Picnik sister quotes | | Thanks, I'm Cured

I'm so annoyed at my sisters boyfriend
So my (FtM16) sister had been dating this dude for 2 months, he's been better then her past ex's but he ended up kinda being a kinda asshole today. So my sister also has bpd, and happens to get her period in a few days. Her boyfriend also has mental issues but as far as we're aware he doesn't have a personality disorder. But anyway he always talks about KHS genuinely to her and me wich genuinely afects hers and my mental health, she was talking to him about how she wants to see him become he brings her a certain comfort especially because she splits more when on her period. After saying that he said and I quote "that shit fucks with my head & i know I'm going to have a bad day tomorrow so that shit wouldn't work" (for context he has to go to school) which made me and my sister split towards him because he was acting like my sister is too much to handle when usually all that happens when he is over is that my sister falls asleep cuddling him. He is my sisters favourite person so her mood depends on his, she has split towards / because of small things when he's been over bit he has always been able to help soothe her. Not to mention recently he's stopped doing little things when then talk. Like going from likening and replying to all videos she send to him to only liking them and say "alright well, well i cant come over after school, ive got shit to do so yeah. Maybe i can come over tomorrow if that fine with you and mum, but ive got shit to do after school". It's all just little things she's starting to split over more and if she's valid to split and feel upset over all this

Among the improvements in this patch, look for many new UI icons as well as weapon-related balance changes aimed at enhancing core combat and related choices. Your feedback and volunteered gameplay data help inspire our changes, so thank you for playing! Stay tuned for Boon updates in our next patch. General Gameplay · You now can encounter up to one additional Olympian each night (as in the previous game) · You now are likely to find one more Boon or other major reward while in Erebus Increased invulnerability duration after your Death Defiance effects activate Improved rewards of Ash and Psyche can now be found in Oceanus and the Rift of Thessaly You now can press-and-hold to harvest repeatedly from Crescent Pick Outcroppings Toula should now stay closer to you in Encounters, especially in the Fields of Mourning Nemesis no longer offers Death Defiance items if you do not need to refill the effect · Reduced Gold cost of Selene's Boon when available in Charon's Shop · Minor adjustments to the order in which Olympians may first appear early on · Normalized chances of finding Fishing Points in various regions Nocturnal Arms & Abilities Witch's Staff: Special knocks foes away, but is slightly slower; Omega Special is faster Sister Blades: Special staggers standard foes longer; Attack visual FX better match the hitbox Umbral Flames: Attacks are stronger and faster; Omega Attack channels faster and uses less magick; Special now gives a speed boost, but has reduced damage; Omega Special can be channeled while moving Moonstone Axe: reworked Special provides a lingering barrier; Omega Attack channels slightly faster; Omega Special channels faster Argent Skull: Omega Attack channels faster and hits a larger area Aspects of the Nocturnal Arms · Witch's Staff (Circe): adjusted activation and duration of Serenity effect; Serenity now adds Omega bonus damage that scales with this Aspect's rank · Witch's Staff (Momus): reworked; each of your Omega Moves automatically fires several times in succession from where you use them Sister Blades (Artemis): you will Block again if the effect recharges while you are channeling; Block now takes priority over Dodge and similar effects · Umbral Flames (Eos): reworked; Omega Attack now fires a slow shot that occasionally creates damage blasts and also copies your Specials · Moonstone Axe (Melinoë): reworked; now adds Power and Max Life · Moonstone Axe (Thanatos): reworked; faster Attack adds Critical chance to Omega moves · Argent Skull (Persephone): you now earn Glory much faster, but only by using your Omega Cast; improved control responsiveness during Omega Special Keepsakes Moon Beam (Selene): increased bonus to Path of Stars upgrades
[2:35 PM] Daedalus Hammer Upgrades · Marauder Wallop (Staff): cut from game; replaced with... · Rapid Thrasher (Staff): new! All your Attacks become faster · Double Wallop (Staff): cut from game; replaced with... · Wicked Thrasher (Staff): new! All your Attacks gain bonus Power · Double Cataclysm (Staff): cut from game; replaced with... · Mirrored Thrasher (Staff): new! All your Attacks hit twice, but you take more damage · Rapid Moonshot (Staff): also affects Omega Special · Dual Moonshot (Staff): also affects Omega Special; reduced range; renamed from Double Moonshot · Shimmering Moonshot (Staff): also affects Omega Special · Aetheric Moonburst (Staff): increased Magick restoration from Power Shots · Concentrated Flurry (Blades): cut from game; replaced with... · Melting Dart (Blades): new! Your Special destroys a large percentage of a foe's Armor · Flick Knives (Blades): new! Your Dash-Strike also fires several Special knives in a fan pattern · Rapid Onslaught (Blades): reworked to also affect Omega Attack; renamed from Marauder Slice · Hook Knives (Blades): slightly reduced speed of knives returning to you · Furious Fire (Flames): cut from game; replaced with... · Mega Spark (Flames): new! All your Attacks travel farther and deal more damage · Inverted Spark (Flames): new! Dash to make shots from your Attacks reverse direction and hit foes again · Leaden Spark (Flames): new! Your Attacks knock foes away and have bonus Power · Sustained Spark (Flames): also increases move speed, instead of reducing; formerly Sustained Fire · Melting Coil (Flames): no longer fires straight; also affects Omega Special; formerly Melting Comet · Origin Coil (Flames): also affects Omega Special · Rapid Slash (Axe): reworked to also affect Omega Attack; renamed from Marauder Slash · Giga Cleaver (Axe): removed two-stage channeling (it always double-fires but uses more Magick) · Dashing Heave (Axe): removed damage bonus; instead, it now hits twice · Sidelong Crash (Skull): cut from game; replaced with... · Mega Driver (Skull): new! Your Specials travel farther and you take less damage while using them · Colossus Driver (Skull): also affects Omega Special Hexes of Selene · Wolf Howl: reduced Magick-spend requirement · Twilight Curse: greatly reduced Magick-spend requirement; reduced foes afflicted; reduced cast time · Night Bloom: reduced Magick-spend requirement, effect duration, bonus damage, and cast time · Lunar Ray: greatly reduced Magick-spend requirement; reduced damage; reduced cast time · Moon Water: slightly increased Magick-spend requirement; slightly reduced healing · Dark Side: slightly increased Magick-spend requirement · Total Eclipse: slightly increased Magick-spend requirement Foes & Encounters Chronos: various fixes and adjustments; there should be fewer cases where he's patently unfair · Infernal Cerberus: minor adjustments to some attack patterns in the first phase Eris: grenade attacks no longer wildly bounce around Polyphemus: reduced effectiveness of Mutant Sheep Goldwrath: reduced accuracy and tracking of beam attack · Queen Lamia: slightly increased Armor; increased speed; other minor changes · Reed-Stalker: increased projectile speed and target distance; reduced rotation speed · Mourner: slightly increased rotation speed; slightly increased speed while attacking · Lamia: slightly increased life and Elite armor Dire Shambler: reduced tracking speed between attacks Hippo: self-destruct area should more closely match the visuals
Level Design & Environments Driftwood resources are more common in the Rift of Thessaly (a further increase since last patch) Burning Oil Slicks in the Rift of Thessaly will extinguish after Encounters, though may be reignited Adjusted Oil Slicks in some locations in the Rift of Thessaly · Minor fixes to several locations Fated List of Minor Prophecies · Clearing Original Sins no longer requires choosing the very rare Barren curse from Chaos Chaos Trials Trial of Heartache: reduced difficulty and adjusted based on Aspect changes Trial of Haste: reduced difficulty and adjusted based on Aspect changes Oath of the Unseen · Vow of Forsaking: no longer helps ensure you quickly get Duo and Legendary Boons Menus & UI · Added many new UI icons for Keepsakes, Weapons, Well of Charon offerings, and more Insight Into Offerings (Cauldron) now also lets you check each Olympian's list of offerings in the Book of Shadows while choosing their Boons (or the equivalent with other characters) · With the prior change, adjusted default key binding for Rarify; some custom bindings have been reset Added a warning when you are down to your last use of Death Defiance Opening the Book of Shadows should show entries for nearby characters more reliably Removed the Unused Grasp notification when exiting the Altar of Ashes while at a high Grasp limit · Updated Pitch-Black Stone screen to use Aspect-specific icons · Adjusted input action bar layout at the bottom of the Boon Screen and similar · Added borders to icons for Selene Hexes on the Gifts of the Moon screen · Added informational pop-up when using F10 to report bugs · Other minor changes Art & Visual FX Reduced some full-screen flashing or strobing, such as from time-slow effects Music & SFX · Added SFX for when certain active abilities such as Serenity are ready to use · Updated placeholder SFX for various Keepsakes · Updated SFX for projectile collisions with Umbral Flames (Moros) Voice & Narrative · Unique voice lines should play more reliably when certain incantations are revealed in the Cauldron · Added voice lines when using Phase Shift (Selene) vs. Chronos (or trying to...) · More voice lines should play when confiding in Frinos in certain contexts Miscellaneous While brooding over the family portrait in the Crossroads, you may now snap out of it sooner You now can fully control the game using keyboard only if you rebind Attack and Special All timers now pause while in the presence of Charon An Anvil of Fates will no longer be offered in Tartarus if you have not found a Daedalus Hammer In the Hades Flashback, adjusted timing of hint for players who don't realize they are in control · Reduced requirements for the incantation Power to Pause and Reflect to be revealed · Melinoë now respawns in the center of her magick circle near her tent (she was a bit off before...) · Improved compatibility with more types of controllers · Updated text for various upgrades and abilities
[2:35 PM] Bug Fixes · Fixed Double Up (Poseidon) sometimes doubling Mystery Boons; clarified description · Fixed Nightmare resources dropping unexpectedly in Chaos Trials Fixed Omega moves occasionally becoming unresponsive after being chomped on by Polyphemus Fixed deadliest attack of Chronos occasionally hitting even if Melinoë was in a supposedly safe point Fixed Umbral Flames Attack preventing Magick regeneration before channeling Omega Attack Fixed The Queen and Judgment (Arcana) appearing active while no others Arcana are active Fixed Hearth Gain (Hestia) no longer restoring Magick if chosen as a Sacrifice Boon Fixed certain later Oath Testaments for the Sister Blades sometimes not appearing as expected Fixed cases where you could go out of bounds using the Argent Skull in the battle vs. Chronos Fixed more cases of some visual effects vs. Chronos lingering between phases or after the fight Fixed Toula unceremoniously vanishing after you vanquish Chronos Fixed additional issues with Sun Worshiper (Apollo) Fixed additional issues with Dark Side (Selene) Fixed additional issues with Twilight Curse (Selene) Fixed a visual issue where Headmistress Hecate could appear to slide after snared by your Cast Fixed Spark of Ixion (Charon) causing a Chaos Gate to appear in Asphodel? Fixed Golden Boughs sometimes not marking all available rewards in the Fields of Mourning Fixed several narrative events that could play out of sequence Fixed Odysseus rather rudely walking away while in conversation with Nemesis Fixed Heracles sometimes leaping away forever Fixed Melinoë's voice pitch reverting during her return sequence despite certain Circe enchantments Fixed incorrect Echo portrait in the Book of Shadows Fixed incorrect music playing in some Chaos Trials, or not playing as intended in some instances Fixed rare cases of a looping sound playing indefinitely Fixed a rare instance when objectives in the Training Grounds could overlap Fixed several minor issues on the Victory Screen that shows when you prevail Fixed additional miscellaneous issues when playing in ultrawide resolutions Fixed a rare crash in which the effect of Winter Harvest (Demeter) could repeat forever Fixed various other rare crashes Fixed several text errors Other minor fixes Quote of the Patch 'Hecate was the Goddess of the Dark of the Moon, the black nights when the moon is hidden. She was associated with deeds of darkness, the Goddess of the Crossways, which were held to be ghostly places of evil magic.' ~Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes (E. Hamilton)

