster. But it’s more than just the obvious sins and transgressions, for God knows our hearts, and that is hard to hide. Proof is in the puddin’ they say, so what are we made of? Pause, Rewind, and Reflect; break the curse of negative consequence; or be like Joseph, forget.
Brothers and Sisters, the choice is yours for we are different but the same, how can we question and use his name in vein. Was he not the one who highlighted the arteries, the good and the evil, all wrapped up in one. Overcoming and persevering through the plurality, aligning the zeros and mitigating other ones. So, what exactly is the plurality we are faced with deep within this sea of the dead? Shall we consider all of the crests and logos throughout time looking at what they have in common, for I agree with thee. Especially the ones they like to plaster like the ivy all over our walls and halls. Or the stories of creation amongst cultures, lions, gods, legends, dragons, rabbits, dogs, and yes… baals. You can keep your Jumanji, because do you think he cares if we play football or soccer, or what kind of fancy clothes we wear. Is it not less so the act and more so the fact, that while some make millions to play, we’ve got kids homeless and hungry on the streets without a fork, pillow, or books to read. Yet, we always find something to protest, leaving the big question up in the air of who would like to see, finally a day of rest? He’s the same God… try and protest that.
When a red giant loses hydrogen, it loses brightness; likewise, when a red rose loses hydrogen, it also loses brightness. When hydrogen is lost, sulfur ensues to reestablish homeostasis. Yes, brimstone and sulfur help to re-establish pH levels in soil, which is required for a rose to thrive. We are the rose, rose lines have been established all along, out of the ground from the mud, a flower amongst all. Heading back from the blue; yes, that is me and you. God is the cultivator, not the local gardener. Weather my family, we have no control, even though we try. But the all-seeing, he knows what others don’t and the ‘others’ are you and I – did we not see the one that just took first place prize amongst all our eyes floating in the April skies? Do we need more signs of times from space, a wish dragon may not be the best one for our fate. When a son is born, God keeps his covenant; a rainbow in the sky, a spectacle of color and beauty. When a supernova explodes, or the star’s energy is “liberated”, collapsing into a neutron star, or a black hole, respectively and collectively. If someone is of the lesser light, a black hole is born, eating everything around it to the point that its surroundings collapse in; whereas someone of the greater light, Jimmy the neutron shines bright.
One pill makes you larger, one pill makes you small; but must you not know both sides of the coin before you pick up and play with the ball. Ask Neo, or Leo, or summon Alice; ask for a cortado, or ask the Mayans who’s sons also played baal. For words are words, but the sounds of nature are what reveal the true voice of God. If sound is manipulated, and your eyes put into a blur; who’s to say you really know what day it is, thanks Greg. But when sound and sight become a tool of manipulation for the ages, that’s when it’s time to step in and say hold your four horses there Cynisca. The sins my friend must come to an end for there are watchers this time, and they’ve been watching. I’m not sure Theodore meant the credit belongs to the Olympic athlete; more so the man or woman whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, from the knocks of this life. The gripping servitude, a distraction from reality. Getting beat down constantly by society, those appointed over, trying to make an inch only to get hit with a mile. Eights are great especially for fate, but fate without grace; run rabbit run.
The only way to recover from being a sinner is to be baptized by understanding, you have to go through it to grow through it; persevere in order to see the promises. That fire on the mountain will make you a little crazy, but if you persevere and stick through it, it will most certainly save you and teach a level of compassion unknown before. Once you realize that ‘circumcision’ has nothing, yet everything, to do with genitalia, you begin to understand quickly. The spirit is alive inside of us when we choose to listen and ‘liberate it’. Jesus told us himself, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And then Genesis tells us “Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin; “and all the men of his house, born in the same house, and bought with money of the stranger, were circumcised with him. Do you really think a 99-year-old man had his genitals cut, when God is of Mercy and Compassion, not human mutilation and humiliation? Isn’t it more plausible after understanding of truth, that the circumcision is ascension of the spirit, for those who come to, and we all do.
We know in Hosea God says that he “desires mercy and not sacrifice.” And again, in Matthew paraphrased “but go and learn what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I have come to call not the righteous, but the sinners to repentance.” Steps begotten even further for merci’ is thanks, and thanks do we owe he. But have we learned… Even in the Quran, paraphrased “Say oh my worshippers, who have transgressed against himself, never lose hope in the mercy of God.” If we are meant to live in the image of God, who is of mercy; why do we constantly battle for superiority. Religion is a man-made cancer.
Mother Earth is roaring like a lion, at the tipping point wondering why we are acting like the blood sucking zombies we are. For oil is a type of blood line, an artery, life for earth. How do we assume that an engine runs without oil; yet, we are constantly bombarded with the façade that global warming is “not on this earth.” Google’s earth and the X would suggest otherwise, right there amongst the screens for all eyes to see, once they take the time to glean. Joy and glee must have escaped you and me, for it is not the “gold” that everyone seeks. Makes a lot of sense why the gods of earth would want the wars to continue, if you were the benefactor of what fuels the flame. But sorry Mr. want to be king, contrary to belief, it is not just a “can of soup that you can stack on top of” and take what we want without regard for the overall sustainability. For some reason, we only consider the timeframe in which we are alive, but how much longer until we learn that we reap what we sow, and while we as a species have overcome many defeats, all that is really witnessed is destruction, on repeat.
We are in no times of ceremony or celebrations, yet that’s all we seem to do. Mass parades, escapades and Olympic masquerades. The question before the people, my fellow sinners; are you ready? But are we not in the exact same spot as Henry once said, “I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery”; Egypt all over again, yes, this time globally.
But more than free from omens, how about liberty and justice, the two stone weights from above. It is then that we can place hope in representation; for the taxes and costs keep rising, but my people keep flailing. Do what you will, but there is no shame in opinion or giving offence; It should make us all question and hit our knees to repent. If the leaders of our houses are called Beelzebub or Jezebel, how much more those of their household, the slaves of man building their strongholds, me and you.
Henry warned over two-hundred years ago, a fact that resonates true, still to this day,
“We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves, and the House? Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with these war-like preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings’ resort.”
Patrick Henry, 1775.
Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed – righteous and ruins. So, Jacob called the name of the place Peniel for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved – again sounds familiar, a lot like Pineal, for he is indeed the all-seeing right on our foreheads. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of nations, yet we see that one also become corrupt, chasing the dollar bill. They shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads. Do you know your name. Do you know which ladder you’re climbing.
Like a trick candle, we will be re-lit; set out as conquerors and landed on our face thus yet. But when a forest burns, it comes back ever-green; all of my friends, again that is you and me. Leonardo and Charlie, they were about it too; just like Jesus told us, it can be me and you. But the path is narrow, hard to find like Stefani, but Ja rules once you remove the rocks and the water flows. Like the lightning and midnight moon, show its glow amongst the river flow where the wild fern grows. A flower there, with a purple; now you see Whitley.
Chase your dreams and do not be confined to the limitations within the confounds of your reality. Change your personality and you change your personal reality. Embrace experiences and learn from them; in so doing with all your heart be guided with best intent. Do not forsake love, especially the one we first had. Be understanding of yourself and each other. We are all interrelated, stories and family, as such we either help or hurt, collectively. But if you are living life with an open and loving heart, how can you contest we’d be better off than we were at the start. The more we make mistakes and ignore the truth, the further we delve away from others and the true you. That is the challenge of a life full of sin, we have to deny our desires in order to identify that in him. If we can do this at a micro level, we can do it at a macro level. For what is love, if you do not know – God is beautiful, and so are you.
Forsake not the value of consciousness and of life itself; the thought thereof to both create life, and maintain it to term is a matter not to be tampered with. For it is one of grace, and yet uncertainty; but is it not by faith that we overcome hurdles down in the pit of hell, with the help of our father from above, outside the water pale. So ought not the choice of life or death reside with the one who will be responsible to pay the price of said death.
Seek your soul mate, the one we’re searching for – the missing piece within us all, our personal slice of the everlasting, the all-living God. Our piece intended for us, but kept in secret; hidden from helping us thrust to heights we belong. Maybe that is the root, just as confirmed in Genesis yet; for if we do the right thing, will we not be accepted? We are most certainly able, just like Abel, who was slaughtered for doing the right thing. Societal problems continue to expound, but what do we expect for everyone wants a crown. We all have different ways of dealing with our emotions. Particularly the emotion of not feeling loved. Some it pisses off, some drink, others drugs, and violence. But what if you were aware? Would that change, could you change if called out in front of them all. When you meet God in your time, is it not the ideal you had within your mind, a captivating beauty – male, female, or no sex at all. Not to discount finding that on earth if you’re lucky, if the stars line up and you identify the duality like Mona, the Lisa related to Issa. But most will search throughout life with the wrong intent in thine eye; often missing the extra time of completeness and digging deeper into the valley of “I”. To the point individually, and collectively, we create our own demise. It is important to rest, relax, and look within. Meditation certainly helps, but isolation and withdrawal bring about results in an expedited manner. A complete removal of sound in order to process life and how complicated we make it. It is exhausting. Life, for if we had an international stand down, a timeout to explore within, look at the information you may or may not be without. That was the intent behind the sabbath, yet we stopped listening and understanding all cultures that fit into the story, reflecting on history, instead we choose to respond by erasing it. We shouldn’t be complacent and allowing a few to control the narrative for all. If you can answer and describe love, than a congratulation is due to you all; but for some, we may not know until we fall. An expectation of ‘normalcy’, yet who determines what normal is. What you should, or should not want to do. Let us learn to love, starting with the creator, then to thee, and the neighbor around we. To be holy is not religion, for religion creates more division. Holy is a state of being, spiritual – a love for both me and we. For she is an abundance of emerald beauty, golden flowing and eyes that cut through lies.
Captains of the Nations, you are supposed to be the leaders on earth, right? But the real question is, have you been doing your job, and what light does guide thy feet? You want centralized information, but do you know what you are enabling and yet imposing upon creation.
Attitude reflect leadership, Captain. Earth's people will rise again.
Until we meet again, I See You.
He Sees Us.

