I am not The OOP, OOP is u/ThrowRA_idkidkidk1
Friend’s sister (20’sF) was openly flirting with my husband (40M) in front of me (31F). I told her off publicly and now they want a public apology from me. What action should I take so that I don’t ruin my friendship?
Originally posted to relationship_advice
Thanks to u/_ThinkerBelle_ for suggesting this BoRU
Previous BoRU
TRIGGER WARNING: manipulation, sexual harassment, obsessive behavior, slander
Original Post March 12, 2024
I(31F) am close friends with Lisa (33F) we met at college, and became roommates and I love her to death. Lisa has a sister ‘Amy’ (20’s F) whom I’ve met occasionally in college but she was so young at that time we never really hung out.
Lisa had a bridal shower in February and I financially contributed to most of it since I wasn’t able to be there in person to help with the planning. I gave money to Amy to pay for everything, the decor, food and alcohol. I even paid for an overnight stay at a hotel for all 7 girls. I did all of this because I couldn’t make it to her bachelorette party the week before, I had also paid for the limo Amy wanted to host the party in. At the shower I saw Amy and she was gushing about how I had spent a lot of money on Lisa. I just said if it’s for Lisa I would have paid for anything. Amy was hinting that my job was paying so much money for me to spend on Lisa this much. I’m a new surgeon just graduated from residency, i got a pay bump but not a lot. I’m lucky because my husband is supporting me while I go through fellowship. My husband (40M) is a doctor too but so much more advanced in his career than me. For my wedding gift he paid off the remainder of my student loans. He is amazing and I am obsessed with him.
Wedding happened in March, my husband and I came for the wedding. Family and close friends were invited to Lisa’s parent’s place for dinner after. Amy was very handsy with my husband even during the wedding she was asking him about his job how smart he was to be working in the ICU how hot he was how he looks like a young Alain Delon bla bla. My husband was giving me signals to come to him and I did. This happened at least 2 more times. At Lisa’s parent’s, Amy was wrapping her arm around my husbands back and was serving him drinks and food. I told Lisa’s mom about how Amy’s making me and my husband very uncomfortable and her mom pulled her aside and told her off i think because she came out grumpy. She was still acting like a crazed teenager because when we wanted to leave she wouldn’t give my husband his jacket back to him and kept sniffing it. I had a feeling that she was drunk and completely out of it. My husband raised his voice and told her to stop messing around and give it to him. I yelled “can you stop being so difficult you’ve been shamelessly flirting with my husband in front of me the whole day give me the damn jacket and leave us alone”.
I got a text from Lisa’s mom demanding I publicly apologize to Amy as in post on social media a heartfelt apology because some of the guests heard me yell at her and thought I was overreacting and humiliated her.
Lisa is on my side and told me Amy has always had gold digging tendencies and that this isn’t the first time she’d done something like this. She flirted with her friend’s dad and their next door neighbour who is married when she thought that they were wealthy. Lisa said that she’ll handle it. I already felt so bad I ruined the last moments of her wedding day and now she has to deal with this. I’m ruminating on this a lot lately and wondering if I should apologize to Amy. I don’t want to but then again if I did, I would explain exactly what happened and how it merited my reaction to her. Though this might add fuel to the fire. There is so much drama right now and I want to preserve my friendship with Lisa.
TLDR: friend’s sister flirting with my husband, i ‘embarrassed’ her and now she wants a public apology. I’m thinking of doing it but detailing exactly what happened and might paint her in a bad light. But all this drama could cost my friendship with my friend.
RELEVANT COMMENTS
jamicam

Are the guests at the wedding also your Facebook friends? I don't understand how a public apology on social media would work in this case... I mean, I imagine the guests include aunts, uncles, neighbors, etc., of the family. Are they really going to see your FB apology?

OOP

Her mom wants me to tag her and Lisa so that their family can see it. I don’t even use facebook anymore but her family are still active on it.

jamicam

If you don't use FB then there's your answer.
Lisa said she'll handle it. I'd let this alone.

Update March 18, 2024
Keeping it as short as I can and typos galore cuz I’m oncall.
Previous post got so popular that Amy’s mom found it and texted me to take down (in all caps). I got around to read most of the comments a day after I posted when I finished my shift. I didn’t not apologize to anyone or did anything at all frankly I forgot about it since I had people close to dying on me left and right at work. I gaslit Amy’s mom into thinking that I never did such a thing and that I did not have a Reddit account (she believed it I think since she didn’t text me back, cmon the details I put in that post were exactly what she experienced and she didn’t find it odd?).
For clarification:

1. One of you said I had a spine of a jellyfish (loved that comment) and not apologizing was the right thing to do. I was hesitant and was actually considering giving that apology because of the fact that she fed me and let me stay in her home during thanksgiving and Christmas many years ago when I couldn’t go home to my family. I’m the kind of person who’ll remember every good thing you do for me and do my best to reciprocate or get even so as to not be indebted to you. Idk what kind of mental illness is that, I never retained much of the psychiatric info from medschool.
   
2. A lot of people insinuated that me being docile and restrained in those kinds of situations makes me a bad surgeon to which i say i beg your effing pardon. Would you want someone who’s operating on you have a criminal record for causing bodily harm/homicide? Also I’ve dealt with worse than Amy I’ve survived handling 19 psychotic patients with TBIs for a whole rotation. Me being aggressive would have gotten me kicked out of my fellowship.
   

Things that have transpired:

1. I tried to avoid contacting Lisa since she went off on her honeymoon but because of the popularity of my previous post I decided to give her a heads up. Lisa was more than apologetic, in fact she facetimed me and we had a very teary conversation about her family. There were a lot more going on that I never knew but mine and my husband’s involvement in her family drama was the last straw. She had decided to go no contact with her mom and sister. She also warned me that Amy might approach my husband in some way but no idea how. She’s also getting her extended family involved about Amy.
   
2. My husband does not have any social media (so hot) and he did not give out his number to anyone at all during the wedding. He is anal about loyalty and transparency in our marriage. We have access to each other’s electronics. I know he would never cheat on me. 3 days ago someone called my husband’s clinic asking to get his number for an ‘emergency’ and that she needed to get a hold of his wife. The nurse who answered refused to give a physician’s personal number and the conversation got heated. My husband’s colleague, another intensivist, took over and asked her to tell him what the emergency was so that he could tell my husband himself. The person on the phone argued some more and when the doctor wouldn’t give she hung up. That friend told my husband what happened and said the woman didn’t give her name but had a very high pitched child-like voice. My husband immediately knew it was Amy but we have no proof. I know it was her, she must have searched my husband’s name on google and found where he worked since his professional profile is online along with the name of his hospital.
   

I’m getting more and more irritated by this whole thing and have gone full on mama bear mode over my husband. He was furiously annoyed after the wedding and was saying if the genders were switched he would have definitely gotten punched not even halfway through the wedding. My husband had terrible experiences with women before, two women at different times tried to baby trap him, one did some Sherlock level manipulation and one harassed us when we were dating. He is usually a cool and calm guy but now he hasn’t been smiling or joking around with me like he always does ever since the wedding.
Anywho, my uncle (our lawyer) was consulted, security at my husband’s dept and around our home have been notified. Thank you guys.
PS: Kelly if you’re reading this, do something about your younger daughter before something bad happens. Also you don’t deserve your older daughter.
Edit: a Moriarty level manipulation…now that makes more sense not sherlock tf
RELEVANT COMMENTS
I3ex_G

Damn, can your lawyer uncle draft a letter to scare Amy? Just outlining what she is doing is harassment and the outcome if she continues? Sounds like Amy might need mental help and threats of repercussions might force her mother’s hand to getting her help. Is the dad around? I hope other family members will start pressuring Amy to get help

OOP

Nope, we couldn’t prove it was Amy that called. We just have to wait and see if she does anything. Our only hope is that she stays broke and can’t afford to travel to where we live since it’s far from hers. Her dad’s dead. I hope so too.

