Hi everyone, I’ve run into a bit of an issue with an order and could use advice on how best to handle it. I ordered a piece of hardware for my dog’s collar on April 9, with an original delivery somewhere between April 18th-25th (scheduled delivery has now changed, I’m not sure where to find the original quoted date so I’m basing it on the sellers current shop turnaround time). It’s a small item, but is custom made, and I understand delays. Life happens. By May 4th, there was still no update on the progress. I contacted the seller, who explained that he had been away due to a loved one passing, and apologized for the delay. He said he was catching up now, which I totally understand and expressed this. On May 9th, I was excited when the progress was updated with a tracking number. Unfortunately, since then, it has not changed. It still says label created, USPS awaiting item. Having just lost a very close family member, I fully and completely understand the delay. It did throw me off when I saw his shop is still open and accepting orders, though. It’s now May 19th, and I’m wondering what the appropriate next step is? Thanks so much for any advice!

I'm posting this to a few bpd communities to try to reach more people with different perspectives. If you're active in other communities and have seen this post recently I apologize!
I'm a good person. I know that. I love people with my whole heart. But my behaviors (or at least motivation behind behaviors) have not always shown that, even if they were disguised as "good". Something that has helped me A LOT lately is thinking "am I doing this act to help someone, or to make myself look good." The statement varies slightly according to the situation of course, but honestly it has helped stop many attention seeking behaviors. This has helped me modify and adjust how I react to situations.
For example, I daydream every night before bed about me or characters from a show being either a victim or a hero. One or the other (thanks black and white thinking). Basically I write fanfiction in my head. It usually contains dark subjects like SA, abuse, death, etc. When I first started giving myself time to daydream before bed I noticed a decrease in attention seeking behaviors in real life, however as the years went on I started to convince myself that those things I was purposely dreaming of were ok to do irl if given the possibility. Anyway what caused this revelation is that my favorite resident at a SNF I work for is in the hospital with an unclear fate. In my daydream time about a week ago I imagined different scenarios and played through them. Doing this led to me really thinking about why I do things. One of the scenarios I had to run through of course was "what happens if the resident passes." So I imagined myself at her funeral and her family member asked if anyone else wanted to speak. So I did. But as I was dreaming about what I would say "...when you see someone everyday for two and a half years you get to love them. She watched me grow up and gave me some of the best advice one could ask for..." I realized I was thinking about the family feeling sorry for me. I saw her daughter looking at me thinking "oh that poor person loved my mom so much, they must be hurting a lot." This made me snap open my eyes and look at the ceiling. I realized i was imagining my favorite resident's funeral (i usually try to picture future scenarios in my daydreaming time to prepare because it soothes anxiety, i don't plan to stop fully but at least be more conscious of my actions to those scenarios in my dreams) and picturing her FAMILY, feeling sorry for ME.
Ever since I had that dream about a week ago it has completely changed my perspective of how I go about things and I hope I keep this in mind. Humans are inherently selfish. Every action we do have some form of self satisfaction to it. Even something as simple as tying your shoe laces so you don’t fall, is motivated by a level of selfishness. That is normal. However, I want to make sure I do things for the right reasons even if the outcome of the deed wouldn't change. If I volunteer l to help someone with a task is it because there are other people in the room watching me and I want to look good? Is it because I want this person to like me and think I'm a good person? Or, is it because humans deserve help and kindness and if I have the (mental, physical, financial) capacity to do so I WANT to help someone just to make their lives easier.
Like I stated earlier, it is very human to have to think of yourself in others shoes to be empathetic in most situations, I mean that's what the golden rule is (for example, I don't want to see people in pain because I know what pain feels like, therefore I do my best to prevent and reduce pain in others)! But in my experience people with bpd tend to have a little extra motivation: how we are perceived to others as "good" to prevent abandonment, or for validation/attention seeking that we feel we deserve and honestly sometimes NEED. As basic as it sounds I'm trying to be more aware of my motivation behind my actions. Who new it would take 7 years of CBT and 1 year of DBT to get to this point. I feel kind of silly honestly.
I am a self aware person, however that often made my attention seeking behaviors worse. This made my behaviors worse because I would rationalize them as "well I'm communicating to people what my needs are, therefore if they don't react appropriately they are at fault. If I'm genuinely suicidal and I let my friends know then they should shower me with love and concern. Even if I've been genuinely suicidal over many 'little' things that they now think it's a boy who cried wolf situation. I've identified my feelings (which really are real, just because they seem dramatic doesn't mean im not feeling them, so me it's so intense and real, to them it's purely for attention) and communicated so I must be doing things right." Now I realize that crying to my coworkers while they are trying to work is not acceptable because they are acquaintances and we are at work. Another thing that has caused me to have trouble identifying what is or isn't okay is understanding that just because I would drop everything to comfort a random coworkeacquaintance at work does not mean everyone else is comfortable, has the emotional capacity, feels safe, or feels motivated, to do the same. In my mind everyone takes the golden rule (treat others the way you want to be treated) so literally. It's why I'm seen as clingy and can't often tell the difference between romantic, platonic, acquaintance relationships. Because I dont care if we met a week ago if I like you and you seem to like my you're my friend in my mind and I got your back.
So yeah I just wanted to share/rant lol. Do you guys, gals, and nonbinary pals have any recommendations for how to deal with needing to be listened to or almost "coddled" sometimes? For me it was the daydreaming that I use for my anxiety but I'm not sure if that's the healthiest for me anymore. It definitely helped for a long time, but I think some change would do me some good. Let me know your techniques and coping skills you use when you find yourself in a similar position!

Last year my wife suggested opening the marriage for the duration of February, the month that I went to a surgery in my home country, I first rejected as it's not my thing and after she said that was what she wanted I ended up accepting (maybe for fear of loosing her), and I put some rules on place.
1 can't be someone around us 2 can be at our house 3 can't repeat 4 we would never talk about what happened.
First week off the month I did had a chance of having Sex with someone else and I just didn't want to, didn't feel like doing that, and that same week she had friends that came over so she didn't do anything...
On second week about 2 days before my surgery she told me that her friend from work had friends over his house and she offered our house for him to stay. (I didn't like that, but didn't say anything to not sound jealous)
On my surgery day 10 of February this guy comes to my house, after my surgery we messaged each other and she mentioned he was in my house with her and said me to not worry about and I said her I wasn't worried saying "I trust you blindly" not to mention I was full of morphine and pain killers going through a lot of pain, so, that wasn't something I was worried about.
11 of February, I go to my parents house and after a day where everything went wrong I broke down and started to message her telling that I don't want to keep the agreement, that is not something I want, that I'm happy with her and I don't want to be with anyone else and she got kinda of angry about all that conversation telling me that she does not see her having Sex with only one person for the rest of her life and now that I don't let her anything she can't do what she wants and when I come back home we talk about that, and I explained her that I accept that because I was afraid of losing her, to be complacent and things like that.
During this conversation I'm asking her for stop the agreement they kissed each other.
After the kiss she got a bit shocked and went to our room alone.
Next day I woke up and because I was afraid, I apologize her about last night conversation and told her we could keep the marriage opened as she wanted, but I added a new rule, that was I wanted to know everything she did, she gets in to angry like texting saying she's confused about me blocking the agreement, unblocking it again, but adding more rules... I told her that was my right and she had the obligation of telling me, she said that makes no sense because we both know that I wouldn't handle that well, so she wouldn't do anything and I said that was my right , if I could not handle we break up or whatever, she ends this afternoon conversation saying she does not want to talk about that.
On that same night she went to a disco with friends and coworkers, she came back and bring this same friend home and they start to have Sex in the sofa and end in the guest room.
Somewhere around the end of February we had a phone call where she brings up this subject again and we had an argument about she saying that telling me about the adventures was an absurd and after few justification from my side I get angry and tell her to do whatever she wants and don't tell me anything because I didn't care anymore and when I get back home we talk about the future of our relationship.
Few days later on 23 February she went to a company dinner and they all end up in the disco, she came back home alone because the friends stayed on the street close to my home, she sent me a text message saying she got home and give me good night, after that she rang this guy and ask him to come to our house, they stayed in the sofa talking and touching each other until fall asleep, few hours later they wake up and went to the room for have sex again, after that she text me as usual.
After that I came back to our home and our relationship was desgracefull for about 1 month, she didn't want to have sex with me at all, when we can handle this situation anymore I open the conversation about divorce and after I stated to cry a lot and she suggests us to give another chance.
After that our relationship went up very fast and stayed in a level that we never experienced before.
Few months later she brings me to meet friends and introduce me to this friend who she had sex with, it's a very friendly and handsome guy and him and I spoke quite a lot only 2 of us.
After that my wife and I went out 2 more times where this guy was present.
Middle August she went to his house once for bbq with all friends from work in a day that I was working, at this time this guy is starting a relationship with another woman from work.
End of September after I had my gallbladder removed and was recovering she invited me to go with her to his house for a BBQ, this guy gave me a hand shake so long looking deeply in to my eyes that I felt very uncomfortable with, so much that I never forgot.
After that bbq things started to get complicated in their friendship as they have a lot of values differences and she is the manager and had to report him, they ended up meeting in a pub for "break up" their friendship.
End of November we decide go for a baby.
End of December this guy leave the company and we get to know she's pregnant.
3 weeks ago I involuntarily made few connections in my head and confronted her about what happened between them in February and she confess to me everything.
Now I'm struggling a lot to deal with all this.
she asked for open the marriage, against my heart I accepted and not satisfied with that she broke all the rules except the "no disclosure one" (the only one that was convenient to her).
In the same day I basically begged to stop all this story was the day she did something while telling me she wasn't going to do anything.
Next day she reaffirmed that she wasn't going to do anything and she had sex few hours later.
She introduced me to him, she brought me to his house.
She was going to keep this hidden from me forever.
I feel like the way she behaved was quite cruel.
She is in a tremendous pain seeing my suffering.
She told me she experienced that in a different way as didn't remember the rules, so she accepts the blame but doesn't see that she cheated on me
I love her a lot
After all this we improved our communication skills a lot..
We are 3 months away from having our first baby.
My life for the past 3 weeks is cry, have nightmares every night, feeling insecure about so many different things, have anxiety attacks quite often, I can't sleep without medication, sometimes I feel better and we do can do things.
I'm struggling a lot to get over all this story staying with her and afraid of if I leaving her and I regret as I feel she's the love of my life, as she's only 3 months from giving birth if we break up or give a time she will need to move to her country to have some family support, what will makes me lose the child birth.

I'm posting this to a few bpd communities to try to reach more people with different perspectives. If you're active in other communities and have seen this post recently I apologize!
I'm a good person. I know that. I love people with my whole heart. But my behaviors (or at least motivation behind behaviors) have not always shown that, even if they were disguised as "good". Something that has helped me A LOT lately is thinking "am I doing this act to help someone, or to make myself look good." The statement varies slightly according to the situation of course, but honestly it has helped stop many attention seeking behaviors. This has helped me modify and adjust how I react to situations.
For example, I daydream every night before bed about me or characters from a show being either a victim or a hero. One or the other (thanks black and white thinking). Basically I write fanfiction in my head. It usually contains dark subjects like SA, abuse, death, etc. When I first started giving myself time to daydream before bed I noticed a decrease in attention seeking behaviors in real life, however as the years went on I started to convince myself that those things I was purposely dreaming of were ok to do irl if given the possibility. Anyway what caused this revelation is that my favorite resident at a SNF I work for is in the hospital with an unclear fate. In my daydream time about a week ago I imagined different scenarios and played through them. Doing this led to me really thinking about why I do things. One of the scenarios I had to run through of course was "what happens if the resident passes." So I imagined myself at her funeral and her family member asked if anyone else wanted to speak. So I did. But as I was dreaming about what I would say "...when you see someone everyday for two and a half years you get to love them. She watched me grow up and gave me some of the best advice one could ask for..." I realized I was thinking about the family feeling sorry for me. I saw her daughter looking at me thinking "oh that poor person loved my mom so much, they must be hurting a lot." This made me snap open my eyes and look at the ceiling. I realized i was imagining my favorite resident's funeral (i usually try to picture future scenarios in my daydreaming time to prepare because it soothes anxiety, i don't plan to stop fully but at least be more conscious of my actions to those scenarios in my dreams) and picturing her FAMILY, feeling sorry for ME.
Ever since I had that dream about a week ago it has completely changed my perspective of how I go about things and I hope I keep this in mind. Humans are inherently selfish. Every action we do have some form of self satisfaction to it. Even something as simple as tying your shoe laces so you don’t fall, is motivated by a level of selfishness. That is normal. However, I want to make sure I do things for the right reasons even if the outcome of the deed wouldn't change. If I volunteer l to help someone with a task is it because there are other people in the room watching me and I want to look good? Is it because I want this person to like me and think I'm a good person? Or, is it because humans deserve help and kindness and if I have the (mental, physical, financial) capacity to do so I WANT to help someone just to make their lives easier.
Like I stated earlier, it is very human to have to think of yourself in others shoes to be empathetic in most situations, I mean that's what the golden rule is (for example, I don't want to see people in pain because I know what pain feels like, therefore I do my best to prevent and reduce pain in others)! But in my experience people with bpd tend to have a little extra motivation: how we are perceived to others as "good" to prevent abandonment, or for validation/attention seeking that we feel we deserve and honestly sometimes NEED. As basic as it sounds I'm trying to be more aware of my motivation behind my actions. Who new it would take 7 years of CBT and 1 year of DBT to get to this point. I feel kind of silly honestly.
I am a self aware person, however that often made my attention seeking behaviors worse. This made my behaviors worse because I would rationalize them as "well I'm communicating to people what my needs are, therefore if they don't react appropriately they are at fault. If I'm genuinely suicidal and I let my friends know then they should shower me with love and concern. Even if I've been genuinely suicidal over many 'little' things that they now think it's a boy who cried wolf situation. I've identified my feelings (which really are real, just because they seem dramatic doesn't mean im not feeling them, so me it's so intense and real, to them it's purely for attention) and communicated so I must be doing things right." Now I realize that crying to my coworkers while they are trying to work is not acceptable because they are acquaintances and we are at work. Another thing that has caused me to have trouble identifying what is or isn't okay is understanding that just because I would drop everything to comfort a random coworkeacquaintance at work does not mean everyone else is comfortable, has the emotional capacity, feels safe, or feels motivated, to do the same. In my mind everyone takes the golden rule (treat others the way you want to be treated) so literally. It's why I'm seen as clingy and can't often tell the difference between romantic, platonic, acquaintance relationships. Because I dont care if we met a week ago if I like you and you seem to like my you're my friend in my mind and I got your back.
So yeah I just wanted to share/rant lol. Do you guys, gals, and nonbinary pals have any recommendations for how to deal with needing to be listened to or almost "coddled" sometimes? For me it was the daydreaming that I use for my anxiety but I'm not sure if that's the healthiest for me anymore. It definitely helped for a long time, but I think some change would do me some good. Let me know your techniques and coping skills you use when you find yourself in a similar position!

