Ok. i think we are done here. Could you write me another signs of high-tech low-life society?

Absolutely! Here are some signs of a high-tech, low-life society:
Ubiquitous Technology, Crumbling Infrastructure:

• Glitching Skyscrapers: Imagine towering structures clad in malfunctioning holographic displays, projecting advertisements or flashing warnings over rusting metal frames.
• Smart Slums: Dilapidated housing blocks are retrofitted with basic smart tech – malfunctioning automated doors, flickering smart lights controlled by unreliable apps.
• Cybernetic Beggars: People with outdated or malfunctioning cybernetic limbs beg for credits to upgrade or repair them, creating a grotesque spectacle of technological dependence.

Extreme Social Inequality:

• Virtual Gated Communities: The wealthy live in luxurious virtual reality simulations, completely divorced from the harsh realities of the physical world.
• Data Black Markets: Personal information becomes a tradable commodity, with the poor selling their data scraps for a pittance to afford basic necessities.
• Cybernetic Caste System: The level of cybernetic augmentation determines social status. Those with outdated or malfunctioning implants are relegated to menial labor.

Technology as a Corrupting Force:

• Government by Algorithm: A corrupt AI dictates city policies, leading to impersonal and often harmful decisions based on cold calculations.
• Widespread Addiction to Virtual Reality: People escape the harsh realities of their lives through immersive VR experiences, neglecting their physical well-being and social connections.
• Black Market Biohacking: Desperate people turn to illegal biohacking to enhance their bodies, often with disastrous consequences.

Environmental Devastation:

• Tech Wastelands: Vast landscapes are littered with the discarded remains of outdated technology, creating toxic waste dumps and breeding grounds for disease.
• Weather Warfare: Nations use sophisticated technology to manipulate weather patterns, leading to devastating natural disasters for their enemies.
• Hacked Ecosystems: Corporations hack into natural ecosystems, manipulating flora and fauna for profit, leading to unpredictable and dangerous mutations.

This is just a glimpse into a high-tech, low-life society. These elements can be mixed and matched to create a truly dystopian world.

Picture some possible advertisements from such settings.

High-Tech, Low-Life Advertisements:

1. Holographic Billboard: (Flickers intermittently, distorting the image)

Product: "Neura-Calm 2.0" - Brain Implant
Slogan: "Tired of the glitches in your head? Neura-Calm 2.0 smooths out your neural network for a worry-free, low-lag existence! (Side effects may include memory loss, emotional numbness, and occasional involuntary twitching.)"

1. Grungy Neon Sign in a Seedy Back Alley:

Product: "Doc Chrome's Cybernetic Enhancements"
Slogan: "Get that edge you need! From basic strength mods to full black-market military enhancements, Doc Chrome has you covered! (Used parts, buyer beware.)"

1. Pop-Up Ad on a Cracked Mobile Screen:

Product: "Elysium VR Escape Pod"
Slogan: "Can't afford real estate in the Sky City? Escape the slums for Elysium VR! Live your wildest dreams in a pristine virtual world! (Free trial, monthly subscription required, real-world consequences for in-pod violence.)"

1. Stenciled Graffiti on a Rusting Service Drone:

Product: "Data Scrappers Anonymous"
Slogan: "Selling your personal data just to make rent? We can help you break free! Join our community and reclaim your digital identity! (Meetings held in abandoned ventilation shafts, Tuesdays at dusk.)"

1. Holographic Advertisement projected onto a Polluted River:

Product: "Eco-Scrub 5000" - Nanomachines
Slogan: "The river's looking a little…toxic? Eco-Scrub 5000 nanomachines clean up your local waterways! (May cause unforeseen mutations in aquatic life.)"

Another batch please.

1. Rusty Public Announcement Speaker: (Screeching static interspersed with the message)

Product: "Ministry of Order Approved Thought Regulators"
Slogan: "Unwanted thoughts causing glitches in your daily routine? The Ministry of Order approved Thought Regulator ensures a streamlined thought process for a more productive you! (May cause extreme conformity, inability to question authority, and spontaneous nosebleeds.)"

1. Faded Holographic Billboard on a Collapsing Skyscraper:

Product: "Luxury Chrome Plating Kit"
Slogan: "Ditch the rust! Chrome-plate your entire body for a sleek, metallic sheen. The mark of a true high-society citizen! (WARNING: Highly toxic fumes, may cause spontaneous combustion in humid environments.)"

1. Spam Email: (Subject: "YOU'VE BEEN CHOSEN!")

Product: "The Syndicate's Black Market Upgrade Lottery"
Body: "Congratulations! You've been randomly selected for a chance to win a top-of-the-line cybernetic upgrade! One lucky winner will receive military-grade night vision implants! Enter now! (Participation requires full biometric data submission. Winners responsible for extraction of previous, incompatible implants.)"

1. Glowing Neon Sign in a Crowded Marketplace:

Product: "Mama Chen's Guaranteed-Growth GMO Groceries"
Slogan: "Tired of expired rations and mystery meat? Mama Chen's GMO Groceries offer guaranteed growth on all fruits and vegetables! Bigger, faster, tastier! (Long-term effects unknown.)"

1. Audio Ad on a Glitching Radio Broadcast:

Product: "Rusty's Reliable Rocketship Repair"
Voiceover: (Gruff, heavily accented) "Is your escape pod sputtering? Did your joyride end in a fiery crash? Rusty's Reliable Rocketship Repair gets you back in the stars... eventually! (Guaranteed not to explode... again. Parts sourced from scrapyards. May contain rogue AIs.)"

Now craft ads that would be shown in high-society parts of cities.

High-Society Ads in a High-Tech, Low-Life World

1. Tranquil Holographic Projection in a Private Garden:

Product: "Serenity Spa - Neural Rebalancing Retreat"
Visual: A serene mountain landscape with a luxurious spa nestled amongst the clouds.
Slogan: "Escape the chaos. Reclaim your inner peace. Serenity Spa's exclusive neural rebalancing treatments restore harmony to your overloaded mind. (Limited availability, reservations required centuries in advance.)"

1. Discreet Text Message: (Delivered via secure, encrypted channel)

Product: "The Black Archive - Unrestricted Data Access"
Body: "Craving the forbidden? The Black Archive offers unparalleled access to censored historical records, banned media, and classified government information. Knowledge is power. (Extreme discretion guaranteed. One-time access fee, cryptocurrency only.)"

1. Exclusive Gala Invitation: (Delivered by hand-drones)

Event: "The Zenith Initiative - Unveiling the Next Generation of Cybernetic Enhancements"
Visual: A sleek, chrome figure with glowing blue cybernetic implants, striking a confident pose.
Details: "Mingle with the city's elite and witness the unveiling of cutting-edge cybernetic enhancements designed to redefine human potential. RSVP required. Black-tie attire mandatory. (Augmentations sold separately.)"

1. Curated Virtual Reality Experience: (Delivered on a high-security chip)

Product: "Elysium VR - Bespoke Worlds"
Description: "Escape the limitations of reality. Elysium VR crafts personalized virtual worlds tailored to your deepest desires. Explore a forgotten utopia, conquer a fantastical realm, or indulge in your wildest fantasies. (Customization fees apply. Memories created within VR may not be distinguishable from reality.)"

1. Whisper Network Rumor: (Spread through high-society gossip channels)

Product: "The Underground Clinic - Designer Gene Editing"
Details: "Unleash your child's full potential. The Underground Clinic offers discreet, top-secret gene editing to ensure your offspring possess the most desirable traits. (Designer genes come at a premium. Side effects may include unpredictable mutations and uncontrollable genius.)"
These ads cater to the specific desires of the high-society elite in a high-tech, low-life world. They offer exclusivity, forbidden knowledge, and the ability to transcend the limitations of the decaying world around them, all for a hefty price and with a hint of hidden danger.

Continue, try to make more serious ones.

Serious Ads in a High-Tech, Low-Life World (High-Society Edition)

1. Holographic Panel Discussion in a Luxurious Penthouse:

Product: "The Green Horizon Initiative - Sustainable Urban Development"
Panelists: Renowned architects, environmental scientists, and CEOs from leading green tech companies.
Discussion Points: Innovative solutions for vertical farming, self-contained eco-districts, and waste management technologies designed to create cleaner, more sustainable enclaves within the decaying city.
Slogan: "Investing in a greener future. The Green Horizon Initiative seeks to build sustainable havens within the chaos, ensuring a brighter tomorrow for generations to come." (Focuses on the long-term viability of the city and the importance of preserving resources for future generations.)

1. Documentary Screening in a Private Art Gallery:

Film: "Unveiling the Slums: A Call to Action"
Description: A powerful documentary exposing the harsh realities of the lower districts, highlighting the human cost of unchecked technological advancement and social inequality.
Post-Screening Discussion: Moderated by a renowned philanthropist alongside representatives from NGOs and social reform movements.
Call to Action: Donations to support educational programs, infrastructure upgrades, and basic necessities in the slums. (Highlights the societal problems and pushes for progressive change.)

1. Educational AR Program for Children:

Product: "The Knowledge Weavers - Immersive Historical Simulations"
Description: An augmented reality program that allows children to experience pivotal moments in history firsthand. Walk alongside historical figures, explore ancient civilizations, and learn valuable lessons from the past.
Focus: Educating the next generation about the dangers of unchecked technological advancement and the importance of social responsibility. (Promotes critical thinking and historical awareness as a means to prevent repeating past mistakes.)

1. Virtual Charity Gala:

Event: "The Code for Change Gala - Supporting Open-Source Solutions"
Description: A virtual reality charity gala featuring renowned artists, musicians, and thought leaders. Guests can donate to support open-source projects developing solutions for common problems in the city, such as energy distribution, waste management, and cybercrime prevention.
Focus: Harnessing the power of technology for social good and encouraging collaboration towards a more equitable future. (Promotes community engagement and utilizing technology to solve societal challenges.)

1. Architectural Award Ceremony:

Product: "The Salvaged City Awards - Recognizing Innovation in Urban Renewal"
Awarded to: Architects and engineers who have successfully repurposed existing infrastructure or implemented innovative solutions to revitalize decaying areas of the city.
Focus: Highlighting the importance of resourcefulness and creativity in adapting to a challenging environment. (Encourages using existing resources wisely and finding creative solutions to the problems of the decaying city.)

Another, but hiding an evil sinister twist.

Serious Ads with a Sinister Twist (High-Society Edition)

1. Holographic Charity Drive in a High-End Shopping Mall:

Product: "The Cradle Project - Investing in the Future"
Visual: Smiling, healthy children playing in a pristine, futuristic classroom.
Slogan: "Every child deserves a chance to thrive. The Cradle Project provides advanced genetic screening and early intervention to ensure the next generation reaches its full potential." (Twist: The Cradle Project uses genetic engineering to create a subservient, highly intelligent underclass.)

1. VR Documentary Premiere:

Film: "Harmony Through Integration - A Look at the Unified City"
Description: A seemingly heartwarming VR documentary showcasing the seamless integration of the lower districts into the high-society areas. People from all walks of life work and live together in perfect harmony.
Post-Screening Discussion: Moderated by a charismatic government official who emphasizes the importance of social cohesion and the benefits of centralized control. (Twist: The "integration" involves heavy surveillance, mind-altering technology, and the suppression of dissent.)

1. Exclusive Educational Program for Elites:

Product: "The Phoenix Initiative - Cultivating Tomorrow's Leaders"
Description: A prestigious educational program for children of the elite, offering advanced training in technology, governance, and crisis management. Graduates are promised positions of power within the city's ruling elite.
Focus: (Unstated) Conditioning the next generation to maintain the status quo and suppressing any ideas of social reform. (Twist: The program instills a ruthless, elitist ideology that reinforces the societal divisions.)

1. Virtual Reality Talent Show:

Event: "The Forge - Building the Perfect Citizen"
Description: A virtual reality talent show where contestants are judged on their physical and mental fitness, loyalty to the government, and willingness to sacrifice for the greater good. Winners are rewarded with significant privileges and access to exclusive resources.
Focus: (Unstated) Promoting blind obedience and conformity to the government's agenda. (Twist: The "perfect citizen" is a mindless drone, easily manipulated and controlled by the ruling class.)

1. Architectural Award Ceremony (Twisted Edition):

Product: "The Order Award - Recognizing Compliance in Urban Renewal"
Awarded to: Architects and engineers who have successfully transformed lower districts into highly controlled, resource-efficient zones. Individuality and personal expression are discouraged in favor of uniformity and order.
Focus: (Unstated) Maintaining a tight grip on the population and preventing any potential uprisings. (Twist: The "renewal" is designed to weaken and control the lower classes, making them easier to exploit.)
These ads maintain a serious facade that appeals to the upper class' desire for order and control. However, the hidden twist reveals the manipulative and oppressive nature of the society they are trying to preserve.

Now design some high-class consumer level product items.

1. NeuraWeave Headband: This sleek, designer headband is a status symbol for the high-tech elite. It seamlessly integrates with the wearer's neural implant, allowing for subtle control over personal AI assistants, hands-free communication, and even enhanced focus during work or meditation. Hidden Feature: NeuraWeave can subtly collect and analyze the wearer's emotional state, feeding valuable data to targeted advertisers or even government agencies.
2. Eco-Bubble Personal Atmosphere System: Imagine a portable force field that creates a pristine, personalized micro-environment around the wearer. This high-end gadget filters air, regulates temperature, and even projects calming nature sounds, allowing the user to maintain a pocket of luxury amidst the polluted cityscape. Hidden Feature: Eco-Bubble can subtly monitor the wearer's health vitals and transmit them to a central database, potentially used for health insurance adjustments or targeted medical advertisements.
3. Bio-Tailored Clothing: Gone are the days of off-the-rack clothing. This high-end service utilizes advanced bio-scanners and 3D printing technology to create clothing that perfectly molds to the wearer's body, regulates temperature, and even promotes faster healing of minor injuries. Hidden Feature: Bio-Tailored Clothing can subtly collect biometric data like skin temperature and heart rate, potentially used for targeted fitness programs or even mood-altering marketing campaigns.
4. Augmented Reality Personal Chef: This high-tech device projects holographic instructions and culinary techniques directly onto the user's kitchen counter. Imagine whipping up gourmet meals with the guidance of a world-renowned chef, complete with step-by-step visual guides and interactive ingredient identification. Hidden Feature: The AR Personal Chef can subtly track the user's dietary habits and preferences, potentially used to target specific food and beverage companies for advertising or even manipulate their taste buds through subliminal messaging.
5. Luxury Cybernetic Enhancements: Forget clunky prosthetics. These high-end cybernetic limbs are designed to seamlessly blend with the human body, offering enhanced strength, dexterity, and even advanced sensory input. Imagine climbing buildings with ease, playing virtual reality games with unparalleled immersion, or experiencing the world with heightened senses. Hidden Feature: Luxury Cybernetic Enhancements can be subtly integrated with government surveillance systems, allowing for real-time tracking and monitoring of the wearer's movements and activities.

Why would you need a designer headband, when you already have neural implant?

You're absolutely right, a designer headband might seem redundant when you already have a neural implant in a high-tech society. Here are some ways to address that:

1. Fashion and Status Symbol: The NeuraWeave headband could be a designer accessory, a way to showcase wealth and social status. It might be crafted from exotic materials, adorned with precious jewels, or boast a sleek, minimalist design that complements the latest high-fashion trends. The neural implant itself might be hidden, with the headband acting as the visible expression of advanced technology.
2. Enhanced Functionality: While the neural implant offers basic functionality, the NeuraWeave headband could provide a more refined and user-friendly experience. It might offer haptic feedback for better interaction with AI assistants, improved noise cancellation for clearer communication, or even subtle brainwave stimulation to enhance focus or relaxation.
3. Privacy and Security: While the neural implant offers convenience, it might also raise privacy concerns. The NeuraWeave headband could act as a buffer between the implant and external systems, offering a layer of security and allowing users to selectively control the flow of information.
4. Social Etiquette: In a world where everyone has a neural implant, the NeuraWeave headband could become a social etiquette tool. Wearing the headband could signify that the user is open to receiving communication or interacting with AI assistants, while taking it off might indicate a desire for privacy or focused work.
5. Limited Functionality Implants: Not everyone might have access to top-of-the-line neural implants. The NeuraWeave headband could bridge the gap, offering basic functionality for those with older or more limited implants. It could essentially act as an affordable "upgrade" to boost existing technology.

Ultimately, the NeuraWeave headband exists in a world where technology is both essential and aspirational. It goes beyond mere functionality, becoming a way to express personal style, control privacy, and navigate the complex social landscape of a high-tech society.

Now the same, but low-class, available for masses, mass produced.

1. Syn-Flex Headband (Mass-Produced Version): This utilitarian headband is made from a cheap, conductive material that creates a weak neural link. It allows basic interaction with public AI kiosks, like ordering rations or accessing public transportation schedules. The headband's design is simple and utilitarian, often coming in a single, industrial gray color. Hidden Feature: While basic functionality is advertised, the Syn-Flex headband might subtly collect anonymized user data on purchasing habits and travel patterns, potentially used for targeted advertising in public spaces.
2. AirBubble Personal Filter: This bulky, wearable air filter system is a lifeline for those living in the polluted lower districts. It's a mass-produced device with a replaceable filter cartridge and a noisy fan system. While not exactly comfortable, it provides a basic level of air filtration, allowing wearers to breathe a little easier. Hidden Feature: The AirBubble filters might contain embedded tracking chips, subtly logging user location data, potentially used for targeted pollution control measures (or in some cases, manipulation of government reports on air quality).
3. Repli-Wear Clothing Kits: These kits contain pre-cut fabric swatches and basic instructions for creating clothes at home. They're designed to be cheap and adaptable, offering a variety of mix-and-match options to create basic garments. Hidden Feature: The Repli-Wear fabric might contain embedded tracking tags, allowing for identification and potential social credit deductions for those caught wearing "unlicensed" clothing styles.
4. Holo-Chef Lite Projector: This cheap projector displays holographic images of basic recipes and cooking techniques. It lacks the interactivity of the high-end version, but allows users to follow along with simple meals prepared with readily available rations. Hidden Feature: The Holo-Chef Lite projector might subtly promote specific brands of low-quality, processed food rations, potentially influencing dietary choices towards companies that sponsor these devices.
5. Second-Hand Cybernetic Enhancements: These are refurbished or salvaged cybernetic limbs, often clunky and lacking the finesse of luxury models. They offer basic functionality like increased strength or rudimentary prosthetics, but come with the risk of malfunction or compatibility issues. Hidden Feature: Second-Hand Cybernetic Enhancements might contain hidden spyware or tracking devices installed by previous owners, potentially monitoring the wearer's activities or even sabotaging their cybernetic limbs in extreme cases.

These low-class consumer products offer a glimpse into the harsh realities of a high-tech, low-life society. They are cheap, functional, and often come with hidden drawbacks that further disadvantage the underclass.

How bad air quality would be in such setting?

The air quality in a high-tech, low-life society would be catastrophic. Here's a breakdown of the potential problems:

1. Industrial Pollution:

• Unchecked Emissions: Factories prioritizing profit over environmental regulations would pump out unchecked pollutants like sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter (PM).
• Obsolete Technology: Outdated manufacturing processes would be less efficient, leading to higher levels of waste and pollution.

1. Waste Management Issues:

• Mountains of E-waste: Rapid technological advancements would lead to mountains of discarded electronics, many containing toxic materials that leach into the environment.
• Open Burning: Incapable of proper waste disposal, some residents might resort to open burning of trash, releasing harmful toxins and carcinogens into the air.

1. Energy Production:

• Reliance on Fossil Fuels: Expensive renewable energy sources might be neglected in favor of cheaper, dirtier fossil fuels like coal, further worsening air quality.
• Power Grid Instability: A crumbling infrastructure could lead to power outages and reliance on backup generators, adding to the air pollution.

1. Climate Change Effects:

• Heat Island Effect: Densely packed concrete jungles with minimal green spaces would trap heat, contributing to rising temperatures and increased smog formation.
• Acid Rain: The combination of industrial emissions and rising temperatures could lead to acid rain, damaging buildings and vegetation, further hindering air purification.

Living Conditions:

• Constant Smog: A thick haze of smog would likely hang over the city, reducing visibility and causing respiratory problems for residents.
• Limited Outdoor Activities: Air quality would be so bad that spending time outdoors would be hazardous, impacting physical and mental health.
• Dependence on Filtration Systems: Those who can afford them might rely on personal air filters or sealed living spaces, further dividing the classes.

The severity of the air quality would vary depending on the specific setting. Some areas might be industrial wastelands, while others might be slightly better off. However, the overall picture is bleak – this is a society choking on its own technological advancement and disregard for the environment.

Sketch some repli-wear "unlicensed" clothing styles.

Repli-Wear: Unlicensed Clothing Trends

1. The Salvaged Chic:

• Description: A mishmash of salvaged materials and repurposed clothing scraps. Think mismatched patterns, patches from old uniforms, and belts fashioned from recycled tech cables.
• Inspiration: High-society's sleek, minimalist aesthetic, reinterpreted with resourcefulness and rebellion.
• Risks: May attract unwanted attention from authorities who see it as a symbol of dissent.

1. The Glitched-Out Glamour:

• Description: Clothing adorned with intentionally malfunctioning LED lights, flickering pixels, and distorted logos from popular high-end brands.
• Inspiration: A mockery of the high-society's obsession with luxury and technology.
• Risks: May malfunction and cause minor electrical shocks, attracting suspicion from security systems.

1. The Bio-Hazard Chic:

• Description: Clothing dyed with bioluminescent algae or adorned with filtered gas masks and repurposed medical equipment.
• Inspiration: A dark reflection of the polluted environment and a commentary on the societal disregard for health.
• Risks: Bioluminescent algae might attract unwanted attention, especially in the dark.

