Got terminated still owe 401k loan

Reposting This from AITA sub. Hi Mark I see your videos on YT, maybe one of these days I'll see my own story in your video.😆 This is going to be a long one so bear with me please. I am also giving a lot of backstory and past issues bcz I feel they are relevant to the matter and also I feel like ranting. Also this is in India so the currency is Rupees. Before we start I just want to say that I am not perfect in any way or form and I have done any fair share of mistakes.
I(20F) have been in a relationship with my bf Jake(22M)(fake name) for roughly 5.5 yrs now. My family is not rich but we do have a lot of money bcz both my parents are doctors but I did not realise we have this much money until 2yrs ago. (Am not very street smart as U will see in this post). Since after abt 1.5 years of relationship (May 2020)when lockdown started his family fell on hardtimes as his family owns a shop and bcz of the Pandemic they weren't able to run it.
At first it was bcz one of his friend got into an accident so he needs money and he told me he will give it back etc (i don't remember if he ever did as it was yrs ago). At the time I had money saved up so I helped out the first few times with my own money. Then when I ran out of money then he said to ask my dad or mom, or steal from my house and give him some. A lil back story here, my mom and dad are separated so they did not used to talk about finances so I would take extra money from my dad than what was actually required and give the rest to jake. For e.g I required 3k for a parcel or smrg then I would ask for 5k, give my mother the 3k(I live with her, my father lives separately) and give the 2k to jake. I also gave him cash many times by essentially stealing from my mother's closet. When I used to say NO he hurled abuses at me and called me every name in the book which a person can imagine, guilt tripped me and pushed me very hard and I gave in almost every time. He told me he will give me back eventually, he has made an investment,etc. Basically all stupid lies to have more time, then one day during an arguement I pressed on when he is gonna return the money and after a lot of time he told me there is no investment and he used the money in his family's shop.
After 2.5 year of this in October-Nov of 2022 we both got admissions in universities which were around 2 hours away from each other. Till then this pattern continued and his family was still struggling bcz of his father's brother divided the joint business or something else.
Before this when we were at out respective homes he told me he got some operation done for smtg in his abdomen. I gave him 10k from my mother's closet for that and even when I went to meet he had an area bandaged (was very unprofessionally done my dumb self should have understood that it was also fake) one of his friend also confirmed that he had operation done and I was coordinating with him on the said dates when he was supposedly admitted. He also used to frequently tell me that he has suicidal thoughts and he will end himself etc .
After we went to our respective colleges once we had a big fight and next day he told me that he tried to end himself by jumping of the balcony but his friend (who he was staying with at the time),Luke, stopped him worrying for him I called Luke later and told him I was worried for Jake and to pls take care of him. He was confused by this and asked me why what happened. I asked him abt last night's attempt, he told me nothing of that sort happened. This opened a can of worms where it was revealed that he was making a fool out of me, guy owned a fucking Iphone and was telling me that his family was on hard times and taking money from me. This is also when I found out that their was no operation. I don't remember what else I found out that night but felt like a huge betrayal and I talked to 3 of his friends that night for quite a few hours where a lot of lies were revealed.
I broke it off with him, at this point I had lent a total of Rs.75-80k. He begged me for weeks for forgiveness, at first I laughed in his face but as weeks went by I started to miss us. He came to meet and win me back a few times at my uni. Eventually, a month later I forgave him on some conditions like he wont lie and share everything with me, won't tell me who or who not to be friends with (he did that before a lot).
Few months later the cycle started again, I was back to giving him money from the monthly spending amount I used to get(it was a lot at first bcz I was just settling in,now my monthy allowance is wayyy less). He did not like the friend group I was in so I stopped talking to them (bcz they knew abt our situation as I broke down crying in front of them when I found out abt all this so he felt like he lost respect and They didn't respect me etc, admittedly they weren't good and I would have distanced myself eventually anyways maybe cuz the vibe didn't match but that should have been my call I feel) and he still (>1 year later) yells at me if he suspects that I am casually talking to them.
My college is in a much smaller city so I go to meet him once to twice a month as he shares a flat with few ppl and the city has more activities to do. Other than the first few times (when we got back together) I pay almost if not all bills like gas (for his 2 wheeler) and food. It's very frustrating at times but I understand that he does not has enough money as his father does not send him enough to cover rent, food and expenses or so he says ( sighs IDK anymore guys what's true and what's not). Jake says his family is still struggling bcz his sister went to UK last year to study and that took a huge chunk of money and they have loans to pay, etc. I can believe this is true. Also he says they have virtually almost no savings left bcz business isn't doing great hence his father sends him rent t food expenses andsays to manage The rest on his own (he does not has a job so guess where the money comes from 🤡). In the Past few months admittedly he has not asked for money frequently but when he does its like a huge chunk. He has also taken loans (with interest) from some of his friends without telling me. He has done this multiple times before after I have repeatedly asked him to stop. (Embarrassingly I admit there are more instances when he has acted like a red curtain but I think I can write a book at this point if I list them all out so let's move on to the latest problem).
Onto The current issue Almost 3 days ago now, Jake called me (we already have been fighting for I don't even remember how many days at that point a week maybe?) and we told me that he was told by his dad that they have been unable to make payments for the loan they took from a person keeping their shop as collateral, they have to pay half the amount (Total amount was 5 lakhs) and interest which was 64k tomorrow to that person, they have arranged most of the money but are short by abt 30k. He asked me can I do something (steal or ask my dad). I refused as there is no money in my mother's closet anyway and I haven't talked to my dad in abt 3 months now. (ofcourse I did not outright refuse and just gave him my reas oning buz I'm a doormat 🥰🤡🤡).
He pressed me to pls talk to my father about money and tell him I need it for my tablet (I bought one just a few days prior). I refused and said he won't give me money anyway. He asked what about my mother's bank account, it must have something. One account is linked to UPI ( It's for making online payments in India) and one is not. The one that is linked does not have much money bCz my mother's salary has not been credited in 4 months. The other account has money but as it does not has UPI activated online payments cannot be done.I told him all of this. He asked can I activate the UPI if my mother's asleep and plz transfer him the money (also said to transfer it first to my own account so if she finds out then I can say my friend needed it so I have lent some for a month or two🙂 ) I mean maybe I could if I really wanted to but I have had enough, I do not want to steal. Now his family is potentially loosing the shop and he is blaming me for it. I have repeatedly tried to reason with him and told him that if I had the money in my account I would have given him (My account had 1k and I transferred him that😔). He says his blood relatives (his father's siblings refused to pay even a dime, I mean they and their children all are grown ups and have jobs and if They didn't pay how does he expect me, who does not has never had a job give him money, probably it's my fault I have enabled him enough every down time by giving him money so how he just expects everytime that I'll help bcz I am family).
He is still pressing me to give like 5k now bcz now he wants to go to another city and talk to the lender's brother to pls provide them with some Time. But I do not have the money 😕. He says that 'if I would have really wanted then I could but I did not think of his family as mine ', " U will understand my pain when U will loose something of yours for lesser value Than it really is " (The shop's market valve is 4O lakhs and they lost it for 5 lakhs) Also has called me quite a few names since then. He arranged 1K and said " I'm going today there I'll see what to do after reaching there." Says he wants to breakup ( it's pretty normal to say it's over after fights so I don't really know if he is even serious) for 2 reasons - 1. I did not give him money 2. When he will go to uni he won't have any spending money so he'll expect are to help out, and he knows I won't and he does not want that disappointment.
I mean TBH I wouldn't care if it were a few hundred rupees but it won't be, additionally I will be The one covering The costs as usual when I go to meet him. I won't have any money left for my own. And I really want to start saving up again. I have spent outrageous amounts of money in The past year (go figure the reason) and saved up nothing. Today he was still begging (he used the word) me to pls arrange the money. He said I leave for uni in 2 days after summer vacations so I'll get my allowance, technically I can ask for it in advance and give him. But I don't want to after he has treated me. Everytime I tell myself that this is the last time, I'll leave the next time he does this but I just stay.
I know I'm not responsible for him and his family but I still feel really guilty about not giving him the money. I know I should end things but it's just difficult to leave something which you have been attached to for so long, it just feels natural to you. Rn he owes me I don't even know how much but it's maybe around 1 lakh something. Not counting The amount of gifts (some he guilt tripped me into buying 🙄 ) I have bought him and the money I have spent on my trips to visit him. IDK if I'll ever see that money again probably not. Please also give me advice on how should I proceed with the breakup, I don't want him to do anything drastic like come to my house or call my mom to tell him abt our relationship (frowned upon in India).
I know the answer but still need the answer should I give him some money from my allowance and WIBTA if I don't ? (Sorry for any errors in writing, I'm writing on tablet with a stylus)

I’m here again asking questions 🥹. I got my rear break pads, caliper and rotor replaced because a shop recommended me to do so. I did it and my break feels spongy and softer than before so I went back to the shop immediately. During the conversation, I learned that they were using refurbished parts but this was never disclosed to me at any point during the sale, repair and car pick up. Is this normal for shops to do this? According to the manager, he said he never told me it was new, and at this price point he can only use refurbished parts. However, I feel like this should be communicated ahead of time. I would have been okay if he was being honest up front but now I spent $800, and my car feels worse than before… I am also worried that the refurbished parts does not come from a verified source, which could post potential safety issues. I am new in this city by myself and I really don’t know much about cars. This is an older car I have been driving since college that I paid through working 3 part time jobs. I still have a lot of student loans and don’t have a lot of money so $800 is a lot for me already. I never expected genuine parts, but at least new parts from verified sources. Especially on breaks. Any suggestions on what next steps I could take?

I had an abusive therapist in 2021 whom I recently, and so kindly, made a review page for on RateMDs (Canada); turns out a lot of people feel the exact same way about her, and one person claimed they are reporting her to the ethics board due to her verbal attacks.
My next therapist in 2022 was abusive, even worst than the last. It was so bad I ended up reporting to the ethics board, and the therapist is now doing coaching for the time being. If I had recorded the sessions it would have been game over for that therapist. It killed me for a long time that I didn't record the sessions.
I later sought out a new therapist; my friend warned me that the one I chose had "crazy eyes" and it was red flags all over (based on their PP profile). I should have listened.
This new therapist, Alex, almost killed me, again. He was awful. The second I walked in the room, I warily mentioned my past experience with the abusive therapist. In response, Alex started accusing me of having "destructive" behaviours - despite that I didn't tell him anything about my behaviours yet. I hadn't told him anything at all, just that I was anxious due to a past experience. I think he has issues with younger women.
I saw Alex from August 2023 - April 2024. In this time, he was immediately convinced of his own assumptions - never asked me to explain my experiences or thoughts or anything like that - confronted me constantly for things he pulled out of thin air (he would twist anything I said and then confront me for some alleged bad behaviour or cognitive distortion), and was entirely unwilling to try a different approach despite my (at first) gentle attempts to communicate that his approach wasn't working and was making me very unwell. I can gladly provide examples but it'd end up being a long ass post if I do that, so bear with me. He couldn't handle me even trying to talk about my past therapy abuse, because it was assumed to be my fault. Any dissent was "resistance" or rigidity. He refused to do trauma work despite that being the foundational problem.
He refused to let me "free associate" (psychodynamic therapy) because he was convinced it would cause me some wild regression (as if his current approach wasn't fucking me up). That is, he refused to let me speak my mind.
There was nothing for me to work with in the therapy. It wasn't grounded in reality; it was just all about how awful I am, yet not even in a way that was tangible - he could never explain himself. I was already hanging on a thread from my past abusive therapists, and I pretty quickly developed a substance use disorder (prescription) to try to cope. Began to vape nicotine constantly to try to stabilize myself. I began to isolate myself. By December 2023 I stopped going out at all - again. You know, almost died from the therapist in 2022, my life was almost ruined, and couldn't go out at all, and there I was basically back in the same place.
I never missed a single session. I even opted to increase to twice a week session in an attempt to resolve whatever was going amiss. I continuously tried to establish a working relationship with him. My self-confidence and sense of reality and self were devastated.
Anyway, March 2024 comes around and it comes out Alex diagnosed me with BPD and that was why he was so confrontational (and frankly pulling horrible things out of thin air). Now, I'm pretty darn sure I have either schizotypal or a psychotic disorder. I was under the impression he was treating me for this, as he himself said he dx'd me with schizotypal. But I was also very confused because being confrontational with the kinds of populations I fit into is exactly not what you're supposed to do and has been proven to fuck them up. It's one of the reasons I stayed so long; I just dissociated into oblivion. Not to mention the CPTSD.
I end up sending Alex an email detailing my experiences, which was hard to do. He never asked me about my experiences before (it was all about his assumptions of me), and I thought I needed to try to put an end to this, to again try to establish a working relationship.
The next session, Alex immediately begins to apologize, tells me how he misdiagnosed me, that he's been treating me for a Cluster B disorder when he should have been treating me for a Cluster A, that the "treatment" not working wasn't my fault. He also was convinced that this is what went wrong in my past therapies; that they misdiagnosed me with BPD when the issue was schizotypal, and that it just so happens that applying the confrontational treatment for BPD to schizotypal can basically end the schizotype. (TBH he was way too generous to these past therapists; all him saying that proved to me was that he never believed me in the first place.) He told me he "failed me" and that I "humbled him." He was almost crying he seemed so sorry.
I was already looking for a new therapist, but I was grateful that at least it seemed like things were set straight with Alex. I mean, I now had a substance use disorder and all the more therapy trauma, but I'm pretty happy with little. It was mutually agreed upon that the termination was due to the ways in which the misdiagnosis made the treatment inhospitable for me. It was ended amicably but I noticed he began to act weird around me, very distant, etc. I didn't think much of it, figured maybe he was more emotionally involved when he thought I had BPD for whatever reason.
Found a new therapist at the beginning of April - a formally trained, international psychoanalyst who lives in Prague out of all things (was getting desperate) - and things are going well, finally. No therapy abuse; no issues that even closely resemble the issues I've had with the abusive therapists, etc. Things are finally "easy" with a therapist; the sailing is as smooth as it can be. Also it's entirely free association and it hasn't caused me any issues, contrary to Alex's conviction that letting me speak freely would be devestating to my wellbeing.
Well, two days ago I contacted Alex as I wanted to go to a boutique treatment centre for my prescription substance use issue and they were requesting recent past therapist notes. I thought what a better option than to have Alex send his notes with an explanation that he misdiagnosed me, that he thinks I have been misdiagnosed continuously in past therapies and that's why I've been "treatment resistant," and so on and so forth. Also, given that I developed the issue because of the stress from Alex, this way my story would be corroborated.
Alex was adamant sending his notes was a bad idea, and that the ethics board actually recommends that psychologists write summary letters of the treatment instead. I thought that was nice that Alex was looking out for me. I explained to Alex what I'm looking for in the letter (with the central focus being on the misdiagnosis issue), and that my main goal is to help prove my eligibility for the program (they only take "highly motivated" clients; it's more relaxed in terms of restrictions and what not). I agreed to pay Alex around $400 for his time. I really thought Alex and I were making further amends and that it was so nice he could have my back on this.
Alex gets back to me with the worst letter imaginable. All about how the treatment failed because of ME, how we never made any progress because of ME, that the "lack of consensus on treatment goals and methods" was a massive barrier, and that this all happened despite that the frequency was increased to twice a week (which he failed to mentioned only occurred because I requested it, in an effort to save the therapy!). He made no mention of the fact that I never missed a single therapy session or any fact that would make me sound good, not to mention that he didn't even so much as touch on the fact that the therapy failed because of HIS misdiagnosis. He made it sound like the termination occurred because of how treatment resistant I was.
He also downplayed my trauma (I asked him to speak out this in the letter), saying only how I have a family history of "neglect" and being "scapegoated." My mother would scream at me, like to the point her lungs were going to burst, as a small child until I blacked out, this continued up until I was kicked out at 18, and I have serious CPTSD. I was even diagnosed with PTSD at one point. Like? Alex is supposed to be a specialist in trauma.
So I read the letter and was confused. Got back to him assuring that I'd still pay him, but suggested maybe he remove some parts of it if he can't revise them. Told him I disagree with the reasons for termination and why the treatment didn't work out, and reminded him of the fact he misdiagnosed me. I was honestly very confused and thought maybe he forgot. Told him it's probably not helpful to minimize my trauma.
Cue a minute after I send that email, and it suddenly dawns on me. The pathetic excuse of a therapist never recorded his fuck up in my clinical file. He obviously maintained his delusional narrative within his notes, presumably to cover his ass in case I reported him or sued him for malpractice (unlikely anyway), given that his misshapen and misapplied "treatment" caused me a ton of harm due to his incompetence.
I was seeing red and sent him another email informing him that I actually recorded our final sessions in light of what happened with my previous therapist (and Alex knew about my regret of not recording those sessions, and I'd often leave my phone out during our sessions). It's one-party consent in Canada, and Alex at the very beginning told me he was fine if I recorded the sessions anyway. So yeah, I emailed Alex whilst appalled telling him all about how I recorded him stating he misdiagnosed me, was treating me for the wrong disorder, that therapy not working wasn't my fault, and so on.
Told him he can either write me a letter based on facts - facts I can corroborate given my session recordings - or I'm not paying him for shit. Told him to not even bother replying if he isn't willing to write me a letter grounded in reality. Shockingly, he never got back to me.
And now he'll never know if I was bluffing and he gets to spend the next few months in terror that I'm going to use session recordings to report him for knowingly putting false information in clinical documentation.
What the hell. He could have at least TRIED to make me sound decent in the letter given that he knew what he was saying was bullshit. I guess dissonance is a real bitch. I also don't for a second buy that if I had BPD, his shit-tier "treatment" would have magically worked. It was gaslighting and abusive. You can't just make horrible assumptions about people or create a false reality, shove that in the person's face, then gaslight them all the more when the person is fucking confused and, eventually, distraught.
What a gaslighting loser. I should legitimately report him. Leaving him a bad review as we speak.
(I have had many legitimate delusions myself and don't find the term "delusional" as a pejorative to be offensive. LMK if I should edit it out though.)