I'm a good person. I know that. I love people with my whole heart. But my behaviors (or at least motivation behind behaviors) have not always shown that, even if they were disguised as "good". Something that has helped me A LOT lately is thinking "am I doing this act to help someone, or to make myself look good." The statement varies slightly according to the situation of course, but honestly it has helped stop many attention seeking behaviors. This has helped me modify and adjust how I react to situations.
For example, I daydream every night before bed about me or characters from a show being either a victim or a hero. One or the other (thanks black and white thinking). Basically I write fanfiction in my head. It usually contains dark subjects like SA, abuse, death, etc. When I first started giving myself time to daydream before bed I noticed a decrease in attention seeking behaviors in real life, however as the years went on I started to convince myself that those things I was purposely dreaming of were ok to do irl if given the possibility. Anyway what caused this revelation is that my favorite resident at a SNF I work for is in the hospital with an unclear fate. In my daydream time about a week ago I imagined different scenarios and played through them. Doing this led to me really thinking about why I do things. One of the scenarios I had to run through of course was "what happens if the resident passes." So I imagined myself at her funeral and her family member asked if anyone else wanted to speak. So I did. But as I was dreaming about what I would say "...when you see someone everyday for two and a half years you get to love them. She watched me grow up and gave me some of the best advice one could ask for..." I realized I was thinking about the family feeling sorry for me. I saw her daughter looking at me thinking "oh that poor person loved my mom so much, they must be hurting a lot." This made me snap open my eyes and look at the ceiling. I realized i was imagining my favorite resident's funeral (i usually try to picture future scenarios in my daydreaming time to prepare because it soothes anxiety, i don't plan to stop fully but at least be more conscious of my actions to those scenarios in my dreams) and picturing her FAMILY, feeling sorry for ME.
Ever since I had that dream about a week ago it has completely changed my perspective of how I go about things and I hope I keep this in mind. Humans are inherently selfish. Every action we do have some form of self satisfaction to it. Even something as simple as tying your shoe laces so you don’t fall, is motivated by a level of selfishness. That is normal. However, I want to make sure I do things for the right reasons even if the outcome of the deed wouldn't change. If I volunteer l to help someone with a task is it because there are other people in the room watching me and I want to look good? Is it because I want this person to like me and think I'm a good person? Or, is it because humans deserve help and kindness and if I have the (mental, physical, financial) capacity to do so I WANT to help someone just to make their lives easier.
Like I stated earlier, it is very human to have to think of yourself in others shoes to be empathetic in most situations, I mean that's what the golden rule is (for example, I don't want to see people in pain because I know what pain feels like, therefore I do my best to prevent and reduce pain in others)! But in my experience people with bpd tend to have a little extra motivation: how we are perceived to others as "good" to prevent abandonment, or for validation/attention seeking that we feel we deserve and honestly sometimes NEED. As basic as it sounds I'm trying to be more aware of my motivation behind my actions. Who new it would take 7 years of CBT and 1 year of DBT to get to this point. I feel kind of silly honestly.
I am a self aware person, however that often made my attention seeking behaviors worse. This made my behaviors worse because I would rationalize them as "well I'm communicating to people what my needs are, therefore if they don't react appropriately they are at fault. If I'm genuinely suicidal and I let my friends know then they should shower me with love and concern. Even if I've been genuinely suicidal over many 'little' things that they now think it's a boy who cried wolf situation. I've identified my feelings (which really are real, just because they seem dramatic doesn't mean im not feeling them, so me it's so intense and real, to them it's purely for attention) and communicated so I must be doing things right." Now I realize that crying to my coworkers while they are trying to work is not acceptable because they are acquaintances and we are at work. Another thing that has caused me to have trouble identifying what is or isn't okay is understanding that just because I would drop everything to comfort a random coworkeacquaintance at work does not mean everyone else is comfortable, has the emotional capacity, feels safe, or feels motivated, to do the same. In my mind everyone takes the golden rule (treat others the way you want to be treated) so literally. It's why I'm seen as clingy and can't often tell the difference between romantic, platonic, acquaintance relationships. Because I dont care if we met a week ago if I like you and you seem to like my you're my friend in my mind and I got your back.
So yeah I just wanted to share/rant lol. Do you guys, gals, and nonbinary pals have any recommendations for how to deal with needing to be listened to or almost "coddled" sometimes? For me it was the daydreaming that I use for my anxiety but I'm not sure if that's the healthiest for me anymore. It definitely helped for a long time, but I think some change would do me some good. Let me know your techniques and coping skills you use when you find yourself in a similar position!

I’m having a problem with one of my coworkers. First I want to start out since I feel it is relevant, she is special needs, which I’m only including because I feel like this plays a role in her actions. Also, she is not a minor, we are both girls. I have been at this store less than a year but this issue has been going on basically the whole time, but it has really seemed to ramp up lately. She will hug me, touch me with her hand, put her arm around me, etc. When she talks to me, she gets right up in my face. Like so close that our chests are basically touching, her face is inches from mine. She will come up and look inside my apron pocket and question the things I have inside. Like today I had a pack of gum in there. She walks up and looks inside my pocket and goes “can I have a piece of gum” (other times it has been “what is that” “why do you have that” etc). She sneaks up behind me and scares me purposefully then tries to hug me as an apology. If I take my phone out for a brief second (I don’t just stand there scrolling my phone but sometimes I have to use it briefly to communicate with my partner) she is hovering over my shoulder looking at my phone, asking questions “what is that” “is that your kid?” “Who are you texting”
I’m sick of it. I like my personal space, my privacy, I don’t like to be touched at work by my coworkers. I don’t like having someone come up and take inventory of what I have in my pockets. Like wtf. I know she may be lacking social cues but sometimes I feel like she does know what she’s doing. I try to make it obvious she is making me uncomfortable. If she touches me, I pull away, if she gets super close to me, I move away, but she will just move with me and stay just as close. I try to walk away but she follows me. I’m a bit afraid to just tell her “please leave me alone” or “please don’t touch me” because I feel like she is going to react poorly and take offensive and I worry it will make things even worse. I also have been considering going to management but I don’t want her to find out I complained about her actions, because again, I feel like it will make things worse OR they won’t do anything at all and it will just continue.
I feel like this is a sticky situation and I don’t know the best way to approach it. So, how would guys approach this problem? I’ve never dealt with something quite like this before.

Hello Reddit!
I recently put in my two weeks at my current job (I was accepted into a better paying job with a higher salary and shorter commute. Which were my biggest factors into accepting it. However my other factor as to why I accepted it was because of a coworker who recently started working at my job.
Let’s call her Cina.
Cina is an older woman, in her mid fifties early sixties who I was asked by my bosses to help train. Because I know a great deal about the department and the store in general. Which, at my current job I’ve helped train almost everyone. And according to everyone I’m very nice and helpful!
All except for this woman, Cina. In fact she has… been very… mean.
When I tried training her, she called me mean and a bully. Even though a lot of the time I was just asking her to complete smaller tasks. Especially when we had longer lines. And she was just standing there awkwardly because the two registers were full. And the third one she refused to learn. Which I get it. It’s a new system. Even tho both I and another coworker offered to train her. She didn’t want to do it.
She has also mocked the way that I talk and during an interaction with a customer grabbed me by the arm- shaking me and said ‘I’m going on my fifteen, IM GOING ON MY FIFTEEN. Okay?’ Very aggressively. J Another time recently I was performing duties outside of my job description because we were heavily short staffed and had been trying to see if each department had gotten there brakes. And if they hadn’t- I would have happily covered. And both times she told me that she was fine. However another coworker later told me that she, quote ‘Hated/Couldnt stand me. And that she was happy ‘that fat bitch’ is leaving in two weeks. And that she hopes I get fired. And that ‘if I piss her off again that she’ll get me walked out.’ (Meaning fired)
What’s driving me insane is that the only thing I can think of that might have pissed her off is this:
-When I first started trying to train her, at one point she disappeared for a very long time and another person I was training (a superior actually) asked where Cina was and went to speak with another higher up. All I had said at the time was ‘I dunno’ but I am fairly used to being left on my own for long periods of time.
She then became very aggressive when she came back ‘explaining herself’ however I had no involvement with the situation. She later told another coworker that she ‘put me in my place’
-I did however complain to management later that day when she began making fun of my voice and the way that I spoke. Because that genuinely hurt my feelings seeing as how I did. For a long period of my life have a stutter which resulted in selective mutism and could not talk in public settings for a large quantity of my middle school/high school time.
-I said Dang when she grabbed a pizza slice because it was huge.
-And maybe not given her a discount on a plant she bought. Which is weird because I always make sure my coworkers get their employee discount
Otherwise I have genuinely never had much communication with her. I’m not even trying to act like an innocent Angel. I legit cannot think about what I had done to her? We have worked maybe 4 times together?
I do know that she is currently suing her prior place of employment. And that she has also had complaints made on her by other employees.
Everyone in my family and my friends wants me to actually sue for harassment. But I have two weeks (technically I put in two and a half weeks.) and my only concern is my other coworkers.
So how should I write an email for them?

Hello Reddit!
I recently put in my two weeks at my current job (I was accepted into a better paying job with a higher salary and shorter commute. Which were my biggest factors into accepting it. However my other factor as to why I accepted it was because of a coworker who recently started working at my job.
Let’s call her Cina.
Cina is an older woman, in her mid fifties early sixties who I was asked by my bosses to help train. Because I know a great deal about the department and the store in general. Which, at my current job I’ve helped train almost everyone. And according to everyone I’m very nice and helpful!
All except for this woman, Cina. In fact she has… been very… mean.
When I tried training her, she called me mean and a bully. Even though a lot of the time I was just asking her to complete smaller tasks. Especially when we had longer lines. And she was just standing there awkwardly because the two registers were full. And the third one she refused to learn. Which I get it. It’s a new system. Even tho both I and another coworker offered to train her. She didn’t want to do it.
She has also mocked the way that I talk and during an interaction with a customer grabbed me by the arm- shaking me and said ‘I’m going on my fifteen, IM GOING ON MY FIFTEEN. Okay?’ Very aggressively. J Another time recently I was performing duties outside of my job description because we were heavily short staffed and had been trying to see if each department had gotten there brakes. And if they hadn’t- I would have happily covered. And both times she told me that she was fine. However another coworker later told me that she, quote ‘Hated/Couldnt stand me. And that she was happy ‘that fat bitch’ is leaving in two weeks. And that she hopes I get fired. And that ‘if I piss her off again that she’ll get me walked out.’ (Meaning fired)
What’s driving me insane is that the only thing I can think of that might have pissed her off is this:
-When I first started trying to train her, at one point she disappeared for a very long time and another person I was training (a superior actually) asked where Cina was and went to speak with another higher up. All I had said at the time was ‘I dunno’ but I am fairly used to being left on my own for long periods of time.
She then became very aggressive when she came back ‘explaining herself’ however I had no involvement with the situation. She later told another coworker that she ‘put me in my place’
-I did however complain to management later that day when she began making fun of my voice and the way that I spoke. Because that genuinely hurt my feelings seeing as how I did. For a long period of my life have a stutter which resulted in selective mutism and could not talk in public settings for a large quantity of my middle school/high school time.
-I said Dang when she grabbed a pizza slice because it was huge.
-And maybe not given her a discount on a plant she bought. Which is weird because I always make sure my coworkers get their employee discount
Otherwise I have genuinely never had much communication with her. I’m not even trying to act like an innocent Angel. I legit cannot think about what I had done to her? We have worked maybe 4 times together?
I do know that she is currently suing her prior place of employment. And that she has also had complaints made on her by other employees.
Everyone in my family and my friends wants me to actually sue for harassment. But I have two weeks (technically I put in two and a half weeks.) and my only concern is my other coworkers.
So how should I write an email for them?

**WARNING** long post. Feel free to skip the background information if need be
BACKGROUND:
I am a software engineer at a major bank. Relative to my counterparts on my team, I am the "most junior", but I have three years of experience. This is important to know as it may offer some insight to our team culture. I landed this job in November 2023 and was placed with my team in January 2024. The team consisted of two women, including myself and five men. I work at our NYC office with three of the other men, one of which is our team lead, let's call him Anderson. The other woman coworker lives in FL and the other two men are in India. I am the only black person on the team, and the rest of my coworkers are of Indian descent. This, too, is important to note.
From day 1, I was intentionally assigned low level administrative tasks while my coworkers were purposefully trained and briefed on other, technical tasks. The first week with my team, I mentioned to my team lead that I felt it important to learn the technical tasks that my teammates were learning, even if these technical tasks were not going to be my responsibility, because there would not be anyone to take on the technical tasks if someone was on vacation. My team lead told me to focus on the work he assigned to me.
Still determined to learn the technical tasks, I scheduled trainings with my offshore counterpart so that he would train me instead. This meant that I had to sign in to work after hours to be trained. I was now trained on what my "work buddy" knew, but still not fully trained on what the rest of the team knew how to do. Suddenly (not suddenly), my other woman coworker, let's call her Sandra, went on maternity leave and I was assigned her work. My team lead expressed his frustration with me not knowing how to do her job, and told me to figure out how to learn the things she was doing.
What is interesting to point out here is that during the first few weeks on the team, my team lead would assign our other senior engineer to train Sandra and answer all questions that she had. I was not granted this opportunity. Instead, my Slack messages went unanswered (I have all of this documented) when I had questions and after another two weeks, my team lead quietly reassigned Sandra's work from me to another senior engineer instead. He never explained why he did this, or gave me feedback on the work I was doing.
As the weeks went by, my team lead called me into a meeting to gauge my knowledge on querying our databases. He asked me to find a few items, which I could not find because for one, I had NEVER interacted with the databases before, and for two, I had no understanding of the database architecture or the data flow for our app. Nevertheless, I decided to ask clarifying questions to help me better understand the data so that I could write appropriate queries. My team lead responded to this with yelling "you are an engineer and you don't even know SQL", to which I responded that my knowledge of SQL was sufficient (part of my technical interview was based on writing complex queries), but I needed to understand exactly what he wanted me to find. He ended the meeting and never followed up on the information he was looking for. I still do not know what task, if any, that he was trying to assign to me.
I decided to follow up with him and explain to him that I could sense his frustration, and I asked him to define clear expectations for me and the team, and provide official training that focused on our application architecture and other technical areas that we needed to focus on. He told me that no amount of training would fix the "fact" that I did not know SQL and that it is the team members' job to train themselves.
Nevertheless, after that meeting, he assigned me with handling all onboarding for new projects moving forward. I have taken the liberty of advocating for my team members to ensure that we are all properly trained and provided with ALL resources needed to do our job well. Since then, the team, and myself has expressed more confidence in our ability to do our work. We are even at a point where senior team members reach out to me when they cannot find resources and either ask me to provide documentation, or ask me to reach out to other engineers to schedule meetings to provide trainings. Here is where I am concerned that I might be experiencing hostility at work. Please provide objective feedback and even constructive criticism if need be:
MAIN POINTS:
-my team lead uses language in his interactions with me that creates a false narrative. For example, he accuses me of "not caring" about my job, not "being collaborative", and not paying attention. One example is where I was tasked with migrating a google guice project to springboot. We had four weeks to get the work done and each week during standup, I brought up to my team lead my plans to make changes to the service. Each time, he would redirect my attention to administrative tasks. The third week of the sprint, literally in the middle of a Slack conversation of me telling my team lead that I planned on making some code changes and him instead telling me to do something else, our senior manager called a meeting with the team and yelled at my team lead for not getting any work done related to the code refactoring. After the meeting, my team lead followed up with me and berated me for not having work done. This is all documented in Slack and I remember being very confused as he had literally told me to do other tasks. As a result, my team lead removed me from the code refactoring project and used this to further justify his belief that I do "not care" about the work. Keep in mind that these interactions are documented.
-my team lead constantly verbally berates me in my interactions with him. One example is when I was typing up a document on a zoom call and I was sharing my screen with him. He kept rushing me and was saying things like "come on man I have other things to do", "ughhh hurry up", "you need to move fast!". Two things here: he yelled at me for moving fast because he said he could not see what I was clicking on when I moved fast. Then he yelled at me when I slowed down. There was one time he yelled at me for clicking a back button instead of the home button on the screen...he told me that I was not listening to him or paying attention...I am confused by this because the point of his instruction was for me to return to the home screen. There was another time where I misspelled a word in the middle of him berating me, and then he berated me even more for misspelling the word...
-my team lead has unclear expectations and gets angry at me when I do not do things he wants me to do. One example is when he wanted me to watch a 40 minute training video, summarize the points in the video, and schedule a follow up training with the person who lead the training so that the team (me) could ask questions. He asked me to get this done within an hour. He also wanted me to upload some recordings to Sharepoint. But this task was just another task to complete and not time-sensitive. After the call, I watched the video and made a summary and got back to him with an update in 45 minutes instead of the hour. He responded to my message 20 minutes after I wrote him by hopping on a call with me and yelled at me for not having the videos uploaded. Again, he accused me of "not caring" about my job. When I explained to him that the videos were not uploaded because I was focusing on the other, time sensitive task, he said that that task was not as important as having the videos uploaded and "people" were asking him about the videos in the Sharepoint space....this was a lie because it has been a week and the only person who accessed the uploaded videos was...you guessed it...me :)
-my team lead just berates me in general. He berated me for collaborating with a team member to explore a new internal application. He said that there was no need to get on zoom with the coworker because we should have already known everything...the app was new and I was the only one who understood how to navigate it after exploring it with the team member...oh...need I mention that he then asked me to train the other team members on the new app's UI next week?
-my team lead expressed his frustration at not having access to certain resources when I was on bereavement.The documentation was incomplete and I had to take a sudden leave due to a death in the family. Upon my return, he asked for the documentation and said that he find an "excuse" to tell his manager as to why the documentation was incomplete and that I was "on vacation"
-my team lead "warns" me not to "disappoint" him when he assigns me with tasks. When I ask him to define what a "disappointment" is and for us to agree on what is acceptable, he ignores me.
-my team lead tells me that "people" ask questions about my work and one day he is going to make our department head "deal" with me. The department head is known for being a hot head who yells at people. But he (department head)has NEVER yelled at me in any interaction I had with him, no matter how frustrated he may have been.
I want to make an important note here that my team lead does NOT speak to other people like this and he ONLY does this over zoom. I work 3x days in office and on the days where he speaks to me in person, he does not even make eye contact with me and he speaks so soft I can barely hear him sometimes. My team lead has never provided any feedback on my work. As a matter of fact, he uses my documentation and my explanation of technical tasks as if they were his own.
I am considering taking my concerns to our senior manager, who apparently is a well respected, "big boss" at work, but also MY direct manager and I happen to have a great relationship with him. I want to be as objective as possible in my complaint but in the meantime, I would like to explore areas where maybe I can improve to minimize my team lead's verbal assaults on me