Asscalamualikum, before I say this, I wanna say this is just a thought from real evidences and I'm not hating on anyone.
So their are these 2 hadiths that I read which I belive fits salafis. What do you guys think? I dont want to cause fitnah, but this is just a thought.
The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah upon him, he said: ‘There will be in the last of my nation a people narrating to you what you nor your fathers heard, so beware of them’.
Sahih Muslim 6 Chapter 4: The Weak Narrators, Liars, and Those Whose Hadith are Avoided, Book: Introduction
And
The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah upon him, said: ‘There will be in the end of time charlatan liars coming to you with narrations that you nor your fathers heard, so beware of them lest they misguide you and cause you tribulations’.’
Sahih Muslim 7 Chapter 4: The Weak Narrators, Liars, and Those Whose Hadith are Avoided, Book: Introduction
Ibn al-Malik said in Sharh al-Masabih li Ibn al-Malik (116) (1/161):
“And from Abu Huraira - may Allah be pleased with him - that he said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: ‘In the end times, there will be deceivers.’ The plural form used here is ‘Dajjalun,’ meaning those who are abundant in deceit and misrepresentation, i.e., deceivers. It implies that there will be a group claiming to be scholars and leaders inviting people to the religion while being liars in that regard.
‘They will come to you with narratives that neither you nor your forefathers have heard before.’ Meaning, they will speak with false narratives, introduce fabricated rulings, and teach people corrupt beliefs, such as the Rawafid (Shi'as), Mu'tazilites, Jabriyyah, and others from the people of innovation.
‘So beware of them’ - meaning, distance yourselves from them.
‘And beware of falling into their deception or trials.’ This is a continuation in response to someone asking: Why should we avoid them? It means to prevent them from leading you astray or causing you to fall into trials.
‘They will not lead you astray’ - a reaffirmation of the response to the questioner: so that they do not misguide you.
‘Nor will they cause you to fall into trials’ - meaning, they will not subject you to temptations, whether referring to the sin of associating partners with Allah (Shirk), as mentioned in the verse, ‘And the trial is more severe than the killing’ [Quran 2:191], or it may also refer to the punishment in the Hereafter, as stated in the verse, ‘Taste your trial’ [Quran 51:14].”
End quote.
Naser al-Din al-Baidawi said in Tuhfat al-Abrar Sharh Masabih al-Sunnah (69) (1/130):
“And in another narration from Abu Huraira - may Allah be pleased with him: ‘In the end times, there will be deceivers.’
Meaning: fabricators, pretenders, using deception. The term ‘Dajjal’ comes from ‘dajl,’ which means mixing. For example, a sword is called ‘mudajjal’ if it is plated with gold. The Dajjal is called so because he mixes falsehood with something resembling the truth.”
End quote.
Mazhar al-Din al-Zaydani said in Al-Mafatih fi Sharh al-Masabih (116) (1/258):
“His statement, ‘There will be deceivers in the end times’ - (Dajjalun) is the plural form of (Dajjal), meaning those abundant in deceit and deception. The term (Ad-Dajjal) signifies deception. This implies that there will be a group claiming to be scholars and leaders inviting people to the religion while being liars in that regard.
‘They will come to you with narratives that neither you nor your forefathers have heard before’ - meaning, they will speak with false narratives, introduce fabricated rulings, and teach people corrupt beliefs, such as the Rawafid (1), Mu'tazilites, Jabriyyah, and others from the people of innovation.
His statement, ‘So beware of them, and beware of falling into their deception or trials’ - meaning, beware of them by being cautious and keep a distance from them. Take precautions so that they do not misguide you and do not lead you into trials.”
End quote.
So from all of these explanations we can see they will come with false rulings, that nobody even our forefathers never heard.
Now if you think about it, they reject all weak hadiths.
They allow things like wiping over all types of socks.
They say all types of amulets are haram tho majority of the ummah says its permissible.
Am I wrong? Theirs just so much more. Such people are already making a way for ignorant people to become scholars. Think about it. People saying nonsense left right with no knowledge, these are gonna be the ignorant scholars, one of the things that will happen. It's like the path for them is already started.

