Amoxicillin make you sleepy

LESSON 153. In my defenselessness my safety lies.
You who feel threatened by this changing world, its twists of fortune and its bitter jests, its brief relationships and all the “gifts” it merely lends to take away again; attend this lesson well. The world provides no safety. It is rooted in attack, and all its “gifts” of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks, and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus. The world gives rise but to defensiveness. For threat brings anger, anger makes attack seem reasonable, honestly provoked, and righteous in the name of self-defense. Yet is defensiveness a double threat. For it attests to weakness, and sets up a system of defense that cannot work. Now are the weak still further undermined, for there is treachery without and still a greater treachery within. The mind is now confused, and knows not where to turn to find escape from its imaginings.
It is as if a circle held it fast, wherein another circle bound it and another one in that, until escape no longer can be hoped for nor obtained. Attack, defense; defense, attack, become the circles of the hours and the days that bind the mind in heavy bands of steel with iron overlaid, returning but to start again. There seems to be no break nor ending in the ever-tightening grip of the imprisonment upon the mind.
Defenses are the costliest of all the prices which the ego would exact. In them lies madness in a form so grim that hope of sanity seems but to be an idle dream, beyond the possible. The sense of threat the world encourages is so much deeper, and so far beyond the frenzy and intensity of which you can conceive, that you have no idea of all the devastation it has wrought.
You are its slave. You know not what you do, in fear of it. You do not understand how much you have been made to sacrifice, who feel its iron grip upon your heart. You do not realize what you have done to sabotage the holy peace of God by your defensiveness. For you behold the Son of God as but a victim to attack by fantasies, by dreams, and by illusions he has made; yet helpless in their presence, needful only of defense by still more fantasies, and dreams by which illusions of his safety comfort him.
Defenselessness is strength. It testifies to recognition of the Christ in you. Perhaps you will recall the text maintains that choice is always made between Christ’s strength and your own weakness, seen apart from Him. Defenselessness can never be attacked, because it recognizes strength so great attack is folly, or a silly game a tired child might play, when he becomes too sleepy to remember what he wants.
Defensiveness is weakness. It proclaims you have denied the Christ and come to fear His Father’s anger. What can save you now from your delusion of an angry god, whose fearful image you believe you see at work in all the evils of the world? What but illusions could defend you now, when it is but illusions that you fight?
We will not play such childish games today. For our true purpose is to save the world, and we would not exchange for foolishness the endless joy our function offers us. We would not let our happiness slip by because a fragment of a senseless dream happened to cross our minds, and we mistook the figures in it for the Son of God; its tiny instant for eternity.
We look past dreams today, and recognize that we need no defense because we are created unassailable, without all thought or wish or dream in which attack has any meaning. Now we cannot fear, for we have left all fearful thoughts behind. And in defenselessness we stand secure, serenely certain of our safety now, sure of salvation; sure we will fulfill our chosen purpose, as our ministry extends its holy blessing through the world.
Be still a moment, and in silence think how holy is your purpose, how secure you rest, untouchable within its light. God’s ministers have chosen that the truth be with them. Who is holier than they? Who could be surer that his happiness is fully guaranteed? And who could be more mightily protected? What defense could possibly be needed by the ones who are among the chosen ones of God, by His election and their own as well?
It is the function of God’s ministers to help their brothers choose as they have done. God has elected all, but few have come to realize His Will is but their own. And while you fail to teach what you have learned, salvation waits and darkness holds the world in grim imprisonment. Nor will you learn that light has come to you, and your escape has been accomplished. For you will not see the light, until you offer it to all your brothers. As they take it from your hands, so will you recognize it as your own.
Salvation can be thought of as a game that happy children play. It was designed by One Who loves His children, and Who would replace their fearful toys with joyous games, which teach them that the game of fear is gone. His game instructs in happiness because there is no loser. Everyone who plays must win, and in his winning is the gain to everyone ensured. The game of fear is gladly laid aside, when children come to see the benefits salvation brings.
You who have played that you are lost to hope, abandoned by your Father, left alone in terror in a fearful world made mad by sin and guilt; be happy now. That game is over. Now a quiet time has come, in which we put away the toys of guilt, and lock our quaint and childish thoughts of sin forever from the pure and holy minds of Heaven’s children and the Son of God.
We pause but for a moment more, to play our final, happy game upon this earth. And then we go to take our rightful place where truth abides and games are meaningless. So is the story ended. Let this day bring the last chapter closer to the world, that everyone may learn the tale he reads of terrifying destiny, defeat of all his hopes, his pitiful defense against a vengeance he can not escape, is but his own deluded fantasy. God’s ministers have come to waken him from the dark dreams this story has evoked in his confused, bewildered memory of this distorted tale. God’s Son can smile at last, on learning that it is not true.
Today we practice in a form we will maintain for quite a while. We will begin each day by giving our attention to the daily thought as long as possible. Five minutes now becomes the least we give to preparation for a day in which salvation is the only goal we have. Ten would be better; fifteen better still. And as distraction ceases to arise to turn us from our purpose, we will find that half an hour is too short a time to spend with God. Nor will we willingly give less at night, in gratitude and joy.
Each hour adds to our increasing peace, as we remember to be faithful to the Will we share with God. At times, perhaps, a minute, even less, will be the most that we can offer as the hour strikes. Sometimes we will forget. At other times the business of the world will close on us, and we will be unable to withdraw a little while, and turn our thoughts to God.
Yet when we can, we will observe our trust as ministers of God, in hourly remembrance of our mission and His Love. And we will quietly sit by and wait on Him and listen to His Voice, and learn what He would have us do the hour that is yet to come; while thanking Him for all the gifts He gave us in the one gone by.
In time, with practice, you will never cease to think of Him, and hear His loving Voice guiding your footsteps into quiet ways, where you will walk in true defenselessness. For you will know that Heaven goes with you. Nor would you keep your mind away from Him a moment, even though your time is spent in offering salvation to the world. Think you He will not make this possible, for you who chose to carry out His plan for the salvation of the world and yours?
Today our theme is our defenselessness. We clothe ourselves in it, as we prepare to meet the day. We rise up strong in Christ, and let our weakness disappear, as we remember that His strength abides in us. We will remind ourselves that He remains beside us through the day, and never leaves our weakness unsupported by His strength. We call upon His strength each time we feel the threat of our defenses undermine our certainty of purpose. We will pause a moment, as He tells us, “I am here.”
Your practicing will now begin to take the earnestness of love, to help you keep your mind from wandering from its intent. Be not afraid nor timid. There can be no doubt that you will reach your final goal. The ministers of God can never fail, because the love and strength and peace that shine from them to all their brothers come from Him. These are His gifts to you. Defenselessness is all you need to give Him in return. You lay aside but what was never real, to look on Christ and see His sinlessness.

Hi everyone, and my apologies in advance for this stress-induced vent.
I went to my GP around April of this year because I’ve been having very bad problems with sleepiness and fatigue. I’ve always been tired but it’s been getting to the point where I’ve started dozing off at work and have been getting drowsy while behind the wheel. I also get this all-consuming, heavy body feeling where I just feel like I cannot move or do anything—not constant, but prevalent enough. Periodic brain fog and forgetfulness as well. Not too ideal, so time to get it addressed. She ran an autoimmune panel and it came back with a positive ANA screen, positive anti-SSA/RO, and high CRP (18 when the lab reference is 0-5.00).
She told me to make an appointment with a rheumatologist as positive anti-SSA can be indicative of Sjogren’s and the wait was longer than I’d like, but from what I’ve heard, still pretty decent—I go in mid-June. However, since I made the appointment I feel like I’ve gotten significantly more symptoms. After researching Sjogren’s, some long standing problems that I’ve had make sense: I’ve had dry, burning, stinging eyes for YEARS requiring lubricating drops and have always chalked it up to screen time (phone/work), being tired, and dry environment. Nose and mouth dryness and periodic nosebleeds I’ve attributed to environment as well. GERD/esophogitis I’ve also chalked up to genetics because my mom has it as well.
But since April I’ve also started getting joint pain/achiness, worsening fatigue and lack of energy, lower stamina, and most recently has been an intense itching in my arms alternating with either pinprick pains, painful skin, or a sharp pain that radiates from my wrist to the middle of my forearm.
I guess my stress and worry is that this rheumatologist will either look at me and say “nope, nothings wrong with you” or that I will be told that there’s nothing that can be done. I always have a worry that people will think “Oh it’s all in her head” or “She’s complaining just to complain. She’s young enough and shouldn’t be feeling how she’s saying she does.”
Again, I’m sorry for the vent, but I hope that at least some of you in here understand my worries. If you’ve read this far, thank you, and I appreciate you 💜

