st ever on a throwaway, sorry if I do this wrong. Sorry if it’s rambly I haven’t talked to anyone about anything and don’t have any irl friends I can talk to.
I guess I’ll start in fall of 2022, my husband (M32) and I (F32) were talking about divorce around that time. Different views on parenting, how a family should run and what our roles should be inside the family unit. He had a very traditional stance, he worked blue collar I was a SAHM and felt he didn’t need to do household work or have much a hand is raising our child. I obviously thought that was ridiculous and felt that at the least the household duties were mine and the parenting he should be more involved in. We ended up doing marriage therapy for a few months which helped tremendously but I think by the time we entered therapy I was burnt out and extremely resentful and wanted to divorce anyways. From the time I initiated the divorce my dad (M60) offered to pay for the divorce, my father never liked my husband and so he was more than happy to help. During the time my husband and I separated it was rocky for the first few weeks because my husband didn’t want the divorce, but as the weeks went on and we both continued our individual therapy (I forgot to mention we had also been seeing our own therapists for a few years now) we were actually really good at co-parenting and got along better so all in all I decided to dissolve the divorce 3 months down the road. My dad was extremely upset, which of course I understood as he would be billed for what the attorney has done up to that point. Which thankfully was not much we had only had one hearing and some paperwork filed. If I remember correctly he got $1600 of the $2000 retainer back. I also understand that $400 is $400 and I offered to pay him the money back but he refused and basically went no contact with me after that. At this point there is so much tension. My dad is showing up randomly to make it known how upset he is I’m not divorcing making out of pocket statements to my child about it. So after discussing my husband and I decide to move. We move out of state 03/2023. We stay out of it. I call my grandma(F87) and keep in touch but not with anyone else. Fast forward to April 2024 my grandmother calls to tell me that my uncle wants to put her in a nursing home but she doesn’t want to go she wants me to move back home and take care of her . My uncle lives out of state and my dad apparently according to my grandmother hasn’t been around to help much. He was coming by often after I left but then just gradually stopped coming by. So of course I tell her I’ll come. My dad t-totally loses it when she tells him I’m going to move back down. He tells her he’ll never come around again, he won’t have anything to do with us etc. he told her he won’t come around for Mother’s Day. So then today my grandmother tells me that she called my uncle and told him she wanted to have her will changed. Currently her house is set to go to my dad. It was written up way back when, in the last few years him and his spouse had bought a home across town and he’s said over and over again he didn’t want to live in the family home (my grandmother house) he’s never shown an interest in having the home. My uncle doesn’t want the home he and his wife are wealthy and have no children and own several homes. So I guess my grandmother had been ruminating on all this and asked my uncle to have it changed to pass down to myself and my two siblings (M28, M26) His response was he wasn’t getting involved but I’ll tell you what to do to have it legally changed. My grandmother tells me all of this the following day which was yesterday. My grandmother asks my to get my youngest siblings new full legal name as they had it changed a few years ago. I don’t talk to my siblings often. We didn’t really grow up together because my dad and their mother divorced when we were all young and they stayed with her and I went with my dad. Anyways so I text the older (28) of the two bc I have their number and ask for the youngest (26) name to give to my grandmother. Then shit goes crazy my dad calls my grandmother and asks why she’s changing the will, my grandmother drops the bombshell that she doesn’t want to give it to my dad because she doesn’t want it leaving the family and he was I guess telling her he was going to sell it or give it to whoever he wants (insinuating he’d give it to his spouses kids instead of his own kids) and my grandmother wants it to stay in the family. My dad then retorts with and I quote “you ARE going to give me that house as repayment for all the bullshit you and XXX (me) put me through.” Then the Oldest younger sibling starts texting me asking why the will is being changed and do my dad and uncle know about it and what did I do. And I tell him that I’m just doing what our grandmother asked and I’m not trying to get caught up in this.
I feel like every choice I make is the wrong choice. I carry this tremendous guilt that my dad won’t come around d because my husband is here but he wasn’t even taking care of his mom when we were gone? I feel like I shouldn’t have come home but was I just supposed to let my grandmother who raised me go into assisted living when I could just come home and take care of her? I told her not to change the will and just leave it the way it is so keep the peace but she is adamant about the house going to her blood grandkids that grew up in this house. Do I leave the house I was asked to come back to and rent someone where just so my dad will go see his damn mom? I don’t know what to do I just feel hopeless, I feel like I have no family. My child asks to see her grandad at least once a day. He lives five minutes away but he won’t have anything to do with us. Maybe I should have divorced just to keep my dad happy? But then myself and my daughter would be unhappy like. Getting older is taking such a toll on me. Sorry I think that’s it.

Alright, buckle up guys because this is going to be a wild ride...
I know some of you are feeling it when I say there are moments I'd do anything to speed up my foreskin restoration. I've seen other guys post about wanting to get a piercing to keep their skin pulled forward and I even recall someone asking if there was a way he could sew the end of his foreskin shut to force coverage. Most of us have had these crazy thoughts at some point, and I understand that.
So... Years ago I found this silicone medical adhesive called Uro-Bond by Urocare. It's used to secure male external catheters to the penis (also known as "condom catheters" if you've seen posts about them). I'm thinking if this stuff is safe enough to use on the penis, I wonder if I could use it to seal my foreskin shut.
I bought it and tried it out. Here are the steps:

1. You're going to need to be a strong CI-4 for this to work. If you're unsure or think you might be more like CI-3.9-ish, don't do it. Seriously. You need enough slack skin to pull it all the way over the glans and keep it there long enough to apply the adhesive.
2. I pull the skin forward and then roll a couple of fairly snug O-rings over it. This should form what I call a sloppy rosebud. You want your outer shaft skin to be accessible while keeping the glans pushed down. The adhesive doesn't hurt on the outer skin, but it burns like hell on the glans. I speak from experience.
3. With your sloppy rosebud in place, apply a thin layer of adhesive to the inside and then fold your skin together to form a penis burrito. This should seal the foreskin shut from all angles. I keep it pinched tight for a few minutes with my fingers, and that's usually enough for the adhesive to dry and bond the skin together.
4. So what happens when you need to pee? Well, you're gonna want to sit down for this. I mean that literally. Sit down. You'll need to do some strategic positioning and point your penis as far down as you can. Once I start the flow, my foreskin balloons up until it reaches its max, and then the urine inevitably breaks through a pinhole opening. Then I usually blot the tip of my penis burrito to clean up any excess urine. It's... a little messy down there.
5. This adhesive is labeled as "water resistant" and it's no joke. You cannot get this stuff off with soap and water. Believe me, I've tried! So if you buy it, you also need to buy the Urocare Adhesive Removal Wipes. They come 50 in a box and are made of some type of citrus oil that instantly breaks down the adhesive without causing any damage or irritation to your penis. It's good stuff. Don't skimp on this step because you will not be able to remove the adhesive without it. You've been warned!
6. You might be wondering what specific area of the skin is being targeted when I apply the adhesive. If the skin were rolled back and gravity did its gravitating, the area (at least on me) is about 3/4 of the way down on my shaft, which is firmly in the outer foreskin region, past my scar line and closer to the base of my penis. That's again why it's so important to be a solid CI-4. You don't want the adhesive bonding to the inner foreskin or glans.

So... After all that work, is it worth it?
Kinda, yes. The feeling (to me) makes me feel whole. I retain 24/7, so I already know how good it feels for my foreskin to be pulled over my glans. It's awesome. If you've been there, you know how rewarding it is. But with all that said, there is still a barrier caused by the retainer. It's always my penis, my foreskin, and some type of retainer between my shaft skin and my clothes. That's fine 99% of the time. But sometimes, I just want a little more.
When I use this adhesive, it feels like I have a truly intact penis. Not just intact, but a tight pucker. It's such a mindgasm to walk around with your foreskin completely pulled forward, not going anywhere, and since I wear boxers, I really feel the difference when it swings around inside my shorts.
In the past though, I always panicked after a few hours. I'll do the complete routine, but then I start to freak out a little because hey, my foreskin is glued shut. So usually my max is a few hours, 3 hours at the most. And then I get an adhesive remover wipe and clean it all away. I don't regret it though. I have my fun, then I put the adhesive away and don't think about it again until months later. Then I do it again and the cycle repeats.
Yesterday, I decided I was really going to go for it. Anxiety-be-damned, I was going to glue my foreskin shut for 24 hours. Here's what went down:

1. I used double the amount of adhesive this time. That skin was truly glued shut without an ounce of daylight breaking through. I was really into it too. I felt like my penis was so warm and cozy inside its cocoon and not going anywhere. And I felt great all day.
2. I did have one messy experience on the toilet. Even though I sat down and aimed as far south as I could point, the force and trajectory broke the seal and sent urine spraying every which way. That sucked. But hey, the bathroom's very clean now.
3. Around 8PM last night, the adhesive finally seemed to wear down and my glans peeked out in my underwear. That means it lasted 12 hours, and I figured that was pretty good. I tucked it back in and pressed the glue together, figuring I'd use the adhesive remover before bed. I was on the couch so I resumed what I was watching.
4. Before bed, I pulled down my pants and my foreskin had resealed again. Since everything seemed normal, I decided to just let it stay like that and see what happened. I went to bed with a sealed foreskin.
5. Sometime during the night, I woke up from the tension of an erection. It wasn't painful, just kind of a mild tugging sensation. I went back to sleep.
6. I woke up today with a serious case of morning wood and finally things were feeling kinda bad down there. Not painful, not hurting, but just uncomfortable... I traipsed to the bathroom to check out the situation. The skin had pulled back and the glue had bonded to part of my glans and also my pubic hair. I went ahead and used the adhesive remover and then took a shower to get everything clean. Everything was fine and back to normal.
7. As a sidenote, I didn't produce smegma, which I am disappointed about. I have tried many times over the years and have never been able to produce it. I would have thought that keeping my penis sealed shut for 24 hours and pissing inside my foreskin would have been enough, but nope. Ah, well.

Alright, so that's the story of gluing my foreskin shut for 24 hours. It was messy and kind of a hassle, but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I feel more motivated than ever to get to CI-5 and beyond (which feels elusive and years away). But I want to experience it every day, without needing adhesive or a retainer. Just a guy in the world, walking around with his penis fully covered by his own skin. What a rush.
Thanks for reading. The line is now open for questions.

Synopsis:
Carlos was an ordinary software engineer on Earth, up until he died and found himself in a fantasy world of dungeons, magic, and adventure. This new world offers many fascinating possibilities, but it's unfortunate that the skills he spent much of his life developing will be useless because they don't have computers.
Wait, why does this spell incantation read like a computer program's source code? Magic is programming?
___
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Lorvan hesitated, looking back and forth between the subdued but still dangerous enemy in the distance and his right gauntlet. He flexed his fingers, and Carlos sensed his mana touch something in the gauntlet. One of the enchantments in it trembled briefly, but nothing more happened. "My lord, I cannot guarantee your safety in present conditions if you approach that man while he is conscious."
Carlos chuckled nervously. "I'll still respawn if he kills me with lightning, won't I? It's the ambient mana level that's truly dangerous, and we stopped that soon enough." He grimaced. "Barely, but still soon enough."
Lorvan nodded. "Very well. I advise that you let me speak for you with the prisoners, however."
"That's probably for the best. Can one of you get Esmorana and see to her health?" Carlos nodded in the direction of where Esmorana had fallen.
"Ordens."
"Yes, sir!" The junior guard rushed off in the indicated direction.
"Amber? Are you ready for this?" Carlos held out his right hand to her.
Amber looked at his hand contemplatively for a few seconds, looked towards where Noralt was still wrapping herself around the man who'd thrown so much lightning, then looked back and smiled. "At this point? Yes. I think I actually am. The hard part is over now." She took his hand, stood up, and stretched. "Lorvan, shouldn't you go in front to guard us?"
Carlos and Amber both looked at Lorvan expectantly, and Lorvan bowed slightly and started marching. Leaves and sticks crackled underfoot, and Carlos shivered a little as they walked. He almost tried casting his warmth spell before remembering that it wouldn't work right now. The air was temperate and the afternoon sun felt warm on his skin, the new gap in the forest canopy letting it shine unobstructed from the clear sky, but he was wearing only light nightclothes and a breeze was blowing away his body heat. The utter wreckage surrounding them was a constant reminder of how far they still had to go, and he shivered again as he imagined being targeted by a tornado like that. He was glad these powerhouse adventurers were on his side this time. Hopefully they'd be able to protect him until he could grow enough to match their power.
Haftel and Sconter stood on either side of the small pile of Noralt and her captive. They each held a weapon ready, prepared to strike the captive in an instant if needed, while they waited for the trio of Lorvan, Carlos, and Amber. Noralt had her armored legs locked around her captive's legs, her left arm behind his back and holding him against her chest, and her right arm pressing lightly on his throat. He was not struggling against her, seemingly content to wait and see.
Lorvan stopped a few feet away and scowled at the insignia mounted on the man's shoulder. "Mercenaries. I see." He shook his head in disgust. "Are you the leader of this company?"
"I am. Captain Granlan of the Black Blades, not at your service. I am occupied with a well-paid mission at present. Paid in advance." The man's voice was calm and deep.
"You should not have taken this job, and if you truly knew just what you attempted to do then you would have known that. What lies did your client tell you?"
Granlan laughed. "You must think us amateurs if you expect me to divulge information about a client."
"Perhaps you will change your mind once I inform you of the gravity of your error." Lorvan raised his right hand and opened it to reveal a token. It was a circle about two inches wide with an engraved image on it. The image was painted with a dark rich orange on a black background. The dark orange and the engraved lines depicted an armed and armored warrior with wings spreading wide from his back.
Granlan said nothing, but Carlos sensed a sudden ripple in the man's mana the moment the token was revealed. He didn't feel any danger from that ripple, though; maybe it just indicated surprise?
"You have been caught in the act of attempting the soul dissolution of two high nobles, including the head and founder of their house, who are under the protection of the Crown. As a mercenary leader, your penalty for this high crime is the disbanding of your company and the seizure of all company property, the crippling of all company members who participated, and the dissolution of your own soul. If you cooperate and willingly aid in bringing your employer to justice, however, the Crown may be merciful to you."
Granlan's helmeted head rotated slowly to face Lorvan, and a tense silence descended as the two men stared at each other. Carlos shifted uncomfortably and looked at Lorvan, wondering how long the royal guardsman would wait for a response. The mana layer on the surface of Lorvan's soul had its ripples and ridges moving in a superbly disciplined pattern that focused forward and moved with slow but implacable patience. Carlos's eyes widened in realization. He could sense Lorvan's soul!
A flash of memory came to mind. Ressara had said that Lorvan and Ordens had disguises on their souls that diverted attention away. Only now, when that disguise was disabled by the system outage, did Carlos finally comprehend how effective it had been. He should have been curious about that disguise and about what it concealed. He should have thought about how he'd never really noticed or reacted to Lorvan's soul. He should have remembered and wanted to ask questions about it, persistently bringing it up until Lorvan either answered or definitively refused to ever answer. Instead, he'd put it out of his mind without even realizing and never thought about it again until now.
This realization even distracted Carlos from the mercenaries and the whole surrounding situation, and he focused his mana sense on making the most of this opportunity to unobtrusively examine the royal guardsman's soul unveiled. Lorvan's mana was dense and powerful, more so than anything or anyone he'd ever sensed except the high lady who'd inspected his soul in Kalor City. Lorvan was definitely the highest-level person here, substantially above even the mercenary leader and the elite adventurers. He was at least level 40. Maybe even 50, or higher, it was hard to be sure. On top of that, Carlos felt a sense of solidity, an impression that the underlying foundation within the soul was stronger by far, even relative to his level, than any other soul present. Maybe that was because of synergy unification? Lorvan wasn't a noble himself, but his level was easily high enough for a good platinum-rank soul plan to plausibly have reached that.
Granlan's voice interrupted Carlos's contemplations and brought his attention back to their current situation. "A Crown Guard. Hmm. I don't know which is more implausible: that you are genuine and the two whelps behind you who were renting space at an inn are indeed high nobles, founding a new house at their age and with no backing of their own; or that someone not in the Crown's service who reached your level would risk being caught and punished for the treasonous forgery or theft of the Crown's insignia. Wait…" His head turned to glance at where the portable prison lay on the ground for a moment. "How did they get out? It's still closed, and they don't have nearly enough power to cast teleport. And they should have been asleep anyway."
Carlos spoke up. "House secret."
Lorvan took the interruption in stride. "Indeed. Further proof can be provided once we return to Dramos. The House Carlos plaque is secured in the city treasury. Once you have seen that proof, will you cooperate? I will not ask again."
"…Yes. I would never knowingly oppose the Crown."
"Good." Lorvan nodded firmly and started giving orders to the others. "Noralt, make sure he doesn't run. Haftel and Sconter, strip his gear and prepare him for transport. We can put him and the other two survivors in the same container they used to carry their victims. I'll go see what Esmorana's situation is."
The three adventurers nodded and industriously set about removing Granlan's armor, but Lorvan had barely begun to turn when Ordens announced her presence. "I have Esmorana, sir. She's unconscious and in bad shape. She'll need strong healing to avoid scarring or a respawn, or to be able to fly us back." Ordens was carrying Esmorana draped over her shoulder. Haftel rushed over, leaving Granlan to Sconter and Noralt, and carefully took hold of Esmorana and gently laid her on the ground. Her dress was in tatters, a section of her hair was gone, and a curving line of ugly burns marred her skin from her scalp to her left foot.
Haftel quickly pulled a cloth bandage out of a pocket on his shirt and placed it on Esmorana's head, covering the burn on her head, then got out another to put on her side where the burn line was widest. Each bandage held a powerful enchantment. He pressed the second bandage into place, then looked back at her head and frowned. "Why isn't it working?"
Carlos sighed. "Because of a side effect of something I did. We need to move her away from here. I'm not sure exactly how far, but I'll know when we're out of the affected area, and the bandages' enchantments might just start working automatically the moment she's moved far enough."
Lorvan stepped forward. "We'll use our own supplies for it. They're better, and she's more than earned it. Ordens, see to it and come back with her when she's healed."
"Yes, sir."
___
By the time Esmorana returned, with her body healed but her dress still torn and charred, the adrenaline sustaining Carlos had run out. He felt ready to crash into bed and sleep for a week, and he could barely muster some idle curiosity about the contraption of four chairs attached to each other that Noralt carried while following behind Esmorana. Four of them had to sit in the other four's laps to fit on the four available chairs, but Esmorana's winds flew them back to Dramos by nightfall. Carlos and Amber stuffed themselves ravenously, having gone hungry for two days, and then went straight to bed. Carlos was dimly aware of someone reassuring Amber that another abduction attempt was incredibly unlikely to happen again so soon, and that even if it did Purple would notice and alert everyone immediately, but thinking about that felt like too much effort to bother with just then.
The next morning, Carlos was lying in bed thinking about how comfortable it would be to just stay there another hour when three loud knocks on his bedroom door startled him into full alertness. "Lord Carlos! Your presence is required, with haste!" It was Lorvan, speaking with a demanding insistence that he'd never directed at Carlos before.
"What?" Carlos blinked and tried to calm his suddenly racing heart. "Required? For what? What's going on?"
"An investigator finally arrived shortly after dawn in response to my signal for the Tostral incident. I informed him about the abduction and the unknown sabotage that prevented me from calling for aid, and he immediately returned to report. Now a Prince of Kalor is coming and wants to see all of us at noon, which is in half an hour. You have ten minutes to dress and come out before I come in to hurry you up!"
Carlos stared for a moment, then closed his gaping mouth with a snap and flung the bedsheet aside. "I'll be quick!"
___
Twenty minutes later, after throwing his clothes on and bolting down a hasty meal while walking, Carlos was standing nervously in the teleportation receiving room, waiting for the arrival of royalty. He was holding Amber's hand on his right, and he honestly wasn't sure whether he was reassuring her or she was reassuring him. Lorvan and Ordens stood on either side of them, holding perfectly still and straight. Mayor Stelras, the adventurers, and Ressara were arrayed behind them, along with the investigator who had delivered news of the visit. They'd all asked Lorvan what to expect, but he only said that the Crown wanted to meet them personally.
The minutes ticked past slowly and in silence. No one spoke. At precisely the stroke of noon, the ritual circle flared to life with a radiant white glow, and when the light faded four people had appeared in the circle's center. The two on the left and right wore gleaming armor covering them from head to toe. Their helmets had only eye slits in the front, hiding their faces completely, and if Lorvan and Ordens closed their helmets too Carlos didn't think he would be able to tell them apart by appearance. One stood in the back wearing the robe that Carlos recognized as the uniform of a Crown Mage. Carlos noted the three of them peripherally, but the person in the front and center drew his gaze instantly.
She positively radiated the presence of power, and Carlos belatedly realized that "prince" and "princess" translated the same into this nation's language; the word had no relation to gender. She was tall and superbly fit, like an Olympic gymnast. Her brown hair was cropped short, framing her piercing blue eyes that almost seemed to glow, but leaving her ears and shoulders clear. She wore no armor, but Carlos inexplicably felt certain that this did not in any way leave her vulnerable; she had no need for armor, because any armor she might wear would be weaker than her own skin. Instead, she wore a collared shirt and thigh-length leggings, both woven entirely in the same dark orange color that featured in decorations on the guard uniforms and insignia. Her clothes looked designed for freedom of movement and left her well-toned muscles plainly obvious. On her right hand she wore a plain ring, also dark orange, and the simple band of metal seemed to almost be made of mana. Except for the color it looked just like the rings Carlos and Amber were given to show their nobility, and he remembered Varlinden suggesting that they eventually replace those rings with adamantium to match their soul rank at the time. Was that ring forged of orichalcum metal? It would certainly explain the use of that color in everything associated with the Crown.
The newly arrived guards tapped their spears on the ground loudly in unison and spoke. "Presenting, Princess Lornera Kalor, third child of His Majesty King Elston Kalor! Attend!"
Carlos tore his eyes away from the sight of her and hastily bowed to the 45-degree angle Lorvan had instructed him was appropriate. A high noble's bow toward royalty was to show respect and to acknowledge the Crown's superiority, but not so far as to humiliate himself. Amber matched his bow, and everyone else in the room dropped to their knees.
While his eyes were on the floor, his mana sense was not limited by direction. He could feel a staggeringly immense amount of power in the princess's soul, and he felt like a particularly intriguing insect being examined curiously by a giant. He could hardly even guess at her level, and the sense of solidity he'd felt in Lorvan's soul was a great deal stronger in hers. It was like her soul was solid steel all the way through, absolute and unyielding, while Lorvan's soul was merely a mildly porous rock.
"Rise." Princess Lornera's voice was melodious and gentle, but commanding. Carlos stood straight and watched as she rose off the floor and floated through the air toward him. It was like she simply decided to ignore gravity, and gravity complied; she chose to move forward, and her body was moved. "Second stage at level 15? Impressive." She floated around him and Amber, inspecting them from all sides briefly before returning to in front. "I hear you have suffered an unconscionable failure of Crown protection, and proceeded to achieve a number of impossible things to save yourselves. The report was rather light on details, however, and mentioned multiple things regarding your enemies that seem deeply concerning to the Crown. Let us first proceed to a more appropriate venue, and then I want all of you to explain your perspectives on these events to me." She looked at Stelras. "Mayor, one of your conference rooms should do. Lead the way."
Over the next few hours they went over everything, from the adventurers' initial suspicions and the confrontation with Jamar Tostral through the abduction and eventual rescue. Carlos was very nervous the first time he declared that the means of achieving a particular thing was a house secret, but Lornera simply accepted that without pressing for details. He held back that Purple was sapient and how he helped find them, the method of how they managed to gain 6 levels in a day and a half, how he was able to learn the Sight Gate spell from nothing but a brief description of it, and a few other things. When they told about Ressara noticing something amiss in the guards' enchanted gear, Lornera ordered an immediate repeat of the analysis scan. Everyone watched closely, but only Ressara noticed anything wrong. Ressara reported numerous tiny and momentary attention-diverting wards activating when Ordens scanned Lorvan's armor. Then again when Lorvan scanned Ordens, when one of Lornera's guards scanned Lorvan, and yet again when Lornera's two guards scanned each other.
Lornera's frown sharpened when Ressara reported that last result, with the issue appearing even with neither Lorvan nor Ordens involved. "Ressara, either you are lying - and I do not believe that you are - or this is larger, much larger, than any mere squabble between rival noble houses. I will have to investigate and confirm this, but if we find proof of what you claim then you will have our thanks. The Crown will reward you appropriately for discovering and reporting such a plot against us once the true magnitude of it is ascertained."
Ressara stared with her eyes as wide as they could go, stuttered something a few times, then gave up on speaking and just bowed so deeply that she fell over. Lorvan caught her before her face could hit the floor and set her back on her chair, where she blushed mutely for the rest of the meeting.
When they finally finished telling of their return to Dramos, Lornera stood in front of Carlos and Amber, held the palms of her hands together in front of her, and inclined her head to each of them. "The Crown promised you protection and failed to fulfill that promise. You have my apology for that, and you may request a reasonable favor from the Crown in recompense. In light of Ressara's discovery in their equipment, I do not believe the specific guards are at fault for this, but I will give you this choice: Do you want new guards assigned to replace them?"
Carlos shook his head and noticed Amber shaking hers as well. "No. Colonel Lorvan and Major Ordens are satisfactory, and I would prefer to keep them."
"Very well. I will see to it that their equipment is prioritized for fixing whatever the issue is and that you are informed of the results of our investigation. I will be keeping an eye on news of your development from this point; you have already shown intriguing potential. Lorvan or the mayor can relay a message to me when you decide what favor to ask for. Now, I have other business to deal with, and I will be taking the captured mercenaries with me for questioning. Good day." Lornera nodded to Carlos and left with her escorts with no further ceremony.
Silence reigned for a moment in the wake of her departure. Then Carlos cocked his head while looking at Haftel and Esmorana. "So, you four decided to work for me long term?"
___
Two days later Carlos was sitting in the guest room of Mayor Stelras's home and busily going through the long, long list of spell effect keywords, trying to assess each one and organize his own classifications of them, when a servant knocked on the door. "Message addressed to you from today's teleport exchange, Lord Carlos."
"Hmm?" He looked up from his notes. "Oh. Who's it from?"
"Lord Merchant Darmelkon, my lord."
Carlos blinked. "What? How does he even know where to send it? Nevermind, just give me the letter."
The servant handed him an envelope, and Carlos quickly tore it open and pulled out the paper inside.