It felt frustrating in Chongqing. I was rather stuck in Hechuan. I got accustomed to lajiao (spice) there. I was a Midwesterner at the age of 22. I was raised in Illinois. I became a manic—a Ferris wheel on fire—I was hiding under a bed in a hotel. Bold like napalm. Sometimes I can never stop. Even when I was 18 in a ward arguing with staff. Always want to fight things. That’s why I refused the meds and went on a plane from America to China. I was going to be an English teacher. And like a light switch, the change and SSRIs turned me into a mess. It would be my first time experiencing psychosis. My biggest issue. I never imagined I would be stuck illegally in a country suffering a psychotic episode in my early twenties.
Transplanted as pollen. I was left with a backpack and a cellphone. With a downloaded app called WeChat. I had arrogantly quit a university job in a fit. Spent the past months full of energy and not sleeping and neglecting myself, including not eating, to work on a novel. Not considering myself normally religious, I had obsessed over occult ideas during that time. Spending nights reading Aleister Crowley—haven taken a rusty pocket knife to carve a pentagram on my chest for spiritual protection.
I did not have funds to fly home. My visa was connected to my previous job, which meant I had now made it void. I was an illegal resident now in China.
I used a nifty app called WeChat as a messaging app, it allows users to find people near them that are also looking for others. It was like a virtual pond. All kinds of people, including sex workers trying to make things happen.
It could with luck be used to find people looking for people in terms of other kinds of work. It was helpful on many occasions for finding gigs working at English training schools and also finding work as a private tutor for people.
WeChat also works as a digital wallet.
Mania makes me irritable. Enough to tell a boss to fuck off. Thoughts ricochet within me. Bumper cars collide.
Being stuck and angry sucks. I scrolled and scrolled on a Huawei phone.
Absolutely pissed off at this world.
Pissed at the times police wanted to take me away for being a mess.
Sometimes women get pissed. Scrolling through their phones. Angry at their cheating husbands. It really is not that hard to have flair—be a damn white oddity. Like moths to a porchlight. Particles of sand through hands. This is when I first started the habit of it…
I rather go by a rather empty name of Taishen… with further explanation needed but now is not convenient. But I assure it is interesting enough and has some importance.
Habits are various in nature in how they attach to and eat at marrow—like atom bombs flashing as rays evaporating DNA—sets in a way less than human as putting myself in the cage of bad things taken up—my time as a former heroin addict is left as stretch marks on me in various ways. The same goes for the first time I found myself making arrangements with middle aged married women while desperation of waves whiplashed me like sandpaper hands coming at me to leave me in a tiring state of abrasion.
I had spent a night snuck away into a hotel. Found someone on a business trip. Instead of registering I waited to sneak along into the hotel elevator amongst a group of others attending the hotel, as I had no card. I headed to a designated room number. Originally I was sitting in a park. Playing on WeChat and found someone in their mid-thirties. Pictures were exchanged and I said no. She brought up paying for the hotel if I arrived. I agreed and went along.
When I met I washed up after her and we used our phones to awkwardly translate what we would do.
Room service knocked. I found myself hidden under a bed as I was not registered to be there.
It seems unusual that it was around this time I had started working on a story of my life as a heroin addict when I got caught up in my worse manic episode ever experienced during my age of 22. Finished half that story before never going back to it after my manic episode had ended. Now I am here writing about it and wondering if the same can happen again in the process of this work.
It feels extremely cliché I would write a novel about struggles with heroin addiction. It has been done many times. It’s just lame of me.
I feel like my thoughts are bit off. I left the hotel the next morning with the little money I did have on a debit card. Turns out the woman was from Taiyuan. It is a city in the northern part of China in the province of Shanxi—coal country with the worst air pollution in China. She has a colleague in Taiyuan that takes courses at an English training center. I was able to contact this place in the morning via a shared contact on WeChat given to me by the stranger I met that night.
Before I knew it I was sending my information and documents in my backpack at an internet café in a fax—with the intent that the woman agreed to share my information to the training center as she shared my contact to its hiring manager. It would land me a job that day that would help me out of my situation. Things turned not quite out as I expected though. I was shifted like a ball to somebody else to contact for a training center geared to teaching children.
I took what I had and ran off to a train station after taking the public transit. Unfortunately I was shit for money and could not afford a high speed rail pass. The slow train would take thirty-two hours to get to my destination. I would have taken a room with a bed but all I could afford was a hard seat for the travel.
Things were getting better for me in the circumstance considering I had found someone willing to take me for work despite my visa situation.
The thirty-two hour train ride was horrendous in some ways, but mostly I was in excitement despite the circumstances. I’m always giddy when disappointed. I moved up and down the aisle of the train. I could not speak mandarin, but it did not stop me from trying to interact with everyone. I talked many ears off during the train ride. I went up and down the aisle trying to interact as a moth to porchlights—I could not stop even if I had wanted to. I found great enjoyment the times I did get to sit across a table from somebody my age heading to Taiyuan from Chongqing. They were a university student returning to their hometown. Another passenger who sat beside me was an elderly man with hard boiled eggs, he was eating one after another one. I highly enjoyed each and every conversation that I had. It was like my head was a lightbulb wanting June bugs to bang against it with the intensity of Roman candles shot at my mouth of nicotine tinged teeth.
“If you find someone in Shanxi it is practice to pay the family money before you can get married. You would also have to already own a home and a car,” told my new friend across in their seat from me—a university passenger friend named David.
“Not necessarily what I was looking for. When is the next stop for snacks?” When the train stops I am able to get out and to have a walk onto the platform to buy various goods from the vendors to take back with me to eat along the ride to Taiyuan.
I had all my important documents tucked in my bag. This included my health clearance and obviously I made no mention of my mental health diagnosis or history to the doctor who had to evaluate me. My diploma and TEFL certificate were tucked away securely. A TEFL is a certificate that stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language, it qualifies me to teach English as a second language abroad—it had only took a few months of taking a course online that I had paid for to obtain.
It is easy to be happy when you can trick yourself as your own con artist. Mania can make you deceive yourself. One can be doused in napalm and still not fully recognize what is actually going on. Same goes the flicking of psychosis. Even when I have nothing I find myself in my radiating irritation the most qualified of things—the velocity of my rhythm sets me out of an orbit.
The pressure cooker keeps me moving like a propeller at times. I finally arrived at Taiyuan. I arrived at the station to be greeted by Ryan my manager and his assistant Jennifer. We had our hello and introduction and they helped me get to a taxi that would bring me to my new apartment. I finally had a residence again. Apparently they were desperate for a teacher. The last teacher was from New Mexico and apparently they pulled a midnight run—that is when a teacher in the middle of the night disappears onto a plane back home without any notification of it.
The apartment was okay. On the fourth floor with no elevator, so it was a bit of a climb up a dark stairwell not lit correctly.
My job was a training center that had a location near Yingze Park in the center of the city. I was to be paid in cash via envelopes. I would assist in teaching kindergarten all the way up to high school aged students there in private lessons paid by their parents. I would also be assigned by my company to various primary schools in the city. I would take public buses to various schools paid by the company I worked for to give English lessons as I bounced around to various classrooms and schools in the city. Often I would receive a phone call to avoid going to work that day if my boss got inside input that officials would be doing raids to check foreigners’ visas that day.
A taxi ride would always be a thrill. Caused me nerves at first, but I came to love the flying in dangerous ways along a busy road. I remember a driver beeping their horn away as they drove onto the sidewalk to pass people. They treated the pedestrians as if they were in the wrong. I came flying in front of a primary school at its front gates. I was going to start teaching a first grade classroom and a kindergarten classroom. The way schools are set up is with a wall around the entirety of the exterior of the school. There is a gate at the front where one or two security will be waiting to let people in and out of the complex of the school.
I walked in front of the gate to greet the security. It was my first time with an assignment at this school. The guard said they had never seen me before and wouldn’t let me in. Not a big nuisance while I called my boss who then called the school to sort out the situation.
I miss the classroom so much. I ended up teaching in China for five years at various training schools. After returning to Illinois, I still taught as a primary school teacher in a public school.
I often feel extremely ugly from inside to my outside, but something is attractive there. This does not come just in terms of flirting and relationships—mania makes me a genuine lightbulb that flickers in a way that encourages the insects to me—everyone looks like a June bug—this is what I have come to understand about life. But that ugly does kind of stay like rot in a cavity that leaves a bad taste in the mouth that smells foul—hoping nobody catches the smell near me—it must tie into my struggles with bulimia over the years.
The same goes for my years as a teacher—in relation to the whole lightbulb phenomenon—I’m positive it is tied to mania and hypomania. The younger students always were fixated on the information I was teaching to them. I kept over the years methods taught to me and self-taught that I found extremely effective with younger students when it comes to teaching.
Everything was physical in learning in terms of intensity and ambition. When teaching my first grade classroom I would create flashcards for the vocab we would work on and implement in creating new sentences with. We would chant these words together in a way that made me a clown while teaching. Students would yell out the word that I presented with intense enthusiasm. As I walked by students it was expected that while they yelled out the word they would also physically hit the card. Later I would also work on physical gestures and acting out of vocab words and they would follow the actions and phrases with me.
I would often eventually turn the class into two teams. When students got an answer right I would behave comically and full of energy—I would give them a high five and pretend they were so strong with it that it hurt my hand in the process with much exaggeration—the students always seemed to never get tired of this act.
One game I would play involved drawing two stick figures with happy faces on them. Each figure would represent one of the teams for the classroom. I would draw a hungry alligator under the figures. Their faces would also be comical in appearance and full of exaggerations. Each figure had a parachute placed over them and four strings attached. During the game the students would race to say the word correctly represented on the flashcard or the correct word for the gesture I was making. The team that was not the slowest would lose a string on the parachute. If a team lost all four strings they would fall to the alligator who would eat them. The students found it hilarious with my actions involved in it. I would also draw tears and a person praying to represent anticipation and worry of falling down each time they lost a string.
I had a tooth game too. I would draw too large faces for each team. The team that could answer the flashcards and gestures the quickest would have a tooth drawn in their mouth. The team with the most teeth would win and it would look rather funny as the mouth grew and grew with an abnormal and extreme amount of teeth.
I often did other physical and interactive games like having students run to the word I showed a card to or gestured—each word would be attached to a point in the classroom on a wall.
I know it sounds grandiose, but the parents always seemed to think I was great at my job.
The word vulnerable means so many things to me. That word is like the coal to form the generator that makes the guiding energy for the ethics I follow in my life—I hold very strongly to these values that have developed on how to live—I can express it more later but I greatly attach a kind of Christian value system to it, which makes sense considering I was raised in a Lutheran household and always went to church, Sunday school, and went to my courses and went through my confirmation—everyone is a bit of a mop—some pick up clean water and others dirty or a mix of it—waiting to find the people to drain them voluntarily or involuntarily. I was born vulnerable. I walk pigeon-toed and grew up tripping on my feet—I speak with a soft feminine voice. Bipolar disorder makes somebody vulnerable. There was much vulnerability in being eighteen and hospitalized involuntarily for my first manic episode—tied to a stretcher. I have almost a sense of us vs them—the vulnerable and those that harm the vulnerable—take advantage of the vulnerable—I feel this is a very much Christian in the idea of the unfortunate are more holy than the rest of the bunch—children are like that in terms of being born into a cruel existence—a cruel existence I felt at times in my life and so many do—making sure harm does not come to those in need gives the light of purpose to go bright inside like a Christmas tree in my brain—this light of happiness and warmth. I never expected I would fall in love for teaching due to the antidepressant effect provided. It would become my career for a decade. Some grow up wanting to be a teacher, I became one by accident, desperation, and being saved.
Sometimes I inflate on self-hate like a helium balloon that needs to be tied to a wrist. The vulnerability equation is imprinted on my brain.
In my early teens I started struggling with bulimia and image. I remember when my mother caught me in the act. I was not offered help but criticized. I was called a girl for my problems and threatened to be taken somewhere to be fixed of my confusion. I don’t identify as transgender. I identify as a man that struggles with bulimia and happens to have feminine qualities.
I attribute it to circumstances that happened to me—a justification for the pain at times—an attack on aspects of bisexuality.
After a long day of work I did what my young self often did. I went clubbing with friends. I feel like even if I hide aspects of myself such as being bisexual, people can spot it regardless. I’m extremely secretive about it and not comfortable displaying that vulnerable aspect of myself.
My friend from England went with me. He was about six years my senior. Big guy. Tall. The clubs name was Maoye.
I always enjoyed the free drinks available to foreigners—it was done to attract Chinese clients, as the idea was foreigners being there would attract people.
Amongst the hot and sweltering crowd a man grabbed ahold of me. I felt stuck. I was taken off guard. Pushed and cornered. While on me I managed to push him off. But it all serves as a reminder of the vulnerability of my life.
A nail was placed into my hand—a constant burn and reminder of that vulnerability.
Part 2
From self-hate I can also be so grandiose. I am like a Christmas tree that is lit up. Sparklers so pretty that you cannot let go of them, even if it burns your fingertips and hurts.
From heroin to sex, you can smother the pain. You drain the ocean to fill a void in these times. It ties to mania as well. That restlessness and irritability is extinguished by the paradox of throwing kerosene to everything burning. I’m so grandiose to hide my insecurities, I mistake my misfortune as a mark of something ugly virtuous—the neon of vulnerability pulsating like a star within me. Swelling on a pain.
Bad habits. I want you to judge me and tell me what’s wrong with me. Give me a verdict.
Stress a trigger for mania, and I was stressed from the incident I had experienced at the club. I bloated like a tick to distract from locusts of thoughts that could not shut up with their commotion.
I had been sleeping around more than before. My brain was Christmas tree lights. I accelerated on a generator—I made a mixed episode worse.
Tease a disaster when you are heightened like a blimp. Full of hydrogen. Hoping to burn up ad rain down like napalm.
When the pretty candles on the Christmas tree are left untouched—not looked at like a kettle on burner that has been forgotten—the dry neglected tree will into a house fire.
I’ve had four attempts in my life so far.
When I attempt I don’t cry for help. I feel too vulnerable. I’m afraid.
Hate police and wards.
Downing pills.
My past failed attempts made me aware of everything done wrong before. The sleeping pills alone might not do what I was looking for at that time. I bought an electrical cable. This way if it failed I would still be unconscious and choked out by the cord—fail safe plan to end my life.
The words coming out of my mouth slowed down. I started getting second thoughts. Stuck my face towards the toilet bowl while on my knees. Sticking my fingers down my throat. Leaving blood vessels bursting in my eyes.
Went stumbling outside and waved a taxi down and asked to be taken to the local hospital.
Never expected finding myself checked into a psych ward in a foreign country.
Nietzsche has a quote in reference to chaos in life and how it is needed to create a star—this reference holds so much value to me. Sometimes stars hit together just right to create fate out of the worst of things. The ward lead me to meet the woman made of paper. She would one day become my wife. I would have two daughters with her. Forge together as soldiers to face the obstacles in life. Someone who would save my life during a future attempt when I was found unconscious from an overdose. The smartest and toughest woman I have ever known. Someone to build trenches with.
I liked it when she stuck that needle in me for an IV. It must correlate to being a heroin addict. The pushing of something in my vein correlates to happiness and purity.
The woman made out of paper was my nurse in the ward I was stuck in. What attracted her to the mess that is me I will never understand fully.
The woman made out of paper is named Lilu. She was one year older than me and one of my nurses at that ward in Taiyuan. She was from Zhengzhou—a city in the province of Henan that is based in the center of China. I am sure as the reader it would be nice to know why I call her the woman made of paper.
She struggled with her own demons. She also deserves much praise for her resilience and brains. When she was born she was raised by a family that adopted her and often neglected and abused her growing up. Her biological family is distant from her, even though she has an identical twin—they felt too poor to take care of her and made the choice that they needed to be less of one child as she also has an older sister—her twin got to stay with that family but she was given up and adopted. I am sure this must bother her even if she never will talk about it to anyone in her life—as she is one to refuse ever discussing emotions and feelings, as this is not her personality type—she is very much a fighter. I think most would struggle with wondering why they were the one let go of—it also must hurt her knowing that the family would have a son and keep him.
Despite all these circumstances, she graduated top of her class of four thousand students—Chinese high schools can be quite large serving a large region—they often serve as boarding schools. She was a smart and hardworking student. Circumstances never made her stop trying to be the best and moving forward and she never made excuses for herself. In university she also did well and got accepted at the most studious and hard to obtain nursing position at the number one hospital in Shanxi.
I have already ranted and gone on about my affection and feelings tied to heroin. Drinking of entire oceans to fill voids.
Paper is a void. It asks for calligraphy to be written on it to make braille. This way when fingers run over skin, it tells worth—the reason for troubles—it forms connection through those words of declaration—the whining for why things are the way they are—the filling of a void like a heroin addict needing a cure—two papers come together to write upon one another—as a paper I am her typo—I stand as a falling mess with nerves like tripwire, I keep failing and losing my composer, while she stands stronger as a declaration that has been written on—when I was chased I listened to her and joined as one. I wish and intend to always serve the woman made out of paper who has saved my life and has always been there for me, being so strong despite circumstances—amongst the wind of turmoil in life I follow along her path.
It was love at first sight for her but not for me. I had no interest in dating her at the time. I worked across the street of that hospital in an office building for a training center as a part time job. I would teach adults English who paid for private lessons near to Yingze park in the center of Taiyuan. She signed up for classes for me to teach her and brought me food on almost every other day that she had prepared. Eventually we found ourselves coupled fully.
In a pit. I get to burn as paper amongst another’s paper. Eternally. With a life that will keep reoccurring.
Part 3 Liu
A woman like Chang’e lived on a moon. Far away.
You can refer to me as Liu.
At the age of 19 I was diagnosed with a severe nerve pain condition. It is called trigeminal neuralgia but you can call it TN for ease.
I was frustrated. I had completed a degree in international finances from Chongqing University of Business and Technology. The boom of the economy was not the same. There was an urge to “lay flat”—to not try as a form of opposition to everything going on in a waning economy in China.
All are elephants chained for an audience. People love to peek and stare as though they are glass doors without hinges—to be made feel useless.
I developed TN at the age of 19, and was now 22. It came as an arrow, and quite literally to the face. It’s a rare nerve pain disorder often considered one of the most painful conditions known.
The illness involves intense nerve pain throughout the left side of my face. It felt like someone was trying to pull all of the teeth on the left side of my face without anesthesia. The pain can leave me falling to the floor unable to speak or move while screaming profanities while choked by pain. A feeling of a knife to my face over and over again. It leaves me in absolute shock. Like Roman candles to the face. An absolute hindrance. The anticipation of not knowing when it will happen again is a nightmare at times.
The disease is often called the suicide disease, apparently up to 26% try to take their lives. In a state of panic during one of the nerve attacks I began swallowing any pill near to me. I went to the hospital to have my stomach pumped when I was found comatose by my mother.
I want to be Chang’e and on the moon and away from a world I have had enough of.
Gossip spread around the workplace that I attempted suicide over an affair with a married man. There was too much guilt to return to the workplace. COVID did have an impact to the economy. I still remember my hometown having dirt and trees piled onto the exits and entrances to the city keep people in their places.
The work I did find felt beneath me. China has what is called the great firewall that keeps something in and out of the country’s networks. A VPN was necessary to access American TikTok as it was used as opposed to the Chinese version.
Feels humiliating the nature of the outcome for me—I gave up in many ways like so many Chinese youth. For work I would go to a local office building. Amongst a long hall would be a room for live stream performers. I would entertain with watchers while trying to obtain virtual gifts for actual money. I despised it—sometimes the conversation could be funny or interesting but it felt hollow.
I would paint flowers on my face and wear hanfu clothing while doing ASMR.
I had a mind of sparklers burning until it burnt and stung like wax—like I had the option to stop and cry and those tears stuck as wax and burnt or I soldiered on and grew accustomed to the pain. I was an elephant chained. The audience watched and interacted with me on the live. I was a chained elephant when it was found out about my previous attempt and when the rumors spread.
Too many thorns in life. Nails hitting at the wrong points like an equation for something terrible to eventually happen.
My favorite dish was Henan noodles. I often cooked it with my mom. It provides great memories of childhood. I hadn’t talked to my mother as much as before. She moved to a job in Taiyuan.
Sometimes I would go up to visit her. But it was harder as she worked more and more hours. Sometimes voids build even when going through extreme nerve pain. And with trigeminal neuralgia, the pain was so intense that I would freeze and scream in pain. It cannot always be hid. It made me an elephant tethered.
Life can be like a pressure like no other. Too much stress. Makes one feel irritable with a mouth like a sprinkler of napalm when someone is too close. Life feels like a lit fire cracker held—in the end it would tear my hand up. Things kept building while the other side of my face began to hurt too recently. This was rare and not so common. My eyesight was becoming blurry too and it seemed I might have multiple sclerosis as the pain was on both side, it was not common for my age, and the blurry eyesight. An appointment was scheduled and I felt terrified to know what was going on and wondered if it was best to not even know my health.
I walked out of the studio and had a cigarette. My boss came out and joined to talk. He was concerned about view count and wanted me to do things to increase it that made me feel uncomfortable. He made a few comments I found incentive.
The boss sure liked to criticize and apply pressure. He was not impressed with my work and thought I could do something different. In China an application is used called WeChat. This application has many uses. People can display and share moments like a Facebook wall, message each other, send money, video chat, and even has a feature to find people near to you who are also looking for people near to them. I was to attract people onto dates. The idea was they would be lured in and the men would go to a set destination to a planned tea house that served snacks. When the men arrived (they had no knowledge of the setup) the bill would be at an absurd rate and if the men refused to pay larger men would use their size to force them to pay up.
I was not sure at the time yet if I wanted the job. Being worried about ethics and safety. It was something I would have to think about.
My medical expenses were growing and I knew the nerve disease could be expensive to treat with surgery. All I had was thoughts while looking at the moon.
Part 4 Taishen
My former roommate in the ward I shared a room with had paranoid schizophrenia. I was stuck in the same place due to mania, and just had gotten my diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
I was so pissed being stuck there and felt I had no business being there. I found my diagnosis to be an insult to me. I was only 18 at the time—taken in on a stretcher. Made me feel very vulnerable and irritated.
My roommate was having delusions related to Christianity and could not stop waking me up in the middle of the night to ask and talk about Jesus. Left me beyond frustrated.
He was drifting from his wife and would go on and on about intending to leave her. Felt he was spied and plotted against by her. So we were both frustrated with being there.
The toilets were special. They would flush what needed to be flushed but not certain things like pills—it helped to keep people from hiding they were not taking their medications.
He had tried to flush his wedding ring down the toilet but he did not realized it didn’t flush. I went to use the restroom later and saw the ring. I told him. He took it out. He found it to be a sign form God that he is to stay with his wife, and there was immense happiness in his eyes.