I too have received several calls from this company. What scares me is they know my current phone number (which is just 3 months old) and address-which very few people know. I made sure of that, and my phone number too. They know everything about me, even the year, make and color of the car I have. They even knew I was previously in a bankruptcy and my attorney's name, and the last day of employment for a previous employer. But they had my ex husband-whom I have been divorced from for 30 years-as a contact I was supposed to have given. While they knew my current and prior address of which I have not lived out in 10 years, and was supposed to have taken out the loan then, but then changed it and said it was in 2019. They also had me living at another address too. They will talk nice to you until you start asking questions then they are rude and hateful, even screaming at you. I tried to call back and ask for a supervisor but they always transferred me back to the original person-even with my number blocked. The last person I spoke with was kind of nice, until I started laughing at some of the things he was saying. My previous employer sold his business so they could not have spoken to him at the number they provided. Plus they had his name wrong. I was laughing when they said they would serve me paperwork at my home and employer and the paperwork had already been sent to the courthouse. I know for a fact you do not get advance notice when being served-they just show up at your home or business. I finally got them to email me information of which I immediately turned over to my current personal attorney. The name of the business they say I owe does not lend money-they send your information to several other companies and they are the ones that would contact you-not whom they say they are representing. 1st Point Solutions are scammers. Don't let anyone tell you differently.

During all the confusion of student loan payments starting again, my loans were moved from Great Lakes to Nelnet. Back in August ‘23 I submitted all of the necessary paperwork for them for my IDR, which was all processed through studentaid.gov. My application was approved and I have been paying on my loans this entire year. Suddenly, I get an email saying my application was closed because they have been trying to contact me to get more “documents.” First, I have had zero communication from them about this. Second, it doesn’t make sense that I would be paying some arbitrary number on my loans this entire year if my application wasn’t complete. I called and they told me I have to redo my entire application with them because some “documents” weren’t given. Nobody could tell me what these mysterious “documents” were. After talking with someone for 90 minutes they said they could reopen my application and I just need to send in my proof of income. I verified with them that I do not need to redo my application three times. I sent those in and thought all should be fine because it still shows I owe them money within the first week of June. My spouse now makes more money so if I redo my application my payment would nearly double. Well, joke’s on me, just received another email saying I need to redo my entire application. Someone screwed up on their end and now I have to fix it for them.