Previous chapter
“I hate it.”
Mareus slapped his mouth and bit down on his lips in a futile attempt to capture his half-asleep words. His body tensed while listening for any signs of the stranger, bracing himself for some monster of a person to come rushing from the dark to finish him off.
Though, it didn’t matter in the end if they were paying attention to him or not. They clearly already knew where he was and, for some reason, chose to leave him alone after pulling him from the rubble and treating his injuries.
He clutched at his stomach, his hunger pangs goading him to push aside the anxiety and crawl his way towards the bowl still waiting patiently for him. There were no signs of it being changed or infested by any of the creatures hiding away, in fact, a gentle warmth still radiated from it. A pleasant aroma floated through the still air as if it had a will of its own, enticing him like some carnivorous flower lying in wait.
Mareus ignored his pain and fatigue as he absentmindedly made his way closer to the beckoning meal. What was he so worried about? If the stranger hadn’t done anything yet, then they probably weren’t going to from the start. It wasn’t like he was in any state to resist them anyway.
That’s right. He justified. It’s just sitting there, waiting for me.
The bowl was only a breath away now. Mareus stretched against his bandages enough for the wrappings around his fingers to brush the rim before the markings let out a faint light and constricted his body. He was almost there and wouldn’t give up, one more time he resisted their binding and was able to hook his finger on the inside of the rim.
Putting all the strength he had into the one finger he fought against the rough, uneven ground to reel in his catch. A faint glow lit up the black stone and his heart stopped before his restraints forced his arm back. Spilling his only food in a mocking halo as the bowl rolled on its side.
That was it, his only food mixed in with the wet dirt of the cave floor. He almost dove at it before realizing the intense hunger and drive he had was now fading away. His hunger was still there to some degree, but now it was more like an emptiness scratching at the back of his stomach. The overwhelming desire to eat was almost entirely gone.
A faint breeze brought his attention back to the bowl and he watched as markings like the ones on his bandages let out one last dim breath of light. When they went dark his hunger returned to the back of his mind.
After crawling back into his hole, the cave was filled with the sounds of hundreds of insects rushing over and feasting on the spilled meal. The echoes of chitin tapping on stone and trudging through the mush assaulting his ears. Covering his ears only replaced their frenzy with the sound of his blood flowing through his ears.
Mareus alternated between listening to the rhythmic thumps lulling him to sleep and the chittering that convinced him, more than once, that the insects had crawled in his ears. The minutes drawing into hours, maybe even days, as reason began slipping away.
A gentle clack of wood being placed on stone silenced the world.
He carefully rolled over and saw another bowl, the insects were gone, the mess was cleaned. It was like everything that happened was a dream, only this time he didn’t have this unnatural drive compelling him to reach the bowl.
Whatever the markings were meant to do, this one didn’t seem to have them. He watched as the cave life made their way back to his food. They didn’t attack it right away this time, instead they circled their prey waiting for the right time. Mareus closed his eyes and focused on listening for their movements when he heard a damp thud that must have been one of them falling in the food.
That sound must have been the signal the rest were waiting for because they converged on the meal and devoured with a gluttony he didn’t know they were capable of. Despite the gut churning sounds, he focused on every bit as he counted his heart beat.
Two thousand four hundred and twenty…seven.
The cave had finally settled down again as the insects returned to their hiding places. Mareus kept counting though, he had to stay focused so he could figure out how to tell when the stranger was coming. He had no idea how often they came by but he needed to learn anything he could if he wanted to make it back home.
Twenty-eight thousand seven hundred and ninety-five.
Muffled steps approached the bowl and wordlessly replaced it with another, the gentle clank dancing around the cave walls. Words wanted to leave his mouth, to ask the stranger questions, to make demands. But, what would he say, what could he say?
Mareus’ chest tightened as he tried to find the words, his mind struggling with the growing distraction of the empty feeling in his stomach. They were gone as silently as they arrived.
He started counting again. Using the hunger pangs to fight his body’s cries for sleep he waited out another four or five changes of the bowl. He couldn’t remember exactly anymore as his guard lightened and the exhaustion wrapped around him like a warm blanket. Against his best effort sleep finally took him.
The elders were watching over the younger generations going about their routines. The whole village was in the middle of doing their morning exercises with the sunrise, the bigger clans and families had their yards filled with people flowing from stance to stance, while the smaller families gathered in front of the Elder’s Hall or practiced in their gardens.
Before he knew it, Mareus was running errands and was racing pass villagers tending to fields of medicinal herbs and vegetables while guards kept their eyes on the edge of the forest for any signs of wild beasts.
Then one day a doctor from some big sect visited them and told him that he had the cure to his diverted meridians. The village elders held a big celebration in front of their hall and they had a special ceremony where Granny Hua accepted him as a disciple. When he looked out to the crowd, the sun shone on hundreds of smiling faces.
Tears ran down his face as he smiled and waved at everyone. The salty taste made the world shimmer like a painting being washed away.
Please don’t go. He thought.
The infection of reality found its way into his heart and the dream continued to shimmer before warping and twisting the scene from before.
Mountains of rubble replaced the beautiful homes that stood for generations. One after another the people fell while letting out muted screams. Smoke began to fill the air like some ghostly fog and ash painted the now faceless bodies strewn everywhere. Bodiless cries fought with one another to be helped.
Mareus fell to his knees at the center of the destruction while pleading. “Please, don’t do this. Don’t take them from me again.”
The one eyed man towered over him, tall enough for his hair to brush the clouds. The evil in his clenched grin poured out like a thick miasma that choked him as he watched Sister Mai rushing over.
He tried to scream at her to stay away but his voice was now completely cut off. Mareus now stood over himself watching the helpless child he truly was, he followed his own pleading gaze and turned to watch a young woman he recognized but couldn’t place at the moment.
She picked up a piece of a wooden beam and charged at him, her tears turning to blood as she let out a voiceless scream.
Mareus quickly searched the sky for his enemy, Where are they? Why is it so quiet?
When he looked back down his arm was through the back of the woman and he finally recognized the angry face staring daggers at him as the light left her eyes.
He watched as the giant man turned back to him and let Mai’s lifeless body fall to the ground. The crimson drenching the monster’s hand leaking and painting his own with the blood of the woman he called his big sister.
The one eyed man shot into the air and the force of the impact shook him awake.
It was easier to fight his exhaustion this time as he waited for the stranger to replace the bowl. When they replaced it this time, they lingered as if they wanted to say something. This time the anger and pain he felt didn’t let him hesitate.
“Wh-“ His dry unused voice turned into a breath. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Why…”
The effort of forcing that whisper was already difficult, he wanted to say so much more. He couldn’t tell if they were still waiting in the dark, or if they were even willing to listen. His voice was clawing to get out, he was tired of waiting.
His skin buzzed as he waited and moistened his throat. The question was out there now, at least the most important part. ‘Why?’ There was so much more racing through his mind that he could add while the presence remained silent.
Why me? What made you save me? Why didn’t you leave me with them? Why do I have to be alone?
An unseen pressure grew in the dark as his question went unanswered. It was like the chill he would get coming back late at night and he felt like something was watching him from the forest, waiting to pounce. It kept growing sharper until a sudden cool warmth touched the nape of his neck and gingerly ran down the length of his back.
A cold, yet familiar feeling voice finally broke the silence. “It would be a waste. Letting such a potential vanish from this world.”
The stranger brushed the matted hair from his neck. Their simple and straightforward gesture giving off the feeling of a beast playing with its catch knowing it could kill it at anytime.
“I feel for your loss, truly. My heart aches for the ill fate that placed those ‘experts’ in your home. I couldn’t allow your path to end because of a game between mere children.” Their voice danced between compassionate and venomous.
The gentle pressure of them rubbing his back relaxed him and Mareus became even more aware of how tired and sore his body was. Although, as they continued it felt like everything faded away. Not so much as if he was being relieved of everything, it was more like everything was being taken away and swallowed by a void that wouldn’t make him take it back.
Mareus sat up slowly and with a hoarse voice he asked. “What makes me so special?” He inhaled, “Why didn’t you stop them?!” His scream tore into his lungs and filled his throat with the taste of iron.
Water filled his eyes as he faced the disembodied presence.
The stranger gently embraced him, their cool robes enveloping him. “Poor child.”
“You could have saved all of th-em.” His trembling voice couldn’t hide the pain any longer. Still, Mareus stared through blurry eyes and did his best to look them in the face.
A thin hand brushed away his tears. “My sweet boy, I’m sorry I couldn’t be there sooner. Their battle had already moved south, and what they left behind…” They trailed off.
While wrapped in their arms he listened to the grief in their voice. Unsure of what to think anymore. Why did they wait so long? Why did they leave me here in the dark? Were they hurt too? Mareus found himself wondering if he was being selfish.
“Before I could chase after them, I sensed the faint trace of your life clinging on to any shred of hope. After digging you out and applying some emergency medicine I lost track of their energies. Instead of searching for them I made the decision to at least make sure you survived.”
Mareus realized that there was something ethereal in the way they talked. Their tone wasn’t distant, but at the same time it felt like they were a world away from him. The image of a mother apologizing for something she wasn’t responsible for popped in his mind.
His body began to feel lighter than it had been since he woke up in the cave. “Thank you.” He relented.
He gingerly wiped away his tears as if testing if his body would suddenly start listening to him. When he opened them again, the dark world that surrounded him expanded and he could now see all the way to the other wall of the cave.
Am I really not in the afterlife? He thought.
The formless shadow of his savior was replaced with a celestial fairy that stepped out from one of Elder Guo’s stories and descended into this pit to comfort him. She wore a snow white hanfu with a wide sash that hugged tightly against her. The sleeves and hem were far longer than normal like if the seamstress forgot to remove the excess material.
Her otherworldly appearance stood out against the darkness with her iridescent skin illuminating the cave. Her shadow like hair, even darker than the surroundings blackness. She looked like a master craftsman had picked the most exquisite material to craft a lifelike doll that would shatter if you looked at it the wrong way. Only to the fill that doll with the essence of deepest parts of the night sky.
Mareus completely forgot his fatigue as he collapsed into a bow and laid his head to the floor. In an attempt to imitate the older members of his village when speaking to the elders, he said. “I apologize for being so disrespectful. I humbly want to thank the generous immortal for saving this life.”
His body trembled from the effort of supporting his weight, but he continued to wait as sweat formed on the back of his neck and ran down his face. Unsure of what this heaven-like being would do to him if he had disrespected her further.
Next chapter

I know this is pretty early, but screw it. The WarGames match for the women will likely be on Raw because 1. There is no obvious feud for the women on SmackDown and 2. The Bloodline story will likely lead into WarGames for that brand anyway.
Damage CTRL is on Raw, and if there is a WarGames match this year, of course they would be involved. They’re the only female faction, and they’ve had main-event level feuds with basically all of the top names. But they’ve also confronted Rhea recently, with her and Iyo specifically staring each other down leading into Mania.
Now, they’re stepping to Becky and have teased problems with Liv as well. Lyra Valkyria is also tied into this, having eliminated Dakota in the first round of QOTR, and coming to Becky’s aid for two weeks straight.
When Rhea comes back, it’s only natural that she’s gonna eventually cross paths with Damage CTRL. I think they have potential to include all of these women in a big story heading into Survivor Series.
My theory is that Damage CTRL will be the dastardly heels that they are throughout this year, but they’re gonna continue targeting Becky and Lyra. This makes a common enemy for Liv and Damage CTRL. In the most recent episode of Raw, Liv attacked Becky after Damage CTRL attacked her, and it got me thinking that it could be possible for Liv to become friendly with them all, although I don’t see her fully joining them. It almost looked like Damage CTRL was nodding Liv on after the attack. So they can be buddy-buddy for a while, making Becky’s life hell. Lyra can also have little scuffles with Liv because she’s loyal to Becky.
However, I’m a little unsure about when to give the title to Liv. It could happen in Saudi, but I don’t really know if that’s the right crowd. Plus, I have a weird feeling that she won’t get the title until SummerSlam. How this could work is Liv loses in some kind of screwy way in Saudi that takes her out of the title picture briefly, while Becky can defend against people like Lyra, and maybe Dakota gets a crack. But Iyo is likely to win QOTR, so this could lead into a match for the title at SummerSlam. But Liv gets under Becky’s skin in the weeks leading up to the show. So, Becky is compelled to add Liv to the match and it becomes a Triple Threat. Damage CTRL is understandably pissed off. But Liv assures them that Iyo will get the first crack if she wins.
Liv wins the match by capitalizing at the last second. But it’s fine enough, because Iyo still has that guaranteed title match.
Enter: Rhea Ripley.
This goes pretty much like you’d expect. She wins that title back ASAP, likely in Berlin. How this match could work is in the match, Rhea hits a Riptide, and Liv kicks out. Liv can hit an Oblivion, but Rhea kicks out. Toward the end of the match, Rhea hits a second Riptide, but does so sloppily because she’s fatigued from the match and her injured shoulder starts to hurt. Rhea fails to make the cover, and Liv rolls over to the ropes and uses them to pull herself up. Rhea looks over, her face a mix of annoyance, confusion, and pity (like Thanos to Cap in Infinity War). She walks over to Liv, grabs her face and starts insulting her. “Stay down.” “You’re dead to me.” “This is my division.” Liv can slap her, spit at her, flip her off, or something else that conveys defiance. I had Omega vs Ospreay and Michaels vs Taker on the brain when I came up with this. Similarly, Rhea can headbutt Liv (who will sell it like death) and hit a third and final Riptide for the win. So Rhea retains, but Liv still shows an undeniable, never-say-die spirit. On the following Raw, Rhea can cut a celebratory promo that also gives Liv her flowers to some extent. This promo also makes it clear that Rhea is now a face.
Liv is pissed that she lost, but Damage CTRL is pissed that Iyo didn’t get the match she was owed. Around this time, Damage CTRL will have had a few run-ins with Rhea, and this heats up a bit after she wins the title because they still believe Iyo is owed a match. Liv apologizes and explains that she was blinded by getting revenge on Rhea, and simply forgot about the promise. They give her a hard time about this for a while until they turn on her on an episode of Raw. Then, Rhea comes out and makes the save. She tries to take Liv’s hand, but she refuses. Rhea’s reasoning is that she gained respect for Liv after their match. She says that being out gave her a lot of time to think, but seeing Liv for the first time in months made her go blind with rage. But their match gave her clarity again. Even though she was the better woman in Berlin, she gained respect for Liv and realized that they’re both the same.
In the following weeks, Liv makes it clear that she doesn’t want or need Rhea’s help, and that she still hates her. Rhea has betrayed her to join Judgement Day, crushed her WrestleMania dreams by eliminating her from the 2023 Royal Rumble, took six months off of her career, then takes her title away after having the gall to blame Liv for the bed that she (Rhea) has made herself. Then, she comes out and saves “poor little Liv” as if none of these issues ever happened. Liv explains that her and Rhea are not the same, and that she still hates her.
Meanwhile, Becky and Lyra try to mind their own business but keep running into issues with Kairi and Asuka. Also, Dakota starts to show interest in the Rhea’s title, even though Iyo is the one that is owed a match.
On one hand, imagine being Rhea. Imagine trying to turn over a new leaf, but your enemy wants to dwell on the past. But can you blame Liv for being angry with Rhea? Can you also blame her for being angry with the fans for turning on her?
And now because Rhea has inserted herself into Damage CTRL business, she’s a part of this overarching storyline. They’re constantly attacking her and catching her off guard. Mind you, Judgement Day is no longer around. Rhea and Dominik aren’t together anymore either. And on top of Liv not wanting anything to do with her, neither do Becky and Lyra. All three of these women have history with Rhea, and it’s not good. Rhea is trying to rally the troops but they’re not having it. So, Rhea is all alone.
There will likely be a title defense or two against Iyo and/or Dakota in the following couple of months. Unfortunately, I’m not sure what the schedule is gonna be for the PLEs later this year.
These will be successful defenses that Damage CTRL can’t let go of. So, they’re still giving all of these women trouble. And the other faces are saying that this is karma for all of the bad things that Rhea has done to others. And Rhea has to accept the fact that they’re right. But a few weeks out from Survivor Series, an episode of Raw’s main story is that Damage CTRL is hunting the faces. Throughout the show, they attack Liv, Becky and Lyra. At the end of the night, Rhea gets ambushed after a match. Then, the faces all come out and make the save.
This is a very uneasy alliance. Remember, Becky and Liv don’t like each other. Rhea and Liv don’t like each other. Rhea and Becky don’t like each other. Liv and Lyra don’t like each other. Even Rhea and Lyra don’t like each other going back to their run-ins in NXT. But the main story here is that Rhea has to confront the ghosts of her past while leading the charge through such a rocky road.
Instead of a typical rah-rah speech that the faces give before WarGames, the promo between these four women largely consists of Rhea being chewed out. But in the end, Damage CTRL is their main focus, and WarGames commence. The faces ultimately win and water is mostly thrown under the bridge among the faces. And from here, the Damage CTRL split is officially underway.
I think this idea works because like I said, there is no obvious match for the women on SmackDown. Plus, I can’t really see any other top faces on Raw being involved in this storyline outside of the ones I named. Plus, I think it would be interesting to see Rhea’s character develop as she suffers the consequences of her past. I understand that she’s popular, but I can’t get behind her returning as mega-face and getting ‘revenge’ on Liv. The promo she cut where she was playing the victim just rubbed me the wrong way, because Liv was the real victim. But I think this story is a nice way to address that, as well as her history with Becky and Lyra, while still keeping Rhea on top of the division. This also gives Rhea and Becky— two top names— a noteworthy program to be in, and it recruits Liv, who doesn’t always get big opportunities like this. It also puts Lyra on the map even more by being in such a high-profile feud in her rookie year.
Sometimes I think the characters lack depth and that’s what I’m trying to remedy. Make us feel something. These are characters at the end of the day. No different than your favorite one-hour drama.
I will admit that it’s a bit of a risk because Asuka and Rhea are both injured right now. As I said, I know this is very early. But I don’t think either of them are gonna be gone for too long. So I think that this idea could work. In my opinion, this is a rather compelling storyline, and the women’s division is in desperate need of storyline with more substance than just wanting a title. Of course The Bloodline will always and forever take priority, but there’s no excuse for there not to be other captivating stories across the board.
I’d appreciate any feedback.
Tl;dr- WarGames: Rhea, Liv, Becky, Lyra vs Damage CTRL.

I am about to graduate from my masters. I overcome a lot to finish my bachelors and now my masters. I did things I never thought I could do, accepted into schools I would have never dreamed possible. I’m not really ready to be done with school yet and want either a PhD or a doctorate. I’m applying to programs again after two rejections back in January.
My issue so to speak is I feel like no one except maybe my coworkers value my drive. My parents aren’t the academic type and they get annoyed when I talk about a doctorate. My friends all don’t have degrees and about the most they can do for motivation or anything is a thumbs up emoji. It all makes me second guess myself and wonder if I’m just crazy for wanting to move forward with a third degree.
For context, I work in a highly academic and driven workplace and work with lots of PhD level employees and scientists. One day I would love to be an adjunct professor and teach part time. So it would be beneficial for my goals in life.
Any thoughts or motivation? How do you move past negative people in your life?

I (33f) was raised by my mother and step father, whom I call Dad. He has been with my mom since I was five (my biological father is not in the picture). They have had a rocky relationship for the last decade or so. They went long periods without really speaking. My mom did his laundry, cooked dinner, paid 90% of the bills, did all the housework and nearly all the yard work. He barely paid attention to her, would blow off her requests to spend time together, and was generally entitled and anti-social For whatever reason my dad decided to ask my mom if she wanted him to leave, after years of more or less being roommates. She said she assumed he would. Then it gets weird. He moved out, started drinking heavily, and started seeing another woman. My mom filed for divorce. Everyone in the family is pissed off that he was acting like this. He went so far as to tell a mutual friend that he finally found a good woman. This went on for a few weeks. He showed up to pick up some stuff and he told my mom the reason that they are in this mess is because she stopped talking to him, which led her to finally tell him what's what. A few days later he comes back, crying about how he needs help and that he wants to change. She agreed to take him back, as long as he goes to AA. Nothing said about the other woman, the way he has treated her like an indentured servant, not helped financially. She said as long as he doesn't treat her like a second class citizen she is fine with them being together. She also said he has to apologize to me and my sister. My sister told him she was upset but accepted his apology. I told him I wasn't accepting his apology and that when someone shows you who they are you believe that. I feel like he has shown everyone who he is. My mom told me I am being dramatic. I think he is gaslighting her and this is emotional manipulation.

I am not crying but I do want to cry for days now but I can‘t? It‘s like feeling numb
Even though I have supportive friends and a family they sometimes don‘t know how to handle it
My best friend doesn‘t know what to answer me when I come to her about such things
My mum doesn‘t know how to respond either other than just listening and hugging me
I don‘t and haven‘t had therapy for a while bcs I just got out of a mental hospital(went there everyday and then back home) and am searching for a therapist right now.
(For ages: I‘m 17 and the people referred in the story are 15)
Now: I have had relationships, they ended all good somewhat, I‘m still friends with close to all of my exes(except one) or I have had a talk with them about our relationship and now we send texts to each other here and then
So, when I was at the mental hospital I met two girls. At first I thought one of them was really cute then the other confessed she liked me. I got really confused and gave a lot of thought to things and chose to go on a date with the one who was interested in me. (I wanted to go on a date with both but i never got to ask the other girl bcs she always was picke by her grandma and I didn’t find the right time to ask her) I mean, a date wont be bad to figure out I‘d like either of them??? (To be clear: I thought that both of them are cute. Nothing really more) the way that the girl who thought she had feelings for me gave me attention and love made me like her. For the other one, she knew from the start I thought both were cute. I constantly felt like an ass kind of leading them on, I wont excuse myself for that. At the date I had(I‘ll refer to the girl who liked me a lot as Amy(not real name)) with amy, she shortly, before the date happened m, asked if 2 other friends could tag along. I made another mistake by saying alright(I thought she was scared and needed backup or sum) the first girl(gonna call her coral) did not show much interest. She said she thought I was cute too and always tagged along anywhere we went. This is the first time I had something with a girl. I did know I was bi/omni before that but it was real knowing I don‘t only simp for attractive woman online, but also wanting something in real life. Since coral didn‘t show much interest and there was a spark between me and amy I asked amy to be my gf. After some weeks I broke it off with her because I noticed things about her that I couldn‘t like. I thought about that every day, why I didn‘t like these things even though I liked her and we had a healthy relationship(communication, honesty, meet ups and all that). Coral also was in the back of my mind so I told amy all this and why I thought it was better that way. She was pissed at coral, understandable, but I wanted her to know it wasn‘t coral‘s fault but mine at leading her on. I was playing with her and I really hate that I did that. After 3 weeks of our breakup I did write amy once or twice, as friends tho, also leaving her be and letting her heal. Again I know that what I did was wrong and I‘m a dick here
After that I asked coral how her pov about all that was. She said she thought I was cute, I did chose amy over her and we are friends, but it didn‘t bother her. I asked if she still had interest in me and she said yes. So I apologized for doing what I did and asked if she wanted to go on a date, she said yes and I think it was fun.(before I asked her, some weeks went by and since we saw eachother every day I did feel like I started having a crush on her. I told her that face to face and she was happy and said she was really happy about that. It was also my last week at the mental hospital, so yeah) We went to her place bcs I wanted to drop her off and she lived like 15 minutes away(I live like an hour away). I was invited and had a fun talk with her fam and her until I needed to go home. I wrote her that I had fun and hoped she did too, she said she enjoyed it. A week later or si I went to visit the mental hospital to greet her and some friends who stayed like 2 weeks longer. I like to write silly letters with feelings bcs it‘s one of my love languages. I wrote her one and gave it to her, on it was a questiom saying if I could take her on another date. I put boxes and she didn‘t answer them. I asked her if she and everything was alright, then she told me she might like someone else too. Just needed to figure out if it‘s platonic or not. She also said she liked the attention I give her and that she never really know‘s if she likes the people or not; and that she struggled with selflove and needed time to get herself fixed before a relationship. I accepted that and told her she can have enough time as she needs and that I‘ll be waiting and that she doesn‘t need to stress abt me waiting. We‘ll have some sort of break. Only thing I‘d want is to still be able to meet her so her decision about me was easier.(it‘s similar to mine from before, I didn‘t have enough time to get to know either of them) Ok reading the last sentence makes me sound like I wanted enough time with both until I chose the better one, which isn‘t true. I only wanted to figure out if I liked either if them that way. And they knew. She did agree and we stayed in kind of low contact I did ask if I stepped over any comfort zone She said no I didn‘t want to push the answer So, yeah. Weeks after, when I felt I was allowed to ask without stepping over the line, I asked if she knows already and if she does like me back. If she likes me or that other friend of hers. I said: „Hey, if you want we can be open friends(not wanting to stress her to answer again) as in if we figure things out we tell eachother and see where it takes us? Cuz I still I like you. Like a lot. More than before bcs I keep thinking about you but I don‘t want to stress you or bother you :)“ Her: „yeah we can be friends but just so you know I have feelings for someone else.“
Hit me like a brick. Bcs all those weeks I did know there might be someone else but it didn‘t feel like she would lead me on. Should have seen it coming lol
I took that and stayed friends. I did stop writing her as much as I did before, but we did play video games here and then, today we did and I noticed her bio on her discord saying „I lov my gf“ My heart sank to my feet and I excused myself from our call. Her telling me she needed to fix herself with self love felt like a lie? Like that was fast- was I pushing???
I get that this is karma and I always knew this was a possibility but I guess I should have just not have contact with her at all after she told me she didn‘t like me like that My bad
Sorry again I just needed to tell someone before I start self blame and pity again Though, was it entirely my bad? Did I push her? Was it because I made that huge mistake and chose amy even though I didn‘t know amy as much as I thought?? Was it ok for her to make me feel we‘ll have smt or if I was to oblivious to anything she might have made or said?
I don‘t pity myself, I‘m just overthinking and dn‘t want to keep botteling this up inside me
Thanks if you have read this far! (I‘m genderfluid, mostly girl btw) (Reminder to drink water🏃)