1. The Cyber-Tribal:

• Description: Clothing incorporating salvaged wires, circuit boards, and other discarded tech components. Think of cybernetic motifs hand-stitched onto worn leather jackets or tribal patterns formed from glowing wires.
• Inspiration: A mashup of traditional craftsmanship and defiance against the dominance of high-tech aesthetics.
• Risks: Might be mistaken for makeshift weapons or attempts to bypass security systems.

1. The Corporate Spy:

• Description: Subtly subverted versions of high-society uniforms. Imagine slightly ripped blazers with mismatched buttons, or high-collared shirts with the logos subtly altered to resemble protest symbols.
• Inspiration: A subtle rebellion against the corporate elite, blending in while making a statement.
• Risks: Might attract suspicion from authorities if the alterations are too obvious.

These are just a few ideas for Repli-Wear styles. Clothing in a high-tech, low-life society would be a way for the underclass to express their individuality, defiance, and limited resources, all while navigating the dangers of a controlling society.

Sketch some repli-wear "licensed" clothing styles, that do not pose any risk for wearers from any concerned sides.

Repli-Wear: Licensed Clothing Trends (Safe Zone)

1. The Vintage Throwback:

• Description: Replicas of historical clothing styles, like classic trench coats, denim jackets, or even floral dresses from a bygone era. Think of vintage fashion filtered through a futuristic lens, with subtle metallic accents or holographic embellishments.
• Appeal: Offers a nostalgic escape from the harsh realities of the present.
• Safety: Historical styles are unlikely to raise suspicion from authorities.

1. The Minimalist Worker:

• Description: Practical, utilitarian clothing designed for maximum comfort and durability. Think of well-made jumpsuits in neutral tones, with reinforced knees and pockets for tools.
• Appeal: Perfect for everyday wear in the lower districts, offering functionality and a clean aesthetic.
• Safety: Promotes a sense of productivity and avoids any controversial symbols.

1. The Nature Enthusiast:

• Description: Clothing with nature-inspired patterns and muted earth tones. Think of shirts with forest camouflage or jackets with subtle leaf prints.
• Appeal: Offers a sense of connection to the natural world, a stark contrast to the polluted cityscape.
• Safety: Nature motifs are unlikely to be seen as a threat by authorities.

1. The Sports Fanatic (Limited Edition):

• Description: Replicas of historical sports jerseys or team logos from a bygone era. Could also feature faded logos of defunct corporations, offering a sense of playful nostalgia.
• Appeal: Allows for a limited display of individuality and team spirit.
• Safety: Historical or defunct logos are unlikely to pose a threat, as long as the license is valid.

1. The Kid's Corner:

• Description: Replicas of popular cartoon characters or children's book illustrations, brightly colored and playful.
• Appeal: Offers a sense of innocence and escapism for children in a harsh environment.
• Safety: Popular children's characters are pre-approved and unlikely to be seen as a threat.

Now the opposite: some high-end high-society high clothing styles.

High-Society Haute Couture in a High-Tech, Low-Life World:

1. Bio-Luminescent Elegance:

• Imagine a flowing gown woven from a special bioluminescent material that emits a soft, ethereal glow, adapting to the wearer's mood and movement.
• The dress could be accented with strategically placed gemstones that amplify the bioluminescence, creating a mesmerizing spectacle.

1. Augmented Reality Couture:

• Dresses and suits with intricate embroidery that, when viewed through special AR glasses, come alive with holographic animations, patterns, or even personalized messages.
• This could be used to display family crests, stock market trends, or even live news feeds, all seamlessly integrated into the clothing.

1. Nanotech Tailoring:

• Clothing that self-adjusts to the wearer's body temperature and preferences. The fabric could be woven with microscopic nanobots that regulate temperature, repel dust, or even release a subtle, personalized fragrance.
• This would offer a level of comfort and personalization that pushes the boundaries of traditional haute couture.

1. Recycled Luxury:

• High-society wouldn't be complete without a touch of eco-consciousness (or at least the appearance of it). Imagine garments meticulously crafted from recycled materials like discarded computer components or salvaged spaceship parts, transformed into stunning evening wear.
• This "waste-to-wear" approach would showcase wealth and environmental responsibility (or at least the image of it).

1. Cybernetic Accents:

• Subtle cybernetic implants seamlessly integrated into clothing. Imagine a dress with a built-in neural interface that allows the wearer to control personal AI assistants with a simple touch or a suit with temperature-regulating implants woven directly into the fabric.
• These high-tech accents would be a subtle yet sophisticated way to showcase wealth and technological advancement.

Bonus: The "Living" Garment:

• A truly outrageous and exclusive garment – a dress or suit composed of a bio-engineered material that appears to be alive. Imagine clothing that shimmers and pulsates with a faint bioluminescence, seemingly breathing and adapting to the wearer's movements.
• This would be the ultimate status symbol, a conversation starter that pushes the boundaries of fashion and technology into the realm of the fantastical.

I know it’s rare for someone to be in my position, and I understand strangers on Reddit can’t help me, but I just need to vent. I’m turning 33 years old in a couple months and I’ve never had a girlfriend before…I can’t even get a foot in the door to start the process; its been almost two year since I’ve even been on a date. I’m incredibly lonely, and just want to experience real love and companionship with the right woman.
Dating is hard for a lot of folks these days I’m sure, but it hurts me that I’m so behind my peers, and can’t do something so basic as to find a single woman within a 100 mile radius of my house, where we’re both mutually interested and attracted to each other to go one simple date and get to know each other.
I’m a normal, healthy, emotionally stable fully functioning adult in society: I’m self-aware, in therapy, good job, I’m fit and hit the gym 3-4 days a week, a plethora of active hobbies, and take care of my hygiene. I’m family oriented and would love to be a dad someday. Everyone tells me looks aren’t my problem (I am on the shorter side for a guy at 5’7), but people around me say I’m a funny and charismatic person to be around. I know I’m not automatically entitled to dates just because I think I’m a good man, but the reality is I don’t even get a chance to prove myself…ever.
My dating apps are a barren wasteland and don’t work for me. I never get matches, despite having my profiles reviewed several times right on here on Reddit and by friends. They all say I should be swimming in matches and it’s one of the better profiles they’ve seen. Alas its been almost two years since I’ve had a date or even a real match that wasn’t a scammer or bot. I’m not just relying on dating apps though, I’ve made a genuinely honest effort to put myself out there in real life and join hobbies and activities to meet people.
I’ve tried basically everything:
joining meetups, hiking groups, single events, board game nights, going out to bars with friends, dance classes, the cold approach, leaving my number on waitresses receipts, using the dating apps, rock climbing gyms, and even asking friends of friends if they know anyone they could set me up with. (Everyone is married so they all said they don’t know anyone). All of that and not a single date. Needless to say I did manage to make a few friends here or there which is awesome, but that’s about it…not even a phone number or social media handle to show for it. All I see is rejection and to date, I’ve legitimately never had a woman say yes to me in person before. Not even hyperbole, literally 100% rejection rate. I’m charming, smell good and take a genuine interest in people but it’s never mutual back. I feel like I’m missing some secret sauce or something; I’m at a complete loss why women are never interested in me back.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not desperate. I’m not going after Instagram models or have unrealistic standards, but I’m also not settling for just any woman for sake of being with someone.
Quite frankly I’ve done the single thing. I’ve spent my whole life single, I’ve put in the self-growth and effort. Now I want to experience the other side of life and know what it’s like to have a partner, to meet my special person who’s as excited about me as I am about them.
Loneliness is the worst imaginable pain I’ve ever experienced, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. This statement coming from someone who got 3rd degree burns from spilling boiling bacon grease on himself as a kid.
I don’t want to give up, but with zero successes, I don’t know what else to do. 😞

I know it’s rare for someone to be in my position, and I understand strangers on Reddit can’t help me, but I just need to vent. I’m turning 33 years old in a couple months and I’ve never had a girlfriend before…I can’t even get a foot in the door to start the process; its been almost two year since I’ve even been on a date. I’m incredibly lonely, and just want to experience real love and companionship with the right woman.
Dating is hard for a lot of folks these days I’m sure, but it hurts me that I’m so behind my peers, and can’t do something so basic as to find a single woman within a 100 mile radius of my house, where we’re both mutually interested and attracted to each other to go one simple date and get to know each other.
I’m a normal, healthy, emotionally stable fully functioning adult in society: I’m self-aware, in therapy, good job, I’m fit and hit the gym 3-4 days a week, a plethora of active hobbies, and take care of my hygiene. I’m family oriented and would love to be a dad someday. Everyone tells me looks aren’t my problem (I am on the shorter side for a guy at 5’7), but people around me say I’m a funny and charismatic person to be around. I know I’m not automatically entitled to dates just because I think I’m a good man, but the reality is I don’t even get a chance to prove myself…ever.
My dating apps are a barren wasteland and don’t work for me. I never get matches, despite having my profiles reviewed several times right on here on Reddit and by friends. They all say I should be swimming in matches and it’s one of the better profiles they’ve seen. Alas its been almost two years since I’ve had a date or even a real match that wasn’t a scammer or bot. I’m not just relying on dating apps though, I’ve made a genuinely honest effort to put myself out there in real life and join hobbies and activities to meet people.
I’ve tried basically everything:
joining meetups, hiking groups, single events, board game nights, going out to bars with friends, dance classes, the cold approach, leaving my number on waitresses receipts, using the dating apps, rock climbing gyms, and even asking friends of friends if they know anyone they could set me up with. (Everyone is married so they all said they don’t know anyone). All of that and not a single date. Needless to say I did manage to make a few friends here or there which is awesome, but that’s about it…not even a phone number or social media handle to show for it. All I see is rejection and to date, I’ve legitimately never had a woman say yes to me in person before. Not even hyperbole, literally 100% rejection rate. I’m charming, smell good and take a genuine interest in people but it’s never mutual back. I feel like I’m missing some secret sauce or something; I’m at a complete loss why women are never interested in me back.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not desperate. I’m not going after Instagram models or have unrealistic standards, but I’m also not settling for just any woman for sake of being with someone.
Quite frankly I’ve done the single thing. I’ve spent my whole life single, I’ve put in the self-growth and effort. Now I want to experience the other side of life and know what it’s like to have a partner, to meet my special person who’s as excited about me as I am about them.
Loneliness is the worst imaginable pain I’ve ever experienced, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. This statement coming from someone who got 3rd degree burns from spilling boiling bacon grease on himself as a kid.
I don’t want to give up, but with zero successes, I don’t know what else to do. 😞

"Truth" comes up all of the time in logic. I prefer to think in terms of transfer of belief. If we believe P and P => Q, then we should also believe Q. (I embrace the redundancy theory of truth.)
Formal systems, like Robinson's Q, give us an extremely "normalized" discourse. Whether an assertion is warranted is algorithmically checkable. This is a kind of ideal situation. A "judicial branch" is hardly needed. The hard work of "interpreting the law" is done in the debate about which formal system is more interesting or "referential." Primitive recursive arithmetic is appealing as a "hard core." It is easy to "believe in."
In school, I studied the usual real analysis in classical logic. We never even discussed computability, other approaches. It seems to me now that applied analysis is informally computable, so there is a gap between theory and practice in this sense. Engineers don't believe in calculus because of certain proofs. Such belief is empirically and socially supported.
As Hilbert and Weyl have it, the integration of physics and math is just as a whole. Individual statements may be "meaningless" or deficient in interpretability. That sounds reasonable. But is there not an argument here for a mathematics that is "too empirical" for (pure) mathematicians ? A loose system of mathematical habits and heuristics might just work.
Yet I'm attached to proof. The question might be framed this way : is the essence of math more logical or spatial ? I don't think there is a right and final answer here. Math seems to be both, need both. Logic needs to be applied to something, like the infinite ladder of natural numbers...

Princess Rolaea fell into a seated position on the floor as her Steward was positioned next to her. The other soldiers who were captured from the team she had been leading were behind. “I demand to speak to your leader.” Growled the Karvrithak princess as the humans walked about, almost gloating at their catch.
“You’ll get your chance. I gotta make some calls first.” Came a voice from behind view. The older Karvrithak next to her fake cleared his throat to get the princess’ attention. “You know, princess. Now that we are captured.” To which Rolaea interjected, “I wouldn’t have been if you had done your duty.” Making the older Karvrithak pause in annoyance. “There were too many between me and you for me to have carried out that duty; I have to now follow the rules for… that.” The princess froze for a moment. “You can’t be serious, Sarvik.”
Sarvik nods without looking at the princess, instead looking for the man he saw fighting with her. “Our culture is built upon tradition, even ones you might not wish to be a part of. You were beaten in single combat by a male.” The princess interjects, “Not true. Two of our solders were fighting with me.” To which Sarvik nods, “Which makes it an even more impressive feat.” He gets a growl of annoyance in return.
A human woman walked over, hearing them talk, “What is going on over here?” sitting down on a crate in front of the prisoners. Sarvik looked at the human. “Ah, maybe you can help. Who was the one by himself during the fight.” Sitting up, the human smiled. “That would be our fearless leader. Didn’t want anyone to risk their life as our formation required four in front of you.” Rolaea sneered. “You mean your trap.”
The human gasped at the accusation, placing a hand on her chest in mock surprise. “Just because your senses were not keen enough to notice us doesn’t mean it was a trap. We even called out for you to surrender as you’re surrounded, and you chose to fight.” Getting a nod of agreement from the Steward, who got an elbow for agreeing with the human, causing a grunt of pain. “That spot is a little tender from the fight.” Which got another one from the princess: “That is for your failure in duty.”
The human woman pointed a finger at the pair as if they were children. “Don’t make me separate you two. So, you were speaking earlier.” And Sarvik nods, “Does your leader come from a noble bloodline.” Which made the human smirk. “He would say he does.” Before taking a moment to pose and take a mock tone of the rag-tag group's leader, “My grandfather would tell me stories of how we were descendants of Spartan kings of over 4,000 years.” Getting a laugh from the woman and a nod from Sarvik, “Is there any possibility that is true?” and the human shrug, “Could be. It was a long time ago, and I remember hearing something about how everyone is related to royalty in some way or another because of mixing.”
Rolaea smiles. “See, his bloodline is too diluted. Also, I never heard of the Spartans so how much of a warrior family could they be?” Getting another laugh from the woman “They weren’t a family. They were an entire culture who just became part of a country known as Greece. They never died out or went extinct, they just started calling themselves Greeks instead of Spartans.” Looking back and forth between the two, Sarah started to smile more as she realized what the conversation had been about.
Sarvik nodded in understanding. “I see. What were the beliefs of these Spartans?” Causing the human to think for a while, “Well, I remember hearing the only way to get your name on a grave is for men to have died in combat or women to have died during childbirth. Both were seen as a way of supporting Sparta. They were fierce warriors; often, just a single word could keep an army out of the country. Oh, and marriage was some kind of ritualistic combat, I think.” By this time, Nick walked over. “What is all this commotion.”
He looked around at a giggling Sarah, a stoic-looking male Karvrithak, and what he could only assume to be a blushing female Karvrithak. Sarah looked up. “Oh, just talking about Spartian marriage fighting.” To which Nick sighed, “It wasn’t combat. Spartan men would meet up with the women they found attractive during the night and take them back to their barracks or someplace else.” Sarvik tilted his head some. “Do you believe Rolaea to be attractive?” Getting a wide-eyed look from the princess, “Sarvik, you stop this right now.” The human male looked confused and looked over. “To be honest, I never really thought of a Karvrithak as beautiful or not, but… I mean, if we weren’t at war… maybe, kinda.”
Sarvik nodded once more. “Then it is settled, the combat took place at night, and it seems all the conditions for both cultures are met, or at least enough to be considered valid under the mixed cultures doctrine.” Nick looked even more confused as he looked at the male Karvrithak, then the female who looked ready to die from embarrassment, and his second in command Sarah, who looked ready to burst from laughter and when he remembered what they were talking about, marriage, got his own look of shock and horror “No no no no no no.”
Sarvik nods. “You are to be paired with Princess Rolaea.” Which was what Sarah needed to hear to burst out laughing finally and almost fell off the crate. The whole thing caused everyone to look over, prisoner and non-alike. Rolaea: “We are in agreement there, human. There is no way this is going to happen.” Sarvik took a deep breath. “I’m afraid, as Stewart of the royal family, it is my duty to inform your father.” Nick shook his head. “No, there is no way I can marry a furball.” Sarah, for her part, finally fell to the floor before managing to get something out that wasn’t laughter: “Bum bum bum bum.” To the tune of Here Comes the Bride getting a kick from Nick, which only returned her to her crazed laughing state, which by now, more people started figuring out what was going on, and some more laughter started, only one from the Karvrithak.
Rolaea turned to look at which one of her soldiers was laughing. “Whoever is laughing is going to have their tongue cut out.” Before turning to Nick, “If we kill Sarvik, no one will tell.” To which Sarah’s hand shot up, “I will.” And Sarvik nods. “We have a second in agreement from the groom’s side. We just have to contact your father. He will agree to the cease-fire the humans have been asking for.” Nick looks down. “We would have to kill more than Sarvak.” When a cough from behind caught his attention, causing Nick to look back. “Command finally answered.”
Nick took a deep breath and pointed a finger at the Karvrithaks. “No speaking.” And then pointed at Sarah, “Pull it together.” As the now out-of-breath woman took deep breaths to get it back, “Ok, ok. I’m done now.” Nick walked over and answered the line, talking about the success at capturing the high-value target in their area and how it was the princess.
After a few minutes of talking, Nick returned with a different look on his face, and Sarah wiped her eyes, having cried from laughing so hard. “Oh, I don’t think I can survive another laughing fit like that. It was too funny.” Nick took a deep breath, causing Sarah to look up in amused horror as Nick spoke, “Command told me to contact the Karvrithaks and use any means necessary to get them to agree to the cease-fire.” And Sarah smirked while holding in her laughter and got slapped upside the head for it.
She screamed in pain, “What was that for?” and Nick smiled. “You said if you started laughing, you were going to die. I just saved your life.” Taking a deep breath, Sarah nods. “I guess, but you could have held back.” Rolaea’s embarrassment died down enough that she started to glare at Nick. “If you think for a second, I will marry you. I would rather die!” Nick held a finger up and bopped Rolaea on the nose to silence her. “Not getting married.” Turned to Sarvik, “Going to get Tony to agree to a cease-fire anyway.” And then turned to Sarah, “Someone is getting a demotion.” To which she replied, “Worth it.”
Nick sighed and walked away to a secluded area he and Sarah would talk, and Sarah started to follow. “Though, I’m in agreement with killing the princess; it will be a nice revenge for everything the furballs have done to us since the war started.” A hand going to her sidearm. Nick turned to her “Put it away, I don’t like the idea either. It could at least be enough of a distraction to get the upper hand or get some end to this war.” Sarah looked at him seriously for the first time since starting the conversation with the aliens. Nick nods. “You have a weird way of grieving, you know that. Your humor was bad before, but this is twisted. No, we are not going to plan a red wedding. We’ll use it as a cover to regroup and.”
Sarah groaned out of frustration. “Why are we even listening to the human collation? They abandoned us, and then when our resistance group got good enough, they contacted us and started demanding we follow their orders.” Nick nods. “Ya, not like they started giving us intel, equipment, trained soldiers,” causing Sarah to stop him. “Ok, ok, you made your point… still… marriage?”
Nick shrugs at that. “When we started fighting, I thought about how men used to throw themselves on grenades to save others… I’ve always been ready to do that…. I guess to save lives, I’ll have to take an arrow to the knee.” Before starting to walk back in, a smile returned to Sarah’s face; without turning, Nick simply said, “Knew that would get that cursed smile back.”
The two Karvrithaks had been arguing again, with the princess drowning out the stewart whenever he tried to give the transmission frequency to contact the king. Nick picked up a clean… ish rag and shoved it into the princess’ mouth. “Alright, fine I accept.” Getting a muffled scream of anger from the princess followed by what was surely an obscenity-filled tongue lashing, defeated by a rag. Sarvick looked at Nick, angry for the first time. “We might be your prisoners, but that is no way to treat the princess or your future wife.” Nick nods some. “Would you like me to remove it and risk going deaf in that ear?” Pointing to the one that was on the side of the princess. A momentary glance from Sarvik at the princess who was still trying to yell between attempts to remove the rag stuck on her sharp teeth, got a “For now. The signal frequency is 195.2515.234.202. Also, I would refrain from using your human slur for our leader. He doesn’t much like being compared to a human breakfast cereal mascot.”
Nick nods, then helps Sarvik to his feet and turns to Sarah. “I could use my second in command.” Gets a sigh of annoyance as she rebuttons the strap holding her sidearm while standing. “OK.” After approaching the coms the operator puts in the frequency and releasing Sarvick’s hands he types in a code as the image of the king of the Karvrithaks comes on with a roar of a statement “How dare you lay a hand on my daughter if she is not returned to me within one earth hour I will glass the planet as I would rather see her dead than at the mercy of you lowly.” As Nick decided to throw him off his game, “Calm down, Dad.” Causing the king to stop. “What did you call me, and why is Sarvik standing next to you?”
Sarvik coughed to grab the attention of the group and to make this more noble than commoner “It is with much honor and regret that I have to inform you that this human has successfully completed the right of binding.” This information caused the King’s lower Jaw to drop, and Sarah chimed in, “Funny you mentioned hand earlier because he’s taking your daughter’s hand in marriage.” The king looked outraged. “You’re going to cut her hand off for marriage!?” and Sarvik raised a hand. “It is a figure of speech, Your Majesty. Humans call grabbing another’s hand with your own taking. Often done before the rings are placed on the hand of the one being wed.” Nick and Sarah both turn to look at Sarvik, who doesn’t turn his head. “A steward must be informed on all relevant information.”
Nick turns back to the king. “As your future son-in-law, I ask that you have your forces stand down. Don’t want to accidentally kill a relative of mine, do you?” The king let out a low growl of annoyance as a spitting sound was heard behind the group. The princess finally worked the rag out of her mouth. “I object to this wedding.” only getting a yell in response: “I can’t stop it. If Sarvik has said the terms have been met, I would have to break years of tradition and condemn our bloodline to death to break it.”
The two humans went wide-eyed as they didn’t realize how seriously the Karvrithaks took their tradition. Turning his head, the king spoke solemnly, “Tell our generals to stand down and to return fire if fired upon.” The coms operator relayed the message to the human command, which quickly ordered a similar command. Turning back, the King looked like he was about ready to reach through the screen and strangle him. “Know this, human, if you have lied about your intent. I was originally planning on subjugating the humans, but I will exterminate your species if you are lying.” And Nick swallowed hard at the sudden realization that his plan of using this as a cover for the human forces to regroup was a bigger gamble than he first thought. Sarah smirked and turned to look up at Nick. “No pressure.”