Phil Aston: Hello and welcome to the Now Spinning Magazine podcast with me, Phil Aston. And in this episode, I’m absolutely delighted to have with me Tony Martin, one of the UK’s most underrated rock vocalists. You’ve had a really varied career, but what we’re going to talk about today specifically is Black Sabbath and the new “Anno Domini” box set. So, welcome, Tony. Thank you so much for joining me.
Tony Martin: Thank you. And thank you for having me on the show. Very cool.
Phil Aston: A bit of context, because I think this is kind of helpful for you. My son is 30 now, but when he was 15, he set up a Facebook group, kind of saying, “One day, please can we have the Tony Martin Black Sabbath albums released?” That was 15 years ago. He was still at school, half his lifetime ago. And I think in the early time when he set this up, he may have reached out to you and you might have said something like, “I don’t think it’s gonna happen, Dan.” And here we are, all these years later, and it’s not only happened, but it comes out this Friday. How does that feel to know that these albums are now going to be available again?
Tony Martin: Well, first of all, well done to your son. It took 15 years, but he got it done. To be honest, there’s been a few periods when I didn’t think it was happening. In fact, about a year ago, Tony Iommi’s manager called me and said, “You know what, this is just so complicated. I don’t think we can do this.” So I was resigned to it not happening myself. It’s all to do with band politics, really. There are so many people involved or have their fingers in the pie that they all have to be on board. And there were allegiances changing all over the place, left, right, and center. So in the end, it was getting a bit tiring, but well done to Tony Iommi and BMG. My God, the patience they showed to get this thing together and actually get it out there. Wow. But how does it feel? It feels brilliant, to be honest. I’m very excited. I haven’t actually had these albums in my own hands physically for the past 25 years. I gave all mine away thinking I’d be able to get some more, and I didn’t. They just stopped making them. So to actually physically hold them again is really cool. What a great job they’ve done of it. So I’m thrilled and excited. And I’m helping out now because I’m not in the band, obviously, anymore. So I just offered my help to promote it and they said, “Great, let’s do it.”
Phil Aston: Isn’t it amazing? Because I’ve done quite a few reviews about Black Sabbath box sets and stuff, but this one, within about 12 hours, there’s literally 12,000 views of the review. The love for this period of Black Sabbath is actually huge. It’s grown. It almost feels as if the profile is higher now than it was at the time.
Tony Martin: Yeah, there is a kind of reason for that. Partly people have got over the “it’s the new guy” thing, and also it’s been 25 years since. So now we’re reaching out to a whole other group of people, in addition to those that were already there. But to the outside world, it looks like there was a huge gap, and to me it felt like a huge gap. But actually, the fans were always there. I’ve been waiting myself as well to get this back out there. And it’s just band politics, really. That’s all it is.
Phil Aston: Because you had that period when it was almost as if this part of Sabbath’s history was hidden because of band politics. None of this really happened, which I think probably stirred up more interest and kind of people wanting to find out more.
Tony Martin: Yeah, it could be. It’s an old famous thing, you know, if something ain’t around for a while, people start talking about it. But yeah, it’s a strange thing, the music business. You’re either in fashion or you’re not. But I am just thrilled that they’ve got around it. Just the patience they’ve shown to actually put this together. At one point they were just saying, “We can’t do it.” But I’m really chuffed anyway.
Phil Aston: I imagine there’s been compromises along the way. Lots of fans probably don’t understand how complicated the politics and all the different licenses and everything that goes on over the years, they become more and more entangled. People say, “Where’s Eternal Idol?” But of course, that was a different record label. Different people own it.
Tony Martin: Yeah, absolutely. It’s owned by somebody else. And also Eternal Idol, or “Eternal Idiot,” as we call it, was kind of reissued not that long ago. Really.
Phil Aston: That’s right. With the two CD version, wasn’t it?
Tony Martin: Yeah. So they were kind of thinking, “Well, there’s no real panic because that’s already been done and let’s just move on.” Because that would have wrapped them up in contracts for centuries, I think. I can’t even think that they’ll ever get them to let that go. But they were struggling to get the people involved with these four albums to make up their minds and do stuff. I’ve been all for it all the way along, I have to say. Obviously, because it’s my career, my history. It’s not just the band’s history. It’s ten years of my life that went AWOL. So, yeah, I’ve been up for it all the way along, but some people don’t and it’s taken them a while to get on board.
Phil Aston: I think it’s fantastic. The first one was Headless Cross. You joined one of the biggest rock bands with all that history behind it. You were an established singer with the Alliance. But this was a chance, as you say, with Eternal Idol, you went in and it was already prepared. You sang it, but this one was where you could really put your mark on it, your personality lyrically as well as musically. Can you remember what it was like actually being at the beginning of that? Did you feel comfortable around Iommi and Powell and thinking, “Right, what kind of lyrics am I going to do by Headless Cross?”
Tony Martin: Yeah, I was comfortable by then. Well, kind of. The thing is, with Eternal Idol, if I can just backstep a little bit. The Eternal Idol wasn’t the first call up. The first call up was in 1986 when they were doing the Seventh Star with Glenn Hughes. And that scared me to death because I can’t sing like Glenn Hughes. Nobody can sing like Glenn Hughes. They put me on standby back then, so I’d sort of tentatively had an introduction to Tony Iommi. Then in ’87, they got me in for the audition, and that was the next introduction to Tony Iommi. But because Eternal Idol was already written, that gave me a whole year plus a bit more to find out what this thing was. What the hell was I supposed to do? So just doing Eternal Idol like that was fine by me because I didn’t have to discover anything myself back then. It gave me a chance to get my feet in. So by the time it got to Headless Cross, now I know all the guys, and I kind of know what’s expected of me. I still had to find the “me” that I needed to find. I went around it the only way I could, by focusing on things I was interested in. I couldn’t do the lyrics and melodies that Geezer was writing for Ozzy because that was a generation before me. The stuff that Ronnie was doing was fantastic, but I couldn’t get inside his head. So I had to think about what I was going to do. I had an interest in the old gothic death stuff, like Dracula and Frankenstein, Mary Shelley type writing, and of course, in England, we have Shakespeare. Nobody speaks English like that anymore, that old English text. I thought, “Old English text, gothic death, and Black Sabbath. That might work.” So I put them all together and came up with Headless Cross, which is where I lived. I lived in a village called Headless Cross.
Phil Aston: Yeah, you put that on the map. They weren’t pleased about it. The most recognition I’ve got is my name on a bus stop. And Cozy Powell thought the album needed more death, didn’t he?
Tony Martin: Oh, that’s true. That’s actually true. We were recording “When Death Calls,” and he was in the studio playing, and he suddenly stopped. We went, “You alright?” He went, “Yeah, just remind me, what’s this song called again?” I said, “It’s called When Death Calls.” He said, “I don’t think there’s enough death in it.” And he carried on playing. So, okay, maybe he’s taking the piss, but isn’t it such a great sounding album? As Tony Iommi says, he never left Black Sabbath. So when people criticize him, saying, “You should change the name or whatever,” he never left. So it was still Black Sabbath. The riffs, the guitar sound was reaching new peaks of excellence around this time.
Because when it was just him and Ozzy, for example, it was guitar, that was it. When Geoff Nichols joined during the Dio period, it introduced a few more keyboard things. That allowed Iommi to play solos against those keyboard pads and chords. And then you come along and start sticking 50 tracks of vocal harmonies on it, like in Anno Mundi and stuff like that. It just kept developing. Sabbath isn’t really known for vocal harmonies and keyboards, but underneath that was still Tony Iommi. And it still sounded like Sabbath. We were happy to do that. We just wanted to make Tony happy and do the best for him. It was his band. So we were happy to seek out that Sabbath sound and make sure it did what it said on the tin. A couple of times, like with the Seventh Star thing, he ventured a little bit away from it. Songs like Heart Like a Wheel don’t really make the Black Sabbath sound, but it’s still good stuff. I have great respect for all of the eras that went before. I had to sing all of the songs. So I do have great respect for it. And it’s been an honor, you know, like being part of the whole story. But he was the only one that stuck it out. And we respected him for that. You’re right, they did ask him to change a couple of times. He said, “No, I can’t change now.”
Phil Aston: The next one, if I pronounce this right, it’s Tyr.
Tony Martin: Yeah.
Phil Aston: Because when it came out, me and my friends, actually, because there was no Internet back then and nowhere to go and check it, we did call it Tyr. To be.
Tony Martin: Yeah, Tyr.
Phil Aston: Watch you find in Birmingham. You know what I mean? So it actually rhymes with beer, doesn’t it?
Tony Martin: It is, yeah. Actually, it’s Tiw, which is Scandinavian for the son of Odin or something.
Phil Aston: Well, this is almost as close, probably, to Sabbath getting into almost a concept album. Isn’t it? This is a collection of songs that in another time and space you probably as a band would have gone out and performed the whole thing.
Tony Martin: Yeah, it wasn’t meant that way, but they were struggling to find a name for the album. We were recording and getting towards the end and the management called us up and said, “We really need a name for this album.” And Cozy said, “I’ve got one. Let’s call it Satanic Verses.” We went, “What, like Salman Rushdie thing?” He said, “Yeah, it would be great publicity.” We said, “Yeah, but we’ll all be dead.” So we did struggle, but they happened across the artwork. We’d done Anno Mundi, we’d done Gates of Valhalla and all that sort of stuff. They went, “What if… Tyr?” It was fine by me. So it took on the Viking sort of theme. By that time, I was thinking, once I’d done Headless Cross and started to have an interest in the Vikings and stuff. As you know, the Vikings haven’t been particularly good for us. They came over and stole all our women and sheep and whatever. But I had an interest in them as well. So I was thinking, every culture, every religion has its dark side. There’s always a devil type in a god type. I thought we could go around the world and I could do this. You could pick up on all sorts of cultures and pick out the dark side of various things. But it was the last kind of… I still did that with various other songs and various other artists. But Tyr was leaning towards that theme.
Phil Aston: It’s an excellent album. Then of course, the strangeness of the politics in Sabbath. Dehumanizer comes along and Dio re-enters the scene. You obviously had an opportunity because every cloud has a silver lining. You can go off and do your solo album at this time. But you did kind of like… It sounds like it was almost a forced relationship, the way that he was and he wasn’t. I mean, how was that period for you? Because you did demo some of the tracks, didn’t you?
Tony Martin: Firstly, it was a shock. I didn’t see that coming at all. Literally just walking out the door to the next writing rehearsals. My managers called up and said, “They don’t want you to go.” From what I recently found out, although I had my suspicions, Tony Iommi said the record label just wasn’t supporting it. They weren’t getting behind us at all. Then they started banding about all different names and stuff, and Ronnie’s name came up. They thought they’d give it a go. He said it was all on and off all the time. After they let me go, it wasn’t too long before Tony called me back and said, “Can you come back?” I said, “No, I can’t. I’m doing my solo album.” More time went by, and he called me back again and said, “Are you sure you can’t come back?” I said, “I’m doing my solo album. I really can’t.” He said, “Do you want to come down and try?” So I did. I went down and tried putting my voice on some of the songs, but it would have meant rewriting everything, and they weren’t going to do that. So I said, “The best thing is if you finish this with Ronnie, get this done and out of the way, then maybe we can talk again later.” So that’s kind of what happened. By that time, I’d done my solo album, which I wanted to get as far away from the Sabbath thing as I could at the time. I went back to doing what the Alliance and some of the bands I’d been with, that middle-of-the-road AOR type stuff. But when they called me back to Sabbath, Polydor dropped my solo album like a brick. They said, “We can’t do this if you’re going to go back with them.” So that got stopped. It’s so confusing. By the time I got back with the guys to Cross Purposes, it didn’t feel that much of a gap for me, because I’ve been talking to them and working with them through the Dehumanizer thing.
Phil Aston: Stylistically, that album, because it was on the IRS label, I know some people have said, “Well, it should be in there.” Stylistically, musically, it’s very different. I mean, you take it out. These four albums in this set, excluding Eternal Idol, they sound like a progression. Dehumanizer sounds like a kind of sidestep. Even the way the riffs are done in the songs, it’s changed. You take the vocalist out, but the music continued. You took you out and it was very different.
Tony Martin: I suppose it does a bit. If I go back and think over it, I guess that’s what it was. It was kind of an interruption into the flow of things. When we were doing Tyr, I thought we were doing really well. I thought we were onto something. Dehumanizer, in that sort of respect, does feel a little bit like an interruption. But there was some good stuff on there. Ronnie’s always been a good singer. I don’t quite know how they feel about it, but it was kind of nothing to do with me. I just let them get on with it.
Phil Aston: After that, Cross Purposes is probably, out of the four albums in this set, my personal favorite. Geezer’s back in the band now, so you’ve got his bubbling bass in there. And again, lyrically, it’s all you. Did you feel any kind of, “Oh, Geezer’s back. Will he want to help out?”
Tony Martin: I did ask. He just said, “No, you can do it.” So I just carried on.
Phil Aston
The reason why I love this album is that it’s varied. A lot of people think of Black Sabbath as the Godfathers of heavy metal, and heavy metal is always heavy metal. But if you think back to albums like Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in the seventies, they weren’t all heavy metal. There were all sorts of things on there. There were keyboards and light and shade. This, I felt, connected to that album, because you had light and shade on it. So there were more dynamics in the lyrical delivery and the song delivery, in the way that Iommi is weaving his riffs around the melodies. What are your thoughts looking back on this album now?
Tony Martin: I think you’ve just summed it up. It did sort of shift up a notch. Not only that, but the sound they were getting with Leif Mases producing it, it sort of grew up. It lifted somehow out of what they’d done before. It felt like, “Oh, this sounds good.” The songwriting and the exploring we were doing with the songs and stuff. At the time, Geezer Butler said that’s the best album he’s ever been on. He never said that again, but he said it at the time.
Phil Aston: I can imagine him saying just that.
Tony Martin: But it was good. Having Bobby Rondinelli in the band as well. Technically amazing. Brilliant player. His drums close in, and he plays with his wrists. Very technical. Whereas Cozy’s drums are stretched out far and wide. He’d lean over and hit them. But great to have them both in. What an honor. I mean, it’s Geezer Butler as well.
Phil Aston: When you got to South America, Bill Ward was in for a few gigs, wasn’t he? That must have been quite surreal. Bill Ward and Geezer playing songs like Headless Cross, which they had nothing to do with.
Tony Martin: They had nothing to do with. We were kind of weird because once we’d started to get Geezer and Bill back in, they wanted to start doing more of the older songs. That just makes you look, read between the lines going, “What’s going on? Where’s this going?” Once it’s happened to you, you know it. Then you’re reading between the lines. You start to feel it. Then you go, “Ah, right.” You can feel it. They’re clearing up. I did ask if they were going to do a reunion with Ozzy. Iommi was always denying it. Said, “No, no, we’re not doing that.” But I didn’t mind. The reason for that is because I knew what I could do in the future then. I thought, “Well, if they just tell me, that’s fine. Cause then I can plan.” The first time it was a shock and I didn’t know what to do. But I was kind of keyed up for it the next time. But he kept going. They got Bill in. I love Bill. I think he’s brilliant. We did some shows with him. But for some reason, and I don’t know what it is, I mean, I can tell you Iommi loves Bill. He regaled so many stories about when they were out there and how funny it was. I never understood why they never gave him time to get back in it. When you think of Def Leppard, they made a drum kit for a one-armed drummer.
Phil Aston: Yes, very true.
Tony Martin: Surely they can find time to get Bill settled back in. Whatever problems they’ve got. I mean, come on.
Phil Aston: You would think, yeah, very true.
Tony Martin: Get on with it. I thought, “Right, this is going to go south again.” But it didn’t. We carried on with Forbidden, and then Cozy came back after his accident. It was really up and down. Confusing. People in and out. During the time I was in the band, there were eight different lineups.
Phil Aston: It was very much a revolving door, wasn’t it? Before we move on, I just want to ask, because I know a lot of fans ask this. In the booklets in these box sets, there’s an image of Cross Purposes Live. That was a VHS tape and a CD. Is there a reason why that wasn’t included in some way? Is that game politics?
Tony Martin: I did ask about that, and they were just keen to get on with it. They said, “Come on, let’s go, let’s do it.” What they told me was that they’re going to take their time now to see what else they can gather and do an additional thing to this along the way with more of that in it. With the Cross Purposes Live and some other stuff. There’s a track that I recorded with them when Eddie Van Halen came and did Evil Eye.
Phil Aston: Yes, yeah, Evil Eye, wasn’t it?
Tony Martin: Yeah. I used to take the track out. I had it everywhere. Writing sessions, recording sessions, rehearsals. I just happened to be there. I didn’t even know who was coming. Iommi just turned up with Eddie Van Halen. I went, “Holy hell, it’s Eddie Van Halen. What’s he doing here?” He did some rehearsals with us and then disappeared. Never saw him again. But I got the recordings of the rehearsals that we did.
Phil Aston: Oh, wow.
Tony Martin: So I sent them to Tony Iommi. I said, “Use these. Get these on.” He said, “No, no, we can’t.” The reason they said was anything that has the slightest newness about it looks like a new Black Sabbath track or album track. They’re not allowed to release anything new under the Black Sabbath name. So even if it’s historical, they couldn’t allow it. It’s really weird.
Phil Aston: That means there must be lots of live stuff recorded. More bands were recording live stuff from the nineties onwards that you just couldn’t work on because it would go out under the Black Sabbath name.
Tony Martin: Not just live stuff. I’ve got about eight tracks that we never released. Just from the writing sessions and rehearsals and stuff that we used to do. They just can’t get out. They just won’t allow it.
I don’t understand. Well, I kind of understand. When you’re trying to protect your name, your mark, your image, your everything, which is where the band politics comes in, they won’t allow you to do anything that they think. And there’s all kinds of… Everybody from Ozzy to Dio to everybody. They don’t want their thing to be diluted or taken away. I do understand that. There are people involved all along the way that have an objection of some kind or another.
Phil Aston: But I guess, hopefully, this box set’s going to sell out really quickly and will show there’s a demand for this material and for this part of Black Sabbath history. There’s a lot of love for it. A lot of people worked really hard within it, like yourself. They’re great albums, wonderful songs. If there’s other music waiting in the wings, whereas we all get older, thinking through the eyes of the fan, it would go down so well, wouldn’t it? But I am, as you are, very grateful that these four albums have arrived in a box.
Tony Martin: Yes, it’s an important thing for me. It’s an important thing for the band, and it’s a great thing for the fans. I’m thrilled. It’s been an honor to be part of the story. I love the fact that it’s out there now. They did say there is no limit to the box sets. They have sold out on day one.
Phil Aston: I’m not surprised.
Tony Martin: They said the way they do it is they tend to poll the outlets and stuff and say, “How many do you think you can sell?” And they put their numbers in, and they’ve gone way past that. So now they’ve got to go back and produce more. There’s no limit to it. I love what they’ve done. There’s more in the box set than just the albums. Posters, programs, and everything.
Phil Aston: And then Forbidden. I’ll be honest, Tony, when I heard this for the first time back in the day, I didn’t like it. I tried, but I didn’t like it. My son liked it because I think probably because his dad didn’t. But now the remix, it’s as if someone’s released the drums and the guitars. It sounds like a Black Sabbath album. It sounds fantastic, doesn’t it?
Tony Martin: It does. It’s brilliant. I love the fact that they’ve dismantled it and put it back in a way that they couldn’t or didn’t with the other three. Forbidden needed it for all kinds of reasons. It was done under a sort of cloud where a lot of us weren’t really into it very much. But it was also an attempt at trying to give Sabbath a kind of acceptable twist to the youth. It didn’t work.
Phil Aston: The nineties were weird, weren’t they? The nineties were strange for heavy rock.
Tony Martin: The problem was we were fast heading towards great new bands like Nirvana and eventually Green Day and Metallica doing stuff. We were going and they were trying to change the sound to fit in. It didn’t work. We didn’t think it would. But there are people out there that love Forbidden as it is. I said that to Iommi. Last time I saw him, there are people out there that love it. He said, “They’ll probably love this version now.” But shaking the chains, guilty as hell, rusty angels, forbidden. And of course, “Loser Gets It All” is a great track. That wasn’t even on the album originally.
Phil Aston: It’s brilliant.
Tony Martin: Yeah. Strange. I absolutely love it now. It does sound like a Black Sabbath album. It sounds like it should be there in amongst the others. They’ve done a great job. Tony and his engineers have really pulled it together. It’s slightly more guitar and slightly less keyboard. They’ve done Cozy’s drums. Fantastic job on those.
Phil Aston: They’re just unleashed, aren’t they?
Tony Martin: Yes. They haven’t changed anything. They’ve mixed it and given it a new attitude, which is brilliant. They’ve given it more space. It sounds bigger. I just love what they’ve done to it. I’m really proud of it now. I didn’t like it then. There’s still a couple of tracks where I would love to have gone back in and…
Phil Aston: Yeah, you know.
Tony Martin: I thought at the time, because I was that off it at the time, my head just wasn’t quite there. A couple of tracks I thought I could have done better. I did sort of say when they were doing it, “Can I go back in?” They said, “No.”
Phil Aston: I suppose because that might edge towards it being a new recording then.
Tony Martin: Yeah, tricky. I’m not going to tell you which tracks it is, but there were a couple in there that I wasn’t quite happy with. But on the whole, it’s a great job they’ve done.
Phil Aston: Because when you were playing live, there were more songs from your period in Sabbath coming into the set, weren’t there? You were a unique vocalist in many ways for the band. You could cover Ozzy, Dio. You probably could have done Ian Gillan. Anything. You could have the ultimate set list, really, going through every era.
Tony Martin: That was a bit of a mistake. I told them I could sing anything, really. They thought, “What can we give him to sing?” They threw all sorts of stuff at me. I had a shot. Fortunately, I’ve got the kind of voice that can get around most things, and that’s a result of being in so many different kinds of music. I’ve been involved in everything from reggae to rock.
Phil Aston: Who were your key vocal influences growing up? As you say, outside of this Black Sabbath badge, your voice can go in any direction. So who were your influences? Was it blues, soul, rock?
Tony Martin: It kept changing. Everything I listened to, I thought, “That’s good. That’s good.” Each couple of years, something else took my attention. I’d really pour my soul into it. When I started off with reggae, believe it or not, I worked with Musical Youth and Dexys Midnight Runners in the studio. I was a guitarist back then. Then I loved blues. I got into prog rock bands like Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull. Then it shifted to Emerson, Lake & Palmer. That led to Rush and bands like that. Then I had to come down out of that prog rock technical stuff because Sabbath is much more honest and basic and straightforward. To a point. When you’re in the band and you find out how he does it, it’s stunning. I never even gave it a thought. I thought, “It’s got to be easy.” It wasn’t easy at all. Iommi can put seven, eight different riffs into one song, and each one of the riffs could be a song on their own.
Phil Aston: Very true.
Tony Martin: So, wow. You get your head around it. It’s weird. Plus, the time signatures he was throwing at us. There was a 14/4 and a 15/8 or something he was throwing at us. How he gets his head around it, I just don’t know. When I saw him a few weeks ago, he said, “You did a really good job on this.” I said, “Thanks, man.” He said, “I actually don’t know how you sang over some of this stuff.” I said, “Neither do I.”
Phil Aston: Just mad, isn’t it? You could try anything. I might have thought, “That means you might be able to put some of the songs in that Ozzy couldn’t do into the set. Or I can try something that I’ve never been able to do before because Tony says he can do anything.”
Tony Martin: It’s because I showed willing. I told them I’d have a go. And I did have a go. I did put into it. The songs, the writing, the live shows, whatever. I kind of made a rod for my own back in some ways because it was hard flicking between all of the different vocal techniques. But I did my best. It sort of came across okay. The problem is when you try to do stuff like that, it can sound a bit like a tribute act. But we got it nailed, I think. Especially having people like Cozy Powell, Geezer Butler, and all those guys in the band. We were willing to seek out that Sabbath sound, and we were conscious of it. So we were all aiming for the same thing. From outside, it might have looked like a chaotic mess. But on the inside, it all had a focus. We were all willing to give it a go. That’s what I think they saw in me. I knew they liked my voice, but I think that’s what they saw, a willingness to have a go and see if you can make it work. All those different time signatures and riffs that I had to go, looking back, to me, it’s Black Sabbath. Like,
Phil Aston I’m a Deep Purple fan, and every lineup of Deep Purple is still Deep Purple. I know Black Sabbath, there’s lots of politics in the way some of the fans look at it. But I think, which is why they had Heaven and Hell later on instead of Black Sabbath, because of the politics. But listening to these four albums, one after the other, you brought to life Viking mythology and song. More death. Just your passion and the way you projected the lyrics and your phrasing makes these albums unique. An important part of the Sabbath story. Finally, do you feel like this outpouring of love for this lineup is validating everything? Any doubt that might have been back then?
Tony Martin: Yeah, doesn’t it just? The biggest validation is from Tony Iommi himself. It wasn’t regarded that highly until he sat and listened to it without the bickering going around. When I went down a few weeks ago, he said, “You did a great job on this. There’s fantastic songs on here.” I said, “I know.” It’s just that validation that he gives it. The fact that the fans are returning to it. The fact that we’ve got new fans coming to it. Whole new record labels. I think it’s Rhino in America. It’s BMG in the UK, Europe. The record labels are coming back to it and getting behind it. They see something in it. The management sees something in it. So it’s all coming together. Which is a shame because I’m not in the band anymore.
Phil Aston Who knows? Maybe you and Tony will think, “It’d be great if some of this other stuff can come out at some point and we don’t have to wait another 25 years.”
Tony Martin: If he was going to do that, he’d say, “Let’s just write some new stuff.” But from what I’ve been told, Tony’s touring dates are done now. He won’t be going out on the road again. That’s probably out of the question for writing. I did tell him I was interested if he wants to do something. But he’s got so much going on. He’s still busy. Doing stuff. He had that ballet, the Black Sabbath ballet.
Phil Aston: Yeah, that’s true.
Tony Martin: Never saw that coming. No, he’s working on all kinds of stuff. He’s writing new material for something else now.
Phil Aston: So what about you, Tony? Have you got any plans for another solo album?
Tony Martin: I never actually stopped. For the past 25 years, my career took me into the studio and writing for people. My voice appears on 89 albums and projects now. It’s been good for me. I owe everything to Black Sabbath because that’s how the world got to hear my voice. People know what they’re talking about when they talk to me. “Can you write, can you sing on this?” They already know what they’re hearing or expecting. I always try to make it better than what they give me in the first place. A lot of that is me in the studio, and I’m happy, and I still am, happy doing that. But I do tend to choose what I do these days.
Phil Aston: Yeah, that makes sense.
Tony Martin: So I’m still doing the odd thing for people now. I did have a solo album a couple of years ago called Thorns.
Phil Aston: Great album.
Tony Martin: Yeah, totally unknown guitarist from America, Scott McClellan. I only met him because he kept badgering me on Facebook. He kept sending me stuff. I was like, “Go away.” He said, “Listen to this. What about this one?” In the end, I listened to it and it was brilliant. So I gave it a go and it turned out really well. But then Covid interrupted that and we couldn’t get out there with it. Some countries were saying, “Yeah, you can come,” and other countries were saying, “No, you can’t.” It all got distracted. I haven’t finished with Thorns because they wanted to do a vinyl for it. They said we had to take some tracks off to get it to fit on the vinyl. I don’t want to take any tracks off.
Phil Aston: Make it a double.
Tony Martin: Yeah, make it a double. Write some more. I wasn’t prepared for that. I’m pacing up, trying to write some new songs. Scott has sent me loads. We’ve got enough tracks for Thorns 2, but I haven’t finished Thorns 1 yet. I’ve got to come back to that. I do want to finish that off and get that done. Then if we can do the next Thorns thing, who knows? We’d like to try and get it out on the road. Getting out on the road for me is so different to the Sabbath thing. The Sabbath machine is huge. They only have to mention it and all the cogs start turning all at the same time all the way around the world. It all starts fitting into place within days, within weeks. On your own, it’s different. I can’t do that. I have to hire other musicians to go out on the road and rehearse the whole thing and start again with a brand new show. It’s a lot harder for me, but I would love to get back out there. My career took me into the studio, so I’ve got more to do. But I just tend to choose now.
Phil Aston: If people want to get Thorns, is it DarkstarRecords.net? Is that the best place?
Tony Martin: No, Battle God. They are the main label. Darkstar were involved and they’re still there, but they’ve had some troubles in the past couple of years. They were on board and I did two versions of it from between the two territories. I liked that. But mostly now, Battle God is the label to grab hold of it. It’s still available and I’m still signing them. People send me the stuff to sign.
Phil Aston: But I haven’t finished yet, so there’s more to come.
Phil Aston: Brilliant. Well, thanks very much, Tony, for all of your time today. Everybody, make sure you go and get a copy on CD or vinyl of this Black Sabbath Tony Martin years box set, “Anno Domini.” It’s absolutely superb.
Tony Martin: Yeah, it is good. I’m just smiling. I think it’s brilliant.
Phil Aston: No, that’s it, isn’t it? Whatever anyone thinks, these albums are available again. People can hear just how awesome this time for Sabbath really was.
Tony Martin: Thank you. Thank you very much.
Phil Aston: All right, take care, and hopefully I’ll talk to you again in the future.
Tony Martin: Thank you. All right, Phil, thanks, mate. Cheers.
Phil Aston: Well, a huge thank you to my guest, Tony Martin. That was fantastic. I’m almost lost for words in knowing what to say to sum up that interview because I know a lot of you are really interested in this box set, “Anno Domini” by Black Sabbath, which is out on CD and vinyl. Just as I thought, it’s sold out already, but there’s going to be another pressing. I was able to ask some of the questions I know some of you have been wanting to know, like why weren’t there extra tracks? Why wasn’t the live Cross Purposes included, etc. So now you know. Some of it is really exciting because it means there might be a companion set with some outtakes or live stuff as well. That’s really exciting.
Tony Martin is a fantastic vocalist, really passionate, really imaginative with his lyrics and his vision of how he writes his music. These four albums are essential. They’re Black Sabbath albums, okay? That’s what they are. They sound like Black Sabbath albums. Wasn’t it interesting that Geezer Butler said Cross Purposes is the best album he’d ever played on? It is a truly remarkable album. But they all are: from Headless Cross, to Tyr (which I can now pronounce correctly), Cross Purposes, and Forbidden, which has been given a new lease of life. Seriously, it is incredible. Just stunning.
Thank you again to Tony Martin for joining me here on the Now Spinning Magazine podcast. Please keep spinning those discs, whether they are vinyl or CD. Check us out on the podcast. We’re on every platform you can think of, from Apple to Spotify to Amazon. Of course, we’re on YouTube. Please subscribe and check out the website at nowspinning.co.uk. Remember, music is the healer and the doctor. So take care and I’ll see you all very, very soon.
Watch the full interview here
Phil Aston Now Spinning Magazine