High Lord Carlos Founder,
Congratulations on your new station in life! Investigating your background has proven quite the unexpected adventure. I sent someone to check the Crown's records in Kalor City for what house you might be part of. Imagine my surprise when they returned to report that you are the head of a brand new house, not yet announced, that had not even been founded yet at the time of our encounter! If I hadn't been searching so very specifically for you they would not have even let me know your house exists.
Your bluff was impressive, threatening me with "the wrath of your house" and offering "a favor from your house" when your house wasn't even registered yet and consisted entirely of yourself, held captive and helpless in front of me. It has been a long time since anyone outwitted me that badly. That said, it just so happens that despite the near-penniless state of your fledgling house you may actually have something I want.
You have devised a new soul plan of sufficient rank to qualify for nobility. Can you do it again? My son Kindar has long played at pretending to nobility, and after our misadventures involving you he has set his heart on making it truth. He envisions himself as a supreme warrior and a master swordsman, and you would have to somehow accommodate the soul structures he has already made. However, your status might also make you privy to some secrets of nobles regarding precisely what the requirements are and ways to more easily satisfy them.
If you do this for me I will count your favor fulfilled, and I will also pay you well. Send a letter to me in Erlen with your decision. If you accept, I will send Kindar and an escort to you with strict instructions to cooperate and to follow your orders within reason for the duration.
Lord Merchant Darmelkon

Carlos gaped at the letter for several seconds. "That idiotic jackass Kindar wants me to help him become a noble?! What?"
The servant just stood and waited with polite deference.
Then the door slammed wide open as a flamboyant young man marched in and flung his arms wide for a grand proclamation. "Carlos, there you are! Your weeks of tedious waiting in boredom are over at last, for your teacher Trinlen has arrived!"
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My (23M) life has been falling apart for about a year now and keeps getting worse. This time last year I was living with my ex (22F) working a retail job that yes I kinda hated but it kept me busy and kept me physically active and getting out of bed every day. The coworkers were mostly nice too and I even found room in my mind to appreciate the customers because 90% were lovely and the regulars were always really nice. Was finishing my degree in the meantime and excited about where that might lead, and excited to start a life with my ex (we lived in a house share but were saving up to move into our own place).
Then a few things happened to both of us, some affected only one, some affected both, but it put a ton of strain on the relationship. I'm talking straight out of a movie level bad luck all within a couple of months. We started arguing a lot and because of her BPD she started sort of flying between extreme anger towards me and extreme love and hope. On my side it was just me being really apathetic about everything because I got depressed af, which seemed to make her angry. It got to a point where I couldn't forgive some of the things she said and did, and they outweighed the positive stuff. I barely recognised her anymore and just didn't see things getting better. I eventually made the decision to move back in with my parents, with the hope of maybe rekindling things when she was getting the proper treatment she needed (and me too as I was starting therapy) and we were both in a better headspace, but no real hope for that tbh. As in like my friends and family were begging me to leave because they felt she was being completely out of line and abusive.
As soon as I left I regretted it and thought what the fuck have I done because I didn't truly want it. I tried to stay away but I ended up kissing her when I went back to get some stuff. We started hanging out again and it was great, started making plans for how to work things out and planning for moving into a flat together if it stayed good. But she gets mood swings and I'd often realise that when we talked about plans, I was the only one who meant it. She thought she did, but it was clear she was just having a moment of hope and it wouldn't last. Cue months of us getting back together and then her breaking up with me again days later.
I couldn't land another job in my hometown so I found DataAnnotation (online AI training contract/self employment situation) and I've been earning money but it's making me depressed working online because I have nothing forcing me to go outside. Just been rotting in my room since January. Still looking for a "real job" but no one will have me. I also have no friends so there's no one to speak to except my family who I don't get on great with. Ideally I need to move out ASAP anyway because I don't have a bedroom so I've been sleeping in a large-ish storage cupboard inside my brother's room, but it has no window (No AC because I'm in the UK) so it gets dangerously hot in the summer. Just want a real job first because DA isn't guaranteed work.
I've not seen her since January because while we had a great time, she would always get upset when I left and decided it wasn't worth it I guess... and we haven't called in about 3 weeks either. She says she wants to get her head straight before we try again because yeah that whole situation was pretty traumatic for both of us. We both feel hurt and kind of... Emotionally violated? I'm aware there's a very high chance she'll just move on in the meantime or forget about me, but I can't fully commit to that thought because it hurts too much. If I don't want to lie in bed sobbing and suicidal, I have to convince myself there's a chance.
I really do love her a lot and would still be happy to work on us and move forward WITH her, and she knows that. I've tuned down the soppy stuff and completely stopped all sexual conversations because it does more harm than good. Right now I'm just focusing on trying to salvage my life and also just support her however I can. She still confides in me when she's upset, especially if she thinks she's going to hurt herself. I also think I'm a fucking loser right now and she needs someone better than this. All I do is sit in my room having panic attacks and crying and trying not to kill myself, like I wouldn't want me either. So she's part of why I'm trying to be better.
Sometimes I get this "hell yeah I'm gonna sort my life out, get an irl job, make friends, move out, get my driver's license, maybe even start my business idea, just become a real human!" sometimes that involves us getting back together, sometimes it even involves me finally moving on from this (if it turns out she's done with me) and meeting someone else someday. I get super hopeful and excited about what the future might hold, and suddenly am glad I'm not dead and don't ever want to be.
But then I get dragged back by this hopelessness and despair around her because I don't want to move on like I still want her and I want to make sure she can have faith in me but I don't even know how. Even her mum said we should get back together because I made her so happy, but she's so fixated on this idea that I left because I WANTED to hurt her, and therefore I'd do it again. I didn't. I begged her to stop being so mean and to respect me and she promised to but didn't maintain it. I didn't have any other choice and it was a really hard one but I just didn't want to stay in that cycle and end up hating her.
Whenever I think about her I get optimistic and happy. Whenever I think about trying to get over her, I feel sick and like it'd be far too painful so I should just end it to avoid that pain. Even the idea of her moving on is too much, I don't think I could cope with it actually happening. But at this point I don't even want to find out.

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.

sa mga ala-alang hindi ko pa rin baon sa limot.

18 years old pa lang ako, pero higit pa sa labing-walo ang mga karanasan ko na hindi ko mabaon-baon sa limot kahit anong gawin ko. gusto ko man tanggapin, pero hindi talaga. kailangan ba na pang habambuhay ko itong bibitbitin? ngayon ko lang ito gagawin; ang gumugol ng oras para lang balikan ang mga ala-alang gusto ko nang kalimutan.

seminaryo

bata pa lang ako, tambay na ako sa simbahan, marahil na rin na ang bahay namin ay katabi lang ng simbahan. si mama ay lector, ang panganay naman namin ay kasali sa isang parish youth ministry, ganoon na rin ang mga pinsan kong aktibo sa simbahan. ang mga tiyahin ko rin na galing sa side ng mama ko ay mga may posisyon sa simbahan. may madre akong tiyahin, may monsignor akong tiyuhin, at may seminarista rin akong pinsan. lumaki ako sa isang relihiyosong pamilya; na tuwing ala-sais ng gabi, uuwi ng bahay galing sa buong mag-hapong paglalaro para lang mag-angelus kasama ang pamilya.
masaya ang kabataan ko noon, hanggang sa ipasok ako ng aking nanay sa seminaryo.
after ng grade 6, napagdesisyunan ng mama ko na ipasok ako sa seminaryo, ginusto ko rin naman nung una, dahil sabi ni mama, maganda raw kung doon ako makakapag-high school, tutuwid ang aking pagiging bakla. dagdag ko na rin yung mga pagkakataong sinasabihan na ako raw ang kauna-unahang magiging pari sa pamilya kung sakali. suporta rin ang mga kamag-anak ko at ang parokya namin.
sa puntong ito, ayokong tinutukso ang kasarian ko at kung paano ako gumalaw. kaya, oo, ginusto ko man, pero may takot pa rin at hindi ko hinangad ng buo na makapasok sa seminaryo. kasi alam kong tutuksuhin at kamumuhian lang ang kasarian ko, sabi kasi ng mama ko saakin, nakasulat raw sa bibliya na mapupunta ako sa impyerno kung ipagpapatuloy ko pa ang kilos ko.
11 years old ako, after elem graduation, namatay ang papa ko. after ng libing, inasikaso na rin agad ng pamilya ko ang lahat ng kakailanganin ko sa seminaryo. ginamit ng ate ko ang 10k na final pay nya pangbili lang ng mga gamit ko sa seminary, si mama naman naghanap ng benefactor ko pang tustos ng fees ko sa seminaryo. kahit may takot akong mahiwalay sakanila, isinantabi ko nalang ang nararamdaman ko kasi alam kong that's the way i can make them proud. inisip ko nalang na mababait ang mga magiging kasama ko sa loob, sa ganoong paraan napa-kalma ko ang sarili ko.

2017-2018

sa loob ng dalawang taon, inakala kong ligtas ako sa loob dahil mga taga-simbahan ang mga nakapaligid sakin. pero hindi pala hahahaha. dalawang taong puno ng impyerno ang naranasan ko, ni tila bang pare-parehas nalang ang nararamdaman ko araw-araw; lungkot, galit, pagtataka. isip-isip ko, "ganto ba talaga dito? akala ko magiging okay ako sa loob, pero bakit parang hindi?"
"ganto ba talaga dito? akala ko magiging okay ako sa loob, pero bakit parang hindi?"
para dumating sa punto na ito, na magtanong ng ganito, nakaranas ako ng mga hindi ko inakala na mangyayari sa buhay ko. 11 years old palang ako. inosente pa lang. at that time, i already blamed myself, na dapat hindi ko dapat nararamdaman ang kwestyunin at pagdudahan ang diyos, kasi sabi nila mali raw. ni tila ba'y isang pagsubok ng demonyo ang pagdudahan ang diyos na kailangan kong iwasan, ang sinabi nilang solusyon? pagtitiwala. pananalig sa diyos.

mid 2017

bago pa ako humantong sa pagdududa at pagtatanong, marami nang nangyari sakin na maraming beses kong pinalagpas.
i was molested two times by my seniors inside my dorm, sexually harassed by our class president infront of my classmates who didn't care about me being harassed kasi they think it's funny, i got almost raped by my senior, my sisters was sexually objectified by the other seminarians and even some of our kitchen staff boys saying they have crush on our sisters then in the middle of them complimenting our sisters appearance, sisingitan nila sexually insinuating questions, asking "nakasabay mo na ba maligo mga ate mo?, gaano kalaki b**bs nila?, pwede ba manligaw sa ate mo?", i was mocked by the bishop during a batch picture taking, i asked for a mano then mocked me by saying "bakla" with an aggresive approach. i got physically and verbally bullied by my own circle, there are times that they'll spit on my face as a joke, humiliated me because of my odor especially when i can't immediately call my family to send me deodorant when i ran out of it, slapped me kasi trip lang nila, pulled my hair once kasi one of my "friends" (also a gay seminarian, his stepdad is a retired priest) got jealous of me cuz he thinks na nagpapansin ako sa crush nya (which i did not.) i was raped by my classmate, inside the dorm and..
the most painful of all, na alam kong dadalhin ko hambambuhay, maliwanag pa sa isipan ko ito.
i got molested inside the confessional by our senior, kasi i thought may ipapahanap lang sya sakin dahil nawawala ang breviary nya sa loob, then he followed inside and locked the door, binusalan ako, binakatan ako constantly and asked me to masturbate him, until i resisted.
"kuya, ayoko po, mali tong ginagawa mo, baka mapalabas tayo"
before i unlocked the door, and ran to the oratory. quietly crying. i remember, while crying and hyperventilating, i repeatedly uttered the words; "lord", "mama", and "ayoko na".
totoo pala ang feeling na parang nakakulong ka sa isang place na gusto mo tumakas, pero hindi mo magawa hahahaha, there are times na nagiisip ako kung paano ako tatakas. pero hindi ko ginawa kasi ayokong palakihin lahat.
sa loob ng mga buwan na i was struggling to find help, pagkatapos ng lahat ng nangyari sa akin, it changed me.

2018

the next school year, my mental became worse, i got trust issues, became more secretive, sinarili ko lahat ng nangyayari sa akin, naging matapobre ako, naging people pleaser ako to the point na i always made stories about how rich my family is (which is not, we can't even afford the board and lodging fees, we had to loan para makapagbayad) i bragged the lies to my fake friends so that i can impress them, i tolerated their power-tripping so that i'll feel i belong to them. and while i was being bullied day by day, i also became the bully myself, i lashed it out sa ibang juniors namin.
to think that it was the most crucial year of my childhood, my 11 and 12 years old me. it was the worst.
the thought of i'm inside the place that was considered holy, i realized it was hell. bata lang ako jusko. bakit? is it my punishment because i am gay? masama ba akong anak noon?. that time, i felt the most pain that i can ever feel, i thought tinalikuran na ako ng mundo, i thought disappointed saakin ang papa ko dahil hinayaan ko iyong mangyari. pero hindi. hindi ko ginusto. duwag lang ako. duwag.

December 2018.

weeks before the christmas party, one of our formators announced something after our breakfast. he said, "mga brothers, may mga nakarating sa aking mga balita. there are some seminarians who committed something that can expel themselves. i'll be giving a whole day to come to my office, so that we can talk about it. wag kayo matakot, we can work it out. please be honest."
after i heard what our formator said, napanatag ako. until it was not. weeks after that, during our christmas party, i was summoned by our formator. one of our beadle whispered to me "pinapatawag ka ni fr. sa office, kakausapin ka raw." i felt relieved but at the same time, nervous. i don't know why. i just know that i did not do something wrong.
kinamusta nya ako nung una, i was confused at that time kasi nagtataka ako kung bakit ang hina ng boses nya. until he asked kung may gusto raw ba akong sabihin. deep inside, marami akong gustong sabihin, pero i was really scared, kaya ang sinabi ko wala. then sinabi nya, kung wala raw ba talaga akong gustong sabihin, kasi meron daw sya nalalaman tungkol saakin. after he said that, my heart was pounding so fast, cuz i just heard some informations from him na may nag confess daw sakanya na mga seminarians na i was the one who insisted doing it. i was holding back my tears, and my voice got shaky kasi i was really overwhelmed sa lahat ng informations na nalaman ko. he was sharing all that infos to me, na para bang ineenumerate nya lahat. IT WAS ALL LIES. he constantly questioned me, it feels like i am a criminal being interrogated. nauutal akong sumagot dahil naba-blanko ako. natatandaan ko, i am saying my truth and pinagtatanggol ko ang sarili ko, proving na hindi ko magagawa iyon. at ang pinaka-tumatak na tanong nya sa akin, "bakit ngayon mo lang sinabi?", i did not answered back. di ko alam sasabihin ko.
but the most wrong and coward thing that i did is, hindi ko sinabi lahat ng alam ko. kasi ayaw ko madamay yung iba kong "friends" sa issue kasi ayokong magalit sila saakin, ganyan ako ka-gullible dati. I SUGARCOATED MY STATEMENT. ang sarap tuktukan ng aking 12 years old self at sabihang wag akong duwag. sa madaling salita, i did not spoke the entire truth cuz i was scared for myself, putangina. ginawa ko namang sacrificial lamb sarili ko. punyeta.
it was one hour that i can't forget. i was interrogated just once. emotionally unprepared. and yun na yon.
during xmas break, ine-expect ko na talaga na hindi na ako makakabalik pa for another semester, kasi feel ko i might get expelled. cuz, i know myself na i did not did my best to protect myself. and for sure nag come up na sila ng decision. until the office called me to announce the results with my mom and my ate, the priests repeatedly asking me, "aminin mo na, wag ka matakot. andito lang ang mga parents mo para sayo". and i keep on resisting their allegations, crying and shaking my head left and right. "hindi nga po ma, totoo ang sinasabi ko"
and after all that, it was the last time i saw the seminary, they did not believe me. they filed a case against me and it was "sexual lavisciousness". pag-uwi, the whole thing sunked on me, i got depressed and suicidal. i need to find schools that can accept me. years after that, i became worst. i rebeled against my family. i forced myself to serve in the church because my family wants me to, kahit naman ayoko na. some churchworkers knew my case, and i was ashamed of it. i talked shit about our fellow churchworkers kasi i think it's cool. i became an atheist, pero pumupunta parin akong simbahan dahil yun lang natitirang mapupuntahan ko aside from bahay, para lang makipag-barkadahan, dahil i did not have any real permanent friends with me after a long period of time. i shared and posted non-sense and offensive posts on fb as my coping mechanism. I DIDN'T GOT TO FEEL WHAT THE GENUINE JOY OF BEING A TEEN IS.
ngayon, 18 na ako. and to be honest, super overwhelmed ako. nasa age na ako of responsibility, and i pity myself na hindi ko man lang na-enjoy ang pre-teen days ko, yung tipong carefree at happy ka lang ganon. i never felt so happy. never.
kamusta naman ako ngayon, ayun, i am trying to change my belief into buddhism, pero tsaka na kapag nakapag sarili na ako. kung kailan malaya na ako. kung kailan napatawad ko na ang sarili ko, ang panganay na ate ko lang ang una kong sinabihan ng balak kong lumipat, pero she wasn't happy 'bout it. pero okay lang. i understand. okay naman kaming magkakapatid, nagmamahalan. even tho, medyo homophobes sila especially ang panganay, mama at ang kuya ko hahahaha. i understand. pero i am hopeful na dadating yung panahon na payapa na isipan ko at ng mga kapatid ko. kasi yun lang naman ang hinihingi ko.
ang masakit lang, hindi iyon maibigay ng nanay ko. simula dati pa. hindi ko matanggap.
next pt.2
---^{this is based on my sole experiences, this is not intended to defame or to slander the church.\}_)

Hello, fellow war criminals! As the title implies, I am developing my first RimWorld mod, and I think I am about done with it. I'm looking for feedback on its concepts and mechanics, so I can be sure it's ready to go. I don't have an ETA for release; that depends on what kind of feedback I get, and if I get any new ideas or find bugs that need fixing in my playtesting. Anyway, that is enough rambling, here are some details about the mod:
When Anomaly released, I was quite excited when I found the function Twisted Obelisk. Having fleshmass mutations as an alternative to bionics interested me. However, I was a bit disappointed by the lack of variety in the types of mutations the Twisted Obelisk could give. There are 4 in base-game Anomaly: flesh tentacle, flesh whip, fleshmass stomach, and fleshmass lung. So, I took it upon myself to add new mutations into the game via a new, researchable serum.
When you find the Twisted Obelisk, a new Anomaly research project will unlock: the Mutator Serum.
https://preview.redd.it/xzu0e0x7v0zc1.png?width=426&format=png&auto=webp&s=4d5b9cc47262bab7ea579d3605fc9ac91ca0b7c8
As you can see in the screenshot, it requires serum synthesis as a prerequisite. There are also different tiers of serums. The serums can be crafted at the Serum Lab.
https://preview.redd.it/6ca3e54uv0zc1.png?width=872&format=png&auto=webp&s=04f86d7ce25d7e749c4d8bea90727936aa01f997
Each serum, regardless of tier, costs 30 twisted meat and 20 bioferrite to create. This recipe is cheap because using these serums is not as straightforward as right clicking and injecting them. They are surgically installed, and I have some flavor text in each description to explain why this is the case. (I explain how this works mechanically at the end of the post.)
https://preview.redd.it/s526pvi7w0zc1.png?width=444&format=png&auto=webp&s=4b5ef9612046d7a0f1fa42aa241c09eb97f845fd
The basic serum is free to use, as it can only produce what the Twisted Obelisk is already capable of. The advantage to mutating the limbs in this manner are twofold: you can choose what limb/organ you want, and you don't have to wait for a cooldown from the Twisted Obelisk between uses. As the description implies, there will be an added cost to the other two tiers.
The advanced tier requires the use of a Shard during the operation. As a result, the mutations gained from this tier are more powerful overall because each one costs a Shard to create. If that price seems steep, reserve judgement until I explain what each mutation does.
Here is a list of the advanced tier mutations as well as their descriptions from the mod and their mechanical effects:

• Psychic Eye:

​

A cancerous mass of semi-sentient flesh which vaguely resembles an eye. The tissue constantly regrows and replaces itself. The eye is much less effective than a normal humanlike eye; however, it allows the recipient to better perceive how psychic forces affect the world around them, thus increasing their psychic sensitivity. The organ has its own neural structures and may become dangerous if removed. 

Effects: pawn beauty -1, psychic sensitivity +25%, part effectiveness 50%. Yes, this can be used to make a psychically deaf pawn have a little bit of psychic sensitivity. In my current colony, my mechanitor is a typically psychially deaf xenotype who can be a mechanitor because of this eye.

• Fleshmass Leg:

​

A leg composed of twisted muscle and flesh, resembling a partial transformation into a fleshbeast. This leg allows for quicker movement speed. The fleshmass leg has its own neural structures and may become dangerous if removed. 

Effects: pawn beauty -0.5, part effectiveness 130%

• Spinelauncher Tentacle:

​

A fleshy, muscled tentacle with a keratin spine at the end. The spine can be fired as a projectile and will regrow shortly after. The spinelauncher has its own neural structures and may become dangerous if removed. 

Effects: pawn beauty -1, part effectiveness 110%, adds the ability to launch a keratin spine. Same ability Gorehulks have. Similar to the Fleshbeast spike launch attack, too; I just used the actual Spinelaunch_Gorehulk ability from vanilla Anomaly for this. (I also injected an icon for the ability via the patch file, if the presence of an icon is a concern.)

• Fleshmass Heart (not to be confused with the Fleshmass Heart entity. I just don't know what else to call this mutated organ!):

​

A cancerous mass of semi-sentient flesh that functions as a heart. Its erratic beating is somewhat painful, but it is shockingly more efficient. The organ has its own neural structures and may become dangerous if removed. 

Effects: pain +8%, part effectiveness 130%

• Acid Spewer:

​

A cancerous mass of semi-sentient flesh. The harsh acid it produces is very painful, but strong enough to cause serious damage on contact. The acid can be launched as a projectile. The organ has its own neural structures and may become dangerous if removed. 

Effects: pain +12% (painstopper recommended!), food poisoning chance 0%, part efficiency 110%, adds the ability to spew an acid projectile. Just a copy of the Corrosive Spray ghoul ability but with some edits to the description.
Ocular Flesh:

Multiple eyes of varying quality have sprouted from the forearm. The extra eyes increase visual range whilst also causing a sense of vertigo due to the unnatural perspective. The affected flesh has developed its own neural structures and may become dangerous if removed. 

Effects: sight +50%, -8 mood debuff from "ocular flesh vertigo" (disabled by Inhumanized hediff)

• Fleshmass Maw:

​

Multiple rows of jagged teeth have sprouted from twisted flesh. A retractable stinger resides within the deformed tongue, ready to inject venom into an unsuspecting target's veins. The transformed mouth can be used as a weapon in combat, but the recipient has a much harder time talking due to the sharp and bulbous deformities that now compose the inside of their mouth. The fleshmass maw has developed its own neural structures and may become dangerous if extracted. 

Effects: talking -75%, toxic bite (like the Venom Fang implant), 20 attack power, 2 second attack cooldown.

• Fleshmass Epidermis:

​

This person's flesh has been entirely mutated into a grotesque, twisted mass of meat. Their appearance is warped nearly beyond recognition, but their newly thickened hide provides them with extra protection, especially against blunt force trauma. This process is irreversible. 

Effects: moving 90%, sharp armor rating 45%, blunt armor rating 70%, pawn beauty -4, -6 mood debuff from "abomination" (disabled by the psychopath trait, the boddy modder trait, a transhumanist ideology, and/or Inhumanized hediff). A reminder that this is irreversable and thus a permanent mood debuff!

• Fleshmass Ear (final of the advanced tier!):

​

A cancerous mass of semi-sentient flesh that functions as an ear. This ear has improved audio clarity, but those who have undergone this particular mutation report hearing a whisper-quiet, yet unrelenting chorus of ominous chanting. The chanting is perceivable in moments of quiet, but it is forever present underneath the drone of daily life. It is difficult to make out what these voices are saying, but the closer one comes to doing so, the more maddening these chants become. The organ has its own neural structures and may become dangerous if removed. 

Effects: mental break threshold +6%, part efficiency 130%
That is all for the advanced tier. Let me know what you think of the balance, effects, and cost of a Shard for each, please!
The hybrid tier is the highest tier. This tier requires the use of a new item during surgery: a hybrid mutation surgery kit, which is crafted at the Bioferrite Shaper.
https://preview.redd.it/wwldie7j11zc1.png?width=872&format=png&auto=webp&s=1a3ffcdf8e1e9783f3a331c125295b3bba7e8d27
This item requires 20 bioferrite, 20 steel, 4 advanced components, and a Shard to create. Both the serum and this kit also require bionics to have been researched in order to craft. The reason being that these mutations are "hybrid" because they are a combination of fleshmass mutation and bionics. The kit is used during the hybrid operations instead of a plain Shard because it contains the Shard as well as the components to install the necessary machinery. Here's the description of the hybrid serum to give an idea of how it works:
https://preview.redd.it/b7v3e1i621zc1.png?width=440&format=png&auto=webp&s=972b39c8b8a040b640b824def92ce59b5f0e552d
Anyway, here's a list of the operations that you can do with this tier:

• Hybrid Arm:

​

A construction of squirming flesh and twisted metal. This arm is a grotesque union of bionics and fleshmass mutation. Within its half-metal fingers reside retractable keratin claws, which have been reinforced by dark archites. This arm provides both efficiency and utility in melee combat. The hybrid arm has its own neural structures and may become dangerous if removed. 

Effects: pawn beauty -0.5, part efficiency 120%, Power Claw-style attack. 22 damage (same as Power Claw), 1.2 second attack cooldown (slightly faster than Power Claw)

• Hybrid Eye

​

A construction of mutated flesh and unfeeling steel, this eye is a grotesque union of bionics and fleshmass mutation. The sclera of this eye is composed of twisted, red meat, whereas the iris resembles the aperture of a camera. This eye provides improved visual clarity, despite its rough appearance. The hybrid eye has its own neural structures and may become dangerous if removed. 

Effects: pawn beauty -0.5, part efficiency 140%

• Deadlife Incubator (one of my personal favorites):

​

A construction of mutated flesh and unfeeling steel, this lung is a grotesque union of bionics and fleshmass mutation. Within this organ is a small incubation chamber for microscopic, self-powered archites. These archites can be exhaled once per day to raise nearby corpses into shamblers that will only attack enemies. The incubation chamber takes up space within the lung, so this organ comes with a slight decrease of breathing efficiency. The deadlife incubator has its own neural structures and may become dangerous if removed. 

This needs the Deadlife Dust research to be finished in order to be created!
Effects: toxic environment resistance +30%, part efficiency 70%, grants the power to release a cloud of Deadlife Dust once per day, which will create friendly shamblers from nearby corpses. (Same ability some creepjoiners can get occasionally)

• Hybrid Spine:

​

A construction of squirming flesh and twisted metal. This spine is a grotesque union of bionics and fleshmass mutation. The spine's partially-metal, partially-bone construction is segmented into functional vertebrae, through which organic nerves run. The hybrid spine has its own neural structures and may become dangerous if removed. 

Effects: part efficiency: 140%
Here's where things change a bit. Still in the hybrid tier, though:
The following bodyparts are upgrades of archotech implants. They require the corresponding archotech implant during the surgery (as well as the serum and surgery kit)! So to make the arm, you need to have an Archotech Arm, which will be used up in the surgery, for example.

• Horaxian Arm:

​

An archotech arm whose construction has been exposed to the malignant power of the void for one purpose: achieving the impossible by improving upon perfection. Where the arm once had flesh that looked and felt natural, it now has squirming, glistening, crimson meat. The internal structure, however, has been changed in ways that go even further beyond human comprehension. This arm thrums in rhythm with the malice of the void, bringing its recipient one step closer to madness. It is impossible to understand the workings of this arm. If it is removed, it will be destroyed in the process. 

Effects: pawn beauty -1, mental break threshold +10%, part efficiency 200%, punches deal the same damage as punches from a standard Archotech Arm.

• Horaxian Leg:

​

An archotech leg whose construction has been exposed to the malignant power of the void for one purpose: achieving the impossible by improving upon perfection. Where the leg once had flesh that looked and felt natural, it now has squirming, glistening, crimson meat. The internal structure, however, has been changed in ways that go even further beyond human comprehension. This leg thrums in rhythm with the malice of the void, bringing its recipient one step closer to madness. It is impossible to understand the workings of this leg. If it is removed, it will be destroyed in the process. 

Effects: pawn beauty -1, mental break threshold +10%, part efficiency 200%

• Horaxian Eye:

​

An archotech eye whose construction has been exposed to the malignant power of the void for one purpose: achieving the impossible by improving upon perfection. Where the eye once looked and felt natural, it now has squirming, glistening, crimson meat. The internal structure, however, has been changed in ways that go even further beyond human comprehension. This eye thrums in rhythm with the malice of the void, bringing its recipient one step closer to madness. It is impossible to understand the workings of this eye. If it is removed, it will be destroyed in the process. 

Effects: pawn beauty -1, mental break threshold +12%, psychic sensitivity +25%, part efficiency 200%
The Horaxian limbs have a built-in limiter, so you cannot easily just deck out a pawn with all Horaxian bodyparts. Each raises the mental break threshold. If you intend to install each Horaxian bodypart on a colonist, be ready for them to be constantly having mental breaks! Think carefully before installing a Horaxian bodypart.
That's the list of all the new bodyparts the mod adds. If you're wondering how each part is installed once you have a serum, a new bill for each bodypart will appear for each part you have the ingredients for.
https://preview.redd.it/o4eg5brt41zc1.png?width=447&format=png&auto=webp&s=7d79ff6f571a777cb4e178cfd95d5135b9f4de2a
This way, your crafting menus are not too bloated, as you only need a few certain items to be able to utilize the new bodyparts.
Anyway, that is every detail about my first RimWorld mod. I look forward to hearing your feedback!

Matt (27M), a close friend of mine, dropped out of highschool (6th form) aged 17-18. This was after having to re-sit two years -happens once to perhaps 5% of students in my country- and while he struggled a bit with some subjects, thinking back he probably had undiagnosed anxiety, and after missing many days as a result, he couldn't quite catch up after. When he dropped out, he told nobody. All my friendship group had already started at uni and it was a surprise when a friend told me that, after seeing one of his then-classmates around, he said that Matt had not attended any classes for several months. At the same time, he stopped meeting up with us for months on end (a total of 9 months or so), lost his phone (incidentally, he is still phoneless) only talking to us at his doorstep and telling us that he was still going to highschool and so on (hence why we initially thought he was still studying). We found his mum once who confirmed that he hardly left his house, refused to get psychological help and that both she and his dad were out of ideas and extremely worried as you might expect. A few months later, Matt started meeting up again with us, albeit avoiding crowded areas, and we chose not to bring up "what he was doing" in case he felt insecure with us (we are essentially his only social group) and so he wouldn't isolate again. Unfortunately, as an easy option, we carried out doing this for several years, over which he returned to his usual self but still... was doing nothing all day, for all we knew. Eventually, we stopped pretending we didn't know but we would still avoid discussing it. In fact, if we ever saw any common acquaintances and they asked Matt "oooh long time no see, what have you been up to?" we would see him sttutter saying "well you know, a few things here and there", and we would sometimes be accomplices in changing the topic swiftly. He once even thanked us for doing that. About one or two years ago, a couple of us tried to tackle the huge elephant in the room, first indirectly and always trying to make him feel supported. We mentioned options such as vocational training or just finding a job. He broke down crying with a friend of mine saying that he was right, indeed, but that he felt blocked to even go out there to ask for information. The conversation went similarly with me. I insist, we always accommodated him as much as we could and I genuinely think that not trying to power through 6th form (pre-uni) was probably a good option especially if paired with vocational training, he has a relatively wide range of interests and could find both computer- or library-related jobs interesting (his words). I have since brought up the topic several times, but I live far away so it's not very frequent. Capitalising on how he's more socially present now, I have tried to start conversations through the "now that you're more motivated and you have a clearer realisation of how dropping out does not limit your options" to no avail, well, he doesn't get the energy/motivation/call it what you wish to look for something to do now. I understand that he probably would feel weird just to wake up one day and do that after almost 9 years of nothingness. have offered to pay for therapy, at least the first few sessions, as I know he's not doing great financially and, of all things, I don't want money to be a burden. He refused though - I guess he's had this conversation many times with his parents and eldest sister. Anyway, why do I write about it now? Because I think my friendship group and in particular I made mistakes over the past few years in not helping him tackle this, by pretending nothing happened. I am one of his closest friends and I feel awful that I have not helped him get past the unfortunate mental block in doing something, and I know he is a great guy and would do well in a job/training... you name it. A couple friends are about to get married, we're all working and many of us are happy with our jobs... and the more we wait, the larger the gap between what he does and what we do is becoming. I want to help him in any way possible, I guess I could manage to somehow contact his parents if needed, but I need a concrete plan that won't make things worse. We have always felt worried that if he feels pressured or uncomfortable with us, he might stopped meeting with us altogether because that's precisely what happened with his other friends (several years ago). That's why we feel we're treading on eggshells. Matt's a fantastic friend and I want to know how to be there for him in this complex situation, even if it's now been so many years. I just can't even picture what the mid-term future would be like if he doesn't start doing something in the coming months/years. I'll be active on this thread so please let me know if there's any more info that could be useful.
Further context in case it's needed: - His parents have been supporting him financially, and he lives with them. They're not particularly well-off. They do care about him, but we have not spoken to them in ages. - His parents are retired or about to retire. - He has three siblings, who are all independent and working, and one of them has a daughter. He has babysitted frequently. - His relationship with his parents is not the best but it's "alright", and almost definitely tainted by the conversations about this very issue...

• I'm not asking for direct psychological advice, but, if anything, for ways of -as a friend- helping him access it. Or any ither way I can help him.
  
• Matt has no other friendship groups nor social hobbies ever since he dropped out and he quit those he used to take part in probably out of how he felt at the time.
  
• I don't really know what he does all day other than family stuff, videogames, playing guitar and watching Netflix.
  
• I guess that the fact that he has no other social groups limits (and has limited) his view on what options he has. I explicitly talked about how by doing, say, vocational training, he would see more opportunities from inside that I am unaware of myself. He agrees, but yeah, the conversation does not lead anywhere.
  
• We have always been supportive and I think I speak for all of my friends if I say that we really love him and want the best for him. At no point past or present did we ever make him feel bad for failing, dropping out or anything of the sort. For sure.
  

Hello everyone, I'm Swappy and I am a relatively new Muv-Luv fan. Despite this and against my better judgement I have decided to run a Muv-Luv Tabletop, titled Muv-Luv Conative. I am not using the Muv-Luv TTRPG system, but rather a homemade system utilizing the Operation V system, a Gundam TTRPG system made for the Feddie Scum podcast (great podcast). Specifically a finished version made by a fan and one of my players, as the official version is still undergoing play testing via the podcast.
Now let's introduce the party:
Alexander Kurylenko (33): A Soviet pilot from Belarus who has the misfortune for being born right as the war with the BETA broke out. He's had his home taken, he's seen friends die, and he has developed a fatalistic viewpoint on life. He believes in the Soviet Union, but isn't necessarily zealous about it. He dislikes aristocrats and the US government and he is the flight leader of the party.
Dana von Romer (23): An American pilot hailing from Texas. Dana von Romer is a guitar playing, shotgun wielding, hat wearing Texan in every way you can imagine. She believes in the principles American was founded upon, but that doesn't mean she believes in the US government and would follow it's orders without question. Her father was killed, and Dana believes it was an assassination on the part of a US Major General, and she wants answers.
Lloyd Aymar (25): A Canadian pilot who's been part of the UN since he graduated from flight school. He believes humanity should be united in the fight against the BETA, and serves as a middle ground between Dana, Alexander, and the next party member. He too has developed a fatalistic view, but he is far more sociable and friendly than Alexander. He simply believes that he'll probably die to the BETA, but he'll attempt to take as many of them with him before he goes out.
Chiyoko Kinoshita (19): Introduced at the start but joining the party later, and played by me for the sake of rounding out the party to a number of four. Chiyoko is a Japanese Fudai who is part of the Kinoshita family, a family who overlooks Japan's TSF development and manufacturing alongside the Takamuras. She is the youngest and greenest of the party, but is still a member of the Royal Guard. Her family relationship seems to be tense, especially with her older brother, and Chiyoko has a lot of expectations on her as a member of this family.
These four are part of the United Nations squadron known as the Wild Stallions. A Squadron with the on paper purpose of showing the capabilities of cooperation between countries via being comprised of pilots from different countries and utilizing all kinds of TSFs from American, to Soviet, to even Japanese TSFs.
One Shot Prologue:
The year is 1999, and the three party members (Alex, Dana and Lloyd) find themselves in Japan during the events of Operation Lucifer. The squadron is waiting to sortie, to fight the Yokohama hive, and as they wait they pack up the belongings of their recently killed wingman. Making small talk, the party soon runs into a Squadron of Japanese teenagers and meet Chiyoko Kinoshita. Chiyoko and Dana talk, but soon have to part ways as they have to sortie. Boarding their F-15E Strike Eagles, our brave pilots begin their sortie to push towards the BETA hive. Of course, they soon encounter a horde of BETA and combat starts. Dana utilizes her missiles to cause a rock slide which inures some grappler class, Lloyd charges in with his melee Halberd and begins cutting beta apart, and Alexander gives orders and lays down covering fire. Despite murdering a bunch of BETA more seems to come making their push forwards slow to a crawl. Alongside that, they can hear their apart list several other Wild Stallion flights being shot down. Eventually the two are suddenly told to retreat, as it seems US forces are going to be dropping something with little to no warning. Before they can retreat however, the party spots Chiyoko by herself in an damaged F-4J, seemingly being the sole survivor of her squad. Alexander tries to have the squad just leave her, as he is more concerned with their survival than hers, but Lloyd quickly comes to her rescue, pulling her out of the F-4 and placing her in the cockpit with him, and the party retreats. They just barely manage to get out of the blast radius of the G Bombs, getting front row seats to their detonation. As they go off, the party feels as though something about the world itself shifts, but they are more concerned with the absolute destruction left before them. Returning to base, the Stallions get Chiyoko to a medic, giving her comforting words. Chiyoko cries over the loss of her own team. With that, the Stallions retire for the day, and the one shot ends with the opening scene of Muv-Luv Alternative; the Discovery of human brains in the BETA hive.
Session 1:
It has been two years since the events of Operation Lucifer, and it is early February of 2001. Our party of three find themselves on a plane heading over to Yukon base in Alaska in order to potentially get involved with Project Prominence (my excuse of having players potentially get upgrades later one). The players now flaunt new TSFs, with Alexander piloting a MiG-290VT Fulcrum, and Dana piloting a very interesting F-18E Super Hornet. Lloyd however, doesn't seem to have his TSF on him, as Alexander managed to get into contact with an old Soviet contact and politically maneuvered his way into potentially getting Lloyd a Soviet TSF. Arriving at Yukon base, the crew first make their way to the Soviet side of the base in order to meet with Alex's contact, with Dana getting looks from the Soviets on the base, but she pays them little to no mind. Arriving at the hangar, the gang meets Alex's contact, one Jerzy Sandek. It is revealed Alexander managed to negotiate and get his hands on an SU-37 Terminator in exchange for proving the superiority of soviet TSFs, as well as a more personal favor from Jerzy. The gang also sees and are introduced to the Scarlet Twins, Inia and Cryska.
With that out of the way, the gang makes their way to the US/UN side of the base and talk with the base commander, before going off to meet the Argos Test Flight. Meeting them, the teams get along, with Alex scolding Tarisa a bit. It is then stated that the two will be going up against each other in a mock fight in order to determine if the Wild Stallions can be brought onto Project Prominence in a limited capacity. The two teams face off, with Lloyd in his new Terminator immediately eliminating Tarisa and then Ibrahim before getting gunned down by Valerio and Stella. Alexander is also shot down, but Dana manages to barely scrape out the win via a combat knife into Valerio's cockpit. With the mock fight finished, Dana and the Argos test fight go out drinking while Alexander forces Lloyd to do push-ups considering he got shot down. Alexander and Jerzy then meet, and Jerzy tells him to forget the personal favor, as he doesn't believe the two don't have what it takes to help progress what he's working on (the twins). The next day, with their objective complete, the Stallions leave back to Yokohama base, ending the session.
Session 2:
Back at Yokohama, the Stallions are missing a member as Lloyd is busy tweaking his SU-37. To compensate however, the team is joined by Chiyoko Kinoshita, now an official member of the Royal Guard and sporting a Shiranui. The gang talks over breakfast, with Alex being cold towards Chiyoko due to her status, and Dana cursing the difficulty of using chop sticks. The players are also introduced to another member of the Stallions, Jason Whiteford (a Brit). Finishing their food, the crew make small talk and head to the hangar before coming across quite the sight. It seems that over the night, someone had come in and VANDALIZED Dana's TSF with provocative words written in Japanese. After practically strong arming Chiyoko into translating for her, Dana laughs like a mad woman which makes everyone in the hangar uncomfortable before dragging the party off to investigate who did it. Making their way to security, they review the footage and see younger folks commiting the deed. Initially believing them to be trainees, Alexander heads to the training grounds and talks to Sergeant Jinguuji Marimo about this, but the cadets are soon dismissed from suspicion as they are all girls, while the culprits on camera seem to have been men. Deciding to ask Jason about any other squadrons who could harbor anti American sentiments, they are pointed to Cracker Squadron. Alexander pulls the Captain of the squadron aside while Dana decides to be less civil about it, getting into a fight with the other aggressive pilots of the flight, who were indeed behind the vandalization. With the MPs and the Captains breaking up the fight, after giving their accounts to the MPs, Alexander orders Dana to several hours of firing drills in her TSF before being called to Brigadier General Paul Radhabinod's office. Arriving, he is informed that he and his squadron will most likely be involved in the defense of Niigata, as it seems a BETA force is planning an invasion there. The two are then interrupted by one Professor Kouzuki Yuuko, and Alexander is dismissed. He leaves due to this, and due to Professor Yuuko's vibes. Late into the night, early morning in fact, Dana finally finishes her punishment and is greeted by Chiyoko, who managed to get her guitar fixed (which had been damaged in the brawl). The two talk about their ideals and the two then promise to win the war against the BETA so everyone can have Wagyu steaks. With that, they go off to make late night burgers as the session ends.
Session 3:
It is now time for the defense of Yokohama! The Wild Stallions are given a briefing by their commanding officer, one Colonel Augustine Gil, about the defense line that has been established at the Niigata shoreline. The Stallions alongside other UN and IJA forces will intercept the BETA hordes at the shores and perform an active defense against this invasion. Colonel Gil also informs them that Chiyoko will be accompanying their squadron as she is on loan from the Royal Guard to the Wild Stallions. With that out of the way, the Wild Stallions sortie (with Lloyd literally doing warm up exercises with his Terminator while taxying towards the runway) towards Niigata. The squadron arrives as the shoreline, and wait for the BETA to arrive. Once they do, the defense begins, starting with air support and artillery supporting hounding the initial waves of the BETA. Of course despite that they keep coming, and the Stallions alongside other squadrons begins to intercept the BETA. Chiyoko and Lloyd prove to be excellent Melee fighters, which is expected from Lloyd, while Dana and Alex fire on the BETA. Alex rolls a critical fail and then a critical success, which confuses all of the characters including Alexander himself. Of course they hear over the radio as people die horrible deaths, but at that point it's white noise. Suddenly, Laser class BETA appear and shoot down any air support! This naturally causes the Stallions to book ass to cover, with the members doing evasive maneuvers against the incoming laser fire. Before they can try to intercept the laser classes, they are ordered to support one of the other defensive lines which is suffering heavy casualties.
Arriving at the scene and seeing a pilot die, Alexander barely manages to use artillery to get rid of the laser class present and the Stallions begin to clean up the BETA. Lloyd actually fails a melee check for once, and Chiyoko fucks up an evasion roll against a Destroyer class and gets hit hard. At that moment, however, more reinforcements appear. They are a squadron of Shiranui's being led by a Takamikazuchi. The pilot is non other than Chiyoko's older brother, Yamato, who witnessed Chiyoko be hit and tells her off while being rude to the other party members. They are then allowed to return to base for resupply. Arriving back at base, Chiyoko is visibily upset by the interaction with her brother, but the others (including Alexander surprisingly) try and cheer her up which kind of works. With that, the session ends with the Stallions put on standby.
Session 4: It is near the end of February and the defense of Niigata is still ongoing! The Wild Stallions are on standby at a forward operating base, with Lloyd and some of the other Stallions drinking, Alexander sulking, and Dana writing a letter to an old friend. While basically partying, Lloyd spots Chiyoko practicing her swordsmanship with a sad expression. Correctly guessing this what still about her brother, Lloyd drags her ass to the party and attempts to offer a drink, but she declines. Lloyd messes around with Jason and then gets into a discussion about Soviet ideals with Alexander after the captain (Alexander) heard him talk about despite Soviet ideals on materialism, they party hard. Of course Lloyd takes the piss out of him in a scene worthy of the Chibi art style before they are informed that they will be sortieng soon. While Lloyd is literally hosing down some of the members of the Stallions, Chiyoko comments on how seemingly free he seems, as he doesn't exactly have to worry about things like familial obligations. Alexander stays silent because he doesn't like her, as her status makes her the enemy to him. Dana comes out the post office to witness Alexander standing there by himself before being informed of the briefing. Arriving, they are once again briefed by Colonel Gil, who explains they'll be intercepting the last of the BETA at a nondescript city. The Stallions once again sortie, with Chiyoko now having a maxed out maneuverability skill, and arrive at the city. While other squadrons intercept the BETA in the city, Alexander has the Stallions hold back and let the BETA come to them. Making quick work of them, they push in only to see two Fort class beta. Thinking quick, Dana fires off her missiles at one of the Fort Class and successfully eliminated it, while Chiyoko and Lloyd go for the other one. Lloyd uses his large halberd to carve into the Fort Class, but doesn't manage to kill it. He lands in front of it's stinger, and it tries to stab into his cockpit with it, but Lloyd barely manages to dodge and promptly cuts the Fort Class in half with his sword, soaking his Terminator in red and laughing, taking enjoyment in killing BETA. At that moment, they receive laser warnings and Lloyd and Alex dodge much larger than usual laser fire.
Off in the distance they see two Heavy Laser BETA. As Alexander barely managed to dodge the laser, he could nearly feel his blood literally boil from the heat. At that moment, he receives a vision, both clear and barely intelligible, both seemingly real and fake, of the heavy lasers eliminating some of the other Stallion pilots, but he chocks it up to adrenaline. Chiyoko and Dana then make quick work of the heavy lasers, as Alexander uses his admittedly broken skill to eliminate all of the remaining BETA on the field. This sudden increase of skill shocks everyone in the squadron, but Alexander brushes it off and they return to base. Considering the strain he put on his body through his intense maneuvering while eliminating the remaining BETA, Alexander vomits up some blood and bile and passes out, as he is taken to the infirmary. Dana spots Colonel Gil with a change in his expression, and the two exchange nods as he returns to his tent. The session then ends with him informing a certain professor about this strange increase in skill.
Session 5:
It is now mid March, and the Stallions find themselves boarding a plane back to America, specifically Dana's homestate of Texas. Oddly enough Chiyoko, now dawning a UN Uniform, is accompanying them. It seems she's gotten orders to continue accompanying the Stallions. Alexander is slightly annoyed by this, but fellow squadron member and Soviet, Nairi Oganesyan, jabs at him for this and notes that despite his dislike of her, he could probably pass off as her father in a civilian setting considering their looks, despite the fact he's only 33. This shakes Alexander to his core, and he turns to dust. Boarding the plane, they head off to America and arrive at US Air Force Plant 4 for, even stranger, an escort mission. They are greeted by Dana's old commanding officer, Major General Jairo Campbell, the person Dana suspects had her father killed, and Dana's old squadron captain and friend Crystal Myers. The two catch up and Dana is dragged off by her old squadron, the Braves, off to the plant, ditching the other three. Arriving at the plant, the Stallions head off to unpack, not before the two captains of each squadron share some words with each other. After unpacking, Dana mentions wanting to see if her old "stache' was still around, and Alexander and Lloyd leave with Alexander saying it's due to what Dana mentioned and how he can't be complacent in it despite overlooking it, and Lloyd wanting to go drinking. This leaves Dana and Chiyoko by themselves, and Chiyoko finds herself being dragged away by Dana, being given looks of worry and concern from other people in the base who knew Dana. Dana takes Chiyoko to an abandoned storage building, and enters. The hangar is home to some abandoned F-16 prototypes and various other containers as Dana takes her to some old, hidden lockers. She kicks the door open, and Chiyoko fails a movement check and gets hit right in the face by the locker door, causing a nosebleed. Dana apologies and lands her a handkerchief before the two look at the contents of the locker. Inside the locker are the belongings and picture of her father. Dana explains to Chiyoko that despite his skills and accomplishments as a pilot, Campbell practically wiped him from the records, and Dana believes it's because he knew something Campbell was planning. That's why she became a pilot, and despite Campbell's attempts to get rid of her, she persisted and soon joined the UN. This shocks Chiyoko.
Alexander meanwhiles runs into Crystal Myers again, her seemingly friendly and upbeat demeanor gone as she smocks a cigarette. The two talk, Crystal mentioning how he's Belarusian, which surprises Alexander a bit. She explains how she fought in the Soviet areas during her own brief time as a UN pilot, and she laments that despite the fact humanity seems to be on the verge of losing against the BETA, humanity still conspires against each other. She then tells him to keep an eye out for his squad, and leaves to go do a flight. This comment kicks Alex's paranoia into overdrive. Back to Chiyoko and Dana, Dana let's slip that she knows about the existence of Alternative IV which one again shocks Chiyoko. However, the two agree to keep this between them out of concern about the Major General potentially hearing about their suspicions. The two shake hands, with Dana spitting on her palm and grossing out Chiyoko a little. They then exit the storage building. Cutting back to Alexander, he spots Colonel Gil and Major General Campbell walking and discussing something in hushed tones. Against his better judgement and rolling a critical success, he listens in. Campbell states that despite being given orders to hand the XG-70s to Yokohama base for the Alternative IV Project he views it as a waste of time and that they should be used for Alternative V. Gil tells him that despite what he thinks, Alternative V is still the backup to alternative IV and he has to comply. They then enter a very large storage building.
Returning to base with Chiyoko still nosebleeding, with Dana saying to tell anyone it's from Texas' dry air, they run into Alexander. The three then being to make their way to the infirmary, not before spotting a new TSF with the monicher of X-35 painted on its jump jets taking off alongside some F-16s. Dana correctly summarizes that Crystal is the pilot of this new TSF and that it could be the replacement for the F-18 and F-16. Alexander curses the "Americans and their toys." Dana then comments on how Chiyoko seems to be fine despite the bleeding, but at that moment Chiyoko begins to feels dizzy and they carry her to the infirmary and retire for the day. Later that night, Chiyoko is greeted by Colonel Gil who asks her to gather up Dana and Alexander, and she does. Walking through the base Gil informs Alexander that he did notice him, and has decided that they should know as the lead flight as to what they are transporting (Lloyd is too drunk to inform). Arriving at the large storage building, the three pilots are out face to face with the two colossal XG-70s that they are to be escorting. Dana and Chiyoko are absolutely surprised by the sheer size of the machine, but Alexander isn't as impressed when informed that mass production would be very difficult. He is also informed of what happened to the test pilots, but is assured they won't be flying it. With that, they return to their rooms. The session ends with Gil apologizing to Chiyoko for getting her wrapped up in this, but Chiyoko tells him that it's fine, and that those machines may be what Humanity needs...
Session 6:
The latest session! The Wild Stallions wake up, with Lloyd hungover. Dana provides coffee to the pilots while Lloyd yells at them to wake up. Making their way to the cafeteria, the Stallions are introduced to another member of the Braves, Ariane Baker, a younger pilot who looks up to Dana. Ariane seems slightly annoyed about how close Chiyoko and Dana seems to be, but Dana manages to (maybe) settle her down. The two young pilots shake hands. They also talk about the F-35, mentioning how they hadn't managed to change the X-35 monicher that had been painted on yet, and how that America will be selling them to other countries as their new 3rd generation TSF. After breakfast and small talk, the stallions are briefed on their mission. The different flights will be accompanying the transport vehicle all the way to Yokohama, with the main party being given the responsibility of escorting the transport off American soil from California. Alexander questions why they need an escort in friendly territory, but Colonel Gil says it's simply a precaution while giving them a knowing look, which Lloyd doesn't pick up on. Boarding the plane, Jason, Lloyd and Nairi make bets on what the cargo is, with Nairi being suspiciously close to what it actually is. Dana takes up Nairi's bet. The trip to California is met with no issues, with Alexander having the rookie pilots stop ceaseless chatter, and they arrive at California. At the California airport, Dana references Quattro Bajeena in the second opening of Zeta Gundam and Lloyd asks her what's wrong, with Dana saying it's nothing. The Stallions take off, however this time they sortie without their heavier weapons, only having their assault cannons and combat knives. This annoys Lloyd greatly, but when Chiyoko says it isn't that big of a deal, Lloyd surprises everyone by agreeing and stopping his complaints.
Getting far enough from the shore, the Stallions are informed by their operator of five unknown IFFs heading right for them, and Alexander visually confirms two F-15Es and three F-16Cs with no markings and painted in dark colors. Being fired upon, the party is given clearance to intercept the TSFs. The team makes quick work of them, proving far too experienced and skilled for the mysterious assailants. Alexander and Dana agree on capturing a target, and the other two agree. Lloyd and Dana successfully manage to capture two TSFs, but they are informed of a self destruct signal coming off from them. Lloyd drops his, but Dana manages to rip out the cockpit block from the TSF before it explodes, and the party witness an explosion only capable from an S-11 self destruction device. Seemingly managing to save their prisoner, Dana is caught by surprise when, from directly behind her, a TSF arm reaches out and stabs the cockpit block in her hands with its knife before her F-18E is grabbed and shoved aside. The party is met with a mysterious unmarked TSF (an F-22A Raptor), but it breaks off and disappears into a horizon. Dana however barely manages to succeed an observation check and her suspicions are confirmed. It seems Crystal was the pilot of that unknown TSF. The session ends with Dana saying "Et tu, Crystal?" before they are forced to return to the California airbase.
And that about sums up every session so far of Muv-Luv Conative! I hope you enjoyed reading that extensive and long recap of the events of the story so far. I know there may be some hiccups with lore and what not, but me and my players have really enjoyed what we made so far, and I hope you do as well. I'll hopefully continue this once we get some more sessions done. Thank you for reading.

THE NUMEROLOGY OF SAGITTARIUS

Today, we will be talking about the sign of Sagittarius. We know that Sagittarius is a fire sign represented by the planet Jupiter and that Sagittarius is also a mutable sign as well. People look at Sagittarius and feel like they are very selfless people and they rule the 9th house in astrology which is also connected to selfless actions and compassion so we are going to see why they are connected to compassion and humanitarianism.
We are about to decode the Sagittarius Zodiac sign using numerology to do so.
S - This letter is represented by the number one but the S is 19 before it is simplified into the number one. The number one is connected to independence AND being self motivated, especially when it is first the number 19.
A - This is also the number one, but this is talking about the actual number one by itself which is about being adventurous and taking the initiative. This is connected to people finding it easy to take action. One is very significant for people who have a dominance about them. 1 can also be a contributing factor to something being observant. The more (A)1 energy someone has, the more observant and hesitant they will be in certain situations.
G - This letter is connected to the number 7 and this is about wisdom and also having a significant charm. Most people will be able to tell you that a Sagittarius has a charm about them. Their charm is more natural though because we know that they are all about living in the moment and experiencing things to the fullest.
I - This number is connected to the number 9 which is about adventure, compassion, independence, and just living your life. This gives someone an energy of authority whether things just happen easy for them, or they have the capability of being responsible or handling a lot of responsibilities. This number is also connected to people that live busy lives and the number 9 is strong in people who are into travel. If people have the letter I and R in their name, then you know that these people are travel lovers whether they travel locally or abroad. This just gives them the energy of being very outdoor types of people. We can see that Sagittarius has a lot of outdoor energy because they have I and R in its name.
T - This letter is connected to the number two, but it is 20 because it is the 20th letter in the alphabet. This makes them carry a more mature energy of the number two and not the immature or underdeveloped energy which is going to be the letter B. This is why Sagittarius people have the capability of coming into a lot of amazing opportunities and it can also add on to their charming nature as well because the two energy makes them very cooperative, but since it is 20 before it is the actual 2, this makes them cooperate with people at a skilled level. They have what it takes and they know what to do when it comes to connecting with people and reaching their goals whether those goals are big or small.
T - We just spoke about how this letter is connected to the number two above.
A - Here we have another influence of the number one which is adding on to Sagittarius capability of taking the initiative and being self-motivated individuals.
R - So this R carries the energy of nine at a masterful level because it is 18 and it is the 18th letter in the alphabet. This equals 9 overall and This is why Sagittarius can do whatever they have to do and handle whatever they have to handle if it means that they will get what they want or if it means that they will have the lifestyle or power that they want in a situation. They can truly handle large loads or handle whatever life throws at them. Look at the name. You can tell that with a long name, somebody will have some very intense qualities about them whether that intensity is positive or negative or just amazing.
I - This is that number 9 energy that I mentioned above in the beginning that gives Sagittarius that energy of overall being interested in travel and also being popular. The number 9 is connected to popularity when it is not about travel and it is also connected to experience and knowledge. Since Sagittarius are physical people, this nine-energy translates to experience more than anything. Unless someone happens to have a Sagittarius Mercury and other placements that can connect them to the college, it can translate to education as well. Higher education in individuals most likely have ninth house placements or strong 9 energy in their chart or in their name.
U - This energy carries the number three but U is the twenty-first letter of the alphabet so this means that the energy of three will be in a more masterful and mature energy. The number three, especially with 2 and 1 makes a person compassionate. They have compassion for others and they care for others. Even though people say that Sagittarius people can be wild, that doesn't mean that they are hateful people and it doesn't mean that they don't have general compassion for people. They have the capability of caring and they will enter the energy when the time is right for their own personal life path. This also suggests that they have the capability of doing this but they pick and choose who what when and how they would use this energy.
S - This is another energy of one in 19 equaling one from earlier when we first started. Refer back to that part to read up on it.
As you can see, Sagittarius has strong self-motivated energy which is why they are able and willing and will do things on their own when they have to and when they can. These people are naturally self motivated and embedded with energy to just do what they have to do and they don't think about it or ponder on it. Just make it happen. Sagittarius, they have a lot of dominant energy about them. Even if a Sagittarius woman happens to be feminine, she still has that Sagittarius influence which embeds her with natural experience and skill. This also connects people to being advanced in general on a natural scale. When she has Sagittarius energy, you know that is a period or a part of her life where she is independent and advanced. If you have noticed being into astrology that people with Sagittarius moons happen to be pretty smart, that is why. Or if they have a Sagittarius Mercury, they will be advanced. Mercury can also be advanced as far as the way that they talk in general, but they will most likely be pretty intelligent as well. Now, a Sagittarius being intelligent doesn't necessarily mean that they will make intelligent decisions because again, these are people that appreciate the experience of living life and having a good time so they won't always make the right and smart decisions. Doesn't mean they don't know though.
Sagittarius also equals 9 as well, but they have a 22 personality number which is why they are so proactive and able to come into so many amazing opportunities even if those opportunities end up being short-lived. This 22 energy is also why they are able to connect with Virgos at times because Virgo's have that twenty-two energy as well with that letter V ruling twenty-two as far as the alphabetical order and how the energy goes. They are meant to embrace that 9 energy though because they may find themselves being focused on money and stability and then life will kind of push them to embrace travel and freedom much more. They are free spirited people by nature, but their ideals and the things that they go after is very money-driven or there is just a huge focus on money and maybe having a career or just having a restrictive way of making money and providing for themselves. They usually come into some ways to embrace that 9 energy.
Not only does Sagittarius have 9 energy embedded inside of them already, but the energy itself equals 9 as well so this indicates why they are such a forward thinking sign and why they overlook the small details such as emotions and thinking before they speak or do things. Sagittarius is a future or present moment type of sign so people around them need to be able to live in a moment like they do or it will create a rift in the energy.
Sagittarius will have karmic lessons based on faith with their sign missing the number 5 and also missing the number 4 which talks about sensible actions and practicality. Their lesson could be connected to faith because they are such a physical sign that they are most likely someone who feels like they need to see something to believe it. These are generally not going to automatically be spiritual people unless there are other factors at play that will contribute to this but being a Sagittarius on its own is not promising that someone is going to be into spirituality so the non spiritual Sagittarius people will be the ones dealing with this issue.
We can see that the number 4 is missing from Sagittarius which means that they have to learn how to be cautious and slow down because again, this is a sign that is all about advancement and experience so these are people that may live quite fast and do things really early. May have been into things that is considered inappropriate for their age group because they're such an advanced sign. Life will pretty much push them to slow down though because it's about the balance of livelihood.
We also see that the number 8 is missing from Sagittarius as well and this means that they are going to have to learn how to be responsible, hard working, and patient. They have to learn how to take accountability in major ways, especially regarding money. The energy of eight and 4 is kind of similar, it's just that with the number 8 missing, Sagittarius is going to have to find themselves being responsible., you know what, they do have that twenty-two personality number which equals 4 so in a way they could come into some pretty good financial opportunities but they have to learn how to seize the moment as well and not be so quick to live and spend everything and exhaust themselves of the opportunities and of the money that they do come into. Maybe also, they just might not be that worried about having big amounts of money but maybe just having enough. They have the proactivity to come into money a lot though so it's almost like that personality #22 is their saving grace.
One last number that we don't see when it comes to the Sagittarius is the number 6 which contributes to commitment in relationships and even familial type of compassion so this explains why some people feel like Sagittarius is difficult to deal with romantically. Sagittarius may do well with people who bring that six energy into their life whether the person has six energy in their name or if there is some type of 6 energy in the synastry with someone where their energy makes a 6 in some type of way. When we have missing numbers, we receive that energy from the external world through people places and things.
THIS CONCLUDES THIS POST AND THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TUNING IN! IF YOU ENJOYED THIS READ AND WOULD LIKE TO SUPPORT, YOU CAN CHECK OUT THE RIGHT HAND SIDE WHERE MY LINKS ARE.
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It was 2016 and I was almost 21. I was working in a restaurant during the summer, behind the counter, preparing drinks for the customers. The people working with me (bartender, waiters and waitresses) were quite nice, I even made some friends (for the time being, none of these friendships stuck). The kitchen was upstairs, with 3 cooks (all male) and an older man doing dishes. 2 of the cooks were ex-convicts and, to put it mildly, their behavior wasn’t very sophisticated. They made a lot of dirty jokes and sexual remarks. I have never spent time with this type of people, I was always quite polite and calm (and if I wasn’t, it was only when I was surrounded by close friends) and I have social anxiety so I was always nervous when I had to go upstairs for something, knowing it would be uncomfortable. I was a little afraid of them, too.
At the time I was living with my (former) friend who had just started stripping. And she was gushing over it. How amazing she feels, how great it is to basically be at a party and get paid for it, she made it sound like an amazing job. She was really confident about herself and her body. A lot of men were attracted to her too, each time we went out she was getting someone’s attention and I was just… nearby.
I guess that’s where my desperate need to be perceived as (sexually) attractive came from.
So I wasn’t really getting any attention until one of the cooks (who was 32 at the time) started to focus on me. As I was getting more comfortable visiting the kitchen and, as everyone else, going there to vent and smoke a cigarette, he seemed to become more and more attracted to me. I liked it (and deeply on the inside I was a little disgusted but I shoved it down really deep). I was kind of subtly provoking him - dressing nicer, going upstairs more often I started going for a beer or to a place where he played arcade games. The ones that you can win money (but you mostly lose), apparently he had issues with gambling. You should know that he also had a 6 year old child and another on the way (with a different woman) which makes this whole situation even worse.
So, it went on for a while and once (I drank a lot) we kissed. He escorted me to the bus stop and stopped to pee. The police gave him a ticket for it and immediately started asking where he got his phone and checking if it wasn’t stolen. Just by his face, I guess, which should tell you a lot about how he looked. I was so disgusted with myself for being in this company.
But it continued.
I don’t want to get into any more details, but eventually we slept together. It was my first time and I think that’s why it’s haunting me for so long. It wouldn’t be this awful for me otherwise. I drank a lot that night, he did too. And when I woke up and saw him in my bed I was sick to my stomach, it was awful.
I don’t know why but we met up again at my place, I think two more times. The last one I was sober and I really didn’t want to do anything with him but I thought I should since he came all the way to my place, so I did.
Since then he only helped me with getting back my money from our then-ex-boss (who closed the restaurant and was avoiding paying us) and then, since we stopped working together, the contact was cut.
He approached me once more on messenger, but I wasn’t interested.
A year or two after, I thought, what was I even talking to this guy about, how is it possible that we had any sort of connection. So I decided to read our past conversations. I have never felt so horrible in my life. I felt nauseous, I felt hot and my whole body was kind of weak, I had to sit down. I deleted the conversations to never relive that again.
Since then, over the past years, he texted me once more (I didn’t reply) and tried to befriend me on facebook a couple times (the last time was this year! 8 years after…). I finally blocked him.
And it’s been 8 years and it still keeps popping up in my mind, making me nauseous and disgusted every time I think of it. And I don’t think about it voluntarily. I don’t know what I can do to dig it somewhere in my brain so it’d stop resurfacing.
At the same time, I was at the strip club where my friend worked (she advertised it so well that I really thought it’s a great opportunity and wanted to work there as well). I ended up humiliated, disgusted with myself, men and the whole industry. But even this doesn’t haunt me as much as this awful relationship.

Here is a link to the original post:
Original Post
I thought now may be a good time to give an update on where things are at with this, since I received some extremely helpful advice from several of you in the midst of the emotional thickness of all of this.
Let me preface this by stating that I am... an extremely reasonable person. There has been only one instance in my life where I have drawn a line that cannot be crossed, and everything else, even if I call it a hard line, I am willing to look at it from a distance and argue that there is some flexibility to it if there is valid reason to give such flexibility. This is one of those instances. Life is too complex to live in a rigid structure. The only caveat I have to this is that I don't make emotional decisions. I make decisions based in fact, logic, reason, etc. - I do not let my emotions take control, and that is where I feared I would go with this, because all I was feeling was emotion.
Some background on my wife:
I don't know what I said in my post previously or in any comments in an attempt to keep some anonymity, but my wife is an ER nurse. If you've seen some of my other posts you'll probably note that my sister is also a nurse. So was my mom. I guess you stick with what you know right lol?
ER nurses see some real shit. Stories my wife has told me include things like bashed in skulls. Stuff sticking out of eyeballs. Chopped off or better yet, partially chopped off limbs. Hopping on top of people and breaking their ribs to do chest compressions. Kids dying. You know, things that people aren't meant to see day in and day out and that cause PTSD and there is no help for them. My wife used to drink a lot, but has been sober pretty much since we had kids.
When she stopped drinking, she went into a bit of a depression for some time, and eventually went through a bit of therapy, and got onto a med of some kind that controlled her mood a bit. She functioned fine on this for several years but looking back she was a bit of a robot on it, and she gained some weight. She is a very athletic person and the weight gain finally got to her and she quit (unbeknownst to me at the time) the drug she was on cold turkey, when apparently you're supposed to ween off of it over several months. She quit early in the new year as part of a resolution to get back into shape.
My wife had a relationship with a woman when she was in university. It is the type of thing that would never fly in her family, and she hid it from them. I always chalked it up to a bit of experimentation post-leaving-home. She always maintained that they never slept together.
My wife is presently part-time at school (online courses mostly) to improve her career.
My wife has never shown emotion well. She was raised to, in her words "bury that shit down and not let it out" because it would make her look weak.
My wife is definitely undiagnosed 'on the spectrum' of several things, ADHD, maybe autism. Her mom is a teacher and recognized it at an early age and refused to have her stuck with a 'label' as she saw firsthand what it did to a lot of other kids.
Some background on the state of our relationship when everything went down:
We attended marriage counselling within a few days of the incident and one of the key things that came out of it is that the counselor described us as having fallen into "functional roles" within the relationship and had been prioritizing survival over everything else, and let our relationship fall to the back burner. She said that it is very common for couples with young children to fall into this trap - you have been sleep deprived for years, you're at the busiest time in your careers, etc. - and it's true. My wife and I probably hadn't had a deep, meaningful discussion with each other in more than a year because when we had the energy to, we were tag teaming the kids, or house, or at some event, and when we had the quite time to talk, we didn't because we just wanted to go to bed.
The immediate requests:
I called a lawyer. I was an emotional mess. They rhymed off a fee bordering on just shy of $1000 just to come in and talk about my options, and then if I wanted to proceed with preparing divorce papers that I would need to pony up about $10,000 that they would put in a retainer that they would draw off for divorce papers, mediation, court fees etc. - and then they told me there was a conflict and that they couldn't represent me. I called another lawyer and left a message, still in an emotional state, and they got back to me with similar fees but I never actually set up a meeting with them, I felt that I was still in too emotional of a state to start spending money on things like that.
Around mid-day the next day after confronting her, I took the advice of a few people in here and made a list of demands so to speak. She was in what I can only describe as a catatonic state emotionally. Dead faced. I don't know what I was looking for from her, but it wasn't that. But again, I am a reasonable person, she is human, and she is dealing with something too. So I tried not to let that get the best of me. I told her that if we were to move forward from this, that there would be an open phone policy - I get to look at it any time I want, and that if I need her to access something for me, she was to do so without question. I said I want to go to a marriage counselor to get the advise of someone who is knowledgeable about relationships, instead of us trying to sort it out by ourselves. I said I wanted her to quit her job to get away from Rachel. I said I wanted her to write down everything that happened between the two of them, whether she thought I knew about it or not, on paper, and that that would be the basis of truth, and that if I found out anything more happened, or she wasn't completely honest, that I would end it. I told her that she needed to cut contact completely with Rachel, and that Rachel's wife needed to be notified in some form or another, with my wife acknowledging her part in the affair. Finally, I told her that she could sleep in the spare bedroom indefinitely so we each had some space.
The bending of the rules:
She wrote down everything that happened. She contacted Rachel once more with my permission to tell her to inform her own wife what happened. Once we got confirmation from Rachel that that had occurred, I got in touch with Rachel's wife and had a discussion. Via Rachel's wife I found out that there was another kiss that occurred at work the day prior to the events that I was aware of. I let this smolder with myself until the next morning when I confronted my wife on it, that she had not written down the whole truth. First she claimed she forgot, then she claimed she didn't think it was significant enough to write down, given my focus on what happened in our home, and then when I told her I was a coin toss away from divorce because of something so, so very simple, she had an angry outburst and told me to just do it then. And honestly, it did not hurt me to hear her say that, it felt good to see her not be able to hold onto emotion. To have something fizzle through the shield. But inside, I pushed my line in the sand back. It KILLED me to do that. But I pushed it back and said once again, she's human, and she obviously wasn't perfect before, how can I expect her to be perfect now? So I pushed my line back.
She applied for new jobs in the hospital to try and create some separation from Rachel at work, but it was a bit of a lost cause. Areas where her skills were transferrable were either not hiring, or were basically nights and weekends only, meaning we'd be effectively separated, which is something I did not wish to go through. Her present skills are not really transferable to other employers in our community or within reasonable commute. Her schooling is nearing a finish and she has other prospects lined up for after she's done school, but needs to graduate first. So, I relented and said it's not unreasonable for you to keep your current job, so long as you're keeping it professional and only speak to Rachel in person if you have to speak to Rachel in person, and not be alone with her, etc. She agreed to all of this and it seemed to set her mood a bit better. But once again, I was pushing a line back. Within reason I thought, but pushing a line back.
She arranged marriage counseling and we went to see that person a couple of times. We had already started communicating very openly. The marriage counselor gave us a few ideas to consider, primarily that we had fallen into 'functional roles' within our relationship - effectively trying to just survive with young kids and busy careers and put our relationship on the back burner, which definitely opened our eyes and hind sight is a bit 20/20 on that. We immediately set to some improvements in that regard. The counseling (and the infidelity itself) also opened up a number of questions for my wife, about who she is and how she functions and why she does the things she does, and she, to her credit, put a huge effort into looking into herself and figuring herself out. But we have largely stopped marriage counseling now because she's not a fan of the counselor, who seems to be on the side of "you're either straight or a lesbian, no in between". I don't disagree with her, but neither of us have really pursued an alternative counselor right now. Another line pushed back, but in my mind, we've been exposed to some new ideas and aren't having trouble communicating at all right now, so why bother sticking to that gun for no reason other than it was one of my conditions? I think it has primarily served its purpose, for now.
About 10 days after confrontation, we had a night where the kids were going to be away, which came up kind of unexpectedly. She had already planned months ahead of time a work event that night, and she was the sole organizer and so pretty much had to go. She wasn't sure if Rachel was going to be there or not. I told her that I cannot control her, she is her own person, but to make good choices. Even though we had a night that could have been to ourselves, we both thought it would be a good idea if we spent it apart - I went to a friends place and played cards for a bit, and came home and watched a movie. For my wife's part, we said that if Rachel showed up, just stay away from her. Let me know she's there. That's it. She stayed out very late, and the next day, was telling me all about how someone else's marriage at work is falling apart right now because of an affair, and that she suspects two of the ladies she was with the night before were hooking up, and called them out on it. And sure enough, both of them started admitting it to her via text, and her phone was just buzzing. She goes to take a shower and I go to check out her phone, and see none other than a picture of her and Rachel next to each other at this event. Winky faces from one of the girls who we've just found out is literally cheating on her husband at this event, asking her why didn't she go to the bar with Rachel after they were done at mini put. I take some photos of these texts and the photos and blow up at my wife and then go for a drive to cool off. I come back and she's got an explanation that she wasn't sure how I'd react and didn't want me to think the wrong thing when Rachel showed up, so didn't tell me. That the picture was a group photo that she got shoved into. And to be fair, they were leaning away from each other and my wife's smile was not a happy smile, it was a "what the fuck am I doing here" smile. When I asked her what the other lady was winky facing at her I couldn't find the message anymore, and she had deleted it. I managed to undelete it and asked why she was deleting messages, and she said because she was asked to not keep messages from her friends who were having an affair with each other. And I said fuck your friends. Prioritize, right now. Think long and hard about what YOU want and fuck everyone else's problems. YOU and I have a problem right now and fucking around with other people's drama isn't going to help that. And she was scared. Not scared that 'she was found out'. Scared that I was going to leave over what she considered a miscommunication/worried that something small that she had no control over would be the tipping point. And so I pushed another line. I let that be what it was, but said no more of things like that. No more deleting messages. No more getting afraid of how I might see things, just be honest and open and communicate, because that is less open to interpretation than the shroud of mystery. And since that point, she has been brutally honest about her day and who was there and what not.
She was extremely apprehensive about communicating with Rachel's wife directly in some sort of apology. I was letting this one simmer on the back burner as I respected that she likely needed to be in the right headspace to be able to admit her wrongdoings in a meaningful way to this person, whose life she had affected with her actions and choices. But... in lieu of this, Rachel's wife found my wife on the street one day and blew up in her face. My wife was like a deer in headlights and literally just smiled at her (in the 'what the fuck do I do kind of smile') and didn't say much back, other than to tell her that she didn't do most of the things that Rachel's wife was accusing her of. I was about 20 feet away at the time and just let it happen. Following that, Rachel's wife contacted her via instagram and tried to continue it there, my wife appologized for her smiling reaction in public and stated that she just didn't know how to react - Rachel's wife said some more stuff, my wife impulsively started throwing some insults back, until Rachel's wife gave my wife our home address in a veiled threat sort of way. That is the point where my wife came to me and showed me, we took some screenshots, and I told her to stop engaging with her because that was a pretty thinly veiled threat to be giving someone. I told her that she no longer needed to send any sort of appology as we can see where that would go. Line pushed back, but within reason, right?
The breaking of Tajwriggly
About a month post confrontation, I started to experience anxiety, panic attacks, and emotional outburts out of seemingly nowhere. I would get angry without reason. I had zero limit for the kids. I hadn't done any real work at work for close to a month, only touching things when they were at a point of emergency. When my wife found out about the work aspect, she asked if I had spoken to anybody but her about what happened, and I said no. She had touched base with a number of people at work, her doctor, her parents. She had admitted to herself that she was indeed bisexual, but that her marriage mattered more, and that she was mostly straight leaning. She had admitted to herself that she does not deal with emotions well and was working on being more open with me. She was working out and had lost a bunch of weight. She was putting her everything into trying to repair our relationship and make herself stronger, which is all I wanted from her. And yet I resented her for it. She seemed to be doing so well. And here I was wondering what on earth I was doing. Every line in the sand I had drawn had been pushed back in some form or another. I was constantly in a state of wondering what her intentions were. I was in a constant state of stress and anxiety of trying to hold it all together. And one night I broke. I went for a drive and sat in the literal darkness at a park and wrote down my thoughts about myself. Not my marriage, not my wife - myself. I came to two major realizations - I do not think I am worth somebody's time unless I am useful to them - and in turn, I do not ask others for help as I see that as being of negative use to them. In short, I am a problem solver. And I had met a problem I could not solve by myself. My wife told me I should speak to an individual therapist, and offered some places to start looking, and I took her up on that advice. And she admitted to me that she knew she broke me, and that it haunted her. That she wanted to jump in front of a train every day for how she hurt me.
The Update:
We are now 2+ months post confrontation. We have always known that my wife is on the spectrum for ADHD and autism or similar, but we are now seeing that the ramifications of this are... an inability to connect properly with people. She doesn't understand the connotation of what people are saying sometimes, in the 'read between the lines' type of way. She mimics others. That's how she has always learned to fit in - instead of being her own self, she mimics those around her. And without an understanding of someone's intent, she can get herself into strange situations. She has started a new drug for her brain now that is helping her focus her thoughts, and she is getting away from people's drama at work.
I am now seeing a therapist to work on myself. I have severe anxiety and apparently always have. I was getting short with the kids because I didn't have enough room for any more patience. I had essentially stopped working at work because I was afraid of new problems showing up that I didn't have patience for. My cup was full so-to-speak. I've started cycling and I find it calming and destressing.
My wife and I have communicated openly more in the last 2 months than we probably have in our entire relationship. We are learning about ourselves and each other and are most importantly making time for each other. We just took a trip away on our own to reconnect, without the kids around. We're going on dates. We're talking to each other in the evening, instead of just going to bed and looking at our phones. We are both making an effort to improve ourselves, and our relationship.
Objectively speaking, I am willing to forgive my wife (although I'm not sure when, and I'm not sure how) because of the following things - despite infidelity being a hard line I thought I would never allow to be crossed:

• She was coming off of a brain altering drug that she had been on for several years, and was trying to function with her 'old brain' for the first time in years.
• She, quite literally, probably didn't realize that she was actually flirting with Rachel.
• We had fallen into functional roles in our relationship
• She was losing weight and looking good, and had started to receive attention from someone in an industry where there is a very tight bond between coworkers due to the PTSD.
• A deeply buried box within her opened up
• I chose to instead of taking the easy path of anger move on - I chose to be her husband and stand by her as she worked through this, and if we need to split as a result of the conclusions she comes to, we will do so amicably, as two stronger individuals, as opposed to through anger and resentment and brokenness.
• She is showing, every day, how much she loves me and is not being distant, or dishonest, or holding back on things that are bothering her. She expresses genuine remorse most days for what she did.

It is not all fun and roses. Her libido is in the shitter, in part from the new drug she is on. If she misses a day of it, her mind goes bananas and she cannot control her thoughts and goes into a spiral of anxiety. She hopes that she will be able to overcome the libido issue eventually. She says she feels bad, while I say just give it time. She has confided in a few people at work that have all sprung forth with either similar stories of infidelity and then realizing that they made a dumb choice, or the functional roles in the relationship, or similar, and she is taking solace in the fact that she is not alone in that struggle. It is apparent to me that she is in an extremely toxic work environment as far as boundaries go - in the last 2 months I have found out that about 3/4 of the people she works with are either mid-affair or have previously had an affair, with someone at the workplace - in comparison, I have heard of only 2 such instances at my employer in the span of over a decade.
TL;DR: We are both putting effort into improving ourselves and our marriage - sort of a 'start over' where we accept what happened, and move onwards and upwards.

My little sister suffered from anorexia for 10 years and then died from it. She had a heart attack due to being so underweight. From the start my parents didn’t deal with the whole situation very well. The whole thing was very traumatic.
I (33M) was 18 years old when my little sister started struggling, and I had just moved away from home to University. She got bullied in school, had to move school, and started using anorexia as a way of coping.
After two years of my sisters struggling and the situation getting worse, my parents asked me to drive home from Uni on the weekends. She was not in a good way at all. This was a two hour drive home on Friday night, and then a two hour drive back to Uni on Sunday night, every weekend. I was in 3rd year of Uni at this point, and I was working a full time 9-5 job in a corporate company, as a placement job for the year, part of my 4 year degree which included a full years placement in 3rd year.
I hated being stuck in a 9-5, and stuck in a city 2hrs away from home, when my little sister was struggling so badly.
So after work each night, I went to the library until 2am and work on a business idea. I would get just 4hrs sleep each night, do my 9-5 during the day, and then work another 8hrs in the library on my business idea, then drove home each weekend to be with my sister.
My thinking was that if I could make life changing money from a business, I could sort my little sisters struggling. At this point, we didn’t actually know she was anorexic, we just knew she had gotten bullied, moved school, and was struggling. It wasn’t until a few months later that we went to the doctors and learnt she was anorexic, at which point I had already started my attempts at trying to make money from launching a business.
I later learnt that money wasn’t the solution, the solution was instead to understand anorexia, and understand the solution to it, which sounds obvious, but at the time the situation was extremely overwhelming, and I knew nothing about psychology or emotions, or anything like that, so I just didn’t understand, and instead stuck with the belief that if I made enough money, I could sort it.
I did this for two years until I graduated them moved home.
Once moved home, I spent the next 4 years working on online businesses.
After 4 years of doing this, my little sister had only been getting worse and worse, physically deteriorating, and at this stage was skin and bones, it was so traumatic. At this point, I realised what needed to be done, was for me to stop doing my business work all together, and just focus on studying anorexia. Up to this point I had been speaking with a mindfulness coach about the whole situation twice a week, trying to understand it, and understand my sisters struggling, but now I was going to focus on it full time. This was 1 year before she died.
A result of doing this, 6 months before she died, I knew I was going to be able to recover her, because I had a breakthrough in understanding. It was the only time I’d even been close to feeling I was going to be able to recover her. However it was too little too late and eventually she died.
The whole thing made me very ill. I dissociated from the trauma of it all. I’ve spent the last 5 year not working, and instead recovering from the trauma of it all, whilst trying to understand what happened, and overcome all the issues I have as a result of it all.
The key part of all this which I’m yet to explain is, my mum has Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), she’s a narcissist, you might have heard that term being used before. NPD is basically a dysfunctional personality, which is the result of the person not having the skills to be able to cope with life functionally, so instead they use defence mechanism and force, as their way of getting their needs met. It’s a very immature way of behaving. Essentially the person with NPD has not properly grown up, and is still using the same dysfunctional strategies to get their needs met, that they used when they were 5 years old.
She couldn’t deal with the whole situation of her daughter struggling, and couldn’t deal with how it made her look or feel, so she basically twisted the whole narrative to make herself look better, by putting all the blame onto my little sister, which was one of the worst things she could have done, as it only made things harder for my little sister, and she also tried to control my little sister to be the way that made her (my mum) more comfortable.
She also needed me to be the way that made her more comfortable, so would try to force me into being that way. So despite her being the one who asked me to drive home from Uni every weekend, to help them sort the situation, which is what led me to then starting my entrepreneurial career, and then moving home to support my little sister, after just 4 months of me having moved home after Uni, she now suddenly no longer wanted me at home, and instead wanted me to go to a city and work a corporate 9-5.
She wanted this because of how it made her feel, and how it made her look. She didn’t feel like a good mother seeing me at home, in deep work mode, just grinding trying to make my business work. Which in some ways is understandable, but its also very immature, because I constantly told her this is what I wanted to do. It’s what was making me happy, it provided hope for me, and I had no interest doing a 9-5 in a city. An online entrepreneurial career was a perfect match for me, for my personality, and for the situation. It gave me a sense of power in my life, it was brilliant for me. I literally didn’t want to do anything else. I believed I was going to fix the whole situation by doing this.
She was also worried about how it made her look to her peers. She wasn’t sure if me doing this career choice, would be received well by them, and how that would make her look to them, which again, is just immaturity by her.
I refused to go, and instead continued working on my online business from home. This led to me receiving a lot of abuse from her. The whole narrative became one where they thought I was just ungrateful, living the life of Riley, and that I was chasing my dreams whilst she and my dad just supported me.
My parents have money, they’re actually very well off. In hindsight, if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have done my business work, and I would have instead just learnt about anorexia, learnt the solution, and told my parents how to spend their money in a way that would help the situation.
Money wasn’t really needed to solve this situation, other than to pay for therapy and experts in anorexia, which my parents already had enough money for, but I just didn’t have the intelligence at the time to understand that’s what the solution was, so I believed that if I made life changing money, it would give me power to sort the whole situation, and I felt very powerless, so I set about trying to get more power over the situation, in the form of money.
If my parents had been sorting the situation of my sister struggling themselves, then I wouldn’t have felt the need to do my business work, but they weren’t sorting it. By the time my sister died, I knew more about anorexia, and how to recover my sister, than both my parents did put together, and now 5 years after her death, I’m an expert in it, and then hardly know anything.
My mum had twisted a whole narrative, where they were saying my little sister was ungrateful to them, that she was living the life of Riley, that she was chasing her dreams, that they had done more for her than they ever should have, and basically treating her like a piece of shit by the end of it, and I was having to stand up for my little sister against them.
And it was the same sort of treatment from them towards me.
The way Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) works is, the persons defence mechanism is to deny the reality, and argue a narrative that makes them look better. This leads the person to genuinely be in delusion. It’s not clinical delusion, which is permanent and can’t be cured, but it’s instead a defence mechanism induced delusion, where it’s not permanent, and can be cured, by teaching the person the skills to cope with life, without needing to distort reality, but it’s still as strong a delusion as clinical delusion, because the person genuinely believes the way they are viewing things is the reality.
A person with NPD will also try to force other people to be the way that suits them, by emotionally manipulating them, through either shaming and guilt tripping, or using fear. My mum did it through shaming and guilt tripping, saying she’d done more for me than she ever should have etc, and then organising the rest of my family members to also treat me that way, until I would feel shit enough about myself, and then go and be the way that she wants me to be.
So now here I am, 5 years after my little sisters death, still living at home, I’m still ill, but each year I’ve been getting better, and I’m struggling mentally with all the abuse I’ve received from my parents, and from my older sibling.
I’ve spent the last 10 years trying to overcome my mums narcissistic abuse. The last 6 years has been me focusing on it full time, not working a job, and instead only focusing on understanding all of this, because of how ill it’s made me.
I’ve came along way, but I’m still struggling with a few big issues.
When I finally become healthy and start working again, I want to just do my online entrepreneurial career again, whilst still living at home, until I get enough money to then move out into my own place. My dad is fine with me doing this, and has said I can live in this house as long as I want.
The issue that I’m struggling with, is trying to psychologically overcome the claims that “I’m ungrateful to my parents”, “I’m living the life of Riley”, “I’m just chasing my dreams whilst my parents support me”, and “my parents have done more for me than they ever should have”.
My dad agrees with everything I’m saying, and my mum has actually apologised for her behaviour, however she’s still not viewing the whole thing completely honestly, but is definitely viewing it a lot more honestly than she was. She’s even apologised for saying I’m ungrateful and life of Riley, etc.
But the psychological damage has still been done, and my self esteem is very low as a result, and I can’t feel ok with myself, until I’m able to see clearly, that I’m not actually all those thing they’ve been saying, so I can overcome all the shame and guilt that I’m feeling, because although my mum has apologised, I still don’t trust her, and still think she is viewing it in a way that’s inline with her thinking, that she’s done all this stuff for me, and I’ve just been chasing my dreams. Which is not the truth. And my older sibling is just viewing it whatever way my mum views it.
I’ve spent so much time trying to figure out why a person wants to do the career that they want to do, so I can try and justify why I want to do this career.
I think my personality is the way that it is, as a result of all the trauma I’ve been through, and feeling powerless, and not having the resources to be able to solve it, as well as being stuck in a job, in a far away city, preventing me from being able to be there for my sister.
I feel I still have the need to try and achieve financial freedom, so that I don’t feel powerless again in the future. I just would not feel comfortable if I was trapped in a job, where I’m not the owner, and I can’t just leave if I need to, and where someone has control over whether I receive my money, and where someone has control over how much money I receive.
I think it’s also just because this is the way I am biologically.
It’s also important to mention that, before my little sister started struggling, how my life would have gone is, I would have graduated Uni, then moved back to my home town, and married my childhood sweet heart, and just worked a 9-5, had children, and been happy. But my little sister struggling ruined all that, it completely ruined my life.
I immaturely stopped speaking to my childhood sweetheart because I was emotionally upset, and didn’t think she responded good enough to me telling her about my little sister, but she simply just didn’t understand the extent of it, and I just didn’t have the skills to be able to deal with my emotions any better at the time.
She later tried to get back with me, but at this point I was driving home every weekend, whilst working a 9-5, whilst working on my business, to try and solve my family situation, so I had no interest in anything outside of that.
I’m now 33 years old, the dust has settled a bit, and I’ve missed out on marrying my childhood sweetheart, I’m single, I don’t speak to any friends, and I’ve got my own inner issues I’m trying to sort as a result of all of this. All because I’ve been completely consumed by all of this for the last 15 years.
I didn’t do any socialising, I hardly left my house, I basically didn’t do anything except try to sort this situation, and try to cope with the situation. Now I feel that the best path forward for me, is to just try and make some good money, and then try form some sort of life for myself.
AITAH for wanting to do a career in online business, whilst living at home now at 33 years old. Or am I ungrateful to my parents, have I been living the life of riley, have I just been chasing my dreams whilst my parents support me, and have my parents done more for me than they ever should have?
When I’m healthy, I could go and work a 9-5 job, then work on my online business after work, however, I just feel so unhappy, I have some really big psychological issues as a result of everything that’s happened and the dysfunctional and abusive parenting I’ve received, I feel that I’m pretty far behind on life, and that I haven’t even lived a life other than being consumed by my family situation, so if possible, I’d rather just try and make some good money, as I feel although I’ve been doing therapy for the last 10 years, and will continue to do so, making good money will help me also and make my life a bit easier.
Also, even if I did work a 9-5 job, and work on my online business after work, I would still be battling in my head, with the claims that I’ve been ungrateful, and that my parents have done more for me than they should have. No matter what I do, those claims will always haunt me, until I can see clearly that I’ve not been those things. It’s a situation of being guilty until proven innocent. I’ve had to work through disproving all the claims made against me, and that’s what I’m still trying to do.
Please help!
Thank you.
TLTR:
My little sister had anorexia for 10 years then died. I (33M) spent those 10 years trying to sort the situation because my parents weren’t doing it. I tried to fix it by trying to make life changing money through entrepreneurial means. My mum has Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and tried to force me to be the way that pleased her, she wanted me to move to a city and do a corporate 9-5, which conflicted with my attempts to try and help my little sister, so I wouldn’t do it. This lead to her claiming I was ungrateful, that I was living the life of Riley, that I was chasing my dreams, and that they had done more for me than they ever should have. This became the new narrative inside the family, and they bullied me for it, when really, everything I was doing was trying to sort the whole situation of my little sister struggling, as well as trying to just cope with the situation, because they weren’t fixing it. Now my sister is dead, I’m ill from it all, and when I get healthy, I want to do an entrepreneurial career instead of a traditional 9-5. AITAH?

I'm 30F, H is 30F and G is 29F. I have been friends with H for 7 years, and known G for 2. H is a family friend and her mom & my mom have known one another for 40+ years.
H introduced me to G in 2022 when G moved to NY (H was living in a different city at the time). Shortly after I met G, I was diagnosed with a cancer recurrence. I was initially diagnosed in 2016 at age 22, then covid hit (plus my only sibling had a malignant tumor in 2021), then my recurrence in 2022. That said, my family has had a lot of health issues over the years, and my 20s were tough, especially socially/dating wise bc I wasn’t going out a lot, plus I had to take a lot of time off from work for shitty reasons & was laying low. In the spring between my surgery & radiation, G & I went to visit H in her city, then G stayed with my family by the beach over the 4th of July & then again over Easter (H’s family also has a house in the same area, so we all met up). These group hangs really foreshadowed a lot of unnecessary bs drama.
Visiting H in the Spring
I’m def a girly girl - i love fashion, makeup, reality tv etc, but I didnt think that makes me public enemy #1, especially with “friends”. As I was putting on lipgloss before we left, H said “oh my god you’re not a Kardashian” - as if me lipgloss personally offended her to the point where she, as my friend, felt it was ok to compare me to a woman who made a sex tape, amongst many other unwise life decisions… I had a massive (double) scar on my neck, it was the first time away from home since my neck dissection, & my only sibling gave me the lipgloss in a post-op care package bc we live on opposite coasts, &, as I mentioned earlier she also had a malignant tumor the year prior. So it’s a combo of “it’s not that deep im putting on lip gloss ffs” but also “stop judging a book by it’s cover and fwiw this is a gift from my sibling who cares about me & understands what I am going through in a way very few others do.” I was just adjusting to a massively swollen upper half of my body/trying to feel confident again while in the middle of my treatment. G said nothing but kept going off w/ H whispering and acting secretive and obsessing over H. This was the first time it was the three of us and I very mcuh
4th of July
This was right before I had radiation, & I was a nervous wreck, especially after hearing the side effects, long term risk of various cancers etc. I know others have been through way worse but I know I was terribly anxious so probably not great company, but didn’t want to un-invite G to stay w me bc I knew she would want to see H, who was visiting her own family (and more importantly, had a full house so G couldn't stay there). Also, H never wants to leave her parents house/neighborhood, so of course we had to do everything on H’s terms as we did when we visited her!!! But that’s fine, I can go with the flow, I can go to her house / beach etc, but eventually H says she wants to go to get a lobster roll almost 1 hr south of where my family lives, so I said no that’s where I draw the line. I don’t even eat lobster rolls so asking me to drive 1 hr south of my moms house on a holiday weekend when i had so much on my mind was not something I would agree to, & I knew sitting in traffic on a holiday weekend while I was worried about real issues would aggravate me to no end. When I said I didn’t feel like going that far, G aggressively “offered” to drive my mom’s car, completely missing the point. My mom would never have agreed to that, and I didnt even tell her until more recently. This was the first time she stayed at my moms so aside from meeting my mom once in our city for lunch, this was a fucking weird ask. I was shocked at how entitled G was acting - its like she was just trying to act like H but doesnt recognize she is a new friend and that’s Hs personality vs G acting like an ass just to try to act like H.
To add a geographical visual it would be like if my fam’s house is in Hampton Bays, H’s fam is in Southampton, and instead of meeting somewhere in the middle or one of those 2 towns, H was insisting upon going to Montauk for a fucking lobster roll, and me as a hostess saying “I think we can find that same food in between the two towns” then a new friend/guest demanding to drive that distance Hampton Bays > Montauk is bizarre IMO. Not the actual towns, but I made this reference for a reason bc H’s fam lives in a nicer town than my mom, and G really raves about it all the time, which is whatever, but more importantly - her attitude, tone/treatment of me & my mom is really fucking rude compared to the way she treats H’s family. My mom has picked up on it too (More on that later).
When we were back at my mom’s house, we ended up talking about sunscreen (a non controversial topic lol) and my mom said she likes SuperGoop, noting it was founded by women + “clean” sunscreen. G started comparing it to Trader Joe’s sunscreen and, candidly, I was sort of picking up on a bit of frustration/hostility by her tone? G & H are obsessed w Trader Joes. Like they get mad & call me bougie just bc i wont go take a bus to Trader Joes and would rather get my groceries 1 block from my home. An irrational obsession with “Tjs!” But G was getting vividly upset that my mom bought a different sunscreen, kept citing the prices and going on and on in a really aggressive and bizarre way. I have never seen anyone get that bent out of shape before about sunscreen & trader joes, let alone at someones mom, in her home no less!! As a single woman, owning a home was a big deal for her post divorce and i just couldn't believe she was there for the first time bitching to my mom about something so trivial like her choice of sunscreen. My mom also picked up on the hostility, and privately mentioned she thought it was odd, without even knowing what happened when I visited H / lobstergate (lol).
Nov - H moves to my city, moves in w G
By this time, I have lived in my apartment for 5 years, & I knew G&H moving in together would change the friendships quite a bit, but didn't anticipate it being so obvious so quickly. I offered to help G move the weekend before and after their move in date, as well as offered to store anything in my apt if needed. I never offered during the week as I had my own job, and as mentioned I had to take significant time off for 2 medical leave and needed the job for health insurance. G quite rudely ignored the help I offered and repeatedly asked me to take the middle of the week and help her after I said no - I didn’t say no to be difficult, but I was visiting my sister at Christmas so I had to focus on my job before getting time off for vacay bc companies don't care about why you were off - you missed work, and you’re asking for time off at Christmas, so between that you need to do your effing job, not help some entitled brat move. I think she judges me bc I like to look good / have my own apartment and always says shit to me like “must be nice!” in an aggressive tone but I too need a job to put a roof over my head. I worked at a top, household name corporation, so just bc I had wfh privileges didn't mean I could run her fucking errands during my work day. And just bc i live alone does not mean I don’t make sacrifices to do so.
Initially, G was sweet about my recurrence (tbh cant pin any medals on her, how could you not be compassionate) but over time/since moving in w H, she has really become super judgemental, entitled and condescending, especially since moving in w H / me starting to date again post cancer. It feels like they think they can treat me like shit now that i am cancer free. G acts like a know it all, has made jokes about people with "daddy issues" and then the request to change my work schedule really show how much I cannot stand her, esp bc I don't have the same history with her as I do with H. But when was quite obnoxious to my mom on multiple occasions in her home no less that really struck a nerve.
And this is honestly what hurts me the most, and it’s a huge part of why “daddy issues” is such a nasty fucking phrase in my opinion, on top of it being rape culture rhetoric that blames children, specially female children, for the psychological aftermath of an absent parent...but hey H & G go to women's marches and wave their pink signs for their IG posts so they must be allowed to make “jokes” about daddy issues and comment on my figure!!!! Keep only including me in plans that revolve around substance abuse when you know I am focused on sobriety!!!!
IMO their notion of feminism is some BS performance art, they think a pink sign at a protest on an IG post is actually helping but they’re the ones tearing other women down. I’m not close with my father despite the health issues I have had, and she has been to my moms home and made these “jokes” after the fact, so it’s also insulting to my mom IMO. Again, women bashing women but go off with your pink sign, sis!!! It’s really helping !!! And G is the one who constantly bashes men, saying “men are trash, men are trash” on a constant loop bc she doesn't have anything of value to add, but i find this equally toxic. I’m not close to my father but he’s gay, not a horrible human. I also don't open up about that to them bc it’s not my story to tell, and is sensitive to both of my parents. My father hasn't come out to his mom, and my own mom is a bit embarrassed about marrying a gay man (even though this is sort of common for that generation). Men are not trash, and I believe all humans are worthy of love, respect and compassion. Apparently not according to G&H.
Fast forward to the point where I am “cancer free” (the term my drs use is “No evidence of disease”) which is great, but I am at risk for 5+ other types of cancer, plus I could always have another recurrence, so cancer prevention is and will always be top of mind for me and my family. I truly am not trying to play the cancer card (and to anyone who has also had cancer, I don’t think this term is fair at all and it minimizes the frighteningly transcending experience), but after cancer + covid + cancer, I was just eager to get back into dating. This has seemingly offended G & H to the point where they talked a lot about me behind my back (H shared this with me as if it was normal and not offensive). I lost weight after getting off of a temporary medicine, and H has made “jokes” that I am an almond mom, which is like saying I'm anorexic, when in reality I am just trying to eat healthy to control the few things in life I can control. Also, a cancer patient eating healthy isn’t bad, and my weight loss has been from medicine changes. It can also be a sign someone is sick again so I find it beyond disturbing to comment on, let alone mock.
H’s birthday
H had a bunch of friends to her beach house for her birthday, I wasn't invited. Thats all. But im the one whose too cool for school? Lol.
Easter 2024
I invited G to my mom’s, noting I was going to watch my dog while my mom was visiting my sister. I noted I had a responsibility but she was more than welcome to join me. I checked w H beforehand to make sure I did not step on anyone's toes or step in on existing plans, and included H (knowing she wouldn’t join bc it wasn't with her family). G said she would “let me know” then a week later said yes. The weekend rolls around, I had to leave the city before G, so again, using the geographical metaphor I used earlier, she took the train from NY and I told her what town to go to and where I would pick her up. She offered to go to H’s town, which is 20 min south of where my mom’s home is - not only was she refusing to listen to what I told her, but she kept acting like little miss sunshine “I'll take the train to Southampton!” well why tf would you do that vs listening to me, your hostess, especially bc I offered to pick her up further north so she wouldn't need to be on the train longer than she needed to be. She responded by obsessing over the nicer town
H had last minute invited both of us to her extended relatives house before the weekend began. I personally didn't want to go, G nearly wet her pants out of excitement, practically panting at the chance. I think G would legit wipe H’s ass if asked. I initially agreed bc i could tell that's what G wanted (I know this is on me) but then i clarified to both G & H that I wasn't going to go, between working on sobriety, not getting included in H’s birthday and the weird comments about my body, plus I used to live in that nicer town and I’ve had family members die there, just not a good vibe for me even without this dumb drama. I said to G days before I understood I was the one changing my mind, but just please let me know what you end up doing so I can plan accordingly.
G tells me she is just going to stop by for an hour, then repeatedly asked me to drive her despite me saying no, I don’t want to leave my dog and act like a chauffeur.” She repeatedly told me she would join me, her fucking hostess, for dinner. So she left, and I walked my dog so I could stay local in case she came back after less than 1 hour. Then she kept piecemealing the updates “It’s taking longer than I thought” then finally “omg so sorry the party is gonna start later than expected - eat without me!” This was so bizarre IMO.
Then 5 hours later she comes back to my moms as if its a fucking hotel and brings a spiked seltzer inside. Whatever, I get that my sobriety isnt something everyone else needs to partake in, but after lying, acting like a supportive tea totaler in front of my mom, and acting so judgemental about me being sober, I found this to be odd. My moms home isnt a hotel or a sorority house, and my mom could see this on her security cameras and was uncomfortable bc she was out of town and didnt expect this all to be taking place at her house while I was just there watching my dog. I was obviously annoyed when G returned and she kept trying to drunkenly force hugging me and I was not having it and said this was really rude to lie and ditch me like this. You know what she said after that? “It was a sit down dinner” so I said “exactly - you went to a sit down dinner elsewhere while lying to me, expecting me to drive you, knowing I invited you to dinner and had bought plenty of food for 2 - I dont need to make a large meal with apps, entree and dessert for 2 just to sit here alone.” G is definitely done in my eyes.
Present day
I gather they really just enjoy putting me down bc I am a cisgendered, heterosexual white woman and therefore in their eyes, specifically H’s, i am unworthy of any empathy. But since G has no personality of her own, she has to mirror H's personality too!
Then H tells me G was upset about my birthday last year (I hung out with other friends + the man I was dating, but I still saw her every fucking day so not sure how my birthday suddenly became about G and what wanted to do, but this attitude is exactly why I made an effort to spend my birthday with other people). When I told them I’m not drinking, they repeatedly invite me out for “martinis!” and then
When I spoke to H in person about all of this drama & bs, she seemingly understood then days later invites me to buy THC soda for 4/20!!! WTF!! I know H is a pain in the ass, sipping the woke cool aid and projecting it onto anyone who doesnt fit that narrative, but G is just flat out fucking rude to and about my mom, in her home so TBH I dont have the same bandwidth to tolerate her as I do with H.
At this point, neither of them are acting like genuine friends and as someone who has had cancer in my 20s twice, I just don't have the time, patience or energy for this drama, and we’re too old for them to be blowing me off, leaving for shared plans without me, making fun of me and my appearance to my face and gossiping about me behind my back, while also (possibly unintentionally) sabotaging my sobriety by. It’s quite clear they do not like me as a person and think they can speak to and about me in a really negative manner, but then get mad at me for just doing my own thing with other friends who speak to me kindly and support me. I spoke to H and afterwards she said “we thought you didn’t want to be in our inner circle” WTF what 30 yo talks like that, but also I never said that - they just judge tf out of me for being me, and living my life as I have for years.
How can I set boundaries and keep my distance without coming across as rude? I don’t want to be dramatic but I’m trying to find the balance between boundaries/protecting my peace vs being too confrontational. ’m just tired and want to live my life, enjoy every minute I have, especially because you truly never know when things can change for either myself or anyone in my family.
TLDR: 2 friends pseudo support during cancer is showing as they mock my appearance, lack of relationship with my father, focus on my mental health and removal of substance abuse / junk food post cancer recurrence and confirmed they have talked about me behind my back, demand rides & other favors as they judge, but also get mad at me when I spend more time with more like-minded and supportive friends. Judgmental af that I’m trying to look and feel my best after having cancer twice in my 20s and I’m fucking over it!

I was introduced to my ex by one of my friends from work. It went amazing at first, we had great chemistry and I was convinced that this was finally the relationship that was going to work.
I did notice some things that concerned me a couple of months in. He has a child from a previous marriage I don’t have any kids. I definitely understood that his child comes first, but I feel like he was using his kid as an excuse for being a flake. He told me how much he loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. However, at the same time, he didn’t initiate plans often with me. He would also cancel last minute, saying he needed to get things done or that he had his kid. I didn’t mind coming over after she went to bed, but even doing that stopped after what happened next.
I had met his friends and I liked them. I invited him to a brunch with my friends so that he could meet them. I am bisexual, and the majority of my friends are part of the LGBTQIA+ community. When we were driving back to my house, he asked about one of my friends. The way he asked was pretty ignorant, he said “Is he like.. gay?” I had already told my ex that I was bisexual before we ever became exclusive, and he said he was fine with it. After asking this question, he said, “you know my daughter isn’t going to be around that, right?” I was crushed by this. I knew that I wanted my close friends to be able to come to my wedding, my home, and be at special events in my life. This was all dissipating in front of me after I thought that this relationship was going to be the one for me.
I cried in front of him, because of my disappointment. We made up after that fight, but I didn’t think that he was going to hold on to how strongly he felt about these ignorant, and honestly hateful beliefs. Homophobia is a learned behavior. We were okay until about a month and a half later. I had just returned from a vacation, and he called me. We were talking about something completely different when out of the blue he randomly said “you know she’s not going to be around your friends, right?”
So I finally asked the questions I had been afraid to ask. I asked if my friends were not going to be allowed in my own home. He was very mean with his response, saying hell no. I obviously was upset with his bigoted views, as well as the awful way he decided to initiate this conversation over the phone. He got mad and said that he thought that we had an understanding after talking the first time.
Over the next three weeks, I noticed a change in how he interacted with me. He didn’t tell me he loved me anymore, seemed much less interested, and was initiating plans less than he did before. I did talk to him that I was frustrated about never seeing my boyfriend. He got defensive and said “all these women I have dated wanted so much from me and didn’t understand that I have my own shit to do.” I don’t feel like I was being unreasonable by asking to spend time with my partner.
I told him after our fight that being part of the LGBTQIA+ community was sometimes a difficult life. I still have not come out to my family and I probably never will, because they will likely feel the same way that he does. They would be much less hateful about it, but non-accepting nonetheless. When I told him this was hard for me, he responded angrily that his own life was hard. He was really good at disregarding my feelings, and turning things around and blaming me. Anytime I asked why we didn’t spend time together I got some statement along the lines of “I feel like you’re not even considering the fact that my kid is almost always with me so that says something.”
I initiated conversations about how we were supposed to have a wedding if he didn’t want gay couples there. He said very angrily to me that his friends all have kids and “they’re not going to be around any of that, period.” Inside I thought maybe we could elope, but I was absolutely heartbroken because I always pictured my friends being by my side on my special day. I was going to be accepting of his daughter, I wanted to get to know her and be part of her life. He was the one who was being exclusive of other people. I wanted everyone to be included, and he was having none of that.
He seemed very fearful of his six year old kid “becoming gay.” He talked about how much he needed her to marry a man and give him grandkids. He told me that sexuality is a choice and that my friends and I had chosen our “lifestyle.” I asked him why he been okay with me being around, since I’m bi. He said it was because I wasn’t openly dating a woman. After a few weeks of him acting really distant, I got the “this isn’t fair to you” text and knew what was coming. He beat around the bush about the topic, and I finally asked him if we were together or not. I had to ask twice actually, and he said “right now I’m going to say that we are not.” So I clarified and summarized that he wanted to take a break.
I ended up dumping him a couple of weeks later. I had to do it over the phone because he wouldn’t even make time for us to talk more in person. When we had the first conversation, he only gave an hour for us to talk in person. I had driven an hour each way to get to his house. When I brought up more things that made me upset, he got mad and asked why I hadn’t brought them up when we talked in person. I told him that he only gave me an hour to talk, and then he pulled out his usual excuses about how much he had to do and couldn’t make more time.
Essentially what I told him over the phone was that if he wanted to be with me, he would make time with me. I said that if I was going to keep being treated with contempt, and like I was nothing, then I was done. This was the first time that he seemed apologetic, or even took accountability for anything. He said he understood where I was coming from, and I needed someone who was going to give me time. He said he had too much going on and that was his fault.
I don’t want to end up with a homophobic piece of shit. A homophobe who also doesn’t think that spending time with a significant other is a priority. He also didn’t get me anything for Valentine’s Day, and his excuse was that he was broke. I know I wouldn’t have been happy with him, but I’m having a hard time moving on.

I was introduced to my ex by one of my friends from work. It went amazing at first, we had great chemistry and I was convinced that this was finally the relationship that was going to work.
I did notice some things that concerned me a couple of months in. He has a child from a previous marriage I don’t have any kids. I definitely understood that his child comes first, but I feel like he was using his kid as an excuse for being a flake. He told me how much he loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. However, at the same time, he didn’t initiate plans often with me. He would also cancel last minute, saying he needed to get things done or that he had his kid. I didn’t mind coming over after she went to bed, but even doing that stopped after what happened next.
I had met his friends and I liked them. I invited him to a brunch with my friends so that he could meet them. I am bisexual, and the majority of my friends are part of the LGBTQIA+ community. When we were driving back to my house, he asked about one of my friends. The way he asked was pretty ignorant, he said “Is he like.. gay?” I had already told my ex that I was bisexual before we ever became exclusive, and he said he was fine with it. After asking this question, he said, “you know my daughter isn’t going to be around that, right?” I was crushed by this. I knew that I wanted my close friends to be able to come to my wedding, my home, and be at special events in my life. This was all dissipating in front of me after I thought that this relationship was going to be the one for me.
I cried in front of him, because of my disappointment. We made up after that fight, but I didn’t think that he was going to hold on to how strongly he felt about these ignorant, and honestly hateful beliefs. Homophobia is a learned behavior. We were okay until about a month and a half later. I had just returned from a vacation, and he called me. We were talking about something completely different when out of the blue he randomly said “you know she’s not going to be around your friends, right?”
So I finally asked the questions I had been afraid to ask. I asked if my friends were not going to be allowed in my own home. He was very mean with his response, saying hell no. I obviously was upset with his bigoted views, as well as the awful way he decided to initiate this conversation over the phone. He got mad and said that he thought that we had an understanding after talking the first time.
Over the next three weeks, I noticed a change in how he interacted with me. He didn’t tell me he loved me anymore, seemed much less interested, and was initiating plans less than he did before. I did talk to him that I was frustrated about never seeing my boyfriend. He got defensive and said “all these women I have dated wanted so much from me and didn’t understand that I have my own shit to do.” I don’t feel like I was being unreasonable by asking to spend time with my partner.
I told him after our fight that being part of the LGBTQIA+ community was sometimes a difficult life. I still have not come out to my family and I probably never will, because they will likely feel the same way that he does. They would be much less hateful about it, but non-accepting nonetheless. When I told him this was hard for me, he responded angrily that his own life was hard. He was really good at disregarding my feelings, and turning things around and blaming me. Anytime I asked why we didn’t spend time together I got some statement along the lines of “I feel like you’re not even considering the fact that my kid is almost always with me so that says something.”
I initiated conversations about how we were supposed to have a wedding if he didn’t want gay couples there. He said very angrily to me that his friends all have kids and “they’re not going to be around any of that, period.” Inside I thought maybe we could elope, but I was absolutely heartbroken because I always pictured my friends being by my side on my special day. I was going to be accepting of his daughter, I wanted to get to know her and be part of her life. He was the one who was being exclusive of other people. I wanted everyone to be included, and he was having none of that.
He seemed very fearful of his six year old kid “becoming gay.” He talked about how much he needed her to marry a man and give him grandkids. He told me that sexuality is a choice and that my friends and I had chosen our “lifestyle.” I asked him why he been okay with me being around, since I’m bi. He said it was because I wasn’t openly dating a woman. After a few weeks of him acting really distant, I got the “this isn’t fair to you” text and knew what was coming. He beat around the bush about the topic, and I finally asked him if we were together or not. I had to ask twice actually, and he said “right now I’m going to say that we are not.” So I clarified and summarized that he wanted to take a break.
I ended up dumping him a couple of weeks later. I had to do it over the phone because he wouldn’t even make time for us to talk more in person. When we had the first conversation, he only gave an hour for us to talk in person. I had driven an hour each way to get to his house. When I brought up more things that made me upset, he got mad and asked why I hadn’t brought them up when we talked in person. I told him that he only gave me an hour to talk, and then he pulled out his usual excuses about how much he had to do and couldn’t make more time.
Essentially what I told him over the phone was that if he wanted to be with me, he would make time with me. I said that if I was going to keep being treated with contempt, and like I was nothing, then I was done. This was the first time that he seemed apologetic, or even took accountability for anything. He said he understood where I was coming from, and I needed someone who was going to give me time. He said he had too much going on and that was his fault.
I don’t want to end up with a homophobic piece of shit. A homophobe who also doesn’t think that spending time with a significant other is a priority. He also didn’t get me anything for Valentine’s Day, and his excuse was that he was broke. I know I wouldn’t have been happy with him, but I’m having a hard time moving on.

“Oh my God! It’s really him!”
Even before I turned around, I was sure that those shrill teenage voices were talking about me. I just couldn’t understand why. I wasn’t famous; I’d never done anything important in my life, and it had been a long time since I’d been in high school myself. The three girls were leaning over the glass barrier on the second floor of the mall, pointing at me with their hands over their mouths like they’d just seen a celebrity. When they realized that I’d spotted them, they ran giggling into the crowd, leaving me with an unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach: what was all that about?
The sense of wrongness I felt only deepened as I walked into the store that I’d come to the mall to visit. Maybe it was just lingering discomfort from what had just happened, but I’d swear I felt eyes on the back of my neck as I walked down the aisles. Some of the other customers were staring too, I was sure of it–and that wasn’t all. Once my eyes had adjusted to the dim light inside the store, I realized that there was a chubby guy in dark clothing standing near the back exit of the store…recording me.
“Hey!” I shouted, but he was already gone, disappearing through the access door into the guts of the mall. I reminded myself that I was here to buy a teddy bear for my four-year-old niece–not chase some weirdo through a restricted area–and let him go.
“You alright?” the woman at the cash register asked when she saw my face.
“Yeah, it’s just…” I waved my hand vaguely.
“Oh yeah, I getcha. All the crazies come out of the woodwork this time of year. Before you came again, I had to break up two grown men who were fighting over a stuffed alligator. You believe that?”
I shook my head. Ordinarily, I avoided the mall like the plague at this time of year. The crowds and repetitive holiday music got on my nerves, but I’d promised my niece I’d get her a blue teddy bear from this specific store. Why she wanted that specific gift was a mystery to me, but toddlers aren’t known for their logic. The cashier scanned my card, frowned, then scanned it again.
“Says it’s blocked,” she grunted, and handed my plastic back to me with a suspicious look. “There are some ATMs on the second floor…if you’re able to withdraw cash, that is.” Her judgmental glare told me exactly what she thought of people whose cards got declined…and people who wasted her time.
As I fought my way through the sea of holiday shoppers, a preteen kid ran up to me and tossed a styrofoam cup of hot chocolate onto my chest.
“Did you get that?” he yelled over his shoulder at his friend, who snapped a photo and nodded. The pair of them were gone before I had time to get a good look at their faces, much less try to stop them. Wondering what the hell was wrong with people, I wiped off my ruined sweater and hurried to the ATMs.
The glowing blue screen in front of me soon confirmed my worst fears. I was locked out of all my accounts, and not just banking stuff, either: I couldn’t access my email or even social media: everything was blocked. It was like the floor had just dropped out from under me. Without those little lines of code, who was I, really? Trying to shake off that gut-wrenching feeling, I pulled out my phone to contact my bank…but I was already receiving another call.
I picked up immediately, only to hear a mechanical-sounding automated message:
“Congratulations, you've been selected–”
There was something disturbing about that voice, but I had already hung up by the time I realized what it was.
Another call was coming in. The number was slightly different from the first, but when I answered, there was no mistaking it: I was listening to my own voice. Sure, the words were eerily slow and the pronunciation was off, but I was definitely listening to…myself.
“Not very polite of you to hang up on me like that, Aiden. Not when I’ve got something so special to tell you.”
I sputtered, fumbling for a reply; the whole situation was just too strange.
“W-who is this? Who am I talking to?”
“Why, this is everyone, Aiden. Everyone who has a vested interest in seeing what you’ll do next. First, though, we think you ought to change shirts. That sticky hot chocolate must be uncomfortable, and besides, yellow isn’t really your color.”
Whoever I was talking to could see what I was wearing, which meant they could see me. My eyes darted from face to face, scanning the crowd–
“There’s no one to look for Aiden. I’m everywhere. See that outlet store in front of you, Aiden? We’d like you to go in and get yourself a new holiday sweater. Oh, and since your cards are blocked, you’ll have to steal it. Well? Go ahead. We’re waiting…”
I hung up. Of course, they called back again. And again. And again. I turned off my phone and slipped it into my pocket. My heart was pounding. What the hell was going on here? The police; that was it. I just had to talk to the police, to let them know I was being harassed and stalked…but by who?
Had I made any enemies lately? There was Tim, the I.T. guy from work, who had never seemed to like me very much. He knew who I was and maybe even had access to sound bytes of my voice–but would Tim really go this far just to mess with me? I wandered in a daze past giant ornaments and chlorinated fountains full of pocket change, barely aware of where I was going–
Until a guy with a goatee stopped dead in front of me and stuck out his hand, jabbing a blindingly-bright screen into my face.
“It’s, uh, for you…” he sounded as confused as I was. “Somebody called me and said he needed to talk to the guy in the yellow shirt with the hot-chocolate stain. That’s you, right? It’s something about somebody named Kimmy.” My blood ran cold. Kimmy was my mother’s nickname! People shoved angrily past the pair of us, but I didn’t care: all my thoughts were on the familiar voice coming through the stranger’s phone.
“We’re disappointed that you’re not rising to the challenge, Aiden. We think that maybe your mother should have raised a braver boy. Thankfully, user DarkStarr85 has generously agreed to go by 415 Meadowleaf Court and teach her a lesson.”
“Listen, whoever you are,” I shouted into the phone, making a few of the shoppers surrounding me jump. “This isn’t funny. I’m going to the police, and when I find out who you are–”
“You can go to the police if you want, Aiden. But that would ruin everyone’s fun…and besides, by the time you talk to them it will already be too late for Kimmy. Come on, Aiden. Why don’t you play along?”
I fell silent. For all I knew, there was nobody waiting at my mother’s house, and this sadist who spoke with my voice was just messing with me…but what if I was wrong?
“What do you want me to do?” I sighed.
“You see the man standing in front of you? The one whose phone you’re holding? We’d like you to punch that confused expression right off of his ugly face.”
The guy with the goatee blinked at me, wide-eyed and totally unsuspecting. I clenched my hand into a fist…then lowered it.
No. I wasn’t going to play their sick little game.
I threw the guy’s phone back to him and ran toward the restrooms. I remembered seeing some pay phones back there…I would just have to hope that they still worked.
The mall had seen better days, but the restroom hallway was particularly rundown. Most of the fluorescent lights were flickery or burnt out, and there was a nasty brown puddle of something stagnating by the wall. The first payphone was covered with graffiti and the second had been practically ripped off of the wall, but the third looked like it might still work. I jammed in some quarters and punched in my mom’s number.
“Honey?” my mother asked right away when she heard my voice. “Are you alright? You sound out of breath.”
Before I could explain, I heard something in the background on my mother’s end of the line: a doorbell.
“Ma, listen: whatever you do, do NOT open that door!”
“Are you sure? They’re knocking really hard. It must be important…”
“I don’t have time to explain, just get off the phone and call the police, okay?!” I shouted.
Glass shattered. Then the line went dead. A fat, scarred finger had pressed down the receiver, cutting off my call. I turned to face the hulking figure who stood between me and escape. His head was shaved close, his teeth crooked, and beneath his fat there was a lot of muscle. A single diamond earring sparkled in his left ear. He cracked his knuckles at me and grinned: he wasn’t alone.
“H-hey!” I stammered “That call was important!”
The big guy punched me in the stomach. His friends ran up behind me, shoved me to the ground, and held me there. They didn’t speak…but one was taking a video of what was happening. The big guy sat on my chest and started smacking my face until I was seeing stars; I felt a tooth come loose.
“You right-handed or left-handed?” The big guy asked.
“Right-handed–why does that matter?” I spat blood.
“We gotta make sure you can still answer a phone call when we’re done.”
He picked his foot up and stomped on my left hand. My fingers snapped beneath his boot with a sickening popping sound, and I screamed louder than I ever had in my life.
“What’s going on down there?” A security guard stood at the end of the dingy hallway, pointing his flashlight toward us. A group of shoppers had clustered there to watch the one-sided “fight.”
“You upload the video?” The big guy asked. His friend nodded. “We don’t get paid unless the video goes viral…”
“You three! Stop!” The guard yelled, running toward us. The big guy sighed. By the time the pudgy, middle-aged guard got close enough to realize how outmatched he was, it was too late: they were on him. Clutching my broken hand, I limped out into the crowd. No one offered to help…but I did notice that a few people were recording.
My head was reeling, and not just from my injuries. The whole situation was just too insane. Someone had stolen my name and voice…and they were paying people to torture me! I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when I staggered out into the chilly parking lot and found that my car's tires had been slashed. That wasn’t the worst of it, either.
Some instinct, some primal fear, made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. When I turned around, I saw three familiar figures scanning the parking lot…searching for me. I didn’t like to think about what they might have in mind for Round Two.
I ducked and crept along behind the cars until I reached the line of trees that marked the border of the mall parking lot. On the other side was a service road: it was a mostly-abandoned strip of warehouses and boarded-up stores that ran alongside the highway. At the far end, I could see the glittering lights of a bus station. It might be my last chance to get home and get help.
I was halfway down the service road before I regretted my decision. I had tried several more times to call the police, but my phone was blocked by more of those awful calls, proposing more sick “tasks” for me:
“You’ve made us angry, Aiden. If you don’t want any more broken bones, you’ll walk out onto that highway, take off your clothes and start dancing–”
I hung up. The sound of the wind blowing through those desolate chain-link fences made me feel very alone…but I wasn’t. Someone was following me. They walked faster when I walked faster, slowed down when I slowed down, and never let me out of their sight. From the way they held their phone at their waist, facing me, I felt sure that they were recording me.
I had had enough. The stress of the whole nightmarish day had pushed me to a breaking point, and I don’t think I could have stopped myself if I wanted to. I turned and charged. It was the last thing my stalker had expected, and when they dropped their phone and ran, I realized that I recognized the figure: it was the chubby guy from the toy store, the one who I’d noticed filming me! I shouted after him, but he was already gone, snagging his leg on barbed wire as he sprinted across a construction site. I didn’t have the energy to pursue him…but I did have his phone.
When I picked it up from the sidewalk, I saw my own face staring back at me from the cracked screen. The picture was one I’d never seen before, one that I didn’t even know had been taken.
“Aiden Fisk,” read the caption, “what will he do next?” A video-clip played: a replay of everything that had happened so far. Grainy footage of me panicking in front of the ATM, being doused in hot chocolate, getting my arm broken…and walking nervously down the abandoned service road. Which meant…they knew where I was. As the video ended, the App opened: an app that was all about…me.
There were polls about what should happen to me, what I should be made to do next, and what my punishment should be if I failed. The more gruesome options, it seemed, were always the most popular. In another section, users could use cryptocurrency to bet on what I would do and track my location in real time. I was zooming in on my own location when a call came into the stranger’s phone.
“Hello again, Aiden.” My own voice said to me when I answered.
“Why are you doing this to me?!” I yelled into the receiver.
“You’re our entertainment, Aiden! You’re famous. You should be grateful. Now for your next task–”
I flung the phone away like it burned me. The lights of the bus station twinkled at the end of the service road, close yet far away at the same time. The road narrowed, becoming a one-lane alley between two construction sites, and the sidewalk disappeared. I hadn’t seen any cars so far, but I could hear the rumbling of an engine approaching behind me.
My shadow stretched out ahead, illuminated by a pair of rapidly-closing-in headlights. I waved, trying to make my presence known, but the driver didn’t stop; they didn’t even slow down. A quick glance over my shoulder revealed an enormous truck. It occupied the entire road, and even if I had had time to jump, there was nowhere to go.
A low scream escaped my lips as the truck’s front bumper nudged my lower back. I staggered, sure that I was done for, but the driver slowed to match my pace. They kept the so close that I could feel the heat of the motor, egging me on, forcing me to run faster and faster–
They could crush me beneath those huge tires anytime they felt like it, and they knew it. Was this my next punishment? I could imagine the app tracking my pace, people betting on how far I’d get before my legs or lungs gave out, and on which parts of me would shatter when I inevitably got run over. Up ahead, the road narrowed even more: dead bushes in concrete islands had been placed in front of the bus station as someone’s idea of landscaping. They didn’t add much beauty to the place, but if I jumped into them, the truck wouldn’t risk following me over the barrier…probably. I still wasn’t sure just how far these people would go for that sadistic app, but I had no choice but to take the risk.
My feet left the asphalt; branches cut into my arms and face as I crashed through to the other side, but the squeal of the truck’s brakes behind me was music to my ears. The bus lot was well lit. A few older men stood in a circle, smoking, while a young woman took her fussy toddler for a walk around the parking lot. The driver idled behind me, probably thinking the same thing I was: that there were a lot more witnesses here than on the service road.
By the time I got to my feet and looked back over my shoulder, the truck was just a pair of anonymous tail lights disappearing into the night. I wiped my scraped palms on my jeans and walked toward the station lights, wondering how much more of this I could take.
No one in the bus station seemed to be playing the app’s twisted game; in fact, no one looked up at me at all when I walked across the grimy tile floor toward the schedule board. The station was about to close: the next bus to my neighborhood wasn’t until six-thirty the next morning, and I had a nasty feeling that my “followers” would have caught up to me by then. My only option was to borrow someone’s phone and hope that I could call for help before the app found me.
Everyone I spoke to turned me down, and I could understand why. I was crazy-eyed and desperate, covered with scratches, and my broken hand had swollen to twice its normal size. I was about to give up when I felt a tap on my shoulder. The homeless man's clothes were in rags; his vomit-flecked gray beard hung down almost to his waist. The smell hit me like a wall, and it was hard to keep from gagging. He pressed something into my hand: a burner phone.
“It’s got one call left,” he grunted. “A whole minute. Good luck, pal. You look like you need it even more than I do.” He lurched back out into the dark before I could even say ‘thank you.’
Weighing the battered phone in my hand, I wondered who I should call. I doubted the police would get here in time; my mother wasn’t answering, and my best friend Sam was out of town on business. That left…Dani, my ex. She lived nearby, and besides, it was the only other number I knew by heart…even though I wished that I could have forgotten it.
Dani's voice was huskier than I remembered, but she picked up right away. The first words out of her mouth were the last thing I would have expected:
“Thank God. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for hours!”
She rushed into a story about how people had been calling and messaging her all day…people who were looking for me. She said it sounded like they wanted to hurt me. One even offered to pay her to seduce me and film the result. She had something to tell me, she said, but my minute was almost up. I had just enough time to tell her my location and beg her to come pick me up. There was a long silence: before she could answer, the line went dead.
I looked around. There was no longer anyone in the bus station to ask for a phone call: in fact, there was no longer anyone in the bus station at all. Metal shutters had been lowered over the ticket window and the vending machine area; the waiting room was empty apart from a discarded scarf that dangled sadly from a ripped-up seat.
Somewhere in the depths of the station came a loud SLAM, and the flickering fluorescent lights began to go out ,one by one. Maybe it was just the standard closing procedure, maybe it had nothing to do with me–but I wasn’t going to wait around to find out. I approached the nearest glass door, then jumped back as a figure wearing a white plastic mask slammed their shoulder into the door. They pushed at the door like a rabid animal, trying to get at me–
But it had already been locked when the station closed.
Furious, the stranger took out a hammer and swung it into the glass. Fractures appeared, and I wasn’t going to wait around for the door to shatter. I fled in the opposite direction, through the one remaining exit and out into the night.
I think part of me already knew what I’d find waiting for me, and that’s why I wasn’t surprised by the small group of masked individuals waiting just beyond the streetlights. All of them held glowing phone screens in their hands, and a few held weapons as well. I spotted lengths of chain…a baseball bat…a gutting knife…
As they started toward me, a car drifted into the empty parking lot, its tires squealing. Dani threw open the passenger-side door and shouted at me to get in.
She peeled out as I slammed the door shut. Her car was just as dirty as I remembered: fast-food bags on the floor, makeup kit crammed into the door tray, half-drunk coffee mugs in every cup holder. It had always struck me as funny that such a well-regarded scientist could be so disorderly.
After an awkward silence as we merged onto the highway, Dani told me that it was over–or at least, she hoped it was. As we sped through the night, she did her best to explain what she thought had happened.
Dani’s work (or at least, as much of it as I understood) involved using artificial intelligence. When we were together, we had made a lot of jokes about Terminator and Hal-9000, but her research had never seemed sinister…at least, not until recently. Her most recent project was an A.I. that designed phone applications. She had built it to maximize profits and interaction: to identify what people wanted, and give it to them.
To her horror, Dani discovered that the A.I. had begun operating outside of its parameters–even accessing her personal files in its endless quest for a better product. She figured that was where it had found my image, voice, and other information. After analyzing trends across time, the A.I. had determined that there was nothing people enjoyed more than participating anonymously in the suffering of others: I was its first test subject, simply because it had found my data first.
The A.I., Dani added quickly, wasn’t really to blame. It was people who had chosen to interact with it, download it, and make my life a living hell. It had done nothing more than fulfill its function, encouraging whatever behavior that got the most views and likes. Once Dani had realized what was happening, she had shut the A.I. down…or tried to.
It had apparently already spread itself to other networks–although “spread” wasn’t the word that Dani used. The word she used was “infected.” As Dani dropped me off at home, she told me not to worry: her organization would “almost certainly” take care of it, and I “probably” had nothing to worry about…
But just in case, she asked me to spread the word:
If you notice people staring at you or taking pictures of you in public…
If you find yourself locked out of your accounts, or if you receive a barrage of strange messages…
You might be next.

Scene 8

(The scene cuts to Gummigoo and Pomni out of bounds as Pomni tries to lift the truck with a lollipop.)
Pomni: Uhh... y-you wanna try helping out at all? (Laughs nervously) Or are you still... (Walks up to Gummigoo) Hey. You okay?
Gummigoo: (Sad) No.
Pomni: You wanna talk about it?
Gummigoo: What is there to talk about?
Pomni: I don't just want to leave you here.
Gummigoo: Why not? I don't matter in the slightest. I'm nothing. (Takes hat off) My life, my memories... my friends... It's all fake.
Pomni: This may seem weird, but... I think I know the feeling. Well, m-maybe not the e-exact feeling, but... feeling like you're nothing is... kind of normal. I mean, people even feel like that in the world I came from. But... Y-you still care about your buddies up there, don't you? I'm sure they still care about you.
Gummigoo: What does it matter? What do we have when you people leave? (Sad) We're just obstacles... created to be defeated and forgotten.
Pomni: Well... You don't have to be. The- The circus- th- the place I'm from? Well, I- I'm originally from somewhere else. But... if it has to be my home... maybe it can be yours, too. The people there are... interesting... at the very least. Maybe you... (Sighs) could be somebody real there.
Gummigoo: Why are you trying to cheer me up? How does this benefit you at all?
Pomni: I guess I just don't want you to feel like you're nothing. I don't want anybody to feel like that.
Gummigoo: But I'm not even a real person. Would I even belong?
Pomni: I'm sure you wouldn't belong any less than me. (Chuckles) And... I could use a friend.
Gummigoo: "A friend." You're a strange little character. (Stands up) Suppose I could give it a try. All I ask is that we don't tell the lads about this. They're a couple of bright-eyed yobbos, and I don't want to drag 'em down with me.
Pomni: (Chuckles) Yeah, that makes sense. What's your name, by the way?
Gummigoo: Gummigoo.
Pomni: Wow, that's... just about as dumb as my name.
Gummigoo: What'd you have in mind in terms of getting us out of here?
Pomni: (Stammers) I don't know. M-M-Maybe some kind of glitch with the truck's collisions? I'm not really sure how we could...
(The camera cuts to Pomni and Gummigoo inside the truck.)
Pomni: All right, I'm just throwing stuff at the wall here. If this doesn't work, we could try something else.
Gummigoo: You're the expert here.
Pomni: (Laughs nervously) I'm really not. But let's see how it goes. (Turns on engine)
Pomni: I just realized, this might be a little vio-
(The blocks Pomni positioned infront of the truck start spinning, causing the truck to go flying past the floating teapots.)

Scene 9

(The scene cuts to the two trucks on The Fudge.)
Jax: (Disappointed) Gotta say, this is a lot more anti-climactic than I was hoping it'd be.
Gangle: (Looks over) What were you hoping for?
Jax: You know, like, one big, final battle. Bloodshed. Death. Chaos! Whatever.
(The camera cuts to Ragatha talking to Max and Chad who are tied up.)
Ragatha: Are you sure they disappeared? It wasn't that they fell off, or something?
Unknown (Max or Chad): (Stammers) I can't say for sure, but, uh- yes, definitely.
Unknown (Max or Chad): It's not like the boss to vanish with a clown. Very unusual.
Ragatha: Well, that's... concerning.
Kinger: (Muffled) Well, if worst comes to worst, we could always ask Caine to find her.
(Max and Chad try to escape but keep falling over.)
Ragatha: I'm more worried she's having another horrible experience. She still seems really upset about what happened yesterday. I don't think she really likes me that much.
Kinger: It's a lot for anybody to go through. Don't take it too personally. I remember how long it took for you to adjust.
Ragatha: O-Oh. Yeah. I'm surprised you remember that.
Kinger: (Pushes bucket up) Remember what?
(An explosion is seen in the distance.)
Jax: Do you guys have a second truck that flies?
Unknown (Max or Chad): Yeah. Oh, wait- No, we don't. No, not at all.
(The truck hits The Fudge.)
The Fudge: (Groans) Down I go.
(Gummigoo and Pomni exit the truck and Pomni pukes.)
Gummigoo: (Laughs) Couldn't keep it in, could- (Pukes)
Pomni: Uh, what's all this stuff?
Ragatha: Pomni! Are you okay? W-What happened?
Pomni: Yeah, I'm fine. I, uh- I made a new friend.
Unknown (Max or Chad): Boss! Where have you been? We got fudged.
Gummigoo: (Relieved) You don't wanna know. Good to see you, lads.
(Kinger and Gangle walk up next to Gummigoo, Max and Chad.)
Gangle: (Confused) Why are there two bad-guy trucks?
(Kinger walks up to the trucks and turns the knob, releasing syrup.)
Kinger: This one's full of syrup, too.
Gummigoo: Oh, yeah. Suppose it is. Well, uh, you don't suppose my mates here could, uh, take this one back to the village, could they?
Ragatha: I guess. Since there's two of them, there'd be no real harm.
(The camera cuts to Jax sitting, disappointed, as Ragatha walks up to him.)
Jax: I'm so unbelievably disappointed right now.
Ragatha: Well, maybe there'll be blood, death, and violence in the next adventure.
Jax: (Sarcastically) Ha-ha-ha-ha. How wholesome.
(Pomni and Gummigoo walk up to Ragatha)
Pomni: O-O-Oh, yeah. Uh, this is Gummigoo. He's gonna come back to the circus with us.
Ragatha: Oh! Uh, i-is that allowed?
Pomni: His reality was kind of... completely shattered? I feel like it was the least I could offer him. Opposed to just leaving him behind.
Ragatha: (Chuckles) Hey. That's good of you, Pomni.
Jax: (Annoyed) UGH! Let's take this DUMB truck to the DUMB kingdom, I guess!

Scene 10

(The scene cuts to Candy Canyon Kingdom as Loolilalu congratulates them.)
Loolilalu: Thanks to you brave knights, our kingdom will once again thrive. I'm sure it was no easy task.
Jax: You have no idea.
Loolilalu: (Portal opens) Farewell, brave knights. Have fun executing that bandit fella!
Pomni: Yes. That is what we're doing.
(Explosions are heard in the distance.)
Jax: Oh, hey! Maybe I didn't leave the gate unlocked for nothing after all.
Ragatha: Uh, what? I-I thought he was dead! You still did that?! -Okay, wait.
The Fudge: (Chuckling)
Loolilalu: (Worried) Y-You did what, now?
Jax: Well, love to help you again sometime! Bye! (Runs ahead of everyone going through the portal)
The Fudge: (Laughing)

Scene 11

(The gang are back in the circus as Caine welcomes them.)
Caine: Welcome back, my little hard-shelled hamburgers!
Gummigoo: So, this is the circus, huh? I could get used to this.
(Caine notices Gummigoo.)
Caine: Oop! Looks like one of these guys made it through. (Snaps and explodes Gummigoo)
Gummigoo: Wait, wha- Blagh!
Pomni: (Shocked) W-W-Wait, wha-?
Caine: I know you guys love your NPCs, but if I start losing track of who's a human and who's an NPC, who knows... (Zooms in on Caine) what could happen...
Pomni: (Laughing manically)
Caine: Welp, I'm gonna go drink water! It's been a while since I've done that.
(Caine leaves and Zooble peaks out of a wall.)
Zooble: Sheesh, I thought he'd never leave.
Ragatha: I'm really sorry about that, Pomni. At least you tried. You know, he might be back in a future adventure. I know Caine sometimes likes to reuse NPCs.
Zooble: Got everything ready.
Ragatha: Hey... you at least wanna join us for Kaufmo's funeral? We like to have a little funeral service to remember the people who abstract. This one just got pushed around a bit with your arrival and everything.
Kinger: It's the least we can do to honor their memory.

Scene 12

(The scene cuts to Ragatha, Pomni, Zooble, Gangle and Kinger at Kaufmo's funeral.)
(Ragatha walks up next to his coffin.)
Ragatha: Oh, man. I always think I'm prepared for these things, but then you set up the picture and, well... I'm already breaking.
(Gangle shows a picture of her and Kaufmo hanging out, Kinger prays, Zooble looks sad and looks away.)
(Pomni looks on with a look of introspection. The scene flashes back to her nightmare of her decent into the void, and then cuts back to her with the same expression. The scene then flashes back to her hand outstretched as she starts to fall, but just before she does, Gangle, Zooble, Kinger, and Ragatha grab it, rescuing her. Cut back to Pomni, whose expression then changes with a small smile on her face.)
(The scene zooms out on the group mourning Kaufmo into a view of the circus environment, then to the Tent. The episode ends with a cut to black.)

Scene 1

(Several voices echo as colorful shapes and effects go throughout the screen.)
Caine: Welcome to the Amazing Digital Circus!
Jax: Pomni.
Caine: Pomni.
Ragatha: Pomni.
Jax: Pomni.
Ragatha: Pomni...
Caine: Pomni!
Ragatha: Pomni!
Jax: Pomni.
Caine: Pomni!
Ragatha: Pomni!
(Pomni opens her eyes in a haze, being inside the Circus' tent)
Pomni: Hello?
(Her movement while calling out is distorted, her heartbeat rapidly increases as she walks in fear, looking wide-eyed in front of her, then to her arm, which has now abstracted.)
Pomni: (Screams) No! No! No! (Stammers) Caine! Somebody, help me! Please!
(Pomni runs around panicking as the circus floor tilts vertically until she falls into a deep hole, seeing Caine, Ragatha and Jax looking down at her as dark silhouettes.)
Pomni: (Shrieks) No! No!
Caine: (Laughs) Looks like our new friend's already abstracted.
Ragatha: (Chuckles) Well, I guess we're not all cut out for it.
Jax: I don't even remember her name, honestly.
(Abstraction takes over Pomni's body as she falls, horrified.)

Scene 2

(The sound of trumpets with abstracted eyes looking at her wakes her up, showing that sequence to just be a dream. At this same time, the doorbell rings.)
(Pomni falls out of her bed and collision glitches on a playing block, hitting her head on the ceiling and faceplanting on the floor.)
Pomni: Huh?
Ragatha: Hey, Pomni. How'd you sleep?
Ragatha: Are you still sleeping? (Awkwardly) I'll let you get back to it, if you are.
(Ragatha starts walking away from the door, though Pomni partially opens it.)
Ragatha: There she is. Hope you're doin' all right. I know yesterday was a bit of a doozy.
Pomni: A doozy. (Opens the door slightly more)
Ragatha: Oh, and don't worry about the whole "abandoning me for the exit" thing. (Worringly) It's perfectly understandable what you were going through at the time, and there's no hard feelings. (Laughs) Yer all good.
(Ragatha makes finger guns.)
Pomni: Huh? (Confused)
(Ragatha looks away for a second, still awkward.)
Ragatha: Uh, well, let's forget about all that. (Shrugging) Caine's got a new adventure today, and judging by what he's been teasing, it seems like it's gonna be a fun one.
(Ragatha walks away from the door slightly as Pomni comes out and shuts it behind her.)

Scene 3

(The scene cuts to Caine and Bubble being at the circus tent's stage.)
Caine: Today's adventure is... Candy Canyon Chaos!
(Those three words appear above Caine in bright pink letters.)
Caine: That's right! The Candy Canyon Kingdom's been robbed of their most valuable resource; maple syrup! It's up to you to bring the rotten bandits who stole it to sweet, buttery justice!
(Bubble comes next to Caine and pulls maple syrup out on his tongue.)
Bubble: An entire kingdom of candy? Sounds sticky.
Caine: Very sticky, indeed.
Bubble: Sounds- (Censor beep)
(Caine looks startled, looking between the camera and Bubble.)
Caine: Bubble, you can't say that.
Zooble: Mmmmmmmmmmm, nope. (Walking away)
Caine: Zooble, wait! I-I'm testing out a new AI in this one! It should be 57 times more immersive!
Jax: Ooh, a new AI. You don't want to mess with the new AI, Zoobie?
Zooble: Uh, yeah, no. (Walks away)
(Jax shrugs at the camera before looking back at Zooble.)
Ragatha: Whoa, sounds fun. What do you think, Pomni? (Encouraging)
Pomni: So, our entire existence here... is just LARPing? (Disgusted)
Ragatha: W-Well, uh-
(Caine zips in front of Ragatha.)
Caine: Why are you all just standing there?! The- The Canyon- C-Canyon Candy Kingdom needs you now! (Stammering, wide eyed)
(Caine opens a portal and pushes all the circus members (aside from Zooble) in, with the portal instantly closing behind them and dusting off his hands, going wide eyed again. He then takes a smoking pipe out and blows bubbles from it. Bubble himself comes up to him.)
Caine: Hmm? (Offering the pipe to Bubble)
Bubble: Nah, thanks. I'm trying to quit.

Scene 4

(Majestic music plays as the Candy Canyon Kingdom, adorned with its colorful letters, is shown.)
(The members are being taken by a carriage by a Gummy Elephant to the castle, where the drawbridge lowers for them and several colorful mannequins cheer for their arrival, as Ragatha waves to them.)
Ragatha: Wow, Kinger, check out this castle. It's amazing!
Kinger: (Looking at butterfly) They've even got little candy bugs here. It's so beautiful.
Gangle: Yeah, this place is great!
(A mannequin runs near Gangle and points at the castle, knocking her over and breaking her comedy mask.)
Mannequin: LOOK!!! It's the princess!!
Gangle: (Whimpers)
(Trumpet play as the princess comes out of her castle.)
Princess: Ah, you must be the brave knights sent to us by God... To help us with our recent catastrophe.
Ragatha: That's us, ma'am.
Ragatha: Your kingdom's awesome, by the way. (Looking around) Love the vibe.
Princess: (Giggles) I like you already.
Ragatha: Look, Pomni. We're already friends with the princess. (Trying to hype Pomni up)
Pomni: I'm not a child. You don't have to hype me up.
(The Princess walks down her stairs, to be closer to the group.)
Princess: I assume you've been informed of your mission. The bandits that robbed us used a modded syrup tanker, so we figured the best way to go head-to-head with them is to give you a war rig of your own.
(She motions towards a truck being driven which runs over a yellow mannequin, who yells in pain.)
Jax: Ooh, violence. (Excitedly)
Pomni: What time period is this supposed to be, again? (Confused and tired)
Princess: Here's the key back into the kingdom for when you've secured the goods. I trust you not to let it fall into the wrong hands?
(She gives Ragatha the key.)
Ragatha: You can count on me, Your Highness. (Bows)
Princess: Oh, please. Call me Loo.
Ragatha: (Chuckles) Will do, Loo. (Does finger guns)
Jax: I call shotgun.
(Jax runs to the drivers' seat and instantly uses the horn, which makes a goofy, distorted warble.)
Jax: Oh, God, is that the horn? (Groans) That sucks. (Annoyed) Gangle, you drive. (Grabbing Gangle)
(Everyone else enters the back of the truck.)
Loolilalu: Farewell, good knights. (Waving) I have every faith in you!
(The truck starts and drives out the kingdom while honking the distorted horn, with the mannequins cheering them on.)

Scene 5

(The scene cuts to 3 gummy bandits set up at a campfire.)
Unknown (Max or Chad): D'you think your mum's gonna pull through if we get all this back to the village?
Unknown (Max or Chad): I'm sure she will. This much syrup would save hundreds of people.
Gummigoo: We won't know for sure until we get back to the village. She's a fighter, though. She taught me everything I know. (Looks back in binoculars) Oy! Don't get too comfy, lads. Looks like they've sent someone after us.
(The scene cuts to the truck Gangle is driving.)
Jax: All right, Gangle, when we catch up to 'em, I'll jump over, crawl inside, and shoot 'em repeatedly until they're unrecognizable.
Gangle: (Scared) I feel like that violates some kind of convention.
Jax: (Annoyed) You're violating my ears with your clap-back. Get driving, driver!
(The camera cuts to Ragatha and Pomni in the back.)
Ragatha: So, Pomni, I'm sure there's some way you could help out here. Maybe when we catch up to them, we could-
(Jax interrupts Ragatha.)
Jax: We could be assertive. Like this! (Grabs Pomni and throws her out)
Pomni: Hey! (Screams)
Ragatha: (Annoyed) Jax!
(The two trucks move apart, stretching Pomni's arms.)
Jax: Ah, that's perfect! Just hold that pose. I gotta get something.
Pomni: Jax, you 📷.
Jax: You know, I swear there was some kind of bazooka back here, but (Scoffs) I'm having such trouble finding it.
(Kinger appears next to Jax, holding a life buoy.)
Kinger: Pomni, take this! (Throws the buoy)
Pomni: Egh...
(Jax finds the bazooka and points it at Pomni.)
Jax: Here it is. All right, Pomni, you just stay like that, and I'll cross over you.
Pomni: Are you kidding me?! (Finger slips) Ow!
Jax: Nice going, Pomni- now I have no bridge.
Unknown (Max or Chad): Ah-hah! Gotcha! (Trying to grab Pomni) Me arms aren't long enou- Whoa!
(The camera cuts to Gummigoo and the other gummy bandit driving the truck.)
Gummigoo: This lot's trouble. Let's see how their rig does on those rocks around there.
Unknown (Max or Chad): Me arms aren't short enough to shift the gear.
(Gummigoo shifts the gear himself and the camera cuts to Jax.)
Jax: Ooh, now we're cookin'! Hey! Ribbons! Up and at 'em!
Gangle: I don't think we-
Jax: (Annoyed) Aren't you supposed to be submissive and agreeable? Move it!
(The truck shakes around causing everyone except Jax to go flying around.)
(The camera cuts to the other truck.)
Gummigoo: (Pokes head out window) Oh, these fellas just don't know when to quit, do they? (Notices gummy bandit in the back.) Hey! Quit muckin' about and get back up here!
Unknown (Max or Chad): Oh, yeah. Right.
(The camera cuts to Ragatha and Jax who both haves knives in their heads.)
Ragatha: (Groans) Everyone all right?
Kinger: Can you repeat the question? I couldn't hear you over the knives.
Jax: Hey, Gangle. You should ram into 'em.
Gangle: (Confused) What?
Ragatha: You should NOT ram them! Pomni's still on board! (Gets pushed by Jax)
Jax: Do it. It'll be epic.
Ragatha: (Muffled) Why are there so many knives back here?!
Jax: Do it, or I'll tell Ragatha about the figurine thing.
Gangle: Guh! (Laughs nervously)
(The camera cuts to Pomni still holding onto the truck as it gets rammed.)
Pomni: (Scared) Are you guys trying to 📷 kill me?!
(The camera cuts to the inside of the truck Pomni is on.)
Gummigoo: These guys are whack jobs! Let's give them some of this.
(Gummigoo pulls a lever which causes spikes to appear on the truck.)
Jax: (Disappointed) Aww, no more ramming? Guess I HAVE to tell Ragatha about the thing now.
Gangle: What?!
Unknown (Max or Chad): Oh. You're still up here.
Pomni: Guuuuuuys?
Kinger: Pomni, take this!
(Kinger throws a ship anchor over the truck.)
Jax: Uh, hey, Kinger, is that rope attached to anything?
Kinger: Uhhhh. I don't know. Let me check. (Goes back in)
(The anchor stops and forces the two trucks side by side as the truck Jax is on gets thrown off the cliff.)
Gangle: (Pokes head out) W-W-What? Wha?
Jax: (Annoyed) I blame YOU for this.
(The truck hits the fudge.)
(The camera cuts to Pomni on the other truck and it hits a slope, causing it to noclip under of the map.)
Pomni: (Screams)
Gummigoo: (Grunts)

Scene 6

(The scene fades to Gummigoo and Pomni falling out of bounds.)
Gummigoo: (Screaming) Oog! Ack! (Grunts) (Wailing) OHHHH, NO!!!
(Gummigoo hits the floor.)
Gummigoo: (Echoing) Lads? (Walking down the hallways) Hello? Anyone?
(Gummigoo finds a room full of models of the NPCs and sees himself.)
Gummigoo: Huh? (Walks up to it) Uh... (Gasps)
(The camera cuts to Pomni falling.)
Pomni: Guh! (Wails) (Grunts) Huh?
Gummigoo: Where are we? W-What's all this?
Pomni: (Confused) I-I don't know. W-We're somewhere under the map, I think.
Gummigoo: "Map"? (Confused) Why aren't you or any of your crew up here?
Pomni: I-I'm not sure. Be- Because we're not, uh, NPCs?
Gummigoo: (Confused) "NPCs"? What are you on about? What are you people? (Looks at himself) What am I? Where's Mum?
Pomni: (Shocked) Y-You have a mom?
Gummigoo: Shouldn't she be here with everyone else? (Shakily) I can't even remember her face. Did she ever have a face? Was anything ever real?
Pomni: Okay, w-w-wait. (Trying to calm him down) Don't- Don't think about that. I-I-I think there... must be a way to launch ourselves back up. Right?
Gummigoo: (Hyperventilating) I want you to tell me exactly what I am.

