Customer 1

• We bought Snowflake and AWS services just to fill the gaps with Teradata. Snowflake is still in our environment but I’m hearing that it’s not going to be long-term. Snowflake is a loser in our IT consolidation. It’s expensive. We want to reduce our costs. We have already moved to AWS Redshift and this is an overlap. We’re going to pull the plug by end of this year. This will be big savings for us. We can see that Redshift will better position our teams for solid data analytics, lower cost, and better resiliency.
• AWS Redshift is a gainer everywhere. That’s what I’ve heard from peers. AWS is winning big time with Redshift. The pricing, feedback, and brand are good. The capabilities are also ok. If I want talent for analytics or AI, AWS can provide that to me if I want to scale up. It was very cheap.
• I would say maybe some smaller companies moving towards open architectures. Iceberg hasn’t really hit my radar. Databricks said they could rebase our entire Snowflake. We could have AI, analytics, and LLMs there but it just didn’t click. I didn’t like what they were offering.

Customer 2

• We’re a heavy M&A company. We have an inorganic tech stack. Some CDOs have never migrated to the cloud, while others are modern. In terms of data analytics, some use cases are when the data is in Snowflake, the lines of business that own that data want to quickly create bots and leadership dashboards for administrative purposes. All that resides in Snowflake. Some have native tech teams that leverage the native BI queries that are there. Sometimes they also want us to come and create models for them, so rather than moving data from Snowflake to Azure blob, you can do everything in the Snowflake environment, create and deploy there. Nothing leaves the environment. Snowflake and Databricks are our primary tools. Teradata is for on prem.
• Our Snowflake spend is trending up 5-10% y/y this year. Databricks not so much, but due to the sheer number of ML projects that are spinning up, maybe 3-5% growth. Purely due to the number of queries that Snowflake is probably getting now, they’re going to benefit from AI chatbots. Our own version is in advanced pilot, coming up on production.
• Our Databricks is a bit atypical because we use Azure Databricks. We use them more for ML rather than data lake and unstructured data storage. Snowflake is still our primary data warehouse. Databricks is primarily used for how we bring in data at scale using Spark, how we spin up pipelines and GPUs. There’s a lot of hyperparameter tuning that we can do. Databricks is used as a knob on top of Azure, then we get one Azure + Databricks bill.

Customer 3

• Microsoft Fabric still has some rough edges, but we’re starting to do a lot with it. We’re trying to build data meshes and better integrate data lakes, but no tools are that good so far. Microsoft always continues to improve, not at the rate you want, but they make progress. We use Databricks heavily, they were designed around a data lake model. We don’t use Snowflake. Snowflake shines when scaling things. They make it very easy to make copies of data, and as a result it gets expensive. Everyone works on their copy. You’ll end up spending tons of cash.

Hello Redditors,
Have a question, hoping you guys can help me out.
I am very proficient in notation softwares. However, lately I’ve taken an interest in learning more about the audio production side of it, but countless hours of reading and learning have left me with a few basic questions.
I am keen on purchasing Kontakt 7, in order to improve my instrument libraries and have access to more realistic ones. This is to be used with DAW and notation softwares. So my questions are:
1a. Do Kontakt Libraries work with my notation softwares? (Sibelius & Musescore mostly)
1b. In particular, are they any good at integrating with notation softwares? Ie. Will I get accurate notation with articulation, hairpins, and other musical notations (trills, ornaments, etc.) with the same accuracy as the inbuilt ornamentations and articulation easily?

1. Using the DAW, I will be mostly converting the MIDI I write into realistic instrumental tracks via the Kontakt Libraries. Is this as simple as putting in the MIDI track, selecting the library (and then editing individual notes, etc. etc.) or am I complicating it too much in my head?
   
2. Assuming a good arrangement is created in MIDI, with sufficient and accurate articulation markings, how well are these translated into lifelike sounds when you import MIDI instructions into the DAW and then transform them via the libraries?
   

I’m pretty much learning on the fly and I have some limitations, but here’s what I’m looking at:
Room is open concept, living room and kitchen, dining room. 24’x16’ cathedral ceiling with 4,000 cu ft. (I measured and calculated)
The TV and speakers are against the 16’ living room wall. Opposite end from the kitchen area. We sit about 8’ from the TV and front speakers.
Important: My wife does not like loud bass and I have tinnitus (playing guitar way too loud over the years) We keep the volumes at best at a moderate level for movies and watching TV in general. I will never turn up to reference volume levels or even come close. We enjoy movies more at home because we can keep the volumes at comfortable levels.
Also because of physical limitations, each Sub can’t be more than around 40 lbs.
Right now I have the old Def Tech BP-7004’s with built in Sub, along with the matching Def Tech center and Def tech sides. 5.0 system. The built in Subs have quality issues. I replaced one several years ago and Def Tech replaced it for free, but the other went bad and now they will charge me $330 to repair it. They don’t have replacement power supplies anymore. I’m done dealing with the 7004’s and will replace them at some point, (maybe next year) but first the subs.
Even with just one Sub working, the bass is still present enough for us, but it is too directional. The 7004 has three 10” sub speakers and is a thin tower.
With all this said, I’m looking at two RSL Speedwoofer 10S MKII’s or one SVS PB-1000 Pro. I could get two SVS PB-1000 Pro’s if needed. Just want a nice sub setup for our living room for movies and general TV veiwing without cranking up the volume too much.

Ok so let me breif about my situation. I am 27M from North India belonging to middle class background. I never dated any girl as i was strict with a rule of date to marry .
So from last year i am dating a girl, who is distant relative of mine. We are now deeply in love, she is exactly what I ever needed or admire in girl. She understands me best, i found her beautiful, our menatality, thought process every thing sync well. She also feels same for me. Overall its like dream come true for me, like getting everything whatever i needed in my partner.
Offcourse i wanted to marry her from very first day thats why I initiated this. But now the problem has arised.
After dating for about a year me n her both informed our parents that we wanted to marry eachother. We belong to same religion, same caste, we never thought any of these problem. But now our families dont like each other and each other families. It kinda shocking for both of us as we both always thought they dont have problem.
They always met with love n passion, never said anything bad about eachother ever and my parents always showed her love from before same for me by her parents. They talked to me nicely, with love n respect.
Now when we broke the news both sides parents are not happy. My parents specifically my mom is not liking her mom, saying so many bad things about her and asking me to end this ASAP. My dad is kinda neutral but he is always with momside mostly.
Same in her house, her dad is neutral but her mom and elder sister dont like my mom, my sister and not even me. They literally said they dont like me as a person. I really don't know why n i am shocked as i never felt that they see me like that. Her mom also asked her to not meet me or have any contact with me. Now we both are in panic about what to do. We are very well emotionally connected and it's really not easy for both of us to end this. We really both love each other.
Pls advice me guys what i do. How much parents validation is important. We both wanted n wished that our parents will be with us, but its heart brokening for us. Now how much do I need to think on this issue.
Also my intro:
I am living with my parents being eldest son and earning enough. I also never wanted dowry or something like that, not coz i loved her but if she is not there then also. Very simple, decent and average looking man i consider myself who does my business and live lowkey.
She is in final graduation and pretty, more then that she understands me well, we have great chemistry. If I compare then her family is financially weak then mine but i dont see as problem. Not very weak but comparatively, but same caste n religion no problem in that.

So I’m a bit of a needless professional quandary & I am looking for input.
I’ve been feeling both burnt out & concerned that layoffs are coming for my business area at work. This led me to apply for an internal 3 month reassignment at work & now I’m not sure I actually want to do it.
A huge part of me wants to chill out, recover from burnout, enjoy the summer with my kids by working remotely slightly more often & taking more PTO.
The go-getter in me thinks hey I could do that job & learn something new… but it will be a steep learning curve for a new area of the business, require more in office facetime, & doesn’t guarantee any future role/growth opportunity.
I applied out of fear of layoffs, feeling stuck, and honestly it’d be so nice to walk away from what I’m doing today. If they decided to make it permanent, it could be about a $20k increase. I’m also on track for a promotion in my current role which I’d estimate would be about $10k. The difference of 10k isn’t that much money… I’d have to work hard at proving myself but I’m already feeling at maximum brain capacity doing a job I know how to do well.
What would you do moms? I’m torn between my two selves - the try-hard/career progression side & the chill/lean out/enjoy life side.

tl;dr; I neglected my wife need to be seen as an adult one.
Background: We've been together 6y+, married 3yrs ago, have 20month old kid.
We've always had great relationship, same sense of humour, same areas of interests, sex was great. Things started to change ~1 year ago, for sure our son was already with us. I think at least some of you know, how the things change with a kid - Wife had to focus more on baby, I took more of the house duties.
Sometime ago I've started to notice that she's distancing herself away (at least for some moments), but I just assumed this is stress at work, us trying to have another kid (no success :/). But like three days, I accidentaly woke up our son from his afternoon nap - I just asked her silently if I should start preparing an afternoon meal and kid woke up (maybe that was even unrelated to my whispering).
And that was it, she said I crossed the line, always doing stuff my way (not sure what she meant by that), and I just responded that it makes no sense to fight over it and I'm not willing to waste my energy in this fight.
Since then, we're on the silent side. Only discuss about son, what should be done at home and that's it. I tried to reach her, to discuss what just have happened, but I just got silence. In our relationship I've been always the one that cooks - she doesn't like it, but for me it was ok, I've enjoyed it. (maybe no so much recently, I think I just fed up with that + lot of other stuff to focus on). But since then, she does her meals, she avoids contact in the evening, and when I prepared a meal for us, she rejected that.
Today in the morning, she approaches me and asks if I will always treat her as a dumb little girl, that even cannot take care of herself, not to mention the kid. WTF ? Then she goes all way, that I won't let her do the waffles (she wanted to make ones ine day, I just brought the waffle machine and plugged it in, because it's heavy), I always want to help with kid - change diapers, play in sandbox, and she can do it on her own, and mentions all the stuff I did, because I purely wanted to help her, because I've seen how tired she was.
And also I need to take care of my father for couple of day (~3hrs away), so I said they should come with me - this also was mentioned, as me not having a faith in her, that she could handle our son on her own; and I only thought that they should come with me, because in case of emergency I'm there (we have only one car), and my kid would also miss me. But here also my intentions were misunderstood, I guess.
And in some (big) degree, I get, I understand why she feels this way, because I was just trying to everything and let her do nothing. But this is new to me - and I don't know how to convice her that it was only good intentions.
So guys, any tips how to control this behavior of mine, and - more important - how to reassure her, I'm trying to get our relationship back on track, with equal roles ?