[First] [Previous] [Next]
After a little ruminating, I divided the book in three parts using pink washi tape: the Rune section is the main meat of the book, full of untranslatable symbols; the Transcription section, which I think converts those symbols to their phonetics; and finally the Epilogue, which was the final chapter of the book, written entirely in some strange language I’ve learned is Hesperian.
It was almost eight in the night when I finally gave up trying to find any coincidence in Gaggle from any of the words I could catch in the Transcription section of the book. Nothing, not a single clue. With a heart full of frustration and a growing need to engage in self destructive gaming, I decided to start working with what I could understand: the Epilogue.
The translator was limited on the amount of words I could do at the same time so, I had to improvise and do several batches. In the end, this is the result I got:
A long and winding road opens before you. From the moment you pick up this book, you have three options: You can ignore this challenge and give it to someone who wants to take it; You may destroy this book and be content to destroy another line that connects us with the Tree of Origin; or dare to read and seek the meaning of these symbols. This post is for you, the brave, who want to translate the untranslatable and understand the unintelligible. It is very likely that the person destined to translate this book will not be blessed with the Arcane Infection (if we can really call it such a blessing), so here are a few words of caution.
1.- Once your mind connects signifier and signified, don't read these words aloud unless you want to confront their effects. 2.- Do not comment on this book to any uninitiated. They wouldn't believe you anyway. 3.- Your perception of reality will slowly change with each new word you identify. Don't worry, it's natural to see the colors of magic once you wake up to it. 4.- Look for the gold sign in your city, probably in libraries and hospitals. If you can't find it, you're safe to practice in your own home. If you find it, dig around and find the Elysium before experimenting. 5.- Avoid the Black Cloaks at all costs.
I don't recommend taking this book to public places, much less to the Elysée. Study him in the safety of your home, quietly, eating snacks. Take your time, this is a task that can take years, but I assure you that it is worth it.
Once you reach the end, I'll wait for you at the point where it all begins...
A couple of hints before I go:
The title means "The Butterflies of Creation." A circle means a single word combined. Follow the arrows. You'll get used to the pace of reading eventually.
I wish you the best of luck.
Please survive. Humiko
Once the process of transcribing, which was honestly quite an ordeal considering this Epilogue was written in cursive by a shaky hand, translating and recording in my notebook was done, I am left staring at this nonsense for a while.
The worst part of all this? I can’t even promise the translation is faithful, Gaggle Translate is still in its baby phases…
My eyes turn to the clock on my laptop. Already thirty past ten… it’s getting a little late for this.
“Not that it ever mattered to you. What time have you been going to sleep these days anyway? Three in the morning? Maybe four?”
Sigh. The voice is getting harder to ignore, but I make an effort to just bite my lower lip and keep my focus.
There’s a lot to unpack here. Magic being the most prominent deal, this seems to be implying that magic is real? The insensitive skeptic in me wants to disregard that entirely, after all I am a person of science! But the rest of my body can’t help but want it to be real… after all, what’s the worst that could imply?
At best, hell yeah, magic is real! Neat!
At worst… there’s a lot more power in the hands of a mysterious, underground government that keeps tabs on us at all times not only with technological means but now with magical means too.
I shudder for a moment there. My head has not exploded instantaneously upon the thought so, at least I can either assume they can’t read my mind or there is no little microchip in my brain just waiting to destroy me for learning ‘The Truth’.
Then again, is that technology even possible? I–
“Focus, Tav.”
Yes. Yes, I need to focus. What other concepts are introduced here that this Humiko just assumes I know what she’s talking about?
‘The Tree of Origin’. Okay that’s easy, it’s probably some ‘Tree of Knowledge’ kind of allegory in the mythology I am getting my nose into. Probably an equal to God with a capital G… or maybe Yggdrasil? The tree of the world? That’s another possibility they could be referencing. No idea what this goes into, but apparently it is connected to the contents of this book.
‘Arcane Infection’. Does she mean magic? Or something else? Why call it a “blessing” and then backpedal a bit? Should I be worried about my health now? I have asthma so another infection in my body wouldn’t really be welcome…
‘Signifier and Signified’. She must be talking about the runes. No idea what she’s going on about though. Maybe I have to connect each word in my mind or something? Like a huge riddle… and then, only then, something magical will happen.
“This sounds like you are entering into a cult or something…”
Look, if they start trying to convert me into a cult I will run away as fast as I can.
“If you ever realize that. It’s not like the people making cults are experts brainwashing losers and outcasts like you.”
Moving on.
‘The Uninitiated’, clearly not-mages. So there is a separation between them and us, probably some sort of magical cloak to keep entire sections of the city hidden or something like that. Like in the Wizard Boy books! I wonder if there are magical schools and such too…
“Focus.”
Yeah, yeah.
The whole ‘Golden sign’ is pretty straightforward. I have to find some symbol hidden in the frameworks of our society. No idea what symbol, the internet is not exactly useful when I put something as vague as “golden sign” in it, but I guess I can leave that for later.
What is ‘The Elysium’ though? I mean, it probably doesn’t mean the fields from greek mythology, right? It is not telling me to go die, right?
Finally, the Black Cloaks. That’s vague, too vague. I have to avoid emo kids now? It probably will make much more sense when I get to work with deeper concepts but, it’s something to look out for…
‘The point where it all begins’. Another vague note, nonsense really.
“Most of this, if not all of it, is nonsense. You should be used to it by now… why do you pay so much attention to this when you could be studying something actually useful?”
Guilt pierces my heart like a frozen dagger. Saints damn it. It’s true. Why can’t I muster all this intense attention and initiative when it comes to my studies? It used to be so easy!
“It was never easy. You always struggled paying attention.”
And yet in highschool it was all so easy… I was the first of my generation. The most promising child to ever graduate from there, and now… look at me.
Look at all I’ve accomplished.
“You wasted your future. Now you can only do your best to pick up the pieces and beg for mercy from your parents and the world at large. Squandered your potential to the worst result possible. You know the worst part? You can’t really blame anyone but yourself…”
With a heavy sigh I stood from my chair, leaving the book, my notes and the laptop on the table.
“Are you finally giving up? Can we go to sleep now?”
Yeah… yeah I think I will.
“We can always continue tomorrow! Don’t worry, it will all be still here when you wake up!”
“Yeah, waiting, like everything you’ve left unfinished.”
My feet take the first step back towards my room.
“...Don’t you want to at least check on that last couple of hints? Particularly about the title of the book?”
My curiosity is picked.
I stop, and turn right around to read the translation again. It says it is translated to ‘The butterflies of Creation’. That… means nothing to me.
“Signifier to signified…”
I need to make the connections… on the notebook, I quickly scribble the words side by side with the translated text.
The Asu Butterflies tlo’ikovithiio of Creation
It’s easy to link ‘the’ and ‘asu’, but I am not even sure if the words can correlate in the same order, or something like that. The arrows do seem to tell me that. The rest of the word though… ‘Tlo’ikovithiio’, that could mean ‘butterflies of creation’, right?
I look for the runes in the first part. Particularly the one in the cover page.
Rune 2
I see one symbol, and then a circle containing several others. Saints damn it I am not even closer to understanding this than before, am I!?
The first one must be ‘asu’...which must mean ‘the’, right?
The rest of it is ‘tlo’ikovithiio’, Butterflies of creation…
“We are tracing circles at this point. Let’s go to sleep.”
“Shhh, they’re onto something.”
I am honestly tempted to simply give up, when suddenly it hits me: Look for patterns! Passing the pages, I may find the signs on their own!
Rune 3
Eureka!
“Uhhh…”
And if the transcription is faithful, which I just have to beg for it to be now, this has to be read ‘tlo’iiio’. Again ending in ‘iio’?
Now that I think about it, that symbol, the one with two dots and a line, I can only see it in circles indicating combined words.
I know for a fact these are two glyphs now, and if they are a combined word… ‘Tlo’i’ and ‘iio’ must be the particles!
Iio must be a particle you only apply to other words, to give them a quality.
“Dear, the room…”
Shh! I am focused!!
So back to our original word, ‘tlo’ikovithiio’... It would be three words! ‘tlo’i’, ‘kovith’ and ‘iio’! Three symbols. And if I really squijnt my eyes, that symbol in the middle, the ‘tlo’i’, really kinda looks like a butterfly right? Or some flying creature for sure!!
“Santino, really. Stop for a moment.”
So there’s the big U (that maybe represents a finger), the butterfly, and the particle ‘-iio’. Maybe ‘Creation’ means the literal creation of things, the act of making! So that U, that finger, is making the butterfly by touching it. Tlo’i and kovith would then be ‘Butterlfy’ and ‘Creation’. Putting them together maybe acts like a mixing of its properties. The butterflies, they are divine!
“Tav!!”
I snap out of my hyperfixation for a moment, only to notice that everything around me is moving. The chairs, the table, the computer, everything has been taken by sudden gusts of wind that blow around me. I am in the eye of a storm of my own making.
All that remains stationary is the old, badly bound notebook. The rune I wrote on it is shining a bright green… no, it’s purple… or golden? It shifts so quickly I can’t really tell.
“Make it stop!”
No.
Deep down, I know what I have to do… I have to finish the thought. I have to connect the signifier with the signified.
‘Asu Tlo’ikovithiio’. ‘Asu Tlo’i-kovith-iio’.
Iio must indicate something, a quality, a status.
“A plural.”
Yes. The pluralism! It indicates more than one!
“I got it!”
“Good! Now make it STOP!”
Raising my hand, I try to take a deep breath and touch the words on my notebook. Without really thinking on what will happen next, I focus.. and now with a full understanding of what I am saying, I whisper.
“Asu tlo’ikovithiio.”
Suddenly the tornado around me stops mattering at all.
I feel how the air suddenly escapes my lungs, pushed by some invisible force that also spreads an indescribable warmth from my heart and through my whole body. I see the same light of many colours spread through my veins, brightly shining as it pushes and escapes from the fingers of my raised hand.
Just as something forms on the tip of my fingers and spreads its wings, my body loses all strength. My eyes lose their focus, I feel myself trembling before falling down.
I can only feel the gentle, fragile touch of a butterfly for the faintest of instants before everything becomes black.

