So for girls we have Adelaide Lilith
Middle names would be: Adelaide Elise (Elise after my best friend) Lilith April (April after my sister in law)
And for boys we're very stuck. Idk why I could think of a thousand girl names I love but we're so stumped on boy names. I absolutely love Elliot but it's my brother in laws name so nahhh
Dante (my husband likes it but I'm not sure) Alexander (Alex for short) Kai
Whatever the boy name middle name will be Peter (husband's late grandfather)
But yeah rate em and please help with boy names 😭

Today I want to tell my story of how I self-advocated and what I did to achieve that goal. I'm telling my story to help those who are in a similar position to what I was in and to inspire those to self-advocate.
To recap from my earlier posts. I have ADHD and fell under the "multiple disabilities" characterization. My high school teacher claimed that I have autism (Not diagnosed). I personally don't believe I have autism or at the very least I have a high functioning autism. Throughout most of my school career, I was in a self-contained classroom with kids with severe disabilities. Even if I was in the general population I had a paraprofessional or peer tutor. I never believed that I should have been in that position. As a consequence, I never really learned any social skills, I was segregated, and felt like that people didn't want anything to do with me because I was sped. The reason why I ended up in this position was probably a combination of me having the "multiple disabilities'' characterization and me testing low in three year revaluation tests. If you want more info on this then feel free to search my profile. This is an alt account and is primarily used to ask questions about special ed so It's really easy to find stuff about me.
Before I get into my story I just want to make it clear that I'm not against special ed. There's good and bad people in every profession. I believed I was in danger for myself and for my future. I don't believe that my teacher was evil and had the best of intentions but he was putting me in a position that was hurting me and I had to act. If you have any questions or feedback feel free to let me know in the comments. Another thing is that this post has been really hard to make. It opened up some old wounds and as a result took several days to write.
Here's my story: So in late middle school I was tired of the placement that I was in. I was tired of not having friends, Not being able to socialize with my peers, not being able to date. I also was thinking about what my life will look like after high school, I was concerned that I was going to never have friends, Never be in a relationship, and not have the social skills to make those friends. I was generally very concerned for my future. So I decided that for my 8th grade year (2017-2018) I would do my absolute best for both my behavior and academics. Throughout the year nothing changed. I was hoping that me doing well would show that I didn't need any support but at the end of the year I still had paraprofessionals in most of my classes and was being pulled out for tests. In the summer between middle school and high school all I can think about is I want high school to be different. I wanted friends, I wanted a relationship, and I had dreams of me in the student council. When I got into high school I had peer tutors along with paraprofessionals (Peer Tutors are general ed students who sign up as an elective to help special needs kids. They basically serve the role as paraprofessionals with less responsibility). I did everything again and had the exact same result. In January of 2019 (freshmen year) I decided that my current strategy wasn't working. They also started making the peer tutors fill out behavioral checklists for their student(s) by grading them on how well they behaved/followed directions and gave them badges that say "peer tutor" which made me feel singled out. Because of that the peer tutors felt more like babysitters then someone that is an equal. So I went to my special ed teacher and asked him to remove the paraprofessional and the peer tutors. He told me no and said that I needed them. I changed my strategy again and I was going to ask for the Peer Tutors to be gone first, then focus on removing the paraprofessionals. I was more concerned about the peer tutors over the paraprofessionals because I was concerned that since they were part of the student body that this was going to affect me when I was running for the student council. I was worried that they'd tell others I was special needs then people would think I was incompetent. So every 2 weeks I would ask him again to remove them and each time he would give me a different excuse on why I couldn't be alone. Here's some of the excuses he gave me: "The peer tutors need to be there to collect data", "You need to prove that you can do the work yourself", "It's not up to me. It's the general education teacher that decides if you need a peer tutor or an aide", "Peer Tutors are supposed to represent a trainer for a job. If you refuse training then you're going to get fired". I brought it up again during my yearly IEP which took place in March. Once again my teacher said no, bringing up another excuse. As far as I can remember, my parents were neutral about the aide situation. Later one peer tutor was removed, what happened is that the peer tutor moved to a different town and they didn't bother on sending a substitute. A win is a win so I celebrated it. At the end of my freshman year I was pretty much defeated and didn't achieve the goal of being 100% independent. Over the summer I took a look at my situation and decided that my current plan is not working. I knew that when my sophomore year of high school starts I will have aides and peer tutors in classes. I knew that if I wanted to get what I wanted I would have to do something big. I knew that I would have to put up a fight, and put in a lot more effort. Over the summer I developed a war mindset inspired by two quotes from Sun Tzu:
"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win”
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
I knew that I can't be going into sophomore year blind, so I started drafting a plan. I created a Google doc outlining my goals and what I wanted to accomplish. I knew that I won't be able to win every battle and that I need to choose which fight is worth fighting for. I thought to myself, “Well the peer tutors we're given training on the first day of school and probably have strategies to deal with poor behavior but what about planned well organized protests?” So I began researching strategies on how paraprofessionals/peer tutors dealt with negative behavior and reverse engineered those tactics. I read forms, I Watched YouTube videos and found as much information that I could find. For the peer tutors I didn't know too much about them. I didn't know if it was something that only my school did or if other schools did it. I did some research and found out that other schools had a peer tutor program and some have uploaded training videos on YouTube. Some peer tutors told me that they did babysitting and did nanny work so I looked up babysitting tips. I reverse engineered all of those tactics and came up with strategies to counter those techniques and put all that information that I learned into a google doc that I can use for future reference. During this time I also researched how to become a better negotiator and started learning a little bit of psychology. The plan was to first negotiate and if that doesn't work I will protest and make demands and negotiate. Over the summer I got really good at negotiating and practiced a lot on my father and my sister (they were totally oblivious). To this day I use those negotiating tactics. After I created my document and was satisfied with all the information, I went to bed that night and knew that I have already won and that my sophomore year will be my last year that I 1-1 peer tutor or aide.
Fast forward to the first day of school, as expected I had peer tutors and aides assigned to me in classes. My sped teacher had a chalkboard On the back wall full of sticky notes that had everyone's schedules and a name of someone was assigned to that student for each class. This time around I only had one peer tutor outside of the special ed classes. This is a big improvement over the three I had before but I still have my original goal of having none. For the paraprofessionals I had 2 in Gen classes.The goal was to first remove the peer tutors then the paraprofessionals. Even though this seems to be an improvement I continued with the plan. Since this was the first day, the peer tutors were in another classroom learning policies and other stuff they needed to know so I was alone for the day. I walked over to my special ed teacher and ask him one final time to remove the peer tutor he says no and then I asked him to let me be alone for 2 weeks so I can prove I don't need help and he still denies me. I then tell him that I will allow the peer tutor for 2 weeks and after that she needs to go. My teacher doesn't respond. (To add context the peer tutor that I had, she was a peer tutor in my math class in the prior semester so I already know who she was. We used to talk a lot and was surprised when I saw that she was assigned to me.)
For 2 weeks she mostly left me alone with her occasionally checking up on me. For those 2 weeks I purposely close my self off and adopted a body language that would subconsciously discourage her from approaching me. I did this by keeping my head low and staying as focused as possible. The only thing she did was confront me when I start packing up 2 minutes before the bell rings. She tells me that I shouldn't be packing up and to pull my stuff out again. I tell her no and hold my ground. She writes in my planner that I packed my stuff up early and refuse to pull it out. That happened like 2 or 3 times. On Thursday on the second week my class was tasked to create a PowerPoint. FYI this was a mythology class, while I was doing this PowerPoint I decided instead of manually trying to type in the locations and people from this mythology which the names were very long and complicated. I decided would be easier just to copy and paste them in. My peer tutor sees me doing this and doesn't say anything. At the end of class she writes that I plagiarized in my planner and tells my special ed teacher in person what happened. My sped teacher pulls me out of class (I had his math class right after mythology) and starts telling me that my peer tutor has seen me copy and pasting paragraphs and goes on this lecturing on why plagiarizing is bad. I explained to him that I wasn't copying paragraphs It was only copying names and locations and explain my reason for it. He didn't believe me but he didn't make me retake the assignment. After that I was pissed off and the next day I confronted her about it. I forgot what her reasoning for not telling me was but I told her that she needs to look into things before she makes false reports. After that incident, I decided to wait a week before I ask my teacher to remove her. Also during those first 3 weeks I turned down help from peer tutors and paras if possible In the special ed classroom. I did this to prevent sending any mix signals. I personally didn't mind if I had to work with a peer tutopara or not In the actual sped classroom. I only cared if it was in any of the general education classes. I just thought it would look contradictory if I was accepting help in the sped class and then requesting peer tutors to be removed from my gen classes.
At the beginning of the fourth week I went to school early and went to my sped teacher's class before first hour starts and then I again asked him to remove the peer tutor and the paraprofessionals. He says no again and brings up that I was being academically dishonest by plagiarizing. I tell my side of the story once again on what happened and he still doesn't believe me. At this point I leave and more pissed off. At this point negotiations didn't work so I started small protests by preventing the peer tutors from filling out my planer and the behavioral checklist. Most of them didn't care since there was other students they can fill out and they only need to fill out one to be graded for the day. One peer tutor gave me the puppy dog eye treatment and I eventually cave and let her fill it out. I still let the one peer tutor that was assigned to me in the gen class due to me being the only student and my intention wasn't to ruin, her grade. During the fourth week I began brainstorming ideas on how I can do a massive protest.
On Thursday of the fourth week of school, a walk into the mythology class and it started out like any other day. Class started and my teacher starts talking. I pull up my phone to respond to some messages and my peer tutor sees me. She asks me to hand my phone over to her and I tell her no. She tells me that I can't be on my phone and I tell her okay but I'm still not giving it to you. She then pulls out her phone and puts it on the table. She then tells me to put my phone on the table. I tell her no again. A few minutes past and the teacher finishes up talking. She passes the assignment and immediately my peer tutor begins to try and help by reading the questions. I slide the packet over closer to me and start ignoring her. I was hoping that she will get the hint and leave me alone. She doesn't so put on my hoodie and tried to mentally block her out. I don't remember what she said during all this since I was blocking it out but I do remember her touching me and the general ed teacher coming over and start assisting the peer tutor. It was a lot of pressure and I was actually about to give up because it was too much. But they both gaved up before I did and I was very relieved. After that, the class was pretty much quiet. The peer tutor wrote an entire paragraph on what happened. I walked to my math class and sat down. I then see my peer tutor walking into class and ask for my sped teacher. I already knew it was about me. I see them talk for 2 minutes and sure enough I see my teacher calling me over. I walked outside the classroom and me and the teacher begin to go at it. We end up saying the same things we have said before. However, my teacher this time mentioned that if I keep up my behavior that he's going to call in a meeting with my parents. The rest of math class was pretty much the same. However, my English class with the same teacher he went on a rant about using accommodations seeing that he had a disability growing up which was tourette's and he were love to have a peer tutor. I was quiet for the whole class since I was already exhausted because of everything else that had already happened. For the rest of the weekend, I've been coming up with plans on how I would be able to pull off a massive protest.
Now for the good news. On the fifth week of school, I noticed that my peer tutor was missing. My teacher pulled me aside again and told me that he decided that he was going to pull her for 2 weeks to see how well I would do without her. I told him thank you, that's what I wanted since the beginning of the school year. After those 2 weeks he didn't reinstate her and I didn't have a peer tutor or paraprofessionals in gen classes since. The deal moving forward was as long as I had a D or better he wasn't going to send any support unless I asked for it. My relationship with that sped teacher also had improved significantly. Later in my Junior year of high school I ran in my school's election and won. I was given the social media position.
In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't have to pull off a big protest. But the same time I wish that this situation could have ended in a different way.
Everything that I just told you is only the tip of the iceberg. There's so much detail that I had to leave out just to make this story shorter. Lot of it I'm still processing even though I found great strength in myself fighting back against a system that I believe was ruining my life. That war mindset hasn't left my mentality yet. I'm still dealing with the consequences of me being in special ed. Everything I told you happened 5 years ago and I'm still living through it like it just happened. I'm mentally recovering and eventually I will recover. Right now I'm in therapy and I'm writing down everything I can in a Google doc to process everything emotionally. Maybe one day I'll give that story to a writer and make a book out of it.
If you have any questions feel free ask them, I would love to answer them.