This is going to be a long one so bear with me please. I am also giving a lot of backstory and past issues bcz I feel they are relevant to the matter and also I feel like ranting. Also this is in India so the currency is Rupees. Before we start I just want to say that I am not perfect in any way or form and I have done any fair share of mistakes.
I(20F) have been in a relationship with my bf Jake(22M)(fake name) for roughly 5.5 yrs now. My family is not rich but we do have a lot of money bcz both my parents are doctors but I did not realise we have this much money until 2yrs ago. (Am not very street smart as U will see in this post). Since after abt 1.5 years of relationship (May 2020)when lockdown started his family fell on hardtimes as his family owns a shop and bcz of the Pandemic they weren't able to run it.
At first it was bcz one of his friend got into an accident so he needs money and he told me he will give it back etc (i don't remember if he ever did as it was yrs ago). At the time I had money saved up so I helped out the first few times with my own money. Then when I ran out of money then he said to ask my dad or mom, or steal from my house and give him some. A lil back story here, my mom and dad are separated so they did not used to talk about finances so I would take extra money from my dad than what was actually required and give the rest to jake. For e.g I required 3k for a parcel or smrg then I would ask for 5k, give my mother the 3k(I live with her, my father lives separately) and give the 2k to jake. I also gave him cash many times by essentially stealing from my mother's closet. When I used to say NO he hurled abuses at me and called me every name in the book which a person can imagine, guilt tripped me and pushed me very hard and I gave in almost every time. He told me he will give me back eventually, he has made an investment,etc. Basically all stupid lies to have more time, then one day during an arguement I pressed on when he is gonna return the money and after a lot of time he told me there is no investment and he used the money in his family's shop.
After 2.5 year of this in October-Nov of 2022 we both got admissions in universities which were around 2 hours away from each other. Till then this pattern continued and his family was still struggling bcz of his father's brother divided the joint business or something else. Before this when we were at out respective homes he told me he got some operation done for smtg in his abdomen. I gave him 10k from my mother's closet for that and even when I went to meet he had an area bandaged (was very unprofessionally done my dumb self should have understood that it was also fake) one of his friend also confirmed that he had operation done and I was coordinating with him on the said dates when he was supposedly admitted. He also used to frequently tell me that he has suicidal thoughts and he will end himself etc .
After we went to our respective colleges once we had a big fight and next day he told me that he tried to end himself by jumping of the balcony but his friend (who he was staying with at the time),Luke, stopped him worrying for him I called Luke later and told him I was worried for Jake and to pls take care of him. He was confused by this and asked me why what happened. I asked him abt last night's attempt, he told me nothing of that sort happened. This opened a can of worms where it was revealed that he was making a fool out of me, guy owned a fucking Iphone and was telling me that his family was on hard times and taking money from me. This is also when I found out that their was no operation. I don't remember what else I found out that night but felt like a huge betrayal and I talked to 3 of his friends that night for quite a few hours where a lot of lies were revealed.
I broke it off with him, at this point I had lent a total of Rs.75-80k. He begged me for weeks for forgiveness, at first I laughed in his face but as weeks went by I started to miss us. He came to meet and win me back a few times at my uni. Eventually, a month later I forgave him on some conditions like he wont lie and share everything with me, won't tell me who or who not to be friends with (he did that before a lot).
Few months later the cycle started again, I was back to giving him money from the monthly spending amount I used to get(it was a lot at first bcz I was just settling in,now my monthy allowance is wayyy less). He did not like the friend group I was in so I stopped talking to them (bcz they knew abt our situation as I broke down crying in front of them when I found out abt all this so he felt like he lost respect and They didn't respect me etc, admittedly they weren't good and I would have distanced myself eventually anyways maybe cuz the vibe didn't match but that should have been my call I feel) and he still (>1 year later) yells at me if he suspects that I am casually talking to them.
My college is in a much smaller city so I go to meet him once to twice a month as he shares a flat with few ppl and the city has more activities to do. Other than the first few times (when we got back together) I pay almost if not all bills like gas (for his 2 wheeler) and food. It's very frustrating at times but I understand that he does not has enough money as his father does not send him enough to cover rent, food and expenses or so he says ( sighs IDK anymore guys what's true and what's not). Jake says his family is still struggling bcz his sister went to UK last year to study and that took a huge chunk of money and they have loans to pay, etc. I can believe this is true. Also he says they have virtually almost no savings left bcz business isn't doing great hence his father sends him rent t food expenses and says to manage The rest on his own (he does not has a job so guess where the money comes from 🤡).
In the Past few months admittedly he has not asked for money frequently but when he does its like a huge chunk. He has also taken loans (with interest) from some of his friends without telling me. He has done this multiple times before after I have repeatedly asked him to stop. (Embarrassingly I admit there are more instances when he has acted like a red curtain but I think I can write a book at this point if I list them all out so let's move on to the latest problem).
Onto The current issue Almost 3 days ago now, Jake called me (we already have been fighting for I don't even remember how many days at that point a week maybe?) and we told me that he was told by his dad that they have been unable to make payments for the loan they took from a person keeping their shop as collateral, they have to pay half the amount (Total amount was 5 lakhs) and interest which was 64k tomorrow to that person, they have arranged most of the money but are short by abt 30k. He asked me can I do something (steal or ask my dad). I refused as there is no money in my mother's closet anyway and I haven't talked to my dad in abt 3 months now. (ofcourse I did not outright refuse and just gave him my reas oning buz I'm a doormat 🥰🤡🤡). I pressed me to pls talk to my father about money and tell him I need it for my tablet (I bought one just a few days prior). I refused and said he won't give me money anyway.
He asked what about my mother's bank account, it must have something. One account is linked to UPI ( It's for making online payments in India) and one is not. The one that is linked does not have much money bCz my mother's salary has not been credited in 4 months. The other account has money but as it does not has UPI activated online payments cannot be done.I told him all of this. He asked can I activate the UPI if my mother's asleep and plz transfer him the money (also said to transfer it first to my own account so if she finds out then I can say my friend needed it so I have lent some for a month or two🙂 ) I mean maybe I could if I really wanted to but I have had enough, I do not want to steal. Now his family is potentially loosing the shop and he is blaming me for it. I have repeatedly tried to reason with him and told him that if I had the money in my account I would have given him (My account had 1k and I transferred him that😔). He says his blood relatives (his father's siblings refused to pay even a dime, I mean they and their children all are grown ups and have jobs and if They didn't pay how does he expect me, who does not has never had a job give him money, probably it's my fault I have enabled him enough every down time by giving him money so how he just expects everytime that I'll help bcz I am family).
He is still pressing me to give like 5k now bcz now he wants to go to another city and talk to the lender's brother to pls provide them with some Time. But I do not have the money 😕. He says that 'if I would have really wanted then I could but I did not think of his family as mine ', " U will understand my pain when U will loose something of yours for lesser value Than it really is " (The shop's market valve is 4O lakhs and they lost it for 5 lakhs) Also has called me quite a few names since then. He arranged 1K and said " I'm going today there I'll see what to do after reaching there." Says he wants to breakup ( it's pretty normal to say it's over after fights so I don't really know if he is even serious) for 2 reasons - 1. I did not give him money 2. When he will go to uni he won't have any spending money so he'll expect are to help out, and he knows I won't and he does not want that disappointment.
I mean TBH I wouldn't care if it were a few hundred rupees but it won't be, additionally I will be The one covering The costs as usual when I go to meet him. I won't have any money left for my own. And I really want to start saving up again. I have spent outrageous amounts of money in The past year (go figure the reason) and saved up nothing. Today he was still begging (he used the word) me to pls arrange the money. He said I leave for uni in 2 days after summer vacations so I'll get my allowance, technically I can ask for it in advance and give him. But I don't want to after he has treated me. Everytime I tell myself that this is the last time, I'll leave the next time he does this but I just stay.
I know I'm not responsible for him and his family but I still feel really guilty about not giving him the money. I know I should end things but it's just difficult to leave something which you have been attached to for so long, it just feels natural to you. Rn he owes me I don't even know how much but it's maybe around 1 lakh something. Not counting The amount of gifts (some he guilt tripped me into buying 🙄 ) I have bought him and the money I have spent on my trips to visit him. IDK if I'll ever see that money again probably not. Please also give me advice on how should I proceed with the breakup, I don't want him to do anything drastic like come to my house or call my mom to tell him abt our relationship (frowned upon in India).
I know the answer but still need the answer should I give him some money from my allowance and WIBTA if I don't ? (Sorry for any errors in writing, I'm writing on tablet with a stylus)