First, here's the source; be warned it's a Facebook post, and a quote of a book.
I've always been fascinated by weird old names, and I know a lot of y'all are too, so I thought I'd share these. The original source claims that "at the time they were not considered unusual or any more 'charming' than Mary, Jane, or Sally," but I really have my doubts on this. They're all from Tarrant County census records, up in the Fort Worth area. These are almost all female names, because we've always been ~~crazier~~ freer with naming daughters.
Permelia, apparently given to girls in almost 10% of the families (7 out of 79)
Florida
Dizanna x3
Farilda
Almeda (I don't find this odd, but the author seems to have)
Didamay
Dosha Ann (a widow at 20)
Vreena, wife of Middleton
Selete, Seleta, & Salita, which may be misspellings of the same name (though not from the same person)
Barbesha, Selete's sister
America
Alabama
Texana
Lucitta
Aramenta (which I also don't find too odd)
Jebitha
Medora
Triplets: Permelia, Mahulda, & James Neil
Sisters: Arlalisa and Cimbla
Jephany
Aviriah
Sevina, mother of Camuth and Rocksey
If you use Facebook, do click through to the comments for some other oddities, and what people think are oddities, like Avis and Selena.

This might be long so I apologize for that but I just need to vent. Anyways a couple days ago I wrote on here about how me and my partner were supposed to be getting our own place and how I didn’t want to be financially responsible for his daughter and how I didn’t know how to approach the situation. I didn’t want to be responsible because with my partner or ex I guess, if you give him an inch, he’s going to take a 17 miles. I knew if I started that, he’d expect me to pay all the time and I’d have to pick up his slack because he’s already not good with money. Now this is just the start.
We’ve been looking for spots for a while now and were finally going to move out in July because he has to be out of his place by then and he quite literally has no where else to go unless he gets another roommate. So we had a discussion a month ago about how we’re not going to spend any money that’s not a necessity and we’re going to save up so we can get our place and be able to buy all the furniture and stuff and he agrees. “Yeah babe, we definitely gotta save and I know we can do it. I just gotta stop eating out so much”.
This is where I get pissed because THIS man just needed me to get him food a week ago because he had no more left, then gets paid this Thursday and says he’s taking his daughter out to an amusement park because and I quote “she’s been misbehaving” then lies to me and says it was just her but he took his niece as well ( he did all of this on his dime as well), takes his roommates car to do all of this ( he told me he can no longer use the car because his friend doesn’t want him to a couple weeks ago so I haven’t seen him and haven’t bothered him about coming to see us), then goes to twin peaks 3x since being paid, goes to the movies, goes to the dispensary, goes out to the bar with friends, etc.
So our child has a dr appointment yesterday but where I live there’s no Ubers ( I don’t have a car right now because he crashed it and he also crashed his a while back) so I call him to pick me up since he’s been able to go and do everything under sun with others in the car and he says yes but I have to give him money…. I ask him where all of his went and he says he still has money to do what HE needs to do but coming to get me isn’t apart of his plan and he’s already spent enough so I have to give him money. Keep in mind I just lost my car that I bought a while back because it had problems and the people lied to me about it, I just had surgery a week and a half ago ( ectopic pregnancy) which resulted in me having to get my fallopian tube and an ovary removed and I haven’t been able to work because of it, and the $$ I have now is money I saved that’s keeping me and our kid afloat. He also did not help me with our kid while I was recovering from surgery, my family did.
I’m pissed because I always spot him but this time when I’m not working, just had a surgery, still needing to get our kid to the dr, and I’m using up savings, he asks me for money but he was just spending his whole check like he was baller… Now all of a sudden he needs $$ and I know it’s because he spent it all. Anyways I simply asked him if he asked his sister and BM for gas or $$ while taking their kids out and he says no why would I do that. This man has never asked his BM for gas even when it was my car he was using to go get their kid because she doesn’t have a car either but he asks this of me. He always treats me differently and I’m so tired. If he gets paid he’ll send me $100 and she gets $300. I have to buy our kid a car seat which is $300 and clothes but it’s all on me. I’m just tired, we broke up, mad he’s making me out to be some villain who’s mad that he took his kid out when in reality I’m upset that I’m last on the totem pole, I get treated differently, I’m the one always spending the $$, I always feel used, etc. I feel like him asking me for money was my last straw.
Sorry for the rant y’all, I really needed to vent.
Edit: he also bought a ps5 and headset and tried to lie to me about the price. Then kept saying I was mad because he finally got something nice for himself when I said we should be saving …
Edit: I forgot to add that he also started calling me a weirdo and weird asf after breaking this down for him.

Greek mythology states that in order to reach the "island of the blessed" or the "garden of the immortals" one has to traverse through the gates of Hades and then reach onto the other side. So technically Hades itself is the entrance to the "paradise of the gods" and then the "island of the blessed" is the innermost part of it once one traverses through Hades. So since Hades is the entrance to the garden of the blessed – the entrance to the Garden i.e. the entrance to Hades has to be guarded safely.
That’s where Cerberus comes into play. The word "cerberus" is derived from the root KRB or CRB to which – if one applies vowels to it – it can also become "cherubim" or "cherub" i.e. the Cherubines of the Old Testament. Not coincidentally the entrance to the Garden of Eden is said to be guarded by a Cherub on the eastern part of it. The "underworld" or the "land of demons" or "place of the dead" – was said in Sumerian mythology but also in other cultures as well; to be a land "located in the east" – in the "far east". The reason why this was called the "land of the dead" has nothing to do with "souls" or any spiritualistic interpretations whatsoever; it was called the land of the dead because the ones who were old or who were "due to be dead" generally speaking – would disappear and go into that land, and when they came back they would look different and they would appear rejuvenated in appearance; so the previous person who went would quote on quote "disappear" while "another person" or a "new person" would come back instead and this became the general belief – when actually it was always the same person throughout. (This is also why in the Bible the same person a lot of times is claimed to have died and to have been born many times over – and every time they would come back they would be called with a different name and they would be mistakenly believed to be a whole other person altogether). Now – some of these people when they were accepted into the "paradise of the immortals" would then be prevented from leaving – while others would only do a periodical trip and would then be allowed back into the "world of the living" without problems.
So the Cherubine that God has placed to guard the entrance to the Garden of Eden is Cerberus who guards the entrance to Hades.
In the Bible it’s claimed that the Cherubines emitted a sound continuously – which was then metaphorically covered up with a beautiful translation that says that the "cherubim sing beautiful songs near god’s throne" – but what the original Hebrew text actually claims is that the Cherubines emit a very loud sound continuously. This is why Greek mythology claims that Cerberus growls continuously or barks at any trespasser.
The apocryphal Book of Adam states that when Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden they were simply banished from the "eastern part" of the Garden (which was the more "special" part of the Garden where God himself presided over that side of the Garden) and they relocated to the "west" of the Garden instead. When in Greek mythology it’s claimed that Hades and Persephone are allotted the underworld as their realm – it was explained earlier that the underworld was literally the entrance or "gateway" to accessing the Garden of the Gods or the "islands of the Blessed"; so Hades and Persephone were still "inside the garden" technically speaking – because they were rulers over Hades and its gates; but they were "pushed aside" and "removed" from the center of the Garden (or from the "innermost" part of the Garden – which were the islands of the Blessed) – and they were forced to relocate to the fringes of the Garden i.e. near its entrance and "at the gates" of hell/Hades.
So geographically speaking since the paradise of the gods is located in the East and on the easternmost part of the Garden – then technically Hades and Persephone who were pushed aside were pushed more towards the "western" parts of the Garden instead (where the Gates of Hades lie).
Some versions claim that they rule immediately before the Gates of Hades while others say that they rule on the outside of them, but the difference is minimal. They were pushed to the outermost part of the Garden which counts as having been "kicked" out of the Garden entirely (because Adam and Eve were then left free to roam the earth freely since having been relocated at the fringes of the Garden – nobody kept a close eye on them anymore so they could do whatever they wanted because nobody cared essentially).
Not coincidentally when Hades made Persephone his bride – he’s claimed to have given her a fruit to eat; either an apple or a pomegranate according to the version. (In earlier Christian doctrines the forbidden fruit of Adam and Eve was actually claimed to have been a pomegranate; but it was later changed to the other version that claimed it was an apple instead – because they probably thought that a pomegranate would be too recognizable since the pomegranate was one of the central symbols of Greek mythology and its gods. But mind you – in the Old Testament i.e. in the Bible there is no trace of the word "apple" whatsoever; the Bible only claims that Adam and Eve understood "evil from good" which in Latin gets translated as "bonum et malum", and since the Latin word "malum" can also mean "apple-tree"; this is where the claims that the apple is contained in the Bible – actually come from. But regardless – the imagery of the first humans eating a fruit was still present even outside the Bible; so regardless of what the Bible itself stated – the Church still kept the image of the apple or the pomegranate intact because they knew that this was a very ancient tradition and that the first humans were still claimed to have tasted a forbidden fruit in previous cultures, and they wanted to keep that imagery intact because Christianity is nothing more than a modern camouflage of ancient traditions).
Not in every version Hades and Persephone were depicted as one much older than the other and with the male kidnapping the female – because as mentioned in previous posts as well; there were more than one god called "Jupiter" as well as more than one "Minerva", more than one Apollo, more than one Hercules etc. And naturally that same rule also applies to Hades as well. The "older" Hades is the one who was claimed to have stolen Persephone away (the "older" Hades was often times also differentiated from "Pluto" by the Latins and thus distinguished from Hades altogether) – whilst there was a "younger Hades" at the same time as well who was addressed as the twin-brother of the goddess of the underworld (called "Persephone" by the Greeks).
The brutal Hades who is depicted as the kidnapper of Persephone is the one who kidnapped her and raped her basically forcing her into a marriage she didn’t want – and he is not the same as the other "gentle" Hades called "Pluto" who was instead addressed as the loving husband of Persephone and the one whom she’d actually chosen as her love. The kidnapping of Persephone and her forced marriage against her own will to the evil Hades – is a myth that was then superimposed over the one of the Earth-goddess Gaia who was tempted by Cronus/Saturn (i.e. the "Serpent" of the Bible) into leaving Uranus (her husband and brother) and she then ended up marrying Cronus but Cronus was evil so their marriage was forced and unhappy.
These traditions were then basically crammed together into a single narrative for the Bible because as mentioned in a previous post – "Adam" and "Eve" were merely titles, they were not personal names; and so these titles were attributed to many figures, not just one. And thus the "previous Eve" who corresponds to Gaia is the one who "willingly left" and married Cronus – but she ended up regretting that decision because Cronus was violent and evil; whilst the "second Eve" is the one who was instead forcibly kidnapped and raped by the Serpent against her own will (and this refers to the myth of Persephone and the evil Hades who embodies the Serpent in this case). But then since the "goddess of the earth" was also a title attributed to Persephone herself because being the "goddess of the depths of the earth" (the "depths of the earth" meaning the "underworld" or the "world of the dead") – she was thus literally interpreted as an "earthy goddess" herself and as representing "the earth / the ground" itself – this made it so that both goddesses of the earth (Gaia and Persephone) were later confused as being one and the same goddess and as such one and the same Eve.
The fact that Hades and Persephone were twin brother and sister is confirmed both by Greek and Latin culture; though one has to better understand the nature of both of these deities in order for it to become more clear and acknowledgeable. Dionysus in the Greek cult was stated to be the same deity as Hades himself; or at the very least – to correspond to a "younger Hades" who was though also the ruler over the underworld himself. Heraclitus and other Greek authors as well as Latin ones not only confirmed that Dionysus and Hades were in fact the same god; but they also argued that this truth was renown to the initiates of the cult of Dionysus, though it was a truth only kept for the inner circles of the Dionysus cult – while on the outside the two cults were kept separate because they were essentially worshipping two different aspects of the same deity. In Latin myths the one Dionysus who was said to correspond to a "young Hades" is the agricultural and pastoral god called "Liber" (the "free one"). Liber and Libera (his female counterpart) corresponded to the Dionysus and Proserpina/Persephone of Greek culture respectively; and they were twin brother and sister.
According to Hindu mythology the first two humans or "mortals" more generally speaking (later called "humans" because they were claimed to have died) were the twin-gods Yama and Yami, the god and goddess of death who were actually gods who originally held functions over life and the crops/vegetation in Indo-European mythology – but were later addressed as the "gods of death" because they were claimed to have been the first living beings who died. They were lovers but their relationship was considered forbidden so they would hide that fact from the public. The reason why Adam and Eve "cover their genitals" and "feel shame" in the presence of God is not because reproduction or sex/love was forbidden in the Garden – but because they did incest being brother and sister so they were ashamed of that in front of "god" who was their creator and "father".

I 13f had locks when i was like 6 years old but i never wanted to take care of them and always cried when my mother called me to get a retwist, after shaving my head off and 7 years later, i now want them back, but not like the ones i had, this time i want micro/sister locs, my mom is also an ex dreadhead and this year shes putting them back in, today i talked to her and asked her if i could get them and she said no because i "dont have any discipline" and how i used to have them and didnt want them but suddenly want them again. If i ask my father, he is like 80% going to say yes but if my mother doesent aprove then she is going to rain hell on me. She said how she understands my thought process because she had to trick my grandmother to get dreadlocks but how im not gonna be able to trick her because she will never be caught slacking. She said how i cant get micro locs because quote unquote "this b>>ch aint seeing bout them" im really stuck and desperate right now because shes also quite stubborn

I read a very interesting post about Misty's and Brock's degradation of talents. In it the people were discusing how Misty (the gym leader... ?) and Brock were so great battlers in their introduction, but jobbed ever since. Quoting the Pity Badges meme. Making this huge conspiracy about game bosses joining your team and becaming less of a competent fighter.
Thing is that Misty was not a gym leader, was not better than Ash, never defeated Ash in the gym battle and became much better than she was as time passed. And Brock, did not win and give Ash a badge out of pity. It was always a joke between friends.
Let's go with Misty first: She wasn't the gym leader in the anime. Not till her selfish sisters dumped it on her. They were the guys in charge. She only found out about the gym badges later on, also. Despite her bragging she was also not that much better of a trainer compared to Ash. Her sisters, sure. Not Ash. She grew up in a gym/aquarium... Sure. But they were in the same spot: begining their journeys. She wanted to fight Ash because her sisters wanted to give him a free badge. She didn't win either. Pikachu refused to fight a friend and, like her sisters pointed out, Ash would have won then and there. Then she and Ash lost one Poke each (2 her if we go by the no substitution rule), with her losing the ace. Then Team Rocket did their thing and Ash defeated them and saved the gym. Discuss all you want if he should receive a badge for outstanding acts (especially if he could win normally against the sisters), but the whole "Misty defeated him" is unfounded. Misty was not that great and grew into a better fighter later on. Enough to train Gyarydos and Psyduck.
Brock? You have the whole myth of Brock wining and giving the badge to pity Ash. Only if things were like that. Ash was winining that foght after the sprinklers. Then he believes Brock's siblings are his regrets and stops. Brock acknowledges that and gives him the badge, when Ash wanted to not accept. Pity badge? For Brock, maybe. Sure, Brock was better in the sense his Pokes countered Ash's but he wasn't this great trainer. He wasn't in it that much. Duty for his family is what made him have that role.
It's quite interesting what kind of tricks the mind plays on us... We heard so much something that it became truth for us. What other misunderstandings are common in the Pokemon comunity.

I [19F] just finished my first year at university as an international student. As a first year, i had to live in a student accommodation that expected me to move out at the end of my lease on the 31st of May. Because I am from an entirely different continent and would have to take 2 planes to get home this summer, it did not seem feasible to pack up my dorm and take everything back home with me. Besides, I would be travelling alone and with a 2 suitcase limit it would literally be impossible.
My sister and a lot of my friends in a similar situation all decided to rent storage units to store their things over the summer. I decided i’d do the same.
I found a company that worked with students and rented a 20sq ft storage locker for 10 weeks. The rates were somewhat fair and i expected the total to be £98 ($125). It was steep but i didn’t really have much more of a choice. When i went to pay however, it turned out to be £160 ($204) pounds because the company charged a mandatory weekly insurance fee and a price for the padlock itself. This was a lot more expensive than i expected but - again - i didn’t have much of a choice.
As i was packing however i realised i only had 5 large bags of things; which i still couldn’t take home with me.
I checked into the storage unit the day of my flight & the unit was much bigger than i’d anticipated. My two large bags barely took up 1% of the unit.
The lady working there let me know that they allow sublets; meaning i could let my friends store their things in my storage unit, and charge them for it.
I texted a friend [19F] I knew had been looking for somewhere to store her things. Let’s call her G. G had asked me earlier what I planned on doing with my things and i told her i’d be using this company to store my things and share their information with her. Her lease also ended in may 31st and i expected that she’d already found somewhere to store her stuff since it was less than 24 hours to the move out date. I offered to let her use my unit and i’d charge her a reduced price. She texted me two hours later asking if my offer still stood and I said yes.
I was at the airport with my girlfriend [18F]at this point and she offered to facilitate the whole exchange since she was my emergency contact and the only other person i’d given permission to access the unit. i told G that my girlfriend would be there to let her into the unit later in the day. G told me that her flight was in a few hours that same day and was very frantic and kept rushing us. That slightly annoyed me because it felt like she was making her own procrastination our problem. Either way, my girlfriend, the angel she is, rushed across town from the airport to the storage unit to let her into the unit.
My girlfriend said that apparently G had 4 airport trolleys worth of things to store. The staff initially thought the things wouldn’t fit in the unit but it did. Her stuff filled the entire unit. Compared to my 1% of things, G’s things took up 98% of the storage unit. My girlfriend sent me a picture and i was shocked. I had no idea what she intended to do with all that stuff only hours before her flight.
Beyond the texts rushing me and my girlfriend, G didn’t really communicate any further until i asked her if everything went well hours later.
Now initially i was willing to split the cost 50/50 but seeing how much space i took up compared to how much space she took up, it doesn’t feel fair. I was more than prepared to cut my loses and pay the full £160 because that was all I could do. But it feels unjust to have her take up 98% of the storage unit and have me pay 50% of the cost including the insurance fee that would mostly be covering her things. I initially quoted her £90 pounds before i saw the extent of the disparity in the amount of stuff but now that still doesn’t feel fair. If she rented the unit on her own she’d be paying the full £160 and using the same amount of space so a 90/70 split when i only have two bags in there doesn’t feel like a fair deal.
How should we split the cost? AITAH if i ask her to pay £100 and i pay £60?

When I was a kid I had a picture book with the line "and sister slams the door!" My parents would quote it when someone would slam a door but neither of them remember which book the line is from. I can't recall much else of the book. This was in the 90's but my parents say that the book was an older book even then.

I don’t typically ask for advice online or insights into this kinda stuff publically, but I’m realizing that this situation may be what it needs, because i realized that im hearing advice and answers given by my friends, but then im almost repressing it instantly or whenever my mother or father questions it.
I am 24 (NB) I was born female, but about 2 years ago I finally figured out who I was (with a lot of pushback and arguing with my parents as I did so). This may or may not be tied to the issue, but it feels important to mention.
My mother (42F) has always been sort of disappointed in me. It was never quite stated, but I could feel this sort of aura of my mother always being aware of people were staring. I was a loud and rowdy child growing up, mostly because I was diagnosed with ADHD around age 5. this started a long life of me trying out medications and never quite figuring out meds that stuck or worked as well as I wanted them to, or would quote “give me anger issues” according to my mom.
My mom has always seemed to be embarrassed about how I act, even from a young age. I was never a “girly girl” or a “well mannered woman” like she wanted. I would get upset and cry often, sometimes not even because I was sad. Any sort of strong emotion would make me cry, and I had little to no control over it. This caused children to pick on me, and me to be judged as “dramatic” by my mother, my grandmother on her side, and an ex girlfriend of my uncle on my moms side who gave me traumatic memories.
For context, I was had at a young age out of wedlock. my bio dad was a bit of a dead beat and refused to pay for me or my mothers care, and refused to get a job. So my mom took me and left. There’s also been a lot of drama surrounding my conception and birth. to the point where my grandmother kicked my mother out after she refused to have an abortion, but then was there when I was born and asked to take me for my mom, because of how young she was. My mom says she had me when she was 21, but the time lines aren’t matching up. So I’m either forgetting her age (possible, I have horrible memory) or she’s lying for some reason.
When I was 3 my mom moved in with my now step dad, and I was there for them when they got married. My dads side loved me. I felt oddly safer with them than my moms side of the family, and didn’t feel forgotten or pushed aside when my mom had a child with my step dad. everyone still paid attention to me too, and even tried to teach me how to be a good older sister. Except for my mom. I have memories of her putting me in time out or telling me to “go play on my own” but then forgetting I even existed. I don’t remember the time exactly (I was young, so any guess probably won’t be accurate) but I remember multiple times where I was told “wait here for 15 minutes in time out, I will come get you when you’re done” or something to that extent., and waiting for well past that time. One time I even caved and asked if I could come out, only to hear my mother laugh and say “oh! I forgot you were there!”
This wasn’t just once. I’ve felt routinely forgotten about well into my now adult years, and still considered “childish” for remembering them, but not being able to remember some basic math.
My mother seems to have always preferred my younger siblings over me, and I just chalked it up to “eldest child jealously”. But recently I had a break down infront of the eldest of my younger siblings (20tm) and said “I’m sorry for making you guys so scared of me because of when I get mad”. And my brother seemed confused and said “I’m not scared of you, and neither is -youngest name here-.” and I seemed confused because I was told by my mother time and time again, that they were scared to talk to me because I was “bigger, louder, and would stay in my room all day”
I’m currently a commission artist and working on trying to start in social media to get my art out there and make a better portfolio, and any time I’m outside of my room, my mother nags me about my weight, my depression, or anything else she can think of. This leads to some arguments that ends up with me admitting she’s right, and then crying alone in my room.
This knowledge seemed to crack the dam a little. I tend to vent to my close friends about what my mother does, then calm down and forget it ever happened. This plus the info that my mother seems to be lying to me about multiple things to try and get me to “better care for myself” when all it’s been doing is making me clinically depressed and paranoid, has been slowly but surely flooding me with repressed memories and advice that my friends have been giving me, and red flags that’s I have forgotten about.
I’ve been aware that I’m the black sheep in the family for a while, and not the perfect child. But now I’m starting to think that I’m not gonna get better in this house.
I’m also worried that I may be overreacting and possibly missing something. Can someone confirm or deny my worries??
TL;DR repressed memories have made me think that my mother is emotionally abusive, but I’m not sure. She gives my siblings that came from my step dad more attention than me, her child that came from her deadbeat boyfriend at 18(?), and seems to always forget me or leave me out of the loop. She may also be manipulating me into being a “better daughter” when I’ve told her I’m non-binary. confirm or deny please

After watching the GiBi 8 hour video multiple times and replaying all of the four games I agree that the story of the first four games hasn’t been solved yet; I want to solve the original story using exclusively the first 4 games (no fnaf world, no SL, no books); Here are some points that I think its important to discuss:
***THESE ARE THE MAIN POINTS OF THE SAGA AS A WHOLE
—Dream Theory I agree with GiBi that dream theory was a misinterpretation of Scott’s messages on his website (as said by him in his interview with Dawko, and also being mocked in UCN). The quote “Four games, one story” seems to imply that all the games are neccesary to understand one another, which leads me to the next point.
—Fnaf 1/4 protagonist Because of the parallels with the doors, foxy behind a “curtain”, and the phone call, it is reasonable to assume it was the FNaF 1 night guard; also the FNaf 4 protagonist has memories of BV death (the flowers and hospital thing), and he was the one to whom Golden Freddy said “Its me”.
—Foxy bro With the previous point, we can conclude that foxy bro is supposed to be Mike Schmidt, and the night gameplay of fnaf 4 is a nightmare post FNaF 1. This would make sense with the fourth (more unpopular) Scott’s quote “Have you ever thought who the security guard is?”
—Happiest Day It appears to be a relation between the animatronics of the Happiest day minigames (Baloon boy, TChica, Mangle, Springbonnie) and the kids of FNaf 4 (night 3) minigame; I think that these 4 kids are the MCI victims (+ BV as Golden Freddy) since they are the ones (along the puppet) that make Happiest day happen.
—General plot of the Tetralogy The general point of the 4 games is the story of Foxy Bro trying to free his BV soul, going trough FNAF 1 in 1992, and eventually facing off against Springtrap and burning Fazbear Frigths.
—Main Game Dates Fnaf 1: 1992 Fnaf 2: 1987 Fnaf 3: 2015 Fnaf 4 (day): 1983 Fnaf 4 (night): 1992-2015 (nightmares)
***THESE ARE MORE SPECIFIC POINTS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
—Did the Purple Guy killed 6 or 12 kids? In one of the death minigames, you can roam around the Fnaf 2 pizzeria and encounter 6 dead bodies (one of them is under the table, hinting at JJ); Since they dont appear ever again, I think that they are metaphorical and signifies the 6 victims (MCI + Puppet).
—On the Puppet I think that the Puppet was made to be a completely different character than it turned out to be; obviously is the victim of the SAVE HIM mini game, although is still strange that is a HIM (maybe referring to the Puppet itself idk). there was an interesting theory about how the Puppet was actually the sister from the Fnaf 4 day minigames who was murderer before the bite of 83; I do not have a very solid stance on this particular point.
—Who died first? The child that possessed the puppet, or BV/CC???? This is extremely important, as if it was BV/CC it would give a motive to Purple Guy to murder and experiment with immortality, but nonetheless I have little to no idea.
—Are the Toys possessed? I think they are not.
—Which of the endings of FNAF 3 is canon? I know Scott said is “complex” but I think that mainly relates to the SL onwards continuity.
—On the beak question I think it was just to point out that the girl was meant to represent Toy Chica specifically, or maybe imply that she made the bite of 87
— Are Fritz Smith and Mike Schmidt the same person? Maybe, still there is not clear of it besides the “odor and tampering” in night 7 which was originally meant as a joke.
— The Puppet in fnaf3 is the only real one Matpat said this and it stuck, it might be right but the only think is a relfection on the floor.
—Is Foxy bro/ Fnaf 1 protagonist the same in FNaf 3? Maybe, it would make sense narratively speaking but it would be old.
—Who organized Happiest Day? Probably the Puppet or Mike idk.
—The empty girl room in fnaf 4 I cant stress enough how importnat this SEEMS to be but I cant fit it in satisfyingly.
—What was what BV/CC saw? Nobody knows.
—And finally, whats in da box?????????

Hey, I'm turned 24 recently and I've been getting over this from last 926 days and now I can't take it anymore and i need help. Waring: I have borderline personality disorder.
So this happened when I was 21. I was a very much reserved, introvert person. Had one long distance relationship and it was toxic as hell. He cheated on me since day one to entire 1.5 yrs span and relationship and gave me lots of trauma and in the meantime I was harrassed by my medicine professor ( constant stalking, rape threats, demanding sexual favours). I was in a very bad place, I got diagnosed with treatment resistant depression and panic disorder along with BPD and after 3 yrs of suffering i decided to end my life on Nov 21, 2021. I overdosed myself with lamotrigine, fluoxetine, oxcarbemazepine, mirtazepine. Before I lost consciousness i open tinder to delete it but I got a text from a person named Bhaskar and we immediately connect, we was so much caring and i regretted taking those meds and praying i that I will wake up. I fall unconscious after few minutes and later I woke up at hospital. I got discharged and i immediately texted him back. There were around 50+ texts from him and he was worried. I texted him back and we strated talking. We grew closed. He was very much caring. As I had bad relationship with my parents and no friends, he became my best friend. But I was hesitant about relationship but he was very much persuasive and after few wks I gave in. He was a good looking, well educated guy. Within short span of time he filled me with happiness. He was so exited about me, wrote poems about me, i strated to open up, told him about my childhood abuse, sexual assault and that was the first i ever articulated those. In short he saved me.
Days passed and my 22nd birthday was coming and he planned a date ( my first ever date, and my first ever birthday cake) i went there with a friend ( and my friends friends (daksh)). Daksh looked like my ex and i got panic attack. Fast forward Bhaskar came, rest 3 of us were med student and bhaskar was the older (28). We retured and he came to my home ( I live alone).
I had this habit of motion sickness and on my way back I got that. Instead of Bhaskar, daksh got me medicine and more caring. Bhaskar and i shared airpods and listened to some Taylor Swift and Billie. We reached home and i fall on bed. At that time I was already on antidepressants and it had sexual side-effects. After 15 mins of reaching he initiated and i didn't reciprocate and he got angry, I was afraid that he will leave so I did whatever he said and he proceeded to make fun of me not getting erection. It was awkward but I was already attached to him. U know BPD traits, either worship someone or hate someone to the core, no in between.
Days passed everything was fine. But he started doubting me with daksh and I can assure I had no such feelings for him. I only loved Bhaskar. Fights become a daily thing. He used to visit me on weekends and do his thing, doesn't matter if I'm worn out from night shift and by dealing with lots of hormonal pregnant ladies. He will wake me up at 3/4Am just to get his stuff around and sometimes while I'm sleeping. Besides that he was very nice to me. He taught me basic life hacks, how to go out, how to talk to people, how to do grocery, tax, online payment etc. He made me join gym. He used to help me with studies. Help me prepare for PGT exam etc etc. Slowly he became more insecure of daksh, both hated each other. I was growing closer and closer with daksh but we had only professional relationship. He used to teach me medicine as he was one year senior than me. Fast forward, Bhaskar told me that he told his sister about me and gave her number. I just kept it and didn't text. He was proud of me, he uses to say, something so rare that i never used to hear. He was 28 and parents were talking about marriage, i laughed and said you aren't getting married right? He didn't said anything and buy rather brust out and said, at home they are running my peace and here you. Let me do one thing, I'll kill myself. I didn't say anything
After few months i was adopting a dog , at first he was supportive but on the day of adoption he called me and started screaming at me. Said I'm kid myself and I'm not capable of taking care of a dog. How cruel i have to be take a puppy away from his mother. That puppy will die if i adopt. And later he admitted he was jealous that my attention will get divided between him and the puppy.
Time flew. His marriage thing came out again and this time he said he is getting married. I begged him not to do so. I reasoned as much as i can. He has a sister, i asked him will he be happy if his sister marry and gay man and his brother in law has a boyfriend. He said he will kill that person. Then i ask why the double standards? He diverted the question He said and i quote " i want to marry, have kids to make my mum happy and i want to be with you too, but he can't marry. You have to stay with me till the end" I called him a hypocrite and called it off.
No contact for weeks and my BPD got worse as he forced me not to take those meds cuz we weren't having good sex cuz of the side effects.
He texted again and as always blamed everything on me. Told me he opened tinder and meeting people, told me I'm psychotic, i deserve my past and he hates me more than he hates his father.
I was emotionally shut down. My final mbbs exam was approaching and i didn't care. I called him and told him I'm not doing well. He inturn told me he is having great sex. He body-shamed me ( yep due to depression I lost lots of weight and was struggling with eating).
Idk what happened, he came back and was talking nicely, it was a surprise visit, I had surgery exam that day and after that I was just laying lifeless on my bed . He came in, no reaction from me. He slept next to me and all i did was shed a tear. He started kissing and became rough. I was already part dead and I had no energy to fight back. He tied my hand and dis whatever he wanted, few times i tried to push him away but i couldn't,so i just stayed there. After he was done, I said nothing. He came near and kissed my forehead and said I love you. I said nothing. Later that evening we took me out for dinner. I just sat there and ate nothing. People were looking at us. We came back and he again shouted at me. He felt humiliated by how i reacted outside and said let's break-up. I said okay. And went to my other room and took 5 clonazepam and fell unconscious. Next day i woke up at 2 pm and he wasn't there. Since then i haven't saw him
Despite everything I passed my med exam and started my internship. It was 18th December 2022, he texted and wished me happy birthday. And proceeded to ask me choose a girl for him to marry. And he said no matter whom he marry, I'll always be his first priority. I said nothing, no reply. I was numb inside. 31st December 2022, everything strated to unfold, I was alone, i called daksh he was busy and at the end i called Bhaskar, told him I can't stop my suicidal thoughts, i need help. He asked me to act on my thoughts and never contact him again. And i did. I ended up in icu. After 5 days of stay I was released, everybody came to know about me, my preference but instead of being ashamed i embraced it. Daksh was with me in every step. I wanted revenge, so i texted his sister. I thought he knew about me and Bhaskar but turned out he lied. I threatened to send his nudes ( giving me a bj) to his mother but in reality I had no picture like that. He was scared and called me multiple times and i didn't pick up.
It's been 926 days now but I'm not able to get over him. No matter what happened I love him . I still write about him in my poetry, I saw him in my dreams (nightmare to be specific). I'm not able to fall in love or trust anyone. I get panic attack almost weekly. I did therapy, meds nothing helped. I'm ruining my life and career and I don't know what to do about. How to let this go. So please give me advices.

I could use some advice for my sister Kris. She’s currently living in Queens, New York, and she’s hit a bit of a roadblock with finding reliable car insurance quotes. Kris has been driving the same trusty Honda for years, but her old insurance policy just doesn't cut it anymore, especially with the challenges of city driving. Navigating the busy streets of Queens and dealing with city traffic has made it clear that she needs better coverage.
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My sister says that she can't remember this quote from somewhere and now it's driving me crazy because I can't figure out where/what it's from. "It's a tradition. And a tradition is a tradition."
If anyone knows, please tell me.

It felt frustrating in Chongqing. I was rather stuck in Hechuan. I got accustomed to lajiao (spice) there. I was a Midwesterner at the age of 22. I was raised in Illinois. I became a manic—a Ferris wheel on fire—I was hiding under a bed in a hotel. Bold like napalm. Sometimes I can never stop. Even when I was 18 in a ward arguing with staff. Always want to fight things. That’s why I refused the meds and went on a plane from America to China. I was going to be an English teacher. And like a light switch, the change and SSRIs turned me into a mess. It would be my first time experiencing psychosis. My biggest issue. I never imagined I would be stuck illegally in a country suffering a psychotic episode in my early twenties.
Transplanted as pollen. I was left with a backpack and a cellphone. With a downloaded app called WeChat. I had arrogantly quit a university job in a fit. Spent the past months full of energy and not sleeping and neglecting myself, including not eating, to work on a novel. Not considering myself normally religious, I had obsessed over occult ideas during that time. Spending nights reading Aleister Crowley—haven taken a rusty pocket knife to carve a pentagram on my chest for spiritual protection.
I did not have funds to fly home. My visa was connected to my previous job, which meant I had now made it void. I was an illegal resident now in China.
I used a nifty app called WeChat as a messaging app, it allows users to find people near them that are also looking for others. It was like a virtual pond. All kinds of people, including sex workers trying to make things happen.
It could with luck be used to find people looking for people in terms of other kinds of work. It was helpful on many occasions for finding gigs working at English training schools and also finding work as a private tutor for people.
WeChat also works as a digital wallet.
Mania makes me irritable. Enough to tell a boss to fuck off. Thoughts ricochet within me. Bumper cars collide.
Being stuck and angry sucks. I scrolled and scrolled on a Huawei phone.
Absolutely pissed off at this world.
Pissed at the times police wanted to take me away for being a mess.
Sometimes women get pissed. Scrolling through their phones. Angry at their cheating husbands. It really is not that hard to have flair—be a damn white oddity. Like moths to a porchlight. Particles of sand through hands. This is when I first started the habit of it…
I rather go by a rather empty name of Taishen… with further explanation needed but now is not convenient. But I assure it is interesting enough and has some importance.
Habits are various in nature in how they attach to and eat at marrow—like atom bombs flashing as rays evaporating DNA—sets in a way less than human as putting myself in the cage of bad things taken up—my time as a former heroin addict is left as stretch marks on me in various ways. The same goes for the first time I found myself making arrangements with middle aged married women while desperation of waves whiplashed me like sandpaper hands coming at me to leave me in a tiring state of abrasion.
I had spent a night snuck away into a hotel. Found someone on a business trip. Instead of registering I waited to sneak along into the hotel elevator amongst a group of others attending the hotel, as I had no card. I headed to a designated room number. Originally I was sitting in a park. Playing on WeChat and found someone in their mid-thirties. Pictures were exchanged and I said no. She brought up paying for the hotel if I arrived. I agreed and went along.
When I met I washed up after her and we used our phones to awkwardly translate what we would do.
Room service knocked. I found myself hidden under a bed as I was not registered to be there.
It seems unusual that it was around this time I had started working on a story of my life as a heroin addict when I got caught up in my worse manic episode ever experienced during my age of 22. Finished half that story before never going back to it after my manic episode had ended. Now I am here writing about it and wondering if the same can happen again in the process of this work.
It feels extremely cliché I would write a novel about struggles with heroin addiction. It has been done many times. It’s just lame of me.
I feel like my thoughts are bit off. I left the hotel the next morning with the little money I did have on a debit card. Turns out the woman was from Taiyuan. It is a city in the northern part of China in the province of Shanxi—coal country with the worst air pollution in China. She has a colleague in Taiyuan that takes courses at an English training center. I was able to contact this place in the morning via a shared contact on WeChat given to me by the stranger I met that night.
Before I knew it I was sending my information and documents in my backpack at an internet café in a fax—with the intent that the woman agreed to share my information to the training center as she shared my contact to its hiring manager. It would land me a job that day that would help me out of my situation. Things turned not quite out as I expected though. I was shifted like a ball to somebody else to contact for a training center geared to teaching children.
I took what I had and ran off to a train station after taking the public transit. Unfortunately I was shit for money and could not afford a high speed rail pass. The slow train would take thirty-two hours to get to my destination. I would have taken a room with a bed but all I could afford was a hard seat for the travel.
Things were getting better for me in the circumstance considering I had found someone willing to take me for work despite my visa situation.
The thirty-two hour train ride was horrendous in some ways, but mostly I was in excitement despite the circumstances. I’m always giddy when disappointed. I moved up and down the aisle of the train. I could not speak mandarin, but it did not stop me from trying to interact with everyone. I talked many ears off during the train ride. I went up and down the aisle trying to interact as a moth to porchlights—I could not stop even if I had wanted to. I found great enjoyment the times I did get to sit across a table from somebody my age heading to Taiyuan from Chongqing. They were a university student returning to their hometown. Another passenger who sat beside me was an elderly man with hard boiled eggs, he was eating one after another one. I highly enjoyed each and every conversation that I had. It was like my head was a lightbulb wanting June bugs to bang against it with the intensity of Roman candles shot at my mouth of nicotine tinged teeth.
“If you find someone in Shanxi it is practice to pay the family money before you can get married. You would also have to already own a home and a car,” told my new friend across in their seat from me—a university passenger friend named David.
“Not necessarily what I was looking for. When is the next stop for snacks?” When the train stops I am able to get out and to have a walk onto the platform to buy various goods from the vendors to take back with me to eat along the ride to Taiyuan.
I had all my important documents tucked in my bag. This included my health clearance and obviously I made no mention of my mental health diagnosis or history to the doctor who had to evaluate me. My diploma and TEFL certificate were tucked away securely. A TEFL is a certificate that stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language, it qualifies me to teach English as a second language abroad—it had only took a few months of taking a course online that I had paid for to obtain.
It is easy to be happy when you can trick yourself as your own con artist. Mania can make you deceive yourself. One can be doused in napalm and still not fully recognize what is actually going on. Same goes the flicking of psychosis. Even when I have nothing I find myself in my radiating irritation the most qualified of things—the velocity of my rhythm sets me out of an orbit.
The pressure cooker keeps me moving like a propeller at times. I finally arrived at Taiyuan. I arrived at the station to be greeted by Ryan my manager and his assistant Jennifer. We had our hello and introduction and they helped me get to a taxi that would bring me to my new apartment. I finally had a residence again. Apparently they were desperate for a teacher. The last teacher was from New Mexico and apparently they pulled a midnight run—that is when a teacher in the middle of the night disappears onto a plane back home without any notification of it.
The apartment was okay. On the fourth floor with no elevator, so it was a bit of a climb up a dark stairwell not lit correctly.
My job was a training center that had a location near Yingze Park in the center of the city. I was to be paid in cash via envelopes. I would assist in teaching kindergarten all the way up to high school aged students there in private lessons paid by their parents. I would also be assigned by my company to various primary schools in the city. I would take public buses to various schools paid by the company I worked for to give English lessons as I bounced around to various classrooms and schools in the city. Often I would receive a phone call to avoid going to work that day if my boss got inside input that officials would be doing raids to check foreigners’ visas that day.
A taxi ride would always be a thrill. Caused me nerves at first, but I came to love the flying in dangerous ways along a busy road. I remember a driver beeping their horn away as they drove onto the sidewalk to pass people. They treated the pedestrians as if they were in the wrong. I came flying in front of a primary school at its front gates. I was going to start teaching a first grade classroom and a kindergarten classroom. The way schools are set up is with a wall around the entirety of the exterior of the school. There is a gate at the front where one or two security will be waiting to let people in and out of the complex of the school.
I walked in front of the gate to greet the security. It was my first time with an assignment at this school. The guard said they had never seen me before and wouldn’t let me in. Not a big nuisance while I called my boss who then called the school to sort out the situation.
I miss the classroom so much. I ended up teaching in China for five years at various training schools. After returning to Illinois, I still taught as a primary school teacher in a public school.
I often feel extremely ugly from inside to my outside, but something is attractive there. This does not come just in terms of flirting and relationships—mania makes me a genuine lightbulb that flickers in a way that encourages the insects to me—everyone looks like a June bug—this is what I have come to understand about life. But that ugly does kind of stay like rot in a cavity that leaves a bad taste in the mouth that smells foul—hoping nobody catches the smell near me—it must tie into my struggles with bulimia over the years.
The same goes for my years as a teacher—in relation to the whole lightbulb phenomenon—I’m positive it is tied to mania and hypomania. The younger students always were fixated on the information I was teaching to them. I kept over the years methods taught to me and self-taught that I found extremely effective with younger students when it comes to teaching.
Everything was physical in learning in terms of intensity and ambition. When teaching my first grade classroom I would create flashcards for the vocab we would work on and implement in creating new sentences with. We would chant these words together in a way that made me a clown while teaching. Students would yell out the word that I presented with intense enthusiasm. As I walked by students it was expected that while they yelled out the word they would also physically hit the card. Later I would also work on physical gestures and acting out of vocab words and they would follow the actions and phrases with me.
I would often eventually turn the class into two teams. When students got an answer right I would behave comically and full of energy—I would give them a high five and pretend they were so strong with it that it hurt my hand in the process with much exaggeration—the students always seemed to never get tired of this act.
One game I would play involved drawing two stick figures with happy faces on them. Each figure would represent one of the teams for the classroom. I would draw a hungry alligator under the figures. Their faces would also be comical in appearance and full of exaggerations. Each figure had a parachute placed over them and four strings attached. During the game the students would race to say the word correctly represented on the flashcard or the correct word for the gesture I was making. The team that was not the slowest would lose a string on the parachute. If a team lost all four strings they would fall to the alligator who would eat them. The students found it hilarious with my actions involved in it. I would also draw tears and a person praying to represent anticipation and worry of falling down each time they lost a string.
I had a tooth game too. I would draw too large faces for each team. The team that could answer the flashcards and gestures the quickest would have a tooth drawn in their mouth. The team with the most teeth would win and it would look rather funny as the mouth grew and grew with an abnormal and extreme amount of teeth.
I often did other physical and interactive games like having students run to the word I showed a card to or gestured—each word would be attached to a point in the classroom on a wall.
I know it sounds grandiose, but the parents always seemed to think I was great at my job.
The word vulnerable means so many things to me. That word is like the coal to form the generator that makes the guiding energy for the ethics I follow in my life—I hold very strongly to these values that have developed on how to live—I can express it more later but I greatly attach a kind of Christian value system to it, which makes sense considering I was raised in a Lutheran household and always went to church, Sunday school, and went to my courses and went through my confirmation—everyone is a bit of a mop—some pick up clean water and others dirty or a mix of it—waiting to find the people to drain them voluntarily or involuntarily. I was born vulnerable. I walk pigeon-toed and grew up tripping on my feet—I speak with a soft feminine voice. Bipolar disorder makes somebody vulnerable. There was much vulnerability in being eighteen and hospitalized involuntarily for my first manic episode—tied to a stretcher. I have almost a sense of us vs them—the vulnerable and those that harm the vulnerable—take advantage of the vulnerable—I feel this is a very much Christian in the idea of the unfortunate are more holy than the rest of the bunch—children are like that in terms of being born into a cruel existence—a cruel existence I felt at times in my life and so many do—making sure harm does not come to those in need gives the light of purpose to go bright inside like a Christmas tree in my brain—this light of happiness and warmth. I never expected I would fall in love for teaching due to the antidepressant effect provided. It would become my career for a decade. Some grow up wanting to be a teacher, I became one by accident, desperation, and being saved.
Sometimes I inflate on self-hate like a helium balloon that needs to be tied to a wrist. The vulnerability equation is imprinted on my brain.
In my early teens I started struggling with bulimia and image. I remember when my mother caught me in the act. I was not offered help but criticized. I was called a girl for my problems and threatened to be taken somewhere to be fixed of my confusion. I don’t identify as transgender. I identify as a man that struggles with bulimia and happens to have feminine qualities.
I attribute it to circumstances that happened to me—a justification for the pain at times—an attack on aspects of bisexuality.
After a long day of work I did what my young self often did. I went clubbing with friends. I feel like even if I hide aspects of myself such as being bisexual, people can spot it regardless. I’m extremely secretive about it and not comfortable displaying that vulnerable aspect of myself.
My friend from England went with me. He was about six years my senior. Big guy. Tall. The clubs name was Maoye.
I always enjoyed the free drinks available to foreigners—it was done to attract Chinese clients, as the idea was foreigners being there would attract people.
Amongst the hot and sweltering crowd a man grabbed ahold of me. I felt stuck. I was taken off guard. Pushed and cornered. While on me I managed to push him off. But it all serves as a reminder of the vulnerability of my life.
A nail was placed into my hand—a constant burn and reminder of that vulnerability.
Part 2
From self-hate I can also be so grandiose. I am like a Christmas tree that is lit up. Sparklers so pretty that you cannot let go of them, even if it burns your fingertips and hurts.
From heroin to sex, you can smother the pain. You drain the ocean to fill a void in these times. It ties to mania as well. That restlessness and irritability is extinguished by the paradox of throwing kerosene to everything burning. I’m so grandiose to hide my insecurities, I mistake my misfortune as a mark of something ugly virtuous—the neon of vulnerability pulsating like a star within me. Swelling on a pain.
Bad habits. I want you to judge me and tell me what’s wrong with me. Give me a verdict.
Stress a trigger for mania, and I was stressed from the incident I had experienced at the club. I bloated like a tick to distract from locusts of thoughts that could not shut up with their commotion.
I had been sleeping around more than before. My brain was Christmas tree lights. I accelerated on a generator—I made a mixed episode worse.
Tease a disaster when you are heightened like a blimp. Full of hydrogen. Hoping to burn up ad rain down like napalm.
When the pretty candles on the Christmas tree are left untouched—not looked at like a kettle on burner that has been forgotten—the dry neglected tree will into a house fire.
I’ve had four attempts in my life so far.
When I attempt I don’t cry for help. I feel too vulnerable. I’m afraid.
Hate police and wards.
Downing pills.
My past failed attempts made me aware of everything done wrong before. The sleeping pills alone might not do what I was looking for at that time. I bought an electrical cable. This way if it failed I would still be unconscious and choked out by the cord—fail safe plan to end my life.
The words coming out of my mouth slowed down. I started getting second thoughts. Stuck my face towards the toilet bowl while on my knees. Sticking my fingers down my throat. Leaving blood vessels bursting in my eyes.
Went stumbling outside and waved a taxi down and asked to be taken to the local hospital.
Never expected finding myself checked into a psych ward in a foreign country.
Nietzsche has a quote in reference to chaos in life and how it is needed to create a star—this reference holds so much value to me. Sometimes stars hit together just right to create fate out of the worst of things. The ward lead me to meet the woman made of paper. She would one day become my wife. I would have two daughters with her. Forge together as soldiers to face the obstacles in life. Someone who would save my life during a future attempt when I was found unconscious from an overdose. The smartest and toughest woman I have ever known. Someone to build trenches with.
I liked it when she stuck that needle in me for an IV. It must correlate to being a heroin addict. The pushing of something in my vein correlates to happiness and purity.
The woman made out of paper was my nurse in the ward I was stuck in. What attracted her to the mess that is me I will never understand fully.
The woman made out of paper is named Lilu. She was one year older than me and one of my nurses at that ward in Taiyuan. She was from Zhengzhou—a city in the province of Henan that is based in the center of China. I am sure as the reader it would be nice to know why I call her the woman made of paper.
She struggled with her own demons. She also deserves much praise for her resilience and brains. When she was born she was raised by a family that adopted her and often neglected and abused her growing up. Her biological family is distant from her, even though she has an identical twin—they felt too poor to take care of her and made the choice that they needed to be less of one child as she also has an older sister—her twin got to stay with that family but she was given up and adopted. I am sure this must bother her even if she never will talk about it to anyone in her life—as she is one to refuse ever discussing emotions and feelings, as this is not her personality type—she is very much a fighter. I think most would struggle with wondering why they were the one let go of—it also must hurt her knowing that the family would have a son and keep him.
Despite all these circumstances, she graduated top of her class of four thousand students—Chinese high schools can be quite large serving a large region—they often serve as boarding schools. She was a smart and hardworking student. Circumstances never made her stop trying to be the best and moving forward and she never made excuses for herself. In university she also did well and got accepted at the most studious and hard to obtain nursing position at the number one hospital in Shanxi.
I have already ranted and gone on about my affection and feelings tied to heroin. Drinking of entire oceans to fill voids.
Paper is a void. It asks for calligraphy to be written on it to make braille. This way when fingers run over skin, it tells worth—the reason for troubles—it forms connection through those words of declaration—the whining for why things are the way they are—the filling of a void like a heroin addict needing a cure—two papers come together to write upon one another—as a paper I am her typo—I stand as a falling mess with nerves like tripwire, I keep failing and losing my composer, while she stands stronger as a declaration that has been written on—when I was chased I listened to her and joined as one. I wish and intend to always serve the woman made out of paper who has saved my life and has always been there for me, being so strong despite circumstances—amongst the wind of turmoil in life I follow along her path.
It was love at first sight for her but not for me. I had no interest in dating her at the time. I worked across the street of that hospital in an office building for a training center as a part time job. I would teach adults English who paid for private lessons near to Yingze park in the center of Taiyuan. She signed up for classes for me to teach her and brought me food on almost every other day that she had prepared. Eventually we found ourselves coupled fully.
In a pit. I get to burn as paper amongst another’s paper. Eternally. With a life that will keep reoccurring.
Part 3 Liu
A woman like Chang’e lived on a moon. Far away.
You can refer to me as Liu.
At the age of 19 I was diagnosed with a severe nerve pain condition. It is called trigeminal neuralgia but you can call it TN for ease.
I was frustrated. I had completed a degree in international finances from Chongqing University of Business and Technology. The boom of the economy was not the same. There was an urge to “lay flat”—to not try as a form of opposition to everything going on in a waning economy in China.
All are elephants chained for an audience. People love to peek and stare as though they are glass doors without hinges—to be made feel useless.
I developed TN at the age of 19, and was now 22. It came as an arrow, and quite literally to the face. It’s a rare nerve pain disorder often considered one of the most painful conditions known.
The illness involves intense nerve pain throughout the left side of my face. It felt like someone was trying to pull all of the teeth on the left side of my face without anesthesia. The pain can leave me falling to the floor unable to speak or move while screaming profanities while choked by pain. A feeling of a knife to my face over and over again. It leaves me in absolute shock. Like Roman candles to the face. An absolute hindrance. The anticipation of not knowing when it will happen again is a nightmare at times.
The disease is often called the suicide disease, apparently up to 26% try to take their lives. In a state of panic during one of the nerve attacks I began swallowing any pill near to me. I went to the hospital to have my stomach pumped when I was found comatose by my mother.
I want to be Chang’e and on the moon and away from a world I have had enough of.
Gossip spread around the workplace that I attempted suicide over an affair with a married man. There was too much guilt to return to the workplace. COVID did have an impact to the economy. I still remember my hometown having dirt and trees piled onto the exits and entrances to the city keep people in their places.
The work I did find felt beneath me. China has what is called the great firewall that keeps something in and out of the country’s networks. A VPN was necessary to access American TikTok as it was used as opposed to the Chinese version.
Feels humiliating the nature of the outcome for me—I gave up in many ways like so many Chinese youth. For work I would go to a local office building. Amongst a long hall would be a room for live stream performers. I would entertain with watchers while trying to obtain virtual gifts for actual money. I despised it—sometimes the conversation could be funny or interesting but it felt hollow.
I would paint flowers on my face and wear hanfu clothing while doing ASMR.
I had a mind of sparklers burning until it burnt and stung like wax—like I had the option to stop and cry and those tears stuck as wax and burnt or I soldiered on and grew accustomed to the pain. I was an elephant chained. The audience watched and interacted with me on the live. I was a chained elephant when it was found out about my previous attempt and when the rumors spread.
Too many thorns in life. Nails hitting at the wrong points like an equation for something terrible to eventually happen.
My favorite dish was Henan noodles. I often cooked it with my mom. It provides great memories of childhood. I hadn’t talked to my mother as much as before. She moved to a job in Taiyuan.
Sometimes I would go up to visit her. But it was harder as she worked more and more hours. Sometimes voids build even when going through extreme nerve pain. And with trigeminal neuralgia, the pain was so intense that I would freeze and scream in pain. It cannot always be hid. It made me an elephant tethered.
Life can be like a pressure like no other. Too much stress. Makes one feel irritable with a mouth like a sprinkler of napalm when someone is too close. Life feels like a lit fire cracker held—in the end it would tear my hand up. Things kept building while the other side of my face began to hurt too recently. This was rare and not so common. My eyesight was becoming blurry too and it seemed I might have multiple sclerosis as the pain was on both side, it was not common for my age, and the blurry eyesight. An appointment was scheduled and I felt terrified to know what was going on and wondered if it was best to not even know my health.
I walked out of the studio and had a cigarette. My boss came out and joined to talk. He was concerned about view count and wanted me to do things to increase it that made me feel uncomfortable. He made a few comments I found incentive.
The boss sure liked to criticize and apply pressure. He was not impressed with my work and thought I could do something different. In China an application is used called WeChat. This application has many uses. People can display and share moments like a Facebook wall, message each other, send money, video chat, and even has a feature to find people near to you who are also looking for people near to them. I was to attract people onto dates. The idea was they would be lured in and the men would go to a set destination to a planned tea house that served snacks. When the men arrived (they had no knowledge of the setup) the bill would be at an absurd rate and if the men refused to pay larger men would use their size to force them to pay up.
I was not sure at the time yet if I wanted the job. Being worried about ethics and safety. It was something I would have to think about.
My medical expenses were growing and I knew the nerve disease could be expensive to treat with surgery. All I had was thoughts while looking at the moon.
Part 4 Taishen
My former roommate in the ward I shared a room with had paranoid schizophrenia. I was stuck in the same place due to mania, and just had gotten my diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
I was so pissed being stuck there and felt I had no business being there. I found my diagnosis to be an insult to me. I was only 18 at the time—taken in on a stretcher. Made me feel very vulnerable and irritated.
My roommate was having delusions related to Christianity and could not stop waking me up in the middle of the night to ask and talk about Jesus. Left me beyond frustrated.
He was drifting from his wife and would go on and on about intending to leave her. Felt he was spied and plotted against by her. So we were both frustrated with being there.
The toilets were special. They would flush what needed to be flushed but not certain things like pills—it helped to keep people from hiding they were not taking their medications.
He had tried to flush his wedding ring down the toilet but he did not realized it didn’t flush. I went to use the restroom later and saw the ring. I told him. He took it out. He found it to be a sign form God that he is to stay with his wife, and there was immense happiness in his eyes.

Also posted at Scriptbin. NOTE: Part 1 is here: Reddit Scriptbin
SYNOPSIS: (~2500 words)
You've met your childhood first love at a comics convention you're both presenting at, and have agreed to meet up for a dance that's part of the convention's Saturday night events. En route to the dance floor, the two of you get too much attention from convention-goers, and end up on a walkway above the dance floor, where the two of you can dance more privately, and catch up on what you've been doing since you last saw each other. When the dance ends, you finagle access to the observation deck of the hotel next door, where the two of you look out over the skyline and try to put off the inevitable end of the night, and the question of what happens next.
MUSIC SUGGESTIONS (optional):
If you'd like to have music playing in the background for the dance, I've put together a 5-song YouTube playlist (total runtime: 17 minutes) of free-to-use music: <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfqEZ6QHMN2plblcxEdFhb3crZCTILOH1>
Each song has a download link in the description.
All of the music is by FreeBGMusic, and is completely copyright-free, meaning you can use it at will, even for monetized & paywalled videos. Their channel is here: <https://www.youtube.com/@BGMusicJp/videos>
TERMS:

You can fill, post, and monetize freely. Just credit me (as u/RHfactoral) and if your fill is behind a paywall, let me download a copy for myself.
You are free to make cosmetic/surface modifications (name changes, minor wording choices for the sake of flow, ad libs), as long as they don't drastically affect the plotline and overall atmosphere. Genderflipping is also welcome.
DM me on Reddit if you'd like to make more drastic changes
You are not free to add anything hateful/bigoted/xenophobic to this script.
SFX are suggestions, not rules. I include them mainly to help indicate things like physical actions or scene/location transitions, but you are free to use them or not at your discretion.
The same goes for music – I'll provide links to royalty-free/free-use selections if I suggest some kind of music, but it's never a requirement.
Constructive criticism is always welcome.

KEY to stage directions
[Square brackets and SFX: indicate sound effects and/or the action they're meant to depict]
(Parentheses indicate tonal or other such cues for the VA)
*Asterisks* indicate a word to be emphasized
Ellipses (...) indicate a pause for emphasis. A (beat) is a slightly longer pause than that. Space between paragraphs indicates a pause for the listener's "dialogue" (or a moment of quiet between listener and speaker)
– BEGIN –
[SFX: Fade up the sound of a dance in a convention hall, which is happening below the walkway where the speaker and listener are standing. See note above for optional music suggestions.]
Damn. I didn’t think there’d be so many people here still. That's a lot more people than I would have expected.
It's kind of intimidating, to me – and they're *our* tribe. I really did think they'd be more preoccupied with each other to notice us.
Sweetie, no. That’s *my* fault. I really didn't think anyone up this late would be asking for pictures. You, on the other hand, convinced that security volunteer to let us flee up here.
It's kinda nice, isn't it? Our own little private dance floor, overlooking that one. We can be near the dance, even if we’re not actually in it.
Yeah. But we have dance partners this time.
You clean up nicely. Even better than your author photos.
I didn’t recognize you at first because…I knew you were here, but I wasn’t expecting to see you out on the floor with everyone else, so I just got this blind spot or something, and I didn't see you.
It’s apparently pretty common. They say that Stan Lee could go into a fast-food place and not get mobbed because, y’know, who’s expecting to see Stan Lee ordering the chicken nugget meal?
And you weren’t dressed up like you do for your author photos – just an Arsenic Masquerade t-shirt and dark jeans.
I *love* Arsenic Masquerade. I listen to a lot of different kinds of music, but I do have a soft spot for them. They were a huge part of my whole goth period.
I know, right? I didn’t have “phases” I grew out of; just periods where I was more interested in one thing or another.
No way! Pics, or it didn’t happen.
[listener is getting out phone to find picture]
Oh wow. You’ve got their hairstyle *nailed.* I wanted so much to be able to do that with mine. I was half-jealous of anyone who had straight hair when I was that age. Let me show you.
[speaker is getting out phone to find picture]
Look at this picture. I couldn’t get too elaborate with that kind of wavy hair.
Thanks. I’m learning not to be so hard on myself now, but *man,* I hated it back then.
So…what happened after we moved?
I know: “So…sum up the last 15 years of your life in 60 seconds. Go!”
Oh, hon. I’m so sorry. I imagine that was hard. It always is when your parents don’t get along, and when they finally split up, it’s like a bomb going off.
I guess it would be a little easier to handle if they can get along better afterwards.
Yeah, it is. It’s disappointing when the fighting doesn’t *totally* stop.
I wish neither of us understood it. But it’s nice when you can talk to someone else who does, you know?
Mine? (sighs) God….
No, it's okay. If anything, you get what it was like before we moved.
I didn’t know it at the time, but they moved because they were trying to keep from splitting up.
It is weird – but that's another, longer story. We can come back to that.
Anyway, the fighting. They quit trying to hide it from us kids, even before the move. Remember how we could hear them from outside the house sometimes?
Yeah. Dad thought the geographic cure would fix everything. And, well, they didn’t split up.
I wish they had, though.
Because they never stopped sniping at each other. (slight hint of anger) They took me and my sister somewhere where we didn’t have friends, so they could make peace with each other – and then kept on fighting, anyway.
It wasn't a *small* small town, but it wasn't home, either.
Same. By the time I got to high school, I'd mostly given up on a social life. I’d get on my computer in my bedroom and watch anime and movies, and listen to music while reading manga. It was easier than dealing with anyone. That was when I got really into cosplay.
Yeah. I started with the usual stuff – characters from anime and comics and movies. Stuff that wouldn't set my parents off. Nerdy, but non-threatening.
(chuckles) Oh, yeah. I had to save the maid outfits for college.
And then when "Ravendark" came out, I did that photoset that got memed. Did you ever see those?
Yeah. I was *not* expecting that. That kind of attention was *weird.*
Eh, you know…I guess I handled it well enough: Instead of letting it make me into a punchline, I tried to ride the momentum: I started making videos and how-tos, then got into live streaming, and eventually set up the shop online.
So, yeah. That's pretty much how I got from there to here.
Didn't you start writing around the time we moved? I remember you carrying around a little notebook sometimes.
Yeah, and you wouldn't let me see what was in it. I was curious then, but now I'm dying to know what was in them.
Really? That stuff eventually became the Void Lights? Wow.
(enthusiastically) *Yeah,* I read it! I didn’t know who was behind the pseudonym, not 'til later: I just saw this story about someone dealing with the same things I was, and made me laugh about them. I was hooked.
And then, of course: "Ravendark." That first story arc, my god. That moment – those last eight panels – when she finally leaves her room at the end of it… You saw the forums, didn’t you? It was like a group therapy session for the next couple of months, until the next issue came out.
Don’t be so modest. You made something that connected with so many people at this visceral level, for seven years, and wrapped it up without fucking the whole thing up. Not many people get to say that.
Nope. I’m calling bullshit on that. You wrote a comic that was huge on the internet when you were only 15. You wrote a comic series that was a must-read for more than comics nerds. When Netflix adapted it, it went viral. That’s not “nothing.” That's already a *legacy*.
It is. If you stopped right now, you'd have more to brag about than most. But you’re just getting started. I’m dead certain of that.
I’m around a lot of creative people – mostly artists and animators, but a few musicians, and even a writer or two. And right now, you're reminding me of how they were when they would fall into a creative slump – just before they came back out of it, stronger than ever.
It's just an instinct I have about you. And I've been told I'm pretty good at reading people.
The writer? I broke up with him in January. I was deleting his texts when I bumped into you.
Yeah. That was kind of distracting, too.
It was a long time coming. (chuckles wearily) And a lesson in why I *should* trust my instincts.
I ignored the red flags at first, because he was still so charming, so attentive…and when he started trying to isolate and gaslight me, I was too gullible and too invested to resist. For a while.
Yeah. But it got to a point where I was second-guessing myself so much that even *I* knew something wasn’t right there. And once I figured out how genuinely flimsy some of his lies were, I'd had enough.
He didn’t like it when I broke up with him. If I hadn’t had friends with me to help me move out of the apartment, I don’t know how unhinged he would have gotten.
I think he's more likely to throw a plate than a punch, but either way: Witnesses have a way of putting people on their best behavior.
Sometimes, he *still* tries to get me to come meet him to “talk about things.” Like he doesn’t understand what a literal “fuck off” means.
(extra beat of silence)
You dance well. You don’t just wobble back and forth like a kid standing on their parent’s feet.
I *did* take a couple of lessons. Work kept me from going much further, but I learned a little bit, at least?
I thought you had. And don’t be so modest: You’re better at it than I am.
(somewhat playfully) Ohh. An ex? Not one like mine, I hope?
You’re lucky, then. That was the first really serious relationship I’d been in, and…yeah.
You’re kidding me. Never? Why not?
I guess I get that. When you’re working that hard and that much, other parts of your life have to give.
I know, right? It’s hard to find people who really understand that you’re not trying to ignore them, you’re just chasing your muse.
For what it's worth: The writer was the one serious relationship I've had, and I’d have been better off alone..
[SFX: kissing]
(softly) I missed you, too.
[SFX: kissing]
Yeah. I know. I can see a clock on the wall, over your shoulder. Almost time for the dance to end.
Oh, my god, I was thinking of that song, too!
(chuckles) I’m not trying to “dance around the subject/I just want to gently sway.” At least a little bit longer.
(VA NOTE: You are more than welcome to invent a melody and have the speaker sing the quote from the song, if you’d like. This is, of course, completely optional.)
[SFX: kissing]
I don’t want to say goodnight yet, either.
I don’t know what there is to do around here anymore. Especially downtown. It’s not what it used to be when we were kids.
Oooh, good call. But Rocky Horror’s not until next week. I looked it up.
I did see something about an observation deck on the roof of my hotel. The one that’s connected to the convention center.
If we wave our badges and bring bribes, I think we can get security to let us up there. It’s supposed to have a nice view of the skyline at night. What do you say?
Good. And just in time for the last song of the night.
Oh, nice! I requested this one.
It’s a popular song from an anime. In English, they call it “The Death God’s Melancholy.” This song was from a climactic moment toward the end of the series.
I’m not going to spoil it for you. All I’ll say is that it fits the moment, so well that the fans practically browbeat the band into recording a full version of the song.
It’s a good song for a slow dance.
Hmm? What have you noticed?
Yeah. I guess I *am* a little bolder than I used to be. You have to be, to do what I do.
Nah. You’re bolder than you think. Cosplay puts my body on display. Writing puts a part of your soul on display.
Yeah, I learned that from the writer.
(chuckles) There’s a reason nobody reads him, though. He has no soul to put on display.
I might be a little bitter. That doesn’t mean I’m wrong, though.
[SFX: kiss]
C'mon. Let’s stay up late and see if we get in trouble.
Yeah. Just like we used to do.
[SFX: transition from the background sounds of the dance to those of an empty observation deck, a large open room, which is mostly quiet except for muffled traffic sounds outside ]
(to someone else who is walking away) Thank you! We really appreciate this!
That was a cheap bribe – tell him a story and listen to one of his. Does that happen to you a lot? People trading stories with you for favors?
I know it has to be boring, being the night watchman. Even when a convention of nerds gets squirrelly, we usually keep our doors closed and voices down.
(amused) I’ve heard stories. I didn’t say I got invitations.
Nah. “We” doesn’t actually include me.
Mmmm, that couch over there by the observation window looks comfortable. Let's sit down for a minute.
(chuckles) Oh, man…you don’t sink into it, it *vores* you.
(From here, the speaker's voice is a little more soft-spoken and intimate)
Look out there. Isn’t that gorgeous? I’ve never seen it at night like this, especially not after midnight.
It’s beautiful, the way the light pollution casts this kind of halo around the buildings. But it’s fuzzy and faint, and you can see how many of them aren’t lit at all.
And even then, you can’t see the stars from here. There’s still too much light pollution, even though downtown is half-empty.
(curious) Mmm? What are you doing? My phone camera’s good, but not that good…oh.
(impressed) Ohhhh….that’s cool! It puts an overlay on the camera view, and uses your GPS to show you which stars you're looking at?
(politely lying) I can see it pretty well.
(admitting) Yeah. The screen is kinda small, isn’t it?
(flitatiously) [If I sit in your lap] / [If you sit in my lap], it’ll be easier to share the view.
There we go. Comfortable?
[SFX: kiss]
Me, too.
Yeah, now we can both see better.
No, it’s not quite the same as actually seeing them in the sky. But it gives me an excuse to put my arm around you.
[SFX: kiss]
And that, too.
[SFX: kissing]
You feel so comfortable right now to me. Like… like we've known each other for all this time, but without the interruption. Familiar, but not as much as before.
Mmm-hmm. It *is* kind of like meeting someone for the first time and realizing how much you have in common. Exciting and comforting and nervous-making, but maybe less surprising?
Sure. Ask away.
I wonder about that, too. All the “what-ifs”.
Oh, I’m pretty sure we’d have dated. But what would have happened then? And then…and then…
[SFX: kissing]
You okay, sweetie? You look…pensive.
(with reluctance) Yeah. I know. That’s why I’m trying to put it off. We eventually have to sleep sometime, though.
I’ll have you know that I once managed to go almost 48 hours without sleep. I was starting to hallucinate, looking at reference pictures, but it was worth it. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen L from "Death Note" twerking – I mean, just *getting* it.
I wouldn’t ask you to do that, either. I’m just saying: I *would* do it. For you. For whatever that’s worth.
We can just lounge here a bit longer. I’m warning you, though – between the couch cushions and your shoulder, I just might fall asleep right here if we dawdle too much.
[SFX: kissing]
You remember that one night we were trying to stay up late to watch some movie at your parents’ house, and they gave us pillows and blankets and told us that if we could hack it, we could watch all the movies we wanted?
Yeah! And then we just passed out on the floor, before they even went to bed?
Mmm-hmm, and I woke up in the middle of the night, a little disoriented, and you woke up – I thought – and gave me a hug and told me where the bathroom was, and then rolled right back over and started snoring? And the next morning, you said you didn’t remember any of that – but you had this bemused look on your face I still remember.
(delighted) I *thought* you did! It just seemed to last a little too long for you to be asleep.
(softly, tentatively) My friend? They're staying with their parents. I…didn't really want to do the same.
(Almost whispering) And…Do y-…Would…What if…
(annoyed with self for not just saying it) Fuck it. Would you…like to come back to my room?
(a slightly longer pause, then) [SFX: kissing] (and then a slight pause afterward)
(Nervous relief) I don't know. I'm just…I may be a little bolder than I used to be sometimes, but I'm not all the way there yet. My baseline state is more like anxious as fuck.
Because I don't want to say something stupid and…
[SFX: kisses, then a pause for Listener to speak]
You, too? But you've always seemed to know the right thing to say, even before you started writing.
You sure?
Okay, here goes: (takes a deep breath) I want to wake up next to you tomorrow morning. I don't care how we fall asleep.
(chuckles, relieved) Thank you, but I will probably never be that close to glib again.
[SFX: kiss, then a pause for Listener to speak]
(chuckles softly) Don't lie. I could feel your jaw tremble. You're trying so hard not to yawn, aren't you?...I thought so.
[SFX: kissing]
C'mon. I'm only a couple of floors down [SFX: kiss] We don't even have to wait for the elevator.
–END–