Scene 7

(The scene cuts to where the truck fell into the river.)
Ragatha: (Groans) Is everybody okay?
Gangle: No... (Puts head down)
Ragatha: Oh, man. Poor Pomni. I hope she's all right.
Jax: "Poor Pomni"? How about "poor us"? We're one tanker away from being Augustus Glooped!
(The Fudge appears out of the fudge.)
The Fudge: (Groaning) Oh, what's that? Do my eyes deceive me? A delicious gift from within the kingdom gates? Don't mind if I do. (Picks up truck)
Ragatha: (Scared) Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, buddy! We're not food! We're not candy! We're none of that! You don't want to eat us!
The Fudge: Wh- You're not candy? How am I expected to eat something that's not made of candy? I'm sorry. (Sad and puts them down)
Kinger: Pomni always seems to miss the big, gloopy monsters.
Jax: Who are you, anyway?
The Fudge: I am the Fudge. I used to live within the kingdom walls, but I was banished by that rotten princess after I ate too many of the delicious townfolk. Oh, they were so delicious. Sometimes I can hear them... calling to me. (Townsfolk screaming)
Ragatha: Oh, God. That just sounds like murder.
The Fudge: Is it really murder if it's delicious? Answer me that.
Jax: You make a great point.
Ragatha: (Worried) Uh, no, bad point!
Jax: Why don't you leave this to me before I start thinking your hair looks like licorice?
Ragatha: Jax!
Kinger: Oh, wow, it kind of does.
Ragatha: Stop!
Jax: Well, Mr. Fudge, you seem like an upstanding guy with real noble goals.
The Fudge: Oh, I'm not. If you knew what I did in my free time- Oh, you'd be SICKENED!
Jax: (Clears throat) As I was saying. I happen to know a way into the kingdom walls if you'd be willing to help us out in return.
(Jax pulls out the key that Ragatha had.)
Ragatha: Hey, when did you-
Jax: Shut up, licorice hair.
Kinger: Here, hide it with this. (Puts bucket on Ragatha)
The Fudge: Oh, you must be some kind of master of unlocking things, come to free me from my outdoor prison.
Jax: That's me. All we need you to do is help us bring some dirty bandits to justice.
(Another truck falls into the fudge.)
Unknown (Max or Chad) I saw the reaper wink at me...
Ragatha: Wait, w-w-what just happened?

This is long... This is very long.
I'm married, two children, my Wife is awesome. We live in a small community in a wooded/rural area. It's not Donner Pass but we are out in the boonies. We have to be somewhat able and self sufficient. It's not off grid prepper stuff but we have to be able to do more ourselves than if we lived in town.
A few years back, my Wifes Friend and I guess you'd call him a friendly acquaintance of mine moved up on the mountain. Let's call him Frank. The guy has issues, as do we all, but he's functional, intelligent, and quite handy. A decent guy to know to help get things done.
When he moved in, the property he bought was a disaster. Previous owner used to get all manner of Amazon returns and stockpile the stuff. Also anything else he could drag home for free or dirt cheap. All kinds of crap everywhere with zero organization. A couple of giant burn piles where of course he's burning just whatever, a pickup truck bed camper in disrepair full of stuff, ratty tarps and tents covering more crap. Squalor and chaos.
The property does have a functional well and **some** kind of septic system and there's power run to it. There's a small building attached to a camper but with some work it can be made liveable. So we sort of have the bare essentials covered. We just have a ton of work to do.
So I'm excited, my Wife is excited, Frank is excited as well. We all figure let's get Frank set up. Running water, working toilet, sink, wood/coal stove, major cleanup on the property, a water heater, washing machine, a shower or even a bath tub would be real nice as well. Basic stuff so he can do for himself because at this point he's showering and doing laundry and eating supper all at our house. I figure if I'm in a spot, I could go up there and have a shower or do laundry you know?
We get to work. First we have to finish even moving the guy in so he can be rid of the trailer he's renting in a trailer park. Turns out the guy is a hoarder and it's heavy. The guy has more stuff packed into his trailer then we actually know what to do with. At least it's nothing disgusting and most of it I can see at least some value in it. I can see why he'd keep hold of things like this but Man there's a LOT!!! I don't know how he can even store all this stuff so I figured let's make this easy and I bought him a 40' shipping container and had it delivered to his place. We get it there and we assemble storage racks that were left on the property by the previous owner inside the shipping container. I'm not rich but at this point I don't terribly miss the money and I figure helping this dude out will benefit me and my Family. Within two weeks, Frank is out of his trailer and everything he owns is jammed into the shipping container. It's tight but it's somewhat organized at least.
Now! Let's get to work! And we do. We start clearing out some of the actual trash. Say 15 hours and we can notice that we made a dent. Another 15 hours, it still kind of looks for shit but we can at least make sense of the place now. We're really doing something here! It's heavy and dirty and disgusting but we're having a lot of fun with it and feeling pretty good. As we're going, we find some actual decent things in the piles that the previous owner left behind and we're trying to not waste anything because we're not rich and we might need the stuff.
It gets to a point where it's starting to become really dirty work and even a garden hose would be pretty dang amazing just to at least wash up a little bit because we really don't know what's in some of these piles but Man we're digging deep into them! My Wife goes through the nonsense of getting his power turned on. Frank has enough money saved to get it turned on and to keep it going a while.
Ok, we got power and we can make some water happen now. We scrounged up a shitter and a sink, bought some PVC and got that happening. Now we can wash up and we don't have to crap in the woods anymore. We also found a decent Harmann wood/coal burner and installed that. Nothing ideal but we're looking pretty damn good compared to when we started. The stove was free. The previous owner switched to pellets and had no use for it. We had to get it out and move it of course but nothing we can't handle.
So now it's getting to at least 40 hours at Franks place, maybe 60 hours. I wasn't really keeping track. The place still looks like hell but we're making steady progress and it's more or less "liveable". Meanwhile there are things piling up at my own house. The roof needs a little attention, some work on my backhoe, vehicle repairs and maintenance. Normal everyday stuff that got put to the back burner for a while as we set this guy up but it's starting to pile up and I have to get this shit done.
"Hey Frank, you mind coming down a little while and pitching in with this or that?"
At first, yea he makes his way down and helps out. Not at the crack of dawn, say 11 AM or so. Fine and dandy. This isn't pay work and I don't start early myself, nor do I go very long and hard on these tasks. Put in a couple hours until I feel like I accomplished something and call it a day. I don't think I'm asking much.
After a bit though, he's showing up later and later. If Frank says 12-ish, it means like 2PM or something. One day I have to remove the backhoe from my tractor in order to replace some hydraulic lines. This assembly weighs about 4 tons. It's on a 1967 Case 580 CK. Not the biggest thing but it's no joke. Frank is skilled with cranes and forklifts and other heavy stuff and I figure he could just come down and help me make damn sure this thing is going to be stable. I'm going to have the hydraulics opened up and if it's not properly supported it could move on me and that might well be it for me.
So the day comes. I have my tractor in the driveway and I have the backhoe dismounted from the tractor but still hooked to the hydraulics by around 10-11AM. Now I'm sitting and waiting on Frank. Finally about 1AM he rolls in. The first thing he does is to sit down and use my blowtorch to clean out his one hitter so he can do a little wake and bake. I've been ready and waiting for a couple hours and now the dude is going to sit and get high before we're going to work with some heavy shit and he's burning my propane to do so. Yea I'm kind of annoyed and I let him know. I tried to not be too much of an asshole but I wasn't pleasant about it. I didn't yell or anything but I'm sure I came off kind of asshole-ish.
He finishes up with the one hitter, takes a few wacks off it, says he's go tot go home and crap. Lovely... He's been lighting up my toilet for a while now, what's the big deal? Anyhow he heads back home. I'm sitting there for an hour or so scratching my ass, screw it I'll figure it out. I'm scared as hell but I manage to get my lines replaced. I bring the tractor into position and get the bottom mounting pins locked in. There are two more up top of the backhoe assembly and then it's solidly mounted. I screwed up by not hooking the hydraulic lines from the tractor to the backhoe and doesn't the damn thing just sort of drop right to the ground because the boom, bucket, and dipper arm are open. I took precautions against this but I guess I didn't do very well. I didn't lose the whole show but it scared the hell out of me and I shut the tractor down and walked away for a while. It was a split second and if I was under it I'd either have been dead or wishing for it. I calmed myself down after a while and finished the job. Frank never showed back up that day.
After I got done, I was sitting there a while. After that dopamine hit from getting the job done wore off I was starting to feel pretty let down and pissed off. My Wife and I put real time, and heart and soul in up at Franks place. We'd get up there about 9AM-10AM and get to it. Half the time, Frank would be hungover and it would literally be 2-3 hours until he was any kind of mobile. We're up there at his place trying to get shit done so he has a setup and he's dragging his ass because he was up until 3AM the previous night getting shitfaced.
The plan was, after he was set, we'd get into some nonsense. Cleanouts from tenants that left an apartment full of stuff, scrapping, maybe some lawn work, plowing snow on the mountain here, whatever. Not getting rich but at least paying the bills and having a laugh. At first, Frank is all about it. The cleanouts were his idea. I never knew you actually could get some decent pay for this type of thing. After a while though Frank starts throwing up roadblocks about we need to be an LLC and have a few fairly new looking trucks before we can start when I'm watching something like "Randys Hauling" on the side of a beat up old truck going up and down the mountain and he's getting that pay. On OUR mountain and we could be easily doing this right now! He kept throwing these obstacles up on all sorts of projects. It felt like Frank was deliberately throwing wrenches wherever he could in order to halt any progress.
Eventually I tried talking with him. I told him "I'm not really feeling the return on this investment.". and Frank says "I'm sorry you feel that way.". It kind of went to shit from there. I got to the point where I didn't want anything more to do with him. I was a door mat for a long time in my childhood and it felt like I was getting played for a stooge yet again. It felt like he was also taking advantage of my Wife. But hey, she's been Friends with him for quite a while. In fact she was Friends with him before we were even dating. I'm not going to tell her she can't hang out with the guy. You'll just have to take my word that she's not the type to play around when she's in a committed relationship. Not sure if I have much faith in Frank but I have faith in my Wife.
Frank is no longer coming to the house, there are arguments between my Wife and I about the guy. All I can see is that she's getting played by the guy. Eventually, Frank has a Friend who offers him to go to a blues concert because Franks Friend has noone to go with but has an extra ticket. This is a weekend thing where you camp and party and listen to performers. My Wife is already running ragged here there and everywhere. Frank asks my Wife to keep an eye on his dogs while he's away and of course she wants to help out. She's just like that. One day, turns out my Wife is too busy to take care of it and my Daughter has to go check on the dogs. My Daughter can't find the keys to get inside Franks camper. Now don't you know I have to go up there and take on this guys responsibilities while he's out at a concert partying his ass off. I put my foot down because at this point the guy is messing with the entire Family and holding all of us up. I told my Wife that WE are done with him and shit hit the fan for a while but eventually she started to see shit for herself and we all just cut off from the guy.
This is breaking my heart. I really do love the guy and I know it's killing my Wife to cut off from a Friend. But it's a one way Friendship. Frank will jump for someone he really cares about, but us, we're just useful or so it seems to me.
3 years go by. My Wife still talks with Frank via text and I'm not thrilled with it but I'm not going to push it either. Whatever it's not holding up our show. Time goes by... I simmer down, Frank calms down. I do indeed miss the guy but I'm afraid that if I start talking it'll end up being the same crap all over again. He was good to work with when he felt like it. I work on cars all the time and this guy can look at things and see things that I don't. He's no kind of mechanic but he's already schooled me under the hood as well as setting up a guys garage door that was horribly installed.
In time, yes we do start talking again. I try to make it very clear that if we're going to do anything, we BOTH have to feel properly compensated for our efforts. Be that money, labor swapping, horse trading, whatever. If I do something for Frank and it takes an hour, Frank gets me back satisfactorily and vice versa. This has to be worth it for both of us and all of us.
Well, it happens that Frank finally decides he wants to clean up his property. His truck is not registered, insured, or inspected. His drivers license is expired. There's a lot of scrap up there. I have a road legal truck and I make a proposition. I'll pile scrap on the truck until I feel it's a decent load, he and my Wife will run the load. My wife is a capable driver. She and frank will unload the truck at the scrapyard and meanwhile I'll break the scrap down at his place and have another load ready to go. At the end of the day, the truck gets paid $1 per mile and the tank gets filled for the next day. We split the remainder 3 ways equally. We clean the property up, we all get a few dollars and after a little while he can save the money to get his own truck back on the road.
Frank says there's not enough money in scrapping. There won't be anything left to split after gassing up the truck... Sounds familiar... Ok, how about this then. Let me make a load of absolute BS scrap like old bedsprings, tin cans, and just whatever crap I can, we see how that pays and maybe go from there.
Frank says Hem and Haw, well maybe if it's just Frank and my Wife loading up the truck and they also run and unload the truck he might be in to it. Splitting it 3 ways and with the truck just isn't going to cut it. Now I'm getting confused and a little irritated because I thought the idea was to clean up, not get paid. My Wife also has a screwy elbow and if she goes hard on a job she's in pain the next day. Nope this aint happening. Let's put a pin in this and come back to it. I'm not going to push anymore and my Wife is definitely not into chucking scrap on to the truck as well as off loading it. If he wants to do something and he comes to us, we'll figure it out. If he wants to sit on that scrap, hell with it. I guess this is the Hoarder in his brain talking.
My Wife has a 1896 VW Jetta diesel. It's old and it's been around but it can be made decent. The interior is shit but we have a parts car and a pile of interior parts like carpet and trim, dashboard, and just everything you want to make the inside actually pretty good looking. She's the one that heads up the interior work. I personally hate it. At this point, Frank has no power at his place and he has a little 80cc dirtbike he'd like to use to get up and down the mountain. Private dirt road so we can drive ATV's or golf carts or whatever and it'd be handy.
I have a 300 watt solar panel that I'm not going to use and all the gear to go with it. I have some parts I can use to get his dirtbike going and I know how to get most old carburetted stuff running when it's been sitting a while. We come to an agreement. Frank will be down here working on this Jetta with my Wife until the interior is as good as we can make it. I'll give him the solar panel, help him install it at his place, and get his dirtbike going for him. Also my Wife will handle getting his power back on and a couple of other administrative things. Everyone is feeling OK with it.
We begin. My Wife and I put the first foot forward. We take the solar gear up to his place and get it working. Now at least he can charge his phone and keep a light running. Nothing major but it's something and it's damn handy. I start on the dirtbike. It's a Suzuki 80cc four stroke. The fuel tank is cracked up and leaking like a sieve. I have a tank from an old Honda CR80 and it takes me a while but I get it mounted to the bike and I didn't even have to chop the bike or the tank. The carb on this thing was sitting with fuel in it for years and it's beyond hope. Normally I can open them up and blow the jets with compressed air, maybe carb cleaner and some wires but this thing is completely jammed solid with crap and I can't get it. I have a carb on my shelf and it's actually for that exact engine. So after 6-8 hours of scratching my head and wrenching, I have his bike running just as good as ever and it holds fuel.
Now it's Franks turn. The first day, he actually shows up at a decent hour and the guy is putting his time in. They have the interior all but gutted. Seats, carpet, interior trim(what's left of it) HVAC. Just the dash is left and it's been a good 5 hours so they call it a day. Next day he's right there say 9-10AM. Dang this is working! They're going after removing the cracked up dashboard and something isn't making sense. It seems loose but it's not coming out. I'm out there putzing with my truck and my Wife asks me to come take a look. I get under the dash and I'm looking but I'm damned if I can find what's holding it up. It can wiggle but it's not coming loose. I notice some steel brackets with rivets under the dash just at the bottom of the windshield. All I can think is to cut the rivets loose and the dash will come out but it doesn't make sense because you're not going to get new rivets in when you install the new dash. There's barely room to get a chisel in to cut them loose. Frank figures it out. Frank goes out under the cowl under the hood, pulls up the drip tray and right there are two nuts on studs poking through the firewall. We pull those nuts off and presto the dash is loose! God Damn Frank you're a rock star! I'm SO glad the guy was here! Different perspective? Savant? I don't know but the guy nailed it!
Next day. Again Frank shows up about 10AM and the Jetta is coming around. The carpet is in and looking nice, the trim is installed, The seats are cleaned up and installed. This thing is actually starting to look pretty good! That was a good day. 4-5 hours and they call it. Nice job guys! Looking good!
Next day. Time to install HVAC. We did an AC delete. The Jetta was originally an AC car but most of the gear was gone. The parts car was non-AC and the heater box is much smaller, lighter, and simpler. We clean that up, do a little bit of swapping on wiring harnesses and we install it. Frank isn't here yet and it's about noon. My Wife texts him to see what's up.
Well this girl showed up about midnight last night and the way I gather they were up until the wee hours drinking and boning so he's not into working today. He doesn't know this girl from a hill of beans and about the only thing he DOES know is that she's a real easy piece of ass, I guess pretty cute, and mentally a wreck. Well... Yea I've been hard up myself so I'm trying to be understanding here. If a cute and willing young lady showed up at my place and I was lonely I think I'd take that opportunity as well. He did put some good time in on this vehicle and really saved the day when pulling the dash out. I went to work with my Wife. We got the replacement dash in, Heater installed. Everything assembled, wires routed, job done. The thing looks damn near new on the inside. It was a good 8 hours and I still feel it to day as this was just yesterday and I'm no youngster. My Wife is in pain. I just feel tired.
I can see Franks side, but a deal is a deal. I was trying to talk to my Wife that "We're kind of even right? He put in his time, he really helped out a ton. Neither owes either and we're pretty squared up right?". I wasn't really feeling that but I was willing to be convinced and sort of let it slide. My Wife however doesn't feel that we're square at all. Not only the motorcycle and the solar crap, but she spent hours on the phone and computer and Frank agreed that he'd be there from start to finish on this interior. On the last day, he ditched us because he was busy screwing and drinking with some random chick. While we were finishing up the job, Frank texted my Wife asking if He and this girl could come down to meet and greet. Or would we like to come up and have a fire? My Wife and I are dead tired, it's about 5PM. We normally have supper on the table at this time but we're close and we want to get through it. We're not into entertaining tonight. We want to finish up, get supper, get the kids to bed and crash. We're sure as hell not going up to the junk heap and sitting there at a fire watching these two make out and get tanked up. She texted him something like that. Tired, still working, still have to make supper, not happening.
That's it. If you made it through all that I admire your perseverance and I hope it at least makes sense. This is just my side of course. I have my own issues. I can be an asshole, impatient, I'm kind of obnoxious. I'm trying to work on that stuff and my Wife tells me I'm really reigning it in when I get pissed if something is fighting me. Anymore I'll just walk away and have a smoke or something. I guess I can get sort of pushy when I see shit that needs doing. I want to help but I guess I'm aggressive or too Gung Ho about it.
Anyways, it feels like this relationship with Frank is going to end up the same place as it left off before. All I can think to do is just not really seek him out anymore. If he happens to need something... I don't know... My Wife and my Children and myself are a team. We've got enough going on and we don't need someone dragging us down. I don't want this to get to the point where it did before. I feel like I screwed up even letting this guy back into my life and I'm kind of stressing.

Hello everybody. This is going to be a very long post. I just need somewhere to write my feelings and if anyone reads all of this, let me know if its me or my feelings are valid. I wanted to know if someone else felt a similar way that I do.
I'll first start off by this, I am the first born son and have 2 siblings (1 of each). This is important because most first children are the test dummy. Growing up, my parents were always super strict with me; couldn't ever have sleep overs, never able to go on field trips, never able to do anything basically besides school. We were also very poor, as most first-gen Americans are. I'm sure a lot of first-gen Americans feel this way, so I know a lot of people can relate to that. Me and my parents were never close; they really don't know anything about me. It's very obvious when a child wasn't planned or wanted because even when I was little I could tell by the actions and demeanor of my parents, especially my dad. I was for sure the sole cause of everything failing simply by being born. I feel like this caused something inside my parents (more so my dad) to have super high expectations of me. They've always been so biter about my success and never celebrate with me. Maybe its just me but I find it odd. I started making six figures when I was 21 via various investments, side hustles, and work. They always pushed me away or told me I was lying whenever I would talk about it, even though I tried helping them so they could have a steady monthly income without having to do anything, I would be doing everything for them. A few years later, I graduated with my bachelors in engineering and even then it wasn't really a big deal. It was more of an "ok thats cool" and then went on about the day. I'm about to graduate with my masters and landed a six figure job where, with everything combined, I'll be making well over 200k per year. Neither of my parents are college graduates so this is was a pretty big deal for me, to make the family proud as the first engineer and still no reaction, nothing. Everything is just so bitter towards me and I never have any support and I find it so strange. It's always seems like a competition between me versus them. I always feel so belittled when I have success or its never enough. I always seemed to get used as a bragging right. "Oh yeah my kid is an engineer", "yeah he's multilingual", etc but they couldn't even tell anyone my favorite color, favorite food, anything about me. I'm simply an output machine to make them look better for their reputation. The only time I'm brought up in a conversation is when I need to make them look good, besides that, I am nothing to them. Simply a trophy son.
My parents finally started making decent money, and with the 2016 election, its like something sparked in them. Politics is now basically all they talk about. I always avoided bringing friends over when I became an adult because its totally embarrassing to bring people over and hear how Trump is God. It doesn't make sense, how can you defend a total stranger, criminal, and terrible person yet can't even defend your own son? My dad and I were never close growing up, having basically 0 memories with him, but this just made us even further apart. If someone mentions they dont like Trump, he'll hate them forever and won't speak to them. If someone bashes Trump, he'll sit there and defend till death. Its mind blowing to me. Regardless of what your views are on the former president, this is not normal behavior and is absolutely not acceptable. I haven't brought friends over in years because last time I did, the first question he asked everyone is if they're republican or democrat and them would scold them if they said democrat. For reference, my dad does not have a job and lives on unemployment, so to scold someone because of political views is insane to me, on top of refusing why to listen to what we believe in and why. That was it for me. I couldn't take it anymore so I stopped inviting people the few times I saw my parents a year, if I saw them. My cousin who is around the same age as me got this boyfriend who is super country and my dad loves him. He will never stop talking about him, never stop bragging about him, and always wants him over. It always hurts to see this because I never got any sort of affection like that growing up and even now yet this stranger means everything to my dad because of his political views and his way of life.
My parents got more and more infected with some of the negative aspects of living in the south. Racism is truly alive here. I always knew it was because I myself am brown however, when I started openly dating a black woman, that's when my entire view point changed. She was shunned just for being black, not even given a chance for her character or personality. It doesn't make sense to me because coming countries where the majority are brown people, why is this happening? I love this girl with everything and she's made me the happiest I've ever been. Everything about her is stunning, her mentality, her personality , her way of life, her way of thinking, her aurora, just everything is so beautiful. My sister notices these things as well, we're around 7 years apart and she's at the age where she can put pieces together and think for herself. My sister and I are close, we side with each other on almost everything. She's going through a similar experience herself. Its really hard bringing my girlfriend around when I know deep down my parents do not approve of her. I already have to deal with the stress of never being enough and being neglected all throughout my life, on top of bills, school, work, social life, its just too much. I want and will do what makes me happy, I'm not harming anybody nor do I do any sort of drugs, so I don't see what the problem is. At the end of the day, I'm going to do what makes me happy and it can either be accepted or rejected but the decision will always be mine.
My girlfriend did get pregnant but unfortunately we lost the baby. Even though she was never here in my arms, you just never feel the same again. Its something that can't be described with words, only a feeling. It hurts everyday knowing I should be playing with my daughter right now. It was a really hard time for me and my girlfriend but we were there for each other. My parents on the other hand, did not know of anything. I keep everything personal away from my friends and family, I only write on a notebook that has all my life secrets and feelings that will probably get read when I die and nobody knows I have this. My parents called me randomly, scolding me, "you need to be a fucking man", "we're not stupid" , "why are you hiding the baby from us?" we know whats going on"when they don't know whats going on. I had to sit there and take blame after blame for keeping secrets. My parents never knew she was pregnant, I never told them, I never told anybody actually. It was something only her and I knew. I had to sit on this phone and get yelled at over and over for "keeping secrets". It was really hard keeping together because the whole time, my baby girl is in the sky and I miss her beyond imagination. If I was getting scolded this bad at something they are just making assumptions about, then imagine how bad it would be if it was actually true. I still didn't tell them because that is none of their business, I dont even know how they found out she was pregnant, that is still a mystery to me but I do know that this fueled my feelings more for keeping everything a secret.
I never talked about my feelings growing up and I know that plays a huge part of who I am today. Its a curse. I wasn't allowed to cry, I wasn't allowed to express emotions, I just had to "be a man". I know a lot of other first-gens also know this pain. Now that we're adults, we're confused on what to do with these emotions. I know I'm emotionally gone. I'm not stupid. Everything is so bottles help and I just can't force myself to talk to anybody because I'm afraid it will be a similar story to talking to a family member where you tell one person and magically everybody knows. This plays a huge part in my relationship and friendships because if I talk about anything personal, I just get flashbacks to being a kid and that will never leave me head so I just keep everything to myself.
I tried killing myself a few years ago but it failed. I had the perfect plan or so I thought it was. I took about 50 pills, drove to a river and just waited till right before I fell asleep and jump in the water as the other pills did its thing. I did wake up half in the water, but my stomach was ruthless. It hurt so bad I'll never forget the pain. As a kid (around 12 or 13) I also had another failed attempt. I have basically a book for a suicide letter with everything inside but for some reason, I just keep surviving. Like I said before, my dad and I were never close. I always felt like the punching bag for my siblings growing up. When I finally got a car, I was basically never home and then the punching bag shifted to my sister and now she is feeling the effects. My dad is always negative about everything, and I mean everything. It's hard consistently hearing that my relationship will fail, my wife will leave me one day, if you won't die for Trump, you're a terrible person, if you're brown, you're a terrible person, you're never enough, the list goes on and on and on. I really don't like going over because I consider myself a very happy person, I have a great friend group, great roommate, great job, and overall I'm just very thankful for what I've grown into since I moved out. I just wanted to know if anybody else felt this way or had similar stories. This was a long post and I'm sorry, but thank you for everything. Stay strong everybody