Hi everyone, I’m looking to get a shared ownership mortgage, my credit score is above 600 but I have like 10k debt on 2 credit cards and one loan.
I have 10% deposits saved for the SO house but my question is do I focus on clearing off these debts before applying through a mortgage broker so they won’t affect the mortgage payment/interest or will I still get a great deal with low interest rate?
I am currently tired of staying where I am, and might take me more than a year to save up for another deposit.
Has anyone applied with lower credit score and debt on their credit score and got a good deal before?
Any insights would be appreciated.
Thank you

I got a letter from SLC saying I only have 1 year left of payments remaining. They’ve recommended I switch to direct debit to prevent overpaying my student loan via auto cut from my PAYE.
I have two main questions:

1. Do I still have to pay 10% of my post-tax income if I switch to direct debit student loan payments? Let’s say I pay £350 per month via PAYE, when I switch to direct debit, can I choose a lower payment like £250 per month?
   
2. With a direct debit, what would happen if I chose to take a career break and I wasn’t earning anymore? Would I still need to make direct debit payments? According to Payment Plan 1, we only need to pay off our loans when we’re employed and earning over a certain threshold. Would this work with direct debit?
   

Of course I will get in touch with them, but would love to hear if anyone else has done the same?
Thanks to anyone that can help!

I know some probably won’t believe me, but this story is 100% true. The only thing I’ve life about in this story are the names. This really did happen to me and my family
Prologue: This is very long story, and will be split into two parts, so be prepared for a bumpy ride. To premise this trilogy, there are a couple thing you need to know. We are on a vacation to LA. My mom, Allie, is a doctor, and my dad, Joel, works in IT. They’ve got three kids. Me, Henry, my twin brother, Jake, and my younger sister, Ella. All names in this are replaced with fakes. None of us have been to LA before, but my parents have travelled the world, so they know how travelling works. My brother and I are both in the school band. We arrive from LA back home at midnight on the 6th of April, then leave for a school band trip to Portugal on the 8th. I am the lead drummer for all three bands, and one of only four basses in the choir, so I cannot miss the trip. My brother plays bass, but there are others who can play bass in the band. This information is to be used for all three parts of this story.
Part 1: The Drive The story starts at our Airbnb in LA. We have to leave the airport to go home. The plane leaves at 11:00pm and my dad wanted to leave at 7:00pm just to be safe. My mom said that it was fine and that we could leave at 8:00pm, my dad agreed. So the time was set. 8 PM, we would leave. We leave a little late, 8:05-8:10, because Ella, who’s 7 years old, was making a fuss. We leave, and take the 40 minute drive to LAX.
We arrive at the airport, and my dad gets into the six lanes of traffic that are converging into 1 lane going into LAX. We wait in our rental car for 30 minutes, and we have to go to the rental car return. My dad starts driving while following the signs. He takes a right, takes a right, then takes a right, and we’re right back at the six lane hellhole. My dad sees this, goes “hell no”, and turns around ON THE FREEWAY. Nothing bad happens, no horrific injuries. And we go back the way we came, through the rental car return road, making sure to follow every sign TO THE LETTER. It takes us right back.
My dad is panicking, because at this point, the plane leaves in 1:40, and we’re not in the airport. Anybody who’s travelled knows that that’s risky. My dad starts telling us in the car to look on the maps and figure out a way in. The only person who listens is my brother and my mom. My sister is playing Minecraft, and I’m listening to a podcast. After about five minutes, my dad starts yelling and I hear him, “RENTAL CAR RETURN, LOOK IT UP!!!”. This is when I realize that something is wrong. So I started to help.
My sister still playing on her iPad, we look for rental car returns. I keep asking him which one, but there’s so much yelling going on in the car that he can’t hear me. I could not tell you what the was yelling about. Because of the way LAX was built and how it expanded so quickly, the car returns are 2 miles in a different direction on the freeway, which is why the signs were telling us to go back there.
My mom says she found a way, not on Apple maps though, she just looked on a satellite map. Big mistake, because we get there and there’s a giant concrete barrier blocking our way. At this point, we’re all panicking because the plane leaves in an hour. Finally my dad yells out “Search up Hertz car returns!”. We find it, we drive there, and my dad being a “Gold Member” doesn’t have to do any paperwork when signing off the car. He just leaves the car and its keys, tells us to sprint to the shuttlebus to hold it while he signs off on the car.
We get in the shuttle bus, and my sister starts to cry. She left her new water bottle in the Airbnb. There’s no way in hell we’re going now, so we tell her to suck it up. My parents are completely convinced that we’re missing the flight, my brother is trying to be optimistic, while I am stressing out, trying to figure out a way to get there faster, because the shuttle bus went right back in the six lane hell that we had to go for a half an hour.
We sit in the shuttle bus for 20 minutes waiting, and we finally make it to the first terminal. The way LAX is structured is It’s like a horseshoe. Going from one, curving, then to six or seven. We have to be at terminal six. We’re not gonna make it. There’s 40 minutes left, and it took 20 minutes to get to the first terminal. I’m panicking, thinking, and I realize why can’t we just walk? I told my dad and he says that might just work, because it’s a horseshoe, and terminal seven is closer than terminal four by walking. So we tell the shuttle bus driver to stop the bus and let us off.
We SPRINT to the gate, and it takes us 10 minutes. We get to the desk and the lady there says “What flight?” My dad says Toronto. The lady makes a 😬 face. She says “Put a bag on each scale. I’ll do this, you run.” We all thank her furiously, then run. There’s 30 minutes, and we just got in the building, haven’t even got through security yet. He get to security, and this is LAX, what you would assume to be a VERY busy airport, and the security is completely empty, save or two or three people. We see this, and parents, although they were already sprinting, realize that there really is a chance we could make the flight, so they start to really, really sprint as fast as we could keep up. I’m surprised our legs didn’t come off.
10 minutes before the flight leaves, we get out of security. As we’re all sprinting down the hall, home alone style, I turn around and see that my mom and my sister have vanished, I tell my dad, then sprint back. Turns out they’re in a souvenir shop, getting gifts for mom’s coworkers, and Ella’s teachers. I yell at them, “What the hell are you doing?!?!?! RUN!!!” We get to the gate less than 5 minutes before the plane left. We made it.
We get to our seats, and relax. Everything is going well. Then, about an hour and a half into the flight, my dad hears a loud thump, coming from right in front of him. It’s an overnight flight, so everyone around him is asleep. He looks out to the aisle and sees a pair of legs on the floor… End of Part 1

My (29f) brother (23) is physically disabled. He was coddled and sheltered his whole life because our mother felt guilty about his life circumstances. I’ve been taking care of him since I was 10. I remember being left alone with him and my little sister (27) as young as 8. I’ve always had to be strong, be flexible, be mature, be the bigger person and I’m tired of it all. My brother is a spoiled brat, and I hate that I’ve grown to hate him so much. He’ll act like a helpless little kid to get what he wants then turn around and talk down to me because he thinks he’s better and smarter than me. He’s got awful disgusting beliefs.
My mom foisted him off on to me with the promise of financial help, government assistance. She pays half the rent, but we haven’t gotten any assistance. I do all the caretaking, I buy the groceries and pay the bills while paying off my student loans. She acts like she’s doing me this favor but I’m exhausted all the time. I work full time and have a 45 minute commute one way. I’ve nearly gotten into accidents from almost falling asleep on the way to or from work.
I think the worst part is I have my own health issues. I have severe mental health issues, and some physical health issues of my own. I’m having surgery soon and while I’m excited to have an issue fixed, I’m also dreading the fact that I’ll still be expected to keep going while recovering.
I just want it all to stop. I want to live my own life or, god forbid, be taken care of for once.
Sorry for the rambling post. I’m in some pain this morning and have a lot to do. Thank you for letting me vent.

I’ve rented an apartment, and I started being unable to pay rent so I I moved out but I accrued debt before leaving. I was served about 10-15 days prior to leaving with a notice for eviction and rent and a month after I left we had court, and they (apartment complex management) didn’t show up so the case was dismissed. I reach out before and after the court appearance to set up some type of payment plan and never got a response. I found about 15 days after I left (as in turned in my keys) the apartment a new management company took over. Do I still owe them money? Will they be able to file again for eviction? I’m more worried about the eviction being on my record than the debt (which again I have been willing to create a payment plan for)
First missed payment February 1st Gave required 30 day notice on March 15th Served paperwork somewhere between April 1st-10th Left apartment April 15th Management changed April 30th Court date & dismissal May 15th
Also, I live in MS.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that the judge said it was dismissed because they didn’t show up but my dismissal paper says ““case dismissed at request of plaintiff in writing”

If you were walking through the woods at night ALONE, with only a fishing knife, and you heard wild boars around you - what would you do?
So I live in Sweden and I very much like nature and camping although I haven't camped a lot in my life. Last evening I drove out to a big forest intending to hike, camp and fish alone.
I've only been afraid of bears during camping, but bears doesn't live in southern Sweden where I live so I thought I had nothing to worry about except possible psychos (I've watched some scary hiking/camping videos on youtube lately).
After 2 hours of hiking through the forest, it was around 11pm and very dark. I hadn't found any good place to place my tent. I was using my flashlight on my head. I had to go inside of and go through a fence area / yard with cows and ONE BULL in order to find the camping place where I had set up a tent with a buddy 3 years ago. Back then there were no cows there.
I have no idea of what encountering cows and a bull is like - ESPECIALLY during night time. The sign said to go around the cows, not through the heard. So thinking that this is safe beccause of the sign, I began walking inside the cow area... After 30-50 meters I stopped. I never saw any cow, but I heard one walking or something nearby. I became very unsure and headed back to the fence opening... I looked up how dangerous it's to enter a field of cows and BULLS. And I immiedetely got out of the fence area.
My plan was to go back to a viewing area of the sea and camp there on a plank of woods just for the night and then continue hiking to my past camping place and fish the next day.
As I was putting on a long youtube video as background noise to ease my fear of going through the dark woods alone, I heard two sticks sharply break arund 10 meters away from left. I wasn't that scared, but I shut the video off and began hiking back with a fishing knife in my hand just in case.... My first thought wasn't that it was a wild boar - strangely enough. And I didn't think it was a human since there was a lot of dense bushes etc around me...
After a short couple of minutes, I suddenly hear a couple of grunts to my right, 2-3 meters away. The sheer fear running through my body - I've never felt anything like it. Adrenaline pumped and I breathed heavily. I did not stop, but kept on walking at the same pace - hoping that it would not attack. I remember my mom said she saw wild boars crossing the road once (from a distance) and she said she screamed and ran away (which you shouldn't do).
I've only researched about bear behavor and attacks before, NEVER wild hogs - so I had no idea what to do if a boar charged me. I had no idea if there was piglets around. I know that a mom bear can be very aggressive if she has cubs, so I presumed that was the case with wild boars as well. I've only got a fishing knife on me. I know they know about my presence because of the light and the noise I'm making while walking.
I continued walking, still very frightened. A few minutes later I hear some animal noise from my right that sounded like a piglet grunting or something - but from a distance. Maybe 10-15 meters away.
I was afraid that a wild boar would charge me from behind, but I didn't have the balls to look behind me except once. I felt like the guy from Avatar when he's alone in the woods on Pandora during night. I tried embrace the fact that I need to be very aggressive and stab and battle a wild boar if it would charge. Thinking that it was my best bet since I didn't know anything about their attacking behaviors or how strong they really are. Now, having looked it up, I know you should try climbing a tree if you can, if a boar attacks you.
A while later, the beaten path turned a bit to the left, and my flashlight struck an animal 10 meters infront of me, which immidately ran away. I think it was a small wild boar but I'm not sure. I only saw a glimpse of the behind and right back leg.
Shortly after that I had to hike up a very steep trail for a few minutes. My heart was pumping and I was breathing heavily - partly because of the steepness but also my adrenaline. I just wanted home. I thought to myself "Home. Home.... In my bed. Why did I have to go here alone during night time?".
I eventually completed the steep trail and now finally entered the small car road (with no street lamps). I had hiked through the woods before while trying to find a good camping place, but walking on the car road felt much safer and more time efficient as well. I was still afraid though, and still held my knife. Cars past me twice. When a car came, I stepped aside and hid my knife. It's illegal in Sweden to carry a knife - and I don't think strangers seeing me in the middle of nowhere walking on a small road during a friday night with a knife is gonna do me any good.
I was so so grateful when entering my dad's car I had loaned. While driving, I thanked God out loud for being alive and being unharmed.
If you were in my situation, walking through the woods at night ALONE, with only a fishing knife, and you heard wild boars around you - what would you do?

Hello,
I just wanted to get some perspectives from professionals here regarding a certain individual in our team who is very toxic. For a bit of context, this person is extremely lazy and will only work on one project a day, sometimes not working at all. He simply logs in and logs out to get paid, passing all the open tickets, especially to the newbies on our team. My other teammate and I noticed this behavior since last year and we already reached out to our manager in the US to inform her about what was happening. She said she would talk to him, but a few months later, nothing changed.
My other teammate, who was a very hardworking person, could no longer tolerate his toxic behavior and just decided to leave the company, while this individual continued his toxic behavior. Fast forward to two weeks ago, this person filed for a week of vacation leave because he was getting married. When he returned, he claimed he was sick, but to be honest, he is more helpful to the team when he is out because we can strategize and approach our tasks better without him. At this point, he is just a burden.
Then, my manager informed the team on Wednesday that this person would be out for the remainder of the week. However, I noticed that he was still online on Teams and changing his status during break and lunch times. I already had a bad feeling about this, so I checked our new payroll portal, where you can see when teammates log in and out. This person logged in and out from Wednesday to Friday when he was supposed to be out sick.
While everyone on the team was doing overtime to onboard as many projects as possible in the last stretch of the month, this person was getting paid for doing nothing. This was my breaking point. I will not lose another good teammate because of this toxic person. In my opinion, this person is committing fraud and should be terminated. This is unacceptable,
Now here is my dilemma: we already reported his toxic behavior before, and nothing changed. For context, my manager is one of those rare managers we all dream of working for and is very generous. She sends us personal gifts from her own wallet as a token of appreciation for our hard work. I believe this toxic person is taking advantage of her kindness.
So, I guess question is: what should I do now? I can no longer tolerate this toxic person's behavior, but I know if I report this to HR, my manager might also get in trouble.
If you got this far, thank you for taking the time to read this, and I really appreciate it.

Prequel (Chapters 1 to 16)
1. Rise of a Valkyrie
First ¦ Previous ¦ Royal Road ¦ Patreon
When Kayla awoke, she found herself curled up on a couch in the Banshee’s infirmary. In the nearest bed, Thandi appeared to be sleeping peacefully. Across from her, Yak was hooked up to several scary looking tubes, but her vitals looked stable. Most of the rest of the beds were also filled. Another successful Valkyrie operation, Kayla thought, bitterly.
She didn’t remember the trip back from the planet. She did remember being told that nobody had found any sign of Rayker, and that memory kindled a little of the rage that never burned out. They had been through a nightmare for nothing.
“I wondered how long you would be asleep,” a voice said.
Kayla turned to see Christie sat on the end of her couch. Her friend seemed to be weighed down by sadness as she put aside the tablet she was typing on and smiled back at her.
“Wha— uh…” Kayla managed, as her stiff tongue flapped helplessly. She yawned and stretched.
“Twenty-three wounded in total,” Christie said. “Thandi will walk again in a week. Yak’s going to be in a coma for the next month. Fortunately, nothing struck her vital organs. And, by the way, one of the Raider squads was also involved in a friendly fire incident.”
Kayla focused on her, then looked away. “Jesus,” she said to herself. “God dammit.”
“Thandi wouldn’t like that,” Christie scolded. “Heathen.”
Kayla stood up and began to pace slowly as she wrapped her arms around herself. “I can’t believe I—”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” Christie said, “because you’ve been asleep for about ten hours. In the interim, I was able to speak with several Rangers about what happened. It was not your fault. Not entirely.”
Kayla shook her head. “Yes, it was. Oh, God, yes it was. I should have seen them, I should have had a stronger optic, I should have—”
“Corporal Rudaski misread her map. So did the leader of second squad. You were both actually in hall hotel-four. The base was constructed in a circular pattern of radially linked zones, orbiting a central facility. It’s a highly abstract layout that we have never seen before. Most Ranger battalions have spent the last several centuries clearing logical, grid-like layouts in ships and bunkers. Under fire, it is easy to see how confusion caused units to lose track of their positions as they advanced. Most of the platoons did, actually, at one point or another. And, in my opinion, we did not have anything like the troop numbers needed to comfortably secure that site. A consequence, no doubt, of Valkyrie’s failure to prepare and train for large scale deployments, for which there has been no requirement in at least a millennia, so they tell me.”
Kayla turned to her with a puzzled expression. “You figured all that out already?”
“I’m drafting a report on the matter. I can’t sleep, you see, because the flaws of this operation stem entirely from the task force’s desire to follow Rayker until she discovered the tracker. We found it in the central command chamber. It was sealed in a wrapping of fat and muscle tissue, which she obviously cut out of herself hours before the tamper alarm sensed the toxins of cell decay. She left it there for us to find. To taunt us, no doubt.”
Christie yawned deeply, stood up and brushed her sweater off. “Do you see, Kayla, that the intelligence team were making decisions based off of my actions on Ambrosia, when I planted that device?” She smiled bitterly. “And I had the arrogance to think I was outwitting the woman. So, in a way, it’s my fault.”
Kayla swallowed and slowly shook her head. Then she grabbed her friend and held her in a tight hug. “War sucks,” she said. “Everything about it is awful.”
“I agree. Nevertheless, we are drawn to it, like moths to a flame perhaps?”
Kayla released her and collapsed into the couch. “When I slept, I had a dream. I was in Plato’s cave, but I got free. Outside there was a dragon, burning everything in sight. The world was covered in ash, and the puppets casting shadows were dead bodies,” She wiped moisture out of her eye. “He said, ‘come out and play, little girl’.”
Christie nodded. “We were lucky nobody was killed today. Rayker will certainly cost us more blood before we manage to catch her. She could have set up a much stronger defense than a battalion of light combat drones, but she didn’t.”
Kayla reached into her pocket and found her necklace. She placed it over her head and ran a thumb over the engraved name.
She looked back at Christie. “Why not?”
“The freighter the Sirène caught was carrying several large combat walkers, produced by that plant. A deep space survey revealed that a second freighter had jumped away earlier. No doubt Rayker’s escape—she seems to have plotted a course opposite the star from where we stopped at the minefield. There seems to be no question that she had the main force of those machines with her.”
“Any idea where they went?”
Christie turned away to retrieve her tablet. “Not yet, unfortunately.”
“May the saints have mercy,” said a voice, “if a shot up woman cannot get a wink of sleep with all the talking in here.”
Kayla whirled around to see Thandi, sitting up in her bed. She darted over and grabbed her into a bearhug.
“I’m really sorry I got you shot,” she said.
“Yeah,” Thandi said looking pleased with herself. “And to apologize, you’ll be fetching me chocolate cake from the mess until I get out of here.” She lowered her voice. “Seriously though, Kayla, I need you. The food is terrible.”
Kayla chuckled. “You can count on me.”
“How are you feeling, wonder woman?”
“Oh, uh… not that wonderful to be honest.”
“Leaping tall structures in a single bound?” Thandi grinned admiringly at her. “You had a bit of a superhero moment.”
Kayla raised her eyebrows. “I tore half the muscles in my body. It was definitely not awesome.”
“Sure looked like it. I don’t even know how you do stuff like that. The Lord moved you.”
Christie cleared her throat and gave Thandi a significant look.
Thandi rolled her eyes. “It’s a compliment—I’m not diminishing what you did.”
Kayla returned her cheerful gaze with a flat expression. She had felt like everyone she cared about was about to die. Like her soul had been lit on fire, and the only way to put it out had been to move like a lightning bolt. It was not something she ever wanted to experience again.
“I was on probation for the incident on Ambrosia,” she reminded Thandi. “I will definitely be dropped back to private from now on.”
“Oh,” Thandi’s sparkling eyes darkened. “Well, that sucks. I hope they don’t. You straight up saved us all from an ambush at the start of that firefight. And the illume drone—you made lots of good calls down there.”
Kayla shook her head. “I shouldn’t be a team leader. I keep losing control. I can’t let… I don’t respond well when any of you are in danger.”
Thandi grabbed her hand, and squeezed it. “What happens to us is not up to you, my dear. It’s in God’s hands alone.”
Kayla didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t sure if she could accept that.
“How’s the pain?” Christie asked.
“Oh,” Thandi said and waved her hand. “Nothing too severe. I think of how Rose would be responding, and I know I can handle anything.”
Christie nodded silently.
“She speaks to me, in my dreams. She tells me how proud she is of us.” Thandi glanced at Kayla. “She says you are a true leader.”
Kayla turned away, unable to keep her eyes from tearing up.
“Will you be up in time for the merger?” Christie asked.
“On crutches maybe,” Thandi said. “But I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I can’t imagine anything more glorious.”
“What’s that?” Kayla asked before slowly turning back.
“The Banshee is returning to Tyr,” Christie explained. “On the way back, we have been tasked with collecting a probe that was observing a binary star merger. We will have the opportunity to observe the event live.”
“Whatever,” Kayla said with an eye roll. She was a little offended that their task force had been assigned a science project after what had happened. “Nerd stuff, right?”
Christie laughed, and met Thandi’s eyes with a smirk. “If you say so.”
Thandi shifted against her pillows. “How is the mood of the ship?” she said to Christie. “Are people still angry?”
“What do you mean?” Kayla cut in.
Thandi glanced back and forth between them. “You didn’t tell her?”
Christie waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, but with all that’s happening I didn’t think it pertinent. Why add to our already substantial burdens?”
“What’s going on?” Kayla demanded, and felt her hair stand on end.
Christie smiled tightly. “ODT Four seized the freighter and searched it thoroughly. No evidence of Rayker, as I said.”
“Yeah? And?”
“Well, they found a false compartment in one of the holds. And there were a pair of young teenagers inside. A boy and a girl.”
“In rags, and chained up,” Thandi added.
Kayla realized her jaw had clenched. She felt her skin crawl with a new kind of horror. “Oh my God,” she said, then glanced at Thandi. “Sorry.”
“In this case you get a dispensation.”
“Obviously,” Christie continued, “the pour souls will be returned to their families. A terrible situation.”
Kayla’s mind buzzed with questions. “What is—uh… where was it from? The ship?”
“Intaba,” Thandi said sullenly. “A VennZech registered vessel. Justice cannot come swiftly enough for the demon scum who perpetrated this evil on my homeworld…” she frowned as she lost her words, and clenched her fists together.
“Do you think Valkyrie will start interdicting their ships?” Kayla asked.
“No,” Christie said. “Hence the angry mood. It is a problem the organization has faced since humanity took to the stars. The chieftains have resolutely refused to address it. Our mission statement is to protect humanity, not interfere with their conduct. Frankly I have to agree with them, though I appear to be in the minority.”
Kayla stared at her incredulously. “But that’s bullshit,” she said. “How can you be okay with letting something like that go?”
Christie arched an eyebrow. “A secret army of super soldiers, with access to civilization destroying technology, and who answer—as far as we know—to nobody but themselves? The very thought of interfering gives me an existential crisis. However tragic the situation, it seems obvious that we must maintain our distance.”
Kayla shook her head. She already felt hot anger driving her to act. How could such monsters be allowed to walk freely in a just galaxy?
“All that it takes for evil to succeed—” Thandi began.
“Please can we not continue this conversation?” Christie snapped. “I’ve had enough of being insulted by some of my colleagues. I don’t want it from my friends too.”
Kayla exchanged looks with Thandi, but she owed her best friend the space she wanted.
“I promise, I won’t bring it up again, Chris,” she said.
***
Kayla ate in the ship’s mess then returned to her bunk, where the rest of the squad were waiting. They were talking in somber tones, but fell silent when she approached.
Kes stood up and beckoned to her. “Platoon ready room, this way.”
Once shut away in privacy, Kes sat her down and they retraced every event that had occurred inside the base. Every decision was picked apart minutely, with no judgement or grievance allowed.
“I needed us to go through this as soon as possible,” she explained. “This will sit with you for the rest of your life. We all made mistakes, but nobody should feel incriminated. I have been through five blue on blue incidents. This shit just happens, and I guarantee it will happen to you again in the future.”
Kayla felt a little relief as she spoke with her squad leader and found that she was neither alone, nor justified in hating herself. They had been moving quickly through a confusing environment, making a deadly situation much more likely.
“One last thing, though,” Kes added somberly. “Private Voigt from second squad fired the burst that hit Yak and Thandi. She is being removed from the battalion. By her own account, she returned Yak’s fire without any kind of communication with her team leader, or any attempt to check the position of friendlies. That was a major SOP violation when she knew they were expecting to move in our direction.”
Kayla absorbed this with shock. She couldn’t argue with it; after all, what good was a Ranger who couldn’t do her job? And didn’t that mean that the same punishment should apply to her?
She cleared her throat. Terror gnawed at her insides as Kes stared at her expectantly.
“I lost control again,” Kayla said.
“Yup,” Kes said, and rubbed her eyes with obvious frustration. “And this time, your actions swiftly ended a dangerous firefight following a terrible accident. Yak got immediate medical attention because of that. On the other hand, you put yourself in a position to be killed or wounded where no-one could help you.”
There was a long pause while the corporal appeared to search a distant horizon. “You don’t need a lecture, and Akane can’t make a decision on you. Yak was my next choice for Lance Corporal, but she’s out of action, along with a bunch of others. Together with this Rayker shitshow, it is not the time to be shuffling people around.”
Kayla’s brow furrowed “What about Ray?”
“Oh,” Kes ran a hand through her hair. “Every time I’ve offered it, she’s refused. Anyway, we’ve already been told by Captain Aguilar to expect a new private out of Ranger school once we return to Tyr.”
“Yes, Corporal,” Kayla said, unsure what to think about the decision.
“I’ve seen you make good decisions in the field. But I will push to replace you when the opportunity comes up again.” Kes narrowed her eyes. “Unless you can show me I’m wrong before that happens.”
Kayla left the room with her head spinning. She was keeping her job, even though she obviously didn’t have what it took to lead Rangers in combat.
First ¦ Previous ¦ Royal Road ¦ Patreon
Prequel (Chapters 1 to 16)
1. Rise of a Valkyrie

I (27f) got my first car in 2020 when I was still single. I have so many feels about it because I got this car brand new all on my own without any help from my parents. Which means this is very important to me. Then I met my husband (27m) shortly after. He didn’t know how to drive when I first met him so I offered to teach him using my car.
Everything is going well then, and he got his driver’s license too. I was really happy for him as this one is an achievement for him, so I let him use my car and drive us around which I am very thankful and appreciative for the gesture.
Now my dilemma in this is he is not in my opinion a safe driver, he scratched my car multiple times (6 scratches in my car in total) and he drives really fast, he doesn’t care about the bumps on the road too. My car is like a crossover of a SUV and a sedan = MPV and it is not a 4x4, I constantly talk and communicate to him about this and yes he listens but when he is back in the driver’s seat it’s like everything we talked about is gone. It’s like he is in his own world and he treats it like a game.
I also tried to get it back to just me driving us around but he gets visibly upset (upset like sad) when I drive, then I feel guilty because I know he loves to drive. Also, I always lack sleep because of work because I work a night shift so in my mind, I am not in the safe condition to drive.
To add, I am paying off the loan in my car alone and pays everything for it (maintenance, gas, accessories)
I’m sorry if this is all over the place, I am just frustrated at this point and english is not my first language.

Prequel (Parts 1 to 16)
1. Rise of a Valkyrie
First ¦ Previous ¦ Royal Road ¦ Patreon
When Kayla awoke, she found herself curled up on a couch in the Banshee’s infirmary. In the nearest bed, Thandi appeared to be sleeping peacefully. Across from her, Yak was hooked up to several scary looking tubes, but her vitals looked stable. Most of the rest of the beds were also filled. Another successful Valkyrie operation, Kayla thought, bitterly.
She didn’t remember the trip back from the planet. She did remember being told that nobody had found any sign of Rayker, and that memory kindled a little of the rage that never burned out. They had been through a nightmare for nothing.
“I wondered how long you would be asleep,” a voice said.
Kayla turned to see Christie sat on the end of her couch. Her friend seemed to be weighed down by sadness as she put aside the tablet she was typing on and smiled back at her.
“Wha— uh…” Kayla managed, as her stiff tongue flapped helplessly. She yawned and stretched.
“Twenty-three wounded in total,” Christie said. “Thandi will walk again in a week. Yak’s going to be in a coma for the next month. Fortunately, nothing struck her vital organs. And, by the way, one of the Raider squads was also involved in a friendly fire incident.”
Kayla focused on her, then looked away. “Jesus,” she said to herself. “God dammit.”
“Thandi wouldn’t like that,” Christie scolded. “Heathen.”
Kayla stood up and began to pace slowly as she wrapped her arms around herself. “I can’t believe I—”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” Christie said, “because you’ve been asleep for about ten hours. In the interim, I was able to speak with several Rangers about what happened. It was not your fault. Not entirely.”
Kayla shook her head. “Yes, it was. Oh, God, yes it was. I should have seen them, I should have had a stronger optic, I should have—”
“Corporal Rudaski misread her map. So did the leader of second squad. You were both actually in hall hotel-four. The base was constructed in a circular pattern of radially linked zones, orbiting a central facility. It’s a highly abstract layout that we have never seen before. Most Ranger battalions have spent the last several centuries clearing logical, grid-like layouts in ships and bunkers. Under fire, it is easy to see how confusion caused units to lose track of their positions as they advanced. Most of the platoons did, actually, at one point or another. And, in my opinion, we did not have anything like the troop numbers needed to comfortably secure that site. A consequence, no doubt, of Valkyrie’s failure to prepare and train for large scale deployments, for which there has been no requirement in at least a millennia, so they tell me.”
Kayla turned to her with a puzzled expression. “You figured all that out already?”
“I’m drafting a report on the matter. I can’t sleep, you see, because the flaws of this operation stem entirely from the task force’s desire to follow Rayker until she discovered the tracker. We found it in the central command chamber. It was sealed in a wrapping of fat and muscle tissue, which she obviously cut out of herself hours before the tamper alarm sensed the toxins of cell decay. She left it there for us to find. To taunt us, no doubt.”
Christie yawned deeply, stood up and brushed her sweater off. “Do you see, Kayla, that the intelligence team were making decisions based off of my actions on Ambrosia, when I planted that device?” She smiled bitterly. “And I had the arrogance to think I was outwitting the woman. So, in a way, it’s my fault.”
Kayla swallowed and slowly shook her head. Then she grabbed her friend and held her in a tight hug. “War sucks,” she said. “Everything about it is awful.”
“I agree. Nevertheless, we are drawn to it, like moths to a flame perhaps?”
Kayla released her and collapsed into the couch. “When I slept, I had a dream. I was in Plato’s cave, but I got free. Outside there was a dragon, burning everything in sight. The world was covered in ash, and the puppets casting shadows were dead bodies,” She wiped moisture out of her eye. “He said, ‘come out and play, little girl’.”
Christie nodded. “We were lucky nobody was killed today. Rayker will certainly cost us more blood before we manage to catch her. She could have set up a much stronger defense than a battalion of light combat drones, but she didn’t.”
Kayla reached into her pocket and found her necklace. She placed it over her head and ran a thumb over the engraved name.
She looked back at Christie. “Why not?”
“The freighter the Sirène caught was carrying several large combat walkers, produced by that plant. A deep space survey revealed that a second freighter had jumped away earlier. No doubt Rayker’s escape—she seems to have plotted a course opposite the star from where we stopped at the minefield. There seems to be no question that she had the main force of those machines with her.”
“Any idea where they went?”
Christie turned away to retrieve her tablet. “Not yet, unfortunately.”
“May the saints have mercy,” said a voice, “if a shot up woman cannot get a wink of sleep with all the talking in here.”
Kayla whirled around to see Thandi, sitting up in her bed. She darted over and grabbed her into a bearhug.
“I’m really sorry I got you shot,” she said.
“Yeah,” Thandi said looking pleased with herself. “And to apologize, you’ll be fetching me chocolate cake from the mess until I get out of here.” She lowered her voice. “Seriously though, Kayla, I need you. The food is terrible.”
Kayla chuckled. “You can count on me.”
“How are you feeling, wonder woman?”
“Oh, uh… not that wonderful to be honest.”
“Leaping tall structures in a single bound?” Thandi grinned admiringly at her. “You had a bit of a superhero moment.”
Kayla raised her eyebrows. “I tore half the muscles in my body. It was definitely not awesome.”
“Sure looked like it. I don’t even know how you do stuff like that. The Lord moved you.”
Christie cleared her throat and gave Thandi a significant look.
Thandi rolled her eyes. “It’s a compliment—I’m not diminishing what you did.”
Kayla returned her cheerful gaze with a flat expression. She had felt like everyone she cared about was about to die. Like her soul had been lit on fire, and the only way to put it out had been to move like a lightning bolt. It was not something she ever wanted to experience again.
“I was on probation for the incident on Ambrosia,” she reminded Thandi. “I will definitely be dropped back to private from now on.”
“Oh,” Thandi’s sparkling eyes darkened. “Well, that sucks. I hope they don’t. You straight up saved us all from an ambush at the start of that firefight. And the illume drone—you made lots of good calls down there.”
Kayla shook her head. “I shouldn’t be a team leader. I keep losing control. I can’t let… I don’t respond well when any of you are in danger.”
Thandi grabbed her hand, and squeezed it. “What happens to us is not up to you, my dear. It’s in God’s hands alone.”
Kayla didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t sure if she could accept that.
“How’s the pain?” Christie asked.
“Oh,” Thandi said and waved her hand. “Nothing too severe. I think of how Rose would be responding, and I know I can handle anything.”
Christie nodded silently.
“She speaks to me, in my dreams. She tells me how proud she is of us.” Thandi glanced at Kayla. “She says you are a true leader.”
Kayla turned away, unable to keep her eyes from tearing up.
“Will you be up in time for the merger?” Christie asked.
“On crutches maybe,” Thandi said. “But I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I can’t imagine anything more glorious.”
“What’s that?” Kayla asked before slowly turning back.
“The Banshee is returning to Tyr,” Christie explained. “On the way back, we have been tasked with collecting a probe that was observing a binary star merger. We will have the opportunity to observe the event live.”
“Whatever,” Kayla said with an eye roll. She was a little offended that their task force had been assigned a science project after what had happened. “Nerd stuff, right?”
Christie laughed, and met Thandi’s eyes with a smirk. “If you say so.”
Thandi shifted against her pillows. “How is the mood of the ship?” she said to Christie. “Are people still angry?”
“What do you mean?” Kayla cut in.
Thandi glanced back and forth between them. “You didn’t tell her?”
Christie waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, but with all that’s happening I didn’t think it pertinent. Why add to our already substantial burdens?”
“What’s going on?” Kayla demanded, and felt her hair stand on end.
Christie smiled tightly. “ODT Four seized the freighter and searched it thoroughly. No evidence of Rayker, as I said.”
“Yeah? And?”
“Well, they found a false compartment in one of the holds. And there were a pair of young teenagers inside. A boy and a girl.”
“In rags, and chained up,” Thandi added.
Kayla realized her jaw had clenched. She felt her skin crawl with a new kind of horror. “Oh my God,” she said, then glanced at Thandi. “Sorry.”
“In this case you get a dispensation.”
“Obviously,” Christie continued, “the pour souls will be returned to their families. A terrible situation.”
Kayla’s mind buzzed with questions. “What is—uh… where was it from? The ship?”
“Intaba,” Thandi said sullenly. “A VennZech registered vessel. Justice cannot come swiftly enough for the demon scum who perpetrated this evil on my homeworld…” she frowned as she lost her words, and clenched her fists together.
“Do you think Valkyrie will start interdicting their ships?” Kayla asked.
“No,” Christie said. “Hence the angry mood. It is a problem the organization has faced since humanity took to the stars. The chieftains have resolutely refused to address it. Our mission statement is to protect humanity, not interfere with their conduct. Frankly I have to agree with them, though I appear to be in the minority.”
Kayla stared at her incredulously. “But that’s bullshit,” she said. “How can you be okay with letting something like that go?”
Christie arched an eyebrow. “A secret army of super soldiers, with access to civilization destroying technology, and who answer—as far as we know—to nobody but themselves? The very thought of interfering gives me an existential crisis. However tragic the situation, it seems obvious that we must maintain our distance.”
Kayla shook her head. She already felt hot anger driving her to act. How could such monsters be allowed to walk freely in a just galaxy?
“All that it takes for evil to succeed—” Thandi began.
“Please can we not continue this conversation?” Christie snapped. “I’ve had enough of being insulted by some of my colleagues. I don’t want it from my friends too.”
Kayla exchanged looks with Thandi, but she owed her best friend the space she wanted.
“I promise, I won’t bring it up again, Chris,” she said.
***
Kayla ate in the ship’s mess then returned to her bunk, where the rest of the squad were waiting. They were talking in somber tones, but fell silent when she approached.
Kes stood up and beckoned to her. “Platoon ready room, this way.”
Once shut away in privacy, Kes sat her down and they retraced every event that had occurred inside the base. Every decision was picked apart minutely, with no judgement or grievance allowed.
“I needed us to go through this as soon as possible,” she explained. “This will sit with you for the rest of your life. We all made mistakes, but nobody should feel incriminated. I have been through five blue on blue incidents. This shit just happens, and I guarantee it will happen to you again in the future.”
Kayla felt a little relief as she spoke with her squad leader and found that she was neither alone, nor justified in hating herself. They had been moving quickly through a confusing environment, making a deadly situation much more likely.
“One last thing, though,” Kes added somberly. “Private Voigt from second squad fired the burst that hit Yak and Thandi. She is being removed from the battalion. By her own account, she returned Yak’s fire without any kind of communication with her team leader, or any attempt to check the position of friendlies. That was a major SOP violation when she knew they were expecting to move in our direction.”
Kayla absorbed this with shock. She couldn’t argue with it; after all, what good was a Ranger who couldn’t do her job? And didn’t that mean that the same punishment should apply to her?
She cleared her throat. Terror gnawed at her insides as Kes stared at her expectantly.
“I lost control again,” Kayla said.
“Yup,” Kes said, and rubbed her eyes with obvious frustration. “And this time, your actions swiftly ended a dangerous firefight following a terrible accident. Yak got immediate medical attention because of that. On the other hand, you put yourself in a position to be killed or wounded where no-one could help you.”
There was a long pause while the corporal appeared to search a distant horizon. “You don’t need a lecture, and Akane can’t make a decision on you. Yak was my next choice for Lance Corporal, but she’s out of action, along with a bunch of others. Together with this Rayker shitshow, it is not the time to be shuffling people around.”
Kayla’s brow furrowed “What about Ray?”
“Oh,” Kes ran a hand through her hair. “Every time I’ve offered it, she’s refused. Anyway, we’ve already been told by Captain Aguilar to expect a new private out of Ranger school once we return to Tyr.”
“Yes, Corporal,” Kayla said, unsure what to think about the decision.
“I’ve seen you make good decisions in the field. But I will push to replace you when the opportunity comes up again.” Kes narrowed her eyes. “Unless you can show me I’m wrong before that happens.”
Kayla left the room with her head spinning. She was keeping her job, even though she obviously didn’t have what it took to lead Rangers in combat.
First ¦ Previous ¦ Royal Road ¦ Patreon
Prequel (Parts 1 to 16)
1. Rise of a Valkyrie

I have so far been up all night as I can’t fall asleep for nothing. I have been stressing so much lately and there is nothing that can ease the stress.. on top of the thoughts of what can happen to the baby long term medical wise from all this stress. It’s honestly so much eating away at me and I just don’t know what to do with these thoughts. I am going to just write away everything that’s been eating away at me.. that is why this is going to be very long as it’s been a lot so far… I got off birth control in December as life was going amazing and it was giving me awful migraines as I was rearing my third year being on nexplanon. I knew that there could be a possibility of getting pregnant and honestly with how life was going the thought of potentially getting our boy as we have two girls right now was really exciting me. I have been working from home and recently got a huge raise and things were looking great. A month after getting off the birth control I started feeling weird, that intuition feeling came. Shortly after, my job that I had been with for almost 3 years randomly lays off a lot of employees including me with no notice or anything. I thought it would be a long term job but they eventually grew financial issues. Of course I didn’t want to abort this baby just because my job laid me off. I am a very independent person so of course I would do anything to make sure me and mine are straight. I start back doordashing full time from 9 am to 9 pm and I stay an hour from the nearest city so the stress of wear and tear on my car has always scared me but you gotta do what you gotta do as a parent. Of course they say I’m eligible for unemployment and I’ve tried endless times to file for it and they always denied me due to work searches as I wasn’t applying to the right places when I was applying EVERYWHERE. No matter what I put. Every week would get denied cause of this and the phone number is impossible to reach someone. So I’ve given up on unemployment. We lived off of our tax return plus DoorDashing which I really wanted to save this money. The work search has been so stressful. I got a seasonal job and did amazing at it working up to 18 hours overtime one day but they over hired people so there was way to many people to consider hiring everyone full time so once it ended less then a month of working there that was it. Until I got a call from my dream job which my mom and my bf mom both work there and it pays way higher then what I’ve made on top of providing a hybrid schedule too. I felt it was a stretch applying but my resume looked really good so I went for it. I got an interview with them and the interviewer loved me and said he felt really confident in me and would like to offer me the position. Of course I’m overly excited cause this is my dream job. After filling out the onboarding and going to scheduled onboarding appointments they state there was only one issue stopping my onboarding which was a previous account with them that had restrictions on it that I was not aware of. I trusted the wrong “friends” back in high school 7 YEARS AGO with my personal information not knowing any better and they did fraud with my information and of course it fell back on me. I even paid back every owed penny from the fraud to clear my name to move on from that mistake. They never told me they also proceeded to put restrictions cause of it. So my onboarding was put on hold until I handled the restrictions. Fast forward a month later of struggling making ends meet. We have no more income tax money.. but at least I finally receive a response saying the restrictions would be removed. So finally we receive great news. I let the people know and they proceed to let me know that someone will reach out to me in 5-7 days and it has now surpassed that time frame with no response and I am just so scared that they won’t follow through.. It is now June and I have been struggling to get a full time job since February and I am holding onto the little ounce of hope that this job will follow through like they said… Holding onto that ounce of hope as doordash grew very stressful I decided to pull all of my retirement out from my previous job to put into savings in case we need it for an emergency especially if the car were to go out on us. on top of our apartment lease renewal coming up. We did NOT want to renew the lease because this apartment has treated us HORRIBLY since we moved in. We came from a clean bug free apartment due to the rent randomly increasing twice since we moved in it and moved 30 minutes to be closer to my OLD job and his family. We moved into this apartment because I had a work friend refer it to me saying it was her first apartment and she fell in love with it. Not knowing we were going to get the worst apartment building probably out of the whole complex. Since we moved in we could not look at the apartment until after the lease was signed and given the keys. We moved ONE box into the place and came back days later to move the rest of our stuff. We moved that box and SO MANY roaches scattered from it and we knew instantly we got played and that now all of our things were going to be roach infested now. Fast forward almost a whole year later we have tried endless methods to get rid of them such as boric acid, orthene, endless traps, endless raid bottles, ONTOP of the apartment buildings monthly pest control coming in doing whatever they do and WE STILL HAVE THEM. No matter what we do they are not leaving as I believe even tho we try different methods it won’t matter if everyone else in the building aren’t trying to get rid of them. They are probably being constantly rotated between the other apartments around us so it’s useless. I DO NOT WANT TO BRING MY NEW BORN BABY INTO THIS APARTMENT. On top of all the plugs in the walls has blown in the living room. I let the landlord know about this and they sent there only technician to check it out and they didn’t know what they were doing. They switched the power surge switches on and off and it fixed the plugs but they proceeded to go back out the next day. We haven’t even been there a year and the refrigerator has been tearing up like crazy. The whole bottom of it has ripped off cause apparently the adhesive is so strong when closing and opening that it slowly tore its own frame off. We had to use gorilla glue to glue it back on and it’s so far worked. On top of the rims around the door got so many rips in it. The door holders on the fridge can’t hold anything heavy or else the whole shelf falls off same as the door handles on the freezer so we have to carefully move things around it and put only certain things in those spots or else it’s all going to the floor. The first red flag of the apartment is there are no washer and dryer hook ups and that is honestly the least of our problems with this place.. the bolts on the dish washer are so tiny and unscrewed with time and randomly the whole dish washer completely fell down from being poorly connected to the counter. Whenever you open it to put dishes in you have to hold the racks or else the whole dish washer will fall forward and they will roll out with all the dishes in it. I’m so over this place and we have BEEN ready to move out. So once the 30 days came up I contacted the landlord about the 30 day notice that we were going to move out before the lease renewed. She proceeded to tell me with no emotion that they required a 60 DAY notice in advance prior to our lease end date and that our lease already renewed for another YEAR. She didn’t even try to help us out and did not provide any kind of notice or reminding about the 60 day notice. She just kept repeating that we signed the lease and it is written in the lease. She said if we move out we will be responsible to pay the months rent for each upcoming month until a new tenant moves in and takes over the lease which is very unlikely as they have full control on whether they want to move someone new in or continue to bill us the monthly rent.. So now we are trying to figure out how we are going to work out this New obstacle/road block and I am already halfway through my pregnancy. All of this stress has been eating me alive for the whole beginning of my pregnancy and it ALL came out of the blue. This is not how I pictured being pregnant with my third baby and I feel completely miserable right now. I am struggling doordashing all day just waiting for any kind of good news. We are thinking about ditching this apartment and going to stay with my mom until we find a full time job to afford a new apartment as we just want to start the process of this landlord potentially searching for a new tenant to take this burden off of us. We do not wish to pay two apartment rents as my credit is amazing and I know if they put any of this apartments owed rent when we move out on my collections it will ruin my credit.. we have been growing it for when we are ready to get our first home. So I know not paying it is not an option for me. I’ve just been wishing this ongoing nightmare will finally come to an end and I can finally receive any kind of good news. I was sooo excited about this pregnancy but now I have zero excitement for it as I have been through endless stressing and roadblocks the whole pregnancy so far. I am afraid that this stress and pain will affect the baby long term.. I do not wish to bring this baby into this apartment as I fully wish to be in a new upgraded apartment bug free when the baby comes in October my birthday month.. It’s just super hard holding onto any kind of motivation right now and the pain is slowly eating me up inside.. I just really needed to get all of this off of my chest and hopefully maybe I can finally get some sleep right now. If you read all of this.. thank you for listening and all I can really say is check on your people cause you never know what they could be going through as life can hit so random at times..

Hello,
I just wanted to get some perspectives from professionals here regarding a certain individual in our team who is very toxic. For a bit of context, this person is extremely lazy and will only work on one project a day, sometimes not working at all. He simply logs in and logs out to get paid, passing all the open tickets, especially to the newbies on our team. My other teammate and I noticed this behavior since last year and we already reached out to our manager in the US to inform her about what was happening. She said she would talk to him, but a few months later, nothing changed.
My other teammate, who was a very hardworking person, could no longer tolerate his toxic behavior and just decided to leave the company, while this individual continued his toxic behavior. Fast forward to two weeks ago, this person filed for a week of vacation leave because he was getting married. When he returned, he claimed he was sick, but to be honest, he is more helpful to the team when he is out because we can strategize and approach our tasks better without him. At this point, he is just a burden.
Then, my manager informed the team on Wednesday that this person would be out for the remainder of the week. However, I noticed that he was still online on Teams and changing his status during break and lunch times. I already had a bad feeling about this, so I checked our new payroll portal, where you can see when teammates log in and out. This person logged in and out from Wednesday to Friday when he was supposed to be out sick.
While everyone on the team was doing overtime to onboard as many projects as possible in the last stretch of the month, this person was getting paid for doing nothing. This was my breaking point. I will not lose another good teammate because of this toxic person. In my opinion, this person is committing fraud and should be terminated. This is unacceptable,
Now here is my dilemma: we already reported his toxic behavior before, and nothing changed. For context, my manager is one of those rare managers we all dream of working for and is very generous. She sends us personal gifts from her own wallet as a token of appreciation for our hard work. I believe this toxic person is taking advantage of her kindness.
So, I guess question is: what should I do now? I can no longer tolerate this toxic person's behavior, but I know if I report this to HR, my manager might also get in trouble.
If you got this far, thank you for taking the time to read this, and I really appreciate it.

Hi all.
Just looking for advice. I traded in a big number of Funko Pops into a company that buy back old items like that for cash or credit. This was back in December. The total came to just over £1200 that is owed to me. I was expected to receive this money within 10 working days which they claim.
I had done a similar deal to this one a few weeks prior to this back in early December which all went smooth and they had a lot of good recommendations as being a good business to deal with.
It is now over 5 months later and still no cash.
They are quite difficult to get in touch with too. They initially told me in February or so that they were struggling to fulfil cash payments for trade ins but were hoping for it to pick up after April when they had their biggest loan paid off.
I have spoke to them since this and they said they have paid off the loan and can start to make payments again but can't give a timeframe of when I will get my payment.
I do believe they are legit and are trying their best but its not fair leaving people out such a big amount of money.
Im worried now that they will go under and ill be out £1200 that I really need.
What are my options?
Thanks

Hello, I take home $5200 a month, every month without OT included. Naturally for filling I would not to mention any OT. as all OT for me is optional. I would want to also do a 100% plan.
The car is want to surrender i bought for 81k with 20k negative equity rolled over been paying for a year and still owe about 67k while it is worth 30k at minimum. For this truck I pay $1400 a month at a 6.9 interest rate.
I owe nothing on my credit cards as I pay them off monthly.
I owe 2290 to collections for an account i was never aware of that just popped up.
I owe 5500 to a personal loan i have been paying for around 2 years that original loan was around 7000 but the interest is 30%. Monthly payment is $249
I have a second car that i would like to keep. It is worth about 38k and i owe about that much as well. For this car I pay $779 a month
That is all i pay for under my name.
I live out of an rv, which my company kinda also helps pay for which all comes out to $290 a month. Rv is in parents name.
Also have my favorite sports car worth about 30k total balance owed is 13k. Monthly payment is $550 a month, no intention to get rid of it, and the loan is in my parents name.
Now i have no problem paying the debt. I just want to get rid of the truck, but the negative equity is too high to do anything other than surrender it?
I have no obligations against a 100% plan, But i also don’t want to lose my disposable income. I already typically have $800-1500 every month extra after everything is said and done. I also get a yearly 10% bonus of my annual salary yearly.
Before this collection popped up i had no interest in BK as i had an 800 credit score. After this though it has tanked my credit and i was unaware that I would get a collection on my report my credit has tanked. Yes it is a legitimate debt, that I somehow did forget about.
Will I be able to lower my debt payments with a chapter 13, would it give me more disposable income? Would I need to surrender my bonus? could I pay it off early, like jn 1 year?
Thanks. i am in young 20s and in 7 years i will still be under 30. (edit to add: i would like to keep credit cards and everything other than the truck if possible. naturally the debts not in my name shouldn’t apply on the BK, correct?)

Describing my horrible experience buying a car from Spinny.
tl;dr - Spinny sold me a car without doing proper background check on the car and its seller and now the RC transfer process is not getting completed. It has been 1.5 years since I bought the car from them.
I am a first time car buyer, and bought a car from Spinny in January 2023. The process went quite smoothly, and the car I was interested in was nicely maintained and ran well. The salesmen at the showroom assured me that Spinny takes utmost care that they purchase cars from good sources, and that all the processes needed in transferring the car are completed by the company itself, without any intervention required from me. I was convinced and went ahead and bought the car.
After a few months, the RC transfer process is where the nightmare begins. IT HAS BEEN 1.5 YEARS SINCE I BOUGHT THE CAR AND STILL MY RC HAS NOT BEEN TRANSFERRED.
I have been communicating back and forth with their customer care, and it is the most frustrating experience of my life so far- these people on their customer care line have absolutely no concern for you, and will lie and give any wrong information to you, without any remorse. Absolutely 0 help from them.
Eventually I got to know that the reason my RC transfer hasn't happened is because the seller of the car had taken out a second loan on the car. Spinny claims they did not know about this second loan. Of course when selling the car, they assured me that they had done all the requisite background checks. Spinny now tells me that the seller has closed all loans, but needs to appear at the RTO with the NOC he has received for closing the second loan. The seller isn't showing up at the RTO during all these months, and this is what is holding up the RC transfer process, as per Spinny.
Now, I am in a bit of a pickle. I love the car as it works very well, but I have no faith that Spinny will get the RC transferred to my name. I would appreciate any suggestions you guys might have on how I move forward with this. Spinny has told me that most of the process is done and the only thing remaining in RC transfer is that the seller of the car show up at the RTO with the NOC he has ( I don't know if he has actually closed the loans or not, but Spinny claims he has ). They tell me that if I like the car, please wait for a while more, but honestly it has been a long time since I bought the car and I have very little patience left.
To anyone reading this and thinking of buying a car from Spinny - I have one word - Don't ! Their customer service is nightmarish, and they have no problems about lying about the car itself or about the things they claim they will do for you, like the RC transfer process.