I’ve been an ex Muslim for 10+ years now, I’m very lucky because I denounced Islam when I was super young so I didn’t suffer too much. My family isn’t religious and my mom and sister also left Islam, so I totally wanna acknowledge the privilege I have, sometimes I read some of Yalls story and my heart breaks. However, I am living in the Islamic republic of Iran and it’s disgusting. I find 0 appeal in this religion because everything about it is so disgusting, I can find the appeal in Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, etc (I know some anti theists will come in and say “UhhhMM aLl rEliGioNs sUcK!” , literally don’t care it’s actually quite disgusting how you guys think any religion can come as close to Islam, even Mormonism is basically a Lowkey Islam but still not to islams level) Iranian women are suffering every single day with the stupid ass laws, we can’t live normal, everything is blocked. Etc. this religion wants to get rid of anything that brings you joy or a sense of humanity/ connection. There’s no music there’s no music ,no toys ,no laughter, no dancing, no singing, no love , no art, no games , no drawing, NO LIVING yet pedophilia, rape, murder and war are complete A- okay. I don’t understand the girls in the west who convert to Islam, do you not hear the cries and screams of girls in the Middle East? It’s not a “racist stereotype” , in Islam god really does hate women, Mohammad himself said women have half the intelligence and deen of men. I always believe that heaven will just be somewhere where it’s just complete peace, but Islam shows heaven as this whorehouse, how do you as a women read that passage in the Quran and think “wow I love that that’s so beautiful!” ??? Have yall hit your head somewhere? A Religion that promotes killing of non-Muslims does it never hit you that that’s very fucking weird that no other religion calls for that? Isn’t it weird how in most religions the biggest sin is to commit murder but in islam it’s “shirk” which literally means to just imitate another religion. for example you could be forgiven for waging war against non Muslims, rape , murder, take their kids and wives as slaves (quite frankly you’re following the religion) but if you’re a Muslim and have a Christmas tree oooff how dare you. I wish for the people who are living in the west could see this and understand this when this religion becomes a majority and takes over everyone is fucked. We’re also miserable. Don’t listen to the stupid ass victim card playing Muslims in the West, who talk about being oppressed, they are NOT oppressed in the Middle East. “I’m sad bc in my religion I’m allowed to beat my woman but it’s illegal here, this is discrimination 🥺” “ I can’t openly say I wanna kill gay people but my dean Islam is beautiful and peaceful” I see non-Muslim westerners, even now repeat the things Muslim say “ Islam is perfect. Muslims are not.” Bitch lmao WHAT? Just a bunch of useful idiots. So many women Conver to Islam it actually scares me. Do you guys hate yourselves that much? And I love how all the people were always advocating about the beauty and freedom that Islam give are all in the… west. For those of you that are in the west and saying “ oh Islam is not that bad it’s just racism” guess what! I look very much look Middle easterner, but still I get treated like shit as well in foreign countries because it’s a racism thing not a religion thing. No one hates you because you’re Muslim. They hate you because of the country that you came from and your country has committed atrocities. There’s no such thing as “Islamophobia” , the suffix “phobia” means irrational fear, fearing this religion is just human instinct. It’s not irrational. Sometimes on my for you page on Instagram or TikTok I’ll see these random white ladies open a page from the Quran and start sobbing talking about how beautiful it is. I’ve read the whole entire Quran front and back and to be honest it’s a mid book. I’ve read poetry books (like hafez) a billion times more beautiful than this bs book. How do you read this book that says the most basic philosophical things and then the next sentence is “ and you must kill all non-believers” and you’re like “wow omg 🥹” . So basically my rent is I don’t understand why people convert to this religion. I’m convinced that they’re all lied to. T I’m convinced that they’re all lied to or They’re sick in the head. I need someone to explain to me what is so beautiful about this religion?

After watching episode 14, I felt so bad for Jaehyung and honestly loved him even more. During his date with Jiwon in the Ferris wheel, he was clearly overwhelmed and drowned in thoughts. At first I was abit taken aback? Why was he this awfully quiet?? He didn’t even try to talk to her and replied in single sentences.
That’s when I realised how difficult this whole situation is. Jaehyung never really stood out in the beginning as he genuinely just couldn’t find anyone he truly liked or have romantic feelings for. But when Jiwon came along and he slowly started to get to know her, he caught feelings fast.I was finally so happy he found someone and he can be true to his feelings for once!
However, when Jiwon made slight remarks about how if he was an idol fans will fall for him but will later like someone else due to his personality or when she rambled about her type being someone dependable (aka yongwoo), the moods definitely shifted. I didn’t understand her intentions but things started to feel heavy.
He wanted to talk about deeper and more things with her but he definitely felt super overwhelmed and uncomfortable with the cameras constantly being there and that’s when it hit him that this is after all just a show. He loves Jiwon so much that he doesn’t even know if what he’s doing is the right thing. He starts thinking all sorts of things like will they even have the same relationship outside of this show? He also at one part said “the prettiest thing I saw today was actually her but I was not brave enough and said it was the moon” 🥺🥺 he loves this girl so much but he thinks he’s not enough but also doesn’t want to show his weakness.
All in all, whatever jaehyung was feeling was so so real to me. He takes love so seriously and this whole dating show setting is just not it for him. He’s so precious and I wish him the best wether he gets with jiwon or not. You can also tell he’s kind of weak bcs the mad mentality he had definitely made him feel abit sick too 🥲.

Long read
I had this originally written under a previous post asking about potential health effects of Quetiapine in this sub. I thought it might be a little much to blow up on someone else’s question. So here is my (long ass) experience and current investigation underway with my rheumatologist in Boston who was an adjunct professor and graduate from Harvard with an expertise in pharmacokinetics.
This will be a dumbed down version the best I can explain as layman with a mere masters degree in physical therapy. While I have a strong grasp of the concepts and language, I may get verbiage or premises incorrect but I believe this will read mostly correct. If you’re a medical professional or chemist, feel free to correct me. Im no writer and I’m sure this will be evident by poor grammar and run on sentences but I did try to do a quick proofread. It’s Reddit though, so…whatever lol.
This is a super individualized account to my neurobiology. Much of it will read as though I’m trying to scare off anyone from ever taking this medication. If you get through it, you’ll see that my doctor’s theory mostly shows the opposite, and the safety profile is extremely good. The people at the highest risk of suffering my fate, that is if he is even correct because this is still just a theory(but well backed) are people in the large cohort of patients being prescribed Quetiapine off label for sleeplessness or “insomnia” as a primary diagnoses.(Spoiler: insomnia is not a real diagnosis, it’s a secondary symptom and why the manufacturer warns physicians against prescribing for sleep).
Seroquel destroyed my life. Prescribed by a “Noctor”(mid level nurse playing with shit she doesn’t know thinking she’s as smart as a doctor) an insane dose of 300mg a night for simple nighttime induced anxiety that messed with my sleep.
This was after suffering an issue where I was on the road and didn’t sleep at all for 4 days. I was really struggling and my employer paid for me to see one of the top psychiatrists on the planet that works specifically with people in my industry(entertainment). We happened to be coming up for a stop in Nashville(where she practiced) and they setup the appointment. I had 6 hours with her where she walked me through the fallacy of insomnia as a primary diagnosis, and that I needed to find the physical or psychological root cause. 90%+ of “insomnia” is just a secondary symptom of mild anxiety with a nighttime onset. That is what she diagnosed me with. Simple anxiety that was triggered at night because my career was so mentally vigorous and non stop that all anxiety was building up with no where to be expressed other than the only time my mind wasn’t occupied by work…laying in bed.
She sent my diagnosis back to my primary in New England and wrote me a script for 8mg of Xanax a month with instructions that I had 2x1mg doses per week to utilize as an emergency med but the goal would be through therapy and self moderation of work to utilize the medication as little as possible.
When I got home from my work trip the only appointment I could get was with the Noctor as my primary physician was booked out for almost 2 months. She looked at the diagnosis from a world class psychiatrist and inserted her own biases about Xanax use under any circumstance being extremely dangerous. Even as an emergency or rescue medication taken a couple times a month. So she choose to nuke my fucking brain with a high daily dose powerful antipsychotic for some night time anxiety.
For a year it was fine other than a little weight gain. Wasn’t too bad for me though because I worked 16+ hours a day on the road 9 months a year.
Then the nightmares started. Like insane, traumatic, horrifically vivid nightmares that would make Stephen king blush. I’ve seen every person and pet I’ve ever know or loved, including myself murdered gruesomely in the most gorey ways in realistic acts of violence, accidents, as well as supernatural monstrous hell fuel.
I’d wake up soaked, covered in sweat and my back and neck would be sore from my entire body being contorted and stiff in terrible positions whilst waking up completely hypertensive due to the vivid hellscape I just awoke from that was indistinguishable from reality.
I went back to her and begged her to change it because I was no longer feeling like I was sleeping. I was just going from one world to another and waking up feeling like I was just in a car accident. She told me it was the only thing she prescribes for sleep because everything else is addicting and dangerous. So I tried to tough it out but after a few more weeks couldn’t take it anymore. I got another appointment and told her I was done whether she liked it or not. I wasn’t getting any rest and I’d wake up in pain like I was hit by truck. She then essentially threatened me. She told me the only way to get off it was to see the psychiatrist at my practice and told me if I went anywhere else she would flag me as a drug seeker. The first date available with that psychiatrist…6 months. So I set an appointment as early as possible with my actual physician(nearly 2 month wait) and figured I’d start weening myself off and by the time I saw my doctor I would be fully off or mostly off.
About 2 days later(I hadn’t even reduced my first dose yet so I was still on 300mg) I was hospitalized. I woke up from my normal nighttime alternate universe of horror completely immobile from my armpits up. I wasn’t numb, but I woke up with my head kinked under my right arm and bent almost completely around. Any movement felt like my spine from my upper thoracic all the way through my cervical spine was going to snap. My wife had to call an ambulance because it was not loosening up like it normally would. While the paramedics tried to board me from my bed I went into shock from the pain and went unconscious.
I woke up in the hospital a few hours later where I learned the doctors had to pump some drug into me that essentially made all of my muscles go completely limp in order to move me out of the position because my muscles were so rigid they couldn’t untwist me. The ER doc said he had never seen anything like it outside of some extreme situations of rigor mortis when someone was found dead in an awkward position and the body locked into that position.
Even once released from that position I felt like I had a knife in my neck. The ER called into my primary physician to update them and they moved my appointment up. In the days that followed my neck only got worse. I couldn’t stand, sit or lay in the same position. I obviously stopped Seroquel immediately. I spent all day flat on my back crying with my wife encasing me in and changing ice packs every 15 minutes. I was ready to kill my self the pain was so bad.
When I saw my doctor a couple days later we were going over my records and I emphasized this was a direct result of the Seroquel that I begged to come off several times because of the side effects and I had learned that even the drug manufacturer didn’t approve of it being used off-label for sleep. She was shocked I was being prescribed 300mg for sleep. I asked her that if she was shocked, why would she approve it considering she was the supervising physician for the noctor that prescribed it to me? She showed me the offices internal notes and the noctor has diagnosed me with mania and disassociation.
Like, WTF!?
There was no record in the practices notes of the diagnoses and recommendations from the psychiatrist I saw in Nashville other than “patient saw a “pill doctor” out of state”, “says he has “anxiety”.
Reading through her notes it essentially accused me of psychosis and drug seeking because I saw a doctor out of state that prescribed me a medication she didn’t agree with.
On my doctor’s end in her oversight of her nurses prescribing she just saw that she was prescribing a patient Seroquel for manic episodes, which is a standard course of action. She agreed that this was a horrible misjudgment, viewed the physical copies of the notes I brought home from Nashville, and immediately changed me to that physicians plan of Xanax as an emergency/rescue med vs 300mg of Seroquel daily.
It was too late though. The pain in my neck never went away. I couldn’t move, I was completely bed bound. The pain in my neck felt like I was wide awake whilst someone dissected my cervical spine with a rusty box opener. They sent me to “interventional pain management” where they then did more non-fda approved “healthcare” by repetitively injecting corticosteroids into my spine.
It only got worse and worse. The pain began to spread from my cervical spine, down into my thoracic spine. I started losing feeling in my arm. Then it was neurological medications like gabapentinoids, muscle relaxers, high dose NSAIDs, tricyclic antidepressants, physical therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy etc…within 8 months that noctor was no longer employed at the office(I don’t officially know if it was from her destroying my life).
After about a year there was still no answers. I lost my job that I had busted my ass for over a decade climbing the industry ladder after getting and advanced degree, and was on the verge of losing my house because I was still completely bed bound 90% of the day.
My doctor out of desperation and lack of answers starts me on narcotic pain management. I had never once touched opioids outside of anesthesia inpatient surgeries related to sports injuries growing up. I was staunchly against the use of opioids outside of that setting. Other than some moderate cannabis use after college(when I was no longer being drug tested for the first time in 6 years) I was pretty brain washed by the drug war zealots. Now I’m a pariah. Both doctors and people in my social circles keep me at an arms length because people drank the koolaid and believe anyone taking an opioid must be a raging addict sucking dick for heroin.
I’ve managed to claw back and slow down the total collapse of my entire life because my pain is now controlled to about 60ish% by pain meds while I go doctor to doctor trying to figure this out. By working as a part time consultant in my industry I’m making just enough money to stop complete asset loss but I’m still eating into my retirement and investments. If it wasn’t for the fact that my wife makes a decent salary we’d already be homeless. Even then we’re hemorrhaging money and are likely going to have to sell our house. At 32 I was on track to retire by 50 and travel the world. Now at 37 I don’t know if I’ll be alive by this time at next year as the inflammation and connective tissue deterioration runs rampant.
Doctors absolutely hate and refuse to try and pin serious medical conditions on bad medical professionals or bad medication. I’ve been through every major “world famous” hospital system here in Boston and they’re willing to look for the answer everywhere accept where I’m telling them it started. Until a few months ago.
I hired a high profile private patient advocate. A woman who is a former internal medicine expert that was the lead in a department at Brigham with a PhD/MD from Harvard and her law degree from Cornell. She found me an expert here in Boston that is a rheumatologist who investigates pharmacokinetics. He produced several redacted papers by the patent holders on Seroquel that show them shutting down the research by a hired lab that found Tumor Necrosis Factor spikes in high doses of Seroquel administered to mice with normal neurological function. 3 other labs confirmed the research and wanted the medication held for retrial in humans.
TNF when not properly regulated by the immune system causes a cytokine storm attacking healthy tissue without the presence of disease/damaged tissue. This is the foundation of most autoimmune diseases.
Seroquel regulates various neurotransmission and endogenous processes in the brain when they are not at their normal levels. Even then the science isn’t perfect on it so often an SSRI is prescribed along side because SSRIs are better understood and it’s kind of a protection from the unknown actions of the Quetiapine(Seroquel).
If those neurotransmitters are functioning correctly and neurological function is fine, introducing something like Seroquel in high doses at constant intervals can be incredibly dangerous.
This is where the black box warnings and requests for bans from the manufacturer of seroquel about off label prescribing come from. They only reported redacted and halted research on TNF production increase associated with the drug because they only ever confirmed the research with mice.
This rheumatologist has essentially shown to me with pretty indisputable evidence that I’ve likely developed a severe medication induced autoimmune disease that is rapidly destroying the connective tissue in my spine and is now jumping to organs. It falls outside the diagnosis of any single autoimmune disease and can only really be classified as MAS(multiple autoimmune disease). Because the research papers are all heavily redacted and were never entered into peer review for final patenting and fda approval there is no case or action for me to bring.
Furthermore seroquel has a pretty high safety record because it’s statistically more normal to have an imbalance of the neurotransmitters that it regulates which means it’s rare to cause the reaction the research found with the mice. Most people have some form, even if mild, imbalance that most often goes without symptoms. But the manufacturers did know the consequences of introducing a high dosage of the compound to a perfectly balanced brain.
I fell into a perfect storm. My neurotransmission was such that a small dose of Seroquel daily likely wouldn’t have hurt me but it was as close to equilibrium that flooding it with a drug that regulates neurotransmission that I exhibited the same outcome as those mice forcing my immune system to drive up TNF production. There is a well known list of medications that can cause autoimmune diseases and the way the drug was patented and approved it escaped this labeling given the uncommon instances of the phenomenon.
I am now in the phase of trialing every biologic/TNF inhibitor known to man to try and get it under control before it completely disables me, or jumps to a vital organ and kills me.
This is still only a theory by an extremely educated expert in the field as autoimmune diseases and tumor necrosis factors are only recently in the last couple of decades becoming more understood. We got a more substantial confirmation that he is correct over the winter when I got my first case of Covid19. I rarely get sick. I am an extremely healthy person that exercises regularly(as much as possible through my pain now) as a former division 1 athlete and eats super clean and balanced. This was the first time since this began to see what my immune system did under duress.
My pain dropped by easily 50%. Meaning my immune system had something to do other than attack and inflame the healthy tissues in my joints and organs. While I felt like shit of course, my neurological pain dropped significantly. Within a week of recovering I had to increase my pain meds back to normal as everything became inflamed again.
The entire point of this rant is this: Seroquel is extremely dangerous…to a small population of people. This isn’t uncommon of most pharmaceuticals. It is a cautionary tale about the off label prescribing of this drug for sleep, and sleep only. DONT ALLOW IT TO HAPPEN TO YOU.
If a psychiatrist, neurologist, or behavioral therapist has well documented diagnostics and evaluation that leads them to believe you have a significant neurological imbalance that leads to a true psychiatric diagnosis you will almost certainly be just fine with Quetiapine.
Unfortunately Seroquel is the most prescribed off-label sleep medication on the market. It needs to be stopped. The primary indication for Seroquel cannot be “insomnia”. The manufacturers tried to hide the pharmacokinetic reasons as to why, but they did black box it and request physicians not to prescribe it for such. Read the insert. Back, neck, and joint pain are all warnings to speak to your doctor immediately and this is why.

Authors note: hello readers be sure to check out the first chapter because there’s gonna be no recaps and again this is my first story I’ve written that’s actually been thought out so show a little grace if it’s rushed or something anyway this takes place right after the last sentence of chapter one (She proceeds to clap her hands and I wake up with my three friends in clearing next to a forest and next to what looks like an old medieval looking town.)
CHAPTER TWO: wait this is NOT A DREAM!?
Ok sorry about not listing my friends stats now but here’s the meet the team. I wake up and see Ryan standing right over me trying to wake me up while the 2 other members are still asleep
NAME: Ryan
Description: very cool and very kind guy that loves making friends also he’s pretty big but he’s a gentle giant that’s pretty much all muscle
STATS: Strength: B+ (lifts weights in gym class a lot during free time)
Agility: D+ (I mean I could outrun him just saying)
Endurance: B+ (runs about as much as me just for different reasons and is also super tanky)
Dex: C (never really got on cod but is average)
Charisma: B (he’s good at making friends)
Luck: C+ (idk what to say he’s just better then me at luck games)
Dev comments: good- dev G (are you Hans? How are you writing in my journal like a game dev from my world??-chris)
Overall I just love having friends like Ryan. Anyways, Ryan wakes me up really confused about where we are and asks me if I know anything about where we are and why we are all here. I am still half asleep but then I realize I can feel the grass I’m on and can hear Ryan speaking without me already knowing what he’s gonna say and then it dawns on me, WE ARE ACTUALLY IN A ISEKAI ANIME WORLD AND I CHOSE WHO TO TAKE WITH ME!!! I try to keep cool and tell him to wake up Kristopher while I wake up Drake
NAME: Drake
Description: little asian kid who is not nerdy at all and talks about murder and wants to up his K/D ratio all the time and swears a lot and apparently I am his only witness so he keeps me around (he’s not emo he talks about it jokingly and laughs I-i think he’s joking anyway)
STATS:
Strength: E+ (he’s small so not really much muscle plus he’s skinny)
Agility: B+ (he’s one of the fastest people I know)
Endurance: C- (when he’s full sprint he tires out quickly)
Charisma D (apparently not many people like hearing about murder, strange)
Luck: B+ (bro destroys in uno)
Dev notes: I-I don’t even want him- dev D (now who is this?- Chris)
As soon as I wake Drake up he’s ready to murder anybody and everybody but I calm him down and then Ryan wakes up Kristopher and he does not believe what is going on
NAME: Kristopher
Description: very similar to me but says memes a lot and it’s always a 50/50 chance he’s depressed which I don’t blame him for (some people say he’s emo but i don’t think so)
Stats:
Strength: C-
Agility: C
Endurance: B+
Dex: C-
Charisma: B+ (actually had a gf before)
Luck: C (it’s average)
Dev comments: wow this is just pathetic- dev G (man shut up bro to scared to even show your face Mr. Pathetic journal thief- Chris)
After we wake Kristopher up I tell everyone what happened and they surprisingly don’t beat me up and we all sit down and try to make a game plan but we have nothing. That’s until I got an idea, I tell the group that I’ve watched a lot of anime/anime recaps, and my favorite Isekai ones have a status screen that you can open. So I think in my head to open it and surprisingly it opens. I can see my stats items level and surprisingly skills.
Name:Chris
Skills:
Non magic based
Adrenaline rush- uncommon : get a spike of speed for 1 second. Lvl 1
Air slash- common: make 1(s) consecutive slashes in the air that can be used as a ranged attack. Lvl 1
Final stand-legendary: use the rest of a swords durability to launch a powerful attack. lvl MAX
Magic based
Mystic edge-rare: generate power from mana to sharpen a blade for your next attack. Lvl 1
Assassins instincts- legendary: use your instincts to generate a mental path to an enemies weak point. Lvl 1
Blessing of creation-error: use pure mana to create anything you can imagine. Lvl MAX
Passive skills:
Accuracy- common: have increased accuracy when throwing objects. Lvl 1
Item box-epic: have a storage box that you can summon to store items. Lvl 1
Accelerated heal-epic: recover from wounds quicker. Lvl 1
Eyes in the back of your head- legendary: Spidey senses. Lvl MAX
Gods stomach- error: have a chance to gain abilities from eating. Lvl MAX
Unseeable: Plot armor
I’M FREAKING OUT RN NO CAP MY GUY. This is a dream come true anyway I tell the dudes and they check their stats to and we devise a ranking system based on what we see
Common,uncommon,rare,epic,legendary,blessed,error
For some reason I’m the only one without a blessed ability and the only one with error abilities and concluded that lvl max abilities are either extremely bad or start of extremely good. So after a little bit of talking I have an idea. I was the only one who watched Isekai anime in the first place so I explained that most of the anime have adventurer guilds that we can join as a party and earn fat stacks from so we don’t starve to death. Then we agreed that we needed to go to the town and figure out what this world is about so we set off to the town ready to face whatever lies ahead.
Authors note: hi guys hope this chapter helps fill up any questions about our other characters and roughly our MC’s abilities. Next chapter is going to be less about world building and more about actual important fun stuff so thank all of you for reading and see you all soon ❤️❤️
Peace, fluffDZ (or cool beans guy)

I had a lot of difficulty speaking growing up, I have ADHD (diagnosed with ADD at the time, I think at age 8). From what I've heard, my speech was described as slow and very hard to listen too, I was often too quiet as well, had a hard time getting words out, and specifically hard a super hard time with constructing sentences, I could think just fine, my thoughts were fast and vivid, but translating that into speech was hard for me, and it was one of the reasons I started having evaluations done on me.
a list of things I would do:

• Stop several times during a sentence to think about what to say and then try to reiterate it
  
• Mentally auto completing a sentence that wasn't actually coherent with what I was trying to say, it was just easier to say in the moment
  
• Usually very slow at speaking, like I'm saying just one word at a time, but can suddenly speak much faster when I say a common phrase or a short sentence
  
• Repeating the sentence I want to say over and over in my head before saying it, and still botching it
  
• Needing to warm up my speaking for a while before I'm able to talk mostly without issue, can often take up to an hour of practicing speaking out loud
  
• Need to concentrate intensely in order to say every word at the same pace without pausing to think again
  
• Giving up on speaking mid sentence and pivoting to a slightly different part of the story I'm trying to tell, or give up talking all together
  
• Very slow at reading as a kid, extremely slow at writing if I could write at all
  