Mustelidean language family is spoken by the numerous members of the Mustelidae taxonomic family such as ferrets, polecats, weasels, martens, sables, badgers, otters and others. The number of languages is not yet determined but it is the most dispersed bestial language family. Its existence is unique and somewhat phaenomenal because in-universe, the cases of multi-species language families are fairly rare and there are no language families with common ancestry between such high taxonomic order.
The distribution of Mustelidean languages in the modern day
The hypothetical distribution of Mustelidean languages in its height c. 2,000 BP
It is believed that such wide distribution is the result of forced resettlements conducted by prehistoric advanced civilizations, which are called "dispersals" in the context of the history of the family. The physiological structure of mustelid mouths is fairly similar allowing them to acquire the proto-languages evolving into individual languages, and borrow the neighboring Mustelidean languages (in some cases).
This family had emerged c. 40,000 BC in southern or north-western part of Siberia. It is widely accepted that its first speakers could be wolverines who imposed their language to martens, weasels, sables, or all of them. There were two dispersals: the First Dispersal occured c. 35,000 BC, conducted by prehistoric Vulpine civilization and resulted in emergence of Lutrian, Kalan and probably Meleic and Wolverinian languages. The Second Dispersal occured c. 12,000 BC by Feline and Canine civilizations resulting in separation of Proto-Mustelan and Proto-American Martid into European and American branches, and of Kharzic and Meleic into northern and southern branches.
Reaching its apex somewhere around 2-3 thousand years BP, the Mustelidean language family nowadays experiencing the loss of population, area and diversity due to the human, pet and more prominent species' activity.

Classification

There are four of the most widely accepted branches of Mustelidaean languages that undisputedly belong to them: Mustelan, Asiatic Martid, American Martid and Kharzic. These subgroups are also known as "Mustelidaean Proper" because they share common features in phonetics and grammar. Their typical features include:

• being analytic or moderately fusional;
• not having cases beside nominative and oblique;
• having a number of words wihout a form of plural number (called "default plurals" or pluratives);
• having fixed or limited free SVO/SOV word order;
• having more than one series of coronal consonants (most typically dental and palatal/retroflex);
• usage of numerous copulas and Ezafe-type constructions.

Meleic is also included though it has highly divergent grammar. And finally, the position of Lutrian, Kalan and Wolverinian branches is debated. In-universe, one scholars think that their languages descend from Proto-Mustelidean and drastically diverged through the dozens of millenias; others think that these languages were just influenced by PMusd during the First Dispersal acquiring some words in the process.

• Mustelic branch is spoken primarily (but not entirely) by the members of the Mustela genus. (emerged c. 24,000 BP)
  • European Mustelic (emerged c. 10,000 BP)
    • Furritian is the most well-known Mustelidean language spoken by domestic ferrets. Considered to be a pet language on par with Feline and Canine, it has a great influence of human languages (both modern and ancient) and complicated history. Its urheimat is in Italian Peninsula, and, not unlike with Feline and Canine, its heartland is considered to be Great Britain. Being on the verge of extinction, it was revived in the 19th century, and now it is widely spoken in the UK, northern parts of Italy and Greece, and broadly spoken in ferret kennels worldwide.
    • Old Weaslish (✝) was spoken by European polecats living in Britain prior to Furritian expansion since the Roman era. Its speakers were also known as "weasels". In-universe, "weasel" was a term for pagan ferrets. Eventually, speakers of Furritian have taken over their lands and weasels were assimilated into Furritian culture. Later, the term "weasel" was applied to the least weasels living in North America.
    • European Mustelan aka Carpathian Mustelan is also spoken by European polecats and is the last remnant of the number of closely related European Mustelic languages spoken across the continental Europe. Its area is restricted to the Carpathian mountains.
  • Steppe Mustelan is spoken by steppe polecats living in southern Kazakhstan. The speakers had a strong nomadic culture and raided the sedimentary species such as badgers, cats and Bobak marmots resulting in persecution from humans and their pets. Its status is considered vulnerable.
  • American Mustelan (✝) aka Weaslish was spoken by least weasels near the Atlantic Coast of North America. Widely spoken in the past, it was reduced to one of the secret languages of the black market traders providing illicit goods to the savages in wastelands. It is the most divergent Mustelic language due to exposure to other species' languages in America.
• American Martid branch is spoken primarily by the members of Martes and Mustelinae genera. The name is traditional and counterintuitive because these languages still emerged in Eurasia, but its feature is much greater diversity in Americas rather than in Europe. (emerged c. 18,000 BP)
  • European Martid (emerged c. 12,000 BP)
    • Marté aka Martenese is the most well-known member of the entire branch. This is the common name of at least four related languages:
    • Beech Marté is what usually considered to be Marté; it is spoken in France, northern Spain, parts of Germany, Norway, Scotland and Newfoundland. It is spoken by beech martens.
    • Pine Marté is spoken by pine martens in Spain and Italy. Cunia Marté, spoken in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, is very closely related to Pine and it speakers consider Cunia to be a part of their language but the speakers of Cunia disagree with that.
    • Crimmohtana and Nerinmakhtan are spoken by pine martens in mountainous regions of Crimea and Caucasus. These two languages are hardly intelligible with Pine Marté and to each other but still commonly considered to be dialects to it because they are spoken by the same species.
    • Crénn (✝) is historically important language. It was spoken by the eponymous culture of European minks. It's believed that Furritian and northern dialects of Marte acquired breathy tone via the interaction with Crénn speakers. Unfortunately, this language died in the Middle Ages as its species were extinguished.
  • American Martid Proper (emerged c. 12,000 BP)
    • American Martenese is spoken in wide territories of Canada from Ontario to Yukon. It is dominant over other bestial languages because one of American marten clans gained support from human colonists eventually taking over the entire territory of Canada.
    • Cordilleran Martenese is also spoken by American martens and it is considered to be more conservative. Spoken in mountainous parts of British Columbia and Alberta.
    • Caurinan is spoken by Pacific martens in coastal British Columbia and in parts of Washington. Humboldt Caurinan and Rockies' Caurinan are fairly divergent but commonly considered to be dialects. In Canada, both Caurinan and Cordilleran Martenese are being gradually replaced by American Martenese.
  • Erminic (emerged c. 8,000 BP)
    • Erminese Proper is spoken by stoats in northern parts of Ontario, Quebec, Nunavut and in New Zealand. Despite of not having full recognition in any state, this language is still thriving because they share different biomes with martens and being invasive species in New Zealand where even rabbits speak its deranged (obfuscated due to different species' mouth morphology) register.
    • Beringian and Haida Erminese are spoken by stoats in parts of Alaska and Chukotka, and in Haida Gwaii respectively. Once a great fighters with Wolverine savages and Kalan pirates, they refused to elaborate with humans, and they got under pressure from Husky and Malamute languages (belonging to Canid family).
  • Vison-Pekanic (dubious, probably two separate branches; emerged c. 10,000 BP)
    • Visonic is spoken by American minks in southern Alberta, Saskatchewan and Winnipeg, and in North Dakota and Wisconsin. It has a breathy tone like Furritian that made linguists propose that Crénn could influence it in the past.
    • Pekanian is spoken by fishers) in southern parts of Ontario and Winnipeg. Its quite divergent from Visonic and other local Martid languages but linguists suppose that its speakers lived together when the proto-language emerged.
  • American Guloninic (emerged c. 6,000 BP)
    • Quickhatch and Carcajou are spoken by the same species of wolverines in parts of Quebec and Minnesota. They are noticeable for having phonotactics similar to that in Wolverinian language which can be traced back to Proto-Mustelidaean assuming they spoke another Mustelidean language before the Second Dispersal. These languages are being gradually replaced by American Martenese.
• Asiatic Martid branch is also spoken primarily by the members of Martes and Mustelinae genera. Due tho proximity to Proto-Mustelidaean urheimat, they are considered to be more conservative. (emerged c. 18,000 BP)
  • Zibellinic (emerged c. 6,000 BP)
    • Siblina or Sable Proper is the most well-known member of this branch. It is spoken by sables in Siberia. Its speakers once had a great empire spanning across Siberian lands which was ruined due to human expansion and assistance of squirrels who allied with them and put their species to the verge of extinction. Nowadays, the language is on the rise but thanks to radical methods maintained by the fascist regime of the Sable Empire including cleansing of other species and mandatory breeding program.
    • In the past, sables were so widespread they had at least 3 related languages: Syublin (aka South Sable) spoken from Altai to Baikal; Sobol (aka West Sable) spoken from Ural to Ob river; and Kronok (East Sable) spoken in Kamchatka. Among them only Kronok survives to this day, the rest of them died out due to the human and its allied species activity.
    • Sigen or Siberian Martid Guloninic is also included in this branch. It is spoken by wolverines, and because the most of speakers live in Sable Empire, it's commonly considered to be a dialect of Siblina.
  • Kolonokic (emerged c. 10,000 BP)
    • Northern and Southern Kolonok (Diaoyu) are spoken by Siberian weasels in the parts of Yakutia and Amur, and in northern parts of China, Mongolia and Korea, respectively. Northern language has significant Siblina influence while southern one has Northern Kharza influence (up to having tones). On the other hand, Kronok has the significant influence from Northern Kolonok. Both of these languages are currently vulnerable.
    • Solongoi (dubious) is spoken by mountain weasels aka Solongois in northern parts of Mongolia. It is significantly different from other Kolonok languages so some linguists consider it the separate branch of Asiatic Martid. It is also vulnerable as it's under the pressure of Kharza language.
    • Itachigo and Kurotengo were once spoken in northern parts of Korea and in Primorsky Krai but were expelled into Japan due to the expansion of the Great Kharza Empire. They are spoken by Japanese weasels and Japanese martens respectively. They are the part of Juugorengō, the Japanese pet laguages sprachbund which also includes Anakumago (see below), the local dialect of Feline, Akita Inugo, Shiba Inugo (both belong to Canid) and other bestial languages.
• Kharzic branch is spoken primarily by the single species, yellow-throated martens aka Kharzas but has some speakers among Kolonoks, Solongois, Sichuan and yellow-bellied weasels, and several species of Melogale genus. (emerged c. 26,000 BP)
  • Kharzic Proper (emerged c. 14,000 BP)
    • Northern Kharza or simply Kharza is spoken by the northern half of Kharza habitat including Manchuria, Ussuriland, and Korea. Though overshadowed by Yinkisai which is the official language of Great Kharza Empire, it's still thriving and the speakers consider themself to be true Kharzas in contrast to their southern kin.
    • Kharza Proper or Yinkisai or Youyu is the most widespread language of this branch and spreads across the southern half of Kharza habitat in China. Despite being the dominant language in Great Kharza Empire, its native area is shrinking due to the human and their pets activity, and martens themselves are being oftenly exploited as a cheap labor force for the might of their true communist overlords. Sichuan weasels also speak the deranged register of this language.
  • Southern Kharzic (WIP) is the diverse branch of dozen languages spoken to the south of Himalayas and of PRC border. The most prominent members of this branch are Kanchen and Tungatha, spoken in Nepal and northwestern India. The conceived unnamed languages include spoken by Kharzas, yellow-bellied weasels, Chinese, Burmese, and Vietnam ferret-badgers meanwhile there is a different language family spoken by ferret-badgers from which Southern Kharzic languages had an influence.
• Meleic branch (?) is spoken primarily by species of Meles genus. (emerged c. 25-35,000 BP?)