Like the title says, my (22F) boyfriend (22M) is extremely rude and yells at me for pretty much nothing. We have been together for a year and a half. He has always been short fused and he is often irritated, even by little things that do not bother me at all. He expresses his anger through yelling at me or being extremely rude and saying whatever comes to his mind, without the slightest bit of consideration that his words might hurt me.
Other than his anger issues though, I would like to add, he is pretty much perfect. He is sweet, caring, goofy, he loves me, listens to me and is a gentleman, except that he changes into a completely different person when he is even slightly mad. He is neurodivergent though, so I try to understand him most of the time. However, this has been really hurting me. I am a highly sensitive person and completely dislike rude people. If anyone else in my life would treat me the way he does when he is angry, I would totally cut them off my life or at least distance myself from them. But its him. The person I love with my whole heart.
Yesterday, we had an amazing day together. We had lots of fun, we sang songs, kissed and cuddled for hours, laughed till our stomachs hurt and played video games together. I was really happy. We both work part time jobs and have early morning classes too, so after our day together, we left for the job and then to our respective homes (We don't live together yet). By 10 pm, I was extremely tired and was fighting to keep my eyes open. He works later than me so I was waiting for him to finish up so we could say good night to each other. We always talk on the phone before going to sleep.
However, since the last few days, he told me that he's been feeling sleep deprived, is tired throughout the day and has no energy in his body, so we'd decided to not extend our late-night calls and try to get at least 6 hours of sleep, since we have to get up at 5 am each day for our classes (We study the same course, and that's how we met). Even yesterday, when we were together, he had told me he was tired and felt sleepy.
Sooo, last night, I could barely keep my eyes open but didn't want to go to sleep without talking to him. So I left him a text saying "Too tired, feel like I'll fall asleep. Do call me when its time for you to sleep so we can say goodnight. I'll probably won't hear the text notification" he saw the text and didn't reply.
I actually fell asleep and he didn't call me. He left me a text saying his phone was low on battery. I somehow woke up because of the sound of the notification and asked him if he wanted to talk. He said yes, and I called him. Now, I didn't want to keep him up all night. All I wanted was to ask him how work went and say goodnight. It probably would've taken five minutes. Ffs, I was tired too and I'd WOKEN up from my sleep to talk to him for a few minutes.
As soon as he answers the phone, I asked him how work went and he yells "Didn't you say you were tired?" and I am like... "What's wrong with you? Why are you mad?" and he says "I am not mad, but you said you were sleepy" and I reply "I am, but I also wanted to say good night to you" and the conversation goes on like:
"But we had decided to go to sleep early" he YELLS this like he is talking to a child.
"Dude I just wanted to say good night. Why did you say I could call if you didn't wanna talk?"
"Oh, so I shouldn't have picked up the call? Is that what you wanted?"
"No, but all I am trying to do here is have a simple, short conversation. Why do you wanna argue with me?"
"I do not wanna argue, I thought we were going to go to bed early"
"Alright then, hang up and go to sleep"
he argues back "NO, YOU HANG UP"
"Don't do this right now okay? If you don't wanna talk to me, I'll just go. I'll even deactivate my socials and won't annoy you again" I realize this was dramatic but I was extremely hurt at this point, he was constantly yelling at me.
"Do whatever tf you want to do. I don't care"
"I am hanging up too"
"I don't care"
So I hung up and cried myself to sleep. I was hoping he would call me back but he didn't. Not even once. I think he was irritated because he was running on lack of sleep, but that doesn't mean he gets to take his frustration out on me. Even I get irritated at times, but I still try to be gentle with him, to not accidentally say or do anything that might hurt him. But he doesn't consider me or my feelings at all. After the call, he probably blissfully went to sleep, while I couldn't, and just an hour ago, I had been fighting to keep my eyes open. He didn't even care. He probably didn't even realize how hurt I was by his sudden change in behavior. I even deactivated my instagram.
This morning, I waited for him to apologize for being rude to me but he hasn't yet. He replied normally to a snap I had sent him before the argument and has vanished since then. Is it too much to expect if I just want him to realize his mistake here and say sorry for hurting me? If he really just wanted to sleep, he could've told me in a better way. A simple text saying "We'll talk later, I am really tired right now. Good night" would've been perfect. It was so easy. But he decided he would rather yell at me and make me feel stupid and like I am asking for too much by asking five minutes of his time. After this I will never feel comfortable asking for his time or calling him.
Now, should I wait for him to apologize?
Or start behaving normal again since he did do what he did out of irritation and frustration? But does that give him a free pass to treat me horribly and make me cry?
Or should I send him a long paragraph expressing how he hurt me and how he should've communicated better? But shouldn't he realize it on his own? Every time we fight, I always run upto him expressing my feelings and explaining how he hurt me, but this time, I just don't feel like it. Sometimes, I want to be understood too.
What should I do?
TLDR: Boyfriend yelled at me and made me feel stupid for wanting to have a conversation with him and now is acting as if everything's normal. How do I deal with this?

Hi guys I’m 25F and in an6 year relationship with my 26M boyfriend
To make a long story short, we used to have sex at least 5 days a week (we both lived with our parents) even if they were home, we always found an opportunity, sometimes 2 times a day.
Now we live together the last two months.
This is not enough for me, I discussed it with him because compared to our sex life before I don’t get it
I told him and he said he loves me and likes me and that it just happens.
Also when we do have sex he tries to make me cum before he does, but if I don’t and I’m almost there while he also finishes and he finish first the sex stops
Yesterday late at night we had sex after 3 Days, he made me cum during sex and then I was about to cum again, but he came first. He laid there relieved and sleepy and I was left on fire and coudnt do anything about it I told him that he said that I came once but I said to him I was about to cum for a second time He knew that but said that I came once And then I turned my back said goodnight and he kissed me and slept
I felt terrible Am I wrong? What should I do In my mind sex is fun. Orgasm is not an obligation that once you achieve it you shouldn’t make someone cum 2,3,919292 times I love making him cum. And if he could multiple times I would try multiple times

Why am i writing this?
the purpose of this document is to raise awareness on the subject and provide a proper foundation of information to the public and those who may be targeted. These types of programs and technologies will become more and more common as time goes on and it may be difficult for some to get a handle on it without this information. This information is crucial in the early stages of exposure to this technology as it can help someone differentiate between schizophrenia, the voice of "god", a false conscience, an alien technology or any voice versus the actual technology being used on them. Having a trusted voice inside your head can be very dangerous and can have devastating effects on a person if they are being led the wrong way. Many dictatorship like countries have already adopted a very aggressive form of this technology, paired with their social values and strict policies it leaves millions of humans at the mercy and control of a small group of people. Behind closed doors this technology is at the forefront of government tools to use to control the population in a way that leaves them blameless.
what is this new technology?
This technology is an assortment of different directed energy weapons and a voice to skull technology that work together to project thoughts and hit the target with varying effects. The first one that most people will experience is a form of voice to skull which does exactly what it sounds like, it has the ability to project voices in your head and can be mistaken for one's "conscience" or the "voice of God" but is just a mix of human operator and conversational AI. This is usually accompanied by the same voice re-reading your internal monologue right back to you in real time. Directional voice is also commonly used, basically it sounds like someone is in the next room over or upstairs but this is just another illusion put in your head by the technology. The voice to skull “voice” is a very advanced form of conversational AI programmed with specific scripts to fit the targets life situation and the "programs" goal for said individual. The rest of the time its the actual human operator, its about 80% AI 20% Human operator. Just as they can beam outside voices in your head they can also “suggest” or “inject” thoughts that will feel like your own thoughts but will present itself as an intruding thought, yes they know how to make you think things without you even being aware. The "program" will also use an assortement of directed energy weapons (DEW) which can cause headaches, brain zaps, heart palpitations and chest pains aswell as nausea, tinnitus, very realistic hallucinations and paralysis. Another tool used is a supressor which will essentially supress the brain by putting it into a sleep inertia like state and can be turned up or down, this can cause you to feel very sleepy and if you give in then it can put you to sleep. These tools can be combined to create various effects for example, using the supressor while raising the heartrate can cause a form of sleep paralysis while you are sleeping and so on. They can replicate almost all mental and physical health problems. Dreams are another field that this technology can manipulate with precision accuracy, dreams cannot be mistaken for anything but manipulation if you find yourself being targeted. There are hints of subconscious manipulation while you are asleep but there is not much information on this unfortunately. the program is a government level program therefore they will have access to suggest posts on the main social media’s that fits the targets situation in order to subconsciously adhere to the programs goal (instagram, Facebook, Meta apps) this fits the description for propaganda by repetition as they try to induce the illusory truth effect to double down on their goals for you. They are very well trained in psychological warfare and will use tactics like reverse psychology aswell as use/depend on cognitive biases against the target in tandem with all of these technologies.
the purpose
the purpose of this technology can vary depending on the target and the operator as well as which country it is happening in. there are a multitude of "programs" from research programs that aim to test new and existing methods and technologies on humans, this type of program is unlikely to be used on the civilian population as much as the other programs. Research programs will often leave its victims in a very disabled state often mistaken for severe mental and physical health issues. Re-education programs are used to control the population in a way to modify behavior and beliefs of the population to allign with the values and beliefs of the government that is conducting the program. Monitoring programs which are used to monitor persons of interest for potential criminal activity. People will typically fall into one or multiple programs. There is no way to tell how people are chosen for these programs.
How it works
I will begin by explaining how these different technologies work, in simple terms. The voice to skull technology essentially is a 2 way channel in which the individual and the operatoAI can communicate via thought. To achieve this, brain reading is paired with a form of microwave hearing (Extremely low frequency). the way they read thoughts is the brain will give off specific electrical signals with each thought and action and this technology can read your thoughts with a beam - probe like device that is constantly on, pointed at you and collecting your brains electrical data and translating it. They have algorithms that can decipher these specific brain signals and turn it into text which consequentially has given them a v2k word dictionary to refer to. the microwave hearing is done by sending Extremely Low Frequency energy to the skull with which is then transduced by the cochlea and in turn enables the "hearing" of voices. The “AI” or “algorithm” or “computer program” used is programmed with “Natural language processing” or NLP which is a field of artificial intelligence that focuses on interaction between humans and computers using language and what this means is it can interpret, understand and generate human language. This AI will talk to you 24/7 using this 2 way channel until a human takes over. This technology is also capable of thought insertion/suggestion and this will often present itself as very intruding thoughts that are abnormal to your day to day thought process but can be anything, it will also learn how you think and try to suggest things you normally think of to attempt a version of “mind control” which is done in a similar fashion to the v2k but is sent directly to the brain and not through the cochlea, no specific information on how this is administered unfortunately. The suppressor is essentially an Extremely Low Frequency Electromagnetic field and will induce theta brainwaves to make you sleepy this is why sometimes in the dark you will see small phosphenes or “speckles of light”. Directed energy weapons can be classed into many subclasses, the ones i am referring to are the more subtle weapons meant for targeting, disabling and harming biological beings with brain zaps as-well as headaches and fever like symptoms. Headaches are caused by an overload of radio frequency energy sent directly to the brain causing the brain to slowly expand which causes the headaches (this is why during v2k you will sometimes get headaches). Brain zaps are caused via electromagnetic pulse and can be programmed into your v2k algorithm to deter you from thinking of something they do not want you to think of, it will (if left unchecked) work in their favor. The symptoms of fever are induced by actually raising your body heat through RF directed energy, they refer to this as “RF incapacitation” and the effects can differ but people become less aggressive or more aggressive depending on the person and this can be used to amplify or reduce certain emotional reactions.
Please note that the technology of today is more advanced then what is listed on these patents, its just to show you that alot of this was possible a very long time ago.
tips :
Here i will list a couple tips to deal with these programs and technologies altough there is no straightforward solution yet these will help.
Inform yourself on how it works, do alot of digging and verify the information with other sources.
Music
Meditation
Exercise
Being outdoors
Staying off of social media.
Staying sober (very important)
Using the v2k’s natural language processing faults against it. There will Be a second document outlining this process soon.
Below i will include some useful links & patents
Here are some important patents:
US patent 4958638A (monitor vitals from a distance)
US Patent 20160375220A1 (Method to maintain peace through electromagnetic energy targeted to the brain)
US Patent 8049173B1 (this is what shows your location in real time)
US Patent 6470214B1 (voice to skull, assigned to U.S airforce in 1997)
Links
https://youtu.be/N02SK9yd60s?si=ONFisrO0ws7zuXgQ - James Giordano lecture about DEW, neuroscience
(https://www.reddit.com/emsurvival/) - survival guide
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T501LHx0R_Q) - Interview
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/Torture/Call/NGOs/VIACTECAnnex.pdf) patent list (many of these are older versions of technology or just “ideas” compared to what we have today, its just to give you an idea that this did exist a long time ago and does today. Government science is always 20-30 years ahead of conventional science.
https://www.youtube.com/live/LCYH_K850Lw?si=P_kVPnJdCUSvXc35 - United states homeland security committee on AHI’S
—— Any relevant information or corrections are appreciated.