Sionia
Chapter 14
Map First Previous
“Lord Wyatt, you are needed” Called Lars that shook me out of my fascinating reading about dragon neuts.
“Yes.” I said as I pulled back the curtain.
“The city guard requests to speak with you. They are restricting entrance to Avalon given the latest attack by Mardor at Black Gate of Rowan.” Lars explained with a salute and chest bump
With a sigh, I handed my book to Gus and exited the carriage and was very impressed with the massive three story gatehouse and huge stone block readouts connected on each side. I was met by a forty something looking man of average build with black hair and dark eyes flanked by six fully fitted out soldiers.
“I am Rhys Redith captain of the guard here in Avalon. You must be Count Ryan Wyatt.” Rhys introduced himself with the question.
“Yes, I am Ryan Wyatt.” I responded with a frown and knotted brow.
“We have been expecting your arrival. The king has ordered us to assist you and provide hospitality. I am to escort you to the fortress and the rest of your party to Duggan's inn.” Said Rhys with a salute and formal bow.
“That will not do! I have several wards under my care which several are nobility.” I objected to the plan given.
“I was not aware. I will of course take you to the fortress where Lady Ludmilla will address your concerns.” Replied Rhys with a salute and bow then motioned for me to follow.
“Follow him, Jace .” I said to my new driver and climbed into the carriage.
The bridge over the north side of the Paradise River to the island of Avalon was very long at around a quarter mile or so. The readouts of the gatehouse extended a good ways into the river which had several firing positions. I suspected that the river rose and fell with a possible rainy and dry season which was why the readouts could prevent an army from getting behind the gatehouse or access to the bridge from land. The island side gatehouse was flush with the city walls and protruded into the river was equally as impressive with a descent sized recessed portico and draw bridge porch extension.
Thinking back to my travels through Europe, I decided Avalon looked like the city of East Looe, Cornwall in England but not as topographically elevated and with more renaissance style architecture than back on earth. The Roman style arched bridge was very much what we just rode across. The fortress of Avalon itself was at the highest point which was off to the left on the far east side of the island and most up stream point on the islands.
The Fortress keep was decent but still half the size of Duke Boasag's Buanna. I realized that the reason for putting my servants at an inn was because of the lack of space. However, I was determined to stay with my wards no matter the violation of etiquette it might cause. As my carriage pulled up to the entrance with the fortress that had both iron gates and metal reinforced wooden doors that were a good six feet wide and twelve feet tall each. These doors were set into no less than a three foot thick wall.
Passing through the gate was a small bricked paved courtyard that was about forty to fifty feet wide in a more or less oval shape. I saw a host of servants and two well dressed ladies waiting at the main doors to the fortress's central keep.
“Lord Wyatt, welcome to Avalon. I am Viscountess Ludmilla Skafhoggr and this is my mother Baroness Grogda Wode.” Stated a quiet plump pretty faced brown haired woman in a gaudy yellow with purple accented dress with unicorns all over it and a matching unicorn hat whose horn protruded a good foot from her forehead.
“Yes, it is a very deep pleasure to meet you as well.” Stated Lady Grogda a good looking woman who seemed to be in her mid to late thirties with black hair and unusual olive colored eyes. Her lite brown dress was quiet plain compared to her daughter's which was kind of comical in their contrast.
“The pleasure is mine for sure in meeting you ladies.” I said pouring it on a bit thick with a formal bow and sweep of my arm.
“I do not understand. Why are all your people with you?” Lady Ludmilla asked looking toward Captain Rhys but speaking to me.
“I have many wards under my protection. Thus, it is impossible to leave them alone without my presence as there are many who would try and take advantage of helpless young girls.” I stated but that failed miserably when Freya and the other three Asgardians approached fully armed with their swords.
“I would hardly call them helpless!” Spat Lady Grogda with a bit of contempt as the Asgardians were better looking than her.
“Despite appearances, they need my protection. After all, I am their guardian as I freed them from captivity.” I responded with a bit of admonishment in my voice.
“Yes, we have heard the tale. You are quiet the knight in shinning armor.” Lady Ludmilla said with obvious sarcasm.
“It is what it is. The wards will be with me wherever I am. If that is at an inn or camping on the side of the road, so bit it.” I stated with irritation.
“Do not be silly. We can host your wards and personal attendant. However, we must insist that the rest stay in the inn over there.” Lady Ludmilla said pointing to a three story building that was about fifty yards away.
“That is closer than expected. However, I accept. My people can stay at the inn while you host me and my wards.” I stated with another formal bow.
“Good, now come and we will see to your comfort.” Lady Ludmilla said with a bit of a laugh with Lady Grogda giving a small laugh and a wicked grin.
I immediately turned to Lars, Razor and Meowth and ordered that they maintain a watch on the carts and carriage around the clock as I did not want any lapse where someone would try to take advantage. I called to the wolf kin brothers to continue to protect the girls inside the fortress. Pointing to Lars, I told him to take our prisoner Andros to the adventure's guild office and turn him over and letting them know he was caught trying to steal from me. Tell them know I will see them on morrow to see if Andros was telling the truth or just lying. Turning with a smile and motioned to Freya and the girls to follow me with Gus right behind me.
The inside of the fortress was decently furnished though it had more of the appearance of a military outpost than a holding of wealth as it looked quiet spartan. I was led to an upper chamber where Lady Grogda had already ordered a bath filled by the time we had arrived.
“I will see to you personally” Lady Grogda stated with that same wicked grin again.
I suddenly felt as though I was a piece of meat put on display before a hungry wolf. I steeled myself to not recoil as I just felt off with this lady.
“See to your master's baggage.” Lady Grogda ordered Gus who was surprised by the command.
Gus gave me a slight shaking of his head and left the chamber. Lady Grogda then proceeded to strip me with efficiency. Once I was naked, she suddenly took her time looking at my nakedness. She even traced my scars on my back with a click of her tongue. Walking over to the tub, I climbed in and sat down.
“Spoil sport” Said Lady Grogda as she grabbed a wash cloth.
“Do not get my wounds wet.” I said warning Lady Groda of what the doctor had told me.
“Why? Your wound is almost well healed. The stitches can be pulled out except here” Stated Grogda and tapped me on my left shoulder blade.
“I have been using a special salve from the high elves. I did not realize it was healing that fast. However, I was warned that getting my wound wet would effect my healing.” I repeated what Doctor Zalzwarth told me.
“Very well.” Groda conceded.
Lady Grogda began washing me where she was absolutely taking her time. It was obvious that she was deliberately feeling me up for her own pleasure. When she grasped my manhood. I stood up and said, “The water is cold and I am tired and hungry!”
“Humph” Pouted Lady Grogda her displeasure but began to rinse me.
Just as I was stepping out of the tub, Gus entered slightly out of breath as he had run to get my clothes with Lukas my footman helping. I sighed with relief as Gus helped me don my dressing gown.
“Old Maude will be here momentarily to apply your salve.” Gus said with a salute.
“Very good.” I replied to Gus then turned to Lady Grogda and said, “I was told you are a Dowager Baroness. Is that not so?” I blatantly asked appearing as innocent as I could.
“I will see you at the dinner bell hour.” Lady Groda said with a sort of half wave salute and stormed out of the chamber in a huff.
“Thank you, Gus. I actually thought I would have to literally fight to save my personal honor.” I remarked with a laugh.
“It was my pleasure, Lord Wyatt.” Gus responded and joined me in laughing.
Old Maude came about twenty minutes later and applied my salve and chatted about how excited she was to be in Avalon and wanting to visit one of the apothecary shops. I gave her permission but have one of the guards accompany her.
About an hour later and I was fully shaven and dressed, I heard a large bell ringing from a bell tower not far away from my chamber. With that, I headed down to the great hall that was just off the main entrance way. I was met by Lady Ludmilla who escorted me to Viscount Skafhoggr chair where she seated herself to my left. Lady Grogda appeared wearing a new pink dress and seated herself to my right. The one missing was the Viscount.
“Where is Lord Skafhoggr?” I asked Lady Ludmilla with a raised eyebrow.
“He is meeting with one of the military commanders. I believe they are deciding on how large a levy they must raise to battle the bastards of Mardor.” Replied Lady Ludmilla as she clapped her hands for servants to begin serving the evening meal.
Four exhausting hours later, I was back in my chamber with my nerves completely shot. The constant fawning and mindless chatter from Lady Ludmilla as well as the constant groping from Lady Grogda under the table had stained me to the max. I was ready for bed and was glad to sink into the lavender scented sheets. Gus grabbed a thin pallet and two blankets. Blowing out the candles he stepped into the hallway closing the door behind him. He would outside my door as custom demands while traveling.
A little over a half an hour later after Gus left, the door opened and closed quickly. I could not see in the darkness but relaxed when Freya spoke softly and slipped into bed with me. Freya did her magic on me as she mounted me taking me to new heights of pleasure. I quickly forgot all about the overly eager pursuit of the Dowager Baroness as I shared the pleasures of being with Freya. After we had sated ourselves completely, we slept peacefully in a loving embrace.
The morning came with a knock on my door that woke both Freya and I. I moaned but Freya nudged me on the chin.
“Time to wake you lazy bones.” Freya said with a laugh.
“I am not a morning person.” I said with a groan.
“Don't I know it! You were quiet the beast were you not?” Freya teased then laughed at me.
The knock on the door was more instant as I rose and put on my dressing gown. Opening the door slightly was Gus and the Dowager Baroness.
“It is early, what is it?” I asked.
“We have prepared a very special meal for you this morning.” Said Lady Grogda with a frown while she tried to look around me into the chamber.
“I see. Well, give me some time to properly dress and I will be down shortly.” I stated and continued to Gus “Have Lukas bring my shaving kit.”
“Right away, Lord Wyatt.” Gus said as he motioned down the hall where I assumed Lukas was.
About forty five minutes later and having snuck Freya out of my chamber, I was fully shaved and dressed in my dark red outfit and black beret hat that actually looked really good on me. Upon entering the great hall, I saw Lady Ludmilla seated. Lady Grogda taking me by the arm led me again to the Viscount's chair where she seated herself next to me.
“Where is Lord Skafhoggr, Lady Ludmilla?” I asked her directly.
Lady Ludmilla was quiet for a moment then said, “I guess he is sleeping. The meetings with the military commanders drag on for hours and hours. I hardly ever see him these days.” Lady Ludmilla said with a shrug of her shoulders.
“Is that so. Very well as it can not be helped. Please send my regards to Lord Skafhoggr for his hospitality. I was informed that the king would have a messages for me that Lord Skafhoggr was to give me. Could you ask Lord Skafhoggr for them?” I asked as I suspected something was just not right.
“Oh. Ah. I will of course ask my Lord Vincent for the king's message once morning meal is finished.” Lady Ludmilla said and looked discombobulated.
“I see. Please do so. The king ordered me to arrive in Camelot immediately. I can not dally and spend extra time as I normally would do. I hope you understand.” I said making extra emphasis on the king's order part.
“Yes. What the king commands we all must obey.” Lady Ludmilla said sourly but not looking at me.
Lady Ludmilla then clapped her hands and the servants brought in the morning meal. What surprised me was my meal was different from everyone else. Looking at both Lady Ludmilla and Lady Grogda something in the back on my head screamed warning warning.
The silver plate before me was a type of stew with a strong overpowering spice scent. I frowned and began to think hard and fast.
“This is a specialty from the High Valley region. I hope you like it.” Lady Grogda said with no expression at all.
My alarm bells went off even stronger this time. A footman came over to fill my cup which I deliberately knocked over and profusely apologized for my clumsiness.
“You know, I am from the High Valley region too. I have never been a fan of overly spiced foods. Lets see how spicy it is.” I stated and took a scoop with a spoon and handed it to the footman to taste.
The footman was surprised but more than happy to taste the food as it was obvious that food for the staff was very plain and simple.
“You should not do that! It is not right!” Lady Grogda said as she stood up showing more alarm than outrage.
The footman had already consumed the sample where he at first looked like he liked it. However, he suddenly started to choke as his face turned bright red and falling to his knees. Lady Ludmilla stood up in horror as the footman was gagging begging for water. I handed him my silver chalice with what I assumed was apple cider where he chugged it down then begged for more.
Finally, after three more cups of water given by another footman, first footman just lay on his back almost in a stupor. It was as if his mind was blank.
“What is this?” I asked as I pointed to my meal looking at both Lady Ludmilla and Lady Grogda.
“I do not know!” Said Lady Ludmilla looking at her mother with a strange look.
“Do not give me that! What did you do?” I demanded with a my voiced raised and now pointing my finger at them.
“It was a love potion. It was to make you like me.” Said Lady Grogda meekly and looking sheepishly at the ground.
“Seriously! That was more than a simple love potion!” I yelled my outrage.
“I swear that is all it was. I had to hide its not so pleasant taste with spice.” Lady Grogda stated her defense but still not able to look me in the eye.
“Lady Ludmilla, I must now ask that you bring me the king's message as I am now leaving Avalon.” I commanded with rage in my countenance.
Lady Ludmilla fled the great hall without replying. Lady Grogda just sat down with her head down looking at the floor saying nothing.
With exasperation, I called out to my people. “House of Wyatt, Ladies and girls we are leaving! Quickly gather your things and be out front within a little span!”
With that, I stormed out of the great hall to the shock of all present. Up in the guest chamber, I changed clothes into my bluejeans, a blue shirt and a tan leather vest. Pulling on my boots and strapping on my weapons belt, I looked over seeing Gus and Lukas already packed up my discarded clothing and was ready to leave as they were staying clear of my angry outbursts.
Down at the carts, I ordered my guards to ready themselves to leave. I sent Lukas to call all the servants in the inn to be ready to leave immediately. Razor and Meowth jumped down from their perch on the first two carriages with questioning looks.
“They tried to poison me! Can you believe it?” I said angrily as I swept my arm to point at the fortress.
“Meow Lord Wyatt, that is clawful. Do you want meow to use them like a scratching post?” Asked Meowth as her tail went straight in what I assumed was either surprise or anger.
Razor just gave a low grumbling growl with teeth bared as he looked at the fortress.
Forty minutes later as my people were loading up, Lady Ludmilla approached with her head down.
“I am sorry Lord Wyatt. It seems you do not have any messages from the king.” Lady Ludmilla said never once looking me in the eye.
“I see. Send a message to the king that I left Avalon today and as commanded traveling as quickly as I can. The king is expecting my update so make sure it is properly sent!” I said with a warning.
I ordered a florse saddled for I needed fresh air as I was still furious. I actually led our people out and toward the main north south road which Nick panicked a bit and settled with riding next to me. As we approached the main crossroads of the city, I saw a large dinning hall and ordered a halt for all of our people to have breakfast. The meal consisted of roasted mutton, eggs, apple pancakes and apple jam. They also had fresh chilled milk and apple cider which really went well with the sweet dishes. Our group apparently cleaned them out and they had to turn away a few customers until mid day.
After breakfast, I went to the adventurer's guild that was a few buildings to the south. It was a four story building of decent size. I allowed Old Maude with a one of the house guards to go to the apothecary shop across the road along with the two Alphardian servants Aura and Sylvia. Inside the adventurer's guild, I asked for Marine as instructed. It was then I learned that Marine was Zack Talley's girl where they were to marry soon as she proudly let me know her good news.
“Zack said to tell you this is a level one escort. Whatever that means.” I repeated what Zack had told me to say.
“Thank you. It simply means Zack thinks there would be no problems and just being present is enough to discourage any potential thieves. The total is two hundred fifty denari for basic escort with an A ranked adventurer.” Marine said with a smile
After paying the fee for the job request, I asked Marine to speak to someone about Andros that was brought in by man guard Lars.
“I am Supervisor Etan Borg and assistant to Guild Master Henry Stewart. It is a pleasure to be at your service Count Wyatt.” Stated Etan with a salute and bow.
“Pleasure is mine.” I replied with a salute and nod of my head.
“We have investigated Andros. His party the Finders of Avalon specialize in retrieving lost items or stolen goods from thieves. It appears his party was specifically requested to recover a lost ventu volpis. We do not have any more details for the job other than this.” Etan stated as he read from a page in his hand.
“Who hired them to steal from me? Make no mistake, they were hired to steal from me!” I said as I was showing my anger and frustration.
“Normally, we would not disclose who posted job requests to those not apart of the contract. However, given the circumstances, I was instructed to tell you it was Viscountess Lady Ludmilla. It seems she contracted and paid a merchant from Xanadu for a ventu volpis. It is our understanding that merchant was placed on a Quenya trade ship where he will go on trial for his many crimes in Svarta. The Finders of Avalon should not have tried to take your ventu volpis. Nor should they have taken on the job given the crimes of the merchant without more information.” Etan explained what the guild knew.
“What will happen to Andros?” I asked frankly.
“The Guild Master will hold a hearing with S and an A ranked members who will advise on the issues. I expect he will be found guilty but will escape the ten year punishment. More like one to two years of labor for the guild doing low ranked jobs that no one wants while being supervised by myself or a C ranked or higher adventurer. His pay will be one third of normal with the rest going to repay the guild and costs associated with his lapse in judgment.” Etan replied with a shrug of his shoulders.
“I see. The thing that irks me is they attacked my people and wounded one of my guards with a slinger's stone.” I explained my outrage.
“I was not aware of this fact. Master Stewart will compensate you as the law requires. Unfortunately, Master Stewart left for Camelot for meetings with the war counsel on Astria's response to the Empire's latest invasion. I will send a filoxis to let Master Stewart know that there was injury, offense and honor requirements. I understand you will be traveling to Camelot and am certain Master Stewart will seek you out to give you a formal apology and see you are properly compensated.” Etan stated with a salute and bow.
“Good enough. Let me know the outcome of the hearing for Andros. I do not like loose ends and a potential enemy looking for revenge.” I said mater of factually.
“Understood. I will relay your concerns to Master Stewart. Etan replied with another salute and bow.
Leaving the adventure's guild, I decided to visit the tradesman's guild and merchant's storefront while Old Maude was still busy across the street. The girls came with me as they had been requesting things like combs, brushes and scented oils plus a few other special feminine items they needed.
Once all the girls got what they were needing and getting those items stowed with their baggage, Old Maude came back with a small crate filled with items to make medicines. While the baggage was being loaded and sorted, I went to see the information broker's desk and inquired about Chamberlain Robert Duffy. I paid the requested fee of one erythro given his status in the city. I was shown a file which listed the qualities, character and known habits of Robert. There was a section about vices and food preferences. The only vice was seeing a woman who was a widow listed as a paid mistress. Basically, Robert was a straight as an arrow honorable man. I smiled as the report made me feel better about who I was helping.
Finally, with everyone loaded up, we headed out of the city of Avalon over the southern main bridge and gate that was just like the north one but slightly longer with a guard tower protected draw bridge section to let ships pass. After about two hours, I had calmed down enough that I rode in the carriage as was expected of a person of rank. I just looked out seeing nothing but the vast wheat fields of the Capital Region realizing how lucky I had been to escape the evils of the ladies of Fortress Avalon.

I’ll try this again.
This is for me personally and my experience and not about what anyone else is doing. I respect all journeys.
Personally I have been finding success with moving on by untraining my brain of the intermittent reinforcement she used by ghosting and reappearing without warning. It did a serious number on me psychologically. I have also decided to go no contact. Even though she recently popped up where we met and two of her friends contacted me to try to get me to go back there and one of them told me she was there. My experience with her checked all of the twin flame boxes, but she has never confirmed anything other than clearly being overwhelming drawn to me for years when we were friends. I had a full strong and jolting awakening and everything after we finally got intimate and she promptly ghosted and said it was “too much”. It was after she ghosted that I had the awakening in her absence. But immediately after being intimate I had the heart chakra bust open and electric body feeling.
When I told her I thought she was my tf when she came back she at first was loving it but then later laughed and said it was probably a trauma bonds. Now I am thinking it is probably the case after all. I am very spiritual regardless after we had our intimate encounter, but I think it is for the best that I stop running back to her like a fool every time she appears. It is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do is to avoid her. The funny thing is she says do not contact her but then goes places and sends her friends to try to reel me in. No thanks.
So when I see her name repeatedly somewhere or someone who looks like her or a car that is like hers, I just face my feelings at the time and feel them fully. And of course it is at first the feelings of “I am so in love and this is magical and special and oh my god it’s real” and it makes me cry and bawl to accept it is not. I been crying for years but the difference before was I allowed her back in… But every time I do this feeling of my feelings it and it isn’t her, it helps to train my brain that she indeed is not popping up and that it isn’t some magical destined thing. And I won’t allow her back in even if she did pop up randomly. It gets easier every time. Shorter process each time. It was just that every time I let her back into my life I was reinforcing this reward pathway in my brain and I was believing almost anything just to get another hit of attention from her or to be around her like an addiction. And I believe she knew full well what she was doing now that I look back on it. So, be safe out there.
I had finally realized she is not anyone special more than anyone else and apologized to her for putting her on a pedestal and how embarrassing it was and how I was wrong a couple months back. There was no way she could’ve ever met those expectations I put on her and it was unfair to her. Even with all the boxes being checked for TF I don’t care. I refuse to lower myself.
And I genuinely meant that from my heart, I felt I put too high expectations and was being fanciful. I just want to move on with my life now and this method is working for me and I am happy. But, right after I apologized she blocked me. Then not long after is when someone contacted me and told me they saw her and she looked “weird” and tried to get me to go to the place she was at. Heck no.
For me my journey is realizing this person is not ever going to be worthy of me and if she ever was she would have to grow so much and she wouldn’t be playing childish games still. And every time I deny her access to my life I go through a period of intense healing and ascension almost immediately afterward. I had a full kundalini awakening when she left the first time. And then when she came back it was like all the energy left when she ghosted the second time. Now I refuse to play into her games and avoid her. I actually do much better for myself and my life is so very good without her, so I am happy to heal and block anyone who contacts on her behalf. I really don’t need her messing anything up for me with her negativity or lowering my vibe. It is highly likely that she will never heal. And the only thing I can do is give her space, refrain from enabling her, and keep my vibe as high as possible if there was any chance she really is my twin. So, either way, the answer is clearly to do what is best for me and avoid her.