I spent some time on another dating sub and most of the posts and comments miss an essential difference in dating for men and women. There are many great women dating and very very few men who would make a good partner.
One post was about health issues and women being concerned about men who had neglected their health for years or had a myriad of problems. Another post talked about calling women pet names before meeting. Men always want women to issue grace to them and to teach them, this is not my job. Women are the gold standard for how to build healthy happy relationships, not men. Never take advice from men on dating subs, they do not have your best interest at heart.
A recent post on Burned Haystack addressed the disparity that exists in dating, a minority of men who are datable and so many great women. All of this! :) : WomenDatingOverForty (reddit.com)
You will waste your own time correcting and redirecting, imagine the amount of labor you will have to expend, no thanks. I wasted so much time chatting with men that should have been unmatched quickly. When you understand that 90% of men OLD are undatable you learn to enforce your standards quickly.
Things are not the same in any way and telling women to just correct men enforces patriarchal messaging that has kept women trapped in relationships. They want you to bypass your intuition and give men the benefit of the doubt. Also saying that any of us could experience a health condition at any time, although true, does not mean you have to date someone with a condition that will impact the quality of your relationship or hinder activities that you want to participate in with a partner. I have several health conditions that I share because they limit some activities.
Most of us could be dating or in relationships if we lowered our standards, it is not hard for women to find a poor partner.
No, you don't have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable, no you don't have to correct or redirect men, no you don't have to date men in poor health, no you do not have to lower your standards because of the lack of quality matches, just say no!

I don’t think “Chihiro” is fully about the film, but just uses analogies to the film as a reference to something in Billie’s personal life that she feels resonates with her whenever she watches it.
However I’ll point out what I think these references are.
“Said you won’t forget my name” In the film, the antagonist, Yubaba claims ownership of people who work for her in the Bathhouse by taking their names from them and assigning them new ones.
They can no longer remember their old names (Chihiro, Kohaku) and now go by the ones Yubaba wants. (Sen, Haku, Lin/Rin, Kamaji)
When Haku brings her old clothes to her to keep safe, they have her real name and a farewell card from a friend on it which still has her real name.
This way she can’t forget.
When she remembers she fell into the Kohaku River (before it was drained) as a toddler, a dragon (Haku) saved her.
She reveals to him that his name is the Kohaku River, because as a River God, he is the Kohaku River and the boy and the dragon are just more tangible forms it takes.
So now she’s freed him and he remembers he wasn’t always a just a spirit. His river, he was drained and died and ended up in the Spirit World.
“And that’s when you found me. I was waiting in the garden. Contemplating, beg your pardon.”
There is a scene where after Chihiro gets overwhelmed, visiting her parents in the pig pen, she runs out into a garden. She sits down in front of a flower wall of rhododendrons and others.
Probably worrying about her parents and how she could find a way to fix it.
Haku finds her and gives her the clothes.
“But there’s a part of me that recognises you. Do you feel it too?”
This is mutual. Haku has lost his identity, but he does know that he’s known Chihiro since she was very small.
Chihiro also later remembers Haku as the dragon that saved her later on.
There’s also mentions of “opening up the door.”
Doorways and entrances are symbolic in the film. Which is fitting for the album cover.
She enters a new realm-The Spirit World and the door to the Bathhouse, the elevator, Yubaba’s office, the Shoji door for the sleeping quarters, Zeniba’s cottage are all entrances to “realms within a realm”.
There are others I think I’m missing, perhaps someone else can fill in the bits I missed.

Today I want to tell my story of how I self-advocated and what I did to achieve that goal. I'm telling my story to help those who are in a similar position to what I was in and to inspire those to self-advocate.
To recap from my earlier posts. I have ADHD and fell under the "multiple disabilities" characterization. My high school teacher claimed that I have autism (Not diagnosed). I personally don't believe I have autism or at the very least I have a high functioning autism. Throughout most of my school career, I was in a self-contained classroom with kids with severe disabilities. Even if I was in the general population I had a paraprofessional or peer tutor. I never believed that I should have been in that position. As a consequence, I never really learned any social skills, I was segregated, and felt like that people didn't want anything to do with me because I was sped. The reason why I ended up in this position was probably a combination of me having the "multiple disabilities'' characterization and me testing low in three year revaluation tests. If you want more info on this then feel free to search my profile. This is an alt account and is primarily used to ask questions about special ed so It's really easy to find stuff about me.
Before I get into my story I just want to make it clear that I'm not against special ed. There's good and bad people in every profession. I believed I was in danger for myself and for my future. I don't believe that my teacher was evil and had the best of intentions but he was putting me in a position that was hurting me and I had to act. If you have any questions or feedback feel free to let me know in the comments. Another thing is that this post has been really hard to make. It opened up some old wounds and as a result took several days to write.
Here's my story: So in late middle school I was tired of the placement that I was in. I was tired of not having friends, Not being able to socialize with my peers, not being able to date. I also was thinking about what my life will look like after high school, I was concerned that I was going to never have friends, Never be in a relationship, and not have the social skills to make those friends. I was generally very concerned for my future. So I decided that for my 8th grade year (2017-2018) I would do my absolute best for both my behavior and academics. Throughout the year nothing changed. I was hoping that me doing well would show that I didn't need any support but at the end of the year I still had paraprofessionals in most of my classes and was being pulled out for tests. In the summer between middle school and high school all I can think about is I want high school to be different. I wanted friends, I wanted a relationship, and I had dreams of me in the student council. When I got into high school I had peer tutors along with paraprofessionals (Peer Tutors are general ed students who sign up as an elective to help special needs kids. They basically serve the role as paraprofessionals with less responsibility). I did everything again and had the exact same result. In January of 2019 (freshmen year) I decided that my current strategy wasn't working. They also started making the peer tutors fill out behavioral checklists for their student(s) by grading them on how well they behaved/followed directions and gave them badges that say "peer tutor" which made me feel singled out. Because of that the peer tutors felt more like babysitters then someone that is an equal. So I went to my special ed teacher and asked him to remove the paraprofessional and the peer tutors. He told me no and said that I needed them. I changed my strategy again and I was going to ask for the Peer Tutors to be gone first, then focus on removing the paraprofessionals. I was more concerned about the peer tutors over the paraprofessionals because I was concerned that since they were part of the student body that this was going to affect me when I was running for the student council. I was worried that they'd tell others I was special needs then people would think I was incompetent. So every 2 weeks I would ask him again to remove them and each time he would give me a different excuse on why I couldn't be alone. Here's some of the excuses he gave me: "The peer tutors need to be there to collect data", "You need to prove that you can do the work yourself", "It's not up to me. It's the general education teacher that decides if you need a peer tutor or an aide", "Peer Tutors are supposed to represent a trainer for a job. If you refuse training then you're going to get fired". I brought it up again during my yearly IEP which took place in March. Once again my teacher said no, bringing up another excuse. As far as I can remember, my parents were neutral about the aide situation. Later one peer tutor was removed, what happened is that the peer tutor moved to a different town and they didn't bother on sending a substitute. A win is a win so I celebrated it. At the end of my freshman year I was pretty much defeated and didn't achieve the goal of being 100% independent. Over the summer I took a look at my situation and decided that my current plan is not working. I knew that when my sophomore year of high school starts I will have aides and peer tutors in classes. I knew that if I wanted to get what I wanted I would have to do something big. I knew that I would have to put up a fight, and put in a lot more effort. Over the summer I developed a war mindset inspired by two quotes from Sun Tzu:
"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win”
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
I knew that I can't be going into sophomore year blind, so I started drafting a plan. I created a Google doc outlining my goals and what I wanted to accomplish. I knew that I won't be able to win every battle and that I need to choose which fight is worth fighting for. I thought to myself, “Well the peer tutors we're given training on the first day of school and probably have strategies to deal with poor behavior but what about planned well organized protests?” So I began researching strategies on how paraprofessionals/peer tutors dealt with negative behavior and reverse engineered those tactics. I read forms, I Watched YouTube videos and found as much information that I could find. For the peer tutors I didn't know too much about them. I didn't know if it was something that only my school did or if other schools did it. I did some research and found out that other schools had a peer tutor program and some have uploaded training videos on YouTube. Some peer tutors told me that they did babysitting and did nanny work so I looked up babysitting tips. I reverse engineered all of those tactics and came up with strategies to counter those techniques and put all that information that I learned into a google doc that I can use for future reference. During this time I also researched how to become a better negotiator and started learning a little bit of psychology. The plan was to first negotiate and if that doesn't work I will protest and make demands and negotiate. Over the summer I got really good at negotiating and practiced a lot on my father and my sister (they were totally oblivious). To this day I use those negotiating tactics. After I created my document and was satisfied with all the information, I went to bed that night and knew that I have already won and that my sophomore year will be my last year that I 1-1 peer tutor or aide.
Fast forward to the first day of school, as expected I had peer tutors and aides assigned to me in classes. My sped teacher had a chalkboard On the back wall full of sticky notes that had everyone's schedules and a name of someone was assigned to that student for each class. This time around I only had one peer tutor outside of the special ed classes. This is a big improvement over the three I had before but I still have my original goal of having none. For the paraprofessionals I had 2 in Gen classes.The goal was to first remove the peer tutors then the paraprofessionals. Even though this seems to be an improvement I continued with the plan. Since this was the first day, the peer tutors were in another classroom learning policies and other stuff they needed to know so I was alone for the day. I walked over to my special ed teacher and ask him one final time to remove the peer tutor he says no and then I asked him to let me be alone for 2 weeks so I can prove I don't need help and he still denies me. I then tell him that I will allow the peer tutor for 2 weeks and after that she needs to go. My teacher doesn't respond. (To add context the peer tutor that I had, she was a peer tutor in my math class in the prior semester so I already know who she was. We used to talk a lot and was surprised when I saw that she was assigned to me.)
For 2 weeks she mostly left me alone with her occasionally checking up on me. For those 2 weeks I purposely close my self off and adopted a body language that would subconsciously discourage her from approaching me. I did this by keeping my head low and staying as focused as possible. The only thing she did was confront me when I start packing up 2 minutes before the bell rings. She tells me that I shouldn't be packing up and to pull my stuff out again. I tell her no and hold my ground. She writes in my planner that I packed my stuff up early and refuse to pull it out. That happened like 2 or 3 times. On Thursday on the second week my class was tasked to create a PowerPoint. FYI this was a mythology class, while I was doing this PowerPoint I decided instead of manually trying to type in the locations and people from this mythology which the names were very long and complicated. I decided would be easier just to copy and paste them in. My peer tutor sees me doing this and doesn't say anything. At the end of class she writes that I plagiarized in my planner and tells my special ed teacher in person what happened. My sped teacher pulls me out of class (I had his math class right after mythology) and starts telling me that my peer tutor has seen me copy and pasting paragraphs and goes on this lecturing on why plagiarizing is bad. I explained to him that I wasn't copying paragraphs It was only copying names and locations and explain my reason for it. He didn't believe me but he didn't make me retake the assignment. After that I was pissed off and the next day I confronted her about it. I forgot what her reasoning for not telling me was but I told her that she needs to look into things before she makes false reports. After that incident, I decided to wait a week before I ask my teacher to remove her. Also during those first 3 weeks I turned down help from peer tutors and paras if possible In the special ed classroom. I did this to prevent sending any mix signals. I personally didn't mind if I had to work with a peer tutopara or not In the actual sped classroom. I only cared if it was in any of the general education classes. I just thought it would look contradictory if I was accepting help in the sped class and then requesting peer tutors to be removed from my gen classes.
At the beginning of the fourth week I went to school early and went to my sped teacher's class before first hour starts and then I again asked him to remove the peer tutor and the paraprofessionals. He says no again and brings up that I was being academically dishonest by plagiarizing. I tell my side of the story once again on what happened and he still doesn't believe me. At this point I leave and more pissed off. At this point negotiations didn't work so I started small protests by preventing the peer tutors from filling out my planer and the behavioral checklist. Most of them didn't care since there was other students they can fill out and they only need to fill out one to be graded for the day. One peer tutor gave me the puppy dog eye treatment and I eventually cave and let her fill it out. I still let the one peer tutor that was assigned to me in the gen class due to me being the only student and my intention wasn't to ruin, her grade. During the fourth week I began brainstorming ideas on how I can do a massive protest.
On Thursday of the fourth week of school, a walk into the mythology class and it started out like any other day. Class started and my teacher starts talking. I pull up my phone to respond to some messages and my peer tutor sees me. She asks me to hand my phone over to her and I tell her no. She tells me that I can't be on my phone and I tell her okay but I'm still not giving it to you. She then pulls out her phone and puts it on the table. She then tells me to put my phone on the table. I tell her no again. A few minutes past and the teacher finishes up talking. She passes the assignment and immediately my peer tutor begins to try and help by reading the questions. I slide the packet over closer to me and start ignoring her. I was hoping that she will get the hint and leave me alone. She doesn't so put on my hoodie and tried to mentally block her out. I don't remember what she said during all this since I was blocking it out but I do remember her touching me and the general ed teacher coming over and start assisting the peer tutor. It was a lot of pressure and I was actually about to give up because it was too much. But they both gaved up before I did and I was very relieved. After that, the class was pretty much quiet. The peer tutor wrote an entire paragraph on what happened. I walked to my math class and sat down. I then see my peer tutor walking into class and ask for my sped teacher. I already knew it was about me. I see them talk for 2 minutes and sure enough I see my teacher calling me over. I walked outside the classroom and me and the teacher begin to go at it. We end up saying the same things we have said before. However, my teacher this time mentioned that if I keep up my behavior that he's going to call in a meeting with my parents. The rest of math class was pretty much the same. However, my English class with the same teacher he went on a rant about using accommodations seeing that he had a disability growing up which was tourette's and he were love to have a peer tutor. I was quiet for the whole class since I was already exhausted because of everything else that had already happened. For the rest of the weekend, I've been coming up with plans on how I would be able to pull off a massive protest.
Now for the good news. On the fifth week of school, I noticed that my peer tutor was missing. My teacher pulled me aside again and told me that he decided that he was going to pull her for 2 weeks to see how well I would do without her. I told him thank you, that's what I wanted since the beginning of the school year. After those 2 weeks he didn't reinstate her and I didn't have a peer tutor or paraprofessionals in gen classes since. The deal moving forward was as long as I had a D or better he wasn't going to send any support unless I asked for it. My relationship with that sped teacher also had improved significantly. Later in my Junior year of high school I ran in my school's election and won. I was given the social media position.
In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't have to pull off a big protest. But the same time I wish that this situation could have ended in a different way.
Everything that I just told you is only the tip of the iceberg. There's so much detail that I had to leave out just to make this story shorter. Lot of it I'm still processing even though I found great strength in myself fighting back against a system that I believe was ruining my life. That war mindset hasn't left my mentality yet. I'm still dealing with the consequences of me being in special ed. Everything I told you happened 5 years ago and I'm still living through it like it just happened. I'm mentally recovering and eventually I will recover. Right now I'm in therapy and I'm writing down everything I can in a Google doc to process everything emotionally. Maybe one day I'll give that story to a writer and make a book out of it.
If you have any questions feel free ask them, I would love to answer them.