So one random day about 2 years ago a random Turkish Facebook account messaged me and started calling me, at first i thought it was some scammer but turned out to be just 2 chicks messing around and i just played along with it. With one of them i just started talking and we kind of clicked, but I've never taken it too seriously, this is the main girl, we'll call her H. To be completely honest i was just a trash guy that felt nothing towards H, however she fell for me and really started caring about me. H sent me nudes, as she said for the first time in her life and she was the initiator of all conversations. Looking back it feels like H always was head over heels in love with me without ever seeing me.
Fast forward about a year and a half, i started gaining a liking towards H as well, we started video calling like every evening. She would get mad when i chose gaming with the boys or going out and not gave time to her, it was really wholesome and one evening she surprised me, she told me that she got accepted into an Erasmus program in Italy, she was finally coming to Europe and we can meet each other. Honestly - I didn't believe that we would ever meet at first, but i started asking her around about her past relationships just feeling out her.
So allegedly H had one past relationship with a Spanish guy it was long distance as well, we'll call him M. She was madly in love with him, they've met in Istanbul once, only had two "very romantical kisses" and nothing else, yes she's still a virgin. That relationship ended abruptly when M's brother found out about that and apparently M was engaged and had a fiancé. H was absolutely heart broken, M's brother called her, started calling her names and told her the full story. She felt betrayed, lost and fell into a deep depression. This is a year before me and her started talking at all.
She came to Italy, everything was fine, she'd tell me about all the people she would meet, tell me about guys that were into her, honestly nothing out of the ordinary, because she is really beautiful and has this calm and collected aura around her. But what bothered me - she would tell me when she found guys handsome. The weird things started happening from then on, since she was Muslim in Italy was the first time she tried alcohol and there were a couple of club nights where she got so wasted she couldn't remember the night before, but she was always with a friend of hers that i trusted and that knew about our relationship, lets call her B.
There was one time that she went out to the club with her student friends and an incident happened - a guy left a hickey on her neck. She told me that while crying the next morning and she told me that it was abrupt and she didn't realize that that was happening, allegedly she was just dancing in the club with him, not romantically she said and he just went in for it from behind her. Allegedly she pulled him off with B and B told him "she's not a girl like that". H came out to me, told me everything about it, i trusted in her that that was a dumb mistake.(Remembering this now kind of makes me feel mad for not giving this that much thought)
Everything turned out ok, we continued talking, no more incidents happened, i didn't shit on her for that incident and i was happy that she was honest and actually as a person that has been more years in relationships in my life than not - i communicated from the beginning that honesty and truthfulness is my top priority in a partner. Honestly i was even a little snake in terms of that i never told her anything i didn't like that she said from the fear that she would close up. So i don't think i created an atmosphere where there would be a motive to keep any secrets, no matter what happened.
We continued talking and H kept pushing me to come to Italy and i will admit - that was way beyond my comfort zone, i told her that i would and that i need time to organize things. Things took a while and eventually she said "i'm sick of waiting, i'm coming to Lithuania myself". And guess what, she bought the tickets with a weeks notice for me. She was coming with her friend B that i had to drive to Latvia for her to meet up with her other friends. Basically after day 2 there would only be the 2 of us left, just me and H.
The day comes and i drive to pick them up from the airport i was anxious and nervous as shit. She comes out of the airport running to me, hugged me for a long time and it felt good. That's when i realized that i really like this girl. But i still have my doubts, i still think of the different cultures, how would she talk to my mother if we ever get married, what culture would our children be, how would i talk to her parents? Basically i didn't see long term viable at that point, in this i'm a piece of shit, because she was in this state of delusion that i'm her everything and i'm her last man ever.
So we live together for that week, we have good adventures, i show her and her friend around the city, outside of the city, they love everything, they're super happy. At night me and H are in the same bed, we kiss and it gets naughty, but at the back of my head i have this guilt of not seeing a future with H, so i don't commit to taking her virginity and we play around with everything around it and she was passionate as shit.
The time i spent with her was very lovely, it was honestly so refreshing and it kind of brought a new light for me, i started imagining the future together but still with many doubts. It is time for her to leave, she's clinged on to me, doesn't want to let me go, is really sad that she has to leave, but eventually she does and she has to leave to Berlin to live there.
Everything was fine, one night i went to play pool with a buddy that lives in the UK, for context he used to date a Chinese girl, we got a little drunk and high and i started talking about H, told him all my doubts and he kind of debunked them with his prior relationship. He basically left me feeling like maybe i should commit to H. He outlined that i do have a lot of prior trauma due to having so many relationships, having been cheated on, having been left for other men and basically i have a very thick shield and never let anyone close. That is very true and i knew the answer was to try to commit and so quietly i did.
H went to Germany, first she went to a city where her friend lives, they both had a good time, she sent me snaps and kept me updated, it was really nice, we continued calling each other. Now this is where the situation started, when she took the train to Berlin, she came in on Monday. She lived in some sort of camp seemed like, she disappeared for that day, in the evening she tried calling me and i called back in an hour. She looked normal to me and i tried asking her what did you do that day. At first she changed the topic, then i asked again - she said they went on a group trip, it was super fun. Then i asked again what happened, she told me this strange story about a guy that she called handsome to her friend in Turkish and was talking about him a lot. After a while the guy turned around and answered to them in Turkish, which made her feel really bad. Then i asked another time, what happened next - she said she got blackout drunk and doesn't remember anything....
Hmmmm. You got blackout drunk like a couple hours ago and now you seem normal talking to me... Alright, i got my suspicions up and reminded her that honesty is number one for me, she said she understands and is 100% honest with me.
Alright, the next day rolls around, LITERALLY THE NEXT DAY AFTER HONESTY CONVERSATION, she sends me a snap of her having lunch with her friend and some guy. I don't think much of it and in the evening we video call, i ask her about the day and she doesn't say anything about no guy, that is pretty weird knowing her past honesty. I directly confront her about it and tell her "What are you talking about, you sent me a snap with you and him at the table", she starts pulling all sorts of bullshit and says she only took pictures of food and sent me those pictures. Lo and behold the tables are black glass and there's a reflection of a dude sitting on his phone at the table. At first she start pulling more shit "I don't see anyone, maybe it's a waiter, i don't know what you're talking about" and i tell her stop acting stupid.
She then starts crying and says that she promised a friend to keep that guy's presence there a secret. Allegedly he's getting an unlawful marriage with his fiancé that neither his nor his fiancé's parents can know about. Wow, what the actual fuck? Who would've i told, going to lunch with guys in secret is normal? Anyway, i told her that she broke my trust and i'm not sure if there's possibility of recovering this. She started begging while crying and said she'd do anything to fix it and that it was a stupid mistake. Alright, i tell her that it will need time, but that she will have to be 100% honest with me. Another talk about honesty.
Next day rolls around and i'm suspicious, i started checking her instagram activity and snap location(very not healthy, i know). i see instragram last active 7h ago and same in snap, all gucci - she asleep. Next time i check - instagram activity has been turned off and snap last active 9 hours ago? I confront her as soon as she gets on snap, which is about 6 hours from the first check. We call and she says she wasn't on insta and she didn't turn off shit. I asked her to share screen and show me - she was messaging B 5 hours ago :)
So i told her that the first mistake i was willing to work through, even though we had a convo literally a day before it. But now this.... I told her that i can't see me trusting her ever again and now she's crying and begging me for days, she gave me all her social media passwords unasked, she said she can delete everything and disappear from everyone's lives except mine. She's basically non stop begging me for forgiveness and saying she'll do anything to fix it and that she will never forget me if she looses me.
She then proceeded to trauma dump me how her father was never present in her life, she never even touched his hand, how she would get beaten by her father side aunts and grandmother, they allegedly kept her starving while her father was not present. They had to hide food because that would get taken away from them and shit. And call me whatever, but at that point, i heard that voice lying though it's teeth, i just did not know what to trust and if this is a manipulation tactic to become a victim.
So this is the part where i need advice, i left it off by saying we'll be friends from now on, we can keep contact and if you ever earn back my trust maybe something will come of it. But I'm very conflicted, i don't know if i can ever trust her again, her behavior after we met turned really shady. What would you do in this situation? AITAH if i leave her?
I left some context out because it turned out way longer as is, ask in the comments if any questions arise.