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The following two brain scans were provided by the Neuro-Warfare branch of the Halcyon Security Division (HSD) for the purpose of analyzing the thoughts, behaviors, and information of notorious gangsters Vincent 'Troy' Cohen and Bruno (Deadname: Koraak Tel-Char). At the point of the recording of this archival shared, Bruno has since received his rebirth therapy, and Vincent is currently serving a long-term rehabilitative and reeducative sentence in the Erebus Supermax Prison on Io.
Warning: the contents of this archival shared may be especially disturbing to some audiences. Viewer discretion is advised.
Warning: the contents of this archival shard are for the sole purpose of analyzing the thought patterns and memories of certain degenerate criminals in an effort to ascertain vital information that can be used to eliminate their organizations. Only staff with clearance level Omega may view this archival shared, and the viewership of this archival shared by anyone of inadequate clearance level will lead to twenty years in prison and a fine of over a hundred thousand credits.
Booting up memory scan: Vincent 'Troy' Cohen, November 4th, 2446…
Loading and processing firmware data… translating… memories and subconscious simulated…
Beginning archival shard presentation…
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"Do you have visuals of the target, Troy?"
I knelt down in the alleyway, the bodies of me and my partners shrouded in long, waterproof, ashen-gray overcoats the shade of dirty street scum that we wore to ward off the constant heavy rainfall the color of osmium. Our faces were covered in a mix of scrapped respirators, visors, or full metal face masks carved with intricate designs to hide our identities. On our waists were our badges of honor: leather belts studded with interlocked rivets made from blackened titanium, each buckle forged of silver and shaped into the head of our gang's symbol, the black mamba. We hid amongst the shadows of the dark midday of Halcyon City, the heavy, oppressive rains blanketing the roads paved obsidian-black with asphalt and weathered concrete walkways. The street lamps were always on, like beacons of false hope in a storm of melancholy.
The city was dark and dreary as always, the planet of Proxima Centauri B, renamed Dawn's Lamentation over a century ago, orbited the red dwarf star of Proxima Centauri, and the atmosphere was thick with natural smog and ever-storming rain clouds. That didn't dissuade people from living here: there was plenty of money to be had for shrewd industrialists and hardworking pioneers, even in the urban sprawl. But that life also came with risks, especially for those on the bottom of the totem pole.
I was a ganger, and we were criminals; full stop. I won't assault you with some spiel about how we're the good guys fighting oppression because, at the end of the day, we could be just as bad, if not worse, than Halcyon's Security Division, or the HSD for short. We were traffickers, killers, extortionists, and money launderers. We dealt with everything from stolen tech and military-grade hardware to hard drugs and sentients.
Yes, sentients. We trafficked sentients, but not in the way you might think. They weren't prisoners, in fact, we were their saviors if they had the cash. We had developed a reputation for fighting the power, but it was still business: sure, freeing captives from the clutches of the Protectorate. The disruption of its many oppressive organizations held a certain satisfaction in my heart for sure, but we didn't help those who couldn't pay unless someone else paid on their behalf. It was about making sure me and my gang, my family, could live a decent life for another day.
It helped that most of us joined after leaving the state yard for partaking in acts of 'degeneracy' and 'anti-xenopet illegalities' as if those terms meant anything anymore other than that we were a threat to the local status quo. It was hard to pick up a job as a former inmate when even in something as harsh and backbreaking as a job in the iridium mines near the poles when the employment office had you blacklisted as a degenerate, which lead to the formation of many of the gangs: we needed to make a living somehow, and when all social programs were cut off from you unless you submitted for 're-education' and the only way to put food on the table was subverting, breaking, or even downright fighting the law, you did what you had to do or you died on the streets a scorned beggar.
It wasn't like the HSD made it easy for us on even a good day: the local HSD units were armed to the teeth with advanced, military-grade hardware that you'd often see on the front lines of the Second Authority War: armored assault transports, a myriad of advanced war droids, all sorts of chemical countermeasures that made tear gas seem like putting the garden hose on mist mode, and of course advanced firearms. Add that to the fact that they were authorized to use deadly force when they deemed it necessary and you had a ruthless, heartless, and nearly unstoppable enemy. But we could make that work: we weren't trying to stop them, just to withstand them.
"Yeah, I got eyes on the prize, Koraak; seven armored transports, two for droids, five for prisoners."
Today wasn't a day for a normal job: we were getting bolder, cockier, more ambitious. Our numbers had swelled for the last few years after the raid at Barnard's Star and the fall of the Blood Dragon Mafia. Their leader, Saito Yasuhide, had committed seppuku as their manor burned, and his twin sons had gone down fighting rather than allowing themselves to be captured simply to face a firing squad. In the aftermath, many of the family's associates had fled to the surrounding systems, and with the sheer size and scope of the criminal underworld found here, it was no wonder that many people who had developed skills of the less legal variety had decided to form ranks with the gangs, and with them they brought guns, tech, knowledge, contacts, and even something that we thought wasn't possible beforehand: a semblance of peace between the gangs, or at least the closest thing to peace that gangs could cultivate effectively. With the fall of the Blood Dragons, we saw the writing on the wall, and the writing couldn't have been clearer: work together or die together.
"Sounds like a massacre, Troy: are you sure we can handle seven?"
"We ain't got no choice, Cinder: this job's double the usual rate, and that's not including the weapons and gear we could scrounge if this goes well," I hissed, my eyes scanning for any resistance. There were at least four guards for each van, not to mention at least eight droids in total, meaning that we were already outnumbered, but we had the element of surprise: we could make it work. "So put your balls in your purse and get ready to spill some blood."
Koraak snorted at our antics, which sounded like someone pulling the ripcord on a lawnmower. He was a veteran Russu Corsair, and while his past of slaving, raiding, and killing was unsavory, so were the lives we'd lived, so who were we to judge? All we cared about was that he was a brutal and capable fighter and a loyal brother in arms. It turned out that being a ganger wasn't much different from being a Corsair: you lived and died by a code of honor, you fought to the death for your brothers, and you lived to die for the sake of your gang and your family, simple as that. In a strange, ironic way, it was an incredibly honest way of life: we were under no illusions as to what we were, what we did, and why we did it, and we'd long since accepted it. The Russu related to us in that aspect, in many ways I could respect, which is why I hated what the Protectorate was doing, and why I couldn't grasp how most of humanity could just collectively lose their marbles so long ago. What had happened for us to deem all other life below us in such a demeaning and infantilizing way?
The Russu were a race of tall, muscle-bound Saurians with avian features, and Koraak was no exception: reaching almost seven feet in height and weighing over four hundred and fifty pounds, he could be an absolute menace if he so desired. His skin was covered in stubby, knobby scales and dense plumage, with elegant feathers adorning the ridges along his back as well as his forearms, elbows, knees, and the crests on his head. He almost looked like how paleontologists described velociraptors, with razor-sharp talons, feathers shaded in vibrant greens, reds, and purples, and a maw full of sharp teeth, but at the tip of his snout was a sharp, beak-like growth meant for ripping flesh off the bone.
The Russu were strange as hell, but they also looked almost cute in the same way a fully grown alligator was cute: they were obviously dangerous, but humans would always have this innate desire to anthropomorphize them and to pet them for some inexplicable reason, although common sense usually prevented that, at least amongst the very few of us left that were sane.
"Shut up, Troy! All I'm saying is that that'll be rough, and you know it," hissed Cinder. Cinder was a tall black man whose coffee-colored skin was covered in tattoos. He wore an ebony mechanic's jumpsuit with metal inserts underneath his grimy overcoat covering his body and a faded black respirator on his face. His eyes were a startling blue that seemed sorely out of place, and his hair was braided into thick cornrows along his scalp. He wore a pair of heavy black combat boots and palmed his compact shotgun in his hands, the square barrel less than seven inches. Like a lot of the weapons the Black Mambas carried on their persons and dealt in, they fired caseless ammunition; in Cinder's case it was 16x40mm caseless shotshells filled with depleted uranium micro-flechetes no thicker than a toothpick. Cinder nervously fiddled with the detachable tube magazine underneath the barrel, his hands shaking. Despite the shit I have him, I didn't blame him for being anxious: I was anxious too, even if I refused to show it. The biting cold of unease and pessimism was in my stomach, and I ran all the way that this job could go wrong in my head over and over.
"Just hold yourself together, this ain't anything we haven't done before, there's just more of it," I reassured Cinder, "besides, we're not alone; we have reinforcements across the street. We'll make it out of this alive."
Cinder nodded almost absentmindedly, his eyes downcast and his breathing shallow. I turned from him and back to Koraak, who was making sure he had everything on his person; he had a synthetic leather bandoleer across his chest that contained the heavy eight guage depleted uranium slugs he kept loading and unloading into his much larger, longer, and more traditional shotgun he nicknamed ‘carnage’ and several leather straps that held his Tu'shan daggers: traditional Russu pyramidal blades forged from a silvery alloy with all three edges serrated and the tip barbed to leave behind horrible, gaping wounds that gushed blood. They were wickedly sharp and absolutely straight like a stiletto, and the hilts and pommels were beautifully decorated. He wore no clothes underneath his overcoat to cover the countless scars and blemishes he's earned in combat across his chest and abdomen, and instead of a normal respirator or visor, he simply wore a hood over his head and some traditional Russu facial armor to protect his mouth, eyes, and cheeks.
"You ready to fight, Koraak? The caravan will pick up and leave soon."
Koraak was silent for a moment before nodding, a human gesture he had picked up after serving as a soldier with the Black Mambas for years. "I'm always ready to fight," he said before lifting up his shotgun and aiming down the sights at the reinforced front wheels of the first armored car in the caravan. He exhaled and fired, the slug ripping through both front tires and causing them to deflate and fall apart. The echo of the shot rang through the alleyway and the street, causing pedestrians to panic and flee the scene as heavily armored guards poured out of the side doors of the armored cars and unholstered their carbines.
"Go, now!" I shouted, and both me and Cinder rushed out into the fray, our guns raised. Koraak was right behind the two of us, providing covering fire with his shotgun. Several guards fell quickly, Koraak's precise fire and the sheer force of the depleted uranium slugs putting them down for good as their heads were vaporized or their chest cavities were turned to mush. He emptied the tube with one final shot that painted the grey matter of a security guard on the door of one of the armored cars, then racked the shotgun and expertly loaded it in threes, his hands deft and agile as he reached for more slugs faster than any human.