This is where controversy whether it descends from Proto-Mustelidaean or just loaned it features begins: while the most of basic stems are clearly of Mustelidean origin, they typically have a fairly agglutinative morphology, SOV word order, and most of the affixes are not reconstructible to Proto-Mustelidaean. The situation is complicated with Meleic languages being more loaning than usual, and it is unclear whether some stems were loaned from PMusd or its later stages.

• Northern Meleic (emerged c. 13,000 BP)
  • Mele and Menñe are two closely-related languages spoken by European and Asian badgers in Volga Region and southern Ural to the Siberia. Menñe is official in Barsuk State while Mele is official in three domains: Meleia, Derdesh (aka Dorozhnaya Strana) and Sorkhet (aka Neftyanaya Strana), making it the most prominent Meleic language. Both species can speak on these languages interchangeably without significant speech disorders.
• Southern Meleic (emerged c. 13,000 BP)
  • Gurkani and Kanishkiyi (aka Caucasian Mele) are spoken by Caucasian badgers on the territories of Iran and Azerbaijan. A number of local honey badgers also speak a dialect of Gurkani. Both of them are under the pressure of Feline whose speakers have a pet domain in Iran.
  • Vormelan (?) is spoken by marbled polecats in wastes of Iran, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. Their language is divergent from other Meleic languages in features such as having VSO word order, and it is debated whether it descended from one of Meleic languages or just acquired their vocabulary. Unfortunately, the speakers of this language are persecuted by humans and their pets because they refuse to abandon their nomadic culture.
• Anagumago is spoken by Japanese badgers who were displaced from badgers when Proto-Meleic was spoken. Their language had acquired Japanese, Ainu and Shiba Inugo vocabulary even more than Itachigo and Kurotengo did.
• Lutrian (?) is spoken by Eurasian otters in parts of Poland, Baltic states, Slovakia, Belarus and Ukraine. It is official in domains of Lutria and Volatia. It is renounced for unusual VSO word order, complex consonant clusters, preserving PMusd nasal and glottalized tones, and having the most cursed Cyrillic alphabet ever. Dating back to the First Dispersal, a long time ago it and likely its relatives were much more widespread across European seashores and river banks, influencing the languages of beavers, Mustelic, Marmotian, and some others. Unfortunately, due to the conflicts with humans for the river habitats their area and language were significantly reduced to the 20th century. Nowadays, the language is slowly recovering in number and territory.
• Kalan (?) is spoken by sea otters from Kuril Islands to the shores of California. There was a theory about connection between Kalan and Lutrian but now it's dated. Once a widespread species with unique maritime culture and notorious for their pirate raids on sedentary species of Japan, Alaska and Canada, during the colonization they were driven close to the extinction. To this day, Kalans made peace with humans and forbade piracy practice but this caused Kalans to abandon their livestyle and language. Only few dozens of Kalans try to preserve this language, making it critically endangered.
• Wolverinian (?) is spoken by wolverines in parts of Chukotka and Alaska probably descending from the first speakers of Proto-Mustelidaean. It is also the least included branch of Mustelidean languages because there are only traces of supposed Mustelidean forms. However, the reconstruction of Proto-Mustelidaean phonetics and grammar bears suspiciously many similarities to Wolverinian, supposing they could share similar features. Wolverinian retains polysynthetic verb-prefixing morphology and SOV word order.

Language Comparison

English	Proto-Mustelidaean	Furritian	Steppe Mustelan	Beech Marté	American Martenese	Erminese
one	*i-śil, *(a)-jɨg	yke [ˈaɪkʰ]	яӣк [ja.ˈi:k]	vñui [ˈə̃ɥ]	ˈĩ.jĩ	a.naĩ
two	*(a)-ʈi	yë [ˈjeʰ]	ӣ [ˈi:]	te [ˈtɛ]	ʈʂi	t͡ʃi
three	*ʈi-jɨg	ëjek [eʰ.d͡ʒɪk]	ӣӣк [i:.ˈi:k]	téie [ˈtøɥ]	ʈʂi.jĩ	t͡ʃĩ:
four	*ʎįɲ (?)	layt [ˈlʷɔɪtʰ]	лай [ˈlai]	lân [ˈlɑn]	lĩ.wə	lĩ:
five	*-ŋmot- (?)	shont [ˈʃontʰ]	шана̄т [ʂa:.ˈnat]	gnóch [ˈŋœ̃ʃ]	ˈŋmo.sĩ	mu.ʃĩ
six	*	eare [ˈi:.wɤ]	ӣлай [i:ˈlai]	héi [ˈhøj]	he.ˈlĩ	hi.ˈlĩ
seven	*	eakeny [ˈi:.kɛɲ]	ӣкаң [i:.kaɲ]	tsomau [t͡so.mo]	ʈʂĩ.ˈgu.wə	t͡ʃi.ˈmu.t͡ʃĩ
eight	*-ʈoHtu- (?)	aytoon [ɛɪ.tu:n]	ятâн [ˈja.tɑ:n]	tohaun [to.ũ]	ʈʂĩ.ˈwũ	t͡ʃi.ˈi.lĩ:
nine	*	bule [ˈbɯ:.ɤ]	бул [ˈbul]	culaun [ku.lũ]	kũ.ˈlũ	ka.ˈlũ
ten	*rel (?)	roul [wa.ʊ:]; yrut [aɪ.ɐtʰ]	жол [ˈʐol]	riéu [ˈʁøw]	pi:.dðũ	pi.dũ