So one random day about 2 years ago a random Turkish Facebook account messaged me and started calling me, at first i thought it was some scammer but turned out to be just 2 chicks messing around and i just played along with it. With one of them i just started talking and we kind of clicked, but I've never taken it too seriously, this is the main girl, we'll call her H. To be completely honest i was just a trash guy that felt nothing towards H, however she fell for me and really started caring about me. H sent me nudes, as she said for the first time in her life and she was the initiator of all conversations. Looking back it feels like H always was head over heels in love with me without ever seeing me.
Fast forward about a year and a half, i started gaining a liking towards H as well, we started video calling like every evening. She would get mad when i chose gaming with the boys or going out and not gave time to her, it was really wholesome and one evening she surprised me, she told me that she got accepted into an Erasmus program in Italy, she was finally coming to Europe and we can meet each other. Honestly - I didn't believe that we would ever meet at first, but i started asking her around about her past relationships just feeling out her.
So allegedly H had one past relationship with a Spanish guy it was long distance as well, we'll call him M. She was madly in love with him, they've met in Istanbul once, only had two "very romantical kisses" and nothing else, yes she's still a virgin. That relationship ended abruptly when M's brother found out about that and apparently M was engaged and had a fiancé. H was absolutely heart broken, M's brother called her, started calling her names and told her the full story. She felt betrayed, lost and fell into a deep depression. This is a year before me and her started talking at all.
She came to Italy, everything was fine, she'd tell me about all the people she would meet, tell me about guys that were into her, honestly nothing out of the ordinary, because she is really beautiful and has this calm and collected aura around her. But what bothered me - she would tell me when she found guys handsome. The weird things started happening from then on, since she was Muslim in Italy was the first time she tried alcohol and there were a couple of club nights where she got so wasted she couldn't remember the night before, but she was always with a friend of hers that i trusted and that knew about our relationship, lets call her B.
There was one time that she went out to the club with her student friends and an incident happened - a guy left a hickey on her neck. She told me that while crying the next morning and she told me that it was abrupt and she didn't realize that that was happening, allegedly she was just dancing in the club with him, not romantically she said and he just went in for it from behind her. Allegedly she pulled him off with B and B told him "she's not a girl like that". H came out to me, told me everything about it, i trusted in her that that was a dumb mistake.(Remembering this now kind of makes me feel mad for not giving this that much thought)
Everything turned out ok, we continued talking, no more incidents happened, i didn't shit on her for that incident and i was happy that she was honest and actually as a person that has been more years in relationships in my life than not - i communicated from the beginning that honesty and truthfulness is my top priority in a partner. Honestly i was even a little snake in terms of that i never told her anything i didn't like that she said from the fear that she would close up. So i don't think i created an atmosphere where there would be a motive to keep any secrets, no matter what happened.
We continued talking and H kept pushing me to come to Italy and i will admit - that was way beyond my comfort zone, i told her that i would and that i need time to organize things. Things took a while and eventually she said "i'm sick of waiting, i'm coming to Lithuania myself". And guess what, she bought the tickets with a weeks notice for me. She was coming with her friend B that i had to drive to Latvia for her to meet up with her other friends. Basically after day 2 there would only be the 2 of us left, just me and H.
The day comes and i drive to pick them up from the airport i was anxious and nervous as shit. She comes out of the airport running to me, hugged me for a long time and it felt good. That's when i realized that i really like this girl. But i still have my doubts, i still think of the different cultures, how would she talk to my mother if we ever get married, what culture would our children be, how would i talk to her parents? Basically i didn't see long term viable at that point, in this i'm a piece of shit, because she was in this state of delusion that i'm her everything and i'm her last man ever.
So we live together for that week, we have good adventures, i show her and her friend around the city, outside of the city, they love everything, they're super happy. At night me and H are in the same bed, we kiss and it gets naughty, but at the back of my head i have this guilt of not seeing a future with H, so i don't commit to taking her virginity and we play around with everything around it and she was passionate as shit.
The time i spent with her was very lovely, it was honestly so refreshing and it kind of brought a new light for me, i started imagining the future together but still with many doubts. It is time for her to leave, she's clinged on to me, doesn't want to let me go, is really sad that she has to leave, but eventually she does and she has to leave to Berlin to live there.
Everything was fine, one night i went to play pool with a buddy that lives in the UK, for context he used to date a Chinese girl, we got a little drunk and high and i started talking about H, told him all my doubts and he kind of debunked them with his prior relationship. He basically left me feeling like maybe i should commit to H. He outlined that i do have a lot of prior trauma due to having so many relationships, having been cheated on, having been left for other men and basically i have a very thick shield and never let anyone close. That is very true and i knew the answer was to try to commit and so quietly i did.
H went to Germany, first she went to a city where her friend lives, they both had a good time, she sent me snaps and kept me updated, it was really nice, we continued calling each other. Now this is where the situation started, when she took the train to Berlin, she came in on Monday. She lived in some sort of camp seemed like, she disappeared for that day, in the evening she tried calling me and i called back in an hour. She looked normal to me and i tried asking her what did you do that day. At first she changed the topic, then i asked again - she said they went on a group trip, it was super fun. Then i asked again what happened, she told me this strange story about a guy that she called handsome to her friend in Turkish and was talking about him a lot. After a while the guy turned around and answered to them in Turkish, which made her feel really bad. Then i asked another time, what happened next - she said she got blackout drunk and doesn't remember anything....
Hmmmm. You got blackout drunk like a couple hours ago and now you seem normal talking to me... Alright, i got my suspicions up and reminded her that honesty is number one for me, she said she understands and is 100% honest with me.
Alright, the next day rolls around, LITERALLY THE NEXT DAY AFTER HONESTY CONVERSATION, she sends me a snap of her having lunch with her friend and some guy. I don't think much of it and in the evening we video call, i ask her about the day and she doesn't say anything about no guy, that is pretty weird knowing her past honesty. I directly confront her about it and tell her "What are you talking about, you sent me a snap with you and him at the table", she starts pulling all sorts of bullshit and says she only took pictures of food and sent me those pictures. Lo and behold the tables are black glass and there's a reflection of a dude sitting on his phone at the table. At first she start pulling more shit "I don't see anyone, maybe it's a waiter, i don't know what you're talking about" and i tell her stop acting stupid.
She then starts crying and says that she promised a friend to keep that guy's presence there a secret. Allegedly he's getting an unlawful marriage with his fiancé that neither his nor his fiancé's parents can know about. Wow, what the actual fuck? Who would've i told, going to lunch with guys in secret is normal? Anyway, i told her that she broke my trust and i'm not sure if there's possibility of recovering this. She started begging while crying and said she'd do anything to fix it and that it was a stupid mistake. Alright, i tell her that it will need time, but that she will have to be 100% honest with me. Another talk about honesty.
Next day rolls around and i'm suspicious, i started checking her instagram activity and snap location(very not healthy, i know). i see instragram last active 7h ago and same in snap, all gucci - she asleep. Next time i check - instagram activity has been turned off and snap last active 9 hours ago? I confront her as soon as she gets on snap, which is about 6 hours from the first check. We call and she says she wasn't on insta and she didn't turn off shit. I asked her to share screen and show me - she was messaging B 5 hours ago :)
So i told her that the first mistake i was willing to work through, even though we had a convo literally a day before it. But now this.... I told her that i can't see me trusting her ever again and now she's crying and begging me for days, she gave me all her social media passwords unasked, she said she can delete everything and disappear from everyone's lives except mine. She's basically non stop begging me for forgiveness and saying she'll do anything to fix it and that she will never forget me if she looses me.
She then proceeded to trauma dump me how her father was never present in her life, she never even touched his hand, how she would get beaten by her father side aunts and grandmother, they allegedly kept her starving while her father was not present. They had to hide food because that would get taken away from them and shit. And call me whatever, but at that point, i heard that voice lying though it's teeth, i just did not know what to trust and if this is a manipulation tactic to become a victim.
So this is the part where i need advice, i left it off by saying we'll be friends from now on, we can keep contact and if you ever earn back my trust maybe something will come of it. But I'm very conflicted, i don't know if i can ever trust her again, her behavior after we met turned really shady. What would you do in this situation?
I left some context out because it turned out way longer as is, ask in the comments if any questions arise.

4 years ago I found a partial human maxillary (upper jaw) belonging to a 5-11 year old child and the sole of a kid’s shoe in a size that would fit a 6-8 year old on the grounds of an abandoned school in Germany. Both items were sticking out of the ground at the side of an overgrown embankment, though it’s likely they were completely buried at some point and only exposed fairly recently due to wind and rain slowly washing the earth away.
The local police was informed and two very unmotivated patrol officers showed up the next day and took my findings with them, but to this day the property hasn’t been searched for more bones. The police also never released any sort of press statement regarding the matter (wich is pretty much standard practice in Germany in cases like this), and both the local department as well as the LKA (state police) refuse to give out information.
A few weeks later I found a rib, a vertebrae, some leather straps and little metal clasp in the same area. I brought that stuff to the station, but again nothing happened.
I did some research and found out that the shoe was a type of cheap sneaker for indoor sports education sold in the GDDDR from the 1960s to the late 1980s; I even found the factory where this specific pair was manufactured, but unfortunately I couldn’t find a more detailed production date. The metal clasp and leather straps likely belonged to a bag used by GDR school children to carry their lunch.
Of course it’s not impossible that none of these items have anything to do with the bones, that they’re actually ancient and that there was no need for an investigation, but then it makes no sense why they wouldn’t just tell me that. I also did extensive research on the history of that place, and there’s not really a plausible explanation how these bones ended up there unless someone dumped a body after the school was abandoned.
I’ve since moved away from the town where it happened, but I can’t get it out of my head. I can’t just accept that maybe someone murdered a kid and got away with it, that there’s a family who will never get closure, and that it will stay that way because some lazy cops didn’t do their job. So, what can I do to get someone to investigate this?

So, my 3-year 1G internet-only contract is coming up for renewal in few months. I wonder if there is a way I can keep the same price / deal (around $80) or will my new plan cost much more now? Are there any deals available and how do I proceed to get one? On the website all internet-only plans are much higher. Any recommendations?

Trying to keep this vague because I have reason to believe at least one parent lurks.
I took college as an opportunity to move out of state over a decade ago. It was a sneaky way for me to create space with my parents before even realizing their behavior reached narcissistic levels-my house was riddled with several forms of domestic violence growing up and that was my inspiration to leave. I have lived about halfway across the country from them ever since —through graduate school, the start of my career, etc etc.
Five years ago I really started in on my therapy and have been relatively low contact with them ever since which I feel in part has worked because of the physical distance between us.
Now, they want to retire near where I currently live which honestly terrifies me. First, I genuinely do not think they can afford to retire at all — we come from poverty and they have worked very hard to overcome it, but financially, it does not add up. They are not at traditional retirement age, just “tired of working.” I am in a high-paying career field and although they aren’t aware of my earnings, they can get ideas based on where I live. It feels like a set up to prey on my empathy (I’m the scapegoat child) when the time comes. Especially since they are not new to financial abuse.
I also think this is their response to the low contact. I think this is their way of stepping on that boundary in a covert way that ultimately makes sticking to the boundary more emotional and difficult. It is not unlike my father to look into this sort of thing on his own time, it makes them strong manipulators. They actually both have a grasp on narcissistic abuse because this is a family affair on n father’s side and he has created distance from his own family over such abuse.
For financial abuse reasons, I am still tied to them making going no contact impractical and potentially impossible. For any of you out there who managed to get away and start to heal, were you followed and how did you handle it? I’m afraid their move will undo so much work I’ve put in. I also have not had to stand my ground on boundaries to their faces and they both have histories of being physically violent so that rocks me a bit.

Hi,
I have marked most imporant parts as how long I use each meds in what dose, info of me, my questions, supplements used, nootropics thinking of, new meds for panic disorder treatment, plan to quit benzos, asking about Memantine. If you want, here is whole story and treatment:) Thx I have a lifetime nonmedicated ADHD + OCD (will finally have atomoexin in july after like 8 docs) but mainly severe panic disorder since 12/23 caused by badly burning out and not stopping work + too much stress from all sides, mostly family and workspace/company. It started close to xmas and wanted to finish year and worked until my body completely disabled to it to me but right after it came xmas, which is not my fav time of year ending in keeping me in attacks 24/7. Btw Im 29yo man, 193cm, 90kg, sporting, financial advisor solo businessman, living alone, used to be really busy all the time, multiple addictions behind me mostly because depression (alcohol),pain (kratom) and stimulants bcs its so addictive with adhd :D But I dont abuse anything since 02/23 when I barely survived WD from forced CT a lot of alcohol every day and I want to be healthy and drugs free!
I am currently getting off xanax and on SSRI, starting my new recovery plan below as previous didnt help enough and asking if you know anything that could help me get my full life back sooner I work as I can/want, mostly 2-6 h/day and only from home, going to multiple types of therapy, investing insane money to get recovered and looking for every possible way. I am open for any tip or suggestion on nootropic, peptide, maybe even SARMs that could help me get over this. Even if you dont have time or dont want to read all previous treatment and new plan and have idea what could help me, write it please. But I have to be careful with anything interacts with SSRI as I will be also on buspar, I have a safe med for serotonin syndrome if needed.. Also if you see gaps or risks in my meds plan, some ideas, useful info or better ways, I will be glad to know it:) Mostly about Memantine - when to use, in which part of protocol it will be most beneficial or what to expect.
I use/tried almost every useful supplement including adaptogens, herbs, expensive vitamins, mushrooms, gotu kola, NAC, tyrosine, inositol and just anything that could be useful + basics use all year. Also have Alpha GPC which made my adhd brain supercomputer before I got beaten but now doesnt work. Tried before noopept and a lot of racetams, idra21 and some more but with no effect and modafinil before with effect, but mostly anxiety, too much concentrating on one thing and severe insomnia.
I am already pretty sure about Agmatine, Sulbutiamine instead of Benfotiamine (any difference?), not sure of Bromantane on ssri (?), 9-me is no go, maybe NALT (?), Theacrine as Im tired from SSRI all the time and too much coffee makes me axnious, maybe Vinpocetine or Uridine triacetate? centrophenoxine? dihexa?
My treatment from december to now:
I had no idea wth is this, told my psychologist what is happening to me and asking many times if its serious and casually replied that is probably from stress. So I treated it as burnout by resting, then removing original causes and triggers, removing problems from my mind and life, reducing stress to minimum, even leaving my pretty good paid job after 9 yers. But nothing helped besides benzos which made me not feel attacks so much and when I went off after 6 weeks, symptoms came back the same day.
I always said no to ADs but this time I didnt see any other option so I got SSRI citalopram 20, later 30mg now 6 weeks, first weeks were hell of anxiety and tiredness, last 2 weeks they help but effect is enough to keep me attack free only at home, outside flat still almost instant PA + side effects are still bad.
Same with benzos now again for 6 weeks afte break from previous cycle, mostly xanax 1,5-2mg a day, when Im home with no problems I can stay on 0,5mg with no WD. But want to quit asap, Im standing on the edge of little discomfort or living hell WDs. Also it makes me dumb, careless and not caring, but dont have cravings or abuse them, until now there was no other medication in my country :/ Also I already had GABA WDs pretty bad from alcohol many times and from phenibut in february by mistake (3 weeks of 2-3x a week before I had benzos). I would rather skip this opportunity to be on boat walking simulator with scary shadowy guy in my bedroom.
Next week I will make a big changes:
Will to add Buspar in small doses to SSRI, probably 30mg citalopram + 2x7,5mg buspar for long term and propranolol over benzos before I leave flat for panic attacks - I have mostly physical symptoms and over these months my brain has learned to go panic mode when I go around people or noise but im not scared, wanting to hide or anxious, want to go out. Hope this will allow me to relearn the BIOS of my brain and body they wont start panicking as it has learned over months of nonstop attack (january until end of april, just moving on scale 1-10 but never off). Propranolon as beta-blocker should not allow my body to go panic defense mode and mental anxiety I can handle now. My mind is still quite ok, not much depressed or in bad mood, last days even thinking a bit sharper and can handle it but body/brain program are stuck. Hope this will allow me over time to get off SSRI to just Buspar + non addictive anxiety aid as needed or at least switch to SNRI or Wellbutrin as im energetic person but with this SSRI im meeeeeeeh all the time.
As propranolon arrives I will cut benzos to lowest dosage where I wont feel WD, probably 0,5mg/day and switch to Clonazepam (have benzos and can ask doc anytime), keep this dose for 2-3 weeks, taper to 0,35mg, wait and this until i go down around 0,2mg/day. Maybe slower if it will be painful or risk worse WDs when i cut them off.
For quitting benzos I have clonidine (WD reduce, camling, ADHD), pregabalin (GABA substance replacement, anti seizure but addictive), baclofen (GABA substance replacement, anti seizure also addictive)), Etifoxine (nonbenzo anxiolytics, I guess mostly PAWS) and Topiramate (seizure and migraine prevention, WD reduce) and Hydroxyzine (sleepy antihistamine nonaddictive) to get off them asap with no risk seizure and suffering for weeks in terrible WDs. I wont use all the aids together but as needed for current symptoms and not get hooked on none of them as only atarax is safe.
Also finally will get ADHD meds atomoxetin, but as I have no energy, even adhd is not so present and clonidine also helps for adhd. And I have found one super special med you will be interested about- Memantine (bgpharm), do you have experiences about this so called miracle drug? It make you feel softly with unlimited brain power, also it shall lower tolerances to almost all substances and by 30-60% over 7-14 days and then make WDs easier + also helps ADHD. But have no idea when to use it in my plan, I got 2 packs and its cheap so can buy more but dont want to mess with getting off bzs and learning to manage going out. Same question with atomoxetin - when to start? its not stimulant so it should not affect attacks nor benzo WD but idk.
Just in case there would be too much serotonin I will have Cyproheptadine for SS. It should not happen from SSRI+Buspiron but some nootropic or WD med can cause it. And just remembered I shall take some ephedrine/yohimbine if my BP or HB goes too slow from propranolon/clonidine... :/
I will still go for checks to doc and psychiatrist but the medical procedures in my country got stuck in time in year when producers of SSRI/benzos gave some gifts for doctors or politics. So they just give you this combo announcing you it will work (didnt) and you wont get addicted in 3 months of xan (would). Also propranolon is not approved med for anxiety in my county, only bzds and buspirone, but after trying several ADs on you :/
Thank you so much for any knowledge you share with me!

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Select the application method.
• Applying online is the quickest and most convenient option.
• You can download a paper application if you are unable to apply online.