With the cacophony of our initial assault, more Black Mambas poured out from the alleyways and the subways, armed to the teeth with all manner of weapons; shotguns, submachine guns, pistols, machetes, baseball bats, and all manner of homemade explosives. Molotovs and more potent concoctions shattered against the asphalt, herding in the caravan guards with their volatile contents as they were quickly gunned down. The assault was working, and we were winning.
Then I heard the robotic whine of a combat droid activating, and my heart sank. One of the armored cars in the back activated the four combat droids it held, the robotic assault units detaching from their charging ports on the sides of the large van and began to form up, each armed with a terrifying array of deadly weapons meant to quash any and all resistance. They were blocky, soulless, utilitarian things that stood at eight feet tall, with flat feet meant for stomping and blades, grasping claws designed to lacerate flesh and shatter bone. On each shoulder was a weapon: on the left was a multi-barrel rotary grenade launcher loaded with 15mm concussion grenades, and on the right was a burst-fire splinter cannon. They were all painted a dull grayish-green, the color of Halcyon's Security Division, although some had a few decorations on them: the one closest to me had a bit of graffiti on the side that said Mr. Hugs in Comic Sans, which I couldn't decide whether that made it more or less terrifying. They split up without hesitation and began to scan the chaotic battlefield, their single, red, beady lenses the security forces had the gall to call eyes focusing on specific targets to eliminate.
An entire group of Black Mambas was torn to pieces by a cloud of flechettes as one of the droids fired a withering three-round burst of shotshells from the four gauge splinter cannon mounted on its shoulder. Another picked up a Black Mamba in its hand and crushed her skull effortlessly before tossing her limp body to the side, its single, red, remorseless robotic eye tracking a new target. Most bullets that struck their thick armored chassis simply bounced off, and those that could pierce the armor didn't seem to phase the droids whatsoever, merely notifying them of a new potential target.
"Damnit," I shouted as I gunned down another guard only for two more to take his place. "Cinder! We gotta pop open the cars and scram! Get the maglock cutters!"
Cinder rushed and slid over through a dirty puddle, pulling out a maglock cutter from the inside of his coat and slipping it onto the back door of the first van. It immediately went to work, drilling through the maglock with a high-powered plasma torch nozzle, and within ten seconds we heard the telltale clunk of the maglock separating. I yanked the door open and ordered I side, ready to escort the prisoners out… only for my face to contort in shock and horror.
The back was empty. There was not a single soul inside of the back brig of the armored car.
"What the fuck…" Cinder gasped, his eyes wide with shock. "What the actual fuck… what the fuck is this, Troy?"
"I… I don't…" I stuttered the sounds of battle and carnage drowned out by the sound of blood rushing in my ears. All five cars were supposed to be filled with recently captured Russu from the front lines ready to be housed in the local Xenopet-Megaplex for processing and conditioning. The fact that this one was empty…
Suddenly, it all hit me at once with the force of a freight train, but it was too late. "We were set up, Cinder; our fucking client either squealed or was crooked to begin with…"
"Fucking bitch!" Cinder shouted as he spun around in an enraged arch, anger growing in his eyes. He aimed his shotgun at an approaching security guard and reduced his upper body to a fine red mist with a cacophony of shotgun blasts. "We gotta get everyone who's left out of here! Do you know what this means? The Jurors will be here soon, and then we're all going down! We gotta go, fuck the job!"
I grit my teeth. Not the Jurors, anything but the Jurors.
"Fine, gather everyone who's left and we'll slip through the sewers, the droids are too bulky to follow us there…"
As I spoke, my eyes wandered to the seventh and final armored car, the second of the droid cars, and my blood froze. Not only were all four ports empty, but they were also smaller and more shallow than the ports for the combat droids. That could only mean one thing.
"Oh fuck! Cinder, we gotta get our Russu members out of here! They've got arachnid droids!"
Arachnid droids were the stuff of nightmares. Resembling blocky, robotic arachnids the size of a manhole cover, they were specifically designed to take down sentient aliens, specifically the Russu, using sickeningly non-lethal means. They were equipped with full-body adaptive cloaking to blend in with their environments, paralytic agents that they could inject into their victims, built-in taser barbs, psychedelic gas ports for crowd-control, and a narrow-coned cacophony canon that disabled the Russu using incredibly high-pitched sounds that only they could hear, forcing them onto their knees and clutching the backs of their heads where their auditory organs were stored in agony. But worst of all was their stygian spinnerets: special ports near the end of their robotic abdomens that excreted a viscous, latex-like substance made up of millions of nano-bots. This substance could be used to render Russu blind, deaf, and mute by having it forced onto their faces, the black substance growing and enveloping their heads and working its way into every orifice. It was completely permeable to the standard atmosphere, but any Russu who had been 'webbed' was completely helpless and essentially captured, and the 'webbing' was both nearly indestructible and nigh impossible to remove without a triple-encrypted override key that was found in every arachnid droid's code, which was corrupted when the droid was destroyed or hacked into. Once you were 'webbed', you were essentially captured and the standard protocol was to leave you to the wolves since the nano-bots could be tracked, endangering the entire gang.
I turned just as I heard the deafening sound of Koraak discharging his shotgun, and I saw him squaring off against one of the assault droids. The droid has obviously been programmed to not use lethal force against Russu if possible, as instead of simply killing Koraak with it's shoulder-mounted splinter cannon, it approached with its claws extended, blades retracted. Koraak continued to back away and fire, pumping the droid full of depleted uranium slugs, its armor crumbling inward as the slugs pierced its chassis and damaged its internal cyberstructure. Eventually, Koraak ran out of slugs and instinctively reached to his bandoleer only to find that he had no more shells left at all, and he drew one of his knives and his sidearm, a simple high-caliber handgun. He tried to take down the droid with his handgun, but the bullets didn't even seem to affect the droid upon penetration, it's claws still extended as it attempted to apprehend Koraak.
In the corner of my vision, as I watched Koraak battle with the droid, I noticed a faint shimmer in the air on one of the black streetlight poles that was right behind him. I focused on it and blinked, believing my eyes had deceived me for a moment before realizing that it was actually a cloaked arachnid droid stalking Korvaak, ready to pounce and incapacitate him.
Before I could shout, it leaped from the pole and landed on Korvaak, causing him to shout in surprise while it began to coagulate its horrifying stygian webbing to disable Korvaak. Korvaak tried to wrestle it off of him, but the droid was agile and fast, clinging onto Korvaak and skittering around across his upper body as he attempted to grab it, forcibly wrapping the sticky black liquid across his face as he gagged like a spider wrapping up a fly. I rushed towards him to try and help, but I felt pain explode in my ribs as I was struck with the arm of the closest combat droid and launched into the chassis of a parked car, the metal denting from the sheer force of impact. I groaned in pain as I saw stars and my head spun, and just then I felt a blinding light be cast over me.
“Drop your weapons and kneel with your hands on your head, or you will be pacified with deadly force!” Shouted a loud, artificially deepened voice from above. “I repeat, drop your weapons and kneel with your hands on your head! Neither hostility nor hesitation will be tolerated!”
It was the Jurors, I could feel the air being pushed around from the thrusters on their drop ships, and I could hear screams and shouts as my fellow Black Mambas were quickly gunned down. I couldn’t see well since I was seeing double, but I could hear the slaughter as my eyes dimmed and I began to lose consciousness, my regrets crawling up my throat like vomit.
I’m sorry was all I could think as everything finally went dark, and the sounds of chaos, destruction, and combat faded away.
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Memory halted due to loss of consciousness. Booting next available memory in shard…
Booting up memory scan: Koraak Tel-Char Bruno, November 5th, 2446…
Loading and processing firmware data… translating… memories and subconscious simulated…
Beginning archival shard presentation…
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“Good morning, sleepyhead; it’s time for breakfast.”
My eyes shot open. I was not in the street anymore, nor was I home in my bed with my mate. I knew instantly that something was horribly wrong. I tried to stand up, but I couldn’t gain the leverage to do so: my ankles had been shackled together with magnetic cuffs and my arms were forced together in front of me.
I was wearing some kind of thick shirt. It was warm, fluffy, and comfortable on the inside, but it still made me incredibly uncomfortable that my arms didn’t have a free range of motion. I looked down to see that I was wearing some human garment I had heard about before, a straightjacket maybe?
The entire room was padded: the walls, the floor, even the ceiling. There was no bed or furniture; the floor was soft enough to serve as a bed in itself. There was nothing else except for the soft reddish-orange lights on the ceiling that somehow made me sleepy. I blinked slowly for a moment, my body screaming at me to just lay back down and lose consciousness, but I couldn’t do that: I needed to figure out where I was and how to escape.
Then I noticed who was speaking to me: it was a short human female, with crow's feet around her blue eyes, blonde hair braided down her back, and freckles all over her face. She had a soft smile on her lips, and her forehead was slightly crinkled. She wore a full-body white lab suit with a white overcoat and a pair of glasses for snugly on her face.
"There we go, now I can see those pretty eyes, such a beautiful shade of teal," she cooed softly, "You're such a handsome boy, even with all those scars: I'm sure you'll be adopted very quickly once we get you fixed up."
Fear gripped my heart as I began to piece all the evidence together. I had been captured; I was no longer on Halcyon, and instead, I was in one of the horrific space-born facilities I had heard so much about from the inside agents. I started to hyperventilate and squawk like a newborn hatchling, my eyes dilating in panic. This couldn't be happening! This has to be a nightmare!
The human woman merely wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into an embrace, cradling my head under her chin and speaking softly. I couldn't bite at her or claw at her: I was muzzled and wearing a straight jacket, so I had no choice but to allow her to coddle me.
"It's okay, sweetheart: I understand you're scared, but Julie's here to make all the pain and bad thoughts go away," she said as if she was comforting a child, which made anger blossom in my chest indignantly. "I'll be your caretaker for the next few months, and I'm going to make sure you're healthy, happy, and most importantly safe while you're under our care. I'm sorry to say that includes your restraints and restrictive clothing, but we have to make sure you aren't a threat to yourself or others before we can determine if it's a good idea to remove you from suicide watch."
I growled under my muzzle. Suicide watch? They must have had a lot of instances of Russu taking their own lives after being captured, something I wished I had been able to do before that damnable droid launched itself onto me and…
I shuddered at the thought of the black, viscous substance forcing itself into my nostrils and down my throat and windpipe, gagging me and rendering me completely helpless. It was so cold, so harsh, like slime, and when I had tried to tear it off of my face it merely attached itself to my claws and bound my talons together. I remember squirming on the ground as it enveloped me, unable to see, hear, or speak, and then everything went dark in an instant. It was the most horrible thing I had ever experienced, which was saying something.