So I am 37(M) and my mother (73) before she passed away on 24/12 /23. The thing that happened was that my mom ended up, having health scares one after another last year. So essentially it was first when she was told to get minor cataract surgeries, this time of month last year and both her and me were busy with her tests and later surgeries in June, July. Since she had Care insurance, she applied for her cataract surgies claim - earlier both got approved for 30k each for both surgies costing almost 50k each but then suddenly they backtracked & said one claim was rejected as place where we got surgies done, was blacklisted later. Now the single 30k claim should have been deposited, right. But nope, it still stuck & since my mom later got diagnosed with stage-4 kidney cancer in September which really shocked both me and my mom as my mom's tests have always been decent, we couldn't follow up more than couple of attempts & instead got focused with dealing with the cancer situation. Irrespectively, I got her on keytruda immunotherapy asap as surgeon couldn't operate till it was reduced and my mom was indeed reacting very positively to the treatment despite some issues with side-effects. However despite my best efforts, my mother suffered a brain stroke and I had to take the difficult decision of taking her off life support while dealing with another care insurance tantrum where they rejected her icu charges when she was admitted as I rushed her to hospital while having a brain stroke. In short, I ended up paying almost 1lakh out of my pocket and still had to pay additional 2.5lakh for further processes which was further complicated by my narcissistic sister who was only around to get her inheritance & making my life hell so I had almost no time to arrange the amount as I had only 40k left. Thus I unfortunately withdrew funds from my mom's accounts (I am Nominee & had her credentials though I also refunded them once I had a more stable mindset & recovered from fevemy learning disability med issues throughout January). Either way, I initiated the Maharashtra govt ppo closure (I had refunded the amts taken from pension accounts prior to initiating paperwork) by Jan end & also approached local cbi home branch for also closing my deceased father's family pension to my mom. The branch manager directed me to this problematic deputy branch manager to whom I did admit that I had to withdraw funds from my mother's pension accounts but I have refunded them once I gathered resources(basically my sibling & family members are useless besides the fact that my sister has indulged in some criminal offenses like harassing me & my mom both before & after her death, etc while said family members did nothing besides ignoring my complicated health issues as I could have died the day my mom passed away). Since my mother also took 3 online FDs earlier in 2023, the deputy branch manager wanted me to break them & told me that individual account won't be closed & only her CIF would be directly deactivated. Also it was only few months for FDs to maturity & state govt pension closure was yet to occur - I told her that I will file for death claim settlement once state govt pension is closed & excess pension is recovered by them as deactivating the CIF will make this troublesome & a legal case. So she agreed to wait till state govt pension is closed and I gather all necessary documents in the meantime. Luckily state govt treasury did close the ppo & withdrew excess pension by 19th March while I also managed to transfer most of the mutual funds where I am Nominee. However since state govt treasury office (it's in another city from where I live & reasonably far), didn't give me letter of closure/confirmation - I was asked to wait for 1 month by local treasury officer (as financial year closing was approaching) which I informed to said deputy branch manager again. During this time, I also had to deal with legal paperwork as the lawyer my mom knew, didn't inform her or me to register the will, my mom made & also wasted my time in March. So I had to look for other ways to inherit one immovable property (my sibling holds 16.66% share and I have 83.34% as per my mom's wish to inherit the property as per her will), one problematic mf scheme transfer which I accidentally botched by editing Nominee details (still not sure as my mental health was seriously impaired in Jan/Feb & I also have same scheme, so not sure how it happened as there's no email confirmation except for an otp I found though I am not sure why I would update nominee details when I am already nominee there & even mentioned in will). Since UTI rejected both of my transmission claims so I am waiting for my current lawyer to complete the gift deed & apply for heirship certificate at municipality for filing my deceased mom's ITR. Also please note that despite timely updates to deputy branch manager, she let the FDs renew without my permission & has been acting dubious besides acting very rudely with me. So situation is,

1. I have filed compliant with cbi bank (or rather couple of them as again, I wasn't informed properly nor received proper feedback from bank plus despite calling customer care for almost 7 times, most aren't clear in their instructions as some mentioned different email-ids to complain to one asking to file a complaint with branch itself but I am not sure as branch manager said nothing despite my confrontation with deputy branch manager happening in front of him). Now I will be collecting the FDs physical certificates from branch & wait for resolution as said deputy branch manager is very suspicious(like asking me to file false FIR for missing online FDs physical certificates which I never had & whose online receipts I already have to also blaming me that I didn't tell her they were online while she wasted time & made me do a Rs500 stamp paper indemnity bond with additional documents like death certificate, AadhaPan, etc or saying there will be penalty for breaking autorenewed FDs that strangely got renewed on maturity dates without any prior indication & some things not adding up with new scheme plus the whole confusing me with different instructions & false claims all the time). Though luckily I have recorded the conversation with her first blaming me then backtracking once her fault was found. Also I atleast managed to travel to the distant city for closing state govt pension bank account & it was transferred to my savings account (it's at same problematic home branch) on 3rd May & de-activated my mom's CIF. So as bank resolution will take additional 15days to come(customer care first said 48hrs & now saying different), should I approach branch with resolution & LHC to minimize further problems despite being Nominee.(there's an error in relationship in cbi's savings account where my name & details are there but relationship is daughter instead of son but I already made Rs.100 self-affidavit as per dubious deputy branch manager instructions & all other documents including death claim form).

 

1. Applying for my mom's final ITR is necessary & I have already submitted most financial statements to my CA to compute including the TDS deducted on the FDs since I have been given July-end deadline. Plus as my mother & me spent more than 10lakh+ for her cancer treatment, I am hoping that I will get some deductible relief on her final itr besides tds. The issue is that I am still lacking any legal heirship document that will allow me to register as assessee for filing my mother's ITR. I did ask another bank where I am also nominee for mom's account, for issuing bank letter confirming Nominee details but they refused. However hopefully as I am going to execute a registered gift deed with help of my new lawyer that will mention my mom's unregistered will, I am hoping it allows me to register for the ITR. Otherwise I will have to approach local municipality office for issuing surviving family membeheirship certificate once gift deed allows me to initiate transfer property to my name.

 

1. There are still some untransferred assets such as a SBG linked to my mom's account besides the UTI scheme that's linked to same account(for uti, I already have most paperwork ready except that they asked for legal document that confirms relationship between me and my mother so while I can submit my passport copy though feeling it's better if will gets registered during gift deed process as it's mentioned there). Then there's the care insurance claim associated with same account & taken by bank officials of same bank yet it came to my attention that Care apparently messed my mom's name multiple times while issuing the policy & the claim hasn't processed as policy name & bank account name don't match (it's only a difference in middlename and could have been conveyed to my mom when she approached them multiple times). I did ask my lawyer regarding this & as amount is only 30k, he has asked me not to think about claim as for now as Care doesn't seem sincere as they haven't given it in writing that they will issue claim if I submit LHC/Registered Will with other documents. So while I will get SBG once I close the account & also uti mf scheme (hopefully), I am not sure if I should file a consumer case against Care (as an employee even misbehaved with my mom & the claim situation feels really fraudulent) or just hope that Care would honor the claim once I submit the documents.(they also only mentioned sending documents over email so again felt weird)

 
Overall all these incidents have seriously affected my health and frankly I need a break for myself as I am still struggling with my grieving (I saw my mom die 3 times & the family drama still triggers my cptsd though I am not suicidal or having med issues unlike in Jan besides still unable to take some personal time off due to these commitments). I also apologize if this post ended up too long or having details all over the place as I am still trying to piece together as much information I have as I do have written journal records of the paperwork & events that occurred though I forgot to list down some details here & there due to trying to manage everything by my own.

Hello My name is Louis and I'm 31 Male Daddy Dom from Australia I have been in this lifestyle for almost 11 years now..I believe in good understanding and a good relationship.
I'm looking for a Lil / sub with whom I can have a good relationship and whom I can take care of. I would love to help her to learn and explore more about the community and the lifestyle if she's interested . I will try my best to make my girl happy and safe while exploring the lifestyle and will never do or let her do anything that can affect her health or personal life in anyway
Btw I have job and I'm single
Looking forward to chat with you if you comfortable