• Immigration New Zealand – Visitor Visa Application (INZ 1017)
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Assemble the necessary paperwork for your application.
You will have to provide proof of:
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• Have enough money to live on or have a sponsor to help you financially while you’re here.
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Verify your identity.
Utilizing your application, you must:
• possess a passport that is valid for at least three months after the date you intend to depart New Zealand;
• submit one color photo, or two if you’re applying on paper.
Demonstrate your good character and good health.
You have to report to INZ any offences you have:
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File a visa application
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PART ONE THOUSAND AND THIRTEEN
[Previous Chapter] [The Beginning] [Patreon+2]
Sunday
Lucas tapped the flat of his finger twice on the partially open door, more to let Boyd know he was coming than actually requesting permission to enter. He pushed it open and strode through as the somewhat welcoming grunt came from within.
“Hey, sexy,” he said, crossing the two rooms to zoom in on Boyd sitting at his bench. On the spinner before Boyd was a larger figure than he had ever done before: an eighteen-inch figure of a woman with an hourglass figure wearing a form-fitting formal gown that flowed to the floor, swaying as if she’d just stepped to her right. Her hands were curled as if she were holding something or someone, but that part was missing.
“Ooooh,” Lucas said, resting his head on Boyd’s shoulder to examine the piece closer. “She’s pretty.”
“She’s also the viscount’s granddaughter, who I think is married to a prince somewhere in Eastern Europe. I’d have to pull out her details again, but she’s already got two kids, and she still looks this good.”
“She doesn’t look old enough to have two kids.”
“That’s what happens when you marry when you’re still a teenager.”
“Please tell me it wasn’t an arranged marriage.”
Boyd did a slow pan to level an annoyed look at him.
“What? They used to.”
“Slavery was a thing in America back in the day, too.”
Lucas made a deflating raspberry. “If you want to get technical,” he grumbled.
Boyd twisted his seat to face him, loosely curling his arms around Lucas’ waist. “Where are you off to, Mister Soon-To-Be-Masters?”
Oh-ho. Someone’s feeling playful. “I thought you were going to become a Dobson,” Lucas countered, leaning in to give him a quick morning kiss.
“Yeah, but then I was reminded I do have family that I care about.”
“None of which are Masters. Your mom and Aunt Judy are sisters who changed their names when they married. If you were going to take any of their names, we’d both be changing to Davenport.”
Boyd looked down at where their abdomens rested against each other.
“Hey,” Lucas said, sliding his hand under Boyd’s chin and lifting it so he could see those beautiful baby blues focusing on him. “What’s going on, love?”
Boyd opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He tried twice more. “Ten years,” he finally croaked. “They took me in and gave me a home within the family for nearly two years, and I repaid them by cutting them out of my life the second I could. Who does that to their own?”
“Somebody with a lot of fear,” Lucas answered honestly. "And that somebody isn’t you anymore. You’ve invited Emily to be our accountant, and personally, I hope you know what you’re doing there…”
“Emily has always been good with money. The only time she’s ever been off is when she borrows money from you, and you go to get it back. By the time she’s finished explaining all the financial movement around the transaction, you end up owing her twice as much, and she’s really convincing. Computerised flow charts and everything.”
Lucas hoped he was exaggerating. If Emily had been that quick and deceptive to separate Boyd from his money when she was a teenager, she might have been even more cunning now. Lucas would remain attentive until she proved herself because the love of his life had earned this break. “Okay,” was all he said since he didn’t want to argue.
Boyd nipped the tip of his nose. “Don’t you ‘okay’ me in that tone of voice.”
Lucas pulled back and rubbed the back of his hand against his nose. It hadn’t hurt, but it was weird. No one had ever done that before. “I’m a cop, love. In my world, it’s guilty until proven innocent.”
“Getting back to my original question. Where are you going?”
“I’m going to go and get some supplies for Levi and Maddy. The dumbass has been worrying himself sick over where he can leave Maddy on short notice if he and Austin get called out to a fire together. They can’t waste up to an hour each way getting over to Queens and Brooklyn.”
“Tell him she can stay with us,” Boyd said without hesitation. I’ll be here all the time, and if I’m out and it’s an emergency dump-and-run, I can drop whatever I’m doing and call someone to teleport me back.”
Lucas leaned in and kissed him again. “And that’s just one of the many reasons I love you,” he said once they parted. “Charlie will be here too, which means Robbie won’t be far away either. Levi still wants to run it past Llyr since it’s his place, but so long as we keep her on our side and away from Miss W, it won’t be a problem.”
“You’ll need to remember to lock up your guns when she’s here.”
Lucas nodded thoughtfully in agreement without speaking. It would devastate everyone if Maddy somehow managed to get her hands on one of his work firearms and fire it. He’d need to get a thumbprint safe – something that he could get at very quickly in a crisis.
“How is she with beds?”
“What?”
“Don’t little kids have those hospital guardrail things, so they don’t roll out of bed and hurt themselves? I mean, your bed isn’t that far from the floor, but if you’re getting supplies, you might want to think about some of those things to keep her in.”
Lucas hadn’t thought about that. “Okay, then it’s going to be a bigger shopping trip than I thought, but that’s alright. Levi and Maddy are going to chill in the apartment until I get back.”
“Do you want me to check in on them?”
“Nah, it should be fine. Levi knows where Charlie’s office is, and if he’s going to annoy anyone while they’re at work, it should be our sister.” Lucas turned Boyd back to his carving and leaned his head on Boyd’s shoulder. “You keep outdoing yourself, you know that, right?”
“These tools are magic. I can’t do a thing wrong with them.” With a slight grimace, he added, “Hey, have you ever heard the story about the kid who gets the magic piano?”
Lucas squinted warily. “Am I going to like this story?”
“It’s a cautionary tale. This kid finds a magic piano, and all he has to do is work the pedals, and the piano plays itself. No one notices it’s not the kid, and the kid’s ego grows with each performance until he’s an international sensation. Then, he has a fight with the piano over who the star really is. The following night, the piano refuses to play, and the kid is booed off the stage. His family is left financially ruined.”
“I will beat you within an inch of your life if you equate that to you.”
Boyd looked at him. “How can I not? I mean, when I relax and just let the tools do what they’re made to do, the pieces come out flawlessly—every time. But the second I worry, minor defects creep in. Nothing I can’t counter and fix, but still…”
“If it concerns you that much, why not do a piece every now and then without the divine tools to prove to yourself that the skill is yours and the tools are just tools?”
Boyd looked over the divine toolset, then back up at the shelf where his older tools were. “That’s a good idea,” he admitted.
Lucas lightly kissed him on the lips and stepped out of his grasp. “I’ve been known to have them now and again. Oh, and don’t forget we’re going to Angus’ this afternoon. Just the six of us.”
Boyd raised his left hand in acknowledgment, but his focus was back on the carving even as his right hand picked up a scalpel of some kind and drove it across the carving’s middle. The blade was then smoothly passed to his left hand to make an incision from that side while his right reached for a new tool.
As he’d said, his motions were flawless, with chips and shavings flying at the speed of a professional wood chopper. Lucas could watch him work all day, but if he was going to make it to Angus’, he needed to leave now.
He let himself out and headed for the main front door to the level.
A little over an hour later, after grabbing several sets of clothes in his brother’s size, Lucas was standing in the middle of the children’s clothing section, blinking in confusion at all the options. He would go to touch one, then back away, unsure.
He must have looked pitiful because a staff member in her mid-thirties took pity on him and approached with a warm smile. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah, this is crazy,” he answered, gesturing to the millions of clothes options before them. “My brother asked me to look after my niece in an emergency, and I want her to have whatever she’ll need at my place in case he doesn’t have time to take her home.” He looked at all the clothes. “Whatever that entails.”
“That’s really sweet. Is your brother a doctor?”
“Fireman.”
The woman gave Lucas the once over. “I can see that.”
Lucas chuckled. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard before. Between him, Levi and Mav all sharing their dad’s muscle, they’d always caught people’s eye. “Anyway,” he said, wanting to move this along. “My niece is three going on four, and she’s about this high,” he said, showing her height as an inch or two under his hip.
“Does she have any favourite TV shows?”
“Spongebob,” Lucas said, incredibly grateful for his conversation with Levi over breakfast. He’d have never had that answer otherwise. “And if you’re not doing anything after we get her clothes sorted, my fiancé mentioned something about bed rails since she’ll be sleeping in my old queen-sized bed. This is an all-in shopping trip for her, and I have no idea what to get.”
“Do you have any toys for her? And no, I’m not pushing for a commission here. Little minds need to be kept stimulated, or little hands will end up in places they have no business being. If this is your first time looking after her, you’re going to want a few toys, books, and things to keep her busy.”
“My brother is already nagging me about buying her the basics. What would you recommend that won’t make it seem like I’m trying to buy her affection?”
“Are you okay with electronics, or are you trying to steer her away from that?”
“It doesn’t faze me. It’s more the cost. I don’t want to buy her what my brother hasn’t or can’t afford. I’ve been into too many households where kids have every version of PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo and every known game that goes with them. Those kids appreciate nothing, and that’s not something I’m okay with.”
“You see a lot of people’s houses?”
“I was a beat cop for over eight years before my promotion.”
“A policeman and a fireman? I’m sure there's a joke involving a bar in there somewhere.”
“If there were, the third person would be an ice hockey player,” Lucas chuckled again, already liking this woman. As they wandered through the aisles, she added things to his cart. Clothes were first, but they quickly moved on to toys. A couple of generic soft toys. and the board game “Candyland”. Lucas grabbed ‘Hungry, Hungry Hippos’, as that was one he and his brothers had played when he’d been Maddy’s age. Then came two large boxes of Duplo.
Not once did it feel like the sales assistant was pushing an agenda. She even paused to consider the options as if she were buying them for her own kids. Lucas really appreciated that.
As they were walking the isles, Lucas came to a screeching halt and stared at a range of doctor, nurse and vet play sets. Two jumped out at him. One had a plastic pet carrier with a handful of bulky instruments, and the other came in a bright blue bag with red handles and a white pawprint on the side. It had a comprehensive range, including toy bandages, pill bottles, cream jars, syringes, a stethoscope and even a cone of shame. Both went into the cart after he checked to make sure the two soft animals would fit in the carrier.
Mason’ll have a field day showing her exactly how to simulate using all this stuff, he thought to himself with a grin.
“You’re really very thoughtful,” the woman said after he explained why they both had to be purchased.
Lucas specifically asked for books after that. Real books with paper pages. He was sure his mother (as a high school English teacher) would murder him in his sleep if he didn’t buy Maddy at least ten books ranging from ones she could memorise and pretend to read (which, in her grandmother’s eyes, taught her word structure and was the first step in learning to read), with ones he could read to her. And that, of course, required Spongebob bookends to hold them together.
“Your fiancé is a lucky woman if you’re willing to do all of this for your niece,” she said once the cart was full and they were heading back to the checkouts.
“Yes, he is,” Lucas agreed, deliberately sliding in Boyd’s gender without making a huge issue of it.
Her eyes widened in horror. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Wow, I really shouldn’t make that assumption anymore, and I apologise.”
Because this was New York. “Apology accepted,” Lucas said, waving it aside. Boyd might have been embarrassed, but thankfully, he wasn’t here. “Thanks again for all your help.”
* * *
((Author's extra-long note:
Heya guys! Just letting you know I need to take a week off. [It’s nothing to do with the community here, I promise! I love writing this, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.]
In fact it's … you know what? Stuff it. You guys might as well know. Remember how I mentioned earlier this year we were fighting for more care for my special needs daughter?
That’s the issue.
Our support coordinator has our written authority to act on our behalf. Yet we’ve been told in writing from the government department that if she doesn’t back off, the whole request, including thousands of dollars of specialists interviewing our daughter and reporting their findings, will be deleted, and our request, including all-new interviews and reports, will have to start all over again.
I’m almost at the point where I’m not sleeping, but our support coordinator has promised us to fight because, in her words, “This is getting ridiculous.”
I’ve been really struggling to write this week with everything going on in the background. I’ve finally admitted I need to pull back (just for one week—I mean it when I say how much I love this writing and the little community we’ve formed) to focus on sorting out the mess, so that my writing isn’t tarnished by the battlelines that are being drawn up in the background.
(I already scrapped a page and a half because my anger at things [I bounce between anger and depression] had people who were usually very chill (Robbie) acting in a very aggressive manner that simply wasn’t them. Because of this, I’ve already used up several of my backlog this week and I loathe to lose any more, given how hard they were to build up. (The thought of using them up without others to take their place was also adding to my stress.)
And I was told by my beta reader, ‘Given you’ve been doing this for over three years, and you’ve only had the occasional day off due to sickness, take the week and regroup, stronger than ever.
I agreed. This means my next post will be on Monday, the 27th, Australian Time.
This means my next post will be on Monday, the 27th, Australian Time.
I hope with all my heart that you’ll all still be with me when I return next week.
Karen. ))
((All comments welcome. Good or bad, I’d love to hear your thoughts 🥰🤗))
I made a family tree/diagram of the Mystallian family that can be found here
For more of my work, including WPs: Angel466 or an index of previous WPS here.
FULL INDEX OF BOB THE HOBO TO DATE CAN BE FOUND HERE!!