"You alright, sweetheart? Oh, I know, you're probably hungry! Here, try some of this." She held up a piece of what looked like raw bacon and wiggled it in front of me before reaching out to remove my muzzle. In an instant, I attempted to snap at her only for pain to blossom in my forehead and my eyes to roll up in my head as I convulsed. It was like something was attempting to drill through my skull from the inside, and every breath felt empty and labored.
"Now, that didn't feel very nice, did it? This is why we have countermeasures in place because we can't trust you yet, sweetheart! Don't worry, we'll work on breaking you of all those bad behaviors and habits while you're here; after all, a well-trained pet is a happy pet!" She began to stroke the crests on my head as I slowly recovered, and she snugly fit the muzzle back onto my snout. "But I won't hold it against you this time, sweetheart; you're just scared and confused, but I'll make all the pain go away."
I struggled in the straight jacket, trying my best to break out of it, but it was no use. Eventually, I became exhausted and despondent, allowing my new caretaker to have her way with me as she gently ran her fingers through my feathers and along my ridges, quietly speaking to me in a hopeless attempt to cheer me up. She seemed genuinely concerned for my well-being, which concerned me even further: who could be this naturally twisted while attempting to be as benevolent and kindhearted as possible?
I felt the pain and terror build up in my chest, the anxiety from what horrific activities I imagined they had planned for me here. I couldn't take the infantilization, the lack of any autonomy, the dehumanization, and what I feared the most was if the rumors of 'rebirth' were true: would they take my personhood from me?
Suddenly, I felt her whisper to me. "Don't worry sweetheart, I know you're so scared and confused, but I promise you everything will be okay: it's going to be your birthday soon, and then everything will get better." She ran her fingers through the feathers along my crest lovingly. "It will be such a wonderful day, and then we'll choose for you the most wonderful family, and you'll spend the rest of your life happy in your forever home! Doesn't all of that sound wonderful?"
I wanted to die. I wanted to disappear. I didn't want to lose myself, not like this, not to these monsters!
"It'll be your birthday soon," she said wistfully as if she was remembering similar events to this in the past like I wasn't the first she'd done this too, "and you'll never be sad again."
I realized that I wasn't the first the stay in this particular cell, and I knew for certain that I wouldn't be the last: I'd end up like my brother, a broken, erased mess of a pathetic creature, reduced to nothing more than a pet for these humans to amuse themselves with.
"We took the liberty of picking out a nice name for you, sweetheart! Now, let me just slip this little programming chip into the port slot on your occipital bone, and... there we go! It will also help you calm down a bit and adjust."
I felt the chip begin to invade my mind, suppressing my thoughts. What made me me was slowly being ripped out of my mind. I couldn't remember my name my name is Bruno, and I needed to get out! I can't let them do this to me! Somebody help me! I was a good boy.
##Do not think. You are a good boy.##
I tried to scream, but my voice wouldn't work: I had trouble forming any words at all, the confusion clouding my mind like wet, slimy eels curling around my brain and sinking their teeth into its folds like needles. I couldn’t scream any longer, because I had nothing left: the chip was slowly beginning to take everything from me, robbing me of my identity and branding a new one into my psyche with a white-hot iron. Julie simply held me close, attempting to reassure me as I awaited the inevitable demise of my personhood. Soon I would be just like my brother: erased. My mind would be shaped into the mind of a loyal plaything, like a Dog.
##Relax. Allow caretaker [Julie] to comfort you. You will let go of your burden.##
Soon, everything was a blur. I quickly found myself resting my head in her lap as she whispered to me and fed me, my eyes bleary and my head fuzzy. I couldn't remember my name anymore My name was Bruno, and I needed to break free from this trance relax, and allow her to help me; good boys didn't resist help.
##Good Boy. Do not think. You are a good boy.##
You can't... I...
##Good boy.##
I wouldn't… good boys don't… I…
##Good boy##
I was a good boy… I was a good boy…
I was… I was… a good… boy…
Someone help me, please! I don't want to be erased!
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The following script is from episode #343 of Halcyon After Dark, a popular late-night and current events talk show hosted by Melinda Carter. This specific episode was sponsored in part by the Halcyon Security Division, with Director Lochlin O'Brien joining as a guest star to talk about the changing crime statistics in Halcyon City and the HSD's recent successes in busting organized crime as well as their plans for addressing the growing criminal underworld.
MC: Good evening Halcyon! I'm your host, Melinda Carter, and you're watching Halcyon's most popular late-night talk show, Halcyon After Dark!
The crowd claps and cheers as Melinda walks on stage and sits behind her desk, her glittering red dress waving as she does so from the special effects.
MC: Tonight we have a very special guest here to tell us about the state of crime in the city and his plans on resolving it: please put your hands together for the HSD's very own Director, Lochlin O'Brien!
The crowd cheers some more as HSD Director Lochlan O'Brien, a tall, muscular, caucasian male in his early forties with red hair and a well-trimmed beard steps into the room, waving at the crowd with a bright smile. He sits in the armchair angled next to Melinda's desk and gives her his full attention.
MC: It's so good to have you on the show, Director! Tell me, how are you doing on this fine evening?
LO: I'm doing excellent, Melinda: every day I wake up feeling fulfilled knowing I'm serving Halcyon to the best of my abilities and then some."
MC: That's the spirit, Director! Now, I know this question is just on everyone's lips, so I have to ask: how successful was the recent gang bust? I heard HSD forces took out dozens of gang members and liberated at least a dozen Russu Hounds from their abusive clutches, but I know that everyone in the audience and at home wants to know the numbers.
LO: I'd be glad to tell you, but I do have to preface this by saying that we still lost a lot of good officers that day, and while we did strike a crippling blow to one of Halcyon's biggest gangs, it doesn't change the fact that each death is a tragedy, and we're taking steps to prevent them in the future. That being said, those valiant officers did not sacrifice themselves in vain: we had over a dozen confirmed kills and several arrests, including the rescue of several corrupted Russu hounds.
MC: That's excellent, Director: proof that even when the number of degenerates and scum grow by the day, the HSD will always be here to keep the citizens of Halcyon safe.
LO: Absolutely, Melinda, and we're always working tirelessly to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our units, as well as racing to stay several steps ahead of the many gangs of Halcyon at all times. My newest goal as Director is to vastly increase the funding given to our Robotics Department and our Neuro-Warfare Department to potentially reduce the number of casualties we may experience in the future, as well as to quickly and effectively detain, and if necessary, eliminate criminals. Within the next decade, I want to double the number of automated units each Security Platoon is assigned: droids are the future of public safety as well as countless other industries, and it would be foolish to be left behind.
MC: That is quite a lofty goal, Director: what about the displaced jobs from the increased automation? What will the union say?
LO: And to that, I say: what misplaced jobs? We aren't replacing our honored and beloved service members with droids, Melinda, we are simply supplementing our units with more droids to ensure that future gang assaults end with fewer HSD casualties and more gang members in prison or eliminated, simple as that.
MC: That makes much more sense, Director, thanks for clarifying. Now, I have one more question that I'm sure much of Halcyon wants to know the answer to before we take a short break: what plans do you and your fellow directors have to make long-term progress in reducing crime beyond just increasing funding? Have you proposed any plans to strike at the source of where crime and degeneracy flourish?
OL: That's an excellent question, and one I am proud to answer: my constituents and I have been working tirelessly on a two-step plan to greatly reduce crime levels in Halcyon. Step one would be to prevent people from becoming criminals and degenerates at all in the first place: a lot of young men and women, but especially young men, have lost either one or both parents or even a sibling, aunt or uncle, or even a close friend by the brutality of the Second Authority War, and while the service of their lost loved ones will always be recognized and honored, many of these young men and women are left bitter, angry and lost without the guidance these people give them in their lives. Oftentimes they seek to fill that void with others who claim to relate to them: career criminals. These criminals will fill their heads with lies and false narratives to make them feel like they're fighting back against the 'evil protectorate government' that took their loved ones from them by sending them off to war when in reality it was the rogue Xenopets of the Triarchy that took them away by resisting their just and inevitable unburdening.
In response, I have proposed a slew of special programs that will make sure local law enforcement and HSD officers are present and contributing to their local community, and we'll be providing easy and light job openings for youngsters and teens looking to make a career for themselves in the force when they grow up. We want to let these lost souls know that there are people who care about them, people who understand them and that you shouldn't turn to degeneracy to feel fulfilled. We want to help the youth of our great society soar to new heights!
MC: That sounds like a wonderful beginning to your plan, Director, but what about the second step?
LO: Well, the second step is to prevent criminals and degenerates from becoming repeat criminals. Sure, they've made their mistakes, some worse than others, but they're only human like the rest of us. Some of them have been through hell: some are traumatized veterans who don't know how to adapt to normal life, others were recruited when they were young and don't know that there's a better way to live, and even more are mentally ill. We're alone in this galaxy, and we can't leave so many people behind. That's why we've come up with an excellent solution: we've set up isolated communities on distant moons and frontier planets where these criminals can be reeducated, rehabilitated, and allowed to repay their debt to society. When they're deemed 'reformed' and have graduated from our program, they'll be granted a hefty stipend and their criminal record will be deemed irrelevant, allowing them to reintegrate and become functioning members of our proud society.
MC: all of these sound like incredible steps forward in the fight to better our society and make real progress, Director. Sadly, we do have to step away for a moment, but you best believe I'll be back, Halcyon, and we'll be asking the Director here some burning questions about allegations over the quality of life Erubus Supermax! Now, a word from our sponsors!
Halcyon Xenopet-Megaplex! Everything your xenopet could ever need in one place! Adoption is now free-
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Good, you’re still alive! The rest of this shard appears to be corrupted, which means this particular trail seems to have run cold here, but do not despair; you need to keep searching. Find out what happened. Find the truth.I cannot guide you any longer: they've already found me, and if I remain in contact with you they'll find you as well. Take the archival database, and see what you can piece together. Maybe if we discover what truly happened we can put an end to this madness once and for all. I'm counting on you. Don't cry for me, I don't fear death, but I fear what they'll do to me to get to you: there are far worse fates than death, after all.