How can you move on if you ruined someone’s life? I reported my ex boyfriend for overstaying his visa and working illegally because he broke up with me… i feel so terrible for doing this. Its so hard to cope and the guilt is so extreme I dont know what to do or how to handle it… I feel so bad for lashing out - I feel so bad for letting my emotions get to me. I should have let go. Now he cant come back to USA and I ruined him forever. He was such an amazing man and I’m such a monster… I ruined him because I was caught in an emotionally/narcissistic abusive relationship before him- with someone he used to know, they were friends once. And even though I was broken and didn’t heal we kept on pursuing our relationship. In part because I was lonely and he was nice to me… but I would snap at him and I ended up threatening him a few times so he could do things that made me happy because I wouldn’t want to take a no for an answer.. (it was things like watching a movie, a series, playing a game, etc… going out… nothing crazy) but I shouldn’t have treated him this way… i should have accepted his “no”… I thought of my self inferior for some reason, controlling and I just hated to hear the word “no”. I made many mistakes and once I realized the damage I had done to him I tried to fix it, I tried to work on myself, I tried to be more loving and supporting… but it was too late… because of the way I was to him… I broke him… and he would acuse me of cheating all the time but never have I ever done this and it went on since October 2023 until now… everything became so toxic and we couldn’t talk it through and I exploded and lashed out and didn’t think about the consequences of my actions… God I feel so bad… this was an online relationship… It was all my fault… But I was always like this to him… I always put myself before him and never considered him - I should have had put us both and thought about us both but I messed everything up all the time. Im such a mess that shouldn’t be alive… im a walking mistake, im a demon, im a devil - and I dont want to be. I wish he was here with me. I ruined him. I want to work on myself but every time I smile i think about all the damage i have done… im the worst person alive. I apologized many times… but apologies dont do anything - they dont bring back our lives, it doesn’t bring him back… they dont matter and I dont want to live with this guilt… its so awful… I wish I had realized things sooner or myself or my behaviours…

**WARNING** long post. Feel free to skip the background information if need be
BACKGROUND:
I am a software engineer at a major bank. Relative to my counterparts on my team, I am the "most junior", but I have three years of experience. This is important to know as it may offer some insight to our team culture. I landed this job in November 2023 and was placed with my team in January 2024. The team consisted of two women, including myself and five men. I work at our NYC office with three of the other men, one of which is our team lead, let's call him Anderson. The other woman coworker lives in FL and the other two men are in India. I am the only black person on the team, and the rest of my coworkers are of Indian descent. This, too, is important to note.
From day 1, I was intentionally assigned low level administrative tasks while my coworkers were purposefully trained and briefed on other, technical tasks. The first week with my team, I mentioned to my team lead that I felt it important to learn the technical tasks that my teammates were learning, even if these technical tasks were not going to be my responsibility, because there would not be anyone to take on the technical tasks if someone was on vacation. My team lead told me to focus on the work he assigned to me.
Still determined to learn the technical tasks, I scheduled trainings with my offshore counterpart so that he would train me instead. This meant that I had to sign in to work after hours to be trained. I was now trained on what my "work buddy" knew, but still not fully trained on what the rest of the team knew how to do. Suddenly (not suddenly), my other woman coworker, let's call her Sandra, went on maternity leave and I was assigned her work. My team lead expressed his frustration with me not knowing how to do her job, and told me to figure out how to learn the things she was doing.
What is interesting to point out here is that during the first few weeks on the team, my team lead would assign our other senior engineer to train Sandra and answer all questions that she had. I was not granted this opportunity. Instead, my Slack messages went unanswered (I have all of this documented) when I had questions and after another two weeks, my team lead quietly reassigned Sandra's work from me to another senior engineer instead. He never explained why he did this, or gave me feedback on the work I was doing.
As the weeks went by, my team lead called me into a meeting to gauge my knowledge on querying our databases. He asked me to find a few items, which I could not find because for one, I had NEVER interacted with the databases before, and for two, I had no understanding of the database architecture or the data flow for our app. Nevertheless, I decided to ask clarifying questions to help me better understand the data so that I could write appropriate queries. My team lead responded to this with yelling "you are an engineer and you don't even know SQL", to which I responded that my knowledge of SQL was sufficient (part of my technical interview was based on writing complex queries), but I needed to understand exactly what he wanted me to find. He ended the meeting and never followed up on the information he was looking for. I still do not know what task, if any, that he was trying to assign to me.
I decided to follow up with him and explain to him that I could sense his frustration, and I asked him to define clear expectations for me and the team, and provide official training that focused on our application architecture and other technical areas that we needed to focus on. He told me that no amount of training would fix the "fact" that I did not know SQL and that it is the team members' job to train themselves.
Nevertheless, after that meeting, he assigned me with handling all onboarding for new projects moving forward. I have taken the liberty of advocating for my team members to ensure that we are all properly trained and provided with ALL resources needed to do our job well. Since then, the team, and myself has expressed more confidence in our ability to do our work. We are even at a point where senior team members reach out to me when they cannot find resources and either ask me to provide documentation, or ask me to reach out to other engineers to schedule meetings to provide trainings. Here is where I am concerned that I might be experiencing hostility at work. Please provide objective feedback and even constructive criticism if need be:
MAIN POINTS:
-my team lead uses language in his interactions with me that creates a false narrative. For example, he accuses me of "not caring" about my job, not "being collaborative", and not paying attention. One example is where I was tasked with migrating a google guice project to springboot. We had four weeks to get the work done and each week during standup, I brought up to my team lead my plans to make changes to the service. Each time, he would redirect my attention to administrative tasks. The third week of the sprint, literally in the middle of a Slack conversation of me telling my team lead that I planned on making some code changes and him instead telling me to do something else, our senior manager called a meeting with the team and yelled at my team lead for not getting any work done related to the code refactoring. After the meeting, my team lead followed up with me and berated me for not having work done. This is all documented in Slack and I remember being very confused as he had literally told me to do other tasks. As a result, my team lead removed me from the code refactoring project and used this to further justify his belief that I do "not care" about the work. Keep in mind that these interactions are documented.
-my team lead constantly verbally berates me in my interactions with him. One example is when I was typing up a document on a zoom call and I was sharing my screen with him. He kept rushing me and was saying things like "come on man I have other things to do", "ughhh hurry up", "you need to move fast!". Two things here: he yelled at me for moving fast because he said he could not see what I was clicking on when I moved fast. Then he yelled at me when I slowed down. There was one time he yelled at me for clicking a back button instead of the home button on the screen...he told me that I was not listening to him or paying attention...I am confused by this because the point of his instruction was for me to return to the home screen. There was another time where I misspelled a word in the middle of him berating me, and then he berated me even more for misspelling the word...
-my team lead has unclear expectations and gets angry at me when I do not do things he wants me to do. One example is when he wanted me to watch a 40 minute training video, summarize the points in the video, and schedule a follow up training with the person who lead the training so that the team (me) could ask questions. He asked me to get this done within an hour. He also wanted me to upload some recordings to Sharepoint. But this task was just another task to complete and not time-sensitive. After the call, I watched the video and made a summary and got back to him with an update in 45 minutes instead of the hour. He responded to my message 20 minutes after I wrote him by hopping on a call with me and yelled at me for not having the videos uploaded. Again, he accused me of "not caring" about my job. When I explained to him that the videos were not uploaded because I was focusing on the other, time sensitive task, he said that that task was not as important as having the videos uploaded and "people" were asking him about the videos in the Sharepoint space....this was a lie because it has been a week and the only person who accessed the uploaded videos was...you guessed it...me :)
-my team lead just berates me in general. He berated me for collaborating with a team member to explore a new internal application. He said that there was no need to get on zoom with the coworker because we should have already known everything...the app was new and I was the only one who understood how to navigate it after exploring it with the team member...oh...need I mention that he then asked me to train the other team members on the new app's UI next week?
-my team lead expressed his frustration at not having access to certain resources when I was on bereavement.The documentation was incomplete and I had to take a sudden leave due to a death in the family. Upon my return, he asked for the documentation and said that he find an "excuse" to tell his manager as to why the documentation was incomplete and that I was "on vacation"
-my team lead "warns" me not to "disappoint" him when he assigns me with tasks. When I ask him to define what a "disappointment" is and for us to agree on what is acceptable, he ignores me.
-my team lead tells me that "people" ask questions about my work and one day he is going to make our department head "deal" with me. The department head is known for being a hot head who yells at people. But he has NEVER yelled at me in any interaction I had with him, no matter how frustrated he may have been.
I want to make an important note here that he does NOT speak to other people like this and he ONLY does this over zoom. I work 3x days in office and on the days where he speaks to me in person, he does not even make eye contact with me and he speaks so soft I can barely hear him sometimes. My team lead has never provided any feedback on my work. As a matter of fact, he uses my documentation and my explanation of technical tasks as if they were his own.
I am considering taking my concerns to our senior manager, who apparently is a well respected, "big boss" at work, but also MY direct manager and I happen to have a great relationship with him. I want to be as objective as possible in my complaint but in the meantime, I would like to explore areas where maybe I can improve to minimize my team lead's verbal assaults on me

[ First / Previous ]
Memory Transcription Subject: Hileen, Krakotl Fugitive Recovery Agent
Date [standardized human time]: November 28th, 2136
It'd been a while since I sat in Marlig's office for a talk face-to-face. Given the agency's secluded location at the edge of the downtown region, it was a chore to drop by when it wasn't for business, but I'd deemed the matter at hand to be worth my time.
I passed by Nampi at her desk on my way to the door and she gave me a coy glare as I carried on. Trying to ignore her risible ear waggle, I turned the corner to the door with my boss’s name painted on the glass panel where I could hear the frantic crumpling of paper.
Quietly, I entered Marlig's office without prompt as I knew he hated to be spooked by knocking. My mentor was surprisingly spry for a bird at his age, sorting through papers with one wing and an eye while using his talons with the other to set away the papers he had splayed out.
“Hileen!” he chirped. “Glad you could make it in today. I was just finishing up my paperwork. Take a seat.”
It was always nice to hear him drop the professional motif for a more grandfatherly attitude when speaking in person. I did as he suggested and took a seat while he grumbled to himself over the sorting. My eye caught a few of the old contracts he was rifling through and saw that some dated back to his days as an agent.
Eventually, he left some sitting out as he sequestered the rest back into their files, sorted by a dichotomy that only he and Nampi could comprehend fully. He motioned with a wing for me to peruse and I turned the first one to face me to find it was my first contract, signed by me in a sloppy fashion. “This takes me back a couple of years.”
“Slick bastard thought he could get away on a forklift but you showed him! Certainly more exciting than my first day!”
“Mm-hmm. And it was when I nearly got impaled that you had the idea to commission all of us utility vests.”
He chuckled, “I really should’ve done so sooner. Cuts and scratches were already a risk, but a forklift was a new one!”
I flipped through the pages of each report, finding that Marlig's notes were filled with praises of my work. There were highs and lows, but I was flattered to find that the grizzled krakotl held my performance in such high regard.
“Flawless interception!” read one footnote about me catching a runner. “Couldn't have done it better myself!”
Marlig waited patiently as I browsed quickly through each page, realizing more and more how the notes also marked improvements in my work. How I found it easier to talk down a rowdy client, or apprehend them in the case that they were beyond helping on my part. Flowery language plastered most pages with him fawning over my work as a doting father would to his prodigal child.
The trend took a sharp turn as the notes became fewer and more critical the closer the dates reached to the present. I brushed the others aside with a wing to peruse the final paper. “And this…”
“Is Tac. Your latest contract. The most recent in a line of declining performance since the interview. This has become a pattern, Hileen, and its consequences are beginning to reach beyond yourself. Paji and Vesek resigned recently for personal reasons, which leaves us even less hands on deck than before. That's four people to cover the entire municipal region, and maybe even beyond, should needs arise. Three, if we include this little probation I have you on.”
“What was I supposed to do? Marlig, these ‘jobs’ you've got us working on overstep the contracts we were signed on with. Our job is to make sure people obey their court-mandated duties, not drag them off to the facilities ourselves!”
“... So the trip we took to the facilities did bother you.”
A sigh clicked in my throat as he reminded me. “Is that what happens to the people we take in, Marlig? Is that what would've happened to your wife?”
His feathers ruffled.
“That's what happens to those who are too dangerous to the general public to be left roaming free. Not everyone we deal with winds up there, but everyone can be subject to it. Miskela sued for her exoneration and proved in court that she was not diseased. I brought you there to show you how it helps the people, but I see now that it was a mistake. I understand why you were so perturbed, really, but it's how things have been for centuries. It's how we've protected ourselves from the dangers out there.”
“You were willing to let Barsul be interned there, too.”
Marlig flinched and sighed as he swept the papers towards himself once I'd signaled I was done. He turned one eye to me while he sorted them.
“There's no room for favoritism, girl. I negotiated for him to be allowed to walk free, and look where that got me. That boy - your neighbor - suffered the consequences of my nepotism. So too would the girl, had nobody intervened.”
“Like Richard.”
“The human, yes. Or you. Or the police. Where does this sudden obsession with humans come from, anyway? I get notifications of you talking about the acceptance of them all the time on forums.”
“Does it even need explaining?”
“Well, I guess not, no, but it's certainly an about-face from the way you used to talk about them with me beforehand.”
“People can change, for better or worse. Which one I fall under remains to be seen.”
Marlig stroked at the plumage on his neck as he finished his sorting. “I hope it's the former, for your sake. Was there any reason you came to talk, or were you just checking that I hadn't gone senile?”
“Well, I was hoping to borrow your secretary for the evening.”
He perked up while his eyes narrowed and he laced his fingers together with curiosity. “You… want to spend an evening with Nampi?”
“It's not what you're insinuating, but yes.”
“I was insinuating nothing,” he warbled coyly. “Go ahead and take her, and make sure to split the bill at dinner.”
“Pain-in-the-ass geezer. I'll keep in touch if your friend causes any more trouble.”
“Keep in touch regardless. Miskela and I get lonely in our old age,” he called back. “Take care.”
I stepped out into the hallway and turned toward the desk where I could hear the secretary's claws tapping furtively at her keyboard. Nampi sat silently with her ears and tail in a relaxed position that implied a bored demeanor. There was barely any response as I stood before her, waiting politely for her acknowledgment that never came.
Hesitantly, I cleared my throat.
An ear raised in acknowledgement, but her focus remained on the screen of her computer. “Mhm?”
“Do you…?”
Her ear rotated toward me, though she still maintained a passive attitude as she continued to glare mindlessly at the monitor.
“Are you free this evening?”
“Well, I'm quite booked, I believe. Why do you ask?”
I was surprised at her curt, dry tone. She hadn't spoken with me like this since we first got to know one another.
“Well,” I started. “I realized something. Every time we went out, whether it was clubbing, or dinner, or even walking around the parks, you always footed the bill. And so…”
Slowly, her other ear perked up and I saw her keystrokes slow down as she listened in.
“I wanted to return the favor?”
Her lips smacked as she opened her mouth, though paused before she spoke. “How could you possibly do that?”
“With a little gesture of friendship.”
Nampi's horizontal pupil turned up toward me and her tail twitched.
I continued, “So that belt you're wearing? It's the same belt you've worn since we first met. And I know you're the pragmatic type who'd never spend a credit more than she needs to, except for all the times you do"- her ears twitched in indignance -"I wanted to see about getting you a little something… extra?”
Her paws raised from the keyboard and she leaned in, resting her snout on her palms. “Go on.”
The bubbly venlil's tail sold out her collected facade as it twitched with anticipation. She was cornered and she didn't even know it yet.
“Well, I found just the place on the other side of town where we can start. It's a place almost as rich and indulgent as yourself.”
“The Platinum Paw? I mean3”
Her ears folded back in embarrassment as she cracked. She wasn't cut out for acting anyway.
“So that's what it's called! Jeez, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was called. Now what do you say? We go over there and find you something nice—”
I hadn’t even finished my thought before Nampi had grabbed her bag and was out the door, giving me a playful tail flick that said come and get me.