Hi,
I have marked most imporant parts as how long I use each meds in what dose, info of me, my questions, supplements used, nootropics thinking of, new meds for panic disorder treatment, plan to quit benzos, advice about Memantine. If you want, there is whole story and treatment:) Thx I have a lifetime nonmedicated ADHD + OCD (will finally have atomoexin in july after like 8 docs) but mainly severe panic disorder since 12/23 caused by badly burning out and not stopping work + too much stress from all sides, mostly family and workspace/company. It started close to xmas and wanted to finish year and worked until my body completely disabled to it to me but right after it came xmas, which is not my fav time of year ending in keeping me in attacks 24/7. Btw Im 29yo man, 193cm, 90kg, sporting, financial advisor self employed, living alone, used to be really busy all the time, multiple addictions behind me mostly because depression (alcohol),pain (kratom) and stimulants bcs its so addictive with adhd :D But I dont abuse anything since 02/23 when I barely survived WD from forced CT a lot of alcohol every day and I want to be healthy and drugs free!
I am currently getting off xanax and on SSRI, starting my new recovery plan below as previous didnt help enough and asking if you know anything that could help me get my full life back sooner I work as I can/want, mostly 2-6 h/day and only from home, going to multiple types of therapy, investing insane money to get recovered and looking for every possible way. I am open for any tip or advice on nootropic, peptide, maybe even SARMs that could help me get over this. Even if you dont have time or dont want to read all previous treatment and new plan and have idea what could help me, write it please. But I have to be careful with anything interacts with SSRI as I will be also on buspar, I have a safe med for serotonin syndrome if needed.. Also if you see gaps or risks in my meds plan, some ideas, useful info or better ways, I will be glad to know it:) Mostly about Memantine - when to use, in which part of protocol it will be most beneficial or what to expect.
I use/tried almost every useful supplement including adaptogens, herbs, expensive vitamins, mushrooms, gotu kola, NAC, tyrosine, inositol and just anything that could be useful + basics use all year. Also have Alpha GPC which made my adhd brain supercomputer before I got beaten but now doesnt work. Tried before noopept and a lot of racetams, idra21 and some more but with no effect and modafinil before with effect, but mostly anxiety, too much concentrating on one thing and severe insomnia.
I am already pretty sure about Agmatine, Sulbutiamine instead of Benfotiamine (any difference?), not sure of Bromantane on ssri (?), 9-me is no go, maybe NALT (?), Theacrine as Im tired from SSRI all the time and too much coffee makes me axnious, maybe Vinpocetine or Uridine triacetate? centrophenoxine? dihexa?
My treatment from december to now:
I had no idea wth is this, told my psychologist what is happening to me and asking many times if its serious and casually replied that is probably from stress. So I treated it as burnout by resting, then removing original causes and triggers, removing problems from my mind and life, reducing stress to minimum, even leaving my pretty good paid job after 9 yers. But nothing helped besides benzos which made me not feel attacks so much and when I went off after 6 weeks, symptoms came back the same day.
I always said no to ADs but this time I didnt see any other option so I got SSRI citalopram 20, later 30mg now 6 weeks, first weeks were hell of anxiety and tiredness, last 2 weeks they help but effect is enough to keep me attack free only at home, outside flat still almost instant PA + side effects are still bad.
Same with benzos now again for 6 weeks afte break from previous cycle, mostly xanax 1,5-2mg a day, when Im home with no problems I can stay on 0,5mg with no WD. But want to quit asap, Im standing on the edge of little discomfort or living hell WDs. Also it makes me dumb, careless and not caring, but dont have cravings or abuse them, until now there was no other medication in my country :/ Also I already had GABA WDs pretty bad from alcohol many times and from phenibut in february by mistake (3 weeks of 2-3x a week before I had benzos). I would rather skip this opportunity to be on boat walking simulator with scary shadowy guy in my bedroom.
Next week I will make a big changes:
Will to add Buspar in small doses to SSRI, probably 30mg citalopram + 2x7,5mg buspar for long term and propranolol over benzos before I leave flat for panic attacks - I have mostly physical symptoms and over these months my brain has learned to go panic mode when I go around people or noise but im not scared, wanting to hide or anxious, want to go out. Hope this will allow me to relearn the BIOS of my brain and body they wont start panicking as it has learned over months of nonstop attack (january until end of april, just moving on scale 1-10 but never off). Propranolon as beta-blocker should not allow my body to go panic defense mode and mental anxiety I can handle now. My mind is still quite ok, not much depressed or in bad mood, last days even thinking a bit sharper and can handle it but body/brain program are stuck. Hope this will allow me over time to get off SSRI to just Buspar + non addictive anxiety aid as needed or at least switch to SNRI or Wellbutrin as im energetic person but with this SSRI im meeeeeeeh all the time.
As propranolon arrives I will cut benzos to lowest dosage where I wont feel WD, probably 0,5mg/day and switch to Clonazepam (have benzos and can ask doc anytime), keep this dose for 2-3 weeks, taper to 0,35mg, wait and this until i go down around 0,2mg/day. Maybe slower if it will be painful or risk worse WDs when i cut them off.
For quitting benzos I have clonidine (WD reduce, camling, ADHD), pregabalin (GABA substance replacement, anti seizure but addictive), baclofen (GABA substance replacement, anti seizure also addictive)), Etifoxine (nonbenzo anxiolytics, I guess mostly PAWS) and Topiramate (seizure and migraine prevention, WD reduce) and Hydroxyzine (sleepy antihistamine nonaddictive) to get off them asap with no risk seizure and suffering for weeks in terrible WDs. I wont use all the aids together but as needed for current symptoms and not get hooked on none of them as only atarax is safe.
Also finally will get ADHD meds atomoxetin, but as I have no energy, even adhd is not so present and clonidine also helps for adhd. And I have found one super special med you will be interested about- Memantine (bgpharm), do you have experiences about this so called miracle drug? It make you feel softly with unlimited brain power, also it shall lower tolerances to almost all substances and by 30-60% over 7-14 days and then make WDs easier + also helps ADHD. But have no idea when to use it in my plan, I got 2 packs and its cheap so can buy more but dont want to mess with getting off bzs and learning to manage going out. Same question with atomoxetin - when to start? its not stimulant so it should not affect attacks nor benzo WD but idk.
Just in case there would be too much serotonin I will have Cyproheptadine for SS. It should not happen from SSRI+Buspiron but some nootropic or WD med can cause it. And just remembered I shall take some ephedrine/yohimbine if my BP or HB goes too slow from propranolon/clonidine... :/
I will still go for checks to doc and psychiatrist but the medical procedures in my country got stuck in time in year when producers of SSRI/benzos gave some gifts for doctors or politics. So they just give you this combo announcing you it will work (didnt) and you wont get addicted in 3 months of xan (would). Also propranolon is not approved med for anxiety in my county, only bzds and buspirone, but after trying several ADs on you :/
Thank you so much for any knowledge you share with me!

Hi,
I have marked most imporant parts as how long I use each meds in what dose, info of me, my questions, supplements used, nootropics thinking of, new meds for panic disorder treatment, plan to quit benzos, advice about Memantine. If you want, there is whole story and treatment:) Thx I have a lifetime nonmedicated ADHD + OCD (will finally have atomoexin in july after like 8 docs) but mainly severe panic disorder since 12/23 caused by badly burning out and not stopping work + too much stress from all sides, mostly family and workspace/company. It started close to xmas and wanted to finish year and worked until my body completely disabled to it to me but right after it came xmas, which is not my fav time of year ending in keeping me in attacks 24/7. Btw Im 29yo man, 193cm, 90kg, sporting, financial advisor self employed, living alone, used to be really busy all the time, multiple addictions behind me mostly because depression (alcohol),pain (kratom) and stimulants bcs its so addictive with adhd :D But I dont abuse anything since 02/23 when I barely survived WD from forced CT a lot of alcohol every day and I want to be healthy and drugs free!
I am currently getting off xanax and on SSRI, starting my new recovery plan below as previous didnt help enough and asking if you know anything that could help me get my full life back sooner I work as I can/want, mostly 2-6 h/day and only from home, going to multiple types of therapy, investing insane money to get recovered and looking for every possible way. I am open for any tip or advice on nootropic, peptide, maybe even SARMs that could help me get over this. Even if you dont have time or dont want to read all previous treatment and new plan and have idea what could help me, write it please. But I have to be careful with anything interacts with SSRI as I will be also on buspar, I have a safe med for serotonin syndrome if needed.. Also if you see gaps or risks in my meds plan, some ideas, useful info or better ways, I will be glad to know it:) Mostly about Memantine - when to use, in which part of protocol it will be most beneficial or what to expect.
I use/tried almost every useful supplement including adaptogens, herbs, expensive vitamins, mushrooms, gotu kola, NAC, tyrosine, inositol and just anything that could be useful + basics use all year. Also have Alpha GPC which made my adhd brain supercomputer before I got beaten but now doesnt work. Tried before noopept and a lot of racetams, idra21 and some more but with no effect and modafinil before with effect, but mostly anxiety, too much concentrating on one thing and severe insomnia.
I am already pretty sure about Agmatine, Sulbutiamine instead of Benfotiamine (any difference?), not sure of Bromantane on ssri (?), 9-me is no go, maybe NALT (?), Theacrine as Im tired from SSRI all the time and too much coffee makes me axnious, maybe Vinpocetine or Uridine triacetate? centrophenoxine? dihexa?
My treatment from december to now:
I had no idea wth is this, told my psychologist what is happening to me and asking many times if its serious and casually replied that is probably from stress. So I treated it as burnout by resting, then removing original causes and triggers, removing problems from my mind and life, reducing stress to minimum, even leaving my pretty good paid job after 9 yers. But nothing helped besides benzos which made me not feel attacks so much and when I went off after 6 weeks, symptoms came back the same day.
I always said no to ADs but this time I didnt see any other option so I got SSRI citalopram 20, later 30mg now 6 weeks, first weeks were hell of anxiety and tiredness, last 2 weeks they help but effect is enough to keep me attack free only at home, outside flat still almost instant PA + side effects are still bad.
Same with benzos now again for 6 weeks afte break from previous cycle, mostly xanax 1,5-2mg a day, when Im home with no problems I can stay on 0,5mg with no WD. But want to quit asap, Im standing on the edge of little discomfort or living hell WDs. Also it makes me dumb, careless and not caring, but dont have cravings or abuse them, until now there was no other medication in my country :/ Also I already had GABA WDs pretty bad from alcohol many times and from phenibut in february by mistake (3 weeks of 2-3x a week before I had benzos). I would rather skip this opportunity to be on boat walking simulator with scary shadowy guy in my bedroom.
Next week I will make a big changes:
Will to add Buspar in small doses to SSRI, probably 30mg citalopram + 2x7,5mg buspar for long term and propranolol over benzos before I leave flat for panic attacks - I have mostly physical symptoms and over these months my brain has learned to go panic mode when I go around people or noise but im not scared, wanting to hide or anxious, want to go out. Hope this will allow me to relearn the BIOS of my brain and body they wont start panicking as it has learned over months of nonstop attack (january until end of april, just moving on scale 1-10 but never off). Propranolon as beta-blocker should not allow my body to go panic defense mode and mental anxiety I can handle now. My mind is still quite ok, not much depressed or in bad mood, last days even thinking a bit sharper and can handle it but body/brain program are stuck. Hope this will allow me over time to get off SSRI to just Buspar + non addictive anxiety aid as needed or at least switch to SNRI or Wellbutrin as im energetic person but with this SSRI im meeeeeeeh all the time.
As propranolon arrives I will cut benzos to lowest dosage where I wont feel WD, probably 0,5mg/day and switch to Clonazepam (have benzos and can ask doc anytime), keep this dose for 2-3 weeks, taper to 0,35mg, wait and this until i go down around 0,2mg/day. Maybe slower if it will be painful or risk worse WDs when i cut them off.
For quitting benzos I have clonidine (WD reduce, camling, ADHD), pregabalin (GABA substance replacement, anti seizure but addictive), baclofen (GABA substance replacement, anti seizure also addictive)), Etifoxine (nonbenzo anxiolytics, I guess mostly PAWS) and Topiramate (seizure and migraine prevention, WD reduce) and Hydroxyzine (sleepy antihistamine nonaddictive) to get off them asap with no risk seizure and suffering for weeks in terrible WDs. I wont use all the aids together but as needed for current symptoms and not get hooked on none of them as only atarax is safe.
Also finally will get ADHD meds atomoxetin, but as I have no energy, even adhd is not so present and clonidine also helps for adhd. And I have found one super special med you will be interested about- Memantine (bgpharm), do you have experiences about this so called miracle drug? It make you feel softly with unlimited brain power, also it shall lower tolerances to almost all substances and by 30-60% over 7-14 days and then make WDs easier + also helps ADHD. But have no idea when to use it in my plan, I got 2 packs and its cheap so can buy more but dont want to mess with getting off bzs and learning to manage going out. Same question with atomoxetin - when to start? its not stimulant so it should not affect attacks nor benzo WD but idk.
Just in case there would be too much serotonin I will have Cyproheptadine for SS. It should not happen from SSRI+Buspiron but some nootropic or WD med can cause it. And just remembered I shall take some ephedrine/yohimbine if my BP or HB goes too slow from propranolon/clonidine... :/
I will still go for checks to doc and psychiatrist but the medical procedures in my country got stuck in time in year when producers of SSRI/benzos gave some gifts for doctors or politics. So they just give you this combo announcing you it will work (didnt) and you wont get addicted in 3 months of xan (would). Also propranolon is not approved med for anxiety in my county, only bzds and buspirone, but after trying several ADs on you :/
Thank you so much for any knowledge you share with me!