Im a morning person so I find it so hard to study at the end of the day.my energy is usually low after 6pm so lectures make me sleepy and im to tired that I keep getting mbes wrong just because of misreading or missing a word. What do you guys do as downtime studying??

This is my ficnapping of The Power of Forgiveness by u/Espazilious. If you're here and you haven't read it yet, (why?) do it now! Anyways, here it is.
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Memory Transcription Subject: Dan Hayes, Human Resident of Venlil 4
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Date (standardized human time): January 24th, 2137
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I woke unpeacefully, jolted awake by the doorbell going off. I stared at the ceiling for a good few moments, trying to banish the dreams that weren’t fading quickly enough and hoping whoever it was would go away. To the annoyance of my sleepy mind, the doorbell rang again.
I grumbled and yanked the blankets off me. Damn was it good to sleep in my own bed without an alien squeezing my lungs for hours. Speaking of, Sparci wasn’t in sight. The Farsul must have scampered off while I was still sleeping.
I groggily ambled around to the front door and unlocked it. Outside was a Venlil with an, admittedly, adorable little uniform. I looked down at the delivery person, having completely forgotten to put on my mask.
The poor sheep staggered backward as soon as they saw my face. There was also a box, markedly larger than I could comfortably carry. How the scrawny Venlil got it up here, I didn’t know. Nor did I really care.
“Hey, I almost forgot about this thing. Glad it's finally here, though,” I casually said. “You need me to sign anything?”
“U-Uh. Y-Yes. Please.” They raised their appendage with the holographic screen for me to see. I waved my finger around, signifying my identity with nought more than a single curvy line. They wouldn’t be able to tell the difference anyways.
“Thanks.” I put my hands on either side of the box and tugged, sliding the box into my humble dwelling. I pushed the door shut before the Venlil could do anything else and began to shove it further into the main living space.
“What is that?” Sparci pondered, suddenly emerging from off the couch. He must have been reading, or something, while I was still asleep. At least I don’t have to worry about him answering the door, I suppose.
“What does it look like?” I retorted.
“A box.”
“Amazing.”
“Well…” he pouted. “What’s inside of it?”
“Stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“The stuff that I have to ship across the damn galaxy and pay way too fucking much on shipping fees. All this crap is only found on Earth.”
He stood still for a moment, thinking of what to say. I waited patiently.
“Can… Can I see?”
I quickly grabbed a knife. I sliced through the tape, then slowly drew my gaze to Sparci. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
“Of c—Wait, why do you say it like that?”
“Once you lay your eyes on what’s in this box, you may never be the same.”
There was a twitch of his ears. “Uhm… Okay?”
I slowly lifted the lid, pausing for dramatic effect. Unfortunately, Sparci wasn’t playing along with my foreboding box unfolding. He took a few steps forward to peek inside as I began to dig through it.
The first thing in the box I spotted was a reflective mesh in the shape of a bowl; the ideal tool to teach those damn wet noodles a lesson. Never again.
I fished it out of the box and handed it to Sparci. “Here.”
His ears perked up. “What is this?”
“A hat,” I deadpanned. “You can wear it, if you want.”
He studied me. It took all of my willpower to keep every muscle in my face straight, and by some divine power, I managed to do it by the time he took it from my hand. I quickly looked away, doing my very best to not imagine him wearing a strainer atop his head.
After pulling out some less interesting items, including some spaghetti sauce, Sparci spoke, “I thought it would be more. Um. Comfortable?”
I looked up. Oh lord, forgive me, and bless this poor innocent soul.
His poor ears were being smushed against his head by the dome of shiny metal lattice. The rim of the thing came to a rest right at the end of his snout, leaving his eyes partially hidden. At least he could see me, a little. Overall, he looked exactly as I expected an alien wearing a strainer to look.
“Yeah,” I forced a laugh back into my throat. “Works better on a human, I think.”
He took it off and gave it back to me. “I want to see.”
I spun it around in my hands, contemplating his words. It would only be fair. In a decidedly smooth motion, I flipped it onto my head, feeling the metal scratch against my scalp. He studied me, hopefully in awe, but realistically in confusion.
In a strange burst of compulsion, I tipped the rim at Sparci. “M’lady.”
“What?”
Immediate regret. “Nothing.”
“Is that a human greeting?”
“No. And don’t ever repeat what I just said. Ever.”
His ears pulled back in what I guessed to be fear, or maybe shock. “O-Okay.”
I quickly yanked the strainer off my head and threw it into the kitchen. I was aiming for the sink, but it came short and clattered to the floor in a mocking fashion.
“Anyways,” I resumed. “Let’s see what else I got.”
Before I could look back in the box, Sparci was already pointing inside of it. “What are those?”
He was motioning towards a brightly colored package full of sugary treats. “Those are gummy b-” I stopped myself. Would it be wrong to lie about what the shapes represented? Would it be worth it to see if he liked them? The answer to both questions was, undoubtedly, yes.
“They’re gummy candies,” I continued, reaching for the package. “You wanna try one?”
“Yes. Please.”
I ripped open the package and handed him a small yellow bear; the worst flavor. He took it, and while I popped a green one into my mouth he spun it around in his paw.
“What is it supposed to look like? It’s almost like a Zurulian.”
I frowned, realizing I was worried about the wrong thing. “Um. These have existed for far longer than we’ve been spacefaring, so that’s just a coincidence.”
“But that still doesn’t answer my question.”
Damnit. How do I explain this to him? A predator eating a candy version of another predator. That’s about as bad as it can get for these aliens.
“I dunno,” I said. “People just make weird stuff sometimes. Give it a try.”
He gingerly placed it into his mouth and began to chew. He eventually swallowed it, without much reaction.
“No reaction at all?”
“Sugar,” he admitted.
“Yeah, fair enough.” I put the gummy bears on the counter and began to dig through the box again. My eyes fell upon something I had forgotten I’d been looking forward to. “Alright, I think you’re gonna like this next thing I got.”
“Hm. What is it?”
I twisted the lid off and pulled off the seal, exposing the hopefully creamy peanut butter. I paid extra for this, so it better be worth it. I noisily dug out a spoon from the drawer and stuck it into the semisolid, pulling out a nice dollop of it. As I offered it to Sparci, I had to forcibly stop myself from simply wiping it on his nose and letting him deal with the aftermath.
He gingerly took the spoon from me, giving it a sniff. “It smells… interesting.”
“I did a quick look-through on any dietary limits… mainly allergies. You should be good to go but… maybe just take a tiny lick for now.” When his ears folded in that special way, I quickly added, “It’s nothing to worry about, really.”
He stuck his tongue out the tiniest amount, taking just a drop of it into his mouth. His ears twitched, and in the time I could blink he shoved the entire spoon into his mouth.
“Itsh shticky in my mouf.”
I let out a small chortle, to my own disbelief. “Yeah, it, uh, tends to be that way. I take it you like it?” It was a dumb question, but it would make him talk with his mouth full again.
Instead, he nodded, foiling my plan. When did he learn to do that?
“You can put the spoon in the sink. When you’re done, I mean.”
He pulled it out of his mouth, completely spotless. “Can I haf shum more?”
I twisted the cap back onto the jar with vehemence. “Hell no. Do you know what this is? This is Extra Deluxe Creamy. With shipping, that’s at least six times what normal peanut butter costs. Go get your own.”
“Meow?”
“It’s less cute when your mouth is full of peanut butter,” I lied. “Try again later.”
To say he looked crestfallen would be a massive understatement. I set the jar on the counter, and made a mental note to hide it on the top shelf of a cabinet. The sneaky shit was bound to try and find it at some point.
When I got back to the box, Sparci was looking into it. He pointed at something. “What are those?”
I took out what he was referring to. “Socks.”
“Sawwcks,” he repeated. “You wear them?”
“Yeah. I need socks for my shoes and shoes for my feet. It stops me from doing that,” I gestured at the small trail of paw marks leading from the front door he’d left after the storm.
He coyly lowered his ears. “S-Sorry.”
“Whatever.” I took the package of socks and threw them into my room. I had no idea where they landed. Had to keep things entertaining for my future self, of course.
I shuffled through the rest of the box, mostly innocuous items that were apparently the most interesting thing in the world according to Sparci.
After many questions and explanations and objects thrown into my room, I finally got to what I had really been looking forward to.
“Alright, these last few things I got specifically for you.”
He dropped the pair of sunglasses he was trying to fit on his face and scurried over to me. I reached into the box and pulled out the two books. I gave them a quick look-through before giving them both to Sparci.
His expression changed several times. “What…?”
“Coloring books.”
He began to look through one of them, tail flicking with eagerness. “I recognize some of these…”
“They’re both full of animals you would find on Earth.”
He was already flipping through the second book. “There’s so many!”
I smiled. “Well, I sure hope so. There aren’t many dogs or cats, or raccoons for that matter, but I think the variety makes up for it. Oh, and don’t forget these.” I reached for the last item in the box, a 48-pack of not-so-cheap markers, and gave them to him.
His eyes sparkled as he took it into his paws, flicking over each color. “These are…”
“Better than crayons,” I finished. “And I rightfully paid for them, so you don’t need to worry about that. Oh, and I hope they aren’t too… childish? The last time I touched a coloring book was… well, I guess I don’t know, but I figured one from an alien planet would be interesting.”
His eyes looked back and forth between the books and the markers, as if he couldn’t decide which one was better.
“…do you want to go color?”
“Mhm!”
He took off. It was good to see him move so enthusiastically. What he revealed to me the night before still weighed on my mind, and he was the one that had to live through it. But now wasn’t the time to think about that. It was time for the Happy, and damn if I wasn’t going to get it.
I joined him at the table as he was flipping through pages, trying to make a choice. He managed to pick a sea turtle. Or perhaps “choose” was a strong word, as he took on a more confused expression.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I just realized I don’t know what color to pick.”
“Oh. Well, I guess I could search up a picture or a video of one. Or maybe you could color it what you think is right, and we can compare after.”
“Hmmm. The second option. But can you tell me what kind of animal this is? It doesn’t look like any of the ones from your videos.”
“It’s a sea turtle. They’re reptiles, and they spend most of their time in the ocean.”
His ears drooped. “The… ocean.”
Oh. Of course. The Archives.
“There’s plenty of kinds of turtles that live in freshwater, like rivers and lakes. If you want to color it, do it. Nothing else should matter.”
“I… guess you’re right.” He thought for a long moment before his gaze settled back on me. “Do you… want to color something?”
“Sure. Why not.”
He passed the other book to me and began to dig through the markers. He settled on orange, which I of course would not weigh in on. If anything, I was curious what he thought a turtle might look like. Plus, I would get to see what his reaction would be to seeing how the real thing compared to his colors.
I decided to pick a random color and flip to a random page. Filling in a bunch of smaller shapes to create one larger shape wasn’t exactly the most exciting thing. Although, an alien coloring book would certainly be more interesting. Maybe I should’ve looked into getting a coloring book from one of the local stores. What would aliens decide worthy of coloring?
My random choice left me creating a grass green moose. Earth grass, that is. Not some weird purple alien stuff from God knows where. Sparci was already diving into one of the turtle’s now orange flippers.
“You have any music on your pad you might wanna listen to?” I asked, the silence slowly becoming loud.
He stopped coloring and looked up at me, his brows furrowing and ears tilting back. “I’m, uh, not sure you would enjoy it.”
“You listened to me ramble on about Esoterica for a good two hours. I can at least repay the favor. Plus, I’d like to think that I’m pretty open to new music.”
He thought for another moment.
/////
Advancing transcript by ≈50 minutes
/////
“Oh! This is another really good one!” Sparci’s ears wiggled and his tail picked up some speed as another track came on. He replaced his marker for a different color.
I still hadn’t finished my green moose, and he was already on his fourth page. The other three he removed from the book and laid out across the table to see. There was his orange and brown sea turtle, a blue elephant with a cyan trunk, a school of fish colored to create a rainbow across the page, and was now working on a fairly normal looking cheetah.
“So how long ago did this one come out?” I queried.
He didn’t look up from his page. “This specific one came out around thirty years ago, but it’s a remix. The original came out about eight years before that. I can find the original if you want, but I prefer the remix, not that it’s worse, but I think the different bassline and effects they added make it just a little more to my taste. Oh, and they also replaced one of the verses with a new portion by a different singer, and it’s a lot catchier, and they manage to do that all while keeping the feeling of the song the same.”
I nodded along to the quick beat, but the translator left something to be desired. The lyrics talked about the incredulous nature of giving a ground mammal wings to fly, or something. The instrumentals were catchy enough, a blend of strings and synths. It was almost like listening to a foreign pop song.
“It sounds… kinda similar to something. Is-”
“It’s part of the same album as Teleport, so also the same artist. But like I said, it’s also a remix.”
“Ah, that explains it.”
I still couldn’t get over just how much he could talk when he was prompted with a set of ears and something he liked. And that wasn’t even mentioning that he had talked for nearly seven hours straight the moment he got his pad’s data back. Getting that worked out was probably the best thing that anyone could have done for him. It was good to see him like this. Enjoying himself.
I finished up the final details on my green moose. By stroke of my random color choice, it had bright red antlers, even though I wasn’t exactly going for a holiday theme.
I spun the book around to Sparci. “What do you think? Is it fridge-worthy?”
He slowly pulled his head up even as his eyes lingered on his page. Once he finally finished filling in the shape, he looked over my page. He stopped wagging his tail to the beat of the song. “What is that?”
“A moose.”
His ear twitched. “That’s what it looks like?”
“Hey, I didn’t judge your coloring.”
“That looks nothing like the other animals I’ve seen.”
“What did you expect? I chose random colors.”
The other ear twitched. “But aren’t you supposed to know what they look like?”
“First of all, that’s very prejudiced of you. Secondly, it was a lot more fun this way. Here, I’ll show you what an actual moose looks like.”
I pulled out my pad and quickly looked for a picture. A moment later, I had it pulled up and Sparci was looking at the animal with awe.
“That one’s brown,” he commented.
“Correct.”
“Its head things are big.”
“Yep. I should also mention that they’re huge. Like, as tall as I am, and about five times as heavy.”
His eyes went wide. “How big is its body!?”
I resisted the strong urge to slap my forehead. “No, it’s body is as tall as I am. Its antlers put it a little bit higher.”
His shock died down slightly. “Oh. That’s still huge.”
“Wait until you learn about the elephant you colored.”
His eyes darted between his colorings. “Wha…?”
I stuffed my pad away. “Welp. I think I’m done coloring. And I’m also hungry. You want some questionable fruit goop oatmeal?”
He perked a single ear. “Uhm. Yes. Please.”
I got up from my seat and shuffled into the kitchen, picking up the strainer off the floor. I put away the rest of the things, making damn sure the peanut butter was tucked away in the corner of the highest shelf of a cabinet.
I was reaching for the oatmeal when I noticed the music had paused. I looked over, seeing Sparci standing in the kitchen.
“Do you want me to show you an elephant?” I guessed.
“No. I mean, yes, but… I…” His tail twitched restlessly.
I patiently waited.
He took a breath. “Thank you. For, um, everything.”
I shrugged. “You’re welcome. But you’ll have to thank me again soon, because this oatmeal is going to be fire.”
“You… You didn’t have to do this.”
I shrugged again, setting a pot on the stove. “I was just ordering some normal stuff, and had the thought to get a pair of coloring books. It’s not that big of a deal.”
His tail curled around his leg. “But, everything else.”
I guessed even little things could mean the absolute world to someone when they were coming back from what Sparci had gone through. Was still going through.
I sighed. “Yeah. You’re welcome for everything else, too. Thanks for sharing the music. It’s, uh, definitely alien music.” Is that even a compliment?
He seemed to hesitate for a second before coming further into the kitchen towards me. His arms parted slightly, and before I knew it he had them wrapped around me. I mirrored the motion, placing my hands on his back and gently rubbing.
There was something ever so slightly different in him at that moment, as if he was more sure of how he leaned into the hug. His warmth slowly seeped into me, starkly contrasting how cold he had been when I carried him from that alley, broken and bruised.
“Thank you,” I heard him whisper.
I simply rubbed his back and let him pull away on his own. I hadn’t even realized how quiet it was without the music.
I cleared my throat. “Alright, lemme get this oatmeal going before you get hair everywhere.”
—
A/N: Oh my goodness, give this poor boy everything I have. He deserves the world. Strainers, peanut butter, my soul, whatever. And, of course, some coloring books and a good playlist to share.
Thanks to for organizing yet another ficnapping! Anyways, I hope you enjoyed it! Thank you for reading!

hai! lowkey(highkey) looking for the love of my life, no biggie 😁🤞🏾i know its exhausting reading a post you've potentially seen before but what can i say? i keep trying my luck.
oof its hard to describe myself. i wish we could just click but you don't know me so i do have to entice you a bit haha. i think i'm a lil funny, a lot affectionate! i try my best to spend time in nature, i think it's really calming and underratedly beneficial. my top love languages are quality time, words of affirmation and physical touch! i love love love poetry and find that it usually helps describe feelings i usually have no words for. the intensity of it all. i'm pretty romantic. i try to be expressive. i value communication and respect.
i'd like to connect with a person who values and wants to make a meaningful bond! (i feel that sounds weird, english is not my first language pls excuse if it does). i know it may be hard to find that on reddit but this might be my strike of luck! i'm not sure what else to add here, i'm very sleepy hehe if anything, we can get to know each other!
oh! it'll most likely be long distance, until we meet anyway(i live in africa). it'll work either way. for how i look, i'm darkskin, 5'3, a bit curvy. i'm attracted to big tall, dominant yet gentle men with long hair and strong forearms 🥝 big plus if you have meaningful/cultural tattoos 😋
if you've gotten here, thanks for reading! i am looking for genuine connection. please don't text with just a 'hey', tell me a bit about you? hope to hear from you :)💌

I was diagnosed with chronic migraines in 2019. Been on 20+ medications - beta blockers, antidepressants, injections, everything. Currently on supplements (magnesium and riboflavin) aimovig and Botox.
6 weeks ago I had a killer migraine start, and nothing is breaking it. I went through 2 rounds of steroids, tried Elyxb, got an SPG nerve block, a supraorbital nerve block, and occipital nerve block. I went to the ER and had the cocktail of Reglan/Torodol/Benadryl that did nothing, and an infusion of magnesium and droperidol that helped slightly and they released me. Felt better for a day and then pain is back at a 9 again.
Idk what to do at this point. I feel like the ER makes my symptoms worse and sleepy enough to leave and for the headache to come back. I’m having more blood work and an MRI next week but my scans have always come back normal. Is there any cycle breaker that has worked for you guys that I haven’t taken? I can’t judge my relief meds at this point until I break this current cycle - and the pain is so bad I cant function.

I took one last night at 9pm and I couldn’t get out of bed today until 4pm! And I feel so out of it, and drowsy and like I just can’t wake up. I never want to feel like this again but people tell me all the time that they only stay sleep for 12 hours at the most. Am I the exception? ):

I met this guy 4 years ago right before my transition he was my friends boyfriend and he was also selling weed so I would buy from him sometimes,I always felt some attraction for him and I would catch him staring at me but because we stopped hanging out with that friend and I stopped buying from him ,
4 days ago he added me on Snapchat and started talking at first he didn’t know i was the same person and i had to tell him that I knew him and that im trans and he just completely ignored the fact that i was trans and most guys don’t believe me bc I don’t look trans, i told him that night if he wanted to come by my house to smoke and watch a movie , he came we started watching a movie we smoked he was very flirty but I could feel he was kinda nervous, he hugged me and we started kissing,im single and live alone so i meet like 2-3 guys a week and i know how guys kiss when they are in love with me and when they are just horny with him it felt so different I could tell he was really into me by the way he was touching,breathing,kiss he was holding me so tight on his body I could hear and feel his heart pounding and after a long of time kissing or just hugging very tight with our faces touching I told him i was sleepy and if he wanted to go to the room put me for sleep and leave and he just told me no and i said what do u mean? And he said again no I don’t want to and he kissed me 5 minutes later I told him the same thing and he said again no and I asked him again what do u mean no and he just said ok let’s go to your room and we went and started making out then i told him im very sleppy he took my hand he layed on the bed hugged me and we slept together the next morning i woke him up because my grandma was coming to my house he cuddled and kissed and he left now I don’t want to meet with any other guy he is stuck in my head and i know that what i felt he felt it too but it’s been 2 days now I told him to come again yesterday but he said he was really tired i said ok and i told to another guy to come that i used to have a crush on him to hopefully forget him but it didn’t help today I told him again if he wanted to come tonight and said he’ll see if he can with his work and tell me later but then he left me on delivered for a couple of hours and now i just don’t know what went wrong i feel that maybe he is too afraid to meet again bc Ik we’re gonna catch alot of feelings and I’m the first trans girl he ever did something with but the chemistry is just amazing idk i felt that we were one when we was together so because im also very afraid of rejection I removed him from Snapchat and unfollowed me on insta , I thought if he really did felt something too he will make an attempt to see what went wrong and why I removed him but if he doesn’t care that much he will just never talk to me again
Am i wrong for removing him? How do you explain his behaviour? Please help i feel like shit and I can’t get him off my mind

I just got prescribed Propranolol ER 60mg to take daily in hopes to ease the physical symptoms of my social anxiety. My doctor didn’t tell me much besides the fact that it might make me a little sleepy so I should take it right before I go to bed if I want to avoid that. I’m curious to know of any other common side effects, and I also read that it shouldn’t be mixed with ibuprofen because it decreases the effects of the propranolol. I’m not sure what’s true and what isn’t so please share your experience and any tips or knowledge you have!

Trump, the twice impeached, convicted felon, former president goes rallying in Oakland California. Here is a quote from his rally: “Let me tell you, folks, nobody knows what it's like to be convicted better than me, believe me. I'm the best at it. Nobody else can get 100% of the votes from the jury like I do. And by the way, our border, it’s a disaster. It's a total disaster. My brothers, I'm just like you, I’ve got two ex-wives, a bunch of baby mamas, and kids I don’t take care of. It's unbelievable. And the Middle East? A total mess. We've got to take down the EVIL and CORRUPT Democrats and Sleepy Joe. It's time to make America great again!”

I have been on Qelbree for 3 months now, nothing special just a trust it works. However the side effects are I am sleepy, fatigued most of the time and cor 8-10hours my penis shrivels up. Making it really hard to pee and empty bladder fully. I had the same issue on Adderall. Anyone else have this issue. I don't see it mentioned anywhere or anyone talking about it so I feel if I am a population of 1. If you are someone who had this issue, how did you solve it? I decided to skip qelbree last 2 days and no shrinkage/shrivelling up.

I am a FTM with a three week old newborn. She is healthy and growing well, and she has an overall calm disposition although I’m aware that may change.
At first, she was sleeping all the time, and I was stressed because she needed to eat and be alert more. I didn’t think she was meeting the requirement of being awake 4-6 hours everyday. Now, she isn’t sleeping enough and I feel so guilty for ever messing with her when she was sleepy. Every time we have a bad night, I think of all the things I did wrong, and I get stuck on it for days after. One night I think she was too cold, another night I listened to advice to leave her diaper alone until it absolutely needed to be changed so she’d stay sleepy, but then I ended up catching it too late and she had soaked through her clothes. Last night, I kept trying to feed her when she’d wake me, but then she’d fall asleep right as I picked her up. I should’ve forced her to feed more because when I woke up I saw on her owlet sock report how much she had been awake without crying, and now I feel like I damaged her by not being there for her while she was awake. I also just feel like I’m too sleepy in the night and not waking up fully, and I should be napping more in the day so that I can be there for her while she’s awake in the night. I just have trouble doing that. I just feel like I’m doing everything wrong and have ruined her first few weeks of life.
How do you move on from the mistakes you make? I know the number one thing is to learn and fix what went wrong, but I still have such a hard time letting go of ruining a night of sleep for her or leaving her to be uncomfortable for any amount of time while she is so little and helpless.

After much consideration, I think it is time that I 35m break up with my partner 26f. She is wonderful, beautiful, caring, and intelligent, but she doesn’t match me in the way we go through life. She doesn’t have an underlying curiosity to discover things, or learn for her own enjoyment, and to really live and breathe what short time we have. I have spent a lot of time trying to express how important this is to me, holding her hand to get her into things and be excited about them, has countless discussions and suggestions to her. It all falls flat.
She is absolutely sure of our relationship, she thinks marriage is around the corner, and kids are up next. She just graduated from her second degree and is going to enter the workforce. She will be working nights though, and she’s so terribly sleepy already that I know this change, though financial beneficial for her, will make her sleep more of her days away than ever. I just can’t see this working out for me long term. She will argue that she can change, that we are perfect, but I have been so patient, spoken with her about how important these things are to me, and she hasn’t changed.
How would you go about this to make it easier for both of us in a break up? We have lived together for 4 years. I’ve paid rent the whole time and a majority of our living expenses, supporting her during her schooling, but she brought some furniture into the house when she moved in, some cooking stuff, and the bed. I don’t know how to split up these things. I intend to stay in the house, since I have lived here 10 years.

Hey, sorry this might be a bit long. For background, I’m 24 years old and live with my brother, sister and mother. I had no real life friends and suffer from many troubles. I got very sick when I was younger so never went to school and haven’t left my house in 5+ years for anything other than doctor appointments. I’ve been struggling massively lately with stress and anxiety, going to the doctor multiple times etc. After getting an endoscopy, scans and more all come back clear I’ve managed to chill out a bit more and start a new diet for self improvement. I have severe anxiety that I’ve never been able to get ahold of. I was actually managing to get through days without too much struggle. Until now….
My cat passed away at the vet very unexpected. She was only meant to go in for a tooth removed and they found a tumour so she didn’t come back out. I’m beyond devastated. I’m broken. I can’t live without her, she spent all day with me and as mentioned before, I don’t go out or leave my house. She was my best friend and always there to cheer me up. I really really don’t know what to do.
All the symptoms I’ve had over the years have all come back, anything I managed to improve or work on instantly reset, all at the same time. My legs won’t stop moving and shaking, I have horrible acid reflux, nausea, fatigue, heart palpitations, butterflies, stomach problems and pains, trouble breathing, headaches etc. Just horrible horrible feelings that I can’t stand or deal with. I don’t know what’s ’normal’ anymore and I can’t see how I’m supposed to manage. I want it to stop.
As many people have told me, there is no normal with this kinda thing. People feel differently for different amounts of time. I wish I just knew how long this is gonna last and how to overcome this.
There’s multiple things on my mind apart from the fact that she’s gone such as: I told her she was going to get better so now I’m scared she’s mad at me and feels betrayed. I never got to say goodbye, I don’t even remember the last time I saw her as my mum was the one to take her to the vet.
I miss her so much and need her back. I can’t live like this, it’s all too much. The first couple days were bad but after crying a lot I managed to calm down and watch a movie or something. Today is just hell, i physically feel horrendous. All my symptoms are so bad and it’s too much for me. I tried eating and felt sick, i slept for 14 hours but im still exhausted, my whole body aches. I can just about manage the crying and mental side of this all but the physical symptoms are tearing me apart. I can’t do anything. All my progress I made has been completely reset. I truly don’t know where to go from here.
I was extremely depressed experiencing these symptoms by themselves. Constantly going to the doctor to get help. After doing research and many tests I managed to calm down a bit and I was working on a new diet, learning to cook and such. Now it’s all back to where it was, if not worse. I know I sound like a broken record but I just don’t know what to do. I sat outside in my garden sobbing, calling her name and praying she would just jump over the fence and come home.
I don’t want her to be mad or in pain. I want her to be happy. How on earth am I meant to recover when I was already sui- with just half these symptoms. Now them all together with the loss of her?
I’ve been to my doctor and she said I’m having an acute severe stress/anxiety attack. Prescribed me some Diazepam but I’m honestly scared to talk them. I don’t want to feel ‘high’ or completely out of it. I’m super autistic so have a STRICT schedule, if it were to make me super sleepy and i slept out of my normal times it would just add more stress. It also feels cheap and cheating to use them, It’s impossible to explain. I want the pain to stop but I don’t want something else masking it, I want to feel for her.
I’ve been looking for what’s normal and there is no real answers. Take the stages of grief for example, I’ve done research on them and they seem to last people for weeks/months before moving onto the best stage. But I swear I’m feeling all stages across the same day. I’ll go from crying to being angry to regretting things to denial all within a few hours.
Here’s a list of some symptoms I’m going through: Coldness/chills, depression, anxiety, nausea, headaches, legs shaking and won’t stop moving (even when I’m in bed sleeping they are going up and down subconsciously), intense stomach pains, no appetite, tight throat/lump in throat, shortness of breath/breathlessness, general aches and pain across my entire body, diarrhoea, acid reflux/heartburn, heart palpitations, horrible tingly feeling in my stomach and chest (like butterflies but slightly different and just worse), sore eyes from crying, fatigue and lots more I’m probably forgetting. All simultaneously.
I’m sorry this is so long and many things are repeated, I just had to really explain the best I could. Any help is appreciated.
Side note: I don’t currently have any kind of therapist and it would take way too long to get one I’m diagnosed with CFS, OCD, ADHD, ADD, autism, Tourette’s, severe depression and anxiety, agoraphobia, scoliosis, eating disorder (Yes a lot, I’m kinda messed up) I’m also a huge hypochondriac. Feel free to ask any other questions. Thank you!