*phonological evolution of branches not determined yet

English	Siblina	Northern Kolonok*	Kharza*	Yinkisai*	Visonic	Pekanian
one	iс [ˈɪs]	ˈi.sə	ʃɯ34 ja1 / ǐ:t34	ʂɪ34 jə1 / ji:34	ˈɔʰɥ	ˈɑj
two	ит [ˈit]	ˈi.tə	gɤ32 ja1 / ɲi:32	kɤ32 jə1 /ɲi:32	ˈʂɪ	ˈsi
three	трыы [ˈtʝɨ:]	ə.ˈtaj	ɖɯ32 ja1 / sam34	ɖɑ:n5 ə1 / sɑn5	ˈʂɪʰɥ	ˈsɑ.jɪ
four	hани [ˈha.ni]	ˈha.nə	jȁm1 a1 / si32	jan1 ə1 / sɪ:51	ˈʎi:.ɛʰ	ˈlik
five	нор [ˈnor]	ˈno.rə	wɤ32.ɺi34 ja1 / u:423	ŋʷɤ213	ˈŋɑz	ˈgɑ.hɪ
six	хибии [çi.bi:]	ˈxi:.βi	baj32 a1 / ɺy32	bəɪ32 ə1 / ʐu:51	ˈeʎ	ˈi.lɪ
seven	симянь [ɕi.mjaɲ]	ˈxu:.mɛ.ɲi	ɺi34.mu32 ja1 / t͡sit32	ʐɪu:213 wə1 / ʈʂi5	ˈʂɑ.ɔʰ	ˈsɑ.vʊ
eight	дьоосень [ˈɟo:.ɕeɲ]	ə.ˈto:.ɲi	gum1 a1 / ʝět34	kun1 ə1 / ɖɪa51	ˈsɑ.vɔ	ˈsɑ.vɑj.hɪ
nine	бiруу [bɪ.ru:]	βə.ˈru:	tum32 a1 / jy423	tun1 ə1 / kɪu213	ˈhur	ˈku.lʊ
ten	ҕяр [ˈʝar]	ə.ˈxɛr	ʝip34	dʐi:51	ˈfri.lu	ˈpi.lʊ

English	Mele*	Menñe*	Lutrian*	Itachigo	Kurotengo
one	шеррик [ˈʃɛr.rig]	сёрик [ˈʃɵ.rɪg]	ѣрай [ɔ.ˈɾɑj5]	ˈi.t͡si	ˈi.ɕɪ
two	тюк [ˈcug]	тюк [ˈcʉk]	ва [ˈvɑ5]	ˈi.tu / ˈni	ˈi.tɪ / ˈni
three	тенай [tɛ.ˈnɑj]	тенай [tɪ.ˈnɑj]	ълiѭ'н [ʌ.ɫji45.jɔ̃ˀn5]	u.ˈte: / ˈsan	ˈtɕu: / ˈsan
four	верри [ˈmbɛr.ri]	вёри [ˈmβɵ.rɪ]	ноц [ˈnɔt͡s3]	ˈho.nu	ˈhaɴ
five	шугби [ʃu.g͡bi]	сюгви [ʃʉ.ɣ͡βɪ]	ъ'кполтъ [ʌˀ.k͡pɔɫ3.tʌ]	ˈno.nu / gwɛn	ˈnoɴ / ˈgo
six	хуник [ˈxu.nig]	юник [ˈjʉ.nɪg]	ѫ'ӈлиҙ [ʊ̃ˀŋ.ɫið3]	ˈhi:.βi / ɾo.kwɛn	hi.ˈβi: / ˈʐo.kɯ
seven	тенедь [cɛ.nɛɟ]	тёнит [cɵ.nɪt]	врѫкатi [vɾʊ̃.kɑ5.tji]	ˈhi:.mɛ.i / ˈsi.t͡sjen	ɕɪ.ˈmaɴ / ˈɕi.tɕɪ
eight	тётьен [ˈcɔ.cɛn]	тётьин [ˈcɔ.cɪn]	влѣкатi [vɫjɔ.ˈkɑ5.tji]	u.ˈto:.i / ˈba.t͡sjen	ˈdʐo:.ɕɪɴ / ˈba.tɕɪ
nine	вуру [mbu.ru]	вурю [mβu.ˈrʉ]	лъмиҙ [ɫʌ.mið3]	ˈβu:.ɾu / ˈkjɔn	bɪ.ˈɾɯ / kju
ten	йер [ˈjɛr]	йер [ˈjɛr]	ѣру ɔ.ˈɾu3	ˈi.ɛ.ɾu / d͡zʲi.bʷɛn	ˈʐa.ɾɯ / ˈʑi.βɯ

Sample Text: "Once upon a time the hare and the grouse lived very well."

Furritian

Jýoh báën wë grueta näsh-e chs-kun-e ö uje fae.
d͡ʒaɪ.ˈóʰ ˈbɛɪ.éʰn wèʰ ˈgʷɯ́ʰɥ.tə ˈnàʰ.ʃɪ t͡ʃ.ˈsku.nɪ oʰ ˈu.d͡ʒɪ fɛj
[long time ago] hare and grouse have-PERF ABSTR.PL-life-PERF which COMP.ADV good

Siblina

Гуонь-енаа-м сы-й бан, бьяс мии hiлдит гуо-хи-я хуу-ҕин-ии тедьïс.
ˈguo.ɲe.na:m sɨj ˈban ˈbjaɕ mi: hɪl.ˈdit ˈguo:.çi.ja xu:.ʝi.ˈni: ˈteɟ.jɪs
AUG-ancient-PL.OBL day-PL.OBL [in that], hare and grouse AUG-PASS.COP-POSS ABSTR.COL-live-PST good

Beech Marté

Vn đer đin-'re ruéñe liebre mód ouéthođ gué vn pign órtauc tenđets.
ə̃ ˈɖɛʁ ˈɖˠĩ.ɘɾ ˈʁø.ɳɛ ˈli.bɘɾ mœt wø̃.ˈθoɖˠ ˈwø̃ ə̃ ˈpiʊŋ ˈœɻ.toʊ tã.ˈɖˠat͡s
OBL year DEM-SUBJ COP.PST hare and grouse live.PASS OBL life very good

Basically venting cause I don't have a therapist🙃
We have.. SOMETHING, definitely plural. I won't go back on that, but I'm not sure if it's DID. We have severe amnesia, dissociative tendencies, and cptsd. We do have.. "alters" I guess? Like we do have others that take over the body. But it feels.. at least as the previous host, now a trauma holder that doesn't front nearly as often.. sometimes it feels like I can't only recognize alters even exist through certain music or if I think really hard about them, or for fictives if I'm invested in their source. It wasn't like this before, which makes me wonder if we're faking it or it's something else we thought was DID. It's all so confusing and I'm just up in the air about it all. And no therapist will take me, I've been dropped multiple times because I'm "too difficult" for their qualifications.

Hi all,
I recently got feedback on an assignment I submitted and received several erroneous criticisms. These are errors that I highly doubt a person would have made, and combined with a robotic style of writing at times, I'm wondering if faculty is using AI to provide feedback. Faculty has never alerted students to the possible use of AI in marking. When I messaged the course convenor about the errors in the feedback (not my AI suspicions) their response also seemed a bit suspect for AI use.
For example:

• They quote parts of my work, and claimed content was not included, such as "consider 'x'" or "follow-up on 'y'". Meanwhile, such content was evidently provided in the preceding sentences/paragraphs.
• They read so closely that it appears they have flagged the inconsistent spacing between words as a formatting error. Meanwhile, such text was set to 'justified', a routine formatting setting to enhance the appearance of a body text.
• Spelling and grammar issues were supposedly throughout the text, but upon review by myself and the faculty, none could be identified.
• Blatant errors concerning visual elements. For example, criticising the placement of a figure title as being above a figure when it was clearly below the figure. Alternatively, discussing the placement of titles for figures (plural) when there was only one. How could a human who read the assignment ever make such mistakes with visual elements?
• Providing a high-level summary but missing essential details of the assignment and using vague and robotic language/word choices (e.g., multifaceted/outcome). At times, they also end up regurgitating the marking criteria to illustrate the differences between scoring bands and then claiming something objective is subjective and thus not contestable.