I (22M) have been seeing this guy (28M) for the past 10 days. He’s a sweetheart. Super patient. Interesting personality, has plenty of anecdotes from his 7 years working on ships. We share a lot of values/opinions. Knows of my struggles with sex and previous awful experiences and partners and was super accommodating, resulting in me enjoying sex for the first time ever. Hanging out with him in general is quite nice and I never leave his place feeling used or emotionally exhausted. He also calls me pet names, something that I found a bit cringe at first but got used to it pretty quickly and lowkey love lol.
We are heading towards a direction that tells me he’s keen to embark in a proper relationship with me, something I’m also down for.
However, there is a problem: he doesn’t really asks questions about me and sometimes I feel like he brushes off what I have to say. I don’t necessarily feel heard. Whenever I say something, there are no follow up questions. On the other hand, he has a lot to say and most of the time we are together, he’s the one talking, which I don’t mind. I’m definitely on the shy side so I’m happy to listen and not talk as much, especially bc I dread silence. But at least I try to ask questions and express my opinion on what he has to say, to create a dialogue, something he doesn’t do often whenever I manage to say something. He will sometimes but it’s a quite rare occasion.
Now, I checked some other threads on Reddit and the general consensus seems to be either: 1. He is not interested in me. 2. He just wants an audience. 3. He’s a narcissist.
It all seems rather extreme. He does seem interested in me, otherwise he wouldn’t make time to see me. Not sure what him being narcissist would entail tbh. And wanting an audience… he has plenty of friends so why bother with me, if that’s all he wants?
Is this something I should address? How can I do that tactfully? I think I should because it seems the kind of thing that ends up destroying a relationship long term and I want this to work, not give up over the first obstacle. Am I delusional by assuming he’s just bad at conversations and that it’s not a lack of interest from him part towards me as a person?

Apologies for this one being so late; Been sick for the last week or so, and the friday i was meant to post this, I think from memory I was busy :/ But I'm starting to get back into the swing of things, and the Glossary Addendum has also had a bit of an overhaul :D I'll be applying that tonight as well, to each of the currently released chapters.
[First] [Glossary Addendum] [Previous]
[From the Abyss Artisanry, Wolfreach Commercial District, Halsion Reach Region, Haldios IV, 12th of Emheraldis, 5011 TE]
[Boltz] The door chimed, though it sounded... Off today, and I sighed. I'd have to replace the old beeper with something else now that it had broken. As I walked towards the counter, I heard Chit's voice from around the corner as she said,
"I'll be right with you!" I frowned, noticing the strain in her voice. I stepped around the counter and poked my head around the corner, and then immediately rushed to help. She was trying to move a Draekkan mace, and causing gouges in the floor as she dragged the heavy weapon.
"Seriously? Leave Draekkan weapons to me, beloved." I said, and Chit nodded as I lifted the massive, spiked club-like weapon. Made of Luunic steel, the metal was cool against my hand as I cautiously hefted it, a dark blue color akin to the Lunwatch sky on a clear night with few stars. I slowly walked over to the storage racks, and hung the mace on a pair of large hooks. Then I turned back to my lover, and looked her up and down for injuries.
Finding none, I shook my head with another sigh. "Well at least you didn't hurt yourself on it." I said, stepping up to her and wrapping my arms around her lower back. I pulled her cool body towards mine, and she happily melted into my embrace. Chuckling, I planted a kiss on her hair, and gently ran a finger down one of her drit'onthke. Her entire body shivered and she giggled, before wrapping her arms around me and giving me a tight hug.
"So what's on the list for today?" I asked, resting my cheek on her head.
"Just a few armour sets which need some minor repairs, thankfully." Chit replied. I nodded, and then the beeper went off, indicating a customer.
"Solahra's Light, what an awful noise to greet a customer with!" A deep, male-sounding canine voice rumbled from out in the customer area. We reluctantly pulled apart and both went out to see what he needed.

As Chit rounded the corner, she automatically greeted the customer by saying,
"Welcome to From the Abyss Artisanry, how can we help today?" But as I stepped around after her, I froze. The canine man was holding a box filled with shattered pieces of art, it looked like. I stepped closer and realised that they weren't shattered pieces of art, at least not in the traditional sense. Rather, they were the parts of what was formerly a weapon. I felt my eyes widen as I realised what it was. I looked at the canine man, and realised he was a Labardon. I looked back at the pieces of plasma caster, which appeared to, on closer inspection, actually have catastrophically failed at a structural level upon attempting to fire a shot.
"I went to the Lunhaekin blacksmith over in Aellandendil, cos they said that fishing my ancestral plasma caster would be an exceedingly simple affair. Instead, the next time I went to fire it, the blasted thing fell apart in my hands!" The man growled, and then asked,
"How bad is it... Is... Is there any way to restore it?" His eyes went wide as if to wordlessly plead with me, and I gestured for him to give me the box of parts. He hesitantly handed the box over and I gently placed it on the counter before pulling out one of the furcloth rolls underneath and unravelling it. Then, one by one, I pulled out each of the pieces, and with each new item, my heart sank.

This would not be a simple fix of just re-assembling the pieces. I let out a heavy sigh, and, leaning on the counter, covered my mouth with the side of my hand while looking at the arrayed parts.
"This is... At this point you might as well just buy a new plasma caster." I said finally, still looking at the parts. I looked up at the man and said,
"If I reconstruct this, because that's what it will take, a full reconstruction, it WILL cost more than buying a new caster." I looked down at the parts again, and swore under my breath.
"The focusing plate has been shattered, and those things are near indestructible when carved right, the prism chamber is cracked, so that's no good any more, and the magnetic acceleration rings..." I trailed off, and swallowed before looking up at the man.
"They're not rings any more..." I whispered, and the man's face seemed to break.
"Is there anything we can salvage of the original parts?" He asked, his voice shaky. I looked down at the parts, and realised that there was just one piece that was fully intact. With a mirthless chuckle, I picked it up.
"The plasma compression chamber. That's it." I laid the small metallic chamber down again, and sighed.
"The rest is just... Junk. Scrap even." I shook my head, running the numbers in my head. When I finished, I swore again, and dropped the bombshell.
"You're looking at around fifty thousand in parts alone." I said, and the canine's shoulders slumped.
"If that's the price it takes..." He said.
"I will try and recover as much material as I can though; I might be able to melt down the mag rings for example and re-energise them."

[A Cycle Later...]
[Chit'eiwu]
The Labardon stepped into the store, a simple digital bell sounding, and he sighed, his tail wagging a little as he did so.
"Much better than last time!" He joked, and Jakob walked around the corner holding a box, grinning from ear to ear.
"Just in time, good sir!" He exclaimed. He set down the box, and the Labardon's gaze instantly honed in on it. Jakob laid a hand on the lid, and said,
"Behold, your restored heritage!" And with that, he lifted the lid like he was proposing to the customer, and the canine's eyes lit up, his tail suddenly zipping back and forth as though it were some kind of demented metronome. As he lifted the ancient weapon, my own eyes widened; It was truly a thing of beauty.

[Boltz]
I smiled as the Labardon man admired my handiwork, and in a voice that sounded like it was half pure air, he whispered,
"It's as beautiful as the day my sire first showed it to me..." My smile widened, and I said,
"I was able to salvage more than I thought, in the end. I managed to keep the primary focus cone; I simply had to melt and recast it due to a crack in it, the laser projector's crystal matrix casing also was salvageable, though I did have to replace the crystal matrix. So it now has a Kaurine crystal for providing the first round of focusing." The man froze, and his gaze flicked to me. His hands still raise, he asked,
"A Kaurine crystal? Genuine?" I nodded.
"Cut the crystal free from the rock myself." I replied. The man laid the plasma caster on the counter gently, though it rattled slightly from his shaking paws as he ceased to support it.
"My sire said that it originally had a Shell crystal as its matrix..." He said, voice trembling as much as his paws.
"They are great crystals for energy conduction as well as for energy focusing. It took a bit to set the frequency for the right channels though." He nodded, and shakily handed over his Orionpay card. I handed it to Chit'eiwu, right as he asked,
"So how much was it all up?" I grinned and replied,
"An even fifty five thousand." He blinked, and asked,
"But... the crystal... Surely that alone would be a few hundred thousand!" I shook my head, and replied,
"It's not a Blade. And it doesn't need to be anywhere near as big. Only came to around three thousand." He nodded, and Chit'eiwu input the numbers and scanned the card. The system registered a successful transaction, and she handed the man back his card.
"Thank you for choosing From the Abyss Artisanry!" I said, and he nodded, his eyes turning shiny with unshed tears.
"No, thank you. All of my friends will be hearing about this, and you will be my first stop for anything artisanal." I nodded to him, and he left, carefully cradling the restored plasma caster in its box. Looking over to the clock, I noticed that it was indicating less than an hour before Lunrise. I jerked my head towards Chit'eiwu and asked,
"Think we should close up the shop early, or wait until Soldown before we stop operating?" She looked up at the clock as well, then back to me, and shook her head.
"No, I think we can afford to close early this evening." I nodded, and pressed the button to activate the end of Watch sign system, and a moment later, a holosign in the window came to life and began a 10 minute countdown.

We always did the countdown so that prospective customers knew how long they had to enter to the store before we stopped taking new customers prior to closing down for the Lunwatch. As usually happened however, the sign completed its countdown and flicked to the "Closed" display, and I pressed a second button to lock the door remotely, and arm the security system. As I did so, Chit'eiwu walked into the apartment, and soon after, I heard the sound of her cooking. I smiled, knowing that she was bound to make an incredible dinner as per usual, and let out a contented sigh as the system went through the arming process. Life with her was... Good. Not necessarily great by any stretch of the imagination; Most of our days were spent working after all. But it was at least a good life. A life I was more than happy to lead.

When the system indicated full armed status some minutes later, I followed my aquatic lover into our home behind and above the shop, and arrived just in time for her to serve up dinner. As I sat down, a stupid grin spread across my face as I beheld what she had cooked up. On the plate was a kind of "nest" made of purple coloured strands of pasta, and topped off with a green-sauced mince of some kind. I looked up at my lover, who was watching me expectantly. My grin refusing to go away, I obliged her apparent intent, and used a fork to collect some mince with sauce, and some of the pasta.

As the food reached my mouth, it was like an explosion of flavours; An earthy, slightly spicy flavour issued forth from the sauce, and the mince tasted somewhat like yuron, a kind of cattle animal from Zehllukarn Prime, and it was followed up by a surprisingly sweet flavour from the pasta as it rotated around in my mouth as I chewed. Swallowing, I said,
"This is incredible! I can't even properly describe it; it's... It's like an explosion of all different flavours coming together in my mouth!" Chit's face turned a fierce azure, and my grin widened. The grin morphing into a smirk, I added,
"You're definitely getting rewarded this Lunwatch, beloved."

[A Few Hours Later...]

[Boltz]

As Chit'eiwu walked into the bedroom we shared upstairs, I put the dishes from our dinner into the automatic dishwasher, and followed her up. As I reached the laundry room, I stripped off my clothes from the Solwatch, and tossed them expertly into the laundry, each garment hitting the wall and bouncing off slightly to fall into the clothes basket waiting below, before walking into the bedroom entirely unclad. Chit'eiwu was laying in the bed, the blanket covering her amethyst body from view, and in such a way that I knew that she too had put her clothes in the laundry. I walked around the bed, and pulled down the blanket to get in beside her, and after that, things turn rather hazy for a little while.

[A Week Later...]

[Chit'Eiwu]
Jakob and I stepped off of the transport, hand-in-grasper, him looking absolutely divine in a glacial blue suit with silver trimmings, seeming to be a walking ice sculpture. Complimenting him, I opted for a taste of my birthplace; Trimmed with onyx hems, I was wearing a deep, abyssal purple dress, showing off my relatively lighter purple skin, becoming a shadow of the Abyss to act as the dark counterpart to my Warrior of the Overwaves. I looked towards him as we stepped inside the Fortress of Kaur'Ainda together for the first time since I was Ascended by both him and Cewa together.
He looked back at me, smiled and squeezed my hand reassuringly, before saying over our rarely-used connection,
There's no need to be nervous; It's just a Greenmarch Feast, my Siren. As I did every time he called me that, I giggled; At first I had been confused by him calling me an alarm sound, until he showed me one of the few surviving Terran records from... Wherever it was that they came from. Terran, or at the time, Human, women of extraordinary beauty, totally uncovered, and singing some kind of song that lured male sailors to their deaths.
Then he had sent me an image of how he viewed me; My plain purple skin instead appeared almost... Luminous, and my average green eyes were glittering emerald gems. My hair, an equally unremarkable azure, was a brilliant blue that resembled the Azuresheet high above even the Overwaves, and in his mind's eye, my cheeks were flushed slightly blue. I had never considered myself to be attractive by any means; In the Abyss I would have struggled to find a mate...
But here in the Overwaves? I had been chosen by a Terran, that enigmatic, smooth-skinned, near-prey-like biped species who were renowned for absurd feats of strength and endurance. I was not as fragile as I seemed, even before my Ascension...
But Jakob seemed to realise that early on; The first time we lay together, an eye-rolling, mind-erasing experience, he showed such gentleness that it was hard to believe the stories... Until the very next day when I had struggled to move a shipment of materials that had come in, even barely raising it, and he had simply come in and told me to let it go, before seeming to effortlessly pick up the heavy box and carry it into the Forge, before placing it down and rapidly sorting the material inside for me. I had asked him about it, and his response was a mere shrug, and to say, It wasn't that heavy for me; Absolutely awkward, but not anything that will break my back.

In the present, we stepped into the Great Hall, and froze. It had been totally transformed, becoming a verdant green forest canopy under which wooden tables seemingly made from the trunks of trees, with seats formed from sections of log from great tree branches. Seiranha saw us enter, and rushed over to greet us.
"Boltz! Chit!" She exclaimed, and hugged us both in turn. It felt... Odd, to be given a hug by a Vampyris, but this particular one was a friend, and so I happily returned the hug, albeit reluctantly letting go of Jakob's hand to do so. We held the hug for a few eternal moments, before she let go and did the same to Jakob, who greeted her warmly.
"You look great!" Jakob said to the Vampyris warrior, and she blushed a deep golden color on her pale cream skin. It looked almost like golden Skyblaze rays were touching her cheeks as she giggled. But Jakob was right; She was garbed in a flowing set of obviously ceremonial armour which appeared to have been made by first weaving a suit of leaves, and then attaching segments of bark to the resulting garment. And combined with her silver-in-crimson eyes...
"You look sort of like a vengeful forest spirit in this armour, Master Seiranha!" I said, and the woman grinned.
"That's sort of the idea. Not many people remember that the spirits of the forests of all our worlds yet live... And for those who do not respect the forest's inhabitants, only death can be anticipated, or worse."

Over the course of what remained of the Solwatch, we enjoyed the Greenmarch Feast, and soon enough, it was time to scatter to our homes once again, to rest away the overindulgences of the Feast.

[Boltz]
As the transport landed at the Wolfreach starport, Chit and I walked down the ramp, though she was somewhat unsteady on her legs. Chuckling, I asked her,
"Would you like me to carry you home?" She looked at me, her face blazing sapphire, but through our connection, she, apparently not realising she was 'speaking', replied, I thought you'd never ask... My mighty Skybright, carrying me like an Inkle in his powerful arms... As the thought travelled over our connection the azure spread, and I shook my head with a grin. I really was the luckiest guy in the Reach to have landed such an exotic life partner. She happily stepped in closer to me, and I swept her off her feet, much to her almost drunken delight, and she let out a whoop of surprise.
However, as her intoxicated brain realised what had happened, she melted into my embrace, burbling away in my ear as though she had been returned to her youngest of Watches. I was all too happy to carry my lover home of course; The sound of her tripled heartbeat like a three-beat rhythm pulsed against my own heart, and her emerald gaze was transfixed on my face, the look in those beautiful green orbs one of utter and complete adoration.

After around 10 minutes, we reached the shop, and I swiped my wristcomm over the new sensor, first up-down, then right-left. The two-part verification proved my identity, and the door swung open automatically, a recent addition I had also made. As we cleared the door, I swept my foot around and behind me to close the door again, and carried Chit to the bedroom in our apartment, before laying her gently down on the bed, and saying,
"Unfortunately, I've gotta take that incredible dress off you or it will be ruined in your sleep." Chit vaguely nodded, and I helped her stand back up. Having done this routine together before, she laid her arms on my shoulders for added balancing support, and I bent down to grab the bottom of the dress, before slowly pulling it up to her chest. Feeling the garment fully above her hips, Chit carefully sat down on the bed, and I carefully pulled the dress up and over her head, then down her arms.

Turning around, I draped the dress across a nearby dresser, smoothing out any wrinkles in it, and then returned my attention to my lover, who was now completely undressed. Once again taking up the role of caregiver, I wrapped an arm around her and scooped her up once more before laying her on the bed sideways, where she let out a small gasp as the cold fabric touched her bare skin. I gave her a reassuring smile and said,
"I'll have you nice and warm soon enough, Heartstreasure." And with that, I stripped off my own suit, carefully draping it over a chair, and then pulled off the underwear I had worn for the Feast, and climbed under the covers beside Chit. Upon feeling me enter the bed, she shifted over, hissing a bit as she moved off the warmed area, and melted her body against my own. As she settled into a comfortable position, one of her legs across mine, she said through repeated yawns,
"May... May you swim... With the... Blessing of... Of Drynedaea... My.... Sky-Warrior..." Chuckling as I wrapped an arm around her back, I kissed her gently on the forehead and over our connection, replied,
"May Luunah Guard your Dreams, Heartstreasure of the Depths." And with that, as if it were a cue, Chit's breathing shifted to become deep and regular, and the sound along with the rising and falling of her amethyst chest against my skin sung its own siren song, dragging me down into...
[Next: To Tread the Shaded Path]