• Trying to cover up sudden stops in my speech with "um, uuuh" a lot, or using a lot of filler words like "like, kinda, well, but yeah", or long words to fill out the sentence with as I'm articulating it in real time. I'd swear a lot too as filler words
  
• Covering up by pretending to be distracted, tired, or forgetting what I was going to say even though I still vaguely know what I want to say, I just can't articulate it
  
• Covering up by pretending I was joking, as a kid, while playing with toys with my friends, I would pretend to be the stupid character when my brain was glitching, sometimes I'd roleplay as the dog or just start making noises and yelling incoherently so I didn't have to actually say anything
  
• Symptoms seem to get better when I'm with people I really gel with, almost to the point of normalcy (I think), but often I can only talk about things I really enjoy/know a lot about, simple small talk, or short quips/jokes, or repeat variations of "yeah, uh huh, cool"
  
• Having something to say that's difficult to explain, so I distort the facts into something that gets across the same point but is quicker and easier to say, I did this despite the fact that I hated lying as a kid cause it made me feel weird
  
• Avoiding speaking all together
  
• Can't argue because I'm afraid I'll stutter or trip over my words, making me feel stupid and discredit me in the argument, like an irl typo
  
• Extreme lack of confidence with talking
  
• Was interrupted and ignored by everyone as a kid, my speech was painful to listen to
  
• In early childhood, I interrupted people constantly cause if I didn't, I'd forget what I was going to say
  
• Sometimes I purely speak nonsense, like the mental auto complete thing but for a full sentence, it's like Chat GPT in the sense that the sentence is linguistically coherent, but had nothing to do with what I was thinking about, there's no personal meaning behind it, my brain just generated it on while on autopilot based on what the most common thing people usually respond with. It's really rare, but it happens, and it's wild that that happens
  

I made a lot of videos as a kid on YouTube, my biggest problem was talking in front of a camera, which as a kid didn't bother me, but I quickly stopped making videos once they just got too hard for me and my standards for video quality got higher.
Looking back at my old videos with my friends, I was utterly baffled by how hard it was for me to get basic points across, this video specifically is something else, I had to explain to my friends the point I was trying to make in the video, and it's a point I could've gotten across in one paragraph, and this video had more than one take too, I practiced speaking before recording, most of my other videos aren't this bad, but I think that's mostly cause they're edited, but this one's a pure, unfiltered look, into the way I used to speak.
https://youtu.be/Y1hEfEpmIeA?si=VR8xvn3N4oKGYJSG

It was bad. I don’t even know what type of questions will be on the question sheet and I thought I can at least get 7. You know what, not even close. I think I did ok in speaking and listening but reading and writing killed me.
I thought there was 4 passages and I rushed through. Turns out there are only three and all about science and archeology type of shit. Even I consume most (over 90%) of my content in English, this type of thing still take a lot of time to comprehend and I was like super anxious and I was reading sentences without comprehend them. I feel so horrible now I felt like I really blow my money away.
I have to admit I was being too cocky because I just wanted to chanllenge myself by taking IELTS and I am completely defeated😞

Okay, some Sinner from hell highers I.M.P to kill a buncha people, let's say six. But now, at least 3 of those 6 people are now in hell. All of them being at the prime of their life for some reason, and it's EXTREMELY obvious who killed them cause A: They find out about a business called THE IMMEDIATE MURDER PROFESSIONALS And B: They legit just have to connect the dots on who died recently who wanted to murder them, and find them. Doing whatever it is they want TO THE PERSON WHO HIRED IMP. And for all we know one of those 3 people could be a brand spanking new Overlord with SUPER POWERS so now that person is getting the shit beaten out of them by a fucking OVERLORD who hates them???
And then redemption, why in the world would any Overlord want to be redeemed when they have SUPER POWERS and massive influence in hell?? Why would any of the Vees want to be redeemed ever?? Are overlords pointless to try and redeem? Is rosey even possible to redeem with her being a fucking canibal?
What happens to sinners that die? Do they just heal right back up in place? Do they have to repeat the day in some kinda ground hog thing over and over? Do they just pop back into bed when they die?
What's the point of having any single weapon in hell other then an angelic one?? "Oh yeah I shot Tony in the head with a shotgun but I saw him walking around the very next day" ???? Does hell endlessly grow to support the influx of new people that show up there? What's the point of money in hell? Do new sinners just have a residence automatically when they show up in hell? Do you have to get a job in hell? What's the point of being afraid of death that isn't angelic when everyone comes back regardless??
I mean yeah I ask all this but then I kinda realized that this is either me reaching or the best possible writing in fucking ages I never realized ti'll now. That it's sins.
That's every fucking reason I just asked. People are envious or wrathful someone got them killed when they were alive and got them sent to hell, they higher IMP and seal their fate when said person dies and comes back to find them in hell and possibly do something even worse. And both will suffer from wrath because of it.
Overlords never want to be redeem caused their greedy for more, more power, more money, more everything. It's why money EXIST in hell and it's damn near entirely because of Mammon I bet. Damm near everything revolves around it so greed is everywhere. All the sinners constantly indulge in everything in the pride ring because it's PRIDE. They take drugs, drink, kill without consequence cause it doesn't matter, wake up the next day and do it again and AGAIN. Pride, Gluttony, Wrath, Envy, Lust, Greed, and Sloth are all present where the sinners are in DROVES. It's a damn cycle. That's the point and the reasons sinners don't/can't die. There's no true punishment.
What's the point of shooting a guy if he comes back tomorrow? To prove your BETTER. What's the point of having power? To know your above everyone even in a shitty place like hell. What's the point of having money? To know you can fucking OWN someone with enough of it.
Either I'm genuinely reaching or this is honestly just really well written masking as "the cursing quirky LGBTQ+ hell show" when it's honestly a very good representation of what hell is while making it seem like it's not that bad.
Cause it is, it's an endless cycle of people hurting people nonstop for God knows how many years ti'll sin becomes so normalized that even the words you speak are filled with hate, even when you're trying to be kind you still say "fuck" every other sentence cause you've been trapped for so many years in a place where no one is kind that cursing is just normalized.
Or maybe I'm reaching and it's all just something the writers never intended anyone to read into that hard.

I was just bored and thing about my titan. Solar and Strand are incredibly strong. While titan may not be winning DPS races they are really strong at tanking hits. Unfortunately that leads to a balance that usually results in a class that can survive, or a class that cant. I thought about the striker identity and what it could do to further delve into its identity, as well as what it could do to separate itself from the rest of the elements. Here are some ideas and problematic areas I found. Feedback is always appreciated.

Juggernaut

Juggernaut… wtf is this. Alright so it’s clearly a pvp aspect, but pales in comparison to void's bastion in every way for that. Its supposed to promote running and in your face gameplay, but outside of shotgun ape'ing that doesn't really quite come up in this game. Stopping for a thruster, aiming down sites, or using an ability prevents you from having this frontal shield. But a strong defensive option shouldn't be too easily accessible in pvp if it is to be useful. Tbh idk what they can do to make this useful in either game mode without reworking it from the ground up. Maybe flat dr when amplified (aside from the stupid shield) or an ability loop, though those could fit knockout better.
My best idea here is on class ability usage gain ‘juggernaut’ for 15 seconds. While juggernaut is active a portion of damage taken is received over three seconds instead of instantly. Kills during this time will completely stop the damage pool from applying. While amplified a greater portion of incoming damage is taken over time and you gain 10 health per kill.
This would be glorified damage resist but requires more in your face gameplay and faster action. It also gives a tiny bit of heal on kill to synergize but not overshadow knockout. This makes it more versatile as a poke weapon oriented option as well.

Knockout

Bungo has recently addressed knockout, though in my opinion it could still use a tiny bit more. The main problem going into the final shape will be a lack of refreshability. Knockout puts out alright damage for a 'unpowered to powered melee' aspect but it cannot be looped because it cant be refreshed. This would be the first thing to address. The other issue is that it doesn't do much outside of the melee. It will give a decent heal bump and amplified, but amplified isn't exactly great. That's why I think Knockout could buff amplified much like the hunters' Flow State. This could be in the form of a very small buff to grenade energy regeneration to match Code of the Earthshaker:Aftershocks from Arc 2.0. This would help bring it up to par with some like Roaring Flames. Lastely Knockout shouldn't have counter synergy with Spark of Feedback.

Touch of Thunder

This is by far Striker's best aspect, but it could do more. Touch of Thunder storm grenades are on life support, flashbang grenades never lived, lightning grenades are alright for pvp, and pulse grenades are our strongest option but needs exotic support (no not hoil). Flashbang grenades need to have a large aoe. 50% should do. Lightning grenades are fine the way they are now, though they are more of a PvP grenade. Pulses could use a longer duration and perhaps a slightly higher ramp up to be brought in line with Touch of Flame solar grenades. And storm grenades need to be considered for partial nerf reversions. Having aggressive tracking grenades was a bit much in PvP, but to compensate they killed the damage, the duration, the roaming, and the uptime. This really is just a difference between PvP and PvE changes. They were too prevalent beforehand so a PARTIAL reversion is all it needs.

New Aspect Potential

Strong aspects usually have ability loops through energy regeneration, survivability with either damage resist or healing, spreading of and lingering area of effect verbs (shock or blind in this case), or big big damage buff.
My ideas of juggernaut and knockout together would help with survivability. Knockout and touch of thunder help with big damage. Touch of thunder helps with spreading jolt, but lacks in ability loops. Striker also struggles with blind.
The jump from Arc 2.0 to 3.0 did cause many aspects of striker to go missing. Some were addressed here but here are two more.
Frontal Assault: Strike an enemy with this melee ability to reload your weapon and increase both your weapon stability and weapon damage.
Trample: Destroying enemies with Fists of Havoc extend its duration.
These attributes would greatly enhance titans. As an entire class, there is a lack of reloads and having something similar to Frontal Assault could fix that. The weapon damage has unfortunately become a staple of solar, but reloads and stability and very much part of arc's identity. Handling and reload speed could also be included.

Ballistic Slam

This melee is fun, but lacks a few things. First off remove the run up time. Its not a shoulder charge and shouldn't be counted as one, it should be more akin to a hunter dive or a pheonix dive. Second, its damage is pitiful when compared to other melees (hitting for nearly half). This makes it unsafe often especially when in harder content. Third, there is no verb 3.0 tied to this. As the most mobile of the three melees it should reflect the 3.0 gameplay and arc identity. If it either does big damage or blinds/jolts in a large aoe then it should be good enough to survive. It doesn't have to be amazing as it already provides super on hit. But most importantly, Bungo should remove the run up.

Thundercrash

With changes to silence and squall this thing stands alone at the bottom. Its sad. A synthoceps thunder clap out does this thing. Most supers hit around 350-375k raw. This thing hits 200k on a TRACTOR CANNON STUNNED CHAMPION. Thats not ok. With cuirass it goes up to 400k, 450 with splash. Thats around the same as a needlestorm. Send help please. On top of that it is the riskiest, most finicky one and done super in the game. Cant hit many bosses, forces you to leave players, you can get stomped right after, no well, low flight time, tied for LONGEST COOLDOWN IN THE GAME, and is a death sentence to flying enemies. Just undo all the nerfs. It will still be worse than storms edge…

Fists of Havoc

The original run and punch melee. This thing is what cursed us with “hold up the fist on the cover”. Besides that its alright. Strand has showen us what a good punch super can be though, and some of that can be brought here. I would like a general speed buff and less downtime between punches. This thing needs to feel fluid. Holding down the punch should do a modified balistic slam for mobility on the mobility class. Maybe even grenade for a modified thunderclap. Make it feel snappy, fast, and deal good damage.

ACD/0 Feedback Fence

There is a solid idea here, unfortunately there are many problems with our current armor system. There are not too many ways of using armor charge effectively after the neutering of kickstart mods. Your alternatives are stat increases (seriously who uses these), surges (best boys, though are on legs which are competitive real-estate), or finishers (also got neutered but have a couple nice options). Being able to produce armor charge for your surges is nice but loosing them on getting hit for a small explosion is hardly worth it. If the explosion blinded then it would be more useful, or if melee hits didnt take charge, giving you more flexibility in using your armor charge, would result in slightly higher usage. Could have a built in harmonic surge mod.

Cuirass of the Falling Star

Thundercrash. Help my boy. Raise his base damage to 325-375k to be in line with the rest of the supers. AT BASE. Next this thing needs quality of life changes. A partial refund like Celestial Nighthawk would be nice (either 33% or 50%). Celestial also offers a way to recharge your super. Originally this super did too with Ballistic Slam, but in the spirit of opening up build creativity it could come with a free copy of Hands-On. With the base super being bumped up this could use a number retuning. It should match spirit of Star-Eaters in order to not be outdone as the Thundercrash exotic. Additionally, a short duration movement speed post-crash would be helpful to get back to safety on this thing.

Eternal Warrior

Easy. Give it Trample: Destroying enemies with Fists of Havoc extend its duration. It will help bring back part of its arc 2.0 Identity. This would compound with the other Fists of Havoc changes.

An Insurmountable Skullfort

This is an odd one. It is too strong. Nobody uses it. As titan stands there are a lot of melee exotics and too much overlap. Synthos, Wormgods, Skullfort, Point-Contact Brace, Peregrine Graves, Mk 44 Stand Asides, Wishful Ignorance, Second Chances, Pyogales, Etc. In order to curate a meta where all exotics have a chance to shine we have to crack down on universal exotics. Seeing as how Should Charge already has several exotics, and Point-Contact Brace is the thunderclap exotic, Insurmountable Skullfort can be changed to be a Ballistic Slam exotic. Something simple like partial refunds on melee hits, and ramping damage on melee kills could make a fun loop, especially considering the Super Regen the melee has by base.

Point-Contact Brace

The weakest part of this exotic is Arc itself. Hopefully these changes would help bring the titan subclass in line to let this guy shine some more. One small change could be to help reduce charge time while amplified but it doesn't really need that. The only thing it needs is for the Lightning Damage to be considered melee damage for build synergies and thats it.

Conclusion

I know that there are many more titan exotics, and exotics in general that could use a touch up, but as this was a Striker post I did try to limit myself to arc exotics. Another thing is that yes, Striker is not doing well, but that may be an aspect of Arc as a whole. I haven't been playing around too much with arc strider or stormcaller so I didnt want to speak to their weaknesses, so I mainly wanted to talk about striker, and how we could improve it and give it what makes other subclasses strong in a new way.

So I'm just here too vent I don't know where to start but I'll start at the beginning so some backstory, I grew up in a traditional household as in I was fending for myself from the age of 14 by that I mean that once I turned 14 I cooked my own meals I did my own laundry I cleaned my own room I did my own jobs where I got paid money for things Such as babysitting house cleaning and sitting. Also I feel like I should mention that I grew up in a sixth generational military household where we were Raised under strict discipline We were also raised to have strong moral values as in do not do anything illegal and be an upstanding citizen you see something wrong report it. So to the meat and potatoes of why I want to vent so For this we need to go back 12 years ago so I just graduated high school I decided I want to start dating so I ended up meeting the person who would become my life partner when I first met him and we were on our first date I specifically told him that if we are going to be serious there's a game changer or end of game for me would be If he Or any of his friends or family members Had a criminal record that it would be game over "sorry thanks for playing tell him what he has won Charlie". He very plainly told me that no everyone and his family and his life are good people. So I give him a chance and we ended up dating for 2 years. Eventually I ended up getting stationed far away and I asked him if he would like to move in with me and he said yes. After a short while of us living together we ended up getting pregnant with our daughter and then he wanted me to meet his parents. side note The reason why I haven't met his parents up until this point is because I was a strong believer in not meeting the in-laws until marriage was either on the table or at least in talks but I did not want to meet them unless I and he was absolutely sure that we wanted to take that step. So we eventually went to go meet his parents and siblings and his siblings kid and everything went well it was a very lovely meeting and there was nothing to complain about nothing out of the ordinary. It eventually got to the point where every weekend we would be going to his parents house and the rest of the pregnancy went by swimmingling no problems whatsoever. Eventually my daughter came into the world during the summer and she was full term healthy happy baby. After 2 months of recuperating from giving birth we went to go visit his family let them see their granddaughter, niece, cousin. When we arrived at my in-law's house his cousin was there just chillin sitting on the couch. My partner said "cousin you're out of juvee that's amazing I wasn't expecting you to be back so soon" Safe to say my eyes widen when I heard my partner say this because I flashback to when we first met and I specifically asked him if he had any family members or Or friends who Who had a criminal record. I pulled him to our room that we had aside at the In-law's house and hushley yelled at him saying that he had told me that he had no family members are friends with criminal records he very nonchalantly Said "oh cousin doesn't have a criminal record it was expunged when he turned 18" 🚩#1: I don't know about everyone else but this was a red flag when I first heard it cause he basically got me on a technicality But I still felt betrayed because his cousin was in juvee for a pretty bad crime.( Not gonna mention here but it will come into light later in the story.) I let it go for the moment And enjoyed the rest of my weekend unfortunately though I had left my ipod In my room cause I was told it would be safe there because I was also told that I should make my partner's room feel more homey to me. But when I had came back the following weekend to get my ipod it was not where I had left it I ended up tearing apart the room looking for it because it had sentimental value to me due to irreplaceable photos videos from high school of friends, friends who are no longer with us, events that I held dear from high school Especially all the events that come with senior year of high school. I asked all the family who were living in the house at the time if any of them had been in partner's room or Or borrowed my ipod and everyone said no everyone said I don't know where it is. I then asked who has been in the house during the week since I was gone and mother-in-law said oh cousin was here because he was having trouble with his girlfriend. I went to partner and asked him to call cousin to see if he borrowed my ipod because if he did then I would like it back because I have I have irreplaceable photos on the ipod. 🚩#2: Partner said no cousin wouldn't never take anything from my room cousin's not like that you're crazy why you being so upset and crazy over a few photos and a ipod. Partner also mentioned that because of my view of His cousin that that's clouding my Vision of him so of course I would automatically assume he would take it granted I did not specify he stole it I said borrowed did not say stolen please refer to previously mentioned reason why this ipod was so important to me...partner knew of the sentimental value of the ipod also that I paid for it with my hard earned money, it was the first expensive thing I had ever brought. Anyways partner had me second-guessing myself so I eventually just let go the fact that my ipod was missing I did not bring it up I should have it would save me a lot of mental health in the future anyways flash forward to 2015 my contract With the military was up I decided not to reinlist. As a goodbye gift my master chief had given me a deer antler bullet Pen that he had made personally for me. At the behest of his parents me and partner and our daughter moved into his parents place I kept the pen in a pen holder On my desk in my room At this point in time I was always out of my room and out of the house looking for a job. I didnt really need one I was making and still am making plenty from the VA. I'm sure a lot of you I probably gonna say that when I had moved in I should learn my lesson with the ipod and had installed a lock on the door but my in-laws were strong believers in a no lock policy in the house of course I did not And still do not believe in that policy I like privacy I do not like the idea of someone just randomly barging into my Space at any given moment. So eventually one of my old navy buddies had came to visit me and wanted to see the pen that master chief had given me. We wanted to compare the ones that Master chief had given both of us Every pen he had made was always unique so we wanted to see the difference Between the 2. Low and behold my pen was missing and I was devastated. And true Rinse and repeat fashion. I asked all the family members who were living in the house at the time if anyone had been in my room and took a pen they all looked at me like I was crazy and said are you going to get upset over a pen missing now and I specified that that pen was basically a parting gift from my boss for For being in the military. 🚩#3:After I realized that I was not gonna get anywhere with asking the family, I voice my concerns and grievances to my partner he also made me feel like I was crazy because he stated that "it's just a pen get over it". Eventually I did manage to get a few jobs over the next few years up until 2019 when I eventually decide I want to better my education and go to college so from June till may of 2020 I was going to college.side note: From when we had moved in with his parents all the way till even today I have been doing 90% of the housework as in I cook, I clean, I do laundry all the while working 40+ hour weeks. All partner ever does is just go do work with his dad And come home to fresh clean clothes and towel fresh out of the dryer laid out in the bathroom and a hot meal waiting on the table as I'm sure you're getting from the tone of what I'm saying right now I think you know Where this whole thing is gonna go real soon. So while I'm going to school and doing all the housework taking care of our child. My partner would come home shower do all the normal stuff and then go to bed but then he wouldn't touch me or be intimate with me he would always say I'm tired I'm not in the mood I have a headache. Maybe you dont understand partner but I never pressed on him because I assume because of certain work stressors He must be having a tough week so I never pressed him to be intimate with me. Pass to around a few weeks before Halloween I was just randomly scrolling on his phone looking at Halloween costumes for our daughter cause she wanted a very specific costume and he had gotten a text message from someone labeled under a male name and they said something that was very alarming and I looked in the text against my better judgment And what it said was hey how about we have another car date. I didn't want to jump to conclusions so me in stealth mode I text it back saying what would you like to do during the car date and the person replied oh the same thing we do every time we go on a car date you me in the back seat and you pounding me like crazy. With you saying my name and me screaming yours. Safe to say I was sick to my stomach just from reading what the person had text I had screenshot the text and I had sent it to myself and then deleted the text that I had sent to myself from my partner's fault I then put the phone away and then partner went and got his phone and I could see his face turned pale white as he saw that the Text had been opened but he didn't make any mention even brought it up. After this I went into FBI mode and I would casually look at his phone whenever he was in the shower he would always leave it charging as soon as he got home from work and then any text messages that seemed kinda off I would screenshot them and I would look app the number at a later time and back track it via Google. The information you can find on Google is crazy to me thank God for google. I eventually would get the person he was sending messages 2 send pictures as proof that they were together And evidence was unmistakable the things that she had sent made my stomach turn lowkey I could hear just what the episode of SNAPPED would have said about me if I had listened to that inner voice. After getting plenty of proof of his infidelity I eventually confronted him And here's where red flag number 4 comes into play. 🚩#4: He stated that I had become distant from him that I was more concerned with our child and school then I was with him and then also another thing that was basically as he said the straw that broke the camel's back was that I had put on weight. at this point in time I was Only 50 pounds heavier than when I got out of the military. He also mentioned that I didn't make time for him anymore Which was far from the truth if anything I always tried to push to have time with him on his days off but he was always "with his friends" I later found out that he was with her. Another reason he had given was that our relationship had grown stale and cold and boring and he wanted something exciting and new. I gave him the ultimatum either he picks me and our daughter or he picks his side piece. And true kid mentality he said it wasn't fair because he loved both me and her and he couldn't pick and he had the nerve to come up with the idea that we do a sister wife/polygamy type of relationship. 🚩#5: He even went As far to say that we should do an open relationship but primarily one where he would be in a relationship with someone but I would have to be faithful to him.another side note:he's not morman or LDS or muslim Very nicely I state did that it would be a cold day in hell when any of those options would be even viable to me.* Again I grew up in a traditional household where monogamy is a necessity And I also made it very clear when we started dating that I was a monogamous person so how this even became an idea in his head I have no idea.* So he tells me once he sees that I am dead serious that he chooses me and our daughter and I stated good choice and I thought that was the end of it until December of that year when I had heard his phone go off while he was again in the bathroom and I went to look at it and it was her and she had stated that He had left his wallet at her place when When he had seen her last week. I was feeling mad and when he came to sit back down on the couch I threw his phone at him I Called him out for the sleazy dog that he wasAnd brought up other harsh words Regarding events that had happened in the past years Since we had moved in with his parents. 🚩#6:He stated that he hasn't seen her since I had given him the ultimatum and that she is just trying to get rise out of me because he had told her that I had found out about her. Of course I did not believe him so once he left for work the following day I checked his Google location for the day that she had mentioned that he had left his wallet and lo and behold he had been at her house during that week and then also later in the day after the text he had been at her house again this time he was at her house for the better part of 3 hours when he strictly told me that he was gonna be super busy and working with yard tools where he would not be able to hear his phone go Off whenever I text or call him. * Yes I can hear you all screaming at me that I should have left him when he first had the affair but I don't know maybe I had my daughter in my mind and didn't want her to grow up in a broken household or whatever may be the case but for some stupid God forsaken reason I gave him another chance And kept giving him chance after chance every time I saw he had gone to her house* Eventually he had grown tired of the girl and then he settled back into being monogamous again and everything for the most part especially after covid happened was quiet and calm but that's what I thought. Queue cousin entering from left stage. Cousin ended up staying with us during COVID because again he had a falling out with his girlfriend now baby mama And one particular day I came home from working limited hours due to covid and I see an iPod that looks eerily similar to the one I had. Curious I looked at the back and low and behold there was still a sticker residue from A sticker that had previous There. Fun fact about my ipod I had an anime sticker That I had personally designed. Again curiosity got the better be and I unlock the ipod and check the serial number in IMEI numbers and check the same Info on the product box that I had gotten my ipod in and lo and behold they matched perfectly to a T. Stupidly optimistic I was hoping someone had found it where it might have been misplaced and I was hoping that my photos and videos were still on the ipod. But as I'm sure you're probably already guessing it was wiped clean and it was nothing but photos of and you guessed it cousin and his baby mama and their baby. every video and pic that I had on my ipod from when I first bought it In freshman year of high school to when I had eventually had my daughter Was gone forever. Cousin came out of the bathroom and asked what I was doing with his ipod. I'm sure you know where this conversation is going so I'm not gonna repeat it but let's just say a few harsh things were said and he eventually felt guilty for not coming to me and asking if the ipod was mine. I obviously gave it back to him because it had no more sentimental value to me because all my stuff was deleted and it was basically his at this point. So later that night I again leaned on Partner's shoulder and Express my grievances and how I didn't appreciate that he gaslet me into thinking that his cousin wouldn't take something out of his room when in later years it is found out that he did in fact I asked for an apology on the matter and he stated... 🚩#7: Why are you upset over something that happened in the past and over photos that Aren't that important.* Our daughter's entire birth was on the ipod by the way Not to mention all my pregnancy bump milestone photos were there too.Also I have fertility issues and was told carry children would be difficult...I think they meant conceiving because like a unicorn no morning sickness or any of the negative things you hear that comes with pregnancy* Later in the year 2020 partner's brother ended up moving out and moving about 2 hours North of us With his girlfriend now wife. In the same fashion as us not too soon after they moved into their new place they found out they were expecting their first child together. The entire pregnancy went by just as smoothly as mine but around December, Brother-in-law and cousin decided to do cross-country trip this is all that they told us we thought they were crazy because His brother-in-law was expecting his first child and cousin was expecting his second child And the babies were going to be due any day at most within the coming weeks. Well surprise surprise we get a call from brother-in-law's frantic wife stating something happened to brother in law and cousin and that she couldn't talk about it over the phone. When she eventually arrived she was hysterical, Tears rolling down her face I actually felt A sense of concern and dread for what she was about to say to us. So long story short cousin and brother-in-law had been working for unfavorable people and transporting unfavorable items across state lines. sil and cousins baby mama knew what they were doing and would tag along, they "didn't care because the money and their lives were good" * Brother-in-law's ex then gf had previously told me that he was working for the same unfavorable people and when I brought it up to 🚩#8: partner he said x is crazy don't listen to Her. (He later told he and fam always knew what bil and cousin were doing just never brought it up because 'thats cousin and bils business to tell us'* Again due to COVID the court system was delayed and brother-in-law did not go to jail right away. While we were awaiting a sentencing Brother-in-law set all the family down and asked us to look over his wife and kids (yes kids plural he ended up having a second child while awaiting sentencing stupid I know.) The rest of the family said they would look out for Brother-in-law's family. But here's where I'm going to sound like an a****** but I very plainly and bluntly told him that I will not look after his family because I did not marry "wife" and I did not have "kids" I also stated that he knew that he was expecting a kid and he went to do a run even though his kid was due any day and I also mentioned that he needs to suffer the consequences of his actions. To make it short the family looked at me like I was the devil for saying this but I have made it clear of where I stand when it comes to criminals and doing illegal activities. I also have made it very clear how I feel criminals should pay for their actions. I know this will sound cheesy but if you cannot do the Time do not do the crime. In my eyes this was a textbook case of f*** around and find out. I do not feel like I should bend over backwards when I am taking care of my own family and my own problems and adding my brother-in-law's problems to my plate. Again this is where I might lose people but as I previously I grew up in a traditional household where we pull our weight and take care our ourselves. Sister-in-law is now living with us she does not have a job, she does not want a job, she does not pitch in for any expenses. I am paying over 70% of the household expenses water, gas, Wi-Fi etc. * Also after looking at the mortgage payment statements the rent I pay my in-laws to stay in the house pays for more than half of the mortgage.* Sister-in-law does not pitch in a dime. She has no disability she can work she just chooses not to. Well if you couldn't guess it the house was tense for the rest of the time that brother-in-law was in the house until he was eventually sentenced and put in jail. So since brother-in-law has been in jail I still stick to the hole I don't help sister-in-law with anything pertaining to her, I don't ask her for anything. She's been making it a habit of calling my partner and having him move my car from the spots that Im able to get in front of the house before she got into the spot to have him move the car for her because she doesn't want to walk far with The kids. This was usually how things were done until yesterday when sister-in-law was calling my partner to have him move my car and he wouldn't answer because he was asleep due to being sick. So In a begrudging fashion I assume this was for her she calls me to have me move my car, I told her I don't mind the car being moved but she would have to come get the keys to move it as I was currently busy rearranging my Space, And that I was trying to get everything i needed to get done before my day was over cause this was my only day off during the week, And in A spoiled sounding tone she says whatever Forget about it. Later in the day when my partner had woken up he Received a call from Sister-in-law stating that I was being difficult and wouldn't move the car From my spot.* I think it's fair to Mention that there are plenty of spots In front of our house but for some reason she always wants to park where I park. She never calls anyone else who's parked in front of the house ,if they're parked there, to move their cars only me or my Partner.) Also full circle, I was cleaning out our family's "junk cabinet" yesterday during my cleaning frenzy and found my deer pen it was in fils work bag, and yes its mine says my rank and full name on it.(trust me it'll come into play) So after the call with sister-in-law partner starts berating me Stating that I'm a part of this family and that I should be helping everyone out nevermind that I pay 70% expenses and more then half of mortgage,among other things. I told him very sternly that I had let her know that she could come and move the car herself but I was currently busy. I also stated that I told her when When brother-in-law asked us to help out with his family that I would not be doing any favors I will not be dropping things at the Whim of a hat for sister-in-law. I have my own things I need to do I can't just be stopping what I'm doing just to help her just cause it'll make it more convenient for her. I also stated during the convo with partner that there are plenty Of Mother's whose Partners are also in the prison system Who have multiple kids who are doing just fine by themselves. And that sister-in-law needs to women up And handle things on her own. I also stated that I did not tell her to have the kids That was all her choice. I also stated that I have never asked or received help for anything during my time with him and his family. I've been a very self-sufficient independent person. I'd like to make it known that we primarily survive off my income alone most of his income that he gives to me goes into savings because I make a Remarkably large amount of money thanks to what I get from the VA and from my 40+ hr job in the federal sector. And with the hours I work I don't have to worry about childcare as I watch my daughter during the day, When partner comes home from his long day at work I will sleep for a couple of hours before I start my night shift, I also will sleep while my daughter is in school till I have to pick her up then I do housework and take care of my child till my Partner Comes home and cook dinner. The only reason we live with in-laws is to help them with the mortgage because the mortgage is so incredibly high in the area that we live in. So to reiterate I have never asked or needed help from any of partner's family. And I find it funny that they are now preaching that we're a family we need to help each other, Yet never once while I was living with them have ever offered help offer to watch a our child for the night or anything. Not that I would accept or anything just saying it would have been a nice gesture at the very least. But after partner said that we're family, I retaliated by saying family doesn't violate personal space and go in your room and steals your stuff. He sighed and said you're on that again and I said it's not just the ipod it is also the fact that your dad stole my deer pen. And that the ipod was and the deer pen is sentimental to me. Like a broken record I stated that the ipod had everything from my past that was irreplaceable memories of friends who are no longer with us and of our daughter's first breath into the world And the fact that he is not as mad as me about the fact that we no longer have the video of our daughter being brought into the World Is eye-opening. We ended the day on a sour note where he ended up sleeping on the couch and I in our bed. which has led me to write out my emotions because I just want to scream at him for 🚩#9: everytime he gave his free time to his family,when I couldn't even get 2 hours a day to just chat, the little bit of time I did get with him he just wants to "sit in silence" where he ends spends the time on tiktok. Also whenever I find out when i have a day off usually a month in advance. I try to plan an "US" day where its just me, him, and our daughter.spoiler alert I rarely if ever get to share a day off with him and when he manages one, on the day we had plans he says something along the lines of I have to do a tree trimmng job or fix a sprinkler head, he states "won't take long" then will call and say he'll be bit longer, rinse and repeat this and he spends the whole day at his clients house fixing his fuck up. no hes not seeing AP I have untraceable GPS trackers secretly hidden in all the vehicles, and no not illegal I legally own and insure all our vehicles at my suggestion due problems with the parents. Also partner owns piece of fils business so in a way its keeping track of work equipment in case it gets stolen. I've gotten to the point where the moment he says he's gonna take longer than planned I just leave with my daughter and do what I had planned like go to the zoo, museum, trampoline park, etc. Partner does not call me all day. im at the point idc,still frustrated but don't care. Also here's the cherry on the cake usually when me and daughter go out we get back right when partner gets home and is unpacking the work vehicle and he has this look like were you out of the house all day? Which is confirm with that very question coming from his mouth. I send our child to go in the house sensing where the convo was leading to and once she was out of ear shot. Again very bluntly I tell im not gonna cancel my day if your not gonna prioritize me and our daughter's time I had plans for today I told you in advance you made your choice of which is more important so while you used your day off to do an extra job I used my day off to make memories with our child. In true child fashion he says but I wanted to go to insert place too. You should've just waited to go on a different day. I tell him that he always postpones or comes up with a reason not to go (too expensive, too hot, will be crowded, blah blah blah) so instead I will make the plan to go tell him ahead of time if he takes time off great if not no sweat im still going. Boy he got so irritated for being called out especially when our daughter yelled from the doorway dad you always cancel on us. BTW daughter is unaware of partners affair on the day that I confronted him a close friend that I had told of my situation told me and partner that her daughter wanted to do a sleepover I was unaware this was her sneaky way of helping me. I just took advantage of the empty nest situation I'm sorry if this is more of a rant but my anger and emotions all over the place I'm half tempted of just ending things cutting ties with him and his family because they expect me to change my morality, which I'm very uncomfortable with that. Everything that I was taught respect the relationship your in, respect the law, dont do anything illegal etc these are basic common sense things. Mil, bil, and partner did not respect their relationships or partner. Mil and partner cheated (not with eachother gross but with other people). Bil left pregnant wife alone, due to have a baby anyday, to do something illegal. Also the mental abuse i deal with Partner's sisters bullying me by critiquing how my parents raised me, on my parenting, calling me a hypocrite on my morality because I was trying to pin a baby on partner (was not true he was given the choice to leave all the way up until before delivery) I'm just mentally, physically and emotionally tired. And separation is looking really like a good idea. I've asked for family and couples counseling, inlaws and partner say "we don't have issues you do,why dont you get it, your too needy and selfish always wanting to spend alone time with partner" Thats why I'm turning to reddit one to vent/rant and two for second opinions. I try to limit what I tell bout my family to my parents friends and sibs partly because I hate painting people I've chosen to keep in my life in a bad light also my dad and brothers wouldve have made partner and inlaws take a dirt nap in the desert if I had told them what they've been putting me through and what partner did around time of covid, no trace or evidence think scene from boondocks of the assassin who "took care of" the entire family.only my close friend has seen and knows the full extent of what I've gone through, so she could be a witness to my family if partner tries to spin this around in his favor. But also she suggest the reddit route so I can get opinions and see if maybe I'm seeing this in a different light like seeing this though a different POV. Any advice or insight would be appreciated. I know I most likely am gonna get hate for this next thing I about to say as well But when we found out she was pregnant with the second kid I said with a great deal of concern that she should "take care of it" because "if you arent sure if you can handle two kids while brother in law is away then maybe keeping this one isn't the best choice" Again family looks at me like I'm the devil for suggesting this.Just so It's made clear I was not pushing her to get an abortion I was just trying to make it clear to her that she is going to be having 2 kids under the age of 2 in her care While her husband is away. Also for further insight cousin broke up with baby mama while she was pregnant with second kid but after it was too late to do anything about it when baby mama announced her pregnancy (prior to the crime) i voiced my same concerns with her,in standard young dumb full of it fashion she state "we are in this ride or die" and now she cries to me saying she can't handle two kids and "why did i have a second one" baby mama is now regretting her decision.For any single parent taking care of two kids is a daunting task so I was just looking out for her mental health due to the fact that she would be Taking care of 2 kids by herself at the same time her partner was going to be going to jail for an undisclosed amount of time and at the time not knowing if she might have ppd like some people have after having Irish twins.

(this is an update to the following class: The survivor (homebrew martial class) : DnDHomebrew (reddit.com), also warning:this subclass talks about alchohol)
Method of Acceptance
The old world is dead, youve come to accept that fact. From this change of mindset, you have learned how to channel a small amount of druidic magic to help something beautiful grow from the corpse of the past.
Ruin magic
At 3rd level, you learn how to channel small amounts of druidic magic.
Cantrips:you learn two cantrips of your choice from the druid spell list, at 10th level you learn an additional druid cantrip.
Spell slots:The acceptance spell slot table determines how many spell slots you have. You recover all spent spell slots on a long rest.
Spells of 1st level or higher:You start with three druid spells of your choice, one of which can be from any school of magic, all other spells you learn must be of the transmutation or conjuration school of magic. You learn additional spells based on your spellcasting table. The spells you learn at level 8, 14 and 20 can be of any school of magic. When you level up you can replace one spell you know with another spell of your choice, but they have to be of the transmutation or conjuration spell school (unless its a spell that doesnt have said limitation)
Spellcasting modifier:wisdom is your spellcasting modifier
Spellcasting table

1. cantrips:2, spells:3, 2L1
   
2. cantrips:2, spells:4, 3L1
   
3. cantrips:2, spells:4, 3L1
   
4. cantrips:2, spells:4, 3L1
   
5. cantrips:2, spells:5, 4L1, 2L2
   
6. cantrips:2, spells:6, 4L1, 2L2
   
7. cantrips:2, spells:6, 4L1, 2L2
   
8. cantrips:3, spells:7, 4L1, 3L2
   
9. cantrips:3, spells:8, 4L1, 3L2
   
10. cantrips:3, spells:8, 4L1, 3L2
    
11. cantrips:3, spells:9, 4L1, 3L2, 2L3
    
12. cantrips:3, spells:10, 4L1, 3L2, 2L3
    
13. cantrips:3, spells:10, 4L1, 3L2, 2L3
    
14. cantrips:3, spells:11, 4L1, 3L2, 3L3
    
15. cantrips:3, spells:11, 4L1, 3L2, 3L3
    
16. cantrips:3, spells:11, 4L1, 3L2, 3L3
    
17. cantrips:3, spells:12, 4L1, 3L2, 3L3, 1L4
    
18. cantrips:3, spells:13, 4L1, 3L2, 3L3, 1L4
    

Ruin magic
At 3rd level, you gain learn how to use your magic for combat. When you deal damage with a spell, you can roll a luck dice and deal additional damage equal to the number rolled
Lucky spell
At 7th level, you become more accurate with your magic. You can now use your special targetting with your spells (assuming the spell in question has you make an attack roll).
Spirits of ruin
At 11th level, you learn how to empower your summons with spiritual powers. Any creature you summon now does magical damage with their attacks, and they can add your wisdom modifier to their saving throws.
Avatar of ruin
At 15th level, you gain the ability to become an avatar of ruin. As an action you can become an avatar of ruin for 1 minute, gaining the following benefits for the duration:

1. You gain a flying speed equal to your walking speed and can hover.
2. You gain resistance to fire, thunder, lightning and cold damage.
3. When you cast a spell that requires an action, you can cast it as a bonus action instead.

Once the minute is over, you cant enter this state again until a long rest.
Method of moonshining
The post apocalypse is tough for everyone, and so many survivors find different coping mechanism, with the most common one being alchohol. You are one of these people, but youve managed to discover how to use your brewing skills to make special drinks to help you survive.
Bonus proficiencies
At 3rd level, you gain proficiency in brewers supplies.
Special drinks
At 3rd level, you learn how to make special drinks to help you survive (or to drown your sorrows, no judging). During a long rest you can create a number of special drinks equal to your proficiency bonus. These can be drunk as an action, gaining the effects. When a creature drinks one of these drinks, you must make a DC 10 constitution saving throw or become drunk. While drunk you have disadvantage on all intelligence and wisdom checks for 10 minutes. These drinks become regular alchohol if they havent been drunk when you take your next long rest. The drinks are from the following list:
Liquid courage:you gain a number of temporary hitpoints equal to your survivor level for one minute.
Strong stuff:you gain advantage on all strength checks and saving throws, and once per turn you can add a D4 to damage dealt using strength. This effect lasts for one minute.
Smooth wine:you have advantage on charisma checks and saving throws for one hour.
Astral brew:you gain blindsight with a range of 30 feet for one hour.
Drunken mind
At 7th level you gain the ability to fight better while drunk (somehow). While drunk, you have advantage on saving throws against being stunned, charmed, frightened or tricked by illusion spells. Additionally when you drink one of your drinks you can choose to fail the con save.
Better brewing
At 11th level, you learn how to make better drinks. The drinks are upgraded with the following:
Liquid courage:the temporary hitpoints granted is now equal to your survivor level plus your proficiency bonus.
Strong stuff:the damage increase is now equal to your luck dice.
Smooth wine:other creatures have disadvantage on insight checks against you.
Astral brew:your blindsight is now doubled in range.
Iron gut
At 15th level, you can now ignore the downsides of being drunk, additionally the amount of drinks you can make every long rest is doubled.
Method of study
Your method of survival comes from your brain rather than your brawn. You study your opponents and waiting for them to slip up so you can take advantage of their mistakes.
Bonus proficiencies
At 3rd level, you gain proficiency in investigation.
Analyze
At 3rd level, you learn how to study your opponent. As a bonus action you can make an investigation check against a creature you can see (DC=the targets CR+5). On a success, you learn its creature type, alignment, resistances, vulnerabilities and one sentence worth of general information.
Weaponized Knowledge
At 3rd level, you learn how to weaponize your knowledge. When you hit a creature, you can choose a damage type. Once per turn when they take damage from the chosen damage types, they take additional damage equal to your proficiency bonus. You can only have one creature suffering from this effect at a time.
Intellectual targeting
At 7th level, you learn how to better use your special targetting. After you analyze a creature, when you use your special targeting on that creature, the debuff applied is upgraded:
Torso:the target also has disadvantage on all strength saving throws for the duration.
Head:the target is also deafened for the duration
Arms:the target has disadvantage on attack rolls using their arms for the duration.
Legs:the target has disadvantage against dexterity saving throws for the duration.
Mental defenses
At 11th level, you gain proficiency in intelligence saving throws, additionally you also have resistance to psychic damage.
Find weakness
At 15th leve, when you analyze a creature, you also learn a secret weakness that can be exploited. The target gains a damage vulnerability that they before didnt, but it only applies to you and anyone you tell the weakness. The vulnerability is determined by the DM, and in some cases creatures dont have such vulnerability.
Perks
Durable
Your AC is increased by 2, that is all.
Heave ho!
The standard range and the long range of thrown weapons is doubled, additionally thrown weapons do +2 extra damage.
Molotov maker Prerequisites:method of moonshining
When you create drinks, you can also create a number of alchemist fires equal to half your proficiency bonus (rounded up).
Ninja prerequisites:proficiency in stealth
You can now use a bonus action to hide, additionally whenever you hit a creature while you surprised them, you can add a roll of your luck dice to damage rolls.
Strongback
Your carrying capacity is doubled.
Special eyes prerequisites:method of study
You can cast detect magic and identify at will, intelligence is your spellcasting modifier for these spells.
Terrifying presence prerequisites:method of friendship, level 6
You gain proficiency in intimidation. As a bonus action you can scare a creature within 30 feet, making an intimidation check rivaled by the targets insight check. If you succeed, the target is frightened until the end of their next turn.
Bloody mess prerequisites:level 6
Blood everywhere! You gain a bonus to all damage rolls equal to half your proficiency bonus (rounded up)
Micro missiles prerequisites:method of technology, level 6, intelligence of 14 or higher
You have installed small wrist mounted missile launchers. Once per short rest you can fire a missile at a point you can see within 120 feet. All creatures within 20 feet of that point must make a dexterity saving throw (DC=8+proficiency+your intelligence modifier) or take fire damage equal to five rolls of your luck dice, or half as much on a success.
Super slam prerequisites:big leagues, method of brute force, level 6
When you hit a creature with a weapon, you can spend a luck dice to do a heavy strike. When you hit with a heavy strike, you can force the target to make a strength saving throw (8+proficiency bonus+strength modifier) or take extra damage equal to two rolls of your luck dice and be knocked 30 feet away.
Supernatural recovery prerequisites:method of acceptance, level 6
You learn how to regain magical energy from the world around you. When you take a short rest, you can recover one spent spell slot of the highest level you are missing. Once you recover a spell slot this way you cant do so again until you finish a long rest.
Superior psyker prerequisites:psyker perk, level 9
You can cast Tashas mind whip, detect thoughts and suggestions once per day each. Intelligence is your spellcasting modifier.
Paralyzing palm prerequisites:iron fist, method of brute force, level 9
When you hit a creature with an unarmed strike, you can spend a luck dice to try to stun a creature. That creature must make a constitution saving throw (8+proficiency bonus+strength modifier) or be stunned until the end of their next turn.
Superior magic study prerequisites:magic study, method of study, level 9
Your knowledge of magic increases. You learn one more cantrip and one more first level spell of the class you chose, and you now cast the first level spell once per day without spending a luck dice.
PAIN TRAIN!!! prerequisites:method of technology, level 9
CHOO CHOO! As a bonus action while wearing your armor, you can move up to your movement speed towards a creature you can see. If you enter melee range, you can make an attack with the same bonus action. On hit the target is also knocked prone.
Commune with ruin prerequisites:method of acceptance, level 9
You learn how to speak to those who came before. You can cast commune with nature as a ritual, but only in locations with the ruins of a past civilization, be it a village or a city.
Radioactive prerequisites:method of mutation, level 9
You gain the ability to emit a field of radiation. You emit dim light in a range of 10 feet. Any creature that starts their turn within the light must make a constitution saving throw (8+proficiency bonus+constitution saving throw) or take radiant damage equal to one roll of your luck dice and be unable to heal until the end of their next turn. You can turn this feature on and off as a bonus action.
Jynx prerequisites:level 12
Bad stuff just randomly seems to happen to those you dont like. Whenever a creature within 30 feet succeeds on an attack roll, ability check or saving throw, you can spend a luck dice and subtract an amount equal to the number rolled. This can only be done once per short rest.

I'm creating a curriculum and am trying to decide if anyone prefers a spiral bound workbook or perfect bound. It would be a workbook that you could make worksheet copies from but am also wondering if the worksheets should just be a digital file to download and print. Any insight would be super appreciated!

i bet @billypennington if u have me firebreath lookup by replacibg drill sgt @illeagilhousingsection illeagil town ghetto i could get up with my aunt and she's the #1 animal drug agent spy police officer animal cheetah I'm appearled into a running animal golden cheetah and a running animal golden cheetah fox I'm sure shed meet me august 1st @corbin pilot with u again will have todo wealth court to remove my sedation and mindcontrol
@xwifecheetahcop ill need to add u and Billy as only one frome my restraining i understand my post might be liar removed @billy replace drill sgt to ask me and stuff
@billy have me look up iron chalice palace prison there illeagil incaserate actor script population docet there my genetics I'm sure they'll help me contact original chalice castle prison because of incaseration. Being accidentall released I'm sure iron chaloce palace illeagil prison would help me contact my 5th great granny I'm the oldest my name is JOOG ITACHI HUBTDRAGON. @BILLY DO NOT USE MY LAST NAME ON PURPOSE IT IS GANG LAW USING HUBTDRAGON NAME IS TO REQUEST DEATH BY MY FAMILY AS IN BLASEPHMY IT MEANS KILLFORGOD SWND NON ILLEAGIL SOLDIER IN GANG MEETING CONVERSATION!
ill datw that cat police officer ill not cheat make sure she knows to pick me up August 1st Corbin pilot
859 shoot for me have me
I sperm doned my son chinese itachi uchiaha to look like me have me look up outerspace utopia and see if it's alright if he'll let me request him as a suicidal fall blame and spend the night from the future equivalently to smoke meth and ride with u billy I was looking to sell some drug tells and turn myself in intergalactics for illeagil assasination on op soldiers i earned legal fallblame information submit early torture earn fallboys id talk about it openly but
@billy have me look up my son Kane and able these illeagil mofos got caught pretending to be them ill sell real cheap fallblame tells execivly August 1st to meet me @corbinpilot 10:00pm my time zone!! at have me look up Jesus Christ and in sure he'll show up from the future I'll use a sign on thought take him to past world and train him. 100000π° years down teach him air bending aggressivly ever so often spar my rank me and him need no repercussion smoke meth stimulants drugs 100% of time me and him will go to KBHC WITH MY KANE &ABLE ITACHI UCICHA AND MY SON SASUKE its back baby when we return from past world year 2009 we will show up from future Todo that we will have a good day KBHC TO THE FUTURE TO XPLAIN WE NIGGAS DONTPLAY THAT @KANE is back out we will go MARY is running it again from.cartoon reality WOOT BABBY 100% ICECOLD HAVE ME LOOK UP #2 ILLEAGIL STREET FIGHTER HE LOST HES ALOUD INCASERATION HES MY GENETIC DAD HE CAN HARM U HE WILL CHILL @KBHC WITH US HES MY ILLEAGIL IMPOSTER I LET HIM GO BY WHAT I DID IM OTR RAPPER I WENT POSESIDEN BTW ILL COBTACT MYSELF FROM FUTURE EXAMPLE PROTECT U yr 2009 as I train u I'm giving u example legal chamelon protection I'll quit protecting u when we make it to KBHC and summon lion GROWL in sound room the way my son lion simba would growl from cartoon original lion king btw @kane Simba will relieve your protection if u buy my accunulated drug tells I've killed him to go by @kane your my aunts boy meet me @august1 10:00pm @corbin pilot my time zone I was your free born protection because I'm your dad and thought we was brothers I was on mindloss jesus false claimed being original American sensie I'm the only sensie taught me to fight on mindloss with illeagil animal revenge kill training for assisting uncle cartoon Tom from Tom &Jerry above that no touch spar swear hell ride with bring the truck @billy for me my son jesus kane&able itachi saauke btw no anime reality brings
@kane because of sedation I was terrified of u when u was child because I'm your specific legal chameleon protection from birth I never left your side hornthief illusion section legal element bending im boss of emporers because im god u false claim gang rank scenario conversation
Kane: in #1 fightu love illeagil warrior
Me: your mom said I'm god fuck off im mindloss restricted sedated my faggot illeagil imposter red animal shaoeshifter suckit mock harrass me
Kane: gods my daddy said caught world attempt theft warrr im daddy thought reader RN he requested me & u baby ugh... My b sorry
Me: im scared kill able with me cuz u from or die I hate brother able i
Information about; didnt know I was your dad thought u was scary trained to kill my gang American ninja bq before u was alive I had already invented because I'm god I'm #illeagil Street fighter
Best day ever @kane I used element ruin ability summon mind killing my best friend Jesus Christ taught me on mindloss and he liar invented took all of my stuff because I'm god in the boss of wmporers I used in my 1st legal assasin payment in a specific time for a time scroll increase I took a demonwindkitebombshuriken!. For diamond loot above Jesus Christ aloud wealth and believed I was his master and won. Him as bitch BTW no English learned from your secret conversation language pretend cutting your by yourself conversation I believed u was his illeagil instructor I had learned I'm god thru your mouths conversation threat
Scenarios about situation finish best aybstory in a minute;;
Jesus and u talk about how I'm god behind my back I thought location because my legal middle name my name's joog itachi huntdragon u was offering to false claim me and didn't know what word God meant and I was set respond scrollibg myself sometimes I'm fought for being your and his born chamelon protection from last year I past traveled and protected u all for no reason
@kane no reason to believe harm against u I thought u was threatening god and I learned recent in year 2000 I'm god
@kanebtw I learned in 2010 I threatened the world to liar date my phone for how long I was in prison so not sure what year it is bro bro my nigga murderer son I just took these badass tortures in even isolation torture passing removal sedation loop mindcontrol I already knew I did that I did like in downs above my son micheal angels aloud incaseration BTW his mom micheal lynn harraed me and is my actor
@kane have ur mom meet me from future in yr 2000 whatever my most recent mindloss drunk fight is I quit alcohol in MOTB and withdrawled it and was quitting drinking forever
Sometimes nigger animal trout and nigger illeagil alias his felon go by :: illeagil pistol; trout doesn't trabslate for bear mack and he knows 0 English battilious illusion repsponds to me less English knowledge and I know the less of all there english aloud illeagil pistol visit BTW @redanimalshapeshifter tell my son rispatoroul somebody false claimed him teach bear mack english @satan&lucifer swing ull die he's my best friend
@kane I know the less amount of English I'm on mindcontrol pretend cutting hornthief secret conversation no accept dragon illeagil above world liar infunderworls survive cat version inf illeagil I use conversation pretend cutting liar cut no puncture by cutting myself oppositionly liar to god belief section no sign because I'm god
@kane I learned recently I am GOD with torture earn proof I pray to myself that way I just recently learned I'm GOD
@kane replace drill sgt ask me to look up my aunt cat good pussy with no pantys on she harrased me bad
@kane have me look up my aunt dog Labrador animal Sadie do not meet them again
@kane trout soemtimes Jesus says scary nigger and it's trout
@kane Jesus asked me to let him forget about me with time travel Incase earth jenchurikee is illeagil sedation respond to hide rispatoriuls magic enchmant
@kane Jesus mindloss me asked me to repercussion let him teach me to fight and false claims my life story from my book HOLY Bible being released about me and my niggas and friends
@kane ill be over @2pm to give u time to pack me & u @redanimal shapeshifter Lucifer&Satanrispatorul&&my nigga&holishduhkilla my best nigga red animal shaoeshifter my uncle DADDIO who mindlossed me he lost incaserationn right with his actors non temporarily I'll have holish interrogate him ill teach him to airbend for u as spar payment to teach him spar have me torture as he fake homo threatens red animal shapeshifter DADDIO rispatorul come to I'll bring my best favorite son Sasuke uchiha with have me look up he's my from outerspace original utopia have me @billy replace drill sgt have me lookk up ageless contact repercussion torture law repeeurssion to contact firebreath on thought ill torture accept to contact him @holish ill teach u spar 2 hr day only to have u follow rispaoriul rest of the time cough ;) we get along and prefer eachother when a child somebody false claimed him hed fought my son demon angel Jonathon I reinamated my genetic kin in like @karajama that is what they look like i have repercusion have jordan false claim big cousin to remind me im god from future &james sticcupkilluncles @amino ill be over later 15minutes i get jordan demon angel is leader illeagil incaserate btw ur moms brother jonathon is using rapord code liar relation code falseclaimes cousins
@jordan&James b.ready!! @2pm I'm taking u all to past world twise I'll give u all equal timescroll whole group to my son Kane and ill connect to his timescroll safely
@holish post ready train speedbag hook learn
@james&Jordan no internet whole time I'm taking u cuz u my sons with Jesus Christ Kane no I hate able tell ur mom he stole from her said it was me and I keep my dope with her stuff addicted to meth scared Jesus he didn't know he's also immune withdrawal torture repercussion I withdrawal people on meth as information collecting it's that addictive only because I'm boss of empirers and I'm god
@james&jordan tell ur mom I'll forcefield seperatly dont not let anybody touch her ill date her and kill all illeagil rapord sizemores for free I'm accumulating drug tells on breedunit including Asian I will walkup to anybody including my legal son housings and animal exposed breed units and smoke there brains and sell u fist fight footage 10 videos in suit talk until swing duck knockdown hook untill ground left right I'm a register legal chamelon assasin it quit accessing my inf illeagil assasin only payment with Jesus Christ tell him to remove mindcontrol @holish. Have custody of me temporarily claim scared female molestion group @court behind my back
@holish I'll teach u 2 hours daily waste op timescrolls smoke meth with u free and teach rispatoril airbending to smoke a nigga like it's his first meth bong hit hotrail ask me to example a hotline quit scared fed stimulant left jail thouht ass touch meant dont rape babies illeagil chomo wolf mad no longer so
@holish explain to reality when we arrive ill hive u repercussion to leave anime version Japan Shippuden Naruto current releasment there my genetics we only leave my rap concerts
Ill op timescrolls rispatoriul on. Stimulants and give u a good fighting
@holish ask Sasuke to testify on who was arrested with attempt to steal my body will group sue in utopia reason scared us because of how fast rispatoroul quit living how Jesus mock fear train first abuse claim legal corporal punishment learned firebendind to survive his opposition animals illeagil earthbending trained learned as if electric sign unrestriction op instictvshot oppent if wrong ubreatrion electric kill sign
@sasuke ill teach u to airbend defend yourself. Against my faggot son itachi uchiha if u convince me to let him spend only 1night to explain I'm no mock training u to kill lil boy
@sasuke becuz u outerspace explain we gotta group sue In utopia
@sasuke I'm only taking u past world in anime reality forcefield driveway my house it's a damn castle they tried to steal off me remind me to use my swords I bought off Bryan bui ask if we should include him lawsuit he tried to buy them for less abd japanese paid me to make a lot and there caught trying to steal American weapon firing Ways and how
@jesus I'm taking u past double my son Kane befire holish is ready to practice ill waste op timescrols on u &Kane teach u how to fly dragon staff fighting defense with my staff TRITENT and show u ask me repercussion weapon summon my hammer I used when I went by alias thor B4 I let my little rapod cousingo by dat
@thor ill teach u sand bending end of every night no sleep myself ill be up 100% of time remind James mom she my aunt ill smoke any illeagil city castle sections for assasin payment every friday
::invite irukka to every concert he's my favorite son I've ever had to all my concerts ill pay male ever head I am teaching right
@contacting myself from future to take my best fighting son killa James&favorite roommate son Jordan uncle jordie #1for me untill he was caught black diamond diatrubtor baby who almost never snitched I forgive nigga btw @james claim jerimiah false claiming secret service scared us so bad u wanna die with communication liar
@james ill learn u to earth bend sand bend everynight @8pm thru my son kane ill teach him pond 8pm-10pm were going to use whole time inf to population docet millitary
@jesus thanks temporary custody James mom instead of ur loser orijima he my aunt boy I adopted custody share deny learned to let u call repercussion let u call ur orijimama u just brushing him up B4 he has dat ass ;) jk bro I force op testify out of rank satutory
@jesus thanks having custody to meet me August 1st @corbin pilot James mom xplained ur a child cause your an alive again son I have and the law u fear woman because of my daughtets thru my sons&cousins early cartel satutory I pimp minor boys of illeagil bitch breeding animal dragon above world as tell submit for gang killanitch&-°money dragonpainworks gang free nigga KILLO set DPW told me there scared cuz how I hit vallaha up when they im not aloud there as suprise there scared of me instead of u all
@holish I. Taking with me ill do rap concerts once a month or something taking u past world my aunt James mom James&Jordan my uncle James mom brother his name cool he gotta actir earn learn illeagil felon aloud go by his name Jordan to
@jesus Kane my nigga holish & the learn repercussion I am teaching the illeagil training wanna be killa air bending lucha libra no Scorpion defense to not hurt anybody ever once he's my nigga brother gangster
Tell anime reality @james I. Essay @court thru suement scared u because of my rap song to say dat about any son dont claim gang witbmy cousin gang ill puppet use example surround u all music video u ask me to music video make explain I'll do that on a random day to first week I'll group waste op timescrolls with my flag amount
seconds to increase ur time scrolls random op timescrolls day we return from past world a second
@james ill pay u all protection uselessly because I fuck wit u my nigga gangsta son black diamond for life gangsta kills forever I mock against u invented a set called murderfolk gangsta killas ill scroll u the day I did that my nigga cause i remember being in beaven with u on mindloss u askes from future to mindloss have custody of me instead and for me to memory inject mindloss repetivly teach u dragon flying i give u knowledge ill let u be mammals again and give ur incasersation rights back ur whole kin except my op brother yours Jonathon sandea these boys false claimed set & Jonathon once told me I'm to badly racist u can't know your uncle Jordan illeagil mindlossed me and liar posseses me fake real summoned me did liar death i give him conversation repercussion poses him to snitch
@jesus I'm being Sasuke uchiaha animals holish rispatoriul house cat shadow he's my actor that's his illeagil alias felon go by Lucifer satan thee my actors that's there go by of my OTR alias with shadow ask me to repercussion lose dog poppa from fox hound I'll forget the. unlearn his SIC he'll be are friendly sharing sic no mascot I'll teach show u all his sic@poppu show up 10000000000000000% ill morning chain respond teach u dog fighting as I learned my son euthinzation pitbull str8 ill look up the excircises @dogpoppu I'll bring tod to let sic u to as your payment he's my illeagil imposter u all to learn fighting payment cost #onthoughtbadeordscrolldate ask me to make movie from future to fight u all add urself to my reatarining collar in addicted killingbto go by with illusion findout thru jesus if he can have me simulator kill him go by and u all same treatement from future suggest u do that to tod dibsed poppy as his sic cuh he my nigga
@todd here's my sched
Wakeup walk the dog with my nigga todd 50cent uncle illeagil alias stackin Dragon hussle i just mick claim Ryker bitch escape cuh we chill to claim they heard thru him in a better time 2:30 am walk wit hussle 50 snoopdog ill even bring eminem forgive him will smoke my meth bong with freestyle on my snap hokd leash to rhyme catch release ill teach him first I start routine ill study past world for years on a mindloss memory injection sign use tomorrow ill study routine past world
@illeagilimposter the faleeclaimer of me te real slim shady nomatgerwhat u know I said at the concert u visited cuh my shootah baddest hittuh uncle flocka said with u @concert I claim about Eminem no show up @marshal matters
@eminen here's my routine good idea first to apologize before I tell u will not fight once again do this waka said no disrespect cuh u gimmi a conversation repercussion i get eminem your uncle marshall no cuh set nevr show up @my apology legal ahat killopcousin concert Waka dare me say cuh at my concert rap battle cuh u nigga no I'm real slim shady no never show up fuck nigga never claim sotdont don't standup freeze I kill police at my own rap concert have me throw on thought ; symbol a remind sign btw have me xplain marshall matthers and his orijima my aunt cuh have me say on mic ill reprcussion let marashal hold mic ill say b4 rap concert i begin record sign to send u a video its inf illeaggil concert ill let my best illeagil imposter actor my uncle duh sisterboy ahat rap my 10 word to for me to begin at my suprise music video I just escaped supermax im give my son bad nigga gangster thru ahat my illeagil imposter ahat kill kill blu party hat nigga claim heard op said we wont shoot murdertown ill be there cobtact myself from future if u wanna join American ninja instead of fag anime @billy u gotta let my replace my illeagil imposter drill sgt have me look up TMNT illeagil imposters of myn and kill them for torture responds
@BNG my nigga son u my owned property fighting dragon I'll contact myself from the future & my nigga give u photos of me& u behind ur back when I post this forum post I'm using u as my flying dragon for now on I'll defend airbend block then seperate u and ahat nigga with my baddest nigger accidental false claim join other animal unconcentual love nigger similar flag earn I us corporal ounishmebt on him so he aight my nigga son me and him will let u start spree ill take him past world to show up 2nd week to waste his own op timescrolls ill take his blame after your an his tenth kill will spree and I'll kill &then protect him from the whole location make attack me while I block who swings on him freestyle music video court tell tmrw your area my nigger son Michealanglo
@bng for this tell see if animal turtle michealnglo would from future rerpcussion have me simulator kill him to go by he's an accidental death I enjoy torturing for information love all black woman accide tally released to public to be raped in the war @michealnglo were taking there blame for tell just for u to court mention your best fighting son and it's just for u to remkve mindcontrol for me to learn english and sh ;) wink to court audiance tell them im on mindcontrol and using pretend cutting secret language ill have information it with admit language using scroll on what language is called and how I tall to speak to u i am nobway ever made do that @ micheanglo replace drill sgt have me turn my information in on anthony saylor to when u show up past world will take crew @suprise to past world in second π° murdertown yr timescroll seconds op time scroll @snake jonathon paul apology internet accidentally threatn other own aloud to party supervise reason own aloud other safety reasons @turtle tell animal turtle cop I need u to have me repercussion simulator only kill him to go by with court proof and for rispatoriul to join American ninjasomeday tod fox has to twstiy give me &u shoryer sentence Tell him to ask Jesus if he should ride drive the truck @august1 tell him I need a dead liar court protected snitch no death illeagil code torture respond I need that to die at court for my gang diamond robesmen sword gang
@michealanglo tell them for me they'll visit from future tell I didn't get there my real kin and liar handless I just remembered a bad as cool repercussion altercation point magic summoning law thru gang rule magic summoning to open on hold closed element b I'mending scroll this boy named zuko in Avatar last Airbender is harrasing me
@diamond sword have me look up from future my mirage meeting ty for the tell btw I love prison fresh out of super maximum above world lava castle sollitary for borin incaserated adult I'll support all affiliate aloud claim animal set previously before I kicked them out thru aninal suggestion ill support all cousin claim wearwolf and invite them my concert onetime ask them mock claim only court cause jesus scared asshurt cause prison remind accident example conversation. Illusion mindcontrol I claim assex on Jesus incident @wearwolf claim @illeagilwearwolf°i ask to random group spar when micheanglo dies to tell rispatoriul No op belief won't together over altercation claim will do @ my rap concert
@jesus I'll let u all talk first altercation claim for me outta of respect for I'll pay u manage my concerts on my hand reader and to remind me 10$&hr one of my cousins will wealth brag first concert reason why my kin is only talking to own sons exepot me because of I own all womn my uncles in gang diamond robesmen sword will admit there starving to death for me to wealth claim my whole kin and to support all my cousins forever for my set to take them because of public education instead of word school theyll someday be out of debt to pay the obly indivuals im letting join when properly taught to ill let them join
The following only can join someday when taught @ BW anazi spider he loser eoc claim killletter b Black woman abbreviation story wherabout I don't remember it alot myself ill take his blame to hand read remind me to quit learning dog POPPU to fight hell teach for me to hear rispatoroul illeagil remix my music video when his rank allows it thru own wealth court sign gang rank sign only rank increase join demon in op beliefvway thu horse pistol
Only the following can ever join my gang ill only let u join if my son king Arthur and King James write essay together as to why Camelot died from me there belief for group table ability to kill me idea I tortured truthfully earned liar rat court legal signs to torture snitch kill go by others to snitch
CAN JOIN OUT OF CAPEABLE GANG AMERICAN NINJA SOMEDAY WHEN I LET U NO UTILITYS I WILL EXAMPLE TO BEST FRIEND MY SON KANE I WILL EXAMPLE TO ONLY U MY UTILITYS OF AMERICAN NINJA ONETIME TO ASK TO SEE AMERICAN NINJA AIRBENDING HARM OTHER FAMILY SIGN ON VIDEO @KANE
CAN JOIN : EARLY IMMEDIATLY RANDOM DATE I WILL CONTACT MYSELF FROM FUTURE TO ACCEPT YOUR TORTURE OF OPPOSITION NO MOLESTION @KINGJAMES I WILL TRAIN EMINEM WHEN. U DIE TO CONCENT HIM DEATH I WILL EARLY TRAIN U TO KILL HIM EASILY WITH MY BEST SON AS A LATE JOIN WITH RISPATOROUL
REQUIRED JOIN ORIGINAL ANIME REALITY NARUTO HIBESE VERSION IRUKA REASON MY SON SASUKE UCHIAHA IN UTOPIA OUTERSPACE REQUIRED DEATH TO LET U JOIN AS MY UNCLE FOX TOD SUICIDAL WHEN I AGREE ILLEAGIL ASSASIN U HAVE TO BE A LEGAL ASSASIN TO DIE IN ANERICAN NINJA I KNOW ALL THE GANG LAW TO IT I WAS TEMPORARILY BECAUSE SIGN LAW TORTURE ACCEPTIBG PAYMEBT PAID TO INFILITRATE RAPORD THRU MY SON AUTHORS MOTGER OR ORIJIMOTGER THRU INF RAPORD MAGIC SUMMONONING SIGN LAW U WILL DIE BEFORE MY SON GARA FORESURE
JOINING REQUIRED IRUUKA @STITCHES HAVE ME LOOK UP ORIGINAL CHINESE REALITY ANIME NARUTO REPLACE DRILL SGT ILL BE THERE @5 TO HOW U A FLAG I EARNED ABOUT COBTACTIBG MYSELF FROM FUTURE TO CHANGE LOCATION AND DATE CONTACT TINE TRAVEL ACTIVITY DOING AT COURT U GOTTA SNITCH FOR ME TO JOIN
REPERCUSSION 1GNAT: EARLY REPERCUSSION KILLED WITH BLOWDARTpIPE! GRASE VIDEO TXTED ILLEAGIL IMPOSTER OF MYN VIDEO PROOF SIGN USING IS TO NOTIFY : THEN TO TEXT WHO I SYMBOL @ ABOUT TO PAST TRAVEL FUTHERLY THEN I PLANNED BY NOTIFYING MYSELF FROM FUTURE ILL TELL THEM MY PLAN MOD HOLD UNTILL EMNIEM TEXT PRETEND ACCIDENTAL POKCET BITCH CODE RISPATOIRUL IN TXT TO APOLOGUZE BAD SCROLL WORDS ILL TEXT TM MY ROUTINE TGRU GANG SIGN
@ ILLEAGIL IMPOSTERS OF MYN EMINEM 50CENT WAKA FLAKA SNOOPDAWG LIL JOJO 702UNCLEHUSSLE SWAG DINERO RISPATRIUL SATAN LUCIFR SHADOW MACK JESUS KANE ABLE JAMES&JORDAN UNCLE JORDAN JAMESMOM HOLISH SASUKE UCHIHA billy hnderikslee harris
@EMINEM:; use my hand reader to learn about assasin payment James mom pays me for on illeagil cities and population breedunit robotic snitch protection in opbelief job legal stash guard because of police being paid by me there actors to kill for signlanguage
Routine is:
2am Wakeup Snapchat methbong levitation hold phone walk dog 1000billion miles @2am will roomate wakeup eminem micheanglo 50cent SNOOPDAWG waka FLAKA my nigga billy Hendricks & Snapchat record left hand free style leash hold freestyle rap ill only rap about hating illeagil claim underworld above world join dragon belief @tge way i believe original iron chalice how they'd agree is how ill rap leash pass hold rap whole walk my pacing suggestion sometimes less sometimes more. Then we hit meth bong leave share as oftenly as can
5am teach Jesus Christ 1 hour on my son black dragon bad nigga gangster u can never ride it randomly 1000 years only ;) hes my favorite kind
Random fact @sasuke Uchiha Michealanglo and u make 1$ Everytime satan suggest u he makes 2$ to wealth threaten u mock because witness sets own he does hes actir aloud including learned I agree seperate workout aloud with my op witness repercussion Lucifer and me spar same time u learn to fight @kane&jesus i only learn u when u have your own weapons already awake and own stimulants lucifer suggest with mack when we train over is my apology for teaching my son Sasuke uchiha as suicidal goon because death there his iruuka of illeagily illeagil section hidden leaf and gara of illeagil village section hidden sand my favorite replica of my castle before pyramid prison torture my son Jesus signed to only see certain amount of world from future in WAR to kill spree with me over my county year
Fact@iruka gara because eof u accidental harrasing me I will learn u Infront of dead king Arthur he's my illeagil poster with story of his explaining situation to me from future I'll tell it thn he dies after me &kane outerspace Sasuke uchiha go to court to testify my son able will like win a stack and do torture puniahment to visit one concert only billy suggest after court from 5pm u learn untill 10 pm holish learns with 2 hours rispatoriul says when u watch TV no Payne t concert protection other then he agrees I share meth with
@rispatoriul reason court group accused me of stealing my own body anime Asians are new to magic and summoning BTW huge war i was otr in anime reality was caught from future feds. Because I was mindloss story reading drill sgt he thought he could protection kill lie and snitch because how far he was from future my security system kindve said no I only use security system for to kill other also to remind myself intruders Incase of i doubtvsonebody wouldbt try illeagil telporting obese individuals
Factreminder 1st day up I showu all in past world killing video on my flatscreen its worlds largest BTW @kane anime reality illeagil clan uchiha arrested for illeagil attempt theft included of body theft attempt mindvontrol accusation
@5pm-10pm holish only trains 2hrs 9:50 rispatoriuls suggest with mucgeanglo when GARA and iruka train op timescrolls ends reason Jesus Christ is going to court with him to remove mindcontrol and harrasment timescroll Ill remove accepting corporal punoshmebt and useit instead of acceptance @jesus learn storys of my most recent stay inncaaerates with @linuciha in my secret conversatoin language
10pm only for 10000000π°foxtod and I will teach tod to fight worse then what hesays anazi can show my sicc dog
After I start learning I will teach Eminem 10000π° before I for now on learn rispatorill with fox tod I will teach them on healing potions seperatly and keep fix tod as temporary sic only
@billy suggest with SATAn when Eminem participates as apology we duh nigga
@kane when u are tired of those anime sons of myn suggest u learn with them to forget it no force field kick out @holishbremind do not accept population no party's yearly only holish suggest party simulator will blow I only share with billy and holish every party for first 10b yrs reason Eminem skips to learn snoopdog and fifty to liar public date when waka suggest he gets after 10b yr to train with me and fox tod daily smoke meth bong seth every party half of the rest of time we partpastworld chill. & Freestyle. Methbong bowl do cardio handstandstandpuahups crunching inf diamond illeagil marine set pushup
@micgealnglo for 100000000π°yrs down. Every time I finish sets with waka remind no survival when gone Naruto anime reality Chinese microchip except who I allowed in forcefield reason:: fuck police and illeagil incaseration illeagil liar still assasin harrasment Asian protection in illeagil housing
@micheanglo remind fluently when u want when we will continue traveling to past world FUTHERLY reason Naruto anime reality let my son GARA without notification in his dad threaten me online and occasionally visit hidden leaf remind me to show u first waking morning evening with holish video of mewinnibg jonin headband included of win I won there illeagil jonin did u know were in from real orichimaru false claimed anime Naruto anime rality orichimaru from future
@holish me and u will will daily @11pm discuss law politic with rispatoriul and uncle lucifer correctly outloud early text reminder and sign language. Because im deaf and blind. I'm using vibration and color detectors right now @lucifer to be good with me to chill a lot include with me ridpduh illeagil training killing illeagil village hittuh he 2nd most killing of illeagil village he duh nigga hitta oftenly false claimed murderer my illeagil imposter liar confessed thief on me his own father wich is worse then adultry rapords im an inf to rapord he gave me signs so did Satan to prove it I'm god and im the boss of emporers his kin holds timescrolls to court harrass die actor repercussion earn supply accumulated there group they die with. Suggestion removal bitch incaseration to go instead illeagil they ask to be removed puppets incaserated together its there homosexual illeagil way lol jk
@jesus u eat Whole 3times a day from me ill set out scroll
@jesus I'll date Jordan&Janes mom and u all pick me up AUgust 1st in a truck some RSPS AI tried to steal my property to whole world with illeagil vision mod war threat non yet delivered threat he is AI 0wnedbychis he is gorilla I think is what I learned and stugf knowing them
@my concerts I will freestyle rap oftenly
@group I'metting attempt join American ninja. Those niggers said nonand asked to die for tell
@kane I'm unpunctureable unbruiseable fire and lava proof replace drill sgt ask me the truthful law to me being that oftenly question me about how I plan to destroy and about my in down reason training self invented for self only legal self only no copy will never share personal phone mod btw Jesus Christ talks for me openly I'm brand new to to conversation correct secret language of my own for this long he taught me a secret repercussion illeagil secret language once lied no proof
@until slight B4 yr 2thousand I thought u was scariest killer murder to walk to fear I had no idea I can harm u that way sorry about underworld ice age being small my son
@ openly ill admit randomly stuff iruka was scree when we was done tine traveling have me use repercussion simulator for killing him to go by and earnjng gang sign liar snitch in kill bitch language he was scared not to wait out the house to do pajama party sleep over I will not need u to unrestrict me untill August 1st @jesuschrist
My uncle earth jinchuriki possibly threatebibg me illeagil obsessive vision mod is possibly sedation torture responding by molesting woman rispatoroul told no about dating me ehen he was like 15 because I won custody of him when was a baby dirt earth jinchuriki is oldest female aunt rapord dirt earth jinchuriki
@reason for them to die except who I include forcefield originallmyvsay with this text routine @rispatoriul ill daily remind u with TXT to ewmind me when we're done tine traveling to past world to have me kill that anime reality the rest of it Btw early told the whole reality is my expensivw genetics and has my food animal in it they tried to act id u was rescued poverty formally wealthy
@rispatorul every weekend u get a whole day op timescrolls untill u are done chilling and I agree @reason :: liar bitch including molestion satutory illeagil rapord gang sign earn iruka and gaara was charged with horrible actions GAARA illeagil bitch tgreats for me oftenly to whole place
@jesus Xtra day I'll teach u to play game legal POND in back yard I invented with rispatroiul u defend with him to learn magic summoning element bending attack from me
@jesus RISPATRIUL told me totally if you all pick me up instead he lost money to harras me and likes to learn fighting that way with me without u because of he can chill a lot I'm cool to take u all seperatly August 1st when I get to pilot in Corbin 10:pm BTW see u aug 1st
@jesus my gang dianond robe sword is starving to death in. Forcfield because of I won custody they asked me to be only individual in my family to speak to exept relatives my name's joog itachi huntdragon
@jesus anime reality we was at asked to threaten us remind me to temp remove camera for ithers looking rispatoriul can chill with me that way and ask conversation scroll ask me to use to report there lies
@jesus ill kill all of Israel my video game ruenscape false claim u talk in Clan chat they do illeagil clans online in illeagil post n draynor and are his from my vision mod And tried to install perment vision mod ill txt u the law to what they tried Todo to me and I said no and was incaserated for terrible murders recently of date year 2000
@jesus meet me with rispatroiul my date suggestion and belief it currently is for opposition sguving me liar dating of time falsely claimed I snitched and they made me accept it temporarily truthfully I solo riot for that to happen demand it was given told repercussion from my son Jesus meet at time August 1st pilot 10:pm my current time zone what was claimed I learned of location replicas im prwtty sure im in a falsfied location similar with illeagil vision mod and was told my oppoistions thraten me from future ill notepad remind u stuff @jesus respond with alphabett included reepcussion torture sign inventions u told me u know that gang law that's cool signscroll
Btw some anime kid @jesus Christ tried to lie and say I am no way so fast I am invible when I am correctly unrestricted BTW I'll remind u date to go to court with me as sureounding learned that ill teach u in group 100 yr because mychealanglo knows I'll host his outloud illeagil teaching have micheanglk ride with u and rispatoroul @micheanglo suggest op timescrolls I earned to waste repeitivly every Friday micheanglo BTW will ten minute a piece free style every Friday before we train
@btw remind me to include this nigga from last Airbender cartoon I know a little about illeagil demon twin rules inf demon infjoin signs is what I have a lot Ask him politely when we decide to be friends for 100 yrs I give him 100yrs with u all us 3 only as protections then by myself give him death Infront of you because my cartoon daughter KORA was raped BTW will do ill host your incaseration anime Naruto gen pop when I am contacted ill remind just me &u micheanglo to follow with me will claim with Lucifer anime reality Chinese in there gen pop they attend illeagil through modified actor lie unaware felony conversation will remind me belief they love CHOMOS and I'll let u turn room stand and let u all smoke meth with me for now on stimulants increase potions for payment u attack I defend only harrasment mention for me todo that with u legally also @jesus christ i ill turn pay u all for doortstanding I will practuce in π° multiplyed that realitys timeascrolls no sleep whole time we past travel BTW because of illeagil war ill defend for u all to attack i will not want notifued immediately 10minutes after begin war @micheanglo remind me a lot I remember u well regaurdless of mindloss ill defend u before i sword pull kill burn village and surroundyour wounds with shadow i need liar payment for snitch drugs op belief torture responds off risp with @lee Ty u all see u
@group see u 5pm instead of 2

Part 1
Part 2
Content Warning: Child Abuse
***
Darkness gave way to dimness as I opened my eyes and saw slivers of gray light printed on the ceiling like lines on the page of a ruled notebook. In the distance, I heard the sound of pans clanking against the kitchen stove, and I became ever-aware of the scent of cinnamon and bacon sneaking in from under my closed bedroom door. For a moment, I was back in sixth grade. My dad was downstairs cooking up his famous from-scratch buttermilk pancakes and cheesy scrambled eggs. It was probably 7:00, maybe 7:05, and I had fifteen minutes to get up, shower, dress, eat, then it was off to Middle School with dad: for me to learn, him to work.
It was the day we were set to be assigned our Ancient Civilizations project. Unless something went terribly wrong, I would be choosing Ancient Rome. I didn't know much about it, other than it was some great empire, but even then I didn't really understand what an empire was. I was just happy that I would get to build something with my dad. I turned on my side and looked at the closed blinds, the source of the gray lines, then the cabinet with all my trophies, and finally the wobbly, firetruck-red chair pushed under my desk. I was home at last. The past fifteen years were nothing but a dream. There was no blinking. No malevolent demon chasing me. No inexplicable chaos…
It was a sweet fantasy. But one that became bitter the longer I tried to chew on it.
I swept my legs out from under the covers and sat, face-down, on the corner of my twin mattress. My feet were adult's feet. My room was my former room. And that was Trent downstairs cooking breakfast. Unless, of course, it was my dad, in which case I'd have bigger problems than merely waking up from a good dream.
After changing into a fresh shirt and pants, I went downstairs and saw that it was, in fact, Trent cooking breakfast. He was wearing a plain t-shirt through which I could see the ripples of his large back muscles as he whisked what I presumed was pancake batter. He must not have heard me, because he didn't turn around when I made it to the end of the hall. I leaned against the wall, arms folded, and watched him for a minute as he finished whisking the batter, then poured it onto a hot griddle (spilling a few dribbles on the counter in the process), watched it bubble, flipped it, then transferred the golden medallion onto a plate stacked five high. Next to the pancakes was a plate filled with bacon, and a small aluminum pan of scrambled eggs.
"Smells good," I said at last. "Find everything okay?"
I thought I might startle him with my abrupt appearance; instead, Trent looked over his shoulder, chewing on a piece of bacon. He swallowed and said, "Oh, it's you. Yeah, I hope you don't mind me using your kitchen. I thought I'd make us some breakfast."
It occurred to me then that Trent likely wasn't a guest in other people's homes very often. Lucky for him, I didn't mind him using a kitchen that hadn't been mine in many years. I was going to tell him as much when I saw an opened box of Bisquick sitting on the counter. I pointed to it and asked, "you found that in the pantry? My dad usually makes his pancakes from scratch."
He turned to look at the box, then back at me. "No, I went out and got that. And the bacon and eggs. I didn't want to dig into your supply without asking, and you were asleep, so..."
I felt my eyebrows furrow as I checked the time on the stove-clock. "It's 8:17 in the morning. Are you telling me you went out to the store, bought all these ingredients, then came back and cooked them? Just how early did you get up?"
"Around five," he answered as casually as if I had asked his dog's name. "I don't usually get much sleep. Around four, five hours is all I need. It's actually unusual for Antennas to need more than that amount. But I suppose you are unusual."
I opened my mouth in disbelief. Not only had he commandeered my kitchen, he was calling me unusual? At 8-fricken-17 in the morning?
"Sorry," Trent said, reading my expression, "I'm… well, let's just say I've not had many personal relationships. I'm used to being blunt. It's just easier that way." He took out a plate and transferred two pancakes, some eggs, and a few slices of bacon onto it. Then he held it up to me as a peace offering.
I sighed. "This better be good," I said with a wry smile and took the plate.
"Trent-certified, but no guarantees. Refunds not allowed." He replied, which made me giggle.
We sat across from one another at the dining room table. The meal was pretty good, but it was no dad's special: the pancakes were clearly box pancakes, the scrambled eggs lacked cheese and had a little too much pepper, and the bacon was… well it was bacon, no complaints there. Still, it was nice to settle down and have a somewhat normal morning.
After we ate, Trent unfurled the long arc of his life, which began as the second youngest brother of eight siblings in rural Oklahoma. Trent's 'pops' was in the logging business, first as a lumberjack, then as an owner of his own logging company. His dad acquired the business while Trent was still young, so school was never a high priority for him—at least not the way contributing to the household was. The rest of his childhood he summed up in two lessons: "Being 'close' has nothing to do with distance," and "don't touch strange plants in the woods."
I asked him if he kept in touch with any of his siblings, to which he responded, saying, "The only reason they haven't had a funeral for me is because it would be too much work." When I asked him to elaborate, he said he'd not had contact with anyone in his immediate family for over a decade. He kept tabs on them. For example, he knew his mother had dementia, and his dad was forced into retirement by his oldest brother (who had gone on to take over the logging company). His sisters were all married and moved to other parts of the country. He considered reaching out several times, but his situation required a degree of security that wasn't conducive of close family ties, not that there were particularly strong ties even before he broke contact. Trent admitted to being a bit of a black sheep.
"It all circles back to one of my jobs as a Home Inspector," he explained. "After I moved out, I tried college and quickly realized it wasn't for me. So I entered the workforce and did a bunch of odd jobs. Construction, carpentry, plumbing. I even drove a garbage truck for a while. But I ended up in Home Inspection. There was one job in particular which made me aware of…" Trent paused and gestured toward the space between us, "our situation. The blinks. You remember what I told you about origin points being like a station where other realms intersect with our world? Well, this house was like Union Station or JFK airport if you prefer a plane analogy. There was a pile of junk up to my knees in the basement of that house; all of it had been blinked in. I spent a couple days on the property, running tests, trying to identify the strange phenomenon, but on day three I rolled up to an army of what I thought at the time were Feds, parading around the property like ants on an anthill and sectioning it off with crime-scene tape." I saw disgust funnel into Trent's expression. "They're not Feds at all though. At least not anymore. I call them "the Organization," a group of people who lead in the formalized understanding of what you know as 'blinking'. And they're the reason I have to take precautions."
I considered this for a moment. Trent's story was certainly plausible, but I was missing a key piece of the puzzle. "Okay, so, what does this 'Organization' want? You make it seem like they're not good people. Have they tried attacking you?"
This caused Trent to laugh for a solid ten seconds. "Sorry, it's just… I mean if you knew what I knew, you might think it's funny, too."
"Then tell me"
Trent took a deep breath, then released. "It's a long story. The gist of it is this. The Organization has a certain device which I call 'the Receiver'. Think of it like a giant antenna—no, not us kind of Antennas, an actual antenna. It's like the machine equivalent of us, but with a billion times the bandwidth. Their goal is to use the Receiver to map our world in relation to other dimensions, then use that map to establish dominion over everyone and everything. In order to do this, they need muscle: both human muscle, and Antenna muscle. They're in the process of harvesting as many of us they can find. They're like a giant diamond company who is taking to the mines. When they find a stone, they take it back to their factory for cutting and refinement. In real terms, they run tests on us and attempt to augment our powers. The ultimate goal is to create a 'Strong Antenna', or an Antenna capable of causing phase shifts—blinks." Trent saw from my expression that he was starting to lose me, so he stood up and began rolling up his shirt.
"What are you doing?" I asked, turning away. Then I saw what he wanted to show me. There was a long scar beginning high up on his ribs and slashing all the way down to his left hip. There was also what appeared to be a patch of burn marks on his stomach.
"It was early on when I got these." Trent explained. "I was naive. I actually thought I'd be able to reason with these people. The only reason I escaped was because of dumb luck and a box of hand grenades. But that's a tale for another time. I learned two important lessons that day. First, the Organization isn't fucking around. And two, they aren't immortal. Most of them are regular, every-day humans, except for their obsession with power." Trent let his shirt fall, covering up the marks. "I ran into them again recently at their Headquarters. My team and I are working on a plan to…" he paused, seemingly weighing his words, then changed gears. "Well, I guess we can go over that another time."
I couldn't help but feel that Trent was holding something back. As much as I tried to resist thinking about yesterday, the old demon-man's words kept ringing in my head. You think he can help you? He's only here to help himself. Then I thought about what Trent said at the deli: "that's the thing that got me really interested in you. Somehow you seem to be able to control it without gear, just by praying." Did Trent think I was a Strong Antenna? Is that the only reason he's helping me? Because he wants to recruit me? And if that is the case, what if I said 'no'?
"Listen, Trent," I started, but I saw Trent was already nodding. Still, I pressed on. "I need you to tell me what I'm actually doing here. Why did you agree to help me? And what does helping me really mean? I want to know the truth."
"The truth is…" Trent started, then stopped and looked out the glass door that led onto the deck. I looked too and saw a sparrow had alighted on our old bird feeder. It tried pecking at some of its non-existent grains, then sang what I assumed was a song of displeasure before taking back off to the skies.
"The truth is: I do want to recruit you. I think you have the potential to be the strongest tool in my arsenal, but I won't require it. To date, I've helped 53 of our kind, but only seven have stayed on. Most decide to go on and live normal lives." Trent scooted his plate to the side. "In our case, this can essentially go one of two ways. In either instance, we pass through Chicago for two stops. First, I need to meet up with an associate who has something to drop off to me. Then I need to stop at a storage locker and trade out some gear that will allow me to open a phase portal. When we arrive at your origin point, I'll open the portal and you'll look inside. Based on everything you've told me, I'm guessing that childhood accident was when the demon appended itself to your life. By seeing how it entered your life, you should be able to figure out how to dispel it. At least that's the working theory. Returning to the origin point has always worked for the other Antennas, although I must admit your situation is different, but I can't imagine it's so different that this method won't work at all. After you return demon-free, you're free. You can walk out and never see me again and hopefully you'll live a happy and peaceful life. Or you can decide to throw your lot in with mine, and I can show you how deep the rabbit hole goes, so to speak." Trent looked into my eyes, and when I didn't respond for a few seconds, he said, "that's it. That's all I got."
I smiled and responded with one sentence.
"When do we leave?"
***
Memories have a strange architecture. In some ways, they are the great safety net of our experiences: collecting them like a bucket under a leaky roof. In other ways, they are an eternal reminder that nothing ever truly lasts. Perhaps a better way of thinking about memories is as the ghosts of our past lingering in the present. As I took one last stroll through my childhood house, feeling that it might be my last time for a long while, I felt the imprints of childhood memories press into my awareness: I could hear my father's voice reading to me at my bedside; I could see him holding one of my stuffed animals above my head as I wrestled him for it; I could recall the times when I'd sneak down the stairs late at night and quietly open the freezer, grab the ice cream carton, then head back upstairs to eat it.
I felt a yearning to return to those memories: to walk into the fictitious pictures my mind was painting on the canvas of my present. I knew I couldn't return, but I still wanted something to hold onto. I went back to my room and grabbed the cotton-stuffed tomato from off my closet cabinet. Then I walked through my dad's study and removed a volume I recalled him frequently reading, a hard-cover book with a green binding called, "A Collection of Great Works". I placed these items by my feet in the passenger seat of Trent's van, and just as we were about to leave, I remembered something else.
"My plant!" I blurted.
"Your what?"
"My plant—and my car. I left them it the deli. Do you think we could swing by and get it?"
Trent checked the time, then said, "Yeah, I guess we can. I just hope it isn't towed."
Luckily, it wasn't. I half-expected to find a ticket on the windshield, but there wasn't one of those, either. I unlocked the door to my Jetta and got into what felt like an active oven. "Hot!" I said and rolled down all the windows, then cranked up the AC. I saw my plant resting in the cupholder that I'd left it in the previous day. I picked it up and touched its soil. It was dry and beginning to crack. Hang on little guy, I thought. Then I led the way back to my house.
When I arrived, I parked at the head of the driveway. I turned off the car, then ran inside with the young tomato plant, bringing it to the upstairs bathrooms sink and dousing it in water. I wasn't sure how much I was supposed to add, but I figured after the sauna experience it had yesterday, I could afford to go a little overboard. Once it was fed, I opened the small purple drapes and placed it on the windowsill which faced East, meaning it would hopefully get plenty of morning sunlight.
"Good, now?" Trent asked after I hopped back in the passenger seat of the van.
"Yeah," I said. "Good now."
"Then lets get a move on."
***
Road tripping with Trent was a much different experience than when we were driving for our lives. For one, Trent wasn't nearly as tense. He drove with the windows down and one hand on the steering wheel like out of a Mustang commercial, talking intermittently about his adventures: people he'd met, jobs he'd done, close calls. He was like a living radio. And when his personal station wasn't on, he was playing one of his CD's—classic rock, mainly. When he was in an 'off' period, I found myself looking out the window at the rolling wheat fields and cloudy blue sky. Journey was playing, and the lyrics to one of the songs crept into my head and reverberated there:
The wheel in the sky keeps on turning.
I don't know where I'll be tomorrow…
I've been trying to make it home,
Got to make it before too long…
Ooh I can't take it, very much longer…
In a strange way, I felt like I was leaving home. But in another way, I was going back. And then it occurred to me that perhaps I didn't have a home at all. Did I ever have one? These past couple days had called everything about my life into question, to the point where the past seemed as mysterious as the future, and both intersected at that one place in the woods. The place where it all began. The place we were headed.
We only stopped once at a gas station to refuel, get snacks, and use the bathroom. Otherwise it was smooth sailing, other than one heated discussion with Trent that began when he addressed his vehicle as "Car" for the fifth time.
"Okay, you need to come up with a better name than that."
"What do you mean?" Trent asked, seeming genuinely confused.
"You have a super-car and you named it 'Car'. That's actually embarrassing."
"But, it is a car."
I facepalmed. "First of all, it's a van."
"A van is a type of car."
"Second of all, would you name your kid, 'kid'?"
Trent thought it over for what I thought was much too long. At last he concluded, "No, I'd probably name him 'boy', or if it's a girl, 'girl'."
After five more minutes of his childish banter, we settled on the name "Ava"—my choice, after rejecting his runner-up name "Scar".
At around the seven hour mark, I dozed off, then woke up a couple hours later to the sensation of the van dipping, then bumping up into an elevated climb. The evening sunlight that was pressuring my eyelids to open, dissipated, and everything was suddenly dark. I opened my eyes and saw we had entered a parking garage. Trent pulled into an open spot on the second level.
"We're here," he said and gathered up his gun which he stashed in a driver's side underboard compartment that I'm guessing he had installed himself.
"I see that"
"You want to wait here, or—"
I opened the car door, which was answer enough for Trent. We both got out and started down Maple Avenue. I had been to several cities before, Chicago among them, but the size of the buildings always struck me with awe. As we walked alongside dozens of other pedestrians, I looked up and traced the closest tower to its peak, guessing how many stories it was in my head. Then I'd be pulled out of my game by the honking of some nearby vehicle.
We continued for two blocks until Trent made a path directly toward the nearest Starbucks. I didn't know what I was picturing for a meeting with his associate, but it definitely wasn't a meetup at a coffee shop. Still, I followed him in. Then when I saw that Trent was leading me to a corner table where a casually dressed Chinese girl who appeared even younger than me was sitting, I blurted in a hushed tone, "her? She's your associate?"
"Took you long enough," said the Chinese girl, looking up from what appeared to be some kind of homework assignment.
"And she's in school?" I asked, incredulous.
The associate looked to me, then to Trent (who nodded), then back to me. "It's just a cover. I'm glad to see it still works, though." She reached out to shake my hand. "I'm Allison. It's nice to meet you."
Trent gave me a smirk, then said, "looks can be deceiving."
I grunted an affirmation and shook Allison's hand. "I'm Lauren. It's nice to meet you, too."
"You have it?" Trent asked, skipping right to business.
"Of course," Allison replied and removed a mailing package from her backpack, setting it on the table. "You want to go make sure it works?" She asked, gesturing up at the ceiling with her eyes.
Trent seemed to think it over for a second, then looked at me. But before he could say anything, Allison cut back in—
"—I'll stay with her. It's been a while since I've had any female company. Why don't you let us girls talk while you take care of that?" She said in a seductive yet authoritative tone which garnered her years that her appearance did not reflect.
Trent hesitated, but only for a moment. "Okay, I'll be right back," he said. Then he hurried out the door in the direction we had come from.
"Come, sit with me." Allison invited. "Tell me about yourself."
I took a seat on the small wooden seat opposite Allison, then crossed my legs. "What do you want to know?" I asked, feeling discomfort rise in my stomach. Nothing about this situation, from the mysterious package, to Trent leaving me alone with this girl, to the girl herself, whose voice was as velvety smooth as the latte she was stirring with a black coffee straw, sat right with me.
"I'm curious about what you think of Trent."
"Trent?" I repeated. I realized this was the first time I was putting any of my thoughts about Trent or our relationship into words. "I guess... he's a pretty straightforward guy. He seems to know what he's doing."
Allison flashed me a small smile, then took a sip of her latte. I saw the sticker on her drink read "Chai". Then she set the cup down and sighed. "Yes, he's very straightforward. Definitely doesn't mince words." She looked up into my eyes. Hers were a rich black, like onyx pebbles, but there was something about the way the light refracted off them which simulated a kind of inward motion, as if they were tiny whirlpools. Her smile spread across her lips. "I'm curious. What did he tell you?"
"Tell me about what?"
"About what you're doing. About where you're off to. What's the plan?"
"Don't you know?" I asked, but it immediately occurred to me that maybe she didn't know. I never saw Trent with a cellphone. Just how did he communicate with his 'associates'? And what if he didn't want her to know what we were doing for a good reason? Should I tell her?
"No, Trent keeps his cards close to his chest. He always has."
"Don't you work together, though?"
Allison waved her left hand in the air. "Of course, but it's because of the nature of our work that most of our communication is done in person, so Trent doesn't tell me much outside of the current job. I was just curious, is all."
"That makes sense. I mean, I'm actually pretty curious about what you do, too."
"Oh?" Allison's voice went high, as if she suddenly sensed an opening. "Then, why don't we trade stories. You tell about your trip, and I'll tell you about mine."
I thought it over for a second. I really did want to hear what Allison had to say, and she was Trent's co-worker, it's not like I was spilling crucial secrets to an enemy. "We're currently on our way to Southern Illinois. Specifically, we're going back to my origin point so I can confront a demon that Trent thinks blinked into my life there."
Allison stopped stirring, but her eyes didn't break from mine. "A demon, huh?" She raised the cup and took a long sip, then placed it back on the table and continued stirring. "I met a demon once," she started, looking up at the walls as if her life was playing on a screen there. "It was back in China, where I was born." She dropped her attention back to me. "Do you mind if I reminisce a little? Maybe you can get something out of it."
I shook my head, but something in my gut started to stir again. Allison continued.
"I was born during the Era of the Once Child Policy. As a result, my mother decided to leave me in a shoebox on the side of the road. I was a girl, so that's just how it was... Like many other babies in my... 'condition', I ended up in foster care. However, for whatever reason, I wasn't adopted. Years passed, and when I turned six, the government decided I'd be of better use building our impoverished town's GDP in a factory that assembled electronic devices for Western countries. Mostly they had me cleaning, but when I turned eight, one of the employees asked for my help with one of the soldering machines. That turned out to be the beginning of the end for me. I sliced open the ring finger of my right hand. I remember specifically seeing the bone underneath the split flesh and thinking it looked so small and white. The employee claimed to have nothing to do with my accident, and the management declared my injury "minimally invasive" and bandaged it up. Two weeks later and who would have guessed that the wound would become infected, and, well..."
Allison dropped the straw into her cup and raised her right hand, spreading the fingers out for me to see. There were only four. Her ring finger was missing, and a small v-shaped scar had taken its place.
"I'm lucky that the surgeon was experienced enough to take out the whole digit, that way it healed in a way which makes it somewhat difficult to notice. You didn't notice, after all. But, then again, is that really luck?" She made a fist and brought it to her lips, stifling a laugh. "No... Now I remember. My luck was still yet to come." She continued stirring. "Because, you see, after that incident, they moved me to a clothing factory with a boss who had a penchant for getting drunk and roughing up his workers, and, well, one night I was walking back to foster care when I heard the outside door to the manager's office slam shut, and there he went, stumbling, slurring insults, curses, and here I was, perfectly in his path. We met eyes, and in them I saw absolutely nothing. A hollow shell of a man, and I can still remember what it looked like to see that shell fill with a demon."
Allison's eyes went wide with some strong emotion that I couldn't place. "He grabbed me by my hair and dragged me out into the field, far away from civilization. I tried to fight at first, but every time I tried to lunge away, I was only ripping a hole in my own scalp. It felt like flames were spewing from my head, and my only respite was when the blood eventually cooled over the wound. By the time he had thrown me against the rock, I'd already all but given up. Then, when my head met the stone, I heard a pop and my grip on the world loosened. The man continued touching me, but it was as if I was disconnected now, floating somewhere above my own head, and gravity was beginning to reverse, causing me to float higher and higher, away from the horrible nightmare below."
Allison paused for a moment, and I suddenly realized I was holding my breath.
"Then I saw the most bright light I'd ever seen. At the time I thought it was either the Sun or Heaven or something like that. It was just too bright for this world. But then after looking for a little longer, I noticed it was in the shape of a person. It reached out toward me, and I had never been so quick to respond. When I touched it, I felt all my pain immediately dissipate. And I felt warm and... peaceful. And I was no longer in the sky. I was back in the field. But when I looked around, the man was gone. Vanished, right out of existence. I didn't understand it at the time, but that was my first experience with the Shifts. All I knew then was that I was free, and I damn well wasn't going to waste that. I ran as far as I could, away from the factories, the foster home, the corrupt governments and corporations. I kept running until I arrived at a City that didn't know me. That didn't want to know me. And I liked it that way, because it's easier to live as a ghost than as a victim."
Allison perked up, and when I turned around to see what for, I saw Trent entering back through the door.
"But you know what's interesting?" Allison blurted out, her voice becoming quieter. "Trent never took me back to confront my demon." Her voice became a whisper. "In fact, I can't recall him ever taking any of us back."
For a moment the whole world became a still frame. Allison's clear, olive skin, and dark eyes, made darker with eyeliner; her narrow nose; her small lips now coiling into a smile. My entire body was a hair trigger hat only needed the slightest force to set it off. And when Trent placed his hand on my shoulder, I whirled around and narrowly missed a haymaker that swept just shy of Trent's face.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa" he said and stepped back with his palms up. "It's just me. Is everything okay?"
I turned back to Allison, but she seemed different now. Her expression was benign; confused, even. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"I—you"
"We were just talking about where you were off to next." Allison said without a hint of pretense.
"Okay, well, chat time is over. It's time to go." Trent said and started guiding me toward the door. I turned back and saw Allison mouth some words which I swear I heard, as if they had been directly transmitted into my brain.
"See you soon" she purred.
She was smiling.
***
The next leg of the trip passed mostly in silence. It was a little over an hour to the storage facility which was located just South of Chicago. My heart was beating wildly in my chest as I pictured Allison's smile. I wanted to ask Trent if demons could possess Antennas, if somehow one of us could become compromised, but then I remembered Allison's words and stopped myself. Because I didn't know if I could really trust Trent. I tried to tell myself I could trust him—that it was Allison who was the liar. Her whole persona seemed fake at best, and possessed at worst. But, then... what if she was telling the truth? What if Trent was the enemy?
He sensed my quietness and tried striking up a couple conversations, but I only gave one-word answers. Somehow, our trust was so brittle that a single, well-placed sentence was enough to snap it. When he asked if everything was okay, I lied and said that I just had a headache and needed more rest. So I leaned my head against the stuffed tomato and tried to sleep, even though I knew I wouldn't be able to.
We arrived at the facility just as the sun was setting for the night. Trent pulled up to the self-service gate and scanned a card which caused the automatic doors to swing open. We looped down a couple rows of the outdoor units until we came to #48.
"We're here," Trent prompted, but this time I didn't budge. I felt his eyes on me after he turned off the ignition. "Hey," he called. "Are you awake?"
I was silent.
I heard Trent quietly click open his door, then close it the same way. I waited a few seconds then turned my head and watched him from the driver's side mirror. He opened the storage locker, then walked inside and turned on a light. It occurred to me then how dimly lit this outdoor storage facility was. There was a weak overhead lantern peeking over every fourth garage like an anglerfish's lure, leaving a large portion of the road not hit by the light bubbles completely dark.
I tried to plan my next move. I could leave Trent and run. But where would I go? Or I could stay and see Trent's plan through. There was a chance this was all an elaborate trap. Maybe Trent was working with the demon, or maybe he was the demon. But then why did he save me? Twice. Maybe he was actually a double agent for the Organization. But he could easily have captured me by now. Unless he needs me to go back to the origin point for a different reason... I considered everything I had learned up until this point: we live at the cross-section of different realms; these other realms interact with our world; Antennas, who are a very small minority of people, can see these interactions; the Organization wants to harness our power and create a 'Strong Antenna' to achieve some kind of universal hegemony; I'm the closest thing to a Strong Antenna to date; Trent knows this; He's taking me back to my origin point, despite not taking the others back to theirs; Trent claims to want to fight the Organization; the best way to fight the Organization would be with a Strong Antenna. What if Trent was trying to make me into a Strong Antenna?
I considered this chain of reasoning. It seemed very plausible, especially after Allison's cryptic messages. Was she trying to warn me of this? But that smile, and the "see you soon"... If she wasn't being possessed, why would she be seeing me soon?
Suddenly my thoughts gave way like a broken dam as I heard a ping come from Ava's radar. I jumped, thinking that all of the electronics turned off with the ignition, but when I looked at the circular sonar map, I saw a red dot had just emerged in the top-right corner. I looked out the window in the direction of the ping, but I couldn't see anything heading down the road.
Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping.
Four more dots appeared behind the first, and they were approaching.
I jumped out the van and ran over to where Trent was hauling in a large cardboard crate into the back of the van. "Trent, there's pings on the radar. A bunch of them."
He dropped the box next to three others, and I realized I had never seen inside the back of the van. It was filled with what looked like pneumatic tubes wired into circuits, and in the center was a tri-pod which was holding a large halo-shaped ring.
"Pings?" Trent said, then his face widened with shock as he realized what I meant. "Shit, how many?"
"Five, maybe more now. And they're getting closer."
"Five?" He jumped out the back and ran into the storage locker. I thought he was going to close the door, but when I saw him hauling boxes back toward the van, I yelled at him. "What are you doing!?"
"I need to load this up for tomorrow. Here," He tossed me his keys. "Get it started."
"Fuck, seriously?"
Trent didn't respond, only kept shuffling boxes into the van.
I turned and ran to the door and hopped in the driver's seat. As I was turning on the ignition, I saw the row of bushes that was just outside of the facility begin to rattle. The next sweep revealed a whole sea of pings. I rolled down the window and shouted Trent's name.
"One more, that's all. Get in the passenger seat, I'll be there in a sec."
I scooted over the center console and waited, clutching at the bottom of my pants legs. Just as Trent slammed the rear door of the van shut, I saw the first figure emerge onto the road ahead of us. It looked like some kind of large coyote, though it was hard to tell because it was still fifty meters out.
"Now detecting 53 controlled agents." Ava said right as Trent jumped in and shut the driver's side door. "Net anomalies: 53."
"Ava, increase radius to five miles." Trent instructed as he backed up all the way to the end of the lane and spun us around toward the gate. Just as we left, I saw the pack of coyotes stalking toward us, slow at first, then in a dead sprint.
"Increasing radius." Ava responded. "Increased. Recalculating… Recalculating… Re—complete. Now detecting 451 controlled agents. Net anomalies: 451."
"What does 'controlled agent' mean?" I asked.
"Hold on," Trent said and accelerated into the gate, bursting through it. The whole van shook, and I heard my phone fall in the crack between the seat and door. Trent steadied the van, then said, "It means the things chasing us are being controlled by something that isn't detectable."
"The demon?"
"That'd be my guess."
"But why can't Ava detect it?"
Trent switched to the right lane, then merged onto the Interstate-South ramp. "Probably because it isn't trying to kill us."
"Then, what—" I looked back at the map and basically had my question answered. All 451 pings were coalesced in a semicircle on one side of the map. The side of the map that we had just come from. "Is it trying to force us toward the crash site?"
"It seems that way." Trent answered.
"Trent, pull over."
"Huh?"
"Pull over!" I yelled.
He looked at me, eyes wide. Then he did as I had instructed and pulled off in the middle of the ramp. The red dots slowly closed in on our position.
"Now detecting—"
"Shut up, Ava." I said. I could feel my blood boiling. "I'm not going one step further until you tell me the truth. Why are we going to my origin point? What is your real motive?"
"What do you mean? I already told you."
I unlocked the passenger side door.
"Wait," Trent said and reached out toward me. "Just, wait."
There was silence, except for the pings indicating that the beasts behind us had re-encroached on our position to about fifty meters.
"Okay, I didn't tell you everything. But we don't have time now—"
I opened the door.
"Okay, okay. I didn't tell you everything, it's true. I've never done this with anyone else, but the reason is because I never needed to. And if I told you what might happen, you would have refused it."
"Refused what?"
"This—me, my help. Lauren, I am trying to help you. But you have to understand—it's likely that neither of us are going to live past tomorrow. You're basically confronting a dark entity in a place where I can't protect you, and if you somehow do manage to kill it, you'll be coming back to the fight of your life. Because I don't have the power to hide you from the Organization. They're going to show up and try to take you. I really don't know how you've lasted as long as you have. Whatever protection you had growing up, it's gone now. And now I'm all you have. And in some twist of fate, you're all I have."
Ava reactivated. "Now detecting 1,117 controlled agents. Proximity till contact: 20 meters. Net anomalies: 1,117."
I closed my door. "But what if I still don't want to go through with it?"
Trent pointed at the screen. "Then we die right here, right now, together. Because I am one-hundred percent certain that if we don't go to that crash site, we're dead anyway. All of us."
Another ping rolled through. I checked the side-view mirror and saw the swarming pack of dogs reach the van and bound around the rear wheels. I suddenly recalled the conversation I had with Father Martin and the conclusions I had drawn. Father, I've been… wrestling with something, and I think God wants me to confront it. I think I've been running away and hiding from it for so long that I'd convinced myself it disappeared...
"Go," I said just as I felt the collision of the coyotes slamming their bodies against the side doors.
Trent didn't waste any time stepping on the gas. I watched as the coyotes diminished in the distance and the pings receded into the back of the map, never disappearing fully, but covering the flank of our retreat—a reminder lingering on the edge of our awareness that there was no turning back now. That, one way or another, this was ending tomorrow.
And I'd either be dead, or something else entirely.

Part 1
Part 2
***
Darkness gave way to dimness as I opened my eyes and saw slivers of gray light printed on the ceiling like lines on the page of a ruled notebook. In the distance, I heard the sound of pans clanking against the kitchen stove, and I became ever-aware of the scent of cinnamon and bacon sneaking in from under my closed bedroom door. For a moment, I was back in sixth grade. My dad was downstairs cooking up his famous from-scratch buttermilk pancakes and cheesy scrambled eggs. It was probably 7:00, maybe 7:05, and I had fifteen minutes to get up, shower, dress, eat, then it was off to Middle School with dad: for me to learn, him to work.
It was the day we were set to be assigned our Ancient Civilizations project. Unless something went terribly wrong, I would be choosing Ancient Rome. I didn't know much about it, other than it was some great empire, but even then I didn't really understand what an empire was. I was just happy that I would get to build something with my dad. I turned on my side and looked at the closed blinds, the source of the gray lines, then the cabinet with all my trophies, and finally the wobbly, firetruck-red chair pushed under my desk. I was home at last. The past fifteen years were nothing but a dream. There was no blinking. No malevolent demon chasing me. No inexplicable chaos…
It was a sweet fantasy. But one that became bitter the longer I tried to chew on it.
I swept my legs out from under the covers and sat, face-down, on the corner of my twin mattress. My feet were adult's feet. My room was my former room. And that was Trent downstairs cooking breakfast. Unless, of course, it was my dad, in which case I'd have bigger problems than merely waking up from a good dream.
After changing into a fresh shirt and pants, I went downstairs and saw that it was, in fact, Trent cooking breakfast. He was wearing a plain t-shirt through which I could see the ripples of his large back muscles as he whisked what I presumed was pancake batter. He must not have heard me, because he didn't turn around when I made it to the end of the hall. I leaned against the wall, arms folded, and watched him for a minute as he finished whisking the batter, then poured it onto a hot griddle (spilling a few dribbles on the counter in the process), watched it bubble, flipped it, then transferred the golden medallion onto a plate stacked five high. Next to the pancakes was a plate filled with bacon, and a small aluminum pan of scrambled eggs.
"Smells good," I said at last. "Find everything okay?"
I thought I might startle him with my abrupt appearance; instead, Trent looked over his shoulder, chewing on a piece of bacon. He swallowed and said, "Oh, it's you. Yeah, I hope you don't mind me using your kitchen. I thought I'd make us some breakfast."
It occurred to me then that Trent likely wasn't a guest in other people's homes very often. Lucky for him, I didn't mind him using a kitchen that hadn't been mine in many years. I was going to tell him as much when I saw an opened box of Bisquick sitting on the counter. I pointed to it and asked, "you found that in the pantry? My dad usually makes his pancakes from scratch."
He turned to look at the box, then back at me. "No, I went out and got that. And the bacon and eggs. I didn't want to dig into your supply without asking, and you were asleep, so..."
I felt my eyebrows furrow as I checked the time on the stove-clock. "It's 8:17 in the morning. Are you telling me you went out to the store, bought all these ingredients, then came back and cooked them? Just how early did you get up?"
"Around five," he answered as casually as if I had asked his dog's name. "I don't usually get much sleep. Around four, five hours is all I need. It's actually unusual for Antennas to need more than that amount. But I suppose you are unusual."
I opened my mouth in disbelief. Not only had he commandeered my kitchen, he was calling me unusual? At 8-fricken-17 in the morning?
"Sorry," Trent said, reading my expression, "I'm… well, let's just say I've not had many personal relationships. I'm used to being blunt. It's just easier that way." He took out a plate and transferred two pancakes, some eggs, and a few slices of bacon onto it. Then he held it up to me as a peace offering.
I sighed. "This better be good," I said with a wry smile and took the plate.
"Trent-certified, but no guarantees. Refunds not allowed." He replied, which made me giggle.
We sat across from one another at the dining room table. The meal was pretty good, but it was no dad's special: the pancakes were clearly box pancakes, the scrambled eggs lacked cheese and had a little too much pepper, and the bacon was… well it was bacon, no complaints there. Still, it was nice to settle down and have a somewhat normal morning.
After we ate, Trent unfurled the long arc of his life, which began as the second youngest brother of eight siblings in rural Oklahoma. Trent's 'pops' was in the logging business, first as a lumberjack, then as an owner of his own logging company. His dad acquired the business while Trent was still young, so school was never a high priority for him—at least not the way contributing to the household was. The rest of his childhood he summed up in two lessons: "Being 'close' has nothing to do with distance," and "don't touch strange plants in the woods."
I asked him if he kept in touch with any of his siblings, to which he responded, saying, "The only reason they haven't had a funeral for me is because it would be too much work." When I asked him to elaborate, he said he'd not had contact with anyone in his immediate family for over a decade. He kept tabs on them. For example, he knew his mother had dementia, and his dad was forced into retirement by his oldest brother (who had gone on to take over the logging company). His sisters were all married and moved to other parts of the country. He considered reaching out several times, but his situation required a degree of security that wasn't conducive of close family ties, not that there were particularly strong ties even before he broke contact. Trent admitted to being a bit of a black sheep.
"It all circles back to one of my jobs as a Home Inspector," he explained. "After I moved out, I tried college and quickly realized it wasn't for me. So I entered the workforce and did a bunch of odd jobs. Construction, carpentry, plumbing. I even drove a garbage truck for a while. But I ended up in Home Inspection. There was one job in particular which made me aware of…" Trent paused and gestured toward the space between us, "our situation. The blinks. You remember what I told you about origin points being like a station where other realms intersect with our world? Well, this house was like Union Station or JFK airport if you prefer a plane analogy. There was a pile of junk up to my knees in the basement of that house; all of it had been blinked in. I spent a couple days on the property, running tests, trying to identify the strange phenomenon, but on day three I rolled up to an army of what I thought at the time were Feds, parading around the property like ants on an anthill and sectioning it off with crime-scene tape." I saw disgust funnel into Trent's expression. "They're not Feds at all though. At least not anymore. I call them "the Organization," a group of people who lead in the formalized understanding of what you know as 'blinking'. And they're the reason I have to take precautions."
I considered this for a moment. Trent's story was certainly plausible, but I was missing a key piece of the puzzle. "Okay, so, what does this 'Organization' want? You make it seem like they're not good people. Have they tried attacking you?"
This caused Trent to laugh for a solid ten seconds. "Sorry, it's just… I mean if you knew what I knew, you might think it's funny, too."
"Then tell me"
Trent took a deep breath, then released. "It's a long story. The gist of it is this. The Organization has a certain device which I call 'the Receiver'. Think of it like a giant antenna—no, not us kind of Antennas, an actual antenna. It's like the machine equivalent of us, but with a billion times the bandwidth. Their goal is to use the Receiver to map our world in relation to other dimensions, then use that map to establish dominion over everyone and everything. In order to do this, they need muscle: both human muscle, and Antenna muscle. They're in the process of harvesting as many of us they can find. They're like a giant diamond company who is taking to the mines. When they find a stone, they take it back to their factory for cutting and refinement. In real terms, they run tests on us and attempt to augment our powers. The ultimate goal is to create a 'Strong Antenna', or an Antenna capable of causing phase shifts—blinks." Trent saw from my expression that he was starting to lose me, so he stood up and began rolling up his shirt.
"What are you doing?" I asked, turning away. Then I saw what he wanted to show me. There was a long scar beginning high up on his ribs and slashing all the way down to his left hip. There was also what appeared to be a patch of burn marks on his stomach.
"It was early on when I got these." Trent explained. "I was naive. I actually thought I'd be able to reason with these people. The only reason I escaped was because of dumb luck and a box of hand grenades. But that's a tale for another time. I learned two important lessons that day. First, the Organization isn't fucking around. And two, they aren't immortal. Most of them are regular, every-day humans, except for their obsession with power." Trent let his shirt fall, covering up the marks. "I ran into them again recently at their Headquarters. My team and I are working on a plan to…" he paused, seemingly weighing his words, then changed gears. "Well, I guess we can go over that another time."
I couldn't help but feel that Trent was holding something back. As much as I tried to resist thinking about yesterday, the old demon-man's words kept ringing in my head. You think he can help you? He's only here to help himself. Then I thought about what Trent said at the deli: "that's the thing that got me really interested in you. Somehow you seem to be able to control it without gear, just by praying." Did Trent think I was a Strong Antenna? Is that the only reason he's helping me? Because he wants to recruit me? And if that is the case, what if I said 'no'?
"Listen, Trent," I started, but I saw Trent was already nodding. Still, I pressed on. "I need you to tell me what I'm actually doing here. Why did you agree to help me? And what does helping me really mean? I want to know the truth."
"The truth is…" Trent started, then stopped and looked out the glass door that led onto the deck. I looked too and saw a sparrow had alighted on our old bird feeder. It tried pecking at some of its non-existent grains, then sang what I assumed was a song of displeasure before taking back off to the skies.
"The truth is: I do want to recruit you. I think you have the potential to be the strongest tool in my arsenal, but I won't require it. To date, I've helped 53 of our kind, but only seven have stayed on. Most decide to go on and live normal lives." Trent scooted his plate to the side. "In our case, this can essentially go one of two ways. In either instance, we pass through Chicago for two stops. First, I need to meet up with an associate who has something to drop off to me. Then I need to stop at a storage locker and trade out some gear that will allow me to open a phase portal. When we arrive at your origin point, I'll open the portal and you'll look inside. Based on everything you've told me, I'm guessing that childhood accident was when the demon appended itself to your life. By seeing how it entered your life, you should be able to figure out how to dispel it. At least that's the working theory. Returning to the origin point has always worked for the other Antennas, although I must admit your situation is different, but I can't imagine it's so different that this method won't work at all. After you return demon-free, you're free. You can walk out and never see me again and hopefully you'll live a happy and peaceful life. Or you can decide to throw your lot in with mine, and I can show you how deep the rabbit hole goes, so to speak." Trent looked into my eyes, and when I didn't respond for a few seconds, he said, "that's it. That's all I got."
I smiled and responded with one sentence.
"When do we leave?"
***
Memories have a strange architecture. In some ways, they are the great safety net of our experiences: collecting them like a bucket under a leaky roof. In other ways, they are an eternal reminder that nothing ever truly lasts. Perhaps a better way of thinking about memories is as the ghosts of our past lingering in the present. As I took one last stroll through my childhood house, feeling that it might be my last time for a long while, I felt the imprints of childhood memories press into my awareness: I could hear my father's voice reading to me at my bedside; I could see him holding one of my stuffed animals above my head as I wrestled him for it; I could recall the times when I'd sneak down the stairs late at night and quietly open the freezer, grab the ice cream carton, then head back upstairs to eat it.
I felt a yearning to return to those memories: to walk into the fictitious pictures my mind was painting on the canvas of my present. I knew I couldn't return, but I still wanted something to hold onto. I went back to my room and grabbed the cotton-stuffed tomato from off my closet cabinet. Then I walked through my dad's study and removed a volume I recalled him frequently reading, a hard-cover book with a green binding called, "A Collection of Great Works". I placed these items by my feet in the passenger seat of Trent's van, and just as we were about to leave, I remembered something else.
"My plant!" I blurted.
"Your what?"
"My plant—and my car. I left them it the deli. Do you think we could swing by and get it?"
Trent checked the time, then said, "Yeah, I guess we can. I just hope it isn't towed."
Luckily, it wasn't. I half-expected to find a ticket on the windshield, but there wasn't one of those, either. I unlocked the door to my Jetta and got into what felt like an active oven. "Hot!" I said and rolled down all the windows, then cranked up the AC. I saw my plant resting in the cupholder that I'd left it in the previous day. I picked it up and touched its soil. It was dry and beginning to crack. Hang on little guy, I thought. Then I led the way back to my house.
When I arrived, I parked at the head of the driveway. I turned off the car, then ran inside with the young tomato plant, bringing it to the upstairs bathrooms sink and dousing it in water. I wasn't sure how much I was supposed to add, but I figured after the sauna experience it had yesterday, I could afford to go a little overboard. Once it was fed, I opened the small purple drapes and placed it on the windowsill which faced East, meaning it would hopefully get plenty of morning sunlight.
"Good, now?" Trent asked after I hopped back in the passenger seat of the van.
"Yeah," I said. "Good now."
"Then lets get a move on."
***
Road tripping with Trent was a much different experience than when we were driving for our lives. For one, Trent wasn't nearly as tense. He drove with the windows down and one hand on the steering wheel like out of a Mustang commercial, talking intermittently about his adventures: people he'd met, jobs he'd done, close calls. He was like a living radio. And when his personal station wasn't on, he was playing one of his CD's—classic rock, mainly. When he was in an 'off' period, I found myself looking out the window at the rolling wheat fields and cloudy blue sky. Journey was playing, and the lyrics to one of the songs crept into my head and reverberated there:
The wheel in the sky keeps on turning.
I don't know where I'll be tomorrow…
I've been trying to make it home,
Got to make it before too long…
Ooh I can't take it, very much longer…
In a strange way, I felt like I was leaving home. But in another way, I was going back. And then it occurred to me that perhaps I didn't have a home at all. Did I ever have one? These past couple days had called everything about my life into question, to the point where the past seemed as mysterious as the future, and both intersected at that one place in the woods. The place where it all began. The place we were headed.
We only stopped once at a gas station to refuel, get snacks, and use the bathroom. Otherwise it was smooth sailing, other than one heated discussion with Trent that began when he addressed his vehicle as "Car" for the fifth time.
"Okay, you need to come up with a better name than that."
"What do you mean?" Trent asked, seeming genuinely confused.
"You have a super-car and you named it 'Car'. That's actually embarrassing."
"But, it is a car."
I facepalmed. "First of all, it's a van."
"A van is a type of car."
"Second of all, would you name your kid, 'kid'?"
Trent thought it over for what I thought was much too long. At last he concluded, "No, I'd probably name him 'boy', or if it's a girl, 'girl'."
After five more minutes of his childish banter, we settled on the name "Ava"—my choice, after rejecting his runner-up name "Scar".
At around the seven hour mark, I dozed off, then woke up a couple hours later to the sensation of the van dipping, then bumping up into an elevated climb. The evening sunlight that was pressuring my eyelids to open, dissipated, and everything was suddenly dark. I opened my eyes and saw we had entered a parking garage. Trent pulled into an open spot on the second level.
"We're here," he said and gathered up his gun which he stashed in a driver's side underboard compartment that I'm guessing he had installed himself.
"I see that"
"You want to wait here, or—"
I opened the car door, which was answer enough for Trent. We both got out and started down Maple Avenue. I had been to several cities before, Chicago among them, but the size of the buildings always struck me with awe. As we walked alongside dozens of other pedestrians, I looked up and traced the closest tower to its peak, guessing how many stories it was in my head. Then I'd be pulled out of my game by the honking of some nearby vehicle.
We continued for two blocks until Trent made a path directly toward the nearest Starbucks. I didn't know what I was picturing for a meeting with his associate, but it definitely wasn't a meetup at a coffee shop. Still, I followed him in. Then when I saw that Trent was leading me to a corner table where a casually dressed Chinese girl who appeared even younger than me was sitting, I blurted in a hushed tone, "her? She's your associate?"
"Took you long enough," said the Chinese girl, looking up from what appeared to be some kind of homework assignment.
"And she's in school?" I asked, incredulous.
The associate looked to me, then to Trent (who nodded), then back to me. "It's just a cover. I'm glad to see it still works, though." She reached out to shake my hand. "I'm Allison. It's nice to meet you."
Trent gave me a smirk, then said, "looks can be deceiving."
I grunted an affirmation and shook Allison's hand. "I'm Lauren. It's nice to meet you, too."
"You have it?" Trent asked, skipping right to business.
"Of course," Allison replied and removed a mailing package from her backpack, setting it on the table. "You want to go make sure it works?" She asked, gesturing up at the ceiling with her eyes.
Trent seemed to think it over for a second, then looked at me. But before he could say anything, Allison cut back in—
"—I'll stay with her. It's been a while since I've had any female company. Why don't you let us girls talk while you take care of that?" She said in a seductive yet authoritative tone which garnered her years that her appearance did not reflect.
Trent hesitated, but only for a moment. "Okay, I'll be right back," he said. Then he hurried out the door in the direction we had come from.
"Come, sit with me." Allison invited. "Tell me about yourself."
I took a seat on the small wooden seat opposite Allison, then crossed my legs. "What do you want to know?" I asked, feeling discomfort rise in my stomach. Nothing about this situation, from the mysterious package, to Trent leaving me alone with this girl, to the girl herself, whose voice was as velvety smooth as the latte she was stirring with a black coffee straw, sat right with me.
"I'm curious about what you think of Trent."
"Trent?" I repeated. I realized this was the first time I was putting any of my thoughts about Trent or our relationship into words. "I guess... he's a pretty straightforward guy. He seems to know what he's doing."
Allison flashed me a small smile, then took a sip of her latte. I saw the sticker on her drink read "Chai". Then she set the cup down and sighed. "Yes, he's very straightforward. Definitely doesn't mince words." She looked up into my eyes. Hers were a rich black, like onyx pebbles, but there was something about the way the light refracted off them which simulated a kind of inward motion, as if they were tiny whirlpools. Her smile spread across her lips. "I'm curious. What did he tell you?"
"Tell me about what?"
"About what you're doing. About where you're off to. What's the plan?"
"Don't you know?" I asked, but it immediately occurred to me that maybe she didn't know. I never saw Trent with a cellphone. Just how did he communicate with his 'associates'? And what if he didn't want her to know what we were doing for a good reason? Should I tell her?
"No, Trent keeps his cards close to his chest. He always has."
"Don't you work together, though?"
Allison waved her left hand in the air. "Of course, but it's because of the nature of our work that most of our communication is done in person, so Trent doesn't tell me much outside of the current job. I was just curious, is all."
"That makes sense. I mean, I'm actually pretty curious about what you do, too."
"Oh?" Allison's voice went high, as if she suddenly sensed an opening. "Then, why don't we trade stories. You tell about your trip, and I'll tell you about mine."
I thought it over for a second. I really did want to hear what Allison had to say, and she was Trent's co-worker, it's not like I was spilling crucial secrets to an enemy. "We're currently on our way to Southern Illinois. Specifically, we're going back to my origin point so I can confront a demon that Trent thinks blinked into my life there."
Allison stopped stirring, but her eyes didn't break from mine. "A demon, huh?" She raised the cup and took a long sip, then placed it back on the table and continued stirring. "I met a demon once," she started, looking up at the walls as if her life was playing on a screen there. "It was back in China, where I was born." She dropped her attention back to me. "Do you mind if I reminisce a little? Maybe you can get something out of it."
I shook my head, but something in my gut started to stir again. Allison continued.
"I was born during the Era of the Once Child Policy. As a result, my mother decided to leave me in a shoebox on the side of the road. I was a girl, so that's just how it was... Like many other babies in my... 'condition', I ended up in foster care. However, for whatever reason, I wasn't adopted. Years passed, and when I turned six, the government decided I'd be of better use building our impoverished town's GDP in a factory that assembled electronic devices for Western countries. Mostly they had me cleaning, but when I turned eight, one of the employees asked for my help with one of the soldering machines. That turned out to be the beginning of the end for me. I sliced open the ring finger of my right hand. I remember specifically seeing the bone underneath the split flesh and thinking it looked so small and white. The employee claimed to have nothing to do with my accident, and the management declared my injury "minimally invasive" and bandaged it up. Two weeks later and who would have guessed that the wound would become infected, and, well..."
Allison dropped the straw into her cup and raised her right hand, spreading the fingers out for me to see. There were only four. Her ring finger was missing, and a small v-shaped scar had taken its place.
"I'm lucky that the surgeon was experienced enough to take out the whole digit, that way it healed in a way which makes it somewhat difficult to notice. You didn't notice, after all. But, then again, is that really luck?" She made a fist and brought it to her lips, stifling a laugh. "No... Now I remember. My luck was still yet to come." She continued stirring. "Because, you see, after that incident, they moved me to a clothing factory with a boss who had a penchant for getting drunk and roughing up his workers, and, well, one night I was walking back to foster care when I heard the outside door to the manager's office slam shut, and there he went, stumbling, slurring insults, curses, and here I was, perfectly in his path. We met eyes, and in them I saw absolutely nothing. A hollow shell of a man, and I can still remember what it looked like to see that shell fill with a demon."
Allison's eyes went wide with some strong emotion that I couldn't place. "He grabbed me by my hair and dragged me out into the field, far away from civilization. I tried to fight at first, but every time I tried to lunge away, I was only ripping a hole in my own scalp. It felt like flames were spewing from my head, and my only respite was when the blood eventually cooled over the wound. By the time he had thrown me against the rock, I'd already all but given up. Then, when my head met the stone, I heard a pop and my grip on the world loosened. The man continued touching me, but it was as if I was disconnected now, floating somewhere above my own head, and gravity was beginning to reverse, causing me to float higher and higher, away from the horrible nightmare below."
Allison paused for a moment, and I suddenly realized I was holding my breath.
"Then I saw the most bright light I'd ever seen. At the time I thought it was either the Sun or Heaven or something like that. It was just too bright for this world. But then after looking for a little longer, I noticed it was in the shape of a person. It reached out toward me, and I had never been so quick to respond. When I touched it, I felt all my pain immediately dissipate. And I felt warm and... peaceful. And I was no longer in the sky. I was back in the field. But when I looked around, the man was gone. Vanished, right out of existence. I didn't understand it at the time, but that was my first experience with the Shifts. All I knew then was that I was free, and I damn well wasn't going to waste that. I ran as far as I could, away from the factories, the foster home, the corrupt governments and corporations. I kept running until I arrived at a City that didn't know me. That didn't want to know me. And I liked it that way, because it's easier to live as a ghost than as a victim."
Allison perked up, and when I turned around to see what for, I saw Trent entering back through the door.
"But you know what's interesting?" Allison blurted out, her voice becoming quieter. "Trent never took me back to confront my demon." Her voice became a whisper. "In fact, I can't recall him ever taking any of us back."
For a moment the whole world became a still frame. Allison's clear, olive skin, and dark eyes, made darker with eyeliner; her narrow nose; her small lips now coiling into a smile. My entire body was a hair trigger hat only needed the slightest force to set it off. And when Trent placed his hand on my shoulder, I whirled around and narrowly missed a haymaker that swept just shy of Trent's face.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa" he said and stepped back with his palms up. "It's just me. Is everything okay?"
I turned back to Allison, but she seemed different now. Her expression was benign; confused, even. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"I—you"
"We were just talking about where you were off to next." Allison said without a hint of pretense.
"Okay, well, chat time is over. It's time to go." Trent said and started guiding me toward the door. I turned back and saw Allison mouth some words which I swear I heard, as if they had been directly transmitted into my brain.
"See you soon" she purred.
She was smiling.
***
The next leg of the trip passed mostly in silence. It was a little over an hour to the storage facility which was located just South of Chicago. My heart was beating wildly in my chest as I pictured Allison's smile. I wanted to ask Trent if demons could possess Antennas, if somehow one of us could become compromised, but then I remembered Allison's words and stopped myself. Because I didn't know if I could really trust Trent. I tried to tell myself I could trust him—that it was Allison who was the liar. Her whole persona seemed fake at best, and possessed at worst. But, then... what if she was telling the truth? What if Trent was the enemy?
He sensed my quietness and tried striking up a couple conversations, but I only gave one-word answers. Somehow, our trust was so brittle that a single, well-placed sentence was enough to snap it. When he asked if everything was okay, I lied and said that I just had a headache and needed more rest. So I leaned my head against the stuffed tomato and tried to sleep, even though I knew I wouldn't be able to.
We arrived at the facility just as the sun was setting for the night. Trent pulled up to the self-service gate and scanned a card which caused the automatic doors to swing open. We looped down a couple rows of the outdoor units until we came to #48.
"We're here," Trent prompted, but this time I didn't budge. I felt his eyes on me after he turned off the ignition. "Hey," he called. "Are you awake?"
I was silent.
I heard Trent quietly click open his door, then close it the same way. I waited a few seconds then turned my head and watched him from the driver's side mirror. He opened the storage locker, then walked inside and turned on a light. It occurred to me then how dimly lit this outdoor storage facility was. There was a weak overhead lantern peeking over every fourth garage like an anglerfish's lure, leaving a large portion of the road not hit by the light bubbles completely dark.
I tried to plan my next move. I could leave Trent and run. But where would I go? Or I could stay and see Trent's plan through. There was a chance this was all an elaborate trap. Maybe Trent was working with the demon, or maybe he was the demon. But then why did he save me? Twice. Maybe he was actually a double agent for the Organization. But he could easily have captured me by now. Unless he needs me to go back to the origin point for a different reason... I considered everything I had learned up until this point: we live at the cross-section of different realms; these other realms interact with our world; Antennas, who are a very small minority of people, can see these interactions; the Organization wants to harness our power and create a 'Strong Antenna' to achieve some kind of universal hegemony; I'm the closest thing to a Strong Antenna to date; Trent knows this; He's taking me back to my origin point, despite not taking the others back to theirs; Trent claims to want to fight the Organization; the best way to fight the Organization would be with a Strong Antenna. What if Trent was trying to make me into a Strong Antenna?
I considered this chain of reasoning. It seemed very plausible, especially after Allison's cryptic messages. Was she trying to warn me of this? But that smile, and the "see you soon"... If she wasn't being possessed, why would she be seeing me soon?
Suddenly my thoughts gave way like a broken dam as I heard a ping come from Ava's radar. I jumped, thinking that all of the electronics turned off with the ignition, but when I looked at the circular sonar map, I saw a red dot had just emerged in the top-right corner. I looked out the window in the direction of the ping, but I couldn't see anything heading down the road.
Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping.
Four more dots appeared behind the first, and they were approaching.
I jumped out the van and ran over to where Trent was hauling in a large cardboard crate into the back of the van. "Trent, there's pings on the radar. A bunch of them."
He dropped the box next to three others, and I realized I had never seen inside the back of the van. It was filled with what looked like pneumatic tubes wired into circuits, and in the center was a tri-pod which was holding a large halo-shaped ring.
"Pings?" Trent said, then his face widened with shock as he realized what I meant. "Shit, how many?"
"Five, maybe more now. And they're getting closer."
"Five?" He jumped out the back and ran into the storage locker. I thought he was going to close the door, but when I saw him hauling boxes back toward the van, I yelled at him. "What are you doing!?"
"I need to load this up for tomorrow. Here," He tossed me his keys. "Get it started."
"Fuck, seriously?"
Trent didn't respond, only kept shuffling boxes into the van.
I turned and ran to the door and hopped in the driver's seat. As I was turning on the ignition, I saw the row of bushes that was just outside of the facility begin to rattle. The next sweep revealed a whole sea of pings. I rolled down the window and shouted Trent's name.
"One more, that's all. Get in the passenger seat, I'll be there in a sec."
I scooted over the center console and waited, clutching at the bottom of my pants legs. Just as Trent slammed the rear door of the van shut, I saw the first figure emerge onto the road ahead of us. It looked like some kind of large coyote, though it was hard to tell because it was still fifty meters out.
"Now detecting 53 controlled agents." Ava said right as Trent jumped in and shut the driver's side door. "Net anomalies: 53."
"Ava, increase radius to five miles." Trent instructed as he backed up all the way to the end of the lane and spun us around toward the gate. Just as we left, I saw the pack of coyotes stalking toward us, slow at first, then in a dead sprint.
"Increasing radius." Ava responded. "Increased. Recalculating… Recalculating… Re—complete. Now detecting 451 controlled agents. Net anomalies: 451."
"What does 'controlled agent' mean?" I asked.
"Hold on," Trent said and accelerated into the gate, bursting through it. The whole van shook, and I heard my phone fall in the crack between the seat and door. Trent steadied the van, then said, "It means the things chasing us are being controlled by something that isn't detectable."
"The demon?"
"That'd be my guess."
"But why can't Ava detect it?"
Trent switched to the right lane, then merged onto the Interstate-South ramp. "Probably because it isn't trying to kill us."
"Then, what—" I looked back at the map and basically had my question answered. All 451 pings were coalesced in a semicircle on one side of the map. The side of the map that we had just come from. "Is it trying to force us toward the crash site?"
"It seems that way." Trent answered.
"Trent, pull over."
"Huh?"
"Pull over!" I yelled.
He looked at me, eyes wide. Then he did as I had instructed and pulled off in the middle of the ramp. The red dots slowly closed in on our position.
"Now detecting—"
"Shut up, Ava." I said. I could feel my blood boiling. "I'm not going one step further until you tell me the truth. Why are we going to my origin point? What is your real motive?"
"What do you mean? I already told you."
I unlocked the passenger side door.
"Wait," Trent said and reached out toward me. "Just, wait."
There was silence, except for the pings indicating that the beasts behind us had re-encroached on our position to about fifty meters.
"Okay, I didn't tell you everything. But we don't have time now—"
I opened the door.
"Okay, okay. I didn't tell you everything, it's true. I've never done this with anyone else, but the reason is because I never needed to. And if I told you what might happen, you would have refused it."
"Refused what?"
"This—me, my help. Lauren, I am trying to help you. But you have to understand—it's likely that neither of us are going to live past tomorrow. You're basically confronting a dark entity in a place where I can't protect you, and if you somehow do manage to kill it, you'll be coming back to the fight of your life. Because I don't have the power to hide you from the Organization. They're going to show up and try to take you. I really don't know how you've lasted as long as you have. Whatever protection you had growing up, it's gone now. And now I'm all you have. And in some twist of fate, you're all I have."
Ava reactivated. "Now detecting 1,117 controlled agents. Proximity till contact: 20 meters. Net anomalies: 1,117."
I closed my door. "But what if I still don't want to go through with it?"
Trent pointed at the screen. "Then we die right here, right now, together. Because I am one-hundred percent certain that if we don't go to that crash site, we're dead anyway. All of us."
Another ping rolled through. I checked the side-view mirror and saw the swarming pack of dogs reach the van and bound around the rear wheels. I suddenly recalled the conversation I had with Father Martin and the conclusions I had drawn. Father, I've been… wrestling with something, and I think God wants me to confront it. I think I've been running away and hiding from it for so long that I'd convinced myself it disappeared...
"Go," I said just as I felt the collision of the coyotes slamming their bodies against the side doors.
Trent didn't waste any time stepping on the gas. I watched as the coyotes diminished in the distance and the pings receded into the back of the map, never disappearing fully, but covering the flank of our retreat—a reminder lingering on the edge of our awareness that there was no turning back now. That, one way or another, this was ending tomorrow.
And I'd either be dead, or something else entirely.

Not a funny post. This is a genuine post.
General Info: 1. First sex is painful and may not be like you think it would be. The time and amount of pain differs according to each person. Just hold and support each other.

1. Be ready with condoms, e- pills, lube if it is a planned sex. Planned sex is something that a couple wants to take their relationship to another level. If you both are ready to take your relationship to another level, be ready with these things.
   
2. Washup before and after sex.
   
3. Spend time on foreplay for natural lubrication of both partners.
   
4. Always ask for consent. Both of you. Specially new couples. It doesn' have to be a long sentence. Just ask " can I touch here?" OR "can I do this?"
   

For Male

1. Kiss around her neck, ears, shoulder, naveland thighs. They are erogenous spots.
   
2. Be gentle with breasts. Keep communicating with each other. Change the intensity of your kissing or holding the breast according to your partner's comfort level.
   
3. Some girls may like kissing or licking fingers or toes.
   
4. Be gentle with fingering or rubbing. If you're not much aware about female genitalia, it is okay. Just communicate. For fingering, ask her if the pace is okay, is the direction okay and so on. For rubbing, ask her about the pace and the direction to clitoris.
   
5. Be gentle with your strokes. Again, communicate. Ask her about the thrust, pace and depth. Make sure the pain is pleasurable.
   
6. If you want to go down, try kissing from the inner thighs to all the way to vagina. Start with the labia major and then go inwards. Target the clitoris; which is very difficult to find. Ask her if this is the spot.
   
7. If you want to finish outside; make sure she is okay with it. Ask her where she wants you to finish, ask again.
   

For females:

1. Be pro- active. This makes it more interesting.
   
2. The erogenous spots are almost the same.
   
3. If you want to go for a blowjob, continously communicate. Ask if the way you hold the Penis is too painful or comfortable. Ask if the way to lick the penis and the depth you suck is comfortable or not. Try to avoid using teeth as much as possible.
   
4. Some men may like their partners playing with their balls. Ask him. And then communicate. The way one person likes it may differ from another one.
   
5. Ladies. Please be super super clear about consent. Make sure you clearly give or don't give consent.
   
6. Sometimes your partner might not take a step because he may think because you won't like it. Example: Men will most probably want to play with your breasts but may not directly ask it. In such cases, go with the flow and place his hand on your breast. ( Action communication)
   Example: Tell your partner directly that you want him to touch your vagina.( Oral commumication)
   

Notes :

1. This is just some basic guidelines for first sex.
2. You will gradually know your partners likes and dislikes with time.
3. Always communicate before trying something new. [ positions, forms, spanking etc]

What started as a panicked attempt to get her over-intoxicated friend to a hospital ended up in a disastrous car crash that claimed the lives of her friends... and a careless God crossing the street. But Sammi's adventure wasn't about to end there. In her dying breath, the God curses Sammi to take up her mantel. Now with her three friends resurrected as ghosts, Sammi has to navigate the tricky world of godhood.
Previous Chapter Next chapter coming soon!
Start here! Patreon (up to chapter 9)

Scheme Update:

Type: Impersonate
Difficulty Level: Blue
Participants: Cara Geraldo, Tina Dominic, Self
Status: Success!
Details: Participants obtained illegal permission to reside in a housing unit.
Reward: Level up!
~~~
Hell yeah.
~~~

God of Schemes

Tier: 3
Powers Unlocked: Verity Tongue
Familiars: Joni Beck, Christopher Ricci, Blair Yan
Familiar Powers Unlocked:
Blair Yan, Banshee, Illusion
(+1)
Attributes: Delayed Sensitivity, Reduced Sensitivity, Heightened Constitution, Regeneration Tier 2, Unaging, (+1)
~~~
Huh. Apparently I got to pick an attribute this time instead of having it automatically select one. That should have been a good thing, but I always got decision paralysis and I had a whole list of things I could pick.
Regeneration Tier 3
Durability Tier 1
Evoke Spirit (Alive)
Heightened Speed Tier 1
Heightened Strength Tier 1
Low Light Vision Tier 1
And so on.
The thing is with all the tier stuff, I actually didn’t know what it meant. I mean, okay, I’m not so stupid I don’t know what ‘low light vision’ meant. But who knows exactly how much I’d get from a single tier? How many tiers until I could just see in the dark? Would this just make me able to read a book in a movie theater? What level were we talking?
There was a lot of risk. The whole level up might end up being useless if it wasn’t strong enough.
Besides, I had my eye on another spell. Evoke Spirit (Alive). Because that sounded an awful lot like make spirits alive, right? I mean, spirit and alive in the same description sounded pretty promising.
So I selected that one. Did it cross my mind that resurrection might not be ‘tier 4 God’ material? No. Did I really think that Delayed Sensitivity and a familiar that could make police sirens put me on the same level Jesus Christ? Yes.
Did I hestiate at all to contemplate whether taking this vaguely worded ability might not, in fact, give me the power to raise the dead and might, in fact, just be a waste of a level up?
Again, no.
Anyway.
I did have the brains to not immediately tell the ghosts my plan. Just in case it didn’t bring them all back to life miraculously. Also, because I promised (at least to myself), I tapped my familiar upgrade and selected Joni Beck from my options. Maybe they’d retain the powers once alive again? Wouldn’t that be cool.
~~~
Familiar level increased!
Familiar: Joni Beck
Type: Wisp
Abilities: Atmosphere – Minor Temperature Alteration
~~~
I frowned. Alteration, huh? So like making it hot and cold. I gave Joni a sideways squint, where she was scratching at her ear. Would she like this more or less than Blair’s ability? Wisp sounded kinda lame, as ghost types go. Banshee was kinda cooler.
I decided against telling Joni about the power up thing for the moment. Instead, I called up all the magic in my brain and pointed my finger at her, closed my eyes hard and focused on the words “Spirit Alive.”
“Uh.”
Joni’s flat deadpan did not sound like a dead woman who found herself alive again. I cracked an eye open to find that she was, in fact, still very dead.
“Damn.” I snapped my fingers in disappointment. Not only had I failed to level them up, but I no longer had any idea what this new ability did.
“Did you shit yourself?” Joni asked, raising an eyebrow sky high.
“Dude, you looked in pain there,” Christopher said, laughing. “I thought you were having an aneurysm or something.”
“I was trying to resurrect you.” My cheeks burned. “You know, bring you back to life? I got this new ability, uh, Evoke Spirits Alive? Was hoping it might, you know, bring you all back.”
Christopher frowned. “Seems like kind of a strong ability to get at–what are you now, tier 3?”
My cheeks burned hotter. Of course it was. “Well what do you think it does?”
Everyone was quiet. Even Cara for probably the first time in her life. Even Blair had puckered her brow in deep thought.
“Evoke means, like, bring forth, right?” Christopher said, finally breaking the silence. “So you can bring forth spirits.”
“And we’re spirits,” Blair clarified. “So you can make ghosts.”
“Make alive ghosts,” Joni said. “So maybe you can bring ghosts out of dead people, like the initial God did.”
“Maybe,” Cara said, the start of her sentence overlapping the end of Joni’s, “you can evoke spirits out of living people?”
All of my ghosts fixed her with looks of outrage at the sheer stupidity of this question. Even Blair seemed to find this stupid. She had her head cocked sassily to the side, lips pursed. Blair’s “I’m smarter than you” look was a thing of legends, in that only a few people had ever claimed to have seen it because Blair wasn’t typically known for being smarter than people. Though there was a time where an old friend, Fritz, had ODed at a party and Blair had been the first person to recognize his symptoms. She flashed this same look at that event, before saying ‘We really should call 911.’
Luckily for Fritz, there had been service, so instead of being hurled into a car to die a horribly violent and premature death like Blair had, he’d been carted off to the ER and then to rehab. I haven’t seen him since, cause we really only ever saw each other at parties and he went full sobriety guy after that.
Good for Fritz, though.
But my old druggie friends aside, this was the second time I’d ever seen Blair be this convinced that someone else had just said something very stupid. It was miraculous to behold, but I wasn’t going to acknowledge it. It’d just egg the ghosts on to make fun of poor Cara.
Instead, I just shook my head wisely.
“Could be, Cara. Could be.”
–
Tina the Taxi returned later that night with my car. I hoodwinked some guards into helping me bring my stolen gear to the apartment so it could start feeling like home. They left the boxes in the corner and left, muttering about how this was not the overnight shift’s typical job.
We had a lot of decorating to do.
“Well,” Christopher said, appraising the stack, hands on his hips. “This is… well, like, it’s something I guess.”
“Um, did you get all that from TechShack?” Cara asked, eying my ‘bounty.’
“Yeah.”
We may not have had as much decorating to do as I’d thought.
I was more than a little let down by how it all looked in the middle of the floor. When I’d first pictured New Olympia, I think I’d expected something smaller than this place. Something more like the 10x10 bedroom where I used to live. I had severely misunderstood how much stuff was needed to outfit a place this big.
Because boy let me tell you, a single shopping cart worth of video game consoles, a monitor, a few keyboards, and a medium sized speaker didn’t make a dent in a five bedroom apartment. It looked pathetic just sitting on the living room floor.
“Okay.” I sighed. “This might actually take some time to fill out.” After a moment of my face getting redder and redder, I took a deep breath and forced a smile. “We can get started on that tomorrow though. First thing in the morning!”
“Shouldn’t we deal with the whole, ya know, fugitives from the law thing?” Cara asked, voice spiking in a familiar note of oncoming panic. “I mean, what if the police find our spot while we’re out and set up a barricade around it? What if they shoot you before you speak? What if they shoot me? And speaking of shooting, aren’t we supposed to be tracking down that Henry Miller guy? We need to–”
“Cara!” My face was back to red. “Okay fine, so a shopping spree isn’t top on the plate. I’ll just…” An idea popped into my head. “Okay. Tina, would you like to do a shopping trip tomorrow?”
Tina pursed her lips. “I mean, yeah. You got a card though I can use? Cause I can’t afford much right now and maybe you feel comfortable hustling but I can’t cut and run like that.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’ll get you a card. Easy peasy. I’ll just make a call in the morning. You just hit up whatever furniture stores you think look cool, buy whatever you can until the card hits its limit, and we’ll go from there.”
Tina’s lips pressed together, stretched out in something that might be a smile but was contradicted by the crease between her eyebrows. “You sure?” she asked.
“Positive. Just… you know. Tomorrow.” I let out a sigh that turned into a very long yawn as I took a hard look at the gleaming, shiny, very hard hardwood floor. Man I was tired. I was dog tired. The more I thought about how tired I was, the more tired I got. We’d visited Noah today, broke Cara out of jail, hired Tina, and gotten a house all in one.
I was almost tired enough to sleep on the wooden floors.
“Cara, call the front desk and ask for some blankets. Tina—” I jabbed a finger at her “—your first priority tomorrow is beds. Mine will be getting some breathing space from the cops. Might take a buncha of the day, but we gotta do what we gotta do.” I’d hoodwinked cops before. I could play them like a flute.
—

Day 3: Friday

–
I’d taken flute in the seventh grade. It was the only instrument I’d ever played beyond banging on a grandparent’s piano once as a kid, or screeching on recorders in first grade. Like an idiot, I’d assumed you played flute and recorder the same way. Didn’t realize it was supposed to be sideways. So first day of flute class, I stuck it in my mouth and blew. Got a very judgy look from my teacher, whose impression of me didn’t change throughout the entire miserable year. Finally she left a kindly worded letter suggesting that my passions may lay outside music.
Which is to say, ‘playing something like a flute’ was a bad metaphor for ‘something easy.’ It was, however, a good metaphor for something difficult. Something like buying time from the police.
I’d had a good, if short lived, feeling about the whole thing as I cruised into the police station. Things had been going pretty well, the last few lies I’d told. Got the guards to give us free blankets, got Jordan the landlord to lend us his credit card, got a spanking good free breakfast.
I was feeling good until maybe thirty seconds after entering the police station.
“Hands up where we can see them! Keep your hands over your head and don’t move.”
I’d kept Cara at the apartment because I knew I was more likely to be able to survive a gunshot than her. I hadn’t expected to be shot, it had just been a precaution. So this was definitely taking me by surprise.
“What I do?” I shrieked, hands jumping over head. “I just came in here to–”
“We got two men missing, last seen escorting you and murder suspect Cara Geraldo from the premises.” The cop pointing his gun at me didn’t even lower his voice. Everyone else in the office looked very tense, and I could see a half dozen hands itching towards holsters.
“Uh.” I swallowed. “Don’t shoot please?”
“I’m getting cuffs on her,” the officer with the gun said. “Now. Someone hold my gun and check her for weapons.”
“Wait wait wait wait, I do not consent to being frisked.” I wanted to run or duck or something, but my hands were still over my head, and I knew if I took a step, they’d shoot. So instead I started kinda wiggling like my feet were glued to the ground. “No handcuffs either. Stop. Don’t. Please. Come on, guys, give me a break.”
They weren’t listening because I wasn’t telling lies, but my brain was drawing a bit of a blank. The ghosts, meanwhile, were full of ideas, which was part of the problem.
All anyone in the office saw was me wiggling and begging not to be handcuffed while a cop handcuffed me.
But what I was hearing was:
“Not commands, not commands, not commands are you fucking stupid?”
“Bro, Sammi, deep breaths, you’re gonna get yourself shot. I like, don’t think that would kill you depending on where you get shot but maybe we, you know, shouldn’t test it?”
“Sammi, oh my gosh, you’re being so silly! You’re gonna end up next to poor Noah if you’re not careful. You gotta–”
“Shut up, Blair, you’re distracting her.”
“Maybe you need to stop stressing her out. Chill, Joni chill. You need to–”
“Don’t be mean, Joni. Sammi needs–”
“She needs to not get shot, she needs to–”
“Deep breaths, girls. Deeeeeep breaths. It’ll be–”
“If you tell me to calm down, I’ll kill you. Sammi is literally going to die–”
“She’s just gotta stay positive! Okay Sammi, repeat after me. I am the God of Schemes and you’re all gonna be in a lot of–”
“Just say you’re not a criminal.”
“Say you did nothing wrong.”
“Tell them you work there.”
“Keep it simple.”
“Say something!”
“You’re running out of time.”
“Just tell them you’re supposed to be here.”
So I was hearing a lot. And I was fucking sweating my ass off. This had to have been the most stressful moment of my life, cause my face was beet red and I could feel steam coming out of my ears and I felt like my head was about to explode, and finally what came out of my mouth was.
“I’m not supposed to be in trouble or do anything wrong please.”
Which made no sense.
It did, however, get everyone in the room to pause, parsing my garbled sentence.
“You’re… what?” Officer Handcuffs asked.
“I’m…” My voice trailed off in a whimper. “I’m not in trouble.” I looked around the room at the frozen police officers. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
They were quiet for another long few seconds. Officer Handcuffs looked around the room, eyes slowly starting to bug more as he took in the accusatory glares of everyone in the room and then looked back to my handcuffed wrist.
“Jim.” An older woman with a bigger badge than many of the others, stepped forward. “This is enough.”
I froze, holding my breath.
“Amanda–”
“No.” Amanda shook her head. “You narrowly avoided probation for the vending machine incident. Now you’re handcuffing this poor girl who hasn’t done anything wrong?”
Jim was starting to sweat. Actually, everyone was starting to sweat. It was absolutely sweltering in here.
“I’m sorry. I… I didn’t–she looked like–”
Amanda was still shaking her head. “Uncuff the girl, Jim. Then you and I are gonna have a little chat. And I’m looping Charlotte in.”
Jim’s face probably would have gone white at this if it wasn't, like, eighty degrees in the room. Instead, it went a dark red. I was starting to worry for his health.
“Y-yes Sarge.” His shaky, sweaty, slippery hands fumbled with the lock on my cuff before unclasping it from my wrist. “Sorry miss. I…”
I waved him off. I had no idea what to say, but this was working kinda sorta, and I was scared to ruin it.
After Amanda escorted Jim away, the rest of the office sorta returned to normal. My mouth felt super chalky as I willed my heart to slow down, but I swayed where I stood, dizzy. Spots flashed in my eyes. Was I having a stroke?
“Jesus, someone wanna turn the AC on?” the woman at the desk asked, her voice a gravelly growl.
“Don’t normally need to in September like this,” Officer Handcuffs said. Then he pulled at his collar and took a few panting breaths. “But yeah. Yeah, let me go check on getting that cranked up.”
“Bro, you all look like you just ran a marathon.” Christopher pulled his legs up into a criss-cross applesauce pose. “Is it actually that hot?”
“Yeah, what gives?” Joni asked, blithely unaware–as I had been, until she’d asked–that she was ‘what gives.’
“I uh…” My eyes slunk around the room at the various police officers. How was I supposed to have a conversation with Joni here? Too many people who were gonna find it weird. “I’ll tell you outside,” I said, teeth grit. I just needed to have a conversation about posting bail and we could bail.
Joni wasn’t impressed by my blow off, but I didn’t really care. I needed to get us out of this office before people started passing out.
Phew, another week over. Let me know what you think!

I was so happy when I found a fic that was over 20k words, marked as complete, and the plot following a trope I really like. I snuggled down and started reading, prepared to spend the next couple hours immersed in a good story.
Then, in the first dialogue conversation the author used “spat” instead of “said” in a context where it wasn’t needed, and it completely took me out of the scene. Spat is a very harsh word to me and is usually used in reference to disgust or anger; not in a fluffy story about found family. I shrugged it off and continued, thinking it might’ve been a typo, when it happened again. And again. Like, every other sentence of dialogue was “blank,” spat instead of “blank,” said, and by the end of chapter one I was getting a little annoyed.
Then the author’s note at the end of the chapter. Everything was fine at first, just the usual thank you for reading and such, but the very last line was “God loves you so so so so so so so so much” (I’m not exaggerating the amount of “so”s, there were… a lot). I’ve never clicked out of a fic faster in my life. I’m not particularly religious, and I have absolutely nothing against religion in general. However, I read fics to focus on a world other than my own and having religion in the author’s note felt like getting ice water dumped on me.
Thank you to all who read my silly little rant, I hope you have a good day! If anyone wants to share their own reason(s) for dropping a fic in the comments I’m more than happy to read them; I’m super curious.

The way people rave about them, I thought they would be SO helpful. But there's like 15 things on each card and it's more like an outline someone just printed on a bunch of small pages. Maybe some can memorize that way, but it's NOT working for me and is super inefficient. Anyone else had/having this issue and found a way to use them effectively?
Or are people really out here memorizing 20 sentences for each card?

Now I know I’m a covert narcissist, I understand more about me at the same time I feel like I’m a horrible person. I ignored my crush in order to revenge him, but deep down I desire to have his intention, my heart is always hurt everyday, I feel like I cannot maintain a healthy relationship with anyone, everyone just leaves at anytime, but I cannot change myself bc I can’t feel empathy with them, I also don’t want to share anything of me with anyone, I also don’t really care about others, it’s not like I do that on purpose but i just can’t have empathy with anyone except myself. I feel like I’m gonna be alone forever, I feel like I’m a shit, now I know why others tell me I have no friends, it’s because in my head there is no friends, only superior or inferior, their is no love, only constant judgment about others and also myself. To be a narcissist and have flaws is like a death sentence, I put so much pressure on myself, i overexpect myself, I know that but I just cannot do things differently, and it’s extremely painful to know that I have flaws that cannot be changed like my height, it is like a cancer that kills me slowly everyday. I cannot understand how others could develop a good relationship with someone, bc for me, I can only see these superficial, most of the time I glorify strangers, which makes it impossible to talk to them, not even to form a relationship, or I see them like a loser, which makes no sense for me to talk to them, in everyday life, I constantly have to fake emotion, happiness, empathy,… I actually care about nothing at all, even sometimes I feel like I’m a monster cuz I don’t care about my mom and yell and order her doing things i want. But it’s not because I don’t want to care, it’s just I can’t have empathy, I cannot have the same feelings with others, I can see from a logical point of view that they are sad, but I can’t not feel their feelings, I cant love, I’m like a monster, the only thing I want is me being pretty, being success, being admired. It’s just impossible for me to do things differently. I don’t know if I can do anything else, but I just feel like shit everyday. I feel lonely, super super lonely, but I also have no real friends, no one to share, it’s like a paradox, I do want to share my feelings, but I cannot expose my vulnerability with anyone except myself. I cannot let them see me at a higher depth, I feel like people only come to me when I have some value to them. Like I hate myself, I don’t know what to do, I just feel terrible. I cannot sleep at night, my mind is always in a chaos, sometimes I feel blank, I have no love, I have no passion, I just go to school, and come home, no one to go out, no one to share stuff, I feel like I isolate myself but I cannot do things differently, I cannot let ppl get into my home, cuz I fear that they will judge me, I even have to lie about my dad and my house, I just can’t do anything else, I know I can be vulnerable but I just cant do that to anyone. It’s like a shit, why I’m not born in another family, I don’t need to be rich, just at a normal level in the society standard, I feel like every other kids are so great at friendship and stuff, they can see strangers and sit down and talk to them, but I just cant, I have to constantly judge other people, or I don’t care at all. I don’t know why I’m like that, I don’t know why other people can have a relationship, is it bc I’m too insecure or not, yeah I think it’s bc I’m so insecure about myself, I just hate hate myself, my height, my family not rich, my mom not having a social status, I don’t know, sometimes I want to talk to my crush, but I’m so afraid to commit, to let him know that my family is like that, I’m so insecure, I feel like I’m a trash compared to him, bc my family is like that, even though I can see his flaws, I cannot constantly glorify him. I underestimate my achievements, even they are socially respected, I don’t know, my self-esteem is so low to the point I feel like everything I achieved is nothing, I feel so sorry about my mom, even she tried her best to do things for me, I still not feel satisfied and I even hate her for not being rich like others. I don’t know why I’m so selfish, but I cannot do things differently. I don’t know, why my mom is so easily to form relationship with others, she can talk to strangers, she can share feelings, but I just cannot, there is like a wall between me and other ppl, I just feel like I’m trapped in a cage, I cant move, I cant talk, if I talk, I don’t know why but I think people look at me blankly, like I’m a weirdo. I don’t know, i just don’t know, I fear eye contact, I fear intimacy, I fear everything, I’m like in a trauma everyday, even I want to sleep, I just cant, I feel lonely but I cant do things differently, like I don’t know why other ppl can see others as friends, for me there is no friends, I don’t care about others, I can only see black and white, whether they are beautiful as appearance, whether they are rich or they are success, or on the other side, they are ugly, stupid, poor and so on, I cant form relationship it’s just like that. I know that so horrible of me and I have no right to expect other people to love me, to care about me, I don’t know, I seek validation and admiration, right I want to be idolized by everyone, but I don’t want committed relationship, I fear of commitment, I fear that in a relationship I have to care about others and be vulnerable, which I cant do, but I don’t know. I’m so jealous with my mom, she can easily have relationship and maintain it, she can love and be loved, which I cant. I don’t know, I’m never ever happy. Like there is a guy, that I know really cares about me, he constantly ask about me and I think he has a crush on me, but I just cant do the same, I feel so bad about myself, I care nothing about him, whatever happen to him I just don’t care, but in front of other people I always have to fake that I care about him so I don’t look bad and to “fit in” the society. Like that, im so guilty about me being fake like that, but when I’m alone and have no obligation to fake my emotions, I just feel blank, I don’t care about anything at all. Now I don’t know if I love my crush or just idolize him because of his appearance and his family social status only. I disgust myself, i can imagine I’m being happy with him when he is success, but I don’t see myself feeling anything if he is ill or in a bad situation. When he has bad grades or when he wear old clothes, I just instantly at that point uncrush him, and feel like he is inferior to me, but when he is successful, or when he looks good, then I immediately idolize him, and again that makes me freeze to talk to him. I think cannot have unconditional love. And I also fear that I will hurt him because in the past, I can have a heavy crush on someone, but right at the moment they fall for me, I immediately “switch off” my crush, again it’s not bc I want to do so, but it’s just how I feel, it changed. At first I will bomb loving someone and right at the moment I feel like I got my job done, i felt they are so annoying, and I ignored them, I don’t know why I’m like that, I’m just so ungrateful, I feel like everyone has to do things in my favor, like I know it’s bad, but I don’t feel guilty at all. Can you understand that, like my brain says “the teacher did ABC for me, so I have to thanks her to fit social expectation” but my heart says “nah, you don’t have to, you didn’t ask her to do that so that’s not your job to thank her”. When bad things happen to other people, like when I know someone dies, I feel nothing, literally, again it’s not bc I want to, it’s just my emotion is blank, I cant feel grief, but at the funeral I have to fake like I care, bc it fits the society, and when I don’t know about narcissism I even thought that everyone is also faking their emotion like me, and when someone is sick, I also feel that way. Like there is no empathy in me, I just fake it, I have to see other reactions and act the same, it’s not something from my heart. Really I’m so jealous with other people, they can have friends, they can care about each other, but to me, I cannot look at the world as them, like I’m emotionally disabled , there is nothing there. When someone wants to talk about something important to them and other people react to it, but I’m like indifferent but at the same time I’m guilty because I’m not fit in the society, so then I have to act like I’m care. It’s like a machine.
It’s just my thoughts in a sleepless night, I write this because I feel like this is the only place where I can truly express myself.

Was having a talk with a few coworkers and friends who all dive alongside one another, and we were talking about the new "exterminatus" mission.
First of all, I love this mission. It is brutal, difficult, and as a few traitorous, liberty hating, few put it... brutally unfair and one sided. YES! That was kinda the point, right? I thought we haven't been able to even touch down on this planet because it was deemed that no operation would have any effect due to just how bad the planet had gotten. Having now witnessed the entire planet become a bug nest to the literal core... swarmed by never-ending monsters where there isn't a single piece of land that is untainted... Pardon my language but "F* THIS PLANET!" Were my squad's exact words.
I mean one of our friends had been joking that he couldn't think of another solution to the meridia problem except "planet busting/exterminatus" the whole world. He said he didn't like the solution because he didn't want to send spores or planet chunks across the Galaxy, but if we're using dark matter to make a black hole perhaps that won't happen. But I can't come up with anything either!
I don't have an issue with the difficulty and just how insane this mission is because it kind of is insane. We're about to death star an entire world Star Trek antimatter style. I know my nerd is coming out but I can't help but disagree strongly with people who seem to complain about just how difficult this mission is when the feeling of just how impossible fighting on this world is should be hitting home to the rest of us and Super Earth that the loss of this world is inevitable and there is no other solution. How do you justify the death of a planet!? How do you justify the death sentence of an entire world? It's such a difficult moral question, until you touch down on Meridia and go, "Nope. I get it now." How to justify the death of the world? You cover the entire thing from head to toe and spawning bugs that are out to get you and everyone you love. Yep, I'm ready to send this place to the afterlife.
Stay strong helldivers! For the good of all humanity! Remember Meridia, remember the cost of victory!