Chapter 11 - Home
The ship arrives in port to songs from the Deed of Morred. A funny exchange occurs where Apple's friend Shinny (Shandy) sees Tenar on board the ship and says, "'Maybe it's his mother,'" only for Apple to say actually it is a mother (well, her's). Tenar and Therru disembark from the ship in rather royal fashion before it leaves again. Apple greets them warmly and is apparently on very familiar terms with Therru (Apple picks her up), however that night Apple is a bit apprehensive toward her mother, apparently she had never given much thought to the songs about her mom. She calls her a "'...king-kisser....'" A couple days later they all leave Apple's home and go to the farm, along the river Kaheda in the late summer. Apple comments on Therru's health and Tenar lets slip she was stronger before the incident, and then tells Apple about it (Apple is familiar with Therru's past). We find out that the one that was likely Therru's father is called Hake. In recalling Handy's motions she oddly can't remember Aspen's name except for the Kargish word for a type of tree. Apple says they haven't seen anyone from that group, and Tenar takes some joy that her daughter is mothering her mother. They consider a dog (again), though humorously Tenar is mostly thinking of a puppy for Therru (she already plays with an animal anyway, right? Well, a weird bone doll, close enough). They arrive at Lark's and it's a warm homecoming, it had apparently been two months since their departure to Ogion's. Tenar is reluctant to tell the story about their adventure but absolutely gushes about the king, says he appeared like a sword (which is actually one of his names, Arren). They talk about the king and the wizard, Shinny arrives and they have quite the supper, even Therru warms except for her keeping an eye on the window as it grew darker out.
Later, while Apple sings Therru to sleep, Tenar finally asks Shandy, who is helping wash up, about Ged (who somehow was never mentioned to Lark and Apple, all of Tenar's remembrances about Re Albi seemed to be muddled, "darkened"). Shandy says there wasn't work for him here, but that he got some on recommendation and so was off in a high pasture, maybe even herding goats, and would be back down the mountain in autumn. Maybe that was for the best, maybe this was home now and all that of Re Albi was behind them. Tenar slept that night, dreamless. Tenar keeps busy homesteading and the like, and eventually finished the red dress she had started for Therru. Therru is expressionless and turns away from it, and Tenar says, "'...People see the scars. But they see you, too, and you aren't the scars. You aren't ugly. You aren't evil. You are Therru, and beautiful....'" Therru calls the dress beautiful (touching Tenar's fingers, not the dress), and Tenar understands something, "She had done right to make the dress, and she had spoken the truth to the child. But it was not enough, the right and the truth. There was a gap, a void, a gulf, on beyond the right and the truth. Love, her love for Therru and Therru’s for her, made a bridge across that gap, a bridge of spider web, but love did not fill or close it. Nothing did that. And the child knew it better than she."
The equinox arrives, and Tenar thinks of the king being coronated, the king who knew fear and pain, and thought that Ged should be there too instead of tending some rich man's herds (and likely doing that into winter). Tenar had started to visit Ivy when she went to the village, as a sort of minor replacement to Aunty Moss, but either Ivy's ingrown detest for her was very real or, maybe just as likely, her own rebukes had left too big a void between them.
The sorcerer Beech arrives one day to treat a rich farmer's gout, and visits Tenar. Beech was a pupil of a pupil of Ogion's, and wanted to hear about his last days, as well as the visit by the archmage, Ged. Beech talks about the king's new rule and about, in particular, the loss of power of a certain lord pirate. He very much praises Tenar's work with Therru but she responds with sadness, she's worried what the fear will draw her to, that a damaged person may do damaging things. Roke seems more open-minded than most but he sees Ogion's "Teach her, not Roke" as just meaning women can't be sorcerers and he instead suggests that she take up healing witchery with Ivy as there may be a reciprocal aspect (and after all, he argues, "...healing befits a women..."). Therru's naming day is referenced, and overall Tenar views him as naive, but she does think about what Beech said.
More changes from the king, the local villages set up a taxed constabulary to combat the thieves and gangs (some rumors the pirate lords are pushing back). Tenar doesn't pay too much mind to this, but through time Therru becomes less withdrawn and is not kept so close to Tenar, she even travels independently (it is much easier with Tenar's family, friends, and acquaintances around to think Therru is safer, plus they shouldn't both just live in constant fear). Tenar is a good learner and prosperous but behind in most things, Tenar thinks of what Ogion meant by "teach her" but nothing special is done, Tenar even starts to think maybe she would be better apprenticed as a witch than a weaver (most people believe if something bad happens to you you deserved it somehow, this wouldn't matter as much to a witch as a weaver). Would all this satisfy Ogion's wishes?
Keeping this in mind, one day Tenar visits Ivy and asks the cost about apprenticing Therru. Ivy says she wouldn't for anything, that she fears her. Tenar is enraged, she even insinuates it's because of what happened to Therru beyond the burning. Ivy instead says it's because she is powerful and likely rageful, like a leashed natural disaster, something capable of darkness, and in fact Ivy draws from Tenar's own time with the Dark Ones as a child to posit that's why Tenar doesn't (or can't see to) fear her. Tenar believes everyone has failed her (Ogion, Moss, Ivy, Beech) even Ged whose "precious shame" had become his own child, Ged who was obsessed with power that that was all he noticed about Therru. Goha has a brief talk with Tenar (not the first time something like this has happened), saying that isn't fair.
Winter arrives, early, suddenly, and portentously, or at least a freeze does. Beside a fire of an apple tree Therru asks Tenar for a story which Tenar calls a "summer story", instead Therru should be learning the songs about the great deeds and the rites of spring (the Long Dance is mentioned). Therru says she can't sing but Tenar chides her: "'The mind sings. The prettiest voice in the world's no good if the mind doesn't know the songs.' She untied the last bit of yarn, which had been the first spun. 'You have strength, Therru, and strength that is ignorant is dangerous.'" Therru asks if it's like the wild ones that refused to learn and so stayed in the west, and it comes about she is referencing the dragons in the song of the Woman of Kemay (in chapter 2). Tenar asks which song Therru wants to learn and instead of the Deeds of Morred (which reminds her of the young king) Therru instead chooses about Segoy and the Making (Ogion's lore books are mentioned).
It goes well and Therru retires for the night. The song and Tenar's mood (because of Ivy) had energized Tenar to stay up by the fire. Suddenly, a noise from outside. Soon after, the sound of an opening being jimmied, but the house itself, thanks to Flint, was well-bolted. Eventually a window is broken and Tenar hears the voices of men. Her door, newly locked, rattles; it is Handy. A thin blade of light at the jamb. They will try the front door and so Tenar locks that one too. Tenar shutters Therru's window and the sound undoubtedly alerts them. She then tries to shutter her own but it is jammed, and they see Tenar through the window. Voices, that they won't hurt her if they let them in, that one of them just wants to see his little girl. Maybe Therru is awake, Tenar will protect her, though she has lost the fire poker in the scramble. One of them finds the kitchen window and Tenar flees to Therru's room, which doesn't have a lock thoughtfully so those in the nursery couldn't accidentally lock themselves in. She thinks about screaming, she think about fleeing, she grabs a butcher's knife. She throws open the door and threatens them.
"A howl and a sucking gasp", confusing communication from the men, some light. A wailing form shambles toward her, and a form with long blades behind it.
"Tenar! Tenar, it's me--Hawk, Sparrowhawk!" Ged, holding a pitchfork, thinks he has killed the man on the ground, the rest have fled. They drag the man inside, bandage him ('"I think I killed him," [Ged] said again.'), and Tenar finally gets Ged to sit by the fire. Ged looks rough. He had ran upon them on the path, avoided them due to the mob feeling off, but Ged had heard mention of the "Oak Farm" and so here he is. During the journey tracking the men Ged heard terrible things, about how Therru was stolen and how she would be punished along with what they'd do to Tenar. The bloody man isn't Handy, but it is the one who recently mentioned Therru was his. Tenar is worried they will come back, but they have the pitchfork at least, and it was only two others. They were traveling on the road (away from... something) and they were listening to the man who was lying there now, as if he'd mentioned this, about Therru and the widow, many times before (Handy apparently goaded him into trying this whole thing tonight). The group had waited in Tenar's barn until night, with Ged waiting outside it in the freezing cold. Shortly after they had spotted the kitchen window, Ged had ambushed them.
They make a sort of bed for the man, but not on the good rug. A realization about Therru. Quickly checking on her, apparently Therru had slept through the whole thing. Would've, should've... eventually Ged turns the tables and tells her to drink the tea, to rest. Ged recounts a tale, from the beginning of the first book, about the Kargish raiders (ed: the last book mentioned since the Ring was mended they don't raid anymore) and Ged/Duny thwarting their raid on Ten Alders, his village, by casting a sea of fog. One of the few not rebounded was run through with a pitchfork, Tenar saying Ged hitting the man's rib (and stopping something like that from happening) was the only thing Ged did wrong. Ged even briefly entertains the idea that the man could be disposed of, but he knows it's wrong (Tenar is less convinced). Instead, he'll use the wheelborrow and cart him to the healer, Ivy.
Tenar is beyond exhausted and watches the fire. A dream slips in, dragon-fire again. The star, Tehanu. Ged move her into the dark cold to get to her room. A dream slips in, each leading, following, both in the Tombs. "'This is the way,' she said."