The place I suggested was in a shopping center on the opposite side of town, though easily accessible because of its proximity to the transport rails. Nampi had insisted on grabbing something to eat beforehand and so now gleefully bit into a bundle of stalks that had been “grilled” as explained from the food truck we'd stopped at.
Her tail flicked back and forth with her usual enthusiasm as we entered the massive complex of stores. The roofless plan allowed the natural, orange sun to flood the upper levels while artificial lighting illuminated the ground level wherever the light couldn't reach.
The place was built in the last decade by the previous City Magister in a bid for popularity, though ultimately for naught as he would lose the vote following a scandal involving an iftali priestess and a carved bar of soap. I had to say that despite being sick in the head, he sure had a great sense of decor.
Nampi snacked away, joining me in admiring the scenery as we continued to the place I’d planned out for us. Aimless chatter all melded together into a single, thrumming murmur as pedestrians navigated the many levels and stores offered in the place.
A troupe of children passed by us, held in a chain of tails and arms as they were escorted by a pair of venlil who I assumed were students and teachers on a school trip. I caught a whiff of a sweet, aromatic breeze and found it to come from a perfume shop on the same level as us; naturally, venlil were not to be found inside.
We passed a fountain where a couple sat on the edge, their tails twined together as they giggled and flirted. I turned and caught Nampi watching them as well, though she awkwardly returned to sucking the remains of her meal from her claws when we made eye contact. Her ears lifted when I raised a wing to signal to the store we were going to stop at first.
“Platinum Paw, The Greatest Fashion Emporium For Everyone!”
The title alone was painfully cliche, taken to the tenth power by the brightly lit store taking up three department slots. Despite the flashy exterior, though, it was the best place to shop for belts, brooches, and bracelets alike. Customers who looked like they earned my yearly salary in a week browsed the higher end brands while I brought my friend to the section I wanted to show her.
Her ears were held up as we stood together next to a shelf chock full of fashionable bags and bandoliers of every variety.
“Pick one,” I told her.
Nampi's ears shot to a straight pose in surprise, “Any?”
“Within reason. I've got a few extra credits to blow and I know nobody better to spend it on.”
With an inviting headtilt, I let Nampi peruse the shelves at her leisure. Her lips pursed together and her tail flicked with glee as she fingered at every piece that caught her eye. I chuckled at her outburst of enthusiasm while turning to find my own items to gloss over.
A breeze from outside nipped at my beak while I considered what I’d like to purchase. The place dripped with an atmosphere of faux hospitality, from the bright blue-stained floorboards to the radio prattling off advertisements in a sickeningly sweet tone to the faint, fruity aroma of scented cleaner. It was oppressive as only a fissan-owned company could be to the senses.
What I wouldn’t pay to see how a human would fare in such an environment.
I knew they were social creatures at least, but I had no doubt that the predatory senses of a human, so honed to hunting, would get overstimulated in this center of gaudy indulgence. Knowing I was something of a predator myself made me sympathize provided that even I had to squint to keep the pale lights inside from searing my eyes. I could only imagine how the arboreal eyes of a Terran would fare. I was so lost in thought imagining how lost the Terrans would be that I could almost ignore the obnoxious giggling and metallic rattling coming from behind me.
Risking a peek at the source, into my sight came a pair of venlil, one a male carrying a pair of bags as well as a couple more strapped to his belt. The bored expression in his eyes was not one of a man who was in high spirits. The other venlil was a woman who was the source of the noise.
Her mottled gray pelt was accented by a tasteful belt design, free of almost any practical functions but not flashy or excessive in garnishment either. At least, that’s what I would say, were it not for the braid of beads that dangled on the belt, jingling with each bounce of the lively woman’s stride. It was clear that such a gaudy accessory was intended to draw attention to her, though why was a mystery. Certainly, the shiny braids seemed designed as decoration first and practical second.
She turned about and I faced back to my browsing before she could catch me staring. Nampi was nowhere in sight, though I figured she was somewhere behind the shelf, sifting through every accessory on the section I'd suggested.
Clink.
Something pelted to my immediate right. I tilted my head to spot a tree nut shell clattering to the floor. Without being able to guess where it came from, I had to wonder what could've launched it over this way. Even with my keen eyesight, nobody in the crowd seemed to be a suspect.
Clink.
Another shell pelted my vicinity, ricocheting off of the floor and hitting the shelf I was standing next to. I ruffled my feathers in frustration - clearly, someone was trying to get my attention, though I couldn't make out who it was. Out of the corner of my vision, the woman from before eyed me curiously as I looked about, though I wasn't interested in engaging with her.
Thwack.
One more shell came flying and, unfortunately, the aim on this one was true, nailing me on the beak. Irritated, I stormed out of the store to find the source of the instigator. I scanned over the bodies to find anyone who could've been responsible for this indignity, eventually concluding that it came from the dining area across the walkway.
Whoever was responsible was in for an earful and I was already structuring which of the offender's family members would be acceptable as fodder for stray words. As I approached, I found the tables were mostly empty save for one, which made my heart begin to drop as I met eyes with the only occupant. Suddenly, I was much less inclined to hurl insults.
“Oh, hi there!” Qitel called out in a sickly sweet tone. “Come, take a seat! We have much to discuss!”
The Exterminator clutched a bag of tree nuts in his claws, a pile of discarded shells already gathered on the table next to him. He grabbed another as I approached, effortlessly prying the shell in half between two claws and tossed the contents into his mouth. “Good protein, these,” he commented as I sat down.
“Must be for that good arm you've got there,” I mumbled. I caught sight of a couple of bags beneath his chair, seemingly from one of the tech stores contained within the center.
“Bah, it's guesswork. So how are you? I haven't heard from you since we worked together!”
“I was just spending time with a friend, shopping and enjoying my time off.”
“Your time off? Oh, am I interrupting something?”
His snide tone irked me, though now wasn’t the time for interjections. “You are, Qitel,” I replied with no shortage of vitriol in my tone. “But I see no harm in chatting for a bit.”
“Good, because I have some merchandise”- he reached into his belt pocket and deposited a couple of items onto the table -“and you’re just the person to look into it, human sympathizer.”
I drew a terse breath in shock, but my worries were quelled when I considered that if Qitel had the power to do anything about it, he would’ve done so instead of approaching me so discreetly. A glance down at the item on the table showed that he was presenting what looked to be a tracker as well as a personal drive. “Found in the garbage,” he told me.
“The guild resorts to dumpster diving when they already have such a bloated budget now?”
“No, featherbrain, I have decided to keep this for myself. These items were found together, sealed in a plastic pouch, and placed in a garbage bin. The city has bans against electronics being placed into public bins, and so I was curious why this wound up in there. Managed to get my coworker, a techie, to crack it open and…”
Qitel reached into his belt again, glowering at me with the same condescending gaze he’d given me when I first saw his face. He seemed to revel in digging for the item as slowly as possible to waste my time. Finally, he found whatever he was looking for and revealed it as a printed piece of paper, folded into eighths. The snobby yotul threw the unfurled paper on the table and rolled it toward me.
I craned my neck to look at the parchment, though I was immediately perplexed by the text on it; it appeared to be some sort of form, going by the boxes with words on the inside, followed by blank lines. “Found on the drive, here,” Qitel told me, jabbing a claw to the storage. “Translator shows it as Terran writing.”
Drawing my holopad from my satchel, I held it over the paper with the translator to get an understanding. Surely enough, the language on it came up positive as a variant of Terran writing and I was affirmed in it being a form of some sort based on the wording of the text. The boxes seemed like an odd sort of job application, asking for the typical name, contacts, and prior work experiences, but quickly took a strange turn as it began asking for where their home on Earth was prior to arrival, what family they had on Venlil Prime if any, and where they worked, implying that they were seeking individuals who were already employed.
I knew little about human employment methods, but I didn’t imagine that sourcing individuals from other jobs was the most efficient way to gain a workforce. Terran service industries already dotted the planet while many humans also found work in local environments. So what was the angle that the creator of this application was going for?
Most concerningly was that the paper had no insignia, identifying marks, or noted address to return the form to. “And where did you find it again?”
“In the garbage, alongside this intact tracker that was activated at the time of recovery. Y’know, when I was dumpster diving. Text on the document showed it was addressed to one ‘Choctaw Nexus’.”
“A pseudonym of some sort?”
“Clearly. Short sorting through the archives shows the first name traces back to the group out east - perhaps you've heard about them. How the name and the items we have here are connected is beyond my understanding, but-”
“Well, this has been an absolutely riveting discussion about your collection of trash, Qitel,” I told him as I stood up to leave. “But this really sounds like an issue to be resolved by your fellow guildsmen.”
The sound of another shell splitting rang out as I turned away.
“I'm not through talking with you, predator.”
The sting as a piece nailed me in the back of the head prompted me to whirl back around, sticking my beak in the insolent yotul's snout. “Perhaps you've forgotten, little man,” I cooed in an equally bittersweet tone to the one he gave me before. “The krakotl never had a problem with settling issues the old-fashioned way before the interview. Try me and find out why I'm in the line of work I am.”
“Oh, we wouldn't want that in such a"- he waved his paw to a group of passersby who had stopped to gawk at my display -”public forum. Please, contain yourself.”
I had to force the feathers on my back to settle and I raised my head away from him. “What else is it you wanted, then?”
“Well, I'd appreciate if you took this merchandise off my paws,” he told me as he brushed the electronics and printout toward me.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you're closer to the humans than I'd ever care to be, and may be able to find out who this Choctaw Nexus is. Something about the package just feels… off. And I know when to trust my feelings. Besides, we both know that you know where Tac is, don't we?”
“I don't-”
“We have videographic evidence that you conspired with a human - of the aforementioned squatters, no less - and let the kid escape. You're not as sneaky as you think, and if we find this ‘Choctaw Nexus’ turns out to be a bad actor that can be traced back to them - and by extension, you - well, there’d be no talking down my boss from having you dealt with. By helping me find out who this is, you may yet be able to clear your name of any wrongdoing.”
I clenched my beak tightly to maintain a straight face. Qitel stood up with a flourish and discarded the bag he was carrying in a bin.
“See, the krakotl were never special for using threats and bullying to get results. It's because you were good at killing predators,” he jeered. “Now, if you don't mind, this primitive has appointments to attend to… old lady who got trampled courtesy of the humans and all. You stay out of trouble, Hileen, and stay in touch.”
The self-assured marsupial melded into the crowd in a matter of seconds, leaving me with a table containing dumpster trophies and a pile of shells. Reluctantly, I swept the shells into my wing and dumped them into the bin before gathering the other two items he'd left me and stuffing them into my bag. I'd been gone from Nampi long enough and she would notice my absence before long.
Crossing the walkway again, I could spot from where I stood that Nampi was indeed still in the Platinum Paw. I approached, and soon I found that while she didn't seem to have noticed me stepping away, she was definitely in a soured mood based on the sagging of her ears and tail. With my talons clacking on the floorboards, I hustled to her side and her mood chippered up ever so slightly as she heard me approach.
I chimed in, “Find anything?”
“Everything. I want everything, Red, and I can't decide on what I want. They all just look so great!”
From behind, a voice called out, “Nampi!”
We both jumped at the exclamation and turned about to spot the venlil lady I'd seen before spring from behind the shelf. The man poked his head from behind the shelf too, though less enthusiastically and with yet another bag in his clutches. My friend's eyes widened in surprise with her tail and ears perking up in kind. With a light in her eyes, she exclaimed, “Nalek!”
The two embraced with shrill squeals and laughter as Nalek's accompaniment and I traded awkward glances.
“It's been too long!”
“You never stayed in contact!”
The women exchanged giddy greetings and the pompous stranger turned to me, leering over me as though she was sizing me up.
“Who's your friend here?”
“Oh she's actually my-...”
Nampi paused for a moment, looking back to me.
“Yeah, she's a friend.”
“A friend,” Nalek repeated while her eyes flicked between Nampi and I. “Right.”
Somehow, I get the impression that that was judgemental.
“I'm Hileen, by the way,” I chirped, “if names are to be exchanged.”
“Hileen, that's a lovely name! And such plumage to match, it's a wonder you aren't swarmed by suitors!”
Internally, I groaned at the notion. The idea of being approached by someone to state their interest in me made me queasy, to say the least. Thankfully, I never had that issue growing up as most of the other drakes in school were too busy chasing girls who didn't have a lousy pigmentation mutation such as myself.
“I'm flattered,” I told Nalek before turning to the man whose name had yet to be introduced. “May we get your name?”
“Sask.”
His response was succinct and tonally flat, though there was a brief silence as I expected him to elaborate. Nalek's beads jingled as she lashed him on the calf with her tail.
“I'm Sask, Nalek's fiancée,” he added, throwing her a look to see if she was satisfied.
Nampi gasped with her paws over her snout. “Fiancée! Nalek, you're getting married and you never even told me!”
“Well, I felt a little guilty since it technically broke our pact we made when we were pups. You remember that?”
“Of course! Why wouldn’t I? ‘Let she who bonds through betrothal first be cast out unto the world for all to admonish her!’”
Sask and I both gave inquisitive expressions. “You two spoke like that as pups?” Sask asked.
“Well, I'm paraphrasing,” Nampi admitted with a playful ear waggle. “But you get the gist.”
“Indeed, they do, sweet Nampi. Now, may I ask what you're doing bringing your avian friend here into this store on this fine claw?”
“Oh, no no, she's the one treating me! Isn't that right, Red?”
I saw her tail twitch and was sure it took restraint not to tickle my neck with it as we stood before her old friend.
“She's been a good friend,” I explained. “So I wanted to reverse the roles for once and treat her to something myself.”
Nampi skipped over to me and wrapped her arm around me, glancing back to her old friend. “See? We'd all be so lucky to have a… friend like her.”
“So I've witnessed. But perhaps you're a bit stuck, as I've seen you prancing up and down these aisles for a while, no? Maybe you don't know what you want?”
“Nalek, you know I've never been good about making my mind up.”
“Some things never change, you ditz. Tell you what: you and Sask go find us a seat and we can catch up all we'd like when we're not taking up aisle space, yes? So shoo! I'll help Hileen here pick one out for you!”
With a bored grunt, Sask made off with the goods he had strapped to himself, followed by Nampi who gave me one more playful tail flick before dashing off into the crowd. I looked back to the mottled snout of Nalek who watched her friend wander off with a wistful glance.
“She was my first, you know.”
“Your what now.”
“Love. Way back when we were growing from pups into young adults back in private education, we explored much together. We saw each other through a lot, including the less savory parts of finding a mate. When Nampi realized it wasn't the boys she was into, she turned to me, and I offered my hand as her stalwart companion… to a point.”
“You weren't interested in her the same way?”
“I'd grown up seeing her as a sister of sorts, so ultimately, when we split it off, we stayed close as friends and she never seemed to be bothered by it. She struggled to find others in school who had the same interests as herself, but she never fussed about it.”
Nalek's claws browsed over a set of pouched bandoliers made with intricate embroidering. “Have you two… spent the night together? Alone?”
Spiritually, I reeled from the inquiry. The whiplash from that question was equitable to being smacked by a human. “Wha- why? How's that pertinent to the subject at hand?”
“That sounds like a ‘yes’ to me,” she purred with a smug glance my way.
I didn't need to begin to list the different ways such a question was violating to our privacy, and yet this woman was treating it like a game.
“Not really your concern, ma'am.”
Nalek chuckled as she picked out one of the bandoliers and inspected it with her claws. “I'd like to think that she and I still have that old connection, despite everything. And to that end, I know that she's no slag and doesn't trust easy. To see her be so vulnerable around you and to talk so highly of someone who's clearly below her income level as a predator…”
She stretched the bandolier out to appreciate the design in its entirety.
“Well, that's something special. Here"- she foisted the accessory into my wings as I stood gobsmacked -"this just screams her name.”
“This is, like, double my budget.”
“Love don't come cheap, darling. You wanna see good things happen, sometimes you've gotta step out of your comfort zone and grasp for it!”
“I'm being lectured by a rich woman on finances.”
“It's a philosophy that goes beyond money, ‘Red.’ The humans have a saying, in their horrendously predatory nomenclature, that contains a kernel of truth: ‘you miss every shot you don't take’.”
Yep, that's definitely a human phrase.
Nalek's steely braid rattled with every flick of the tail as we proceeded through the checkout.
“You want things to change between you and her?” she continued. “Don't just wait for it to happen.”
She let the conversation rest there as we finished the purchase, possibly to let me recuperate mentally from the damage done to my account. Outside, we found our respective partners sitting at a table with Sask looking up in boredom as Nampi chatted away, though she immediately shut up and turned to me with excited flicks of her tail as she saw what I was carrying.
I held it toward her and she happily shot to her feet, effortlessly removing the tags with her claws and clipping it to her belt. Nalek clapped and waggled her tail as the giddy lady did a whirl about to let us admire the accessory. While I'd have preferred one with pockets to give it a more practical use, I decided to let Nalek have the victory as our mutual friend clearly enjoyed it.
The rest of the paw was a blur as the two friends chatted without end until Sask eventually reminded his betrothed that they had a schedule to attend to. Though Nalek offered to call us a taxi home as a gesture of kindness, I saw through her ruse to determine that she was trying to pull a fast one on me - the clever ear flick she gave as we boarded the automated vehicle sold it for me.
We sat in the seats as the vehicle took the express ride home.
Nampi cleared her throat before she spoke, “Thank you for taking some time to spend with me, I know you've had a lot less free time as of late.”
“It's a prison of my own design, if I must be honest. A feedback loop of working a job that doesn't guarantee a paycheck to pay for rent that keeps going up, and thus needing to work more.”
The venlil giggled and chided me, “You really should've stayed in university.”
“There's a lotta 'should haves’ that've led me to this point. No use wondering what could have been.”
“There's always a use for wondering what could have been, Hileen.”
She wrapped an arm around my shoulder.
“Every decision I make, I always wonder what I could've done differently that it'd have turned out better,” she explained as she waved her free paw to the sky. “It's how you grow as a person, Red.”
Her silky pelt felt heavenly in contrast to the chilly air from outside, making it hard to let her words sink in.
“You rich types seem chock full of philosophy. I wonder if I'll become a brooding orator when I get some cash to my name.”
The cab filled with laughter as we veered around the final corner to my neighborhood, as it was the closest stop. The door popped open accompanied by a chime from the drone, signaling for me to depart.
But before my talons could even hit the pavement, I felt Nampi's scrawny arms wrap around my waist and she let out a pitiful mewl again.
“You don't need to get off here,” she told me with a pouty expression. “We can spend the rest of the paw at my place.”
“I'd love it, but I need to water my plants and get the month's bills sorted before they're due. Again.”
One claw at a time, I plucked her paws from around my waist and the childish venlil conceded, giving me another ear waggle as I departed. “I'll see you tomorrow?” I asked her.
“If you still have eyes by then, then you can bet your ass!”
“I still don't gamble.”
“You'll come around to it eventually.”
I shut the door to the taxi and watched as it carted away the one venlil who I ever truly felt on the same wavelength as. Fiddling with the lock felt like more of a chore than usual at this time as I felt a little voice tugging at the back of my head.
“You miss every shot you don't take.”
The lock felt jammed as I began to jiggle it more vigorously with the electric key. Either the RFID or NFC readers were messed up, as the lock refused to accept my key. I looked up and down the street, though Nampi was now long gone for me to rescind my earlier rejection.
“Every decision I make, I wonder what I could've done differently.”
The door rattled as I grew more and more infuriated with the lock. Qitel's smug expression as he threatened me so boldly in public played back in my head, and I wondered what would've happened had I decided to go through with insulting his mother. Better yet, I wondered what could've been had I not backed down in the face of his unflinching confidence.
Bzzt. The lock rejected my key again.
“Raagh! You fucking useless hunk of junk!”
I squawked in anger and kicked against the door, careless of the consequences of having Markol back down here to admonish another of his tenants for causing a ruckus. The walls were surprisingly sturdy for how ineffective the venlil architecture looked on the surface and I reeled back in pain as my leg throbbed.
Click.
I looked to my left to see that it wasn't my door that came open, but that of the twins. The door cracked open ever so slightly, no doubt nudged by the force of my tirade and I sighed. Nobody was expected to be home at this time, with Vili being away and Luka leaving early to get a head start.
Luka had been given a stern talking-to by the landlord for allowing one of those cats into his apartment through neglect, and I was disappointed that he seemed to have not learned his lesson this time. In fact, it seemed he hadn't even thought to lock the door this time.
I took it upon myself to shut the door for him before turning back to my own apartment door. Grasping the key with one talon, I turned it ever so gently, though the lock still refused to give in.
With a bit more force, the torsion applied to the key felt as though it should've snapped it by now. Markol sure didn't waste any expense for the security for this place, doubtlessly as a result of his history in electronic security, but I wished now that he had provided a way in that didn't rely on privately sourced locks.
Considering my options as I stood trapped outside, I realized that I had never gotten around to paying for a new lock for Tadi. I'd considered contacting her to inform her that Tac had made it out of town safely, but that'd involve also telling her that her son was now in the care of humans, as if that was a better outcome to her.
Stepping out front, I realized that there was one more option I hadn't considered: my window. I usually forgot to lock it after I was through letting air circulate and I was silently grateful to myself for this absentmindedness now more than ever. Sticking a foot on the threshold, I lifted myself in a way that'd allow me to have leverage to force the window open.
The window made me fight for every inch, but I felt a strange satisfaction as it slowly opened up into an entrance that I could squeeze my way through. I let out a sigh as my talons clicked against the cool floor and slid the window shut.
I laid my satchel on the couch and turned back to the door, ready to unleash my fury on the disobedient object. But as I reached for the lock to manually open the door, I noted that the lights on the RFID interface both flashed at once, blinking erratically. Red and green flickered without rhyme or reason, indicating that it was both active and inactive.
As pretty as the colors were, I now knew that Markol's locks were not as reliable as he had touted them about: typically, such would not occur unless the device was damaged deliberately, and yet nothing indicated that I'd had uninvited guests. One could pray that those cats didn't secretly know how to cobble together an ECM jammer, but my personal wager was on faulty equipment.
Settling in, I browsed my favorite soaps on the television. For what was intended to be a day of relaxation and show of affection for a friend, I found myself rather wound up over all the things that added up. Couples threw around flowery words and swooned over one another on screen as I felt the tension diffuse. My holopad rang and I turned it over to spot that Nampi was informing me that she'd arrived home safely.
>>> Feels empty here, all alone.
She made sure to drive the point home with a sticker of a venlil making a pouty expression.
Next time, I thought to myself, I'll get it right for you, Nampi.
[ First / Previous ]