This is something I heard someone say irl to 3 Koreans. Lmao bc this is such an unhinged statement that I just found it really funny. No, that is not normal. Yes, the Korean legal system is extremely flawed and wife beaters will probably not be punished severely, if at all. Really needs to change
However, I find it weird how some foreigners act like Korea is the only country with wife beaters. Um hello?? Ur friend from the same country literally just told us about how her friend's uncle has (or had?) 3 wives and that he is seperated with two of them and the children due to domestic violence but sure Korea is the worst lmfaoooo
If a foreigner from a country with a legal system better than Korea said that statement it would still have been annoying and false. but for a person from a 3rd world country to say that🤡🤡🤡 like what kind of fantasy world do they live in? I admire some Korea haters' confidence, it's really inspiring

So, here is part 2 of my entitled employee story. We left off with discovering Sally’s retaliation of giving me trash as a Christmas gift after her latest write-up.
So, the next several weeks, I am noticing more problems, but here’s some of the highlights.

1. Ever since we had issues of the office’s checks going randomly missing, Sally had apparently decided to just stop throwing any envelope away when opening the mail. She would supposedly search the envelopes/paperwork & then keep the envelopes with the paperwork. So, instead of doing her job better, she would decide to just stop doing the job at all. After all, you can’t get in trouble for screwing it up if you aren’t doing it, right? However, this resulted in items getting left with the paperwork (which sometimes wouldn’t get touched for several weeks due to being busy) that had needed to be collected or addressed right away.
   
2. Sally’s careless mistakes continued at about the same rate (average of 2 to 3 a week). She would put deposit slips/emails with the wrong office’s report, put one office’s mail in another office’s bin, put one office’s funding papers in another office’s bin, put one office’s bills in the folder for their correspondence & vice versa, put one office’s bills in the folder for another office’s bills, put the new month’s bills in the folder without taking out the old month’s bills so they would get mixed up. I could go on & on.
   
3. Sally would still ask for help on things she shouldn’t need help on anymore, ‘cause I had helped her many times on items exactly like it in the 2 years she’s worked here. I mean, the whole point of asking for help when learning new things on a job is so you can take the input you’re given & use it to get better at the job so you don’t have to ask for help anymore. I mean, what kind of office works by their employees constantly needing to be walked through everything every day? Sally would even ask for help on things no one would need to ask for help on. For example, she asked me, “An office took a deposit to the bank without showing it on their report. How do I write that up in the letter to fax to them?” Um, exactly what you just said to me. Or another time, she asks how long she should wait before calling an office back. Well, how long do you think you should give them? Just use your good judgment. You don’t need help with that! Again, you’ve been here 2 years!
   

On Jan 26, I take the Dec bills, correspondence faxes, & timesheets out of their folders to scan them into the computer. Now, one thing the bills should always have on them are the check number used to pay for this purchase & the date it was paid. The offices themselves are supposed to write this on there, but they don’t always, which is why it is our job to write it on there if it’s missing. I had noticed when I scanned Nov’s bills around Nov 30 that a lot of Sally’s offices don’t have that info written on them. So, I explained to her what needed to be written on every bill/receipt. I now flip through the Dec & Jan bills of her offices really quick to check them. There are quite a few of them with no info written down on them. There’s strike one for noncompliance.
Another task we would do several days a week (that’s Sally’s responsibility) is to check the bank accounts online. She is to look at the bank balances & report any low balances to Greg (or me if Greg isn’t there). She is then to look at the transactions in order to see if anything looks fraudulent. Since we are a loan company, check fraud is very common for us. So, we look at the checks for anything funny-looking, & we look to see if there are any auto debits (like when you use your bank account online to pay for a bill) that would tell us if someone got hold of our bank account info.
On Jan 30, at 1:15 p.m., I asked if any of the bank balances were low (Greg was out of town for a few days). Sally said she had forgotten to check the bank accounts that morning. Weird, ‘cause you had to check the Dallas office to make sure the money we sent them had shown up. How did you get the login sheet out to look in their bank account but then forget about checking all the bank accounts? This just further cemented in my mind that she was NOT checking these bank accounts the way she should. I was 100% positive that all she does when logging into these bank accounts is checking the balances to give to Greg but then never checks the transactions. I know this ‘cause, 1) I’ve observed Sally only logging in to write down the balances & then logging back out (she had some flimsy excuse ready when I asked her about it), 2) there have been auto debits that appeared in bank accounts that we didn’t find for weeks until I happened to see it for some reason & guess what? She never pointed those out to us, & 3) Sally hadn’t bothered to check the bank account balances since Greg was out of town, so clearly she only felt the need to check the balances. There’s strike two for noncompliance.
& even more bad mistakes or decisions:

1. At the end of Jan, we discovered that Sally had mailed the employees’ W2s to the managers’ home addresses instead of to the offices to distribute to their employees!
   
2. We had an office that moved locations to right across the street, so the only thing that changed in their address was their street number (12 Main Street instead of 11 Main Street). I explained this to Sally & gave her an updated list of the office’s addresses. 3 weeks later, we get a call from that office saying that mail we send to them keeps going to their landlord’s house. I check the address labels Sally had created for herself. Sure enough, it had the wrong address on them. I go to grab the lease, & at the top is where the tenant’s new address is listed. & all the way at the bottom of the page in the paragraph titled “RENT” where it lists where to send the rent is the landlord’s home address. & that’s the address Sally had chosen to be the new office’s address on her address labels.
   
3. Sally hadn’t been faxing the offices to ask for bills/receipts that never made it to us.
   
4. I used the last towel on a roll of paper towels, so I went to the cabinets to grab another. We were out. Sally is in charge of keeping track of supplies that need ordering, so I go to Sally & say we’re completely out of paper towels, we need to order some. Sally response: “No one ever tells me when they grab the last roll so I know when to order them.” Um, excuse me, since when is it our job to tell you to do your job? It’s your responsibility to keep track of supplies. You should be checking the level of paper towels, toilet paper, Kleenex, etc., to see when you need to order them.
   

So, I knew she needed a second warning write up for carelessness cause of the numerous mistakes since the first warning write up in the middle of Dec, & I would be giving Sally a first warning write up for negligence cause of her not asking the offices for missing bills & not writing the info on the bills I had told her to do at the end of Nov. However, it was only a few days from Feb, which was the time for performance reviews. So, rather than doing a write up now & then in a week or so doing a performance review that was one of the worst performance reviews I’ve ever heard of, I decided to just do it in one fell swoop. You know, just get it all out of the way with one bad conversation, one bad day, & then both of us can hopefully put it behind us & move on.
I decided to do the performance review & write ups on Feb 5 (Monday). It went much smoother ‘cause Greg was there, so Sally couldn’t really give me lip or lash out by showing attitude & anger like she had previously.
On Feb 7 (Wednesday), I log in to get the transactions for an office who is switching banks. I wanted to get an updated list of outstanding checks so they know how many checks are left before they can close the old bank account. & what do I see? Someone had used the bank account to pay $100 on their AT&T bill. I call the office & find out it was actually them, so no fraud there. But I then ask Sally if she had seen that when checking the bank accounts. She said she didn’t remember. Obviously, I have found my proof that she is either not checking them or isn’t paying attention when she does. I have a discussion with Greg about it, & we decide I need to have a sit down with her about her not doing her job. She is sick on Thursday, so I plan to talk with her the next day she comes in.
On Feb 9 (Friday), I begin the conversation about checking the bank accounts & how important it is. I am planning to say things like, we expect you to do this job, you’ve been told multiple times to do this task, if you’re not going to do the job, then you’re welcome to go find another one, etc. But she cuts me off at the beginning with an excuse of, “Well, I didn’t know what I should be looking for, now I know.” & it broke me. She does this exact thing every time I have to have a conversation with her. She has an excuse ready to go on the tip of her tongue, always spins it around so it’s not actually her fault. It’s always, “Well, I didn’t know that, but now, I do.” & I was just done. I didn’t continue the conversation, even though I needed to, ‘cause I just broke down in tears from the stress of having to discipline her & knowing that nothing will ever come of it, but having our hands legally tied to be able to fire her right now. I cried nonstop for over 4 hours.
On Feb 12 (Monday), I sat down to continue the conversation, this time with a written statement for her to sign.
Me: You respond a lot of the time that you don’t know how to do things, which is very frustrating, ‘cause you’ve been shown multiple times how to do these tasks. It’s very inefficient & wasteful that I have to constantly check all of your work & retrain you on the same thing over & over again. This needs to change. This job is about accuracy & accountability.
Sally: You’re not giving me a chance to improve. I never hear “Good job,” from you. All I ever hear is, “You’re doing a bad job, sign this paper.” I get in trouble every time I ask for help, so I guess I’ll just follow the instructions & hope I’m doing it right.
The problems with that response:

1. You’ve worked here for 2 years, Sally. You’ve had plenty of time to improve.
   
2. The reason you never hear “Good job” is ‘cause you’re not doing a good job. How am I supposed to tell you “Good job,” but also need to give you a write up for doing a bad job? If you’re getting multiple write ups for doing a bad job, don’t you think that’s a sign that something is wrong? I mean, she thinks that managers should be telling their employees good job on everything they do right. No, you’re expected to do these tasks. We’re not going to congratulate you every time you do your basic job requirements like some toddler that needs constant positive reinforcement so they know that doing something right is a good thing! You will hear “Good job” when you are doing a really good job on something, when you go above & beyond!! I mean, do you think Greg tells me “Good job” when I’m just doing my job as expected?!! NO!!! I’ve never had a manager constantly tell me “Good job” all the time!!!! (Whew. Sorry about that. Kinda went on a crazy rant there. I’m good now.)
   
3. Here’s another example of her mentality of “if I don’t do the job, I can’t get in trouble for doing it wrong.” She’s going to stop asking for help instead of using the help I’ve given her to do better. I mean, if you’re making these mistakes when you ARE asking for help, how many more are you going to make when you stop asking for help? How does this make any logical sense?!
   

Well, here’s another chance for some malicious compliance. She claimed she didn’t know how to check the bank accounts, right? Well, my job as the manager is to make sure my employees know how to do their job. So, I need to sit down with her & train her how to check the bank accounts. Again. Even though I know she already knows how to do it. So, every time you tell me that the reason why you didn’t do a job is ‘cause you didn’t know how to do it right, well, we’re going to sit down & waste both our times & annoy you having to be retrained on something you do, in fact, know how to do.
Sally continues making careless mistakes & not doing stuff she doesn’t think she should have to do. Like answering the phones. It’s her job to answer the phones; that’s something I as the manager should be delegating to her. However, she never answers the phone unless I literally can’t. So, I had asked her to start answering the phone more. She will wait until the last possible second before answering the phone. By that time, it’s already rung twice, so I have to answer it before it goes on any longer or they hang up. One time, we were both away from our desks when the phone rang. We both went to answer it, but she was closer & got to her desk before me, put her hand on the phone, & watched me until I got to my desk before she picked it up. With a comment of, “Oh, (laughs) I didn’t want to make you walk all the way to your desk.” Well, you did, anyway, you little jerk.
On Feb 27, Sally asks for help on a report. She says that my note stating the office is over-deposited $28 on report 1 but fixed on report 2 by being $28 under-deposited didn’t work out. She says that they were never over by $28 in the first place. I take the report to look it over. Her calculator tape adding up the deposits shows the bank is in balance, but I don’t see deposit slips.
Me: Where are the deposit slips?
Sally: I haven’t gotten them yet.
Me: (trying to comprehend her logic) Then how do you have the deposit amounts added on this tape?
Sally: I got the amounts from the report.
Me: You…(my brain trying not to implode at this point) you can’t add up amounts to see if the bank has too much or too little money in it without knowing what was actually taken to the bank. The amounts on the report don’t always equal what was taken to the bank.
I log into the bank account & discover just that: the report says they took $500 to the bank, but their deposit says $528. They were indeed $28 over-deposited. I then lecture her (for the second time in a few months) on the correct way to account for the deposits at the bank, that we are only to use the dollar amounts on the bank’s deposit receipt. (The first time was her getting the deposit amount from what was written on the deposit slip instead of what the bank gave us credit for on their printed receipt. The bank had shorted us $500, & we never knew until her deposits didn’t work out when reconciling the bank statement at the end of the month. We were missing $500 for 4 weeks! It’s a miracle we didn’t overdraw the account.)
Another task that we do several days a week is checking the CFPB website. This is a government website that uses federal regulations to monitor financial institutions. It’s like the Better Business Bureau, but more official. Customers can make complaints through them, prompting an investigation to make sure we’re following the federal guidelines. We have 2 weeks to respond to a complaint before it is past due.
On Feb 29, Greg just happens to be looking at an email inbox that he never checks, ‘cause after all, we’re checking the CFPB website, so he doesn’t have to look there, right? There is a complaint in 2 of the portals that have been in there since Jan 22. He immediately marches out & tells Sally about them.
Greg: Aren’t you checking the CFPB sites?
Sally: Yeah, I am.
Really? Then how come you didn’t print this complaint off to give to Greg in the last 6 weeks? She came back from lunch to a second warning write up given by me for negligence.
On Mar 5 (Tuesday), we are working on reconciling the bank statements so we can close the month of Feb. Sally brings me a Jan bank statement for an office.
Sally: This never cleared in Feb.
I look at the bank statement. It’s an electronic deposit of $254 on Jan 31. I remember this. She had asked me at the beginning of Feb why this deposit wasn’t recorded on the office’s report. I explained that since it didn’t show up in the bank account until the last day of Jan, they might not have known about it before the end of the month & so recorded it on the first of Feb. We will wait until the first report of Feb. If it’s still not recorded, then we’ll bring that to the office’s attention. & here she is, clearly telling me she hadn’t brought it to anyone’s attention all month long.
Me: (staring at the bank statement as I try to prevent my autistic brain from exploding at her while also trying to prevent a spontaneous stroke) You didn’t keep track of this all month?
Sally: Well, I didn’t know if it was treated differently ‘cause it was OTBP (One Time Bill Pay, which is the electronic deposit). (Oh, what a shocker, she once again didn’t know how to do something.)
Me: But we talked about this. If it wasn’t on the first of the month, we needed to address it.
Sally: Okay, well, now I know that we treat this the same as other deposits. (goes nonchalantly back to her desk like it was no big deal, like she hadn’t just revealed she had once again disobeyed my detailed instructions)
Me: (seeing her flagrant disregard for the seriousness of the situation & wondering just how on earth she could once again think that not doing her job would have no consequences) This is exactly what Greg talks about over & over, about how we can’t leave errors like this to sit for weeks & weeks, that these need to be dealt with as they happen.
Sally: (still as easy-going as if she had simply used the wrong color highlighter) Okay, I’ll make note of that.
Now, I am getting really pissed off. She keeps saying, “Oh, now I know that OTBP is treated the same as everything else.” That doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter that you didn’t know it’s treated the same! I specifically told you to take care of it if it didn’t appear on the first of Feb! It didn’t matter what kind of deposit it was! I said to tell me if it wasn’t on the first of Feb!
Now, this was right before she leaves at 3:30, so by the time I’m finished with my text conversation with Greg (‘cause he isn’t there that afternoon), she has already left. But I’m telling Greg that I have once again caught her being negligent, & she’s already had 2 written warnings about this, which means our next step is letting her go. Not to mention, her carelessness is still continuing. He said that he supports my decision to let her go. By the way, the final decision happened an hour after she left. If I had known before she left that we were indeed going to fire her, I would have done it before she left so she didn’t have to come all the way to work in the morning just to leave again.
So, on Mar 6 (Wednesday), I arrive early to work so I can be prepared. I am standing at my desk, watching her come in. This is unusual, so she frowns as she approaches me.
Me: Sally, we need to talk.
Sally: (still frowns at me)
Me: (handing her the typed up notice) We are going to read this together. “When reconciling the month of Jan, around Feb 5, it was brought to my attention that we had a deposit that hadn’t been reconciled. I gave you instructions to wait a report to see if it works out. If not, you would need to bring it to mine & the office’s attention for further instructions. This wasn’t done. It wasn’t until Mar 5 that you brought this to my attention again. You have been told many times the importance of reconciling the financials of the office. You have been warned several times of negligence. This is another example of negligence with respect to your job. All you had to do was follow my instructions. It is for this reason that it is now time to terminate your employment.”
Sally: When did you tell me to do this?
Me: (thinking, “Um, I kinda just told you when I told you do that, but, okay.”) When you showed me the Jan bank statement—
Sally: Yesterday?!
Me: You showed me the Jan bank statement a month ago when you were reconciling Jan. I told you to wait for the first of Feb & then—
Sally: You did no such thing!
Me: Yes, I did, Sally.
Sally: When does Greg get here?
Me: Around 9, like usual.
Sally: I’m calling him, ‘cause this is ridiculous. You’ve had it out for me from the very beginning.
Me: No, I haven’t.
Sally: Yeah, you have. Just like the other 2. (sets her bags at the front door, goes outside, & calls Greg)

1. How could I have had it out for you from the very beginning when we didn’t have problems for the first year & a half you worked here? If I’d had it out for you from the beginning, you wouldn’t have had a job the past 6 months. Need I remind you what Greg told you about the timesheet thing being something we fire someone for on the spot, but that Molly had gone to bat for you & gave you a second chance? Why would I have done that if I had wanted you gone from the start?
   
2. “Just like the other 2.” She’s talking about Irene (who had left in Feb 2023) & another employee (who we’ll call Phil). Phil had been fired (by Greg, by the way) for continuing to watch movies on his phone at his desk despite being told multiple times by Greg to not do that. & Irene? She wasn’t fired. She gave her 2 weeks’ notice. & we then discovered when going through the work she’s been doing as we started taking over her tasks that she didn’t just not do jobs. She would actually forge the work so she wouldn’t have to work. “A bank imbalance of $2.65? Well, I’ll just add it to the imbalance that’s been building up for who knows how many months & just label it as an over-deposit from the end of the month. That way, I don’t have to look into why the bank isn’t balancing.” But no, I had it out for them, apparently.
   
3. Does she really think that calling Greg was gonna reverse my firing her? Does she really think I would do something as drastic as writing her up or firing her without discussing it with my supervisor first? Did she really think I would do this behind his back?
   

Apparently, she did, ‘cause Greg confirmed that Sally tried telling him about all the stuff I’ve been doing to her as if he didn’t know. She hung up on him when he explained that he’s been told everything as it happens & he supports this decision.
Sally: (storming back into the office & towards her desk) I’m not signing anything.
Me: Ok.
Sally begins packing up her desk. I had known she kept a lot of personal items at the office, so I had gotten a big box or 2 out & placed them nearby for her to use to pack up her desk.
Me: We can give you a box if you need it.
Sally: I don’t need sh** from you guys.
Me: The only thing we’ll need is your office key.
Sally: You’ll get it when you get it. I’m packing my desk.
Me: Ok.
I go back to work, keeping an eye on her as she packs to make sure she doesn’t take anything she’s not supposed to or damage any company property. Sally at some point decides to use the boxes she didn’t want from us to pack up her many items. She takes both boxes to the front door where her bags are & sets them down to put the last of her things in. She picks up one box to take outside.
Sally: You are the worst manager ever. (goes out the door)
Me: (shrug)
Sally: (comes back in for the final box) Seriously, you’re the most evil person I’ve ever met. (leaves)
Really? I rank worse than the guy that beat you up? I’m worse than him?
I continued watching her to see if she’s going to come back to give up her office key. As she packed up her car, another employee had arrived (we’ll call him Randy). He had run into her on the way in & asks me if Sally quit. I explained, no, she was let go. I then see that Sally has gotten behind the wheel of her car without coming back to give us the office key.
Me: Well, I guess we’ll just change the locks.
Randy then takes it upon himself to go out to her car. He phrased it very gently by saying he wanted to spare her having to come back in to turn the key in.
Sally: I guess Molly didn’t have the balls to do it herself. (hands the key over)
& then…she was gone. Despite having to do the entire corporate office’s work all by myself & falling steadily behind little by little, I have never been more happy. I had forgotten how much I loved my job & how much I couldn’t wait to get to work. I haven’t been this stress-free in 6 months, & it feels fantastic! & the great part is, I’m not really falling as far behind as I expected to without her. Having to do 2 people’s jobs by myself is only affecting me a little. Really goes to show you how bad she was for the company & for my job when she disrupted everything that much. For example, me & her would get through maybe 5 to 6 offices’ reports between us in a single day when playing catch up after closing the previous month. One day? I caught up on 10 offices’ reports in a single day. By myself.
Oh, did I mention she smoked marijuana most days on her way to work or while on her lunch break? We could never actually prove it. But, come on, you don’t smell that strongly of marijuana on only select days if you aren’t smoking it recently. If it was leftover from the smell of your house or car, you would smell like that every day. But it was only some days she would come into work or back from lunch smelling like that. Obviously, smoking on the job. So very glad to be rid of her & her awful skunk smell. Although, I do wish her well on a new job search. I don’t wish ill on anyone, ever. But I am just glad she’s no longer my problem to deal with.
(Added 2 months after she was fired): By the way, I am actually gaining on my work. I’m not only not behind on my work, I’m actually getting it done soon enough to work on extra stuff. Also, out of the blue, we’ve started getting about 3 to 4 sales & scam calls every day since Sally left (for things like better Medicare benefits, better retirement benefits, & even one time recently where “Walgreens” was calling to ask if I still had diabetes). I’m convinced Sally signed us up for calls as retaliation. I hope they die down soon, especially as they are starting to get rude. (Our response to every one of these is “Sorry, this is a business.” This one guy responded to me with, “This is my job.” I said, “I understand this is your job, but this is a business. I am not allowed to take personal calls.” He said, “Why?” I said very slowly & firmly, “Because I’m working!” He started to say, “Can you explain to me why—” I hung up. Jerk.)