I have this fantasy, y'know. of having some sort of secret admirer. maybe a stranger, maybe a friend. he would just slowly get to learn things about me and I would grow into his heart like that. no sexual motivations, no interest in getting to know me so they can manipulate me into their laps. one day, he knows my favorite color, the names of my cats, he knows what I do when I'm alone and what I doodle when I'm bored and he just realizes he might be in love with me.
I think my wish is to be loved the way I love. everytime, it happened like this. like when I overheard a guy tell his friend he learned to crochet with his granny and when I talked to his friends he made sure I was being heard despite being a quiet talker and I've been heart-eyeing from afar ever since. or the one who was an acquaintance to my acquaintance, sat next to him and cracked jokes non-stop and I couldn't stop smiling. he told us about his mom, his dad, his brother and sister, about his childhood mischief. he made weird, nonsensical and off-putting questions and jokes but I would just feel so happy when he looked my way first to check if I was having fun. and then I had to fight every cell in my body to not follow his around like a puppy just so I know a little more, spend some time more around him. of course I'll see a guy pass by me and think "oh, he's cute" but it's a fleeting thought, not even close to infatuation.
I wish I could have someone to like me like this. not like just some piece of meat served on a plate, you eat away and throw the bones and the skin off once you had what you want. it feel so fucking impossible. it seems like too little men can even differentiate love and lust. have you seen how they talk about us? what they think of us? incels say women only care about looks and if you're not on the best half of the bunch you're not even acknoledged by women, and all women go after some weird ideal man who looks like this and that. hasn't it been historically the exact opposite? seriously, how many men do you know have married someone uglier than them in opposition to someone more good-looking?
for the vast majority of men is all about the sex, the looks. it's all about mentally ill pussy feels the best. it's all about having the old guy having the barely legal girl not because he likes her but because she's barely legal and thus better than any woman his own age or a bit older. it's about the male fantasy of the hot, servile latina/black wife, the male fantasy of the submissive and impressionable asian girlfriend, the innocent virginal blonde, the sensual redhead. this is all projection. after they're done crying about how they're not 6'0 or whatever, turn around and moan about how fucking disgusting would be existing next to a fat woman. if feels so incredibly gross to be in their circles and see what they say.
and I guess that's where I fucking enter. I look and act good enough to fulfill a male fantasy. sure, I guess I could go and pick a random to hook up with me. he will eventually get bored of the novelty, realize I'm not a sex toy and they don't actually like anything about me but sexual favors. suddenly I'm used goods.
at the same time, this is all there's left for me. because the good ones, the ones who care, the ones who are respectful and interested, don't want me. maybe I'm just not interesting enough, maybe I'm just too fucking broken to be deserving of being loved and love back. they have better options, because they always do. god, when was the last time an (available) guy sat next to me and asked about me? not my name or year. me. I can't recall.
I crave love so bad it crawls under my skin, it enters the pores in my bones, between the cells of my muscles, it runs my faces. I feel it with my whole body, I track the smallest sign of love like a hungry dog in everywhere I go, in everything I hear and see. I lay down and let my mind wander to the phantom sensation of a body over mine. my hand running on soft locks of hair, counting freckels and tracing marks, running my thumbs on dark circles. I dream of being clingy and affectionate and it's not annoying or something I should be ashamed of. I dream of movie dates where the movie actually matter, back rubs, gift exchanging. I dream of cooking something good and seeing eyes light up. I dream of hugging the hurt away after an argument. I dream of getting along with his family and him getting along with mine. I dream of a running toddler giggling their way to our bed. I dream of sitting down with a heavy photo album, reminiscing as we turn pages.
and then I realize all there's gonna be for me is being a male fantasy. something flimsy, fragile and bound to end. a toy you get for christmas and by easter it's in a donation box. someone to practice on before they find the one they want. that's all people like me get. and if I gain some pounds, cut my hair and stop giving so much attention to my acne and body hair, trying so hard to be funny and agreeable, probably not even that. ha.

im starting to realize that there's something wrong with me. I've always thought that i was normal and whatever and everyone just hates me for no reason but know im starting to feel it. I've noticed that i'm honestly super materialistic and selfish and i dont really care about people who arent relevant to me. It's to the point my brain never even bothered to remember their faces or name or anything unless again theyre relevant. Another big thing i noticed is that I dont love anyone? I'm not talking only romantically, but also like in a familial sense. My parents? Meh. They could leave me for a long vacation and not call and i wouldn't care, my only concern would be who would feed me. My grandma? Sure, I like her she's the best. But do I love her..? I don't know. As a child, I went to several funerals of family members I knew and i remember myself thinking "so what? it's so hot in here theres no point why cant we just stay home theyre dead anyways" and mind u I was 9. I KNOW there's something super wrong with me but i can't put my finger on the specifcs. Do i want to think this way? No. But i can't help it. I've also never cared for helping out people or whatever and just donate to cancer researches cuz thats whats morally expect of me and everyone else. I never cared to cry during sad speeches and school cuz "what the fuck that gotta do with me?" i'm honestly starting to hate myself. Or is that why i'm forcing myself to think? Am I typing this because Im actually upset with myself or is it because i feel like i'm going against the norm and need to fix myself for my own good? I don't know. i've thought about maybe seeking professional help but idk, my parents are the traditional asian type and anything mental health is considered "crazy" and i've never told them either. I know they notice these things about me, they bring it subtly sometimes but label it was "extreme selfishness". How do i tell the people who brought me up that i don't and never have loved them? I don't want another annoying session of them screaming at me and crying cuz it honestly makes me so irritated and my lack of a reaction would only drag it longer. Is faking the only path I could go? Should i just pretend everything?

So I went over to my aunts apartment yesterday because she asked me too. When I walked in my aunt apologized for yelling at me and explained it was because she didn’t know about the pimple. My jaw dropped yeah.
Turns out Lisa hid the pimple from her mother because she didn’t like going to the doctors.
The whole argument we had was just a big misunderstanding because she thought I popped it without allowing her to look it over and I thought she didn’t see the pimple as an issue because she usually protective of Lisa. We’re on good terms now and I even got my aunt to remove the tracking app off Lisa’s phone.
The app works by sending a message to my aunts phone if Lisa was to walk beyond a certain distance away from the neighborhood. And if my aunt didn’t respond to the message the cops would be called. That’s what was preventing me from taking Lisa to urgent care.
Oh and turns out my aunt left her phone in the car after getting lunch, that’s why she didn’t respond. This whole situation feels like a bad drama honestly but hey at least I can take Lisa to the park now.
My aunt thinks I did the best I could considering the situation I was placed in.
For those who were worried about infection or Steph my aunt took Lisa to get a blood test on Monday and the doctor said that Lisa’s white blood count is only slightly higher and didn’t prescribe antibiotics cause he felt the increase didn’t warrant it. Before anyone says anything this was a blood specialist at the clinic my aunt works for. So Lisa isn’t at risk but he wants to see her Monday just to make sure it’s nothing.
I also watched that Dr.pimple popper some of you mentioned and first eww and second I didn’t realize that pus came in two forms. I thought the solid pus had its own name. So let me clarify that the pus that came from Lisa’s back was watery like milk not like spray foam. Not sure if that changes anything.
Hope everyone has a good day.