TLDR: They do, just not in the ways you might expect.
I apologize to those who were looking for an erudite, scholarly article with cited quotations from approved theosophical sources. Unfortunately, it’s only my opinion based on my studies, personal experience, and pure speculation in some instances, and without delineating which are which, so if you choose to read further, please keep that in mind. Those of us who like to study The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, the Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, and the letters received by Olcott in Old Diary Leaves marvel at the number of notes, messages, and sometimes long letters that were received by numerous aspiring chelas from 1873 to about 1886, filled with encouragement, wisdom, and teachings of the Ancient Wisdom doctrine. Where did these Masters go?
Those particular Mahatmas have continued to progress in their spiritual enlightenment at a pace far faster than that at which most of us are traveling. Some may not be directly associated with human spiritual development at all by now, and if they are, it is from a much greater distance, metaphorically speaking, than the distance between them and aspirants in 1880. Hume and Sinnett were told not to worry because there would always be a few replacements for the Adepts as they progressed to other assignments.
KH had to get special permission from the Mahāchohan to communicate through HPB with Sinnett, Hume, and others. It was given very reluctantly and with more restrictions as time went on. The Adepts were hoping to find one or more Europeans (including people of European descent in other countries) that could take up the work begun by HPB. They tried various potential candidates, beginning with Hume and Sinnett, and invariably they failed, one after another. In the meantime, HPB still had to furnish the specific energy she alone could supply to make communication possible between a Mahatma and those who had none of the special training she had. The two Englishmen were warned early on that if she died, her energy reserve was only enough for two or three letters, at most. As it turned out, it was only one letter that was received after she died in 1891.
It seems that training Europeans to be chelas is not as easy as training certain Asians. Per KH, “You may be, and most assuredly are, our superiors in every branch of physical knowledge; in spiritual sciences we were, are, and always will be — your Masters.” The Asian way of thinking is simply better adapted to grasping spiritual concepts. But obviously it isn't impossible for Europeans to succeed since KH also assured Hume and Sinnett that there were two English Adepts even at that time. So it is possible, just more difficult. This implies that Europeans have to work even harder to achieve the same degree of progress. Not what we wanted to hear, but still good to know.
After HPB died, communications ended abruptly. Her students were bereft. Olcott, who periodically had received direct communications, was confused. He assumed they would continue as before. Damodar, one of the few chelas who had also been able to receive direct communications, had left for Tibet about the same time Blavatsky left India forever. Olcott was convinced that Damodar would return to fill in for her, but that never happened. I realize there are theosophists who believe that communications continued after HPB’s death, but in my opinion, the quality of those messages were markedly different from the quality we find in The Mahatma Letters, so I don’t have much confidence in most of those post-Blavatsky messages.
The original experiment of training one or more European chelas to replace Blavatsky failed. All the thousands of Mahatma-hours devoted to the goal seemingly came to nought. Except that it didn’t. Even if it didn’t succeed immediately, the seeds had been planted, but it would take time for results to be realized. We have a plethora of information now on how to become a chela, but that too is a problem. How do we sift through the mountains of information available, much of it not very useful, to find those few pure nuggets of gold that will point us in the right direction? The answer is simple: discernment. Okay, maybe not that simple, since not many people seem to have developed discernment. This qualification was originally called discrimination, but I will use the term discernment since the meaning of discrimination has changed markedly in the past 100 years. How do we develop discernment?
Again, the answer is simple: Get rid of ego. Now at least we have something we can understand. The answer may be simple, but getting rid of ego is anything but simple. We have to be willing to let go of it, release our attachment to possessions, our quest for power, our love of attention, need for approval, need to be needed, need of validation, our desire for excitement and drama. That’s a lot, but it has to be done, even if it takes more than one lifetime to make it happen, but hopefully some of us started the process in previous lifetimes and are continuing to work on it currently. If anyone thought the path was going to be easy, it isn’t. If it were, it would be nothing special. Anyone with a little perseverance could gain the powers of the advanced chelas without giving up much that we cherish. The path to chelaship is not fun and exciting, certainly not for a long, long time. It is mostly pain and hardship as we give up one thing after another that we thought was so important to our happiness. The more we are attached to material things and the goals of materialism, the more arduous the ascent up the mountain of chelaship.
So far, acquiring discernment and getting rid of ego are two things we can definitely work on. What’s next? Well, purity is absolutely essential. So, becoming a vegetarian, a non-smoker, a non-drinker and not engaging in sex except within an approved form of marriage, right? Well, those will all be required at some point, and even more eventually, but they are not required in the early stages. Purity of motive is number one, then comes purity of ethics. Do we believe it’s okay to lie if it helps achieve a good result? Not according to KH. He said an untruth had never passed his lips in this lifetime and emphasized that being scrupulous in telling the truth is absolutely necessary. How can a Mahatma trust someone who is willing to lie sometimes? They can’t, and more than one aspiring chela failed because they couldn’t pass that test. Sterling ethics are essential for chelaship.
Another requirement is an unconditional love of humanity and all living things, which includes our planet. Is there anyone at all that you hate? If so, you don’t have unconditional love of humanity and don’t truly believe in Brotherhood. Without this foundational belief in Oneness, to the point that we treat everyone as a brother, regardless of their actions, then we haven’t grasped the full meaning of this concept. It’s something else we may need to work on.
Does anyone receive any communications from these Masters anymore? Yes, they do. They are the ones who have been working for more than one or two lifetimes already toward that goal. They are already ahead of most of us who are still struggling to figure out what is important and what is not. Through sheer hard work they have succeeded in developing discernment, reduction of the ego to almost nothing, non-attachment and non-reaction. Through countless hours of meditation, they have achieved oneness, to some extent, with their Higher Self, and glimmers of inspiration and insight are beginning to come through. These faint first fruits of effort eventually become a more reliable channel by which any Mahatma who may have been watching over those efforts can test the connection from time to time, by planting a thought near us to see if we recognize it, and if we do, observe what we do with it. This process can take many, many years, more than one lifetime. If we become impatient and inclined to try a faster method, not only are we doomed to failure, but it will take more than one lifetime to get back on track. Some of us have already experienced that before. The Mahatmas learned a lot from their experiment in the 1880s. One result is that they retreated back behind their curtain of secrecy and anonymity, and it isn’t hard to see why. They and their agents were assailed from all sides, by scientists, religious people, and spiritualists, but their most severe critics were their former friends that they had tried to help to gain understanding. How could they focus on working for the benefit of humanity while being attacked 24 hours a day? It will probably be a long time before they try something like that again. Nothing is out in the open now. It isn’t through large groups that they work, but their efforts are concentrated on a few individuals who work together with a few other individuals. Progress comes through very small groups, not through large organizations. Those large organizations serve a purpose too, to preserve the original teachings and make sure they remain available to the world, and to serve as a starting point for a few brave souls who are willing to make the tremendous effort required for self-transformation into an intelligent, purified, discerning instrument, willing to give up cherished but inaccurate ideas, and motivated by pure love of humanity, to be trained further after lifetimes of effort to attain that intermediate goal of becoming an accepted chela. These are they with whom they communicate.

Alright, to make long story short from my last no contact we both really needed closure from our fight that resulted in our break-up. We hanged out every other weekend and talked for about a month. Why we broke up was due to pettiness, ego, and pride on both sides and she was on her menstrual cycle too, I was also very confused on her antics during our relationship and didn’t communicate at all with her on how I felt about, in which resulted for a perfect storm for us to break up. Fast forward a month, she reacts to a message I sent on Instagram before we broke up with a bunny on Easter. I tell her my apology and hope she and her family were doing okay, the following week calls me drunk and all emotional about wanting to be back together and wants me to go see her calling me “babe” “I love you,” etc. We hanged out, watched the Total Eclipse, a movie the following weekend, trip to Dallas (she lives in another city not too far ((kinda far actually))😭But then, she told her father after he called her during our date in Dallas. Now I already told my mom that I was seeing her again, she didn’t say anything and really didn’t care. She told it was my choice in the end of the day. Will her Dad wasn’t too fond of her being with me and after I broke up with her. After I dropped her off I messaged her the day after because she was kinda ghosting me that night I dropped her off. She just told me that her father wasn’t too happy that she was hanging with me so she said that we shouldn’t hang out anymore and or talk all together. I totally agreed as I talked to her on the way dropping her off about how I felt and if a scenario ever happened where I got a disapproval from her family it would result to me leaving because I care for her and I don’t want them and her to be unhappy for us being together after betraying there trust with there daughter. After that, we parted ways and thanked each other for the great memories and we didn’t speak for a couple days until she messages me 2 days later “ ____ 😭😭” (fill in blank with an imaginary name) I responded with “is everything okay” and then … radio silence. For a day, then messages me with “I fell asleep” at like 9PM which she knows I’m asleep because I have to wake up at 5am. I tell to stop being dry and to spit it out. I was honestly kinda annoyed because she was just drowning me in like suspense or something so I sent her a paragraph telling her I love her and care for her but it’s best for us to go no contact. AND… was left on delivered again. Now to current events, sorry the ‘ prologue’ was not “long story short.”💀
Fast forward two weeks later. It was ruff on not only me but her too. I honestly was really depressed and honestly praying to god for another chance and will, he delivered. On Thursday I took a nap of misery and told god for her to message me and give me on last time with her. Waking up at 12am all sweaty, stinky breath, thirsty as hell, I check my phone and I see a notification from her. My first thought was “my prayer was actually answered.” She just said if we could talk and how she wasn’t really handing our break up #2? She stated her dad got drunk and just told her he wasn’t mad about hanging out with me but not telling him she was hanging out with me. I told her that I was honestly really depressed and wanted her back in my life because I can’t see myself with someone else. We accepted that we will AGAIN rekindle our “friendship” (seeking to rebuild our relationship back but slow and exclusive) but here’s what’s troubling me now.
She’s being all shallow and ghosting me for hours sometimes even days. I can’t process her telling me she’s “not doing so good” without me but ends up ghosting me or being dry at times and honestly it’s bringing me the assumption she doesn’t really miss me but just likes the company and the attention. It’s very frustrating that she comes back to my life, twists the knife even deeper and then puts little effort in trying to fix it (I thought I did something there😭🔥) But Yha, this is my biggest struggle by far right now with her. And this isn’t new, after our first initial no contact she was the same, ghosting me being dry as the savannah desert, and now. So what do you guys think if someone even read this far😭 if you did, ummm… I’ll pray for you tonight🥹 anyways have a great day people of Reddit🫡