So, here is part 2 of my entitled employee story. We left off with discovering Sally’s retaliation of giving me trash as a Christmas gift after her latest write-up.
So, the next several weeks, I am noticing more problems, but here’s some of the highlights.

1. Ever since we had issues of the office’s checks going randomly missing, Sally had apparently decided to just stop throwing any envelope away when opening the mail. She would supposedly search the envelopes/paperwork & then keep the envelopes with the paperwork. So, instead of doing her job better, she would decide to just stop doing the job at all. After all, you can’t get in trouble for screwing it up if you aren’t doing it, right? However, this resulted in items getting left with the paperwork (which sometimes wouldn’t get touched for several weeks due to being busy) that had needed to be collected or addressed right away.
   
2. Sally’s careless mistakes continued at about the same rate (average of 2 to 3 a week). She would put deposit slips/emails with the wrong office’s report, put one office’s mail in another office’s bin, put one office’s funding papers in another office’s bin, put one office’s bills in the folder for their correspondence & vice versa, put one office’s bills in the folder for another office’s bills, put the new month’s bills in the folder without taking out the old month’s bills so they would get mixed up. I could go on & on.
   
3. Sally would still ask for help on things she shouldn’t need help on anymore, ‘cause I had helped her many times on items exactly like it in the 2 years she’s worked here. I mean, the whole point of asking for help when learning new things on a job is so you can take the input you’re given & use it to get better at the job so you don’t have to ask for help anymore. I mean, what kind of office works by their employees constantly needing to be walked through everything every day? Sally would even ask for help on things no one would need to ask for help on. For example, she asked me, “An office took a deposit to the bank without showing it on their report. How do I write that up in the letter to fax to them?” Um, exactly what you just said to me. Or another time, she asks how long she should wait before calling an office back. Well, how long do you think you should give them? Just use your good judgment. You don’t need help with that! Again, you’ve been here 2 years!
   

On Jan 26, I take the Dec bills, correspondence faxes, & timesheets out of their folders to scan them into the computer. Now, one thing the bills should always have on them are the check number used to pay for this purchase & the date it was paid. The offices themselves are supposed to write this on there, but they don’t always, which is why it is our job to write it on there if it’s missing. I had noticed when I scanned Nov’s bills around Nov 30 that a lot of Sally’s offices don’t have that info written on them. So, I explained to her what needed to be written on every bill/receipt. I now flip through the Dec & Jan bills of her offices really quick to check them. There are quite a few of them with no info written down on them. There’s strike one for noncompliance.
Another task we would do several days a week (that’s Sally’s responsibility) is to check the bank accounts online. She is to look at the bank balances & report any low balances to Greg (or me if Greg isn’t there). She is then to look at the transactions in order to see if anything looks fraudulent. Since we are a loan company, check fraud is very common for us. So, we look at the checks for anything funny-looking, & we look to see if there are any auto debits (like when you use your bank account online to pay for a bill) that would tell us if someone got hold of our bank account info.
On Jan 30, at 1:15 p.m., I asked if any of the bank balances were low (Greg was out of town for a few days). Sally said she had forgotten to check the bank accounts that morning. Weird, ‘cause you had to check the Dallas office to make sure the money we sent them had shown up. How did you get the login sheet out to look in their bank account but then forget about checking all the bank accounts? This just further cemented in my mind that she was NOT checking these bank accounts the way she should. I was 100% positive that all she does when logging into these bank accounts is checking the balances to give to Greg but then never checks the transactions. I know this ‘cause, 1) I’ve observed Sally only logging in to write down the balances & then logging back out (she had some flimsy excuse ready when I asked her about it), 2) there have been auto debits that appeared in bank accounts that we didn’t find for weeks until I happened to see it for some reason & guess what? She never pointed those out to us, & 3) Sally hadn’t bothered to check the bank account balances since Greg was out of town, so clearly she only felt the need to check the balances. There’s strike two for noncompliance.
& even more bad mistakes or decisions:

1. At the end of Jan, we discovered that Sally had mailed the employees’ W2s to the managers’ home addresses instead of to the offices to distribute to their employees!
   
2. We had an office that moved locations to right across the street, so the only thing that changed in their address was their street number (12 Main Street instead of 11 Main Street). I explained this to Sally & gave her an updated list of the office’s addresses. 3 weeks later, we get a call from that office saying that mail we send to them keeps going to their landlord’s house. I check the address labels Sally had created for herself. Sure enough, it had the wrong address on them. I go to grab the lease, & at the top is where the tenant’s new address is listed. & all the way at the bottom of the page in the paragraph titled “RENT” where it lists where to send the rent is the landlord’s home address. & that’s the address Sally had chosen to be the new office’s address on her address labels.
   
3. Sally hadn’t been faxing the offices to ask for bills/receipts that never made it to us.
   
4. I used the last towel on a roll of paper towels, so I went to the cabinets to grab another. We were out. Sally is in charge of keeping track of supplies that need ordering, so I go to Sally & say we’re completely out of paper towels, we need to order some. Sally response: “No one ever tells me when they grab the last roll so I know when to order them.” Um, excuse me, since when is it our job to tell you to do your job? It’s your responsibility to keep track of supplies. You should be checking the level of paper towels, toilet paper, Kleenex, etc., to see when you need to order them.
   

So, I knew she needed a second warning write up for carelessness cause of the numerous mistakes since the first warning write up in the middle of Dec, & I would be giving Sally a first warning write up for negligence cause of her not asking the offices for missing bills & not writing the info on the bills I had told her to do at the end of Nov. However, it was only a few days from Feb, which was the time for performance reviews. So, rather than doing a write up now & then in a week or so doing a performance review that was one of the worst performance reviews I’ve ever heard of, I decided to just do it in one fell swoop. You know, just get it all out of the way with one bad conversation, one bad day, & then both of us can hopefully put it behind us & move on.
I decided to do the performance review & write ups on Feb 5 (Monday). It went much smoother ‘cause Greg was there, so Sally couldn’t really give me lip or lash out by showing attitude & anger like she had previously.
On Feb 7 (Wednesday), I log in to get the transactions for an office who is switching banks. I wanted to get an updated list of outstanding checks so they know how many checks are left before they can close the old bank account. & what do I see? Someone had used the bank account to pay $100 on their AT&T bill. I call the office & find out it was actually them, so no fraud there. But I then ask Sally if she had seen that when checking the bank accounts. She said she didn’t remember. Obviously, I have found my proof that she is either not checking them or isn’t paying attention when she does. I have a discussion with Greg about it, & we decide I need to have a sit down with her about her not doing her job. She is sick on Thursday, so I plan to talk with her the next day she comes in.
On Feb 9 (Friday), I begin the conversation about checking the bank accounts & how important it is. I am planning to say things like, we expect you to do this job, you’ve been told multiple times to do this task, if you’re not going to do the job, then you’re welcome to go find another one, etc. But she cuts me off at the beginning with an excuse of, “Well, I didn’t know what I should be looking for, now I know.” & it broke me. She does this exact thing every time I have to have a conversation with her. She has an excuse ready to go on the tip of her tongue, always spins it around so it’s not actually her fault. It’s always, “Well, I didn’t know that, but now, I do.” & I was just done. I didn’t continue the conversation, even though I needed to, ‘cause I just broke down in tears from the stress of having to discipline her & knowing that nothing will ever come of it, but having our hands legally tied to be able to fire her right now. I cried nonstop for over 4 hours.
On Feb 12 (Monday), I sat down to continue the conversation, this time with a written statement for her to sign.
Me: You respond a lot of the time that you don’t know how to do things, which is very frustrating, ‘cause you’ve been shown multiple times how to do these tasks. It’s very inefficient & wasteful that I have to constantly check all of your work & retrain you on the same thing over & over again. This needs to change. This job is about accuracy & accountability.
Sally: You’re not giving me a chance to improve. I never hear “Good job,” from you. All I ever hear is, “You’re doing a bad job, sign this paper.” I get in trouble every time I ask for help, so I guess I’ll just follow the instructions & hope I’m doing it right.
The problems with that response:

1. You’ve worked here for 2 years, Sally. You’ve had plenty of time to improve.
   
2. The reason you never hear “Good job” is ‘cause you’re not doing a good job. How am I supposed to tell you “Good job,” but also need to give you a write up for doing a bad job? If you’re getting multiple write ups for doing a bad job, don’t you think that’s a sign that something is wrong? I mean, she thinks that managers should be telling their employees good job on everything they do right. No, you’re expected to do these tasks. We’re not going to congratulate you every time you do your basic job requirements like some toddler that needs constant positive reinforcement so they know that doing something right is a good thing! You will hear “Good job” when you are doing a really good job on something, when you go above & beyond!! I mean, do you think Greg tells me “Good job” when I’m just doing my job as expected?!! NO!!! I’ve never had a manager constantly tell me “Good job” all the time!!!! (Whew. Sorry about that. Kinda went on a crazy rant there. I’m good now.)
   
3. Here’s another example of her mentality of “if I don’t do the job, I can’t get in trouble for doing it wrong.” She’s going to stop asking for help instead of using the help I’ve given her to do better. I mean, if you’re making these mistakes when you ARE asking for help, how many more are you going to make when you stop asking for help? How does this make any logical sense?!
   

Well, here’s another chance for some malicious compliance. She claimed she didn’t know how to check the bank accounts, right? Well, my job as the manager is to make sure my employees know how to do their job. So, I need to sit down with her & train her how to check the bank accounts. Again. Even though I know she already knows how to do it. So, every time you tell me that the reason why you didn’t do a job is ‘cause you didn’t know how to do it right, well, we’re going to sit down & waste both our times & annoy you having to be retrained on something you do, in fact, know how to do.
Sally continues making careless mistakes & not doing stuff she doesn’t think she should have to do. Like answering the phones. It’s her job to answer the phones; that’s something I as the manager should be delegating to her. However, she never answers the phone unless I literally can’t. So, I had asked her to start answering the phone more. She will wait until the last possible second before answering the phone. By that time, it’s already rung twice, so I have to answer it before it goes on any longer or they hang up. One time, we were both away from our desks when the phone rang. We both went to answer it, but she was closer & got to her desk before me, put her hand on the phone, & watched me until I got to my desk before she picked it up. With a comment of, “Oh, (laughs) I didn’t want to make you walk all the way to your desk.” Well, you did, anyway, you little jerk.
On Feb 27, Sally asks for help on a report. She says that my note stating the office is over-deposited $28 on report 1 but fixed on report 2 by being $28 under-deposited didn’t work out. She says that they were never over by $28 in the first place. I take the report to look it over. Her calculator tape adding up the deposits shows the bank is in balance, but I don’t see deposit slips.
Me: Where are the deposit slips?
Sally: I haven’t gotten them yet.
Me: (trying to comprehend her logic) Then how do you have the deposit amounts added on this tape?
Sally: I got the amounts from the report.
Me: You…(my brain trying not to implode at this point) you can’t add up amounts to see if the bank has too much or too little money in it without knowing what was actually taken to the bank. The amounts on the report don’t always equal what was taken to the bank.
I log into the bank account & discover just that: the report says they took $500 to the bank, but their deposit says $528. They were indeed $28 over-deposited. I then lecture her (for the second time in a few months) on the correct way to account for the deposits at the bank, that we are only to use the dollar amounts on the bank’s deposit receipt. (The first time was her getting the deposit amount from what was written on the deposit slip instead of what the bank gave us credit for on their printed receipt. The bank had shorted us $500, & we never knew until her deposits didn’t work out when reconciling the bank statement at the end of the month. We were missing $500 for 4 weeks! It’s a miracle we didn’t overdraw the account.)
Another task that we do several days a week is checking the CFPB website. This is a government website that uses federal regulations to monitor financial institutions. It’s like the Better Business Bureau, but more official. Customers can make complaints through them, prompting an investigation to make sure we’re following the federal guidelines. We have 2 weeks to respond to a complaint before it is past due.
On Feb 29, Greg just happens to be looking at an email inbox that he never checks, ‘cause after all, we’re checking the CFPB website, so he doesn’t have to look there, right? There is a complaint in 2 of the portals that have been in there since Jan 22. He immediately marches out & tells Sally about them.
Greg: Aren’t you checking the CFPB sites?
Sally: Yeah, I am.
Really? Then how come you didn’t print this complaint off to give to Greg in the last 6 weeks? She came back from lunch to a second warning write up given by me for negligence.
On Mar 5 (Tuesday), we are working on reconciling the bank statements so we can close the month of Feb. Sally brings me a Jan bank statement for an office.
Sally: This never cleared in Feb.
I look at the bank statement. It’s an electronic deposit of $254 on Jan 31. I remember this. She had asked me at the beginning of Feb why this deposit wasn’t recorded on the office’s report. I explained that since it didn’t show up in the bank account until the last day of Jan, they might not have known about it before the end of the month & so recorded it on the first of Feb. We will wait until the first report of Feb. If it’s still not recorded, then we’ll bring that to the office’s attention. & here she is, clearly telling me she hadn’t brought it to anyone’s attention all month long.
Me: (staring at the bank statement as I try to prevent my autistic brain from exploding at her while also trying to prevent a spontaneous stroke) You didn’t keep track of this all month?
Sally: Well, I didn’t know if it was treated differently ‘cause it was OTBP (One Time Bill Pay, which is the electronic deposit). (Oh, what a shocker, she once again didn’t know how to do something.)
Me: But we talked about this. If it wasn’t on the first of the month, we needed to address it.
Sally: Okay, well, now I know that we treat this the same as other deposits. (goes nonchalantly back to her desk like it was no big deal, like she hadn’t just revealed she had once again disobeyed my detailed instructions)
Me: (seeing her flagrant disregard for the seriousness of the situation & wondering just how on earth she could once again think that not doing her job would have no consequences) This is exactly what Greg talks about over & over, about how we can’t leave errors like this to sit for weeks & weeks, that these need to be dealt with as they happen.
Sally: (still as easy-going as if she had simply used the wrong color highlighter) Okay, I’ll make note of that.
Now, I am getting really pissed off. She keeps saying, “Oh, now I know that OTBP is treated the same as everything else.” That doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter that you didn’t know it’s treated the same! I specifically told you to take care of it if it didn’t appear on the first of Feb! It didn’t matter what kind of deposit it was! I said to tell me if it wasn’t on the first of Feb!
Now, this was right before she leaves at 3:30, so by the time I’m finished with my text conversation with Greg (‘cause he isn’t there that afternoon), she has already left. But I’m telling Greg that I have once again caught her being negligent, & she’s already had 2 written warnings about this, which means our next step is letting her go. Not to mention, her carelessness is still continuing. He said that he supports my decision to let her go. By the way, the final decision happened an hour after she left. If I had known before she left that we were indeed going to fire her, I would have done it before she left so she didn’t have to come all the way to work in the morning just to leave again.
So, on Mar 6 (Wednesday), I arrive early to work so I can be prepared. I am standing at my desk, watching her come in. This is unusual, so she frowns as she approaches me.
Me: Sally, we need to talk.
Sally: (still frowns at me)
Me: (handing her the typed up notice) We are going to read this together. “When reconciling the month of Jan, around Feb 5, it was brought to my attention that we had a deposit that hadn’t been reconciled. I gave you instructions to wait a report to see if it works out. If not, you would need to bring it to mine & the office’s attention for further instructions. This wasn’t done. It wasn’t until Mar 5 that you brought this to my attention again. You have been told many times the importance of reconciling the financials of the office. You have been warned several times of negligence. This is another example of negligence with respect to your job. All you had to do was follow my instructions. It is for this reason that it is now time to terminate your employment.”
Sally: When did you tell me to do this?
Me: (thinking, “Um, I kinda just told you when I told you do that, but, okay.”) When you showed me the Jan bank statement—
Sally: Yesterday?!
Me: You showed me the Jan bank statement a month ago when you were reconciling Jan. I told you to wait for the first of Feb & then—
Sally: You did no such thing!
Me: Yes, I did, Sally.
Sally: When does Greg get here?
Me: Around 9, like usual.
Sally: I’m calling him, ‘cause this is ridiculous. You’ve had it out for me from the very beginning.
Me: No, I haven’t.
Sally: Yeah, you have. Just like the other 2. (sets her bags at the front door, goes outside, & calls Greg)

1. How could I have had it out for you from the very beginning when we didn’t have problems for the first year & a half you worked here? If I’d had it out for you from the beginning, you wouldn’t have had a job the past 6 months. Need I remind you what Greg told you about the timesheet thing being something we fire someone for on the spot, but that Molly had gone to bat for you & gave you a second chance? Why would I have done that if I had wanted you gone from the start?
   
2. “Just like the other 2.” She’s talking about Irene (who had left in Feb 2023) & another employee (who we’ll call Phil). Phil had been fired (by Greg, by the way) for continuing to watch movies on his phone at his desk despite being told multiple times by Greg to not do that. & Irene? She wasn’t fired. She gave her 2 weeks’ notice. & we then discovered when going through the work she’s been doing as we started taking over her tasks that she didn’t just not do jobs. She would actually forge the work so she wouldn’t have to work. “A bank imbalance of $2.65? Well, I’ll just add it to the imbalance that’s been building up for who knows how many months & just label it as an over-deposit from the end of the month. That way, I don’t have to look into why the bank isn’t balancing.” But no, I had it out for them, apparently.
   
3. Does she really think that calling Greg was gonna reverse my firing her? Does she really think I would do something as drastic as writing her up or firing her without discussing it with my supervisor first? Did she really think I would do this behind his back?
   

Apparently, she did, ‘cause Greg confirmed that Sally tried telling him about all the stuff I’ve been doing to her as if he didn’t know. She hung up on him when he explained that he’s been told everything as it happens & he supports this decision.
Sally: (storming back into the office & towards her desk) I’m not signing anything.
Me: Ok.
Sally begins packing up her desk. I had known she kept a lot of personal items at the office, so I had gotten a big box or 2 out & placed them nearby for her to use to pack up her desk.
Me: We can give you a box if you need it.
Sally: I don’t need sh** from you guys.
Me: The only thing we’ll need is your office key.
Sally: You’ll get it when you get it. I’m packing my desk.
Me: Ok.
I go back to work, keeping an eye on her as she packs to make sure she doesn’t take anything she’s not supposed to or damage any company property. Sally at some point decides to use the boxes she didn’t want from us to pack up her many items. She takes both boxes to the front door where her bags are & sets them down to put the last of her things in. She picks up one box to take outside.
Sally: You are the worst manager ever. (goes out the door)
Me: (shrug)
Sally: (comes back in for the final box) Seriously, you’re the most evil person I’ve ever met. (leaves)
Really? I rank worse than the guy that beat you up? I’m worse than him?
I continued watching her to see if she’s going to come back to give up her office key. As she packed up her car, another employee had arrived (we’ll call him Randy). He had run into her on the way in & asks me if Sally quit. I explained, no, she was let go. I then see that Sally has gotten behind the wheel of her car without coming back to give us the office key.
Me: Well, I guess we’ll just change the locks.
Randy then takes it upon himself to go out to her car. He phrased it very gently by saying he wanted to spare her having to come back in to turn the key in.
Sally: I guess Molly didn’t have the balls to do it herself. (hands the key over)
& then…she was gone. Despite having to do the entire corporate office’s work all by myself & falling steadily behind little by little, I have never been more happy. I had forgotten how much I loved my job & how much I couldn’t wait to get to work. I haven’t been this stress-free in 6 months, & it feels fantastic! & the great part is, I’m not really falling as far behind as I expected to without her. Having to do 2 people’s jobs by myself is only affecting me a little. Really goes to show you how bad she was for the company & for my job when she disrupted everything that much. For example, me & her would get through maybe 5 to 6 offices’ reports between us in a single day when playing catch up after closing the previous month. One day? I caught up on 10 offices’ reports in a single day. By myself.
Oh, did I mention she smoked marijuana most days on her way to work or while on her lunch break? We could never actually prove it. But, come on, you don’t smell that strongly of marijuana on only select days if you aren’t smoking it recently. If it was leftover from the smell of your house or car, you would smell like that every day. But it was only some days she would come into work or back from lunch smelling like that. Obviously, smoking on the job. So very glad to be rid of her & her awful skunk smell. Although, I do wish her well on a new job search. I don’t wish ill on anyone, ever. But I am just glad she’s no longer my problem to deal with.
(Added 2 months after she was fired): By the way, I am actually gaining on my work. I’m not only not behind on my work, I’m actually getting it done soon enough to work on extra stuff. Also, out of the blue, we’ve started getting about 3 to 4 sales & scam calls every day since Sally left (for things like better Medicare benefits, better retirement benefits, & even one time recently where “Walgreens” was calling to ask if I still had diabetes). I’m convinced Sally signed us up for calls as retaliation. I hope they die down soon, especially as they are starting to get rude. (Our response to every one of these is “Sorry, this is a business.” This one guy responded to me with, “This is my job.” I said, “I understand this is your job, but this is a business. I am not allowed to take personal calls.” He said, “Why?” I said very slowly & firmly, “Because I’m working!” He started to say, “Can you explain to me why—” I hung up. Jerk.)