[See Edit 2 for verbatim quotes]
When I raised the errors with the course convenor, she seemed to double down on most issues, and based on our emails, she seemed to use AI herself. The course convenor may be the original marker. Moreover, because of the implicit issues of academic integrity, I'm afraid to raise my concerns with faculty given the risk of reprisal - the course convenor is influential, and they can likely mark down my future work and cause professional difficulties for me after I graduate. Given our lengthy email exchange, even if I were to report it anonymously, the course convenor may still be able to figure out it was me. I briefly considered requesting a formal remark, but it would likely go directly back to the course convenor, and I could be punished (uni policy does not stipulate a different marker).
Now, this is where I need your help:

1. Do you think I have some valid reasons to suspect the use of AI? Please see the poll. Why / why not?
2. What are some red flags for AI use? Do you have any good resources you could link? I've tried some AI detectors, but this appears too advanced.
3. Are you aware of academic staff/faculties that covertly use AI for marking? What sort of program/software do they use? Any that allow rubrics to be uploaded, along with assignments and prompts?
4. How would you suggest I approach the issue? I fear reprisal if identified by faculty. However, I'd like the issues to be addressed, especially as continued AI use with inadequate oversight has the potential to continue to harm my marks. I'm thinking of approaching my co-supervisor unofficially for advice. We have a good working relationship, and I trust them. I'm on a student rep body, but I don't know of other students in a similar situation yet, and if I raised it officially as a rep I'd be too identifiable.

Please share your thoughts,
Thank you!
EDIT 1: if you vote, please comment your rationale so I can understand where everyone’s thinking is at
EDIT 2: Verbatim quotes by request
Original Feedback
"I really enjoyed reading your review of the multifaceted issues facing standardization of detecting SSLs. You have provided an excellent introduction of SSL and provided a comprehensive, integrated overview of the multiple factors which can affect outcome." NB: To me this feel vague, and neglects essential parts of the assignment that I covered.
"However, as you've covered so much content, it's really important that you provide relevant justification for your critical appraisal of the cited literature. For example, at the start of page 9, you write that the it is possible the excluded study provided superior examination quality relative to the rest of the region. When making a claim like this, it is advisable to follow up on the article. Consider highlighting the significance of the variable DR across different continents. Whilst that section contains a lot of information, the importance of standardization gets lost in the text - include a concluding section to make it clearer for your readere-emphasize the importance of your point. Although you defined some of your abbreviations in tables, consider writing it out again in-text." NB: The requested follow up on the article, and the significance of variable detection rates (DR) was clearly provided in the preceding text.
"Note that figure legends should always be under the figure" NB: while this clearly wasn't an issue in the one and only figure of my assignment, see what came later in email...
From subsequent email exchange...
"With regards to spelling and grammar the reviewer may have believed “trialled” was spelt incorrectly but I noted you consistently applied English spelling throughout, therefore I would consider it free from spelling and grammar issues. I agree the comment “Figure legends should always be under the figure” is misplaced, I didn’t identify any issues with the figure legends." NB: this is a complete 180 from the original feedback which stated 'spelling and grammar errors throughout'; moreover, they appear to think there are multiple (plural) figures but there is only one (perhaps an error from rephrasing the original feedback that had "legends").
"Justification of distinction for critical analysis. You were awarded a distinction which the rubric describes as “Critical analysis of strengths and limitations of the literature” and High Distinction as “Comprehensive Critical analysis of strengths and limitations of the literature”. The reviewer comments on critical analysis on page 9 “However, such selection bias may underestimate the true prevalence of SSLs as it is possible that the excluded study provided superior examination quality relative to the rest of the region.” They indicate this as one example where further critical analysis could be provided by follow-up of the article. This is tough to argue as they have indicated specifically what they consider comprehensive critical analysis and hence what is required for a HD." NB: this feels like AI regurgitation of input data, and the content they claim was missing was very clearly in the prior sentence - other academics I have discussed this with agree on this point. I half suspect the email was a Copilot (or equivalent) response because, if the person I was emailing had reviewed the document like they claimed, I doubt they would have taken such a position.
View Poll

Hi all,
I recently got feedback on an assignment I submitted and received several erroneous criticisms. These are errors that I highly doubt a person would have made, and combined with a robotic style of writing at times, I'm wondering if faculty is using AI to provide feedback. Faculty has never alerted students to the possible use of AI in marking. When I messaged the course convenor about the errors in the feedback (not my AI suspicions) their response also seemed a bit suspect for AI use.
For example:

• They quote parts of my work, and claimed content was not included, such as "consider 'x'" or "follow-up on 'y'". Meanwhile, such content was evidently provided in the preceding sentences/paragraphs.
• They read so closely that it appears they have flagged the inconsistent spacing between words as a formatting error. Meanwhile, such text was set to 'justified', a routine formatting setting to enhance the appearance of a body text.
• Spelling and grammar issues were supposedly throughout the text, but upon review by myself and the faculty, none could be identified.
• Blatant errors concerning visual elements. For example, criticising the placement of a figure title as being above a figure when it was clearly below the figure. Alternatively, discussing the placement of titles for figures (plural) when there was only one. How could a human who read the assignment ever make such mistakes with visual elements?
• Providing a high-level summary but missing essential details of the assignment and using vague and robotic language/word choices (e.g., multifaceted/outcome). At times, they also end up regurgitating the marking criteria to illustrate the differences between scoring bands and then claiming something objective is subjective and thus not contestable.

When I raised the errors with the course convenor, she seemed to double down on most issues, and based on our emails, she seemed to use AI herself. The course convenor may be the original marker. Moreover, because of the implicit issues of academic integrity, I'm afraid to raise my concerns with faculty given the risk of reprisal - the course convenor is influential, and they can likely mark down my future work and cause professional difficulties for me after I graduate. Given our lengthy email exchange, even if I were to report it anonymously, the course convenor may still be able to figure out it was me. I briefly considered requesting a formal remark, but it would likely go directly back to the course convenor, and I could be punished (uni policy does not stipulate a different marker).
Now, this is where I need your help:

1. Do you think I have some valid reasons to suspect the use of AI? Please see the poll. Why / why not?
2. What are some red flags for AI use? Do you have any good resources you could link? I've tried some AI detectors, but this appears too advanced.
3. Are you aware of academic staff/faculties that covertly use AI for marking? What sort of program/software do they use? Any that allow rubrics to be uploaded, along with assignments and prompts?
4. How would you suggest I approach the issue? I fear reprisal if identified by faculty. However, I'd like the issues to be addressed, especially as continued AI use with inadequate oversight has the potential to continue to harm my marks. I'm thinking of approaching my co-supervisor unofficially for advice. We have a good working relationship, and I trust them. I'm on a student rep body, but I don't know of other students in a similar situation yet, and if I raised it officially as a rep I'd be too identifiable.

Please share your thoughts,
Thank you!
EDIT 1: if you vote, please comment your rationale so I can understand
EDIT 2: Verbatim quotes
Original Feedback
"I really enjoyed reading your review of the multifaceted issues facing standardization of detecting SSLs. You have provided an excellent introduction of SSL and provided a comprehensive, integrated overview of the multiple factors which can affect outcome." NB: To me this feel vague, and neglects essential parts of the assignment that I covered.
"However, as you've covered so much content, it's really important that you provide relevant justification for your critical appraisal of the cited literature. For example, at the start of page 9, you write that the it is possible the excluded study provided superior examination quality relative to the rest of the region. When making a claim like this, it is advisable to follow up on the article. Consider highlighting the significance of the variable DR across different continents. Whilst that section contains a lot of information, the importance of standardization gets lost in the text - include a concluding section to make it clearer for your readere-emphasize the importance of your point. Although you defined some of your abbreviations in tables, consider writing it out again in-text." NB: The requested follow up on the article, and the significance of variable detection rates (DR) was clearly provided in the preceding text.
"Note that figure legends should always be under the figure" NB: while this clearly wasn't an issue in the one and only figure of my assignment, see what came later in email...
From subsequent email exchange...
"With regards to spelling and grammar the reviewer may have believed “trialled” was spelt incorrectly but I noted you consistently applied English spelling throughout, therefore I would consider it free from spelling and grammar issues. I agree the comment “Figure legends should always be under the figure” is misplaced, I didn’t identify any issues with the figure legends." NB: this is a complete 180 from the original feedback which stated 'spelling and grammar errors throughout'; moreover, they appear to think there are multiple (plural) figures but there is only one (perhaps an error from rephrasing the original feedback that had "legends").
"Justification of distinction for critical analysis. You were awarded a distinction which the rubric describes as “Critical analysis of strengths and limitations of the literature” and High Distinction as “Comprehensive Critical analysis of strengths and limitations of the literature”. The reviewer comments on critical analysis on page 9 “However, such selection bias may underestimate the true prevalence of SSLs as it is possible that the excluded study provided superior examination quality relative to the rest of the region.” They indicate this as one example where further critical analysis could be provided by follow-up of the article. This is tough to argue as they have indicated specifically what they consider comprehensive critical analysis and hence what is required for a HD." NB: this feels like AI regurgitation of input data, and the content they claim was missing was very clearly in the prior sentence - other academics I have discussed this with agree on this point. I half suspect the email was a Copilot (or equivalent) response, as if they had actually read my email, I doubt they would have taken that position.
View Poll

I don’t know what to do anymore with my child (19M), and I don’t even know where to begin. But any and all advice or insight is very much appreciated. This is a burner account and it’s my first post on it.
The family situation is this: me (41F), my husband (46M) who had been in our lives since my son was just a toddler. The biological father is also very much involved and we always made a big deal of putting son first. We spent holidays together and are good friends. My husband has never tried to take the place of his dad but he loves my son very much.
I don’t know how to start but my son…for years he’s been spiralling down I think you can describe it, I don’t know. It started with stealing money from us when he was around 11yo. We found out and sat him down, asked him why he felt the need to do that? He knew stealing is wrong. And also, he had everything he needed or if not he could simply ask for it. We won’t say yes always but others did call him spoiled on occasion and I think we did spoil him too much. Which I regret in hindsight. He apologised and seemed genuinely remorseful. I don’t remember if there were any consequences and if so what they were.
Fast forward to highschool, I would get calls all the time about his behaviour. He would disturb the class by being rude to the teacher, loud, making jokes, he just didn’t seem to care at all. When he reflects on it now, he said he had a great time. Me not so much. I spent endless hours talking to his teacher, with my son present. Trying to figure out WHY he was acting like that, how could we help? Giving him detention didn’t impress him at all. His grades were also very bad. After 2 years of this, school told us we had to get him tested for ADD. And so we did. He was about 15 yo by now. (Meanwhile at home we helped him out with schoolwork, and he was a nice kid in general to have around, he was and is a funny person and if he’s in a good mood, he’s a joy to have around really. He’s been like that ever since he was born, but I did recognised what the teachers were saying: consequences for his actions do literally nothing for him, he just laughs it off. He did that from a very early age, like 2)
So, he has ADD and he was put on meds. The meds did work like his concentration got better in class and he wasn’t disruptive anymore but it was like he was just a shadow of himself. At this time he used to come sit on my bed before he went to bed to chat a bit. And he told me the meds made him feel awful, he felt like a zombie, he never spoke or have banter with his friends anymore during breaks and his appetite was completely gone. He stopped taking the meds. Which I understand.
Fast forward again; he quit school before graduating and started at another school to learn a skill. He liked it and he did his homework and he got good grades but he failed to get alot of assignments in on time, or he lost them or he forgot. So he had to redo the year. He didn’t wanto and so he started to work fulltime.
By this time he started to self medicate with pot. A lot of pot. I don’t think he was sober ever during that time thinking back. He started to lie about everything. Talking with him didn’t go anywhere, he’d just tell us what he think we wanted to hear and then carried on as before. He was about 15/16/17 during all this. Then my husband started missing large amounts of money. We found out my son done it. And by large I mean large. Thousands. I still feel gutted when I type this down. My own son, who I always taught to be honest above anything else. We confronted him, which was awful. We all cried I think. I know I did. The reason he apparently stole was because ’it was so tempting’ when my husband left his wallet laying around (Large sums of money were in there because he owns a company) and he wanted very expensive clothing which he couldn’t afford. (He could if he saved up)
Another year passed and he didn’t steal anymore. He didn’t keep a job either, he always left or stopped showing up for work. It was very stressful. He also started to treat me specifically like shit. Made very harsh comments regarding my anxiety issues, always commenting on anything I do, the way I look and so on. Then he stole once again. And denied with a straight face, which creeps me out to no end. He lies, manipulates and steals with so much ease?!
I myself have mental health issues and all this stress has taken a huge toll on me. My anxiety is through the roof and I’m worried sick.
So, he was 18 when the 3 of us (dad, stepdad and I) sat him down, and gave him an ultimatum: either you go to this clinic (it’s a very good one where you get a program designed specifically for you, including addiction, behavioural issues, parent sessions etc) or you have to go live somewhere else. We cannot do this anymore. He immediately chose the clinic. Which I’m still very proud of that he did that and stuck with it.
He’s now 19, got home last winter and he really did a great job there. We also had multiple sessions there with other parents to get more insight and what we could do or not do anymore to make a change.
So here I am today. It all went so well. But now it seems to all went to shit again and I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m not sure if he’s back smoking pot, he’s says he isn’t. But he lies through his teeth again, doesn’t hold a job, doesn’t contribute to the house, treats me like I’m a piece of dirt on the bottom of my shoe and I just can’t take it anymore. But kicking him out is so so difficult.
We (stepdad and I) don’t give him money, but he doesn’t care coz I found out his dad or other family members do. While we made very clear agreements with all 3 of us that we would NOT do that anymore. His dad didn’t tell us and he just does. Ofcourse it’s his own money to do with what he wants but it makes my son hate me even more. Dad drives him to wherever he needs to go, my son doesn’t have a care in the world.
The last few times (yes plural) he walked out on a job, he snuck in the house while I was taking a nap (due to medication) and spent the entire day in his room while letting me think he was at work?!?! This behaviour creeped me out. Who does that?!
I’m at a point now where I wanto move out. I don’t wanna be criticised every damn day for everything. Stepdad works a lot, son does listen to him or pretends to but when we are having a conversation he has this way of putting me down interrupting me saying: I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to stepdad.
I cried for an hour last night, I feel like I’m falling apart.

I’ve been holding money for an inmate and sending money for an inmate, I know that it’s not for drugs or anything.
I know that it has to do with tattoos. I think the CO’s have cracked down on it though bc the inmate got a lay in slip for it.
Now I feel kind of anxious because I don’t want to get in any trouble and I don’t want the inmate to get in any trouble. I know tattoos are against the rules though. I would understand if the inmate got in trouble, but it’s not drugs or alcohol or cigarettes or anything. Just tattoo stuff.
I’ve also sent money for commissary, buying someone else’s commissary… & It is such a struggle in there.. inmates need a hustle if they have no financial stability outside of the prison. I make barely anything to support the inmate, I do my best but they wanted to hustle and I wasn’t going to say no because again… prison is hard to survive in.
I just hope and pray that they don’t get in any serious trouble. The inmate said I won’t get in any trouble so hopefully not. I don’t even live in the same state so idk.

If tobacco products are still taxed by the state, and they still allow smoking in the casinos—INSIDE, as well as certain bars— and state funded inpatient treatment centers let you smoke(but they pay a fine or something…) there’s no reason they shouldn’t be able to coordinate smoke privileges. Especially since nicotine is an addictive substance, a legal one, that doesn’t impair you, and they allow the LEOs and COs and I bet the military personnel to do it.
It should be looked at as any other chemical dependency. If they let you have caffeinated coffee, if they can put salt Peter in the food, if they can throw all kinds of other drugs at you…. The least they can do is address the nicotine withdrawal. I don’t recall them giving out patches, the least they could do is that. If they can’t do that, make it a privilege that inmates have to pay for themselves. They already sneak everything else in and barter as it is. I’m sure if people who already are kicking everything else,—- and guess what craving never leaves you….the craving for a cigarette or vape….trust me. —-at least could have one or two fixes for the nicotine a day, controlled by CO of course, they would be way easier to deal with. I am sure of it.

My name is Yin, my job in our system is to know things about the system. For example I keep track of new members, I know as much about them as they do and I log that info on Simply Plural to make it easily accessible for future reference. I can access parts of headspace that no one else can and I know more about our system than anyone else does.
But we’re a median system as far as we can tell and this just doesn’t sound like something that should be possible for a median system. I’d like to clarify that I know what I’m experiencing is possible for me but it doesn’t fit what I already know about median systems and that’s confusing to me. I want to use an accurate label for our system so is this possible for a median system or should we look into finding a new label?
-Yin (any/all)