Hello there! I am 20 years old and a trans guy. I have about 10 years of roleplay experience and I write primarily in third person past tense, I can write up to 5 or more paragraphs (sometimes less depending on the scene, but I also just match my partner usually!) a writing sample can be provided if you want to see it (:
I have a very detailed vampire OC I have been dying to use in roleplay for a very long time, I’ve been having trouble finding anyone interested in RPing with him because he isn’t a super typical vampire troupe type of character so I’ll give you a brief description of him.
His name is Ivan and he was born in the 1400s, originally a human who worked as a butcher Ukraine. After meeting his best friend who soon revealed themselves as a vampire to him, Ivan asked to be turned as well so they could both live together for the rest of time, but Ivan’s friend ended up getting slain by a group of vampire hunters. This sent Ivan into a spiraling depression that led to him hating his identity as a vampire and deciding to move away into the middle of northern Russia to live in isolation, trying his best to live as a “human.” He despised being a vampire and he despised other vampires as well, he turned to drinking the blood of animals that he would hunt to keep himself alive and healthy. He lived a very lonely and simple lifestyle as he tried his best to live out the rest of his long life trying to walk among humans, trying to act as one himself.
I have a lot more I could tell you about him but I wanted to keep it short and sweet so anyone interested could contact me for more! I have a few plot ideas for him, most include romance, angst, action, etc. but if you have any ideas yourself that you’d like to try out I am very willing to listen! I unfortunately do not have an image of him for reference but I do have detailed descriptions of how he looks, if you don’t mind that.
I reply somewhat consistently but due to me working full time, I am usually most available after 5pm EST !! Please be patient with replies, I will always let you know if something comes up that will hinder me from replying like usual :) Don’t be afraid to dm me! I am super friendly and also open to talking ooc as well
I prefer to roleplay on discord but discuss details up here first :-) i am still looking, so go head and shoot me a message telling me about yourself and your writing style + any additional ideas you may have. I hope to hear from you!

Hello there! I am 20 years old and a trans guy. I have about 10 years of roleplay experience and I write primarily in third person past tense, I can write up to 5 or more paragraphs (sometimes less depending on the scene, but I also just match my partner usually!) a writing sample can be provided if you want to see it (:
I have a very detailed vampire OC I have been dying to use in roleplay for a very long time, I’ve been having trouble finding anyone interested in RPing with him because he isn’t a super typical vampire troupe type of character so I’ll give you a brief description of him.
His name is Ivan and he was born in the 1400s, originally a human who worked as a butcher Ukraine. After meeting his best friend who soon revealed themselves as a vampire to him, Ivan asked to be turned as well so they could both live together for the rest of time, but Ivan’s friend ended up getting slain by a group of vampire hunters. This sent Ivan into a spiraling depression that led to him hating his identity as a vampire and deciding to move away into the middle of northern Russia to live in isolation, trying his best to live as a “human.” He despised being a vampire and he despised other vampires as well, he turned to drinking the blood of animals that he would hunt to keep himself alive and healthy. He lived a very lonely and simple lifestyle as he tried his best to live out the rest of his long life trying to walk among humans, trying to act as one himself.
I have a lot more I could tell you about him but I wanted to keep it short and sweet so anyone interested could contact me for more! I have a few plot ideas for him, most include romance, angst, action, etc. but if you have any ideas yourself that you’d like to try out I am very willing to listen! I unfortunately do not have an image of him for reference but I do have detailed descriptions of how he looks, if you don’t mind that.
I reply somewhat consistently but due to me working full time, I am usually most available after 5pm EST !! Please be patient with replies, I will always let you know if something comes up that will hinder me from replying like usual :) Don’t be afraid to dm me! I am super friendly and also open to talking ooc as well
I prefer to roleplay on discord but discuss details up here first :-) i am still looking, so go head and shoot me a message telling me about yourself and your writing style + any additional ideas you may have. I hope to hear from you!

Picture this. Your “fiance” was sent to set you up by your roommate(dependent pretending to be broke.) Your roommate intentionally causes unnecessary stress in the house in order to be able to get you to a point you’re stressed. She’s keeping tabs and recording everything you say and do and sending it to people that want you dead.(you still don’t know). You start to put together that your fiance is involved but can’t figure out who the other mole is. You start receiving threats and other weird things happening like the elevator camera being taken off. Or weird people around your camp. Weird ass things continue to happen for 3-4 months your fiance promises everything is fine.
2 days before your birthday he ghosts you. 3 days after that you realize your roommate was sent to set you up and you were supposed to kill yourself. Fortunately you were doing everything for yourself before you met him. You were also acting poor and spending other people’s money. So you take your money , you packed your apartment moved in two days blocked everyone you know family included, cut off everyone you know and married your childhood best friends dad. You changed your name and never looked back.
Fast forward 6-8 years later you’re a doctor with the #1 school in the nation.

Hey there guys and gals, I come to you today humble in the hopes that you can help me with a long shot in the dark.
I'm looking for a friend of mine who I met here on r4r a while back. Her name is Dani and not long after we started speaking she deleted her Reddit account. I have since very foolishly lost contact with her outside of Reddit, which was completely my fault. I have tried everything I can think of to find her again but I'm at a loss. It's honestly a bit saddening to think I may never bump into her again as the likelihood of her seeing this post is very slim. But it's honestly the only thing I can think of as a last resort to reach out.
Maybe some people here have met her or know her and can point her towards this post, I would be extremely grateful for any little help.
She has a lovely sphyx cat named Elli with big blue marbles for eyes who I will include a picture of in the hopes it helps her see this.
For those just passing by and read this far, thank you and I wish everyone all the best.
Here is little Elli
https://imgur.com/a/D8xUlaS

Hello there! I am 20 years old and a trans guy. I have about 10 years of roleplay experience and I write primarily in third person past tense, I can write up to 5 or more paragraphs (sometimes less depending on the scene, but I also just match my partner usually!) a writing sample can be provided if you want to see it (:
I have a very detailed vampire OC I have been dying to use in roleplay for a very long time, I’ve been having trouble finding anyone interested in RPing with him because he isn’t a super typical vampire troupe type of character so I’ll give you a brief description of him.
His name is Ivan and he was born in the 1400s, originally a human who worked as a butcher Ukraine. After meeting his best friend who soon revealed themselves as a vampire to him, Ivan asked to be turned as well so they could both live together for the rest of time, but Ivan’s friend ended up getting slain by a group of vampire hunters. This sent Ivan into a spiraling depression that led to him hating his identity as a vampire and deciding to move away into the middle of northern Russia to live in isolation, trying his best to live as a “human.” He despised being a vampire and he despised other vampires as well, he turned to drinking the blood of animals that he would hunt to keep himself alive and healthy. He lived a very lonely and simple lifestyle as he tried his best to live out the rest of his long life trying to walk among humans, trying to act as one himself.
I have a lot more I could tell you about him but I wanted to keep it short and sweet so anyone interested could contact me for more! I have a few plot ideas for him, most include romance, angst, action, etc. but if you have any ideas yourself that you’d like to try out I am very willing to listen! I unfortunately do not have an image of him for reference but I do have detailed descriptions of how he looks, if you don’t mind that.
I reply somewhat consistently but due to me working full time, I am usually most available after 5pm EST !! Please be patient with replies, I will always let you know if something comes up that will hinder me from replying like usual :) Don’t be afraid to dm me! I am super friendly and also open to talking ooc as well
I prefer to roleplay on discord but discuss details up here first :-) i am still looking, so go head and shoot me a message telling me about yourself and your writing style + any additional ideas you may have. I hope to hear from you!

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