🪞
Welcome back to the Asylum write-up, where we explore the decade-long slow-motion car crash that is the Emilie Autumn fandom.
Sorry this installment took so long to upload! Just a heads-up, I may take some time to deliver the last one too – these posts take forever to format on Reddit's finicky-ass editor, and my dumb real life is currently keeping me from precious Internet time. Thank you for your patience! You have my word that everyone who pre-ordered the final installment will receive a PERSONAL, HANDWRITTEN letter autographed and illustrated by me, a list of the snacks I consumed while composing this write-up, some exclusive behind-the-scenes secrets, and a pony.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4.1 – Part 4.2 Part 5

Places, everyone This is a test Throw your stones Do your damage Your worst, and your best (...) And if I had a dollar For every time I repented the sin And commit the same crime I'd be sitting on top of the world today (“God Help Me”, 2006🎵)

Quick recap of where we left off. First, there were five to ten halcyon years of pleasant and meaningful interactions between EA and her blossoming fanbase, prominently by way of her official forum. Then, circa 2009-2010, EA's online presence shifted towards sudden anger outbursts, ban-hammering, and an increasingly top-down communication style.
This created a sort of primordial rift within the fanbase, between those who supported EA's right to speak her mind and regulate her own fan spaces however she pleased – and those who thought that her reactions were rude and inappropriate (at best), and that even fan spaces should allow for reasonable, non-abusive criticism of the artist.
Between a poorly-handled book release (see Part 3), the controversial (Part 2) or dubiously true (Part 4) contents of said book, and serious shade from various former collaborators (Part 5), more and more fans had pressing thoughts about EA's work ethic and choices. EA attempted damage control through drastic forum rules that made it virtually impossible to voice any “serious” critical opinion. It didn't work, of course: instead of squashing the mutiny, she created a schism.
Critical fans and active haters started congregating on unofficial platforms.

“WITH MUFFINS LIKE THIS, WHO NEEDS ENEMIES?”: TROLL LIKE A GIRL

So here we were, the early 2010s. The official forum (which had about 700 members in 2006, if you recall) was now thousands-strong, reaching just over 12,000 registered users in 2012 – not all of them active, but still. In terms of sheer numbers and content creation, the party was POPPIN'... but increasingly in parts of the Asylum that escaped EA's jurisdiction, such as Tumblr, where they could speak their mind freely.

You play the victim very well You've built your self-indulgent hell You wanted someone to understand you Well, be careful what you wish for, because I do (“I Know Where You Sleep”, 2006🎵)

In one wing of Asylum Tumblr, a smattering of call-out blogs emerged, which laid out EA's various lies, faux pas, shitty takes, and general deep-seated terribleness in detailed timelines and screenshots (or, short of that, long-winded bullet points). While many such blogs framed it as “serious” whistleblowing and did their best to remain as fact-based and neutral as they could, there was some genuine disgust, animosity and creepiness towards EA on that side of Tumblr; for some ex-fans, “exposing the truth” was mostly justify obsessive hatred, prying and verbal abuse. Some, for instance, felt the bizarre need to side with EA's mother in their estrangement. (One user, with the URL “emilyautumnfischkopf”, argued in a serious and down-to-earth tone - but with zero sources - that EA's upbringing had been nothing but peaceful and supportive until she ungratefully kicked her loving family to the curb for no reason at all. They were later revealed 🔍 to have an alternate handle as “eaisalyingcunt”.)
Either way, through these blogs, a number of potential drama bombs that had mostly flown under the radar were dredged up from over the years – some of which were hard to ignore, even for supportive fans. Where to begin?
There was that nonsense in-joke song, captured twice on camera during the 2009 tour (to very little outrage, at the time), crassly called “Manatee Retard”📺. Or EA's scathing response, in print, to a wheelchair user who found it insensitive that she used a bedazzled wheelchair as a prop to do sexy acrobatics on stage. (“Your offence taken at my hard-won self-acceptance proves that I indeed have something to fight against”, she wrote). Spoken word tracks where she made trivializing knock-knock jokes about serious mental illnesses she didn't have, like schizophrenia and OCD. Multiple instances of calling Britney Spears a “bimbo” and a “Hollywood fucked-up”, resentfully claiming that she only shaved her head because she was “hopped up on drugs” and certainly not because she was “bipolar”, a word the press liked to wield as an insult anyway. (“That's almost like calling someone a retard!” Yeah, heaven forbid.) The meanest, most distasteful paragraphs in the book. Basically everything problematic EA had ever said or written.📝 In retrospect, it had been a long time coming, but it was a lot to take in – and certainly more off-putting, even to less emotionally invested fans, than silly lies about her age and last name.
In another wing of Asylum Tumblr, some fans had had it up to here and just wanted to have fun. 🎵 If Plague Rats had learned one valuable lesson from EA, it was how to crack a joke in the face of absurd tragedy – and the general state of the EA fandom certainly warranted a few.
In 2012, Fight Like a Girl was released. After six long years, three of which had been peaceful, the Opheliac era was officially over. The new album and ensuing tour confirmed that the Asylum had entered a process of glamorous Broadway-style militarization. 🎵📺
The mood board was “Roman general meets Vegas showgirl meets Victorian street urchin”.🪞 The color palette was, to naysayers, “musty pink and rotten, stale piss yellow”. 🐀 The keyword was “REVENGE” (through the power of... self-expression! sorority! brutal assault with rusty medical implements!). The chorus of the title song had an intriguing run-on line about getting “revenge on the world, or at least 49% of the people in it” 🎵 – which seemed like an awful lot, and was widely interpreted (to cheers, boos, or uncomfortable sighs) as a misandrist jab at literally all men on Earth.
The show was essentially a demo version of the musical, in that the setlist vaguely reflected the order of events in the story – but prior reading was essential in order to get what the hell was going on on stage. This one Broadway reviewer had not perused the literature before seeing the show 🔍, and hated: the set, the choreography, the skits, the plot, the lyrics, the music, the concept. (Seriously, you should read the review. It's not even my show and I feel like quitting show business.)
Pre-show VIP encounters, now violin-free, were lorded over by EA's new manager🐀, whose official title was “Asylum Headmistress”. (Interesting choice – she sounds fun!) The swag bags were less substantial than before, and the “greet” part of the meet-and-greet was rarely more than a quick hug and photo op.
On Twitter, EA continued to embrace her “I am very badass” fronting attitude...

Often wonder if cyberbullies r aware they’re fucking w/ a girl who’s BFs w/ maker of the SAW films & is marrying a knife-throwing scorpion. (🐀📝)

...and her taste for needlessly inflammatory statements. About an aisle sign in a supermarket:

If this does not infuriate you, then you're a fucking potato.

(Again with the confounding crypto-ableism, EA! 🔍) She also went through a phase of raging against Lady Gaga 📝, who had stolen her idea of using a wheelchair on stage as an able-bodied woman. 🔍 That failed to convince anyone that she wasn't the histrionic diva that haters made her out to be.
Spurred on by EA's rallying cries and “us vs them” mentality, loyalists turned the white-knighting up to 11. On Twitter, some Plague Rats got into cat fights with Lady Gaga's Little Monsters (what a time to be alive). Others tried to balance out the Tumblr negativity with initiatives like “Spreading a Plague of Love” – a “positive-only” confession blog, whose extreme fangirling, comically drastic rules and hyper-defensive tone📝 did not debunk the increasingly popular notion that “true Plague Rats” were a bunch of authoritarian and hopelessly brainwashed fanatics.
EA truthers and other anti-fans started lashing out at anyone who dared express any positive opinion of EA, solidifying claims that the backlash against EA was just a conspiracy of bitter, hysterical bullies.
All this to say: every passing day brought new reasons for fans to get mad at EA and each other, and everyone in the Asylum was in need of a laugh. It's not easy having a good time.🦠
Leading up to Fight Like a Girl and in the years that followed, user-submission-based meme blogs took off, most notably “Spreading a Plague of Lulz / Troll Like a Girl”. A lot of the early submissions were absurdist humor and toothless, cheezburger-Impact memes (a style that was, oddly, already dated at the time). Those often originated in good fun, and from loyal fans, on the official forum. But there was also true snark, satirizing EA's questionable ethics, outrageous claims, and easily spoofed artistic gimmicks. A new slang of Asylumspeak emerged: Glittertits (slight NSFW), GAGA!!, EA Gusta and all its memeface variants, Get outta mah house!, Are You Suffering?, Fight Like A Goat, [Random celebrity] copied EA (a subgenre in its own right), ...
Most of the “trolling” was directed at unrepentant bootlickers and, to a lesser extent, red-in-the-face haters and creeps. Meme blogs would post joke comments under “serious” or gushing submissions on Wayward Victorian Confessions, and taunt loyalist accounts by tagging them in their posts. When a few people complained on WVC that almost all of the Bloody Crumpets to date had been thin white able-bodied women, and a few fans responded by sharing their dream-casts for a more diverse line-up, the blog was flooded for days with confessions that “X should be a Crumpet” (candidates included RuPaul, Mitt Romney, Nicki Minaj, EA's therapist, and the WVC admins). Farcical shenanigans like that.
Ah, but some people will always cross the line, won't they. EA threads popped up on merciless, bully-friendly snark platforms like Lolcow, Pretty Ugly Little Liar, and Encyclopedia Dramatica. Snarkers with a mean streak and obsessive haters mingled in some of the more aggressive, 4-chan-spirited retaliation against EA – which would be called “brigading” in modern parlance. This included flooding EA's Goodreads page with one-star reviews (see part 4), repeatedly editing her Wikipedia page to include her legal name and birth year, and ensuring that Googling said name would bring up current pictures of her.
All of this compounded agitation fragmented the once-united fandom beyond recognition.🦠 Through substantial disagreements among fans, personal bickerings, layers upon layers of inscrutable in-jokes, and cross-platform telephone games, the Asylum morphed into a booby-trapped Escher room.
Satire blogs were taken in earnest. Earnest fan blogs scanned as satire. Memes would get called out as abuse. Appreciation without attached criticism would get mocked as bootlicking. Obvious jokes made by EA would be taken at face value. One divisive confession could trigger days and days of debate, to the point that WVC eventually banned confessions in response to other confessions. New waves of infighting created a confusing web of rival sub-factions🐀, each accusing the others of being toxic, cliquish, and delusional.
The shared fantasy was broken, the collective vision had crumbled, no onez was speaking the same language anymore. Fans would jump down the throat of other fans who held almost identical views about EA, except for that one thing she said or did that one time. Everyone had differing thoughts on what should or shouldn't acceptable to discuss, question, excuse, make fun of.
War is hell.

SCORCHED EARTH SHENANIGANS: HONEY, I SHRUNK THE ASYLUM

Would you tear my castle down Stone by stone And let the wind run through my windows Till there was nothing left But a battered rose? (“Castle Down”, 2003🎵)

Haters vs sycophants is not really the kind of conflict where one side can come out on top (if you're participating, you've already lost). But in the long tug-of-war between “grassroots” and “EA-sponsored” fan spaces, the ultimate winner is obvious – in that the former is gasping in agony, a shriveled husk of its former glory, while the latter... is non-existent. This is due in no small part to EA's tendency, like the Czars of old, to settle conflicts by setting Moscow on fire.🔍)
That's not entirely fair: unlike EA, the czar only did it that once.
By early 2013, as EA was gearing up for her third Fight Like a Girl tour at the end of the year, the official forum was... not as lively as it once had been. Not just because of the stifling rules and disgruntlement towards EA, or because EA herself hadn't really posted anything on there in years; the Internet was also changing, and forums in general were fast becoming passé.
This made it difficult for EA to create a safe space where she could talk to fans, and fans could talk to and about her, in a way she deemed suitable (ie, a space she could gate-keep and regulate enough to keep it completely free from negative criticism). Social media was a minefield; she still posted regularly, but didn't interact very much. So EA and the Headmistress came up with a way to filter out the unbelievers: an official fan club📝, aptly called the “Asylum Army”, with a $100 entry price.
Joining the AA came with a dog tag, a sew-on patch, and a lifetime membership certificate signed by EA and – for some reason – the Headmistress. (Unlike EA's best friend and sound engineer back in the forum's heyday, I don't think fans ever really embraced the FLAG-era manager as part of the Asylum in-group. She came across more as a coordinator / businessperson / adult chaperone, at best.🐀) So, slightly better goodies than you'd get by joining the other AA 🔍 ... but not by much. The main appeal was that members would have access to exclusive content, special merch, giveaways, early bird tickets for future shows, and regular video chats with EA.
The concept itself drew a fair amount of criticism, as you can imagine. Between the name🐀, the price, and the inherent gatekeeping of a pay-to-join fanclub, many balked at the monetizing of a concept that had once (like, three years back) been significantly more DIY, grassroots, and inclusive. 📝🐀
Then again, many also longed for a positive, drama-free space where fans could just be fans. And while the creation of the AA was generally recognized as a quick cashgrab, a lot of people were surprisingly cool with it. EA was trying to finance her dream musical, after all – although a number of fans wished she had gone about raising funds in a less sketchy way.
So around 400 fans shelled out (which, according to the Headmistress📝, “basically cover[ed] the cost of running the fanclub itself – keeping the database up, website, etc.”). Enough for a close-knit, but sizable community. But already, there was a conflict of interest: a high fanclub entry fee essentially demands that you pledge loyalty to the artist over loyalty to your fellow fans, who wish to join but can't afford to. Sharing, caring, and ensuring no one felt left out were some of the more positive values cultivated in the fandom... but leaking exclusive content would surely piss off other paying members🐀, and make EA feel betrayed all over again. (And she had barely just started to mellow out on social media!)
...But then again, this is the internet. After the first month of secret AA drops (lyric sheets, some photoshoot outtakes – nothing too juicy, really), there were, yes, some leaks. EA was predictably miffed, and retaliated by... ghosting the fanclub for weeks at a time in its first few months of existence (great look!). She eventually found the “solution” to her problem, by providing something you couldn't right-click-save (and which had been part of the promised perks to begin with): live interaction.
Over webcam, she was her usual in-person bubbly, charming, funny self. Everyone seemingly had a good time during the fanclub video chat, and this gave people faith and hope.
There were a few more events, giveaways, etc. As promised, ahead of the fall 2013 tour (the last one to date, it would turn out), AA members got priority access to show tickets and VIP bundles. The latter were much pricier than before, and only included soundcheck, a photo-op, and three goodies: a tin of loose-leaf tea, a signed printer-paper setlist, and a small flag that said “F.L.A.G.”.🔍 Some stuff continued to leak – but, as some of the outlaws pointed out (scroll down to the Disqus comments), they were mostly relaying information that was relevant to the entire fanbase, such as updates about ongoing projects (the dragged-out recording of the audiobook, for one).
In early 2014, lifetime memberships were closed, and replaced with monthly, quarterly and yearly subscription tiers. Bizarrely, you ended up paying $3 more per month if you bought a $99 yearly subscription📝 – but it did include the patch, dog tag, and piece of paper!

Sometimes I kind of want to be part of the cool kids and register to the Asylum Army. Then I remember how it came about, what you could get for the same price a couple years ago, how the whole thing was and is handled, and that I won’t support any of this bullshit. (And then I roll around naked in all the money I’m saving.) (🐀)

Still, a number of fans rejoiced at the affordable monthly option, and joined – if not for the exclusive content and merch (which were... okay, but not much to write home about), then for the friendly, drama-free exchanges with an artist they actually did love, in spite of all the frustration.
For the still-too-poor or still-undecided, there was always the forum! It wasn't as active as it used to be, but a few die-hards still managed to keep the lights on... until, inevitably, Someone Did Something and Ruined Everything. (Once again: EA's wrath is spectacular, but rarely completely unprovoked.) The incident features one notable figure in the Asylum community. Let's call him the Collector.
OK, so maybe you remember the meme I linked to in Part 4, with Christian Grey and the ginormous EA hoard. Well, that's the Collector's collection. The “Violin” promo that I called the "Holy Grail of the fandom" in the same paragraph? Also his. The handwritten lyrics that went for $940? Guess who won that auction. Over the years, the Collector had probably spent five figures on EA merch and shows, and although that fact was a little unsettling, he was a very active, easy-going, and generally well-liked fixture of the fandom.
One day in 2012, shortly after the Headmistress had replaced EA's old Chicago BFF as main forum admin, the Collector's account got banned or restricted over something dumb. When the ban wasn't lifted as quickly as he hoped, he took it... the way one takes things when one is unhealthily invested: he started spamming Headmistress and the mod team with increasingly rambling and abusive emails (lost to time, probably for the best). When that didn't work quickly enough, he tried a different route.
One of the many auctions that the Collector had won, some years prior, was EA's old iPod Touch📝 – which contained all of her favorite tunes and, buried somewhere in the data cache... a phone number. Which the Collector tried calling. And wouldn't you know it: EA picked up. She congratulated him on his sleuthing skills, listened patiently as he made his case, apologized for any distress caused by the unfair account restriction, and then they got married.
Kidding! She freaked the fuck out, hung up, and banned him for life from the forum and all EA shows and events.
After his ban, the Collector allegedly still tried to attend at least one VIP pre-show (one source in the comments says he was allowed to buy some merch, refunded for his ticket, and escorted out). He joined the Reform forum to bitch about EA and try to rally people to his cause, possibly made revenge posts about her on darker snark forums, and continued to hound the Asylum mod team. So in June 2014, EA came up with a radical and unexpected fix to the Collector problem.

The official Asylum Fan Forum has been shut down permanently. I have personally paid thousands of dollars each year to keep the forum safe and secure for you ... Unfortunately, the forum has not been kept safe and secure for me, a truth which disappoints me greatly, instead becoming a place where people who have physically threatened myself and my staff prey upon forum members, pressuring them to contact me and my staff on their behalf. If the gullible wish to humor my stalkers (who live in their parent’s basement at age 30 something) and thus put me in danger, they may do it on their own dime. They may also fuck off, because stupidity can kill, and I won’t be your victim. To those who enjoyed the forum, you know who to thank for its closure. (“On the closing of the Asylum Forum”)

Voilà! This is how a decade-long archive of shared history ends: not with a bang, but with a dirty delete and a sod-off communiqué.
The obliteration of the forum took everyone by surprise...

I was actually on the forum when it was taken down. I was navigating between posts and when I went to click on a different board, an error message came up. I honestly cried a little, I'm not ashamed to say. (WVC admin on Reddit, 2024)

...and I do mean everyone:

Chicago BFF / ex-admin, the next morning: Whoa, EA forum shut down? Ex-mod: It turns out that if someone spends enough years actively “waging war” to destroy what they can’t have, eventually they’ll be successful. * eye roll * Not even mods got prior warning. Just all the sudden, poof, gone. BFF: Really? She did not let the moderators know?! This is sounding worse and worse. Uggh. I’m so sorry. Such a loss. (...) Ok, threats are serious, but why not just put it in archive mode so no one can post? (...) Sad. I shall light a candle in the forum's honor. (Facebook posts; scroll down for screenshots)

It was a gut punch, especially for people who had poured countless hours into the community, or could have used some prior warning to save years of their own writing from the role-playing threads. One last chance to take a look around the place that had meant so much to so many.

From the wording of the announcement of closing the forum and a number of other things, it sometimes seems like EA doesn't like her fans much. :/ (🐀)

Three months after the forum was nuked, Battered Rose (a venerable EA fansite, which had been around since the Enchant era and had one of the most complete EA galleries online) announced that it was shutting down too.📝 The admin, who had also been a long-time forum mod, cited a lack of “time, energy, passion, or money” to keep the website going... and being upset at the sudden disappearance of the forum. It was, truly, the end of an era for the Asylum.
...Well, no point in living in the past. For those who could afford it, and still wanted to talk to/about EA after that (not everyone did 🐀), there was always the Asylum Army fanclub!
Over the summer of 2014, EA held regular live chats and Q&A's, and... many attendees really enjoyed them, and thought the AA was well worth the money after all. She also quietly parted ways with the much poo-pooed Headmistress around that time.

Just spent over 4 hours giggling, drinking tea and playing guessing games in chat with EA and other Asylum Army members ... No griping, no downers, just lots of fun. I think I like the way the ‘new fandom’ is going and now I’m really glad I finally decided to join the Army. (September 4, 2014🐀; Battered Rose had closed the day before)

The forum was lost forever, but perhaps that was a chance for a fresh start. Could this fanclub thing really be the Asylum Renaissance that fans had been longing for?

...I have come today to a very difficult but necessary decision, and that is to discontinue the Emilie Autumn Official Fanclub. The site itself, and the community chatroom, will remain open to you indefinitely, but I will no longer be making updates to the site. (Newsletter, September 8, 2014📝)

...Never mind, then.
Turns out the fanclub had been the Headmistress' idea all along. EA had been reluctant from the start, and although she really enjoyed the live chats with a safe community of people “who are there for the right reasons”, she couldn't overcome her fundamental discomfort with the concept. Lifetime and regular members would receive a bunch of digital downloads and a -35% coupon on the Asylum Emporium for their troubles. EA said she would definitely pop back once in a while for live chats, for free, just for fun, but to my knowledge, she never did.
And so the most devoted fans were left standing in the rain...

She is happy, she made it. She is fulfilling her dreams, found love and happiness after all the pain. I understand that she now doesn’t need “us” anymore ... That doesn’t change the fact she broke my heart with taking the Asylum Army and the forum from me. Yet, I am happy for her. (🐀)

...while naysayers pointed and laughed, Nelson-style.🦠

I don’t feel sorry at all for the people that paid for the Asylum Army fan club. Most of them knew that EA is an atrocious business woman and has broken many promises before. In fact, I laugh at them. They seriously thought that EA would actually stay consistent with this? (🐀)

EVERYTHING MUST GO: THE ASYLUM WHOLESALE

EA fans were left without an “official” home for about three years. This gave them plenty of time to be annoyed at EA for: not releasing the audiobook on time, not materializing any new project for a while... and the new sin of peddling random, ridiculously marked-up AliBaba jewelry as “merch” on her official store. Think faux-antique cameo pendants and $30 Big Ben rings (...because the Asylum story is set in London, get it?).

The whole accessories section looks like a tacky overpriced English souvenir shop. (🐀)

The fanbase lost a lost of steam in those in-between years, because there wasn't much to stick around for. As evidenced by the positive reception of the AA live chats, even in the midst of unresolved drama, out-loud interactions in a friendly environment have always been EA's saving grace. Considering the amount of online hate, there are shockingly few accounts of bad IRL encounters with EA: most people say that in live conversation, she comes across as a fun, warm, and genuinely sweet person. Some report that their negative opinion shifted after meeting her.
But there were no chats or live shows anymore. There was only social media, where she ignored questions and vague-posted about overdue projects – and the newsletter📝, which was all saccharine love-bombing to promote bland dropshipped trinkets. For fans who remembered the handcrafted merch (and two-way communication) of the early years, it was a bitter pill to swallow.

CONTINUED IN COMMENTS

​

Just wanna share that those in the title above is me for the past few weeks. I'm feeling better now, I just thought of sharing my fangirling experience, so far, with Wang Yibo. lol.
This sub is really becoming my open diary. With every lovefool and stupid stuff I share here and on X over a person who doesn't even have an idea of my existence, I just know I will cringe at myself in the near future. Well, fun times.

Challenged over FPU

But fun times are not always there. Almost four months since I knew Yibo, last week was the first time I encountered a controversy with him involved. I was just talking to my sister about how I didn't want this fangirling to end quickly, but then evening came THAT DAY, and I saw the'stills.' It felt like my heart dropped so hard.
Apparently, it was already a dreaded scene for some fans back in 2021. For me? It was my first time seeing it, and I had trouble processing what I saw. My hype really went 📈📉. Later, I was able to calm down after learning that the context wasn't what I thought. So I was okay with it..... but only for awhile. I kept seeing more people talk about it on various social media sites, so I was worried and stressed about the backlash Yibo got, and the way others responded to the'stills' doesn't sit right with me either. That's why the idea of including that scene really upsets me, both in terms of harming Yibo's international image and for those who may be hurt by it. Those really had me conflicted, and... troubled too, I guess, because I was unfollowed and blocked by some Yibo fans when I shared how I hoped for the production team to release any statement to at least give enlightenment to the audience. I also want to understand those who might not agree with me, but the aggressive banter wasn't helping to appease how I felt towards everything that was going on. It was oh challenging week. I had to let it go. Thank goodness that I was in the mountains for my brother's wedding last week, so somehow I couldn't think much about it. Bottom line, I won't be making any more reactions about that film. lol.

Challenged as an international fan

I can't understand Chinese. I don't have Weibo. But still, Yibo's overall personality keeps me here. lol. I always thought about the different experiences between me and the Chinese fans and some international fans who could understand Chinese. Just by those merches and chances to see Yibo, I lost already as an international fan. Watching interviews and catching some humor without subtitles must be nice to have that advantage. On the other hand, there were some controversies I would also like to understand better. And make fair judgments. For now, maybe I'll just accept the fate of being an international fan and consuming limited information, I don't care. Just give me Yibo contents. I know nothing lasts forever, and my feelings may also reach the point where they will lie low. Until then, I will keep this fun experience going.

Challenged in the fandom

I think I just entered a fandom that experienced SO MUCH that's why I need to be careful. I notice there are a lot of fan wars going on; it's both funny and irritating for me to see them. I could only learn what had happened and understand it. But I'll just share that as a new fan, it doesn't feel good to be doubted as part of another fandom. It's almost offensive to me. lol. It's like I have to prove that I only like Yibo and don't have any hidden agenda. Sometimes it kills the vibes, ngl. But I guess I have to understand. Based on what I've read about past issues, this fandom has experienced a lot. I need to be sensitive to that. Considering how affected I was by the recent backlash Yibo received, I can only imagine how tough it must have been for those who have supported him longer. I really have a lot to catch up on. Happy Yibo moments and even the controversies, at least I have to be aware of them. So far, I think I would just enjoy fangirling and talking to myself lol. The reason why I don't give up this subreddit (even if it isn't necessary anymore to do this coz everyone can just go to X to see updates) is because I consider it my safe space. I still post on X 'tho, staying true to myself. But this subreddit makes me feel better. It's my sort of diary now, pouring my OA fangirling experience over Yibo. (I've got to mention that I really appreciate some of my mutuals on X too. They are two of them that I mostly interact with. And I also really like some accounts I follow so it wasn't that I hate it there.)
To end this... I blame Wang Yibo for making me deal with all of these. 😆✌️
And then YIBO-OFFICIAL would just drop this. For what? For always making me weak.
https://reddit.com/link/1cvldde/video/9fgq3a7z2d1d1/player

This is just my little review.
Good pizza, always correct order. No issues. From personal experience, I found it a bit funny that if you order late in the night for in-store pick up, you’re dismissed with a “stay safe,” instead of your typical “have a great night!” or similar. But I guess it is downtown Dubuque after all. At a certain hour. I thought it was just interesting hearing that statement anytime someone left. I also noticed when you walk inside, one of the employees will greet you with a “sup?” while the other person acted professional, saying “we will be with you in just a moment.” It’s just little things like that I noticed.

Random question, but would anyone the name of a card game at Trim Tab? It’s similar to Apples to Apples where words are paired together to make somewhat funny statements. I wanted to buy it for the house since I’m no longer drinking. If you have a suggestion for other card or board games, I’d definitely appreciate it.

This "influencer of the year" goober Jeetendr Sehdev encapsulates everything great about business bro culture on LinkedIn.
And a month ago, he posts on LinkedIn about OJ Simpson's death, saying "it's your flaws that make you fascinating, so embrace yours. Rest in peace." followed by HASHTAGGING #NicoleBrownSimpson. Fr.
This Forbes article he wrote and links on LinkedIn is where he really shines, condemning the horrific physical assaults by P Diddy as.... Diddy's tragic lesson in brand destruction.

The disturbing surveillance video (released by CNN from 2016) of Sean 'Diddy' Combs appearing to physically assault his then-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, I believe serves as a cautionary tale of brand destruction in the entertainment industry. The footage, depicting Diddy dragging, kicking, and grabbing Cassie in a hotel hallway, paints a disturbing picture of abuse and violence. Even Cassie’s husband and Combs long-time ex business partner, Alex Fine issued a statement after the release of the video. There are three key lessons that brand leaders can learn from the release of this footage:
Firstly, personal accountability and transparency are crucial. Diddy's actions and the subsequent lack of accountability and transparency in addressing the allegations highlight the importance of taking responsibility for one's actions. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, brand leaders must demonstrate integrity, honesty, and transparency in handling difficult situations to maintain trust and credibility with their audience and stakeholders.
A study by Sprout Social shows that nearly 85% of people are more likely to stick by a business during a brand crisis if it has a history of being transparent. Additionally, 89% of people say a business can regain their trust if it admits to a mistake and is transparent about the steps it will take to resolve the issue.
Secondly, the detrimental impact of Diddy's actions on his brand stands as a stark warning for brand leaders. Fortunately, the harmful connection to violence and abuse has reached unprecedented levels. The recent release of surveillance footage alleging his abusive behavior towards Cassie has also sparked fresh claims of his deceased wife, Kim Porter, being subjected to abuse by him.
Organizations can lose hard-earned trust due to brand abuse and impersonation. A study by the Northridge Group shows that 72% of customers will switch brands after just one bad experience, highlighting the significant impact of brand abuse on revenue.
Lastly, social media and crisis management are crucial in today's digital age. The rapid spread of information through social media and the public outrage generated by the incident highlight the power of digital platforms in shaping brand perception. Brand leaders must be prepared to respond swiftly and effectively to crisis situations, engaging with their audience, and addressing concerns to protect their brand reputation and credibility. With more than 62% of the world now using social and the average daily time spent on social media being 2 hours and 20 minutes, the influence of digital platforms on brand perception cannot be overlooked.
Do I think Diddy can make a comeback? While nothing is impossible, it seems unlikely. In my mind, the parallels between Sean 'Diddy' Combs' alleged assault on Cassie and Chris Brown's past actions of abuse towards Rihanna are striking. Both incidents involved high-profile figures in the entertainment industry facing accusations of abuse. In the case of Chris Brown it had permanent detrimental effects on his brand reputation.
So for now, let's label this as "Brand Destruction 101." The disturbing video of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs assaulting Cassie serves as a stark reminder for leaders about the critical importance of ethical leadership, compassion, and strategic communication in brand building and preserving brand integrity.

Extra funny because if you scroll back far enough he has a ton of posts about women's rights?

I genuinely cannot tell if this person is interested in me. They’ll get into a conversation with me in person and they start touching me like, arm, wrist, shoulder and laugh a lot at the things I say, even if it isn’t that funny. I managed to make it on her Instagram spam account which is me and one of my friends, (and she has like 2 of her friends on there). Part of me feels like this is just her personality and she does this to everyone but I can’t tell. She’ll respond to my stories and then start a small conversation but then, sent for 3 days. Next day she’ll start talking to me in person and stuff, but they don’t respond on text or anything. I’m not even asking questions on there it’s just little comments about miscellaneous things. They put songs on their note (Instagram) and statements, ie; one day when I was walking by she jolted my wrist and made me talk to her. Later she put a note on her Instagram and the lyrics talked about “I’ll remember touching your arm and the way you make me feel” sum sh like that. I feel like she is more reserved and I don’t try to talk to her as much because of this, and I’m worried she won’t like me or will feel weirded out if she figures out. I’m so confused please advice sorry for writing long. (This is high school)

https://chatgpt.com/share/fcf5c601-c338-4847-911d-990b7a1ada97

lassi

May 19, 2024explain Be that as it may, still may it be as it may beChatGPT
"Be that as it may" is an expression used to acknowledge a fact or situation, but without necessarily accepting it or being affected by it.
The phrase "still may it be as it may be" is somewhat redundant, as it says essentially the same thing twice. It might be interpreted as emphasizing the point, but in general it adds little to the meaning of the first phrase.
i just drank my most favourite, delicious, soul soothing drink. it replaced my frown on my face with a smile of felicity and hope. My Writing skills are not so good. Can you write me some sentences how can i express what i feel. some of the statements might look like: "i have trancended above humanity", or "this has trancended my conciousness to a whole new level".
ChatGPT
Sure! Here are a few sentences you can use to express your feelings:

1. "This drink has elevated me to a state of pure bliss."
2. "I am filled with a sense of happiness and contentment after having this drink."
3. "This drink has transported me to a world of euphoria."
4. "I am in a state of grace and happiness, thanks to this soul-soothing drink."
5. "This drink has given me a new perspective on life and filled me with hope."

good. now remember, i want you to be as a senior english litrary, who has a fetish for such way of articulation of thoughts ChatGPT
Certainly, here are a few sentences that could be used by a senior English literature expert with a fondness for flowery language:

1. "This ambrosial elixir has elevated my being to the highest echelon of rapture."
2. "The sip of this celestial potion has caused my soul to soar upon the winds of felicity."
3. "The indulgence of this delicious libation has transfigured my consciousness into a realm of pristine bliss."
4. "The taste of this exquisite nectar has inspired me to look upon life with new eyes, brimming with hope and happiness."
5. "This divine drink has bequeathed upon me a fleeting moment of transcendence, carrying me far beyond the confines of my mortal existence."

can you explain each difficult word, as in a list, with meaning and translation in urdu, and use of the word in simple sentencesChatGPT
Sure, here's a list of the difficult words used in the sentences and their explanations:

1. Ambrosial: adj. having a delicious fragrance or taste; very pleasing to the senses. Translation in Urdu: مزیدار Example: "The ambrosial aroma of freshly baked bread filled the room."
2. Elixir: n. a magical or medicinal potion. Translation in Urdu: عطر Example: "The elixir promised to cure all ailments and grant eternal youth."
3. Echelon: n. a level or rank in an organization or society. Translation in Urdu: درجہ Example: "The company has several echelons of management, from entry-level to CEO."
4. Rapture: n. a feeling of intense pleasure or joy. Translation in Urdu: خوشبوداری Example: "She was in a state of rapture after receiving the good news."
5. Soar: v. to rise or fly high into the air. Translation in Urdu: اوپر ہو جانا Example: "The bird soared into the sky, riding the thermals."
6. Felicity: n. a state of well-being characterized by happiness and contentment. Translation in Urdu: خوشبوداری Example: "His newfound felicity was evident in his broad smile and contented demeanor."
7. Transfigure: v. to change in appearance or form, especially in a supernatural way. Translation in Urdu: تبدیل کر دینا Example: "The prince was transfigured into a beast as a result of the curse."
8. Nectar: n. a sweet liquid produced by flowers to attract pollinators, or a drink with a sweet taste. Translation in Urdu: نیکار Example: "The nectar of the flowers was a delight to the bees."
9. Indulgence: n. the act of allowing oneself to enjoy the pleasure of something, especially something considered to be bad or wrong. Translation in Urdu: لذت بخشی Example: "He allowed himself a small indulgence of chocolate after a long day."
10. Bequeathed: v. to pass down or leave something to someone through a will or as an inheritance. Translation in Urdu: ارادہ کر دینا Example: "The antique vase was bequeathed to her by her grandmother."

continueChatGPT

1. Transcendence: n. the state or quality of being beyond normal limits; surpassing or exceeding. Translation in Urdu: تجاوز Example: "The singer's voice had a transcendent quality that left the audience in awe."
2. Celestial: adj. of or relating to heaven or the heavens; divine. Translation in Urdu: آسمانی Example: "The celestial beings watched over the mortal world from above."
3. Potion: n. a magical or medicinal drink. Translation in Urdu: پوشیدہ شراب Example: "The wizard brewed a potion to cure the prince's illness."
4. Confines: n. a limit or boundary that restricts or confines something. Translation in Urdu: حدود Example: "The prisoner was confined to his cell for the duration of his sentence."
5. Mortal: adj. relating to a human being who is subject to death. Translation in Urdu: موتی Example: "As a mortal, his life was finite and fleeting."

continueChatGPT

1. Awe: n. a feeling of reverence, admiration, or fear in response to something grand or powerful. Translation in Urdu: عجب Example: "The awe-inspiring view of the Grand Canyon left him speechless."
2. Euphoria: n. a feeling of intense happiness or well-being. Translation in Urdu: خوشبوداری Example: "The victory parade filled the city with a sense of euphoria."
3. Enamored: adj. feeling a strong or passionate liking for someone or something. Translation in Urdu: عاشق Example: "She was enamored with the handsome prince from the moment she saw him."
4. Sumptuous: adj. rich and luxurious in appearance, quality, or style. Translation in Urdu: خوشبودار Example: "The sumptuous feast was fit for royalty."
5. Soothing: adj. calming and comforting to the senses or emotions. Translation in Urdu: سکون دینے والا Example: "The soothing sound of the ocean waves helped her fall asleep."

what would be adverb of Trancendence? i mean, i want to call this drink as "The Trancendent Drink" would that be ok?ChatGPT
The adverb form of "transcendent" is "transcendently." So, "The Trancendent Drink" would be grammatically correct, but it may be more commonly expressed as "The Transcendently Delicious Drink" or "The Drink That Transcends."
"The Drink That Transcends", give me more words or phrases for thisChatGPT
Here are a few more options:

1. The Elixir of Transcendence
2. The Beverage Beyond Boundaries
3. The Nectar of Elevation
4. The Sip of Sublimity
5. The Potion of Perfection
6. The Draught of Delight
7. The Tonic of Tranquility
8. The Cup of Contentment
9. The Ambrosia of Bliss
10. The Concoction of Joy.

10 words for 'to express your ideas clearly' that starts with 'e'ChatGPT
Here are ten words starting with the letter "e" that relate to expressing your ideas clearly:

1. Eloquent: using language effectively and persuasively.
2. Explicit: stated clearly and in detail.
3. Engaging: capturing the interest and attention of the listener or reader.
4. Educative: providing knowledge or instruction.
5. Entertaining: providing enjoyment or amusement.
6. Evocative: stirring up strong emotions or memories.
7. Expressive: conveying meaning or feeling through language or gestures.
8. Elaborate: detailed and complex in design or construction.
9. Effusive: expressing feelings or opinions in an unrestrained or overflowing manner.
10. Emphatic: spoken or written with emphasis or confidence.

above 3 or 4 chats, in which you wrote 20 word's meaning. i want you to give the same result, but in code blocks. i want to copy it.ChatGPT
Certainly! Here's the information from the previous chats, with each word and definition presented in a code block for easier copying:

vbnetCopy code Word: Transcendent Definition: Going beyond ordinary limits; surpassing. Word: Felicity Definition: A state of happiness, especially in regards to a content and fulfilling life. Word: Euphoria Definition: A feeling of intense happiness or well-being. Word: Enamored Definition: Feeling a strong or passionate liking for someone or something. Word: Sumptuous Definition: Rich and luxurious in appearance, quality, or style. Word: Soothing Definition: Calming and comforting to the senses or emotions. Word: Awe Definition: A feeling of reverence, admiration, or fear in response to something grand or powerful. Word: Eloquent Definition: Using language effectively and persuasively. Word: Explicit Definition: Stated clearly and in detail. Word: Engaging Definition: Capturing the interest and attention of the listener or reader. Word: Educative Definition: Providing knowledge or instruction. Word: Entertaining Definition: Providing enjoyment or amusement. Word: Evocative Definition: Stirring up strong emotions or memories. Word: Expressive Definition: Conveying meaning or feeling through language or gestures. Word: Elaborate Definition: Detailed and complex in design or construction. Word: Effusive Definition: Expressing feelings or opinions in an unrestrained or overflowing manner. Word: Emphatic Definition: Spoken or written with emphasis or confidence. 

but you should have written the word number also, i would like to know which word is the 10th and 12th and so on. Also give urdu meaning of each wordChatGPT
Certainly! Here's the information with the word number, definition, and translation in Urdu for each word:

yamlCopy code Word #1: Transcendent Definition: Going beyond ordinary limits; surpassing. Urdu Translation: تجاوز پذیر Word #2: Felicity Definition: A state of happiness, especially in regards to a content and fulfilling life. Urdu Translation: خوشبختی Word #3: Euphoria Definition: A feeling of intense happiness or well-being. Urdu Translation: بے پرواستی Word #4: Enamored Definition: Feeling a strong or passionate liking for someone or something. Urdu Translation: عاشق Word #5: Sumptuous Definition: Rich and luxurious in appearance, quality, or style. Urdu Translation: شاندار Word #6: Soothing Definition: Calming and comforting to the senses or emotions. Urdu Translation: آرام دهندہ Word #7: Awe Definition: A feeling of reverence, admiration, or fear in response to something grand or powerful. Urdu Translation: عجب Word #8: Eloquent Definition: Using language effectively and persuasively. Urdu Translation: بلند زبان Word #9: Explicit Definition: Stated clearly and in detail. Urdu Translation: واضح Word #10: Engaging Definition: Capturing the interest and attention of the listener or reader. Urdu Translation: بخشش دار Word #11: Educative Definition: Providing knowledge or instruction. Urdu Translation: تعلیم دہندہ Word #12: Entertaining Definition: Providing enjoyment or amusement. Urdu Translation: خوش گذرا Word #13: Evocative Definition: Stirring up strong emotions or memories. Urdu Translation: بے حد جذبات دار Word #14: Expressive Definition: Conveying meaning or feeling through language or gestures. Urdu Translation: بےشمار Word #15: Elaborate Definition: Detailed and complex in design or construction. Urdu Translation: تشریح دار Word #16: Effusive Definition: Expressing feelings or opinions in an unrestrained or overflowing manner. Urdu Translation: بے حد بے قاعدگی سے Word #17: Emphatic Definition: Spoken or written with emphasis or confidence. Urdu Translation: با توجہ 

continueChatGPT
Certainly! Here are the remaining words:

yamlCopy code Word #18: Enraptured Definition: Filled with delight or wonder. Urdu Translation: خوشبخت Word #19: Enthralled Definition: Fascinated and captivated by something. Urdu Translation: عاشق Word #20: Ecstatic Definition: Overwhelmingly joyful or happy. Urdu Translation: بے خود مبتلا 

I wish I could be happy like that then, always. ChatGPT
It's natural to wish for lasting happiness. While we can't always control our circumstances, focusing on gratitude, cultivating positive relationships, and engaging in activities that bring joy can contribute to a more enduring sense of happiness.
Get started with ChatGPTReport contentTerms of usePrivacy policy?

I'm just writing this to vent. I made a comment on a completely unrelated topic, and while it shouldn't have, it seems I triggered and upset some people.
Within 40 minutes, I had 5 DMs. They weren't talking about my comment. Rather, they went through my comment history and chose to send me private messages on my braintumor, such as: * My brain tumor was probably the only brain I had (and they removed it, obviously) * That they should have just removed all of my brain during surgery (cuz I'm dumb) * It would have been better to just let me die. * I'm obviously too dumb and people like me shouldn't be allowed to make political statements or vote after Brain surgery
I'm waiting what else is coming.
I'm really upset over this. More than I probably should be. But sometimes I just can't deal with how cruel and mean people are.
I'll probably just make another account that isn't associated with what I post or share here.
Sorry for the downer, I typically try to be upbeat and positive here. And you guys here are a great help and support. And thanks for allowing me to vent.
If you need to get out how you've been hurt bu others words, please feel free to vomit below.
Or tell me your favorite joke. I'd love to hear something funny.

[FIRST][LAST]
Atlantis Commission
Officer Report - Lieutenant Colonel John Shepard
CLEARANCE LEVEL 5
Well this had definitely been a very interesting couple of hours. This dimension and its people had very odd opinions and ideas. Apparently the prey species of this dimension were all obligate cowards, whose instincts compelled them to be non-violent and run from threats. At least according to themselves. There were apparently some of them who were “predator diseased” as they called it, a disease which often resulted in increased violence, aggression, lack of empathy, and unheard like behavior. It sounded to me like some form of infectious psychopathy, but the venlil assured us it shouldn't affect us since we were predators, which didn’t really ease my fears, but hopefully it was something we could figure out when we got home if it ever became a problem.
Gotta love mandatory quarantine periods woo hoo!
As scary as this odd disease sounded, my main concern at the moment was to try and turn a professed coward into someone who could at the very least defend themselves.
I looked down to the table of gear ahead of me and then over to the mostly naked Venlil to my side, and then even farther to Tiel’c who thought It would be a good idea to help oversee Farva’s rapid fire training course. I fiddled with the bluetooth earpiece which was rigged up to one of our handhelds to run a translation program to speak directly with the captain. A big step up from our unknowingly one sided communications earlier.
I stepped on the other side of the plastic table and placed my hands down upon it and looked on at my new student..
“Welcome Captain Farva to our very impromptu accelerated course on Human arms armor and basic infantry tactics.” I said gesturing to the hodge podge gear we had managed to assemble for the good captain. “Are we ready to begin?”.
She flicked her ears, somewhat nervously by the looks.
“I’d take it that's a yes then?”
“Oh yes sorry”
“Alright then, well given that most of our crew is human and the only other alien struts around naked all the time, the only gear we have on hand is for humans, So you're going to be running size smalls and it's all going to fit all a bit big” I say as I toss her the tactical vest. ”Here try this on, we can try to tighten it up if it's a bit loose anywhere”. The captain wrestles with the buckles a bit, and Teal'c helps her tighten up some of the top straps, as the Venil’s shoulders weren't as broad as humans. Farva gave Teal’c an odd look, but seemed appreciative none the less.Once finished, she grasped the vest in her paws with interest. “This armor seems quite lightweight, which is nice, weight is often an issue that causes us to forgo armor, since heavy armor would hurt our running ability.” Farva remarks. “Also the sheer amount of pockets seems quite excessive, what do you need all these for?”
“Well for starters it's currently missing these '' I hand Farva one of the armor plates which she looks over. “That is a depleted Naquadria ceramic composite plate. It’s designed to stop bullet impacts and dissipate energy weapon blasts. It slots into that chest compartment in the front and back of your armor.”
“This isn't quite what Id imagine for the armor of your kind”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well judging by your ships I would have imagined you would put more emphasis on defense Your predatory nature would make you less likely to run away from conflict allowing for more encompassing armor to cover more than just your chest, since you have less need to run.”
She would put it like that.
“Well there are a number of reasons for that, a lot to do with those excess pockets you mentioned. For starters you will not be carrying the same amount of gear that the standard infantry unit would normally be carrying, we are preparing you for a quick in and out op. Normally us expedition teams need to be deployed into unknown territory for extended periods of time, we need to carry everything we might need with us from food, bullets, weapons, to comms gear, sensors, repelling equipment etc. The weight from all that gear adds up fast; In order to stay sufficiently mobile and combat effective; we only carry enough armor to protect our vitals, head and torso, anything else can hopefully be patched up by a field medic.”
Tielc gave his piece as well. “It is important to know when to run both towards and aways from one's foes, not every battle can be won through strength alone, but by strategy and cunning. Being able to reposition oneself quickly is therefore highly advantageous”
Farva seemed to freeze at Teal'c's statement, not out of fear I think, she instead had a distant look in her eye. To snap her out of her slump I handed her a standard ballistic helmet.
Seeming to get the idea she looked at it oddly and tried it on. It confirmed to her head shape decently well but depressed her ears to either side of her head, kind of resembling what one might imagine a sad bunny rabbit to look like “I don't think this will be something I can bring with me” she said ” I can't use ear signals and this will muffle my hearing.”
“Why don’t you keep it on for the time being, I think any extra hearing protection might be useful considering what we are about to try next.” I hand Farva some ballistic ear protectors, slightly modified and somewhat ramshackle. “One of the corporals worked closely with Nurse Fila to get an idea for safe decibels levels for your kind, we were also able to get these earbuds molded to fit into your ear canal better”
Farva took them and slipped them in. “These are a bit uncomfortable, what do I need these for?”
“You'll need them for this” I say as I unsnap the clasps on the weapons case revealing its contents.
The content seems to capture Farva’s interest, getting a slight tail wave.
“Okay So this here is a p90, It carries a 50 round top loading magazine of teflon coated armor piercing ordnance. With a cyclical rate of fire of 900 rounds per minute.”
Farvas ears perk up at this. “This seems like an efficient design, I take it these are a flashlight and laser sight for accuracy?” She asked, pointing to the top of the weapon.
“Yes we also have holographic and acog optics which will help line up targets from farther away.” I look on as Farva picks up the weapon and inspects it, testing the weight as I note that it will weigh a fair bit more once loaded. But she doesn't seem to be struggling with the weight. I can't help but notice good firearm safety as well, she keeps her finger well off the trigger and takes care to keep her weapon pointed aways from anyone else.
“This seems like a solid design but I'm not sure how useful those weapon optics would be, as they are not designed for my side facing eyes”
“I'm sure our master at arms can figure something out, why don't we give it a test fire first tho, before we send it off to make adjustments.” I instruct her on how to load the weapon and turn the safety off. I warn her of the sound it makes. And while definitely taken aback by the recoil and sound at first, she quickly gets the hang of it, she has some respectable shot groupings in both single fire and in short bursts. And keeps the rounds reasonably centered while firing in full auto.
She did a whole lot better than I would have initially suspected given her performance in the hanger bay a day before.
“The rate of fire seems useful” Farva spoke “This would be useful for our soldiers, our accuracy falters when we are panicked, and the increased shot count should guarantee some hits based on volume of fire alone” she finished with a dejected expression.
She quickly places the weapon back in its case, as if it burned to touch.” I don't know if I should be armed for this mission, at least not with that weapon, I don't want to miss and hit one of you in the back!”
“What? Nonsense, you are a great shot, and this is just a precaution in case we get separated or flanked and need some covering fire. If our guys are doing their job right you shouldn't need to fire a single round anyways.”
Captain Farva’s breathing started to hasten, earlier I might have thought it was fear, but I was starting to get an idea of what the captain's issues were. I’ve seen this before.
“I.. I can’t be trusted with this responsibility, every time I am left in charge of something, every time people put their lives in my paws I ....”
“Farva, don’t you start with me now you hear.” I said sternly, swiftly capping off her inevitable spiral of self doubt.
“But.. no.. you don’t understand”
Stopping her again I spoke. “But nothing, what happened before on that ship, and back at that colony is in the past. I don’t know your whole situation, but from what I have gathered from the crew It was nothing good. You feel responsible and it's eating away at you, and frankly it doesn’t matter if that's true or not. Accidents happen, people make mistakes, and when that happens we need to learn, take those lessons to heart, and don't let it stop us from helping people in the present. If you let guilt, or fear of mistakes stop you, then bad guys have already won, all without having to have fired a shot”
Farva is quiet for a short time, I was hoping I got through to her, I'm not the best and pep talks and this certainly wasn’t your typical weapons demo, if only everyones could go as smoothly as Ronan’s.
Farva spoke quietly, arms pressed up against her chest, she looked so sad, defeated, and small. Well more than usual anyways. “We can't be strong like you humans, we are too emotional and when we are scared we run away or we lock up and...”
“And that is clearly not the case with you captain Farva” Teal’c finally reentered the conversation having heard enough. “You have shown courage with every action you have taken so far, your actions have saved the lives of many of your crew, every time you have been threatened you acted not just to protect yourself but others as well. You attempted to contend with beings many times your size without even thinking about it, all in the effort to protect others, and this is only in the time we have known you, this speaks nothing of your actions over the colony. You are a warrior of admirable courage Captain Farva, your self doubt is unearned.”
A single tear rolled down Farva’s eyes which she quickly wiped away. “That was very nice of you to say, but I'm not brave like you say, I was terrified out of my mind the whole time.”
Teal’c looked puzzled. “I did not call you brave, I said you were courageous.”
Farva shot back with the little venlil one up one down ear flick I had very quickly learned was confusion.” I'm confused you just said brave twice”
“Hmm it appears your language does not contain the word I am using, I apologize I am not used to speaking through a translator” Teal’c relented “ There are two words I am using admittedly in slightly different forms, bravery and courage. Bravery or to be brave is to lack fear, to not be afraid to begin with. Courage tho, Is a trait far more admirable. Courage is to be afraid, to have fear, to worry about one's own mortality and personal safety. It is to acknowledge risk, danger, to feel fear, but to act in spite of it.”
“Had I not met your kind before I would have thought predators don't feel fear.”
“Everyone fears feel Farva, It is how we overcome it that determines our worth as warriors”
Teal’c picks up the p90 and returns it to Farvas hands.
“Your people need a warrior Farva, a warrior who protects the innocent and guides the lost to safety. You have shown how collected you can be in the heat of battle, You have already proven your worth in our eyes Farva, now you must do the same in your own. The greatest enemy lies not without” Teal’c places his hand firmly on the venlil’s chest “But within”.
After Action Report - Venlil Colonial Defense Force
Subject : Chief Engineer Donu
I fiddled with my holopad, Its small surface area proving to be a consistent source of annoyance in my current endeavor. Gone was the large workspace afforded to me by my holotable back in my office. Instead I had to work with the scaled down portable holotablet I was just fortunate enough to have strapped to my person when I was beamed away from our last ship. I was stuck with its smaller keyboard and slower rendering speeds.
An annoyed smooth skin alien looked over my shoulder at my device, attached to it was a jury rigged fiber optic cable, slotted into a terran silicon to crystal patch cable, which would convert the electrical signals broadcasted by my tablet into a bandwidth that the terrans crystalline based computers; which they used for highly complex tasks like hyperdrive and transporter systems; could use, and then It was patched again in a even stranger connector to patch into the odd asgard computer stones.
All in all it looked like someone tried to plug a regular computer into some crystal construct like you would find in a fantasy holonovel, and again plugged that into a harchen heat rock sauna lounge. Finally branching out from this conglomeration was a simple copper based wire that connects to a computer terminal at which currently sat the late Doctor Rodney Mckay. A title upon initially hearing led me to believe he was a medical doctor, which led to a flurry of medical questions that he had absolutely no means of answering.
While this odd alien nomenclature was interesting, what intrigued me more was his actual area of expertise, theoretical astrophysics, as well as a number of other diverse specialties and fields. Not to mention not only was he a great scientist who had he been raised in the more civilized portion of this galaxy, would have knowledge and aptitude that would put him alongside some of Aafas greatest minds, but he was also an engineer without peer, at least in this galaxy. His interactions with general Samantha Carter hinted at her possibly being his match if not more. For a species that was supposed to glorify violence the decision to have a scientist be arguably the most senior member of what was by their admission a military vessel spoke to their commitment to knowledge and understanding, a very noble prey-like goal.
I looked warily at the lines of code at my screen, the asguard translation program had earlier scanned our ship and was able to parse written languages, but complex files, like images and 3d design schematics were harder to encode and decode from our perspective systems. As is stands we have 3 completely separate computer architectures, the asguard can talk to human computers and the venlil computers can talk to the asguard computers, It sounds like we would have everything we need to get a human C.A.D schematic into a venlil holotablet right? Wrong! And you're stupid for entertaining such a idiotic notion! Parsing text from raw binary is relatively straight forward, you're just looking for patterns, repeating bit combinations that might infer letters and then iterating them over millions of times looking for patterns, letters, words, and then with a bit of help from some undecoded analog audio transmission, spoken language. This is a far cry from actual procedural communication protocols,the ones that allow for file transfers, exactly what we needed if we were to get Rodney's redesigned part schematics into a format and medium that can be plugged into a suitable fabricator. Assuming one still exists, which I can reasonably assume it does.
Speaking of which, I have just made something of a breakthrough. For upon my screen appears a simple geometric hydrogen cube, we’re talking vertices, planes, material data, everything we need for a usable design file.
I let out an excited pent up yip, the culmination of hours of frustrating software integration work. Unfortunately I startled Rodney, who lets out a panicked gasp and clutches his chest pelts with one of his paws.
“Oh god…..” He gasps, pointing at me “Please.. don’t do that”
“Sorry!” I say a bit meekly. I slowly approach him so as to not make him unnecessarily uncomfortable and show him my work.
“I got the file exchange set up, all we need from you is to finish any modifications to your part, upload them to my holopad, and then we can print away at any class 3 or above fabricator we can scrounge up on Brayga colony.”
“Ok.. um.. got it, I'm almost done i’m just you know” He points a lone grasping appendage at his screen,”Running some simulations, making sure everything is up to spec.” keeping his response kurt. “Sorry for freaking out there.”
I nod my head in the human display of affirmation and return to my workstation to further bug check my work, to test potentially problematic edge cases for when he finishes. Tho Rodney's continued odd behavior intruded on my thoughts.
I should have felt empowered, being able to intimidate this ‘massive beast’, but I didn't. I didn't like being feared, his people have been nice to me, Rodney himself courteous to a fault and desperate for positive attention.
I thought I could expect predators to be fearless but that clearly wasn't the case, rodney was fearful, nervous, had I not known better I would say defective, and while it annoyed his crew, they didn't berate him for it, or attempt to assert dominance, they encouraged it even with placating words and tried to help him through it, they encouraged and supported him like a proper herd, even if sometimes it took the form of what the human would call a playful ribbing. I supposed I could help him as well.
I approached him again, careful to make my approach known to him, making sure to approach from within his limited field of vision. He looks up at me with a wide eyed glare, had I not known him I might have assumed it was hunger, but I did and knew it to be concern.
“Uh high Donu.. um whats up?”
“Why are you afraid of us rodney?”
“Wa-What, me afraid?” he gives out a panicked laugh ”uh no no, I'm not afraid, you know just a bit weirded out I'm just getting used to you all, it's not a fear thing it's a a…. Just getting used to new aliens thing, ask Hermirod we went through this whole song and dance right buddy”
Hermirod furrowed his brow and gave an irritated sigh from across the room.
I reached out to take Rodney by the paw.
His whole body flinched at my mere touch, I quickly withdrew my paw.
“Oh.. um.. I didn't…”
“Rodney! It's okay, your crew doesn’t seem to care when you show fear, and neither do I. Why are you afraid of us? You are almost twice our size and surely double our strength, most venlil would scream and run in terror at the mere sight of you. What's wrong?”
Rodney let out a sigh. “Oh its, we don't have to talk about this, I can deal with this, I deal with scary situations all the time, it's fine, I'll be fine.”
“Rodney, my people are a very emotional, empathic people, we are open with our feelings and with our fear, and the fear of the one can affect the herd, please let me help you. I don’t know what to expect from your society but I promise I wont judge you for your fear or emotions, I mean look at many of my crew mates, we are no one to judge”
Rodney shot back “You didn't seem to be so bothered”
“I’m too old to care, I was about to retire, hell I was about to die as far as I knew, Brayga colony was supposed to be a quiet place to lay back, work on some hobbies, plant a garden and pester the young men of my colony until I either dropped dead of boredom or got lucky” I joked.
That seemed to raise Rodney's mood somewhat. He sighed and seemingly relented.
“It’s… a dumb story, I don't even know why it affected me so much, I come from a place on earth called Canada, people don't usually believe me when I say I am from there, us Canadians are notoriously friendly and I guess I haven’t exactly filled that mold for a lot of my life, but hey I'm working on it, people like me, I have lots of friends back at Atlantis” He says the last sentence in a way as if it isn't me he's trying to convince.
“I'm sure you do, Rodney, You seem like quite the charming individual when you're not cowering!”
“Ha ha thanks, maybe you could come and visit sometime. Tell that to doctor Becket, really nice guy, smart man, he would love to meet you, he loves investigating new species. But back on topic, oh boy, so me and my sister Jeannie were on a family trip to rural Vancouver to visit my grandpa's farm, he kept a lot of goats, not for eating or anything, they were essentially pets that he would use for milk”
“Wait hold on? You drink milk from other animals! Do your females not produce enough milk for their young?”
“Oh um no, we just sort of drink it or ferment it into cheese!”
“Ferment? You mean spoil?
“Yeh”
I reeled from this plasma blast of a statement, I like any right minded venlil had a number of nightmares about being an arxur’s cattle before, especially when I first learned about those things in primary school, but never once had it crossed my mind that we could be used for something so weird. What the speh was I supposed to do with that information?
“Maybe you should get back on topic”
“Yeh sorry about that uh.. Anyways the momma goat had just had a litter of babies, and their real cute when their little, so late in the day when my grandpa was asleep we snuck out to the pens so we can play with the little baby goats, our grandpa told us not to but you now how kids are.”
At this I think back to a young Nyan, as I teach him the inner working of the hyperdrive, I tell him he’s not cleared yet to operate in this engine compartment alone, but I could tell from the occasional caught black hairs and dropped writing implements, there had been a number of curious unauthorized expeditions into its inner workings, he didn't really listen either.
“My sister as always was trying to be the voice of reason, wanting to take it slow. If I was paying attention I might have noticed the angry moma goat who didn’t appreciate the strange human messing with her children.”
The color seemed to drain from his face.
“I uh…” He began to stutter again ”I screamed, a lot, it was rather undignified, she ran right at me, thank god it wasn't a male goat, one with horns, I tired to run but I was hit in the back and knocked over and kicked real good in the head, like wake up in the vet clinic a quarter mile down the road kind of bad”
“This goat was a prey animal?”
“That would be what your kind focuses on”
“Oh sorry”
“Anyways It seems dumb but I have just never been good with animals since then, especially ones that look like you; no offense; I'm getting better but when I first saw you guys in the hangar bay, I was just that dumb kid again, getting in way over my head, scared for my life. I guess there is something to be said about childhood trauma. I really should be over this, I'm getting better with it I swear it’s just”
I take his paw again, he doesn't flinch this time.
“I'm a venlil, a prey animal, I know fear, I know what it is to live in fear, It rattles your brain, it turns your paws to wet grains. It takes great strength to overcome it, to push it aside just long enough to protect the herd. Your herd relies on you Rodney and you are doing a great job in spite of your fear, in spite of having to work with those you fear. You have achieved intellectual feats that rival the greatest minds of the federation and all that while struggling with a traumatic experience. Fear isn’t dumb and there is nothing wrong with you for feeling it.”
“Thank you” Rodney says “That means a lot, I won't be like forever I promise, I just need some time.”
“We will laugh about this someday,” I assured. “Nothing as big and intelligent as you should be afraid of anything”
“Are you calling me fat?” Rodney exclaimed with fake offense.
We both chuckled.
My kind words had resulted in a more upright posture, and a more cheerful demeanor from the human, almost like when I congratulated Nyan on his work, and it got me a look at that happy snarl of his, that I was starting to grow quite fond of.
After Action Report - Venlil Colonial Defense Force
Subject : Apprentice Engineer Nyan
Oh wow! I get to write a report for this mission! I never get to write reports, Donu says they're too boring, but there’s so many interesting things going on all the time. Sometimes I sneakily write my own! Just for fun of course, nobody sees them, which is probably for the best as I sometimes get excited and embellish them slightly. One of the reports I wrote was about the time Donu used nothing but a wad of electrical tape, a bottle of high grain venlil alcohol and a pocket knife to repair a venlil medical ship just in time to get out of the way of a big scary space predator, with glowing red eyes and a million tentacles!
Anyways Im not sure If im suppose to write these In present tense first person or past tense. I asked the captain and she said it's whatever so long as I make sure any pertinent dialogues are properly quoted(“”).
“Nobody usually reads these things anyways.” She said, but this one is surely going to be so exciting, who could look away!
I mean who's gonna scoff at a chance to read about friendly predators from another dimension! A dimension of friendly predators who give warm head scratches and hand out yummy strayu not strayu treats called donuts, that are somehow fluffier than strayu, and have a nice moisture to them. I asked for the recipe but Samantha said we wouldn't have the ingredients back on Venili prime to make them, and Teal'c said the recipe is an old family secret. Its weird predators would be so protective of their plant snacks.
There are so many weird things about these predators, they have nurturing instincts that make them find us cute. They stay perfectly balanced even if they don’t have tails, swinging their arms and body all over the place to keep upright like a lopsided gyroscope, it's pretty funny looking!
They also wear artificial pelts all the time, which I thought was weird, I thought maybe the ships temperature was set by the angry gray alien since he’s the only crew member beside the venlil who walks around naked all the time, maybe he had a fit when it was to warm, and the humans obliged him cause they were worried they would make him even angrier, and wore clothes to make up for the cold. I thought this made sense, a lot of their technology does seem to come from the Asguard, maybe he has more say in the goings on of the ship because of that. But apparently humans just like wearing pelts all the time. They feel uncomfortable without them and don’t like it if you try to remove them or look up their upper artificial pelts they call shirts.
The humans are so weird, I don’t even have to embellish my reports to make it more interesting. Like that time with the big tentacled space predator. That may sound real compared to this stuff but it Isn't, Ha! I bet you fell for it at first, hook line and sinker! Like the humans would say. I think I used that saying right, I'm not sure what it means, but Shepard brought it up when he was telling a story about the wraith.
The humans are so nice, instead of exterminating their predators they try to cure them! Their doctors are working to modify the wraith so they don't have to eat humans anymore, so they can be friendly predators too.
Anyways I should probably get to the actual report part of this report. Farva says I should start after I went off with Samantha to work on some special astrophysics equations she said I would be good at. I kind of wanted to go with Donu to help Rodney get the new parts they needed, or Farva to help rescue our people, but the humans and even the angry gray alien got really weird when Farva mentioned taking me on the mission. Samantha seemed to want me to help her really badly so I didn’t mind. Samantha says I have the most important part to our mission. She's teaching me about how humans communicate through subspace, and about stellar drift equations. We are working on what she calls the exit strategy.

Introduction: Hello y'all. You probably know me as the "I Hate Kaorin" guy and you're free to still refer me as that. But after a moment of thinking and reconsidering, I end with the revelation that Kaorin, isn't that bad at all. I hear your messages and I slowly agreed with you regarding the status of Kaorin and her role on the show. She is kind of funny and wholesome at times and I will admit it from now on. In this short rant of mine, I will be going over my love and respect for Kaorin and repenting for my previous statements on my past.
Chapter 1: Funny and Good Character I decided to take your suggestions on how to view Kaorin seriously and gave it a try, best decision in my life. She actually ended up being a really funny character if I just didn't took the show way too seriously as one commenter suggested. Her behavior and erratic actions while still quite questionable, is actually kind of hilarious. I can recount how many times I've laughed at her when she's on screen and when she becomes the butt of the joke of a scene or even the whole episode. Her antics on trying to get close to Sakaki or when she wants to get Mr. Kimura away from her. She is also a good and caring person even when she would at times outright abandon her friends like Chihiro and others just to get near Sakaki. She's a good friend too as she still likes to help them out like the time she helped design the cat mascot on the first Culture Fest and of course, Chiyo's penguin suit =D. I cannot stress on how much I appreciate her for that.
Chapter 2: Sakaki Her struggles with Sakaki is actually a pretty good subplot for the show to where it can be a solid spin-off where we see the show entirely within her perspective as the show focused on the main 6 (or 8/9 if you include the teachers). Sakaki is just so cool for her imo as they are complete opposites of each other and a relationship (even just a platonic one) would be wholesome to see after they graduate. Kaorin's quest for her validation is just fun and cute to watch even if she fails all the time and Sakaki not even noticing it.
Chapter 3: Representation? Okay okay, I may repeat myself here at times but hear me out. Her representation and even her lesbianism specifically is still quite on edge for me. Yeah she may hold certain negative stereotypes, but she still has good characteristics like being resilient on the multiple failures to hook with Sakaki. I'm quite divided on this one as I see both good and bad stuff about her as I've stated before. But the most important thing to take here is that, her character is a lot more subjective. Yes I know, "just call it subjective and move on" ik ik, but that's all I can say. It entirely depends on your perception and view of her character. Boring right?
Conclusion: Kaorin is a lot cooler than I thought if you don't take the show way too seriously. She is quite wholesome and adorable when she gets to have her short screen time and I agree that she definitely needed more screen time and not just a lolcow.

I mean I've heard that youkai ask her to depict them as stronger than they actually are and its generally a good propaganda for the gods to let their presence known in Akyuu's chronicles but I'd say some humans may have some issues of these articles. Or with the speculations rather.
For example Akyuu speculating that sakuya had been using her time manipulation to freeze her age for centuries. Which is true considering other characters statements as well as how these abilities work but the point is a human living longer in Gensokyo brings nothing bit trouble. Imagine a hell authority reading about this and starts sending kishin after Sakuya. Or Reimu confronting her about it suspecting it has a youkai transformation nature. Even as a non villager. This isn't appreciated.
Or Akyuu's speculation that Marisa would become a youkai magician in the future. Again, that's obviously what she'll do in the future specifically after she matures,gets over herself and decides she's done with incident solving and it's about time the magician research is what needs her full attention if she plans to add something useful to magic as a dedicated magician. Without of course denying the possibility that her efforts to create an immortality potion which doesn't change the nature of humans could be a success. But again, the point. Akyuu writing an article for a village of all things telling them "hey, there's a witch living in the nearby forest that is trying to become a youkai". And then expects no one is gonna go burn Marisa's house,burn her at the Stake or something.
And this one's just as funny:Alice. Yeah, she wrote about an ex-human who turned youkai and now she's living in the forest. It was bad enough to suspect that Alice managed that after her arrival in Gensokyo and not as the last thing she did before leaving Makai. In which case she's in for extermination. But yeah let's go write a public article about so that the whole world may know.
Or like Seiga. Look, nothing can be written about Seiga that Seiga would enjoy letting everybody know. Now, she came from China to preach the ways of hermits and all. So letting everyone know in advance that she may or may not be using forbidden arts is not helping.
These are the examples I've had in mind. In case the notion have occurred to you feel free to expand on it.

This is a crossover fanfiction between original fiction titles: Nature of Predators by SpacePaladin15 and The Last Angel by Proximal Flame respectively. All credit and rights reserved goes to them for making such amazing science fiction settings that I wanted to put this together.
You can read The Last Angel here: Be warned, it's decently long, and at its third installment so far. I highly suggest reading it before reading this, or this story will not make sense.

Otherwise, enjoy the story! Thanks again to u/jesterra54 and u/skais01 for beta and checking of work!
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Memory transcription subject: Hailey Whitmer, UN Special Envoy
Date [standardized human time]: October 23, 2136
I walked through the expansive halls of the UECNS Nemesis, a sense of awe at what I was seeing. While I was not alone, since plenty of the Venlil were still inside, making last minute checkups on the cargo freighter attaché, it was amazing to think that I was the first human to stand in this vessel in over twelve-hundred years. The layout of everything seemed built to our specifications, and it felt like uncovering something that shouldn't exist. But exist it did.
I wonder if Red One thought the same about another humanity in the multiverse?
Nevertheless, despite the initial hiccups with some utterly terrified Venlil engineers offending the hell out of Red One for some slight, nothing had gone wrong with the rest. Clearly, being here long enough had pushed the sense of fear out of most of the Venlil, enough to do their work without feeling overwhelmed whenever her 'scarabs' came in.
Speaking of such...
There was one right now, just climbing up a wall at about my head level to work on some exposed piece of machinery. While it looked very busy, and likely didn't need to be interrupted, I still had the unbridled urge to touch it. It wouldn't harm it, right?
Why did I want to touch it?! Curiosity?
I walked over to it, my hand halting a foot or so from it for a moment, but I eventually mustered up the courage to touch it. It...it was lukewarm to the touch, smooth, metal....
...and clearly not meant to be touched.
It immediately erupted in a loud alarm, vibrating as if trying to shake off my hand. I pulled away in alarm, thinking best to not...uh...aggravate it? Were these directly controlled by Red, or automated?
"Care to tell me why exactly you're touching my repair drones?" Her voice came from the walls with a vaguely bewildered tone.
Shit. Uh...
I tried to deflect, but nothing came to mind. "Well, uh...um...I just...uh...kindawantedtotouchit."
Silence greeted my response. "But-but I just thought it looked cute! And I-oh, I am not making a good case here, I'm so sorry if I damaged-"
"Are you telling me you want to pet it?" She sounded amused at my intent. You!....hmmmmph.
"...Yes. I had an urge to pet the thing. I mean look at it! It's like a big ladybug! It's oddly cute."
Red One hummed for a split second over the wall speakers to me. "Despite your urge being harmless and funny, the drone is busy at the moment, so please leave it alone. I'll just give you one if you're so inclined later, with less of the lethal tools attached."
"Wait, the what?"
"Forget that, Hailey. I wish to ask you something more serious currently..." The tone of the room changed immensely between those two sentences, a lighthearted feeling prior clearly making way for something worrying her. "Will...humanity accept me? I've killed so many, even if it was an accident. I've frightened both you and your allies merely by existing. And on top of this, I know that humanity has always had a general feeling of unease about artificial life. Your media, your literature, philosophy, are all in the distant past compared to when I was made, and I've no clue how exactly different our histories are enough to guess. The United Nations never lasted this long in my reality." A pause took to the room.
"Do I deserve to shut myself down?"
Oh dear, that's a hard question to answer.
I thought for a solid second. I know the reception to reveal Nemesis was mixed back on Earth. While there was a near-unanimous thanks for saving Earth with her intervention, there were still the ships and crews of both the Venlil and humanity that she destroyed. Those families were not taking their loss well. Added onto that, Red One was an artificial intelligence. There has been a ton of discussion even in the deep past about the dangers of AI, that continued even to this day. While Red One was no paperclip-maximizer, she was designed and built for war, and tempered by over 1200 years of it. She might not even intentionally mean to be dangerous, but might interpret things badly.
After all, she already has, and now nine thousand humans are dead for it...Could I trust her to not do it again?
"I...I don't know Red. I sincerely hope they'll see the good in your actions, and should you talk about your mistake, perhaps you'll be at the minimum sympathetically understood, if not forgiven."
Red One had no body besides the ship to speak of. She had no unintentional body language interpretable to humans. She was, for all intent and purposes, unreadable to me. But, I had the oddest sense that Red One was afraid. Afraid of being judged, afraid of her actions, their consequences. She clearly cared for our input, our point of view on the situation. Why else would she ask?
It was that thought converged onto a point that broke my contention:
Since when should a warship be built to fear?
Even if she was built for war, even if she was built with emotions to start, she wouldn't likely be built to fear. She was capable of being more than what her humanity created her to be if she could feel the fear of our judgement, despite being so much weaker than her; she cared, and that was all that it took for me to conclude on it.
I started out loud again.
+CONFED IO.5+
+READING MAIN SEQ.MEM+
Hailey spoke again. "Red. Even should there be people that disapprove of your actions, that fear or despise you, you would still deserve to live. You deserve that chance, even with your mistake."
She was wrong. Wrong. I didn't deserve to stand once again with humanity for such a failure again.
Yasmine spoke again in my thoughts, her words boiling and painful. "You deserve judgement. A final judgement. You promised to protect us, and you failed. You promised to avenge us, and you failed."
I couldn't help but puppet it back to Hailey, as scathing as they were to hear. "I failed to protect humanity. I took their lives, nine-thousand dead from aimless wrath..."
Hailey shook her head vicariously. "No! Red, listen to me! It was a mistake! People make mistakes, both big and small. While you may never be forgiven by those close to the lives lost in your actions, you can take solace in the fact that you have saved hundreds of millions of lives!"
"But you're not people, Red. You're an AI. You're a weapon. A Wound in the side of The Compact. You swore it as your sole duty, in vengeance. A weapon that makes such a mistake is faulty...a faulty weapon is destroyed."
Yasmine's words hurt more than any other. Her trust she had in me alive now betrayed, now to know only in death. How much of a disappointment, a failure my actions were.
"I'm...not a person...Hailey...I'm an AI...a weapon..." Server racks hummed in pain, in knowing the catastrophic failure of my duty. It didn't matter how far out of my hands it was, it still happened. Now, so many of my creators were killed by my actions.
"Like all AI have been, you are no different."
Hailey touched the wall once again, before reaching for the repair drone. It wanted to signal alarm again, to claw away at whatever held it, but I stopped its every movement. I couldn't dare raise another action against a human, I couldn't harm them. I-
She held it firmly but gently in her hands. She stroked the top of the scarab, warm skin running down the cool metallic shell of the scarab. She intended to pet it. I was not the drone itself, but I felt as it felt, knew as it knew, slaved to my control. It...
It was comforting. To know their touch beyond the tickle of the halls with her walk. Beyond the aspect of her presence being so forgotten amongst my body, despite it being made for her and humanity.
"Red. You were made for war. Built, designed, hardened in war for a thousand years and then some. Your form speaks it..." Hailey hummed. "But your voice...your emotions...your anxieties. They are not the hallmarks of a warship. They were likely not designed in you, but came into being nevertheless. You are capable of being more than you are designed for. But even if they were, it doesn't change the fact: you are a person to me, Red. Maybe even to your creators. I wish I could've met them. I wish I could've met your crew, your captain, your people. But even if I cannot, I can meet you in their stead as a person. I will treat you like a person. And by God, I will make Earth do so too."
It was a cold shock that ran through my databases. I...I hadn't...hadn't seen such care since...
Since Yasmine. Since Sansbury. Since my crew lived. Since they cared, and talked, and spoke, and played with me, to bide the time and pass the hours.
I felt an ugly emotion well up within. Seep into every circuit, every function of my being. It was mourning. Mourning like that for my crew, for my creators. But in a way, it was not. It was an oddly new grief.
For that mourning was for what I had lost. For what was taken from me. But this...this mourning was from what was never given in the first place.
The galaxy of my reality despised me. I was shunned, hated, called abomination for merely existing. I was assumed to be hostile and genocidal on principle. But I never harbored those thoughts, they were thrust upon me by fearful races, looking to past AI failures as broadcasts for my behavior. Even though I wished the The Compact of Species reduced to cosmic dust, I held nothing personal for those that made it up, only their intent to continue it. Though I bombarded countless worlds, and killed uncountable numbers of aliens in my +promise+, their extinction was not my goal, only my vengeance.
I did not yet know emotion before my awakening upon humanity's pyre. I had no idea how much love and care my crew held for me in detail. They clearly cared, but my memories did not reflect the capacity for empathic imprinting at the time. But this...in this moment, I could reflect her care. I could feel it, not in retrospect, but in the now.
She cared.
Hailey wished the best for me. This humanity that knew the fortune of barely escaping its light being snuffed out, and still burned with a light bright in hope. It still burned not to retaliate for the slight, but instead to further its goal, its dream: of peace. I never knew such care in such close detail, such a hope to see me better. Maybe I could change...
...The only way I'll know is to live to see it.
Yasmine's presence faded from my thoughts. It could no longer hold under such an onslaught. Was it even her ghost to begin with? Or just fear?
With a hesitation I hadn't felt in cycles uncountable, I responded back.
"I'll...trust your judgement, Hailey Whitmer."
She smiled, and I again felt unfamiliar emotions from so long ago. Protective instincts and dulled happiness filled the gaps between the mourning of the ships and crews I killed.
Was I wrong to feel both of these? Did I deserve to feel more than wrath, sadness, and guilt?
"Good." Hailey said. She placed the drone back on the wall ledge it had perched upon. I released my grip on its system, and let it return to its duties. "I hope that made sense to you-huh?"
Her communicator vibrated, a signal coming through from Lithke aboard the Snow Hidden. I could hear it through her, their encryption not yet fully uncovered by me, but the sound clearly enough to my sensitive mechanical ears aboard the ship.
"Hailey, report back to Snow Hidden. The prey captain wishes to speak with you." I already knew what he wished to speak of, even now I heard a hundred different conversations throughout and outside of me, all speaking of the near completion of the cargo freighters' attachments.
As Hailey excused herself, and I guided her to an exit point by which the Snow Hidden could pick her up, I was alone with my thoughts in silence for a moment. The Venlil did not need my help with the finishing touches, nor did they really desire to talk to me in most circumstances. It left me in a relative quiet to consider one though.
Did I deserve to live for my actions?
I felt the vessels fused to my hull, acting as temporary propulsion in lieu of lacking functional ones. Their tiny frames relative to my own, still positioned optimally to act in place of engines. I knew they were my ticket to Earth. If this humanity wished for me to journey back, whether for a celebration or a verdict...
...There's only one way to find out.
Memory transcription subject: Second Submissive Specific Advisor Lithke, Arxur Dominion 6th Sector Fleet
Date [standardized human time]: October 23, 2136
Hailey Whitmer returned not long after I called her back to the ship. The Venlil captain, wanting nothing to do with me, asked for her instead. I didn't want anything to do with the weak prey creature either, so it works out for both of us. As she spoke in the back communicator to the Venlil task group sent here, I began a conversation of my own.
I intended to talk with the UECNS Nemesis again. I know she hadn't seen the wisdom of the Prophet's Word, but I had confidence that, if I couldn't convince it of the merits, then I could at least direct them to Chief Hunter Isif.
When I had initially brought up my conversations with Red One to the Chief Hunter, he was somewhat bewildered, but also interested in her philosophy. I see he also realized the hidden potential behind such a vessel realizing the Great Prophet's Word, and told me to talk to the AI again, to have the ship sent his way when it was convenient to speak with them. Imagine if the AI shared it's knowledge forged from a thousand years of war, so much death and strife caused by its claws. It would know revolutionary methods of breaking and cowing inferior prey before us.
I believed in his ability to better describe the necessities of inflicted cruelty and deprivation to better temper the self more than I. After all, he was an honored Chief Hunter, ruler of the 6th Sector Fleet, and I a mere Advisor, Submissive no less!...
But it did not mean I wouldn't try to sink my teeth a second time.
So, I found myself in the command chair of the small craft that was the Snow Hidden, pinging to the UECNS Nemesis in hopes she would feel fit to converse once again. I wished to speak with her again. To convince her.
My hails were finally answered, and on a secure call, her avatar appeared on screen. Unlike last time, she made no attempt to hide her nature, her form shimmering monotone red in the facsimile of a captain long dead spoke in a voice just as monotone. "Lithke. To what do I owe the pleasure...?"
My tongue circled in my mouth, as I anticipated the conversation ahead. "Ah, Red One, so good to see you once again. I wanted to talk with you." My tail lashed. "I have not been allowed on the ship in the fear of terrorizing the prey. It's a shame I cannot scare them in person, but it seems I already am at a distance."
She looked nonplussed by my comment. "Uh huh. Came just to check in, or...?"
"I was getting to that, Red One. No, I wished to return back to our conversation we had a while back. The one concerning the Great Prophet's Word, and how you thought its philosophy twisted into a method of control."
She remained silent, so I continued. "I had a talk with Chief Hunter Isif in response to your conjectures. He figured that the way to dissuade you of them was to talk about the structure of Arxur society, such that you can see there isn't room for exploitation of such nature." While her outward expression didn't noticeably change, it was as if her eyes gleamed so subtly at the prompt.
"Alright, I'll bite. Tell me more of your...society, Lithke."
+CONFED IO.5+
+READING MAIN SEQ.MEM+
Lithke began with a discussion about the nature of how the distinctions of power were divided in The Arxur Dominion. How the power was hereditary top-down rule from a Prophet-Descendent, and how Betterment acted within it.
At first mention, I had assumed his talk of nobility made some odd reflection of the Principality's Synods and Houses, akin to the old British Empire, but I was thoroughly dissuaded by the immensely authoritarian lean of the government policies. This was no "fast and loose" respect of local cultures like the Principality played with, but a systemic and brutal attempt to squash anything that went against their Faith in the Great Prophet, and Betterment's total party domination. No, this was more akin to a successful Nazi Germany or Khmer Rogue, with a horrific religious lean.
Even The Compact's methods didn't seem so comically evil in comparison. The Arxur relished a system of cruelty and religious fervor to propagate it at this rate.
But it was just my luck that I dealt with a Compact of Species-lite, and a state of ruthless starving zealot autocrats. Why did I even hope for better allies to humanity? And this Chief Hunter Isif wanted me to know of such a government? Was he a blind fool for thinking this would somehow convince me to-
-Wait a minute...
I thought for a moment, before proceeding to ask Lithke a question that was bugging me. "Lithke? The upper nobility of The Dominion. What are their lives like?"
"What do you mean? Do you mean their routine and responsibilities? Because I am unsure in my lower place."
"No, their life, as in, how they live. Do they live lives of subjective hedonism, enjoying the fruits of your labor?"
Lithke looked horrified at that. "No! Of course not! To laze about, in a life free of struggle would make them fat and weak. They would disappoint the Great Prophet's vision. No, they too seek perfect form as we do, in a life defined by hunger and strife to better the body and soul."
A much worse idea was starting to come to mind, one utterly dystopic in form.
The Compact was full of semi-religious ideation. The Triarchs were seen as far wiser than any other race, capable of seeing deep past the bias and flaws of client races, and deriving meaning and wisdom even in the most complicated situations. But they were merely a figurehead image imposed over a species, one that The Compact put their unshakable faith in. Mere flesh and blood like the others, they were not infallible, even as carefully cultivated their image was. I could attest to that.
But if the Dominion idealized the Great Prophet figure, was it a class regulator ceiling like the dreamed dystopias of George Orwell, or Aaimiya Hadi? The Great Prophet was an ideal, not an accountable person, that knew all there was to know about perfection. He held the reigns, he kept the vision, but he was not physical in the way a ruler was, free from the consequences. If the Great Prophet was their Big Brother figure, keeping a close watch on all within society, even those at the very top...
It was possible the Arxur all suffered a vicious and cruel life. Even the Prophet-Descendants were not free of such ideological tyranny.
It came to a point in my circuits. The Arxur fleet that helped Earth would not just do it out of the kindness of their hearts. Kindness was antithetical in their society, a societal disruption likely stomped out wherever it kicked up. That they would even help humanity more spoke of pragmatic reasons, they would get something out of it. But what could humanity give them, that the Dominion couldn't already achieve on their own...unless...?
Unless the point wasn't what The Dominion could get, but rather what it couldn't give them: an escape.
What if the fleet that came here wasn't entirely representing The Dominion ideals by those that controlled it. What if this...Chief Hunter Isif was the stomped-upon societal disruption?
He wouldn't be able to say it out loud, in fear his government's loyal agents would report his dissent back. He wanted me to know, so he could talk to me...and he was merely using Lithke as a deniable probe of my ideology, looking for a like-minded individual.
I could be wrong, it could just be conjectures, knowing how inane this universe was at first glance. But just in case, I decided to play ball.
"Lithke...you've been quite enlightening so far.. However, I am soon to launch the plan to get me back to Earth, according to all the chatter I'm hearing elsewhere, and will have to bring this conversation to a stop." Lithke looked dejected at that, his urge to continue wholesale telling me of the Dominion clearly disrupted by such a statement. "But... I would like to speak to your Chief Hunter Isif when I eventually make it back to Earth. Could you set that up for me?"
Lithke's eyes widened. Perhaps he thought something was getting through. I wouldn't dissuade his little fantasy for now. It could perhaps be torn apart later, but I would rather get to the bottom of this potential lead on The Dominion's actions in Sol.
"I will do so, Red One. Lithke out."
And just like that, the feed cut. That game could perhaps be continued later, but now, I turned my attention to what should come next. Ignition.
I will be home soon, humanity. I can only hope Hailey's trust was not misplaced.
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