~
procrastinating_b

Why’s everyone got an uncle lawyer lol

OOP

I’m half Asian. That uncle is Asian too. That should answer your question

Forsaken_Woodpecker1

I’m rolling this response is hilarious 🤣

NEW UPDATE

Update 2 - Final Update May 16, 2024
I’ll try and see if I can update on here since I cant update again on relationships advice. Posts are in my profile for now.
I’ve got so many dms wanting an update but some (legal things) happened since and I couldn’t tell especially since everyone that was involved knows about this post already.
We have the number of the woman who called but it wasn’t Amy’s number (I have her number) but she could’ve gotten another number. At that time, I was almost confident it was her so I got the name of the person the phone number was registered to. We’ll call her Cece Smith. What threw me off was this person had been using that number for 7 years BUT I later found out this woman lived/lives in the area Amy lives. I called Lisa to ask if she knew who Cece is and lo and behold Cece is Amy’s best friend. I told Lisa about the call to the clinic, she went silent, said she had to go and ended the call.
The next day (March 21st) Lisa texted me that she had gotten a verbal confession from Amy about the call to my husband’s clinic. Not only that, when everything happened right after the wedding, I had not blocked Amy from my instagram yet. She must have gone through my followers list and found my husband’s family, dm-ed them with ‘evidence’ that I was cheating on him. Wedding was on March 10th, the call was on March 15th, I blocked her March 16th. Some time after March 10th she had found and gotten in contact with my MIL, 2 SILs and my niece who is 13 years old about my ‘infidelity’. There were skeptical thank God and contacted my husband on March 23rd. I swear to god this girl is so stupid i dont get why she would waste her time on doing this and doing it very poorly at that. My SIL sent a screenshot of the chat from “mizz_(Amy’s real name)” to my husband and he wanted to throw his phone to the wall. Lisa sent me the recording of the entire call she had with Amy admitting to everything and some serious threats about what she would do to me. One of which that she was going to report me to my state medical board (no basis whatsoever like I said, she is an idiot, the premium kind).
We got in touch with my uncle (yes the lawyer who u guys were so baffled about seriously why is it so surprising that I have an uncle who’s a lawyer his wife is a lawyer and so is their daughter, they are a very righteous family idk what else to say), we sent a C&D letter telling Amy to not contact me, husband and in-laws and I let my chief of surgery and head of my program know about this just in case.
March 29th she really reported me to the medical board (it doesn’t have to be doctor-patient related, a doctor could be harassing someone in the grocery store and a witness can report that doctor to the board, THAT is the purpose of creating this avenue to complain) even though they were warned about this, they still had to do the preliminary investigations on me and interview me to hear my side. Major pain in the ass for me especially since I’m 5-months pregnant. The case on me is closed.
April 3rd Amy dm-ed my niece again with ‘new evidence’ of my infidelity. My sweet niece ran to her mom who told my husband and me. We got a court ordered restraining order against her now. When all of this happened, Lisa was helping me along the way, the cherry on top was when Lisa had access to Amy’s email and her instagram (she never logged out), posted how she tried to homewreck a marriage and outing Amy online with screen shots and snippets of the phone call. Lisa changed her password and Amy couldn’t log in to delete it. Lisa made this known to her entire family and they are putting pressure on her mom (hi Kelly) to rein her in. I dont know the specifics but they are using the family inheritance or some heirloom as a bargaining chip for her to behave good. The girl has some mental issues for sure would love to give her a lobotomy.
I hope to god this is the last of this and Amy stays away from us but I have this gnawing feeling that she’s going to try something again. Lisa is the hero in this honestly, she’ll continue to keep an eye out to see if Amy starts shit again (if she does Lisa’s going to hire a hitman so she says).
I dont even know how to TLDR this. Read it or don’t. I hope this is the final update. To the people who don’t believe this happened it did happen but since it’s so unreal, i don’t blame you.
Ps- husband and I are going to couples counseling together as per advised in the comments of the prior post. We are doing very well, he’s planning an intimate gender reveal soon for me (he knows the gender since he’s a trained sonographer lol).
If there’s any question I’ll be happy to answer. Will delete this account in a few days
THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP
DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7

Olá! It's me! I'm Rickle Pick! Hello everyone! Text wall incoming!
So, I’ve been listening to some stories about Neckbeards and Kevins, as well as some Legbeards and Kevinas (Is that the correct term??). Well, most of the times I listen to those stories, I am reminded of some people I used to deal with in school. Specifically, this time, the tale of a guy, who I’ll name Roger Bacon for reasons soon to be explained. Sorry for any grammar errors, eu falo português! I also don't really know the posting rules here, so I'll just post it and see how it goes lol
This prologue is more of a compilation of stories that I think is needed before we get to the main shenanigans and awkward situations this guy put himself AND me into. If this generates any interest, I will post more specific tales of this weirdo! Long time lurker, first time poster, english is definitely not my first language and the whole shebang. I also never wrote a text this large, so go easy on me!
THE LIST:
Well, I guess it’s usual to make a list of people that appear in those stories, so I’ll make one just for you!
Me: Your basic musician-type nerdy theater kid white guy! Tall, thin with medium-light brown hair. At the time, I usually wore a leather jacket and sometimes a hat (not a fedora, a Chaplin hat. Also, where I live, hats are an acceptable attire choice lol). I kinda looked like the Once-ler from Lorax. At this time, I had just failed my second year of high school because of… honestly just lack of effort, mixed with undiagnosed ADHD and a bit of lacking in the ol’ confidence and self-respect department. At the time, I also was physically incapable of saying no and had a crippling fear of disappointing people.
Roger Bacon: 168 centimeters (or 5,5ft for the uncivilized) of pure muscle! Or at least he thought it was that way. In reality, he did have some muscles but was kinda chubby and flaccid. Not FAT fat, but athletic fat (???). He was mixed, light skinned, had shaved short curly hair, no beard (except for the inside beard) and his face was a special kind of oval, besides having a, "chiseled jaw". He always smelled like he had just gotten out of a day-long brawl with a french cologne wearing burrito. He wasn't an usual neckbeard, but he was a huge attention whore. Thought too much of himself, as we say here in Brazil: “Promised too much, delivered nothing at all.” His moto was: “Dude, I think she’s into me!”
For now, these are the characters, as the focus is to introduce you all to Roger Bacon as a person.
With the list over, let us get to the story.
FEBUARY 2018:
The year of 2018 started pretty badly for me. I had just been held back from 10th grade, had no friends and didn’t really know anyone. As most people know, high school in Brazil is quite different from America, as we start school in febuary and we share the same class with the same people all day, excluding language classes and extra-curriculum activities. This meant that, for the foreseeable future, I was alone. On the first day of school, I shyly sat on the last desk on the far right corner of the room, as I scanned my classroom to see what I was dealing with. A few groups of people sitting together, talking and greeting their friends, some loners reading or playing on their phones. The artsy girl drawing a beauriful woman on the white board. Some guy drawing a penis right beside her. Perfect balance. A normal classroom.
Another difference between our school systems is that we don’t really have clicks based on like Jocks or Nerds or Pretty Girls, it’s mostly people who connected in childhood or matched personalities, instead of connecting through roles and interests within the school. Not saying either one is better, just different. And yeah, the bullying situation is just as bad. I was bullied for my whole middle school and through first year of high school, and made a very specific group of low profile friends. So when I failed sophomore year I thought to myself “Screw it, if I’m going to be held back, that’s at least a second chance for me to grow an acceptable social life.”
All this elucidates how intimidating it could be for someone to join a new classroom full of mostly new faces. If you were unable to make a friend, you’d pretty much be on your own for the whole year unless an already formed group “adopted” you. So my mindset was to at least try and meet new people.
Well, have you ever said “I’m gonna do this thing I’ve never done before!” And got the worst possible circunstance you could get at the very first attempt? Welp, that’s just what happened. My strategy was to start small, and go talk to only one person at first, and then try to interact with a few of the groups as that was a bit intimidating (fun fact: we call “clicks “panelinhas”, spelled “pah-neh-lin-ias”, wich means “little pans”, because, you know, they’re closed groups, like a closed… pan. Idk, anyway), so I went up to this guy in front of me, and that guy was Roger Bacon.
He was almost lying on his chair, on a cool guy pose while messing around on his phone. He was also wearing a black sports tank top with a grey opened sweatshirt and the standard uniform wine-red shorts that were mandatory in our school, which made him look like a short and jelly version of Rocky balboa mixed with Kick Buttowski.
In real life, my name and his started with sequential letters, and because of this, we would sit near each other for the whole year, so I guessed he’d be the best person to interact with. I also KINDA knew him because we had basketball training after class in like 2015 and I went to the same church as him, in which I befriended his brother, Kevin, slightly, but didn’t have much contact with him because he had already graduated (I have some stories about basketball and church so tell me if yall wanna read them lol). I approached and gestured for him to take of his headphones (They were extremely loud, so I could recognize he was listening to the song In The End by Linkin Park).
Me: Hey! Aren’t you Roger? You’re Kevin’s brother, right?
RB, trying to sound stoic: “Oh, hey Rick. Yeah, it’s me… fortunately for you.”
Me: “What do you mean?”
RB explained: “Well, I’m the cool brother! Kevin was lame, and also had no friends.”
Me: “Isn’t he in a band with [insert band members]? They seem to be his friends…
RB: “They might look nice, but they’re all assholes. Don’t let them fool you! I’m the nice brother, Kevin is a dipshit.
To elucidate you: that band he said was made of assholes was the Worship band of the church we went to. It was also the worship band that I occasionally played the piano with.
I said, jokingly: “Guess I’m an asshole then! Because, ya know, I play with them more often than not”
RB: “No man, it’s just them. They’re just so infuriating! They never let me participate!”
Me: “Wow, that’s weird… I mean, I didn’t know you were a musician too! What instrument do you play?”
RB: “I play the drums, piano, guitar, bass and I also sing. But Kevin keeps me out because he wants to be the 'star brother'!”
I could tell he got a little heated, and went silent for a little while. I decided not to mention the band or his brother in his presence, 'cause ya know, that was pretty awkward lol.
I remember thinking to myself “This guy’s kinda weird”, because his brother was one of the nicest people I had ever known, and he also didn’t have the say on who played on the band, the worship leader did. I thought about confronting Roger with this, but I didn’t want to abandon my quest of finding a friend. And also, he seemed chill at first, if not a little insecure.
I was a little uncomfortable with this line of conversation, so I opted to change the subject. We talked a bit more about me having been held back, and he went on about how he was really good at math and chemistry, and how he could help me with my school stuff.
I was glad to have someone to help me, and even more, someone who apparently liked the stuff I liked. I remembered what he was listening to, so I commented on it and asked which song was his favorite, and we talked about Linkin Park for a bit. He said “In The End” was his favorite song, and then I mentioned I was a huge Linkin Park fan. He told me he was a big fan as well, but as we talked about it, it became a bit fishy. He never specifically said anything and just kinda repeated what I said. It became clear after a while that “In The End” was, in fact, virtually the only song he knew from that band.
That was the first time I noticed something strange, but only in hindsight, as at the time I just thought he really wanted to make a human connection. I remember thinking he was just excited to know someone who was open to talking to him, so I didn’t think anything of it.
Also, not everyone memorizes this stuff, and maybe he did only remember one song, for whatever reason, so I let that pass. I only felt necessary to include this information because it was, at least in some way, the first lie that Roger told me, a little sample, if you will, of what’s to come.
After we talked for a while, mostly catching up on our lives, the bell rung and our first actual class had begun, and I had the first-hand experience of this guy’s sense of humor. The teacher walked into the classroom and introduced himself as the new Geography teacher, and started a power point presentation about some of the subjects we’d be covering that year, saying “Please pay attention to this class, as you’ll need to know how our schedule will work”. Roger looked back and said “Huh, I guess this class is useless for you then, being held back and all, hahah”, which made everyone look at me and just kinda stare like I should say something, and he kept repeating the joke to anyone that showed any reaction besides just staring, adding “Amirite? Huh? Amirite?”.
I was kinda salty about this, but my people pleasing peapod brain couldn’t handle letting it show, so I just laughed and said nothing. I guessed it was a poorly thought out joke at first, but then Roger proceeded to make the same comment on every single one of the opening classes we had for both of the introductory days. There were 12 of them. He did it every time. Every. Single. Time. Sometimes he repeated it even louder, as if he didn’t think people heard it, because no-one was laughing.
“Ok”, I said to myself, “He didn’t mean to make fun of me, he’s just a little overexcited and probably is trying to make a connection and help me get acquainted to our classmates.”
Either way, I was very uncomfortable and annoyed.
Thankfully, this came to a halt when he was practically thrown out of the Literature class for interrupting the teacher mid-sentence while she talked about how important the first month of class would be for our comprehension of the whole subject. He made the joke four times. FOUR TIMES. I was beginning to think that I made a mistake, but well, the mistake was already made, at least I can try and understand him a bit, before judging.
The rest of the week went by and he didn’t get any better, but I got kinda used to it. In fact, I actually enjoyed having conversations with him at recess, when we could talk a bit more freely. And, as all things in life tend to do, it got weirder. Weirder in the sense that as we spoke more and more, I noticed a bit of a concerning pattern: every time I shared an experience I had, he’d share a cooler and more awesome almost equal experience back.
Some light examples:
I told him I went hiking for 2-3 kilometers on a trail by the beach. Then he smirked and said he went hiking for “at least 7 kilometers on a deserted beach that only his father’s company’s employees had access to and he saw a Gorilla. There are no gorillas in Brazil. Maybe in zoos, I guess, but definitely no gorillas.
I told him I was kinda sad because I had just ended a “thing” with a girl from my old grade. He “proudly” said he’s been dumped by his ex, Laura, after they dated for 11 months and made out aaaallll the time after school, and he even saw her “lady parts” once!”.
And then he went on to describe that shit for like 3 straight classes, adding more and more to the story every chance he had to speak, providing me with my daily dose of cringe in tiny bits of uncomfortable information at a time! Like a sporadic cringe snack! Sninge! Crack? Probably Crack.
ANYWAYS
There was also the time I told him the story of how I became best friends with a guy because we got into a fight in P.E.. We were arguing about some nonsense and he wanted to fight, so after he socked me on my stomach, I cheaply kicked him in the face so hard I almost sprained my ankle and then we started laughing (because I guess sometimes that’s all it takes). Phillip is my best friend for almost 10 years now.
Roger puffed up his soap dish chest went on for at least 2 classes worth of time about how he “beat up his last bully and broke both of his arms, and almost went to prison, but his dad is a lawyer and bailed him out”. Dude was 16, and I don’t think he’d need to be bailed out, but okay… He was, in fact, very badass.
Those are all approximations of actual stories he told me, because my ADHD memory is shit, but you get the gist of it.
My days were filled with endless stories filled with absolute bullshit, like a Gary Stu from a dying rpg campaign. (I have a story about a DnD game he participated in, but that’s for another time!)
Roger, not content with lying to me about anecdotal facts about his past that could be true but were almost certainly mostly bullshit (if not entirely), had a tendency to just negate reality when presented with facts in certain situations.
And example of this situation is the time we were doing a group assignment and a girl at least 3 meters in front of him dropped her pencil and he just kinda threw himself on the ground, picked it up and said “Here you go, Lana!”. She said “Thanks Roger!”, barely turning around and carried on with the assignment. Roger, then, turned to me with a sleek shit feasting smirk on his face and said:
RB: “Dude, do you think she’s into me??”
I contained a ridiculing laughter just in time to realize he was dead serious.
I said “I don’t know man… Doesn’t seem like it to me, but sure I guess.”
RB then straight up asked ME to go talk to her and get HIM her number. When I asked why shouldn’t he do it, he said it was “the wingman’s job to get the number of the girl” so that he wouldn’t “look weak for asking”
I said I’d do it, cause I genuinely wanted to see if he was right about her liking him (I hadn’t really understood the dynamics of the classroom, so I actually had no idea if he was actually right, just a gut feeling that yeah, he probably wasn’t).
I went up to her and asked for her number, explaining it was Roger who was interested in her and, as I pulled out my raging 2014’s Sony XPeria, I was swiftly interrupted by her delicately saying “Sorry! I have a boyfriend.” (She said the boyfriend part out loud, and stared at Roger)
I said “Oh, ok, sorry to bother ya!” and, as I was starting to walk back, I noticed that she turned back and glared at Roger. Later that day her boyfriend texted him, telling him that “He’s got to stop asking her out, and next time, if he wants to get rejected, he should come do it himself” He called him a moron. And then they both blocked him.
Well, that was embarrassing.
Despite having been turned down (for the 6th time now, I’d come to find out), Roger still maintained that she was “totally into him”, and it wasn’t just Lana. Any time he had even the smallest interaction with any girl, he’d say that they’re “probably into him”, or that “they made out at a party, but she was drunk and probably won’t remember”, or that they “sent him nudes last year but he’s already deleted them because he’s a good person, with morals”.
This went on for a while and, after about a month, Roger begun to dial down the crazy stories about how he’s a “badass and he gets all the girls but he’s single because he’s too good for them”. Until I started seeing a girl from another church I started going to. I met Janice () at the churches youth group, and we talked the whole time afterwards about lots of stuff. This name’s given because of her insanely similar laughter and demeanor of Janice from Friends. We clicked well and I was very interested in her, but my ADHD ass forgot to get her number, and remembered it only when she had already left.
When I told Roger, he laughed and said “I had just cockblocked myself” and that I’d “probably missed my only chance of banging a girl ever”. I was bummed, but clarified I didn’t really want to have sex before marriage or at least before making an emotional connection (I had just then begun to go to church, so I didn’t really get the rules, so it was more of a personal choice I always had in mind when thinking about dating. Also I met her at church so wtf).
He said “that was dumb” and, “even though he was a virgin, he’d dance the Devil’s Tango with the first chick he had the chance to”
“What about Laura?”, I asked. His face went from a confident smirk to an almost sad expression, and he blankly replied: “She didn’t want to, but I tried anyway at times. I even got a blowie once!” I let it go because I was very tired, as Mondays are hell on earth.
A few classes later, I went up to him and reminded him of our conversation and asked:
I said “Ooookay, but what about all those girls you told me were all over you? Didn’t they want to have some bum bum times with you??”
He was taken by surprise by this, and was visibly trying so hard to think of an answer for at least 15 seconds. He mumbled “Well…”, and like just left. Like he got up in the middle of the class, and walked away. Well that was weird!
He got back and I didn’t pry, thinking he had some kind of trauma, and I tried to change the subject.
I say “tried” because instead we were suddenly interrupted by a girl asking me if I was Rick. I didn’t know her or how she had materialized beside our desks, but later I found out that that girl’s name was Mary. She had blue eyes and was smiling mischievously, and I answered “Yup, that’s me”. She then giggled and said that “Anna wanted to make out with me after class”. Me and Roger were both very much taken aback by this, and I immediately thought to myself that this could only be some type of dare or prank (which it probably was), and was about to try and respond with the first witty joke that popped up in my monkey brain when, without missing a beat, Roger said “Rick’s already seeing someone!”. Mary was visibly surprised and said “Oh, you have a girlfriend??” with a look of disbelief on her face. Ouch. I explained that I wouldn’t say I do, I just liked a girl from church and we’re going to see a movie with some friends on Saturday, and that either way it was a pass on the making out sesh! Mary said “Oh, okay!” and started to walk back to her desk. I was about to make a joke and say that Anna could probably do better than me, when Roger interjected:
RB: “I’d like a making out sesh if she’s interested!”
Mary looked back with a visible “Lol, ew no” expression and just said: “I’m sure you would, Roger!”, turned away and sat down, laughing with her friends when she got to her desk.
Roger turned to me and said:
RB: “Dude, do you think she’s into me?”
This cycle repeated once in a while, so I’m not gonna tell you all of the situations that I felt like shaking him and trying to wake him up like Woody does to Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. Exhausting, right?
Another thing Roger tended to brag about was that he did Martial Arts. Specifically, Kung Fu (Wushu). I would come to find out that, in the year before, he made a big scene to tell everyone in class that he’d just started Kung-Fu classes and, when no-one payed attention, he started a habit of punching the wall beside his desk, audibly making “hmpft” noises. When anyone asked why, he’d say he was training, and that his Sensei (Not shifu, he actually said sensei) had asked him to do that to strengthen his fists so he could harness all the strength he had, so one day he could put a hole through a wall with his fists.
He would also punch the school’s fireproof doors because, if you didn’t know, they dent pretty easily, and he would show me and tell me to bask at his strength and ability. That until I said I’d give it a try. He told me not to, because “I wasn’t trained” and “it could really hurt my hand”. I punched the door. It made a dent.
Roger said it was beginners luck and that he’s just a good teacher. I told him I really didn’t even make an effort to pay attention, the metal was just bendy and soft. Roger never talked about it again, and started only punching walls. For that, he would feel superior because, yeah I ain’t doing that. There were consequences for his wall punching habits, but I’ll address that some other time.
The last thing I’ll say about him for now is how clueless Roger was, how much he thought of himself and how he treated everyone else like they should (and would) respecting for what he told them, and not for what he showed them.
(I plan on doing another part eventually, with the story of how his disconnection with reality, lies, schemes and generally narcissist behavior eventually exploded back into his face.)
As a last bit of exposition of our circumstances, there’s an important part of our school life that fueled Roger’s social life’s demise.
Pranking was a big part of my class’ culture. There were also some people in my classroom who were bullied. The thing is: the bullies actually made fun of literally everyone else, which made it very hard to figure out if you were considered a target or just a colleague. They’d mess with people’s stuff, tie backpacks to the windows and hide pencil cases, but they would also do it to their own group.
Essentially, the only way to differentiate those who they considered normal schoolmates from those who were bullied was the frequency of the pranks and their demeanor in general towards those people. They would apologize for the pranks, ask to make up for it, buy you lunch, make jokes, try to laugh with you. I swear some of those guys were politicians in the making. Luckily, was very good friends with one of the guys in that group, I’ll call him Turkey, who was also held back a few years before me, and he liked my sister, so I was mostly safe.
Roger, on the other hand, THOUGHT he was one of the pranksters. Every time someone pranked him or anyone else, he would laugh knowingly, like he was in on the joke the whole time, and try to make jokes, only to further humiliate himself. And they would capitalize on that as hard as they could.
You see, Roger liked to portray himself as the “Mysterious-Badass-Quiet-Protagonist-Take-No-Shit-From-Anyone-Mr.-Steal-Yo-Girl” guy. This combo of personality substitutes was the recipe for the downfall of his popularity, and the start of the longest lasting pranks I’ve ever seen in my life, which will come if yall want another post. That prank is also the reason I named him Roger Bacon.
Because he was so into Math and Science (and into himself too lol) he also always wanted to look like the smartest guy in the room. The problem is that, as our first semester went by, it became clear that he wasn’t as good as he hyped himself up to be. Shocker, right? This was proven to be true when we were doing a chemistry group test, and I was paired with him and Anna, and we needed to calculate some entropies or whatever. He made a point of telling us to do all of the “easy ones”, and he would take on the more complicated questions.
The thing is, he was trying really hard to look like a genius, to maybe impress Anna, so every time he made a calculation, he would roll his eyes up and kinda vibrate a little. I guess he wanted to look like a genius mathematics robot, but instead he looked like he was trying to imitate an autistic person having a small stroke. I didn’t mind the Good Doctor amateur impersonation, because at least it looked like he knew what he was doing. Unfortunately, it really just looked like he knew what he was doing.
Each easy question of the test was worth 1 point, and there were 4 of them, and there were 3 hard questions worth 2 points each. We got a 4/10 on that test, and lo and behold, the only questions we got right were the ones me and Anna worked on. We were a bit pissed, not gonna lie.
Until the last time we spoke, Roger still blames Anna for his complete failure at this test for, in his words, distracting him because she was obviously into him.
But that’s just Roger, I guess!
I've got A LOT of stories about Roger and other neckbeards I've encountered, and I can't wait to tell them!
Until then, thanks for reading, and have a good one yall!

First Previous Wiki
Empress Izkrala followed Edu'frec's presentation of what Gaia had said to him. The National Exchange was centered on the matter of Gaia and the upcoming Judgment on Justicar. For now, they were focusing on the story of Earth's past, unknown though it mostly was.
Edu'frec also laid out his reasoning for requesting the right to begin exploring underneath the cracked portion of Earth's crust. Izkrala noted the reactions of the Earth leaders invited to the National Exchange. Many of them seemed quite nervous, with a few looking angry. Meanwhile, the hivemind's face was a mask of impassivity, which Izkrala knew was definitively false.
A potential alien machine buried in the crust of Humanity's homeworld was a serious matter. Izkrala was particularly worried about the timing of such a discovery.
"So to confirm," the American President said. "You are unable to explore this remotely, and this object is confirmed to date back at least 60 million years?"
"Crust age analysis suggests this, yes," Edu'frec said. "And the pressure is too extreme for a personal shield to work in tandem with the magnetic field fluctuations present. Unfortunately, androids will not suffice for such an expedition. Nor would Skira's drones, elite or regular, as was suggested in the previous meeting we had about this."
Skira nodded and corroborated. "Brey teleported one of mine in, and it was crushed within minutes, while being baked alive from the outside in. The field itself also seemed to increase in reactivity as I attempted to approach it."
"Luminary?" the Council Director asked. Juan settled himself, his gaze hard.
Tetelali's massive form couldn't entirely fit in the virtual reality projection, so his hologram showed a scaled-down version of him. "I sent a Junyli pair with shields to explore the site when asked by Edu'frec and Gaia," he said. "So far, the injuries they have sustained prove that there is an unnatural force present in the rock nearby. As some of you might be aware, we Junyli are incredibly resistant to heat and pressure, as we used to live within the upper mantle of the Known World the Knowers inhabit."
He nodded to Dilandekar, who looked like he was incredibly tired. Even now, his eyes wandered, and Izkrala wondered if he was thinking of his latest arguments for keeping his position as the World Researcher.
She didn't envy his position.
"Will they survive?" Izkrala asked.
"They will. They are being treated at the Rakandabilda National Hospital, with intense psychic energy therapies as well as our own natural remedies. Thank you for your concern. Brey managed to maintain a portal which allowed me to extend a tendril of myself to this object, and I have learned that the fields it projects are capable of modifying kinetic energy, apparent mass, heat, and chemical properties. Typically, it would take heat of up to 400,000 degrees Kelvin to actually melt my flesh, with all of my psychic enhancements. Even with that, the mere 1500 Kelvin temperature I measured was already beginning to make my solid crystal turn aqueous. This was with all of the enhancement that I mentioned."
"Aqueous?" Izkrala asked. "So you melted, but what mixed in?"
"An unknown substance which I have given to Edu'frec for studying. So far, he has been able to confirm that it didn't exist on our known periodic tables."
Edu'frec nodded. "The element formed by Tetelali's interactions with the field has... properties that are very poorly understood."
"What do you know, then?"
"This unknown element has a deformed nucleus consisting of around 500 protons and 450 neutrons, and has evidence of partial quark flows, specifically of up and down quarks. Its half life is unknown, but at least millions of years long based on the fact it still existed at all, and its current radiation levels. Study is... difficult, due to the sheer number of unknown quantities existent in this new element."
"Can you provide an explanation for the difficulty?"
"This element breaks nearly the entire model of chemistry and reshapes quantum mechanics models massively," Edu'frec said. "I've checked this thing against all known records in my database. If the Sprilnav can make it, they don't have any records free."
"Do you know anything else about it?"
"It is partial quark matter, which should not exist for numerous reasons, especially not in a stable form on or in an inhabitable planet."
"Why?"
"Because its formation and continual existence would require temperatures in excess of one trillion degrees. This is such a laughable amount of energy that a planet cracker could never generate this amount, unless directed at a far smaller space than we know it impacted on Earth. Psychic energy at least is involved in some way, and this stuff bends reality in a way I can't truly understand. The main issue is one of quantity, though. Tetelali managed to gather around 500 kilograms worth within a single tentacle.
In fact, the only way that this matter wouldn't destroy the planet would be if its heat properties were normal, but it had an adjacent quality which did not impact the matter of the universe, like how dark matter does not interact with baryonic matter. Plate tectonics would spread this as well, albiet slowly. I believe we are stumbling upon an incredibly dangerous object, and should express supreme caution."
"What about the 4th dimension of space?" Blistanna asked. "We know it exists because of Paizma. We know the Sprilnav can make beings that interact with it. Is it possible that this is somehow the shadow of 4th dimensional matter of some kind?"
Edu'frec paused. "... It is possible."
"If so, what can we do?"
"We will need to contact Paizma. Perhaps she will be able to help us."
"But only she could interact with it."
"Not necessarily," Edu'frec said. "I am quite capable of modeling such a space within my mind, even if it is difficult for me to depict. With conceptual energy or psychic energy, it is possible I could manipulate it in some way. But again, the energy involved is extremely risky."
"We should ask Kashaunta," Fyuuleen said. "Much as I hate the Precursors, the Sprilnav are the only ones qualified to help us."
"Kashaunta still has been keeping us all out of the loop on Penny and Phoebe," the Russian President said. "I worry of machinations. So close to the Judgment, and we discover this? After years of silence, we only find this now. Edu'frec, I place no fault on you for this. But even you must understand the possibility of these events being linked. We may be dealing with a malicious actor."
"If Kashaunta is this 'malicious actor,' then we're doomed," Izkrala said. "I posit the interference of an Elder who opposes her. This quark matter that Edu'frec found might explain how the Sprilnav make ships out of neutronium. It might allow us to make leaps and bounds in scientific knowledge. Kinetic manipulation, after all, when done right, can be used to raise and lower temperatures, or to generate artificial gravity."
"But we would have to learn how to safely harness this material. A trillion degrees is hundreds of times hotter than a supernova," Edu'frec said. "If we're going to poke at this, we can't do it on Earth. We can't do it in our own territory, either."
Brey frowned. "I can't move objects like this through my portals," she said. "That is a risk I cannot afford to take, if these things can ignore psychic energy to such an extent. Gaia, what can you tell us of this? Anything?"
"I have faint memories of an anti-gravity field being used aboard an enclosed space. I don't know if it was a ship or a space station. But I don't think we should experiment with this thing too much either."
"Maybe an Alcubierre bubble can transport it safely, or we can experiment inside that?" Izkrala suggested. "They can isolate large amounts of energy."
"Good idea," Edu'frec said. "We should hold some votes before making any final decisions. I won't just go and do this on my own."
"A good quality to have," the American President agreed. "If only your mother agreed."
Many of the human leaders gave small sounds of assent and agreement. Izkrala and Blistanna both frowned.
"Phoebe has her own way of doing things. But please don't insult her just because she makes her own laws. She is more benevolent than many nations would be to us. I respect her more than any other person in existence."
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Truth Speaker Huatil brushed down her feathers, occasionally checking herself in the mirror to ensure she looked proper. The ceremonial clothes came next, with strong but thin fabric draped over her chest, upper legs, and around the start of her wings. She put the final touches of makeup and a hint of perfume on her face.
After a final look, she settled her personal shield on her back and walked out of the room. Her mate, Kawtyahtnakal, was waiting outside, accompanied by six guards.
"You look wonderful," he said, smiling in appreciation of her efforts.
"Thank you, Kawtyahtnakal," Huatil replied, her own smile gracing her face. "I admit that it feels good to look as good as I do."
"Of that, I am sure."
Kawtyahtnakal wore ceremonial armor, with rich golden and silver threads mixing into solid red-painted metal plates. Thanks to his psychic energy, he was still capable of flight, even with a rougher approximation of it than would be normal for Cawlarians. The two of them walked through the palace hallways together, discussing personal matters first. Eventually, as they neared the dining hall, their conversations fell silent.
Several Patriarchs and Regulators waited outside, including Eyahtni. She also wore armor, and had a distinctly feminine aura that could only make Huatil smirk.
"Greetings, Regulator Eyahtni," she greeted. "I am pleased to meet you once again."
"I greet you as well, Truth Speaker Huatil," Eyahtni said. "Tell me, are you enjoying your time here?"
"I would say so," Huatil said. "Shouldn't I be?"
"Yes, most certaintly. Though I must admit, your political background is extensive. As is your military one. Would you not serve in a more official capacity?"
"I have no reason to. I aim to serve my nation by serving my mate, and that is the greatest pair of duties I can have. I do not believe my sole contribution would greatly strengthen our nation, as my pride is more modest than that."
"As is expected."
Eyahtni settled herself, waiting for the doors to open. Huatil knew that the guards had first filled the room with thin mist to check for Sprilnav occupants. Now, it was being drained.
Kawtyahtnakal let out a soft breath. The doors opened, revealing a lavish room filled with food and more guards than before. Some of the personal guards went outside, while those of the highest-profile leaders remained. Patriarch Suannikal was one example, as the most powerful Patriarch and Kawtyahtnakal's main rival and cousin.
He occasionally glanced at the Nest Overlord, though there was nothing concerning about it. They settled around the table, and a hologram slowly materialized next to Huatil.
Fleet Commander Annabelle Weber, one of the main people behind the final drive into the High Kingdom, was now with them, looking quite out of place due to her species despite her own ornate dress. Everyone had been notified that she would be attending, though Suannikal still gave her a concerned glance that Huatil wondered about.
Did the Alliance have any special contacts with him, or was it just the standard diplomatic platitudes to powerful leaders with no true power? Kawtyahtnakal rested a claw on her own, soothing her without even a look.
"I greet you all on behalf of the Alliance," Annabelle said, lifting her dress to perform a curtsey. Her hair fell neatly behind her back, framing her face in that alien way many human females seemed to have. Though it wasn't purely a function of that, since some of the males also sported longer hair.
It was like feather length and thickness between Cawlarian males and females, with variations that allowed for a moderate level of overlap. Soft music began to play, and Kawtyahtnakal opened the dinner with a short toast to their health and began to eat. Despite the amazing taste, the rest of them did the same, digging into their food as politely as possible. Huatil again found herself next to Annabelle, who wasn't eating for obvious reasons.
Her true curiosity lay in the progress of the war, though she had the tact not to ask of it immediately. Perhaps later in the meal.
"How are you doing, Fleet Commander?"
"As well as I can be, Truth Speaker. Thank you for asking. And yourself?"
Annabelle's brows raised upward in a slight expression of practiced curiosity.
"I am doing well also, Fleet Commander, and repeat your thanks as my own for asking of it. How do you find the recent developments among the Sprilnav?"
"I find them to be worrying," Annabelle admitted. "I believe Penny is capable, but I do not trust Kashaunta to deny manipulating her. I worry for the agreements and deals she may have been forced into with little choice of her own to prevent them."
"Your concerns are shared, though we believe Kashaunta is more closely aligned with Penny than mere common interest would suggest."
"What do you mean?"
"Kashaunta plans to use Penny for her own gains, but she also has displayed a shocking level of sympathy for a leader with a history as bloody as hers. Perhaps it is mere charisma, but I worry that she is attempting to draw romantic attention from Penny."
Annabelle smiled. "She will fail, then. Penny is aware the Elder might try such a tactic, and is well prepared to defend against it, as are her mental companions. Kashaunta has also notified us that she has hired a lawyer with an Eonic degree, with is apparently a Sprilnav with a billion years of study on a given subject. A billion of their standard years, not ours. I believe I can have faith in the Alliance's defense through that avenue."
"You do not concern yourself with the possibility of corruption?"
"It is possible, though not fairly likely. With a trial this high profile, any bias displayed would damage Justicar's international credibility. And in this case, he will need to cater to a more national image than a personal one, though both are highly intertwined."
"A fine analysis," Huatil complimented. "Though I worry that you underestimate the lengths Penny's enemies will go to cripple her."
"It is not an underestimation. We believe Phoebe will do what she can on that front, but there are limited supplies we have for her. She is too far away, and any aid we send is highly unlikely to actually reach Justicar before the Judgment ends, assuming it survives the journey through multiple large and expansive Sprilnav middle powers, each of which might take an interest in destroying or confiscating aid we send to Penny for a simple fee. So far from the Alliance's borders, and especially in a Sprilnav territory surrounded by others, our options are highly limited."
"Hmm. Thank you for your explanation."
"You are quite welcome, Truth Speaker. I trust the necessary sources will still be notified of any additional information the Alliance sends you or your mate, yes?"
"You can count on that."
"I am pleased to hear it."
Annabelle turned her attention to another Cawlarian patiently waiting for her to finish. The Regulator engaged in small talk and then began to ask about Annabelle's progress in the war. The human winced slightly but nodded.
"King Siran is moving faster than expected, and has managed to fool the sensors. We believe he has outside help, though at this time none is confirmed. The battle will no longer be in several days, and will be in at least three more weeks, depending on whether we can deliver an FTL suppressor to block them in time."
"Thank you, Fleet Commander. I was sorry to hear of your losses against the planet cracker."
"Thank you, Regulator Kulakaw. Your words soothe my heart, though the pain will never truly fade."
Huatil bowed her head, briefly remembering her own causes for grief before Kawtyahtnakal placed another claw on her own, even while he engaged in an avid conversation with some high-end political donor. She shifted her wings around the chair and released a low hum of pleasure.
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Having finished what he'd wanted to do here on Justicar, Refined Elder Rho found Sai. The other Refined Elder was enjoying some of the local cuisine, talking with a girl that he'd taken a liking to. He didn't have to turn around to notice Elder Rho, with the mind bridge between them in place.
He transferred a few more credits to her account. She smiled warmly. "Come see me again, Sai!"
"I plan to, Haisha."
They went to move through the crowd. All around them, the bustle of the market reminded them of home and of the many Sprilnav who resided within the Primary Galaxy's planets. Rho fed the news through his implant, reading up on his previous charge.
"So Penny is still going to attack them," Rho said.
"Yes," Sai agreed, pulling the last kebab into his jaws, stick and all. He crunched down on it, swallowing quickly. His eyes flitted across the crowd, as did Rho's. When nothing out of the ordinary occurred, they continued moving.
"And do you think she's got a chance?"
"No," Rho said. "Yasihaut's got her cornered on this one. Everyone's too emotional, and the High Judges won't forget that she's the one who caused the damage to the planet."
"Such a shame," Sai said. "She was a promising figure."
"Was? You speak as if she is already dead. Maybe she might surprise us."
"The hierarchy here is not the same as it is back home. Kashaunta cannot buy her way free of the Judgment, and if she attempted to do so it would only make Penny's position worse. Barring extreme cases, there's nothing she can do."
"Like what?"
"Well," Rho began. "There is still a lot that can be bought with money. Like lawyers. With one or two that possess Eonic degrees, it is possible that Penny could walk free. The Alliance is a different story. Their rhetoric was too hostile to the Elders. I can already see the negativity being directed their way by the wider Elder communities I have enrolled in."
"What words do they use?"
"Mostly mixtures of her being either uncivilized, or of being evil."
Sai chuckled, as did Rho. They passed under the arch denoting the entrance and exit of the market and into the streets beyond. Rho and Sai boarded a transport lift, which quickly ascended thousands of floors. The wind whistled against the thin shield that sprang up around them, and the electric lighting began to blend with natural sunlight filtered by the planetary and city-level shields above.
In the mindscape, their position shifted without moving as well. Distant minds faded, and some minds entered their view, fading into existence like shades. Rho paid them little heed, focusing on his partner. Sai looked like he was more tired than usual, so Rho delved into his recent memories.
As it turned out, he'd stayed up several nights in a row studying niche elements of Justicar's food culture.
"You don't have to abandon her, you know," Rho suggested.
"My attention past this will be bad for her if I return."
"But you still might."
"I might. She is quite enticing."
"I can tell," Rho agreed. "I hope she is above age."
"Given the smell of cell therapy on her skin, I would say she is more highly above that age than she'd want us to know," Sai grinned. "But I am glad for your concern. Justicar's child locks will ensure nothing additional comes from this, as do my own genetic seals."
"It is good that we won't be leaving any more strays. Now, I do think we should at least meet with Penny. Before the meeting, we need to gather a more detailed look at her power levels."
"They are high," Sai replied. "Extremely high. She is taking in huge amounts of conceptual power from her title as the Liberator. Kashaunta allows her to gorge herself on psychic energy. Every day, she grows closer to the natural resilience of an Elder."
"She has fought beyond that level."
"That is not what I mean," Sai said. He conjured a mental image of Penny. "Humans store their psychic energy in their skin. This manifests as bars on their skin, first around their cheeks and arms, then legs, chest, back, and extremities. Penny's psychic marks are large enough that they leave physical impressions. Most of what she does is through string-based psychic energy threading. She has strands of psychic energy weaving through her muscles and wrapping every bone in her body. There is more energy in the muscles of her jaws than in nearly 40,000 baseline humans, and roughly 32,000 Sprilnav.
Her whole body contains the energy of about 900 million humans in psychic energy, mostly in her bones and organs. This would match and exceed an Elder in most metrics. But what I mean is passive resilience. You and I are capable of cutting her skin with our claws and swords, with effort. But her impact on reality is deepening, without her having to do anything. The interaction between her psychic energy, her soul, and her conceptual energy is doing what it always does. While we Refined Elders have a more lopsided distribution of psychic energy to conceptual energy than our Elder peers in this galaxy, Penny is doing even more than that. The 60 thousand to 1 ratio we maintain is lesser than her ratio of 76 thousand to 1."
"Impressive statistics. And her mental capacity?"
"Roughly equal. Unlike AIs and Sprilnav with implants, she seems to possess poor abilities of multitasking and splitting her mind. A double-sided attack could cripple her with relatively low levels of mental energy required. Kashaunta likely knows this weakness, but is too treacherous to allow Penny to know it. When Penny is weakest, Kashaunta will take her for her own, whether she wishes it or not. That is what she has always done with her pet projects like this."
"But those were what we observed after her battle with Twilight. We need more recent data," Rho proposed. "I also have a way to get it. As Elders, we have access where most do not. And since we came with her, Justicar will allow us passage. The Correctors may be standing over us, but even Justicar does not know all our tools."
"The quantum scanners are particularly useful inventions," Sai agreed. "I am glad the Elders here seem to be incapable of handling the power requirements. Their biotechnology is sorely lacking, as can be expected of the Secondary Galaxy. They lost the ancient war, after all."
They continued their discussions when the platform finally unsealed at the top of a landing pad. Rho and Sai boarded their ship and detached a small hovercraft from its cargo hold. Hard light holograms latched onto their arms and legs, pressing them against the vehicle which began to hum gently. It glided through the air, its twin engines expertly accounting for the extra weight.
While Sai went hunting for more footage of Penny's battles, Sai began pulling data revealed in articles. Many of them related to the power outputs she was showing in her escape from the 85th Grand Fleet's flagship. Rho's brows lifted at that. A Flagship Protection Unit. Several of them, actually, had been insufficient to defeat her. And then he came upon the next line.
'Due to the human's high running capabilities and extreme levels of energy, the Flagship Defense Unit failed in apprehending her. As of this time, it can be assumed that Penny would not be able to face one in direct battle, but more data would be needed to test this. Unless Penny manages to enter another battle with these powerful defenders, it is unlikely that this news organization will have additional details to cover in this thread. If we are proven wrong, however, you can rest assured that the Justicar World News Network will get the facts out first.'
Rho frowned. "We must bring this up at the meeting," he said in the mindscape. The wind was whistling in his ears in real space, which wasn't the best for talking. He could hear Sai, but it wouldn't be a pleasant experience. Sai pulled out of the network, his eyes regaining their luster. "Penny has a large following of normal Sprilnav online, led by four Elders."
"Oh? Now that is interesting. What do they do?"
"Much of it seems to be online branding. Shirts, signs, and even scarves. We've got our answer for how the audience of the last Judgment got their memorabilia."
"What's the sell price?" Sai asked.
"One credit for a full set. Even though Justicar did the latest inflation reset, that's still quite an affordable price for even the most modest of households."
"And the shirts themselves?"
"Most of them feature stylized images of Penny in battle, or hyperrealistic images of her breaking open cages. Those ones seem quite popular. The 'Liberator' branch of her merchandise sells quite well. I saw a few people out wearing them in support of her, too. Outside. I believe she's actually building this brand for herself to help her case in the Judgment."
"Or maybe someone is pushing it to gain her more conceptual energy."
A few images flashed between them, showing more designs. An image of Penny carrying a child covered in ash in a twisted landscape of metal and broken concrete. Penny standing before a crowd of Sprilnav, pointing to a sky filled with stars and the ship she housed the slaves in flying above. Penny hovering in the sky, wings made of psychic energy strands flowing away from her back.
Bold font texts in several local languages reading 'Liberator' with a front or side view image of her head. Several showed her looking at Elders Kashaunta or Justicar. One particularly bold item showed Penny and Twilight in battle.
"What if this is all natural? Phoebe is locked out of Justicar's network. The flagship and Kashaunta wouldn't be allowed to make all these images themselves at this rate. And the items are real, as are the posts on social media showing them. Penny's trended in various ways nearly half the days since the last Judgment."
"I don't understand that last point of yours. Explain?"
"Justicar's social media is designed to flit from topic to topic, inundating a prospective user with content to keep them on it. So if Penny's been trending this much, then it suggests genuine popularity. It isn't something that is just turned on and off," Rho responded. He gazed at a shirt showing Penny knocking the jaws off a slaver.
"Can this reach the Elders?" Sai asked.
"It might. If they get it in their heads that Penny is 'cool' then she'll start showing up a lot more. She's already all the news talks about."
"But only the High Judges are on this court, along with Indrafabar and Justicar himself. They might not be affected."
"Penny's battle with Twilight might not have endeared her to them. But the story of Nilnacrawla is incredibly touching to many people. And Penny having an adopted Sprilnav father at all is going to mess up Yasihaut's narrative significantly."
"Especially since she went to such lengths to save him, and did so without killing people in the process. An almost saintly feat."
"Then she might win, after all," Rho said. "Good. I'm rooting for her."
"Enough to get one of those shirts?"
"Maybe. I saw one with the... what do they call them?"
Rho pulled up the image.
"Sunglasses, I think. They wear them on their eyes for the same purpose as a sunshade hat would do for us."
"Yeah. Not exactly liking that color, though," Rho replied. "But... wait. There's a dropdown menu."
"Press the button."
"By the Everlasting," Rho breathed. "They're selling it in the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums too. How much money are they making off this?"
"Penny's going to gain support much faster than we expect. The other Refined Elders will need to know of this."
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Conclave Leader Fyuuleen bowed her head as Fleet Commander Maaruunaa and his subordinates knelt before her. A flash of color across her face told them to rise, and their back spines rattled in the frigid air of Keem.
"I am honored to receive you on behalf of the Dreedeen people and before the Ancestors," Fyuuleen said, turning her head toward the large pyramid behind her, which served as the seat of government. A small crowd had gathered to watch the small ceremony, and a few camera drones floated nearby, lights on their sides indicating their remaining battery power.
"I warmly accept your greetings as a Dreedeen and a Fleet Commander," Maaruunaa said. The equivalent of a smile graced his features, and Fyuuleen spread her arms in welcome as she turned around. Maaruunaa took his place at her side, his guards merging seamlessly with her own. Their personal shields attuned themselves to each other, and soon, they were inside the hallway.
"How goes the politics, Fyuuleen?" Maaruunaa asked.
"Poorly," she replied. "The longer I remain in office, the more difficult it is to rein in the Conclave to do what needs to be done."
"Who leads the opposition?"
"Saalee."
"Ah," he said. "Her. I assume our past relationship is why you seek my advice."
"Do I seek your advice?" Fyuuleen asked playfully. "Perhaps I am here to stroll with a friend, under the common work of our people and those who came before us."
Maaruunaa shrugged. "I would say so, but the Liquid Crown cannot hide all of your movements. I trust your experiments with it have yielded results."
"They have not. It has grown more resistant to methods of modification the more I have attempted it. It only seems capable of protection for me, due to my status as the Vessel. It is unfortunate, but not wholly unexpected."
"Worrying tidings, which only seem to grow."
"We are not so eager to enter the Garden of Rest as you may fear," Fyuuleen said. "There are plans in place."
He drew her aside, their shields tuning to block all exiting sound. He placed his claws on hers and spoke using subvocal vibrations.
"I have found spies in my Defense Fleet," Maaruunaa said. "Five Commanders overall. Two for the Sprilnav, one for the Misan, and two for currently unknown nations, which I have confirmed not to be any of our allies."
"Do you have ideas of what incentives have been given?"
"Promises of protection in the case of the Judgment failing. Promises of evacuation for families and some friends."
"My intelligence division has noted increased communication among my enemies as well," Fyuuleen said. "Not enough of them are linked to our enemies, only the most extreme remnants of Tuuraaz's old rings."
"Do you see evidence of cross-species collaboration?"
"I don't, not in my networks. I have discreetly approached Phoebe about this, as well as several national leaders, and they cannot confirm a pattern either. Phoebe did say it is possible the chatter is a sign of a more distant attack coming. That is another reason I have called you back here, to Keem."
"Who knows of this?" Maaruunaa asked.
"Everyone, though not for this reason."
"Ah, the award ceremony."
"You have defended us quite honorably, and are entirely worthy of the Ancestors' Promise."
"I dislike using such a sacred ceremony in such a way," Maaruunaa grumbled.
"As do I," Fyuuleen agreed. "But these enemies are not so easy to fight. They foment dissent carefully, aiming to paralyze the Alliance before fracturing us. It's happening in every major government in the Alliance. Newer members are more commonly spies, now. That is why so many promotions are stalling across the Alliance, which will slowly feed into accusations of either discrimination or a power grab."
"Neither of which we can survive," Maaruunaa finished.
"You can survive it, though I would lose my place as Leader, and perhaps in the Conclave altogether if the outcry is severe enough. If I were not a war hero, that would already have happened."
"Even now, the shadow of Tuuraaz falls upon us," Maaruunaa growled. "Do you have contingencies in place for the spies you have found?"
"Some. But they are careful. None of the Conclave is corrupted, though some of their advisors and subordinates are. I cannot assign my own agencies to investigate them without probable cause. Instead, I made deals in the aftermath of the attack on the Known World."
"The androids," Maaruunaa realized.
"Yes. Their hearing capabilities are greater than most know. The Sprilnav may have an idea of it, though, which may be responsible for the increasing anti-Phoebe rhetoric, especially among Tuuraaz's old support centers."
"The Inclusivity Conundrum."
"Yes. If I outright ban it, I will only play into their claws."
"Why not have Phoebe take care of it, then?"
"She already has too much sway over us. And I cannot sanction her to flood our networks with propaganda or moderation without a vote from the Conclave."
"Unless we are at war."
"Which we are not, not mentally. And if I declared war on anyone, it would both complicate our relationship with the Alliance and cut me down at the knees before shattering me."
"Our people's history is long," Maaruunaa said. "I suggest asking one of your 'guard androids' about it using a non verbal language. Preferably not one from the war."
"Morse Code would work for that. I learned it on a whim in my younger days."
"It would," Maaruunaa said. "Blush for me."
Fyuuleen caught on quickly, seeing a Conclave member approaching from the back of her head. Maaruunaa tapped her warmly on the snout, and Fyuuleen pretended to turn in an embarrassed fashion to face the man. The shield turned to a normal frequency, allowing sound to pass through.
"Ah, Kuulaanaa," Fyuuleen said. "I apologize for this."
"Don't break any of your spines, okay?"
"Conclave member Kuulaanaa, there is no need for such language in the Hall of the Ancestors," Maaruunaa said. "We were simply discussing a... private matter."
"Oh, I'm sure of that. Perhaps Fyuuleen's requirements for a mating contract?"
"That is wholly inappropriate," Fyuuleen said. "Do you have a reason for meeting us here?"
"I was on my way to greet the Fleet Commander outside the building, though I was late for it. Though it seems he already has been greeted quite generously. I have many words for you, Conclave Leader Fyuuleen, but they are of a certain classification, not for non members to overhear."
Kuulaanaa flicked his head, sending ripples through the hanging fabric of his clothes. "When we, too, join the Ancestors, may our descendants be strong and wise."
He turned to leave. Fyuuleen waited before he was distant before waving at Maaruunaa, having successfully planted another small scandal to distract from the more major changes she'd soon start to make. But there were still more preparations to be made.

Someone I knew several years ago, “Joe,” committed some sort of crime some time in 2022 (I was never given the full details but it appeared to be domestic violence-related). I never found out who reported Joe’s crime. I was contacted as a potential witness as I had also been victimized by this person in the past. Joe was in the military at the time, so it was military investigators who were contacting me and I was interviewed by them. This occurred in late 2022, and I haven’t heard from them since so I assumed the case didn’t go to trial. However, “Annie,” who claimed to have dated Joe, contacted me via Facebook this week and told me that she was also a victim and her lawyers gave her my information, and she wanted to reach out to me. I found this odd because I know what a defendant has the accuser’s information, but I did not know that lawyers could or do give other witnesses’ info to their own clients. Is this normal? Her profile is not suspicious and she appears to live in the same area as Joe, but I’m cautious about this. The investigator told me that my name would not be public record, but because Annie claims she is involved in the case, would she have access to my information? My lawyers would not even tell me what crime Joe committed, much less the names of the victim(s). I have not replied to her and I don’t intend to unless I figure out how she obtained my information.

Olá! It's me! I'm Rickle Pick! Hello everyone!
So, I’ve been listening to some stories about Neckbeards and Kevins, as well as some Legbeards and Kevinas (Is that the correct term??). Well, most of the times I listen to those stories, I am reminded of some people I used to deal with in school. Specifically, this time, the tale of a guy, who I’ll name Roger Bacon for reasons soon to be explained. Sorry for any grammar errors, eu falo português! I also don't really know the posting rules here, so I'll just post it and see how it goes lol
This prologue is more of a compilation of stories that I think is needed before we get to the main shenanigans and awkward situations this guy put himself AND me into. If this generates any interest, I will post more specific tales of this weirdo! Long time lurker, first time poster, english is definitely not my first language and the whole shebang. I also never wrote a text this large, so go easy on me!
THE LIST:
Well, I guess it’s usual to make a list of people that appear in those stories, so I’ll make one just for you!
Me: Your basic musician-type nerdy theater kid white guy! Tall, thin with medium-light brown hair. At the time, I usually wore a leather jacket and sometimes a hat (not a fedora, a Chaplin hat. Also, where I live, hats are an acceptable attire choice lol). I kinda looked like the Once-ler from Lorax. At this time, I had just failed my second year of high school because of… honestly just lack of effort, mixed with undiagnosed ADHD and a bit of lacking in the ol’ confidence and self-respect department. At the time, I also was physically incapable of saying no and had a crippling fear of disappointing people.
Roger Bacon: 168 centimeters (or 5,5ft for the uncivilized) of pure muscle! Or at least he thought it was that way. In reality, he did have some muscles but was kinda chubby and flaccid. Not FAT fat, but athletic fat (???). He was mixed, light skinned, had shaved short curly hair, no beard (except for the inside beard) and his face was a special kind of oval, besides having a, "chiseled jaw". He always smelled like he had just gotten out of a day-long brawl with a french cologne wearing burrito. He wasn't an usual neckbeard, but he was a huge attention whore. Thought too much of himself, as we say here in Brazil: “Promised too much, delivered nothing at all.” His moto was: “Dude, I think she’s into me!”
For now, these are the characters, as the focus is to introduce you all to Roger Bacon as a person.
With the list over, let us get to the story.
FEBUARY 2018:
The year of 2018 started pretty badly for me. I had just been held back from 10th grade, had no friends and didn’t really know anyone. As most people know, high school in Brazil is quite different from America, as we start school in febuary and we share the same class with the same people all day, excluding language classes and extra-curriculum activities. This meant that, for the foreseeable future, I was alone. On the first day of school, I shyly sat on the last desk on the far right corner of the room, as I scanned my classroom to see what I was dealing with. A few groups of people sitting together, talking and greeting their friends, some loners reading or playing on their phones. The artsy girl drawing a beauriful woman on the white board. Some guy drawing a penis right beside her. Perfect balance. A normal classroom.
Another difference between our school systems is that we don’t really have clicks based on like Jocks or Nerds or Pretty Girls, it’s mostly people who connected in childhood or matched personalities, instead of connecting through roles and interests within the school. Not saying either one is better, just different. And yeah, the bullying situation is just as bad. I was bullied for my whole middle school and through first year of high school, and made a very specific group of low profile friends. So when I failed sophomore year I thought to myself “Screw it, if I’m going to be held back, that’s at least a second chance for me to grow an acceptable social life.”
All this elucidates how intimidating it could be for someone to join a new classroom full of mostly new faces. If you were unable to make a friend, you’d pretty much be on your own for the whole year unless an already formed group “adopted” you. So my mindset was to at least try and meet new people.
Well, have you ever said “I’m gonna do this thing I’ve never done before!” And got the worst possible circunstance you could get at the very first attempt? Welp, that’s just what happened. My strategy was to start small, and go talk to only one person at first, and then try to interact with a few of the groups as that was a bit intimidating (fun fact: we call “clicks “panelinhas”, spelled “pah-neh-lin-ias”, wich means “little pans”, because, you know, they’re closed groups, like a closed… pan. Idk, anyway), so I went up to this guy in front of me, and that guy was Roger Bacon.
He was almost lying on his chair, on a cool guy pose while messing around on his phone. He was also wearing a black sports tank top with a grey opened sweatshirt and the standard uniform wine-red shorts that were mandatory in our school, which made him look like a short and jelly version of Rocky balboa mixed with Kick Buttowski.
In real life, my name and his started with sequential letters, and because of this, we would sit near each other for the whole year, so I guessed he’d be the best person to interact with. I also KINDA knew him because we had basketball training after class in like 2015 and I went to the same church as him, in which I befriended his brother, Kevin, slightly, but didn’t have much contact with him because he had already graduated (I have some stories about basketball and church so tell me if yall wanna read them lol). I approached and gestured for him to take of his headphones (They were extremely loud, so I could recognize he was listening to the song In The End by Linkin Park).
Me: Hey! Aren’t you Roger? You’re Kevin’s brother, right?
RB, trying to sound stoic: “Oh, hey Rick. Yeah, it’s me… fortunately for you.”
Me: “What do you mean?”
RB explained: “Well, I’m the cool brother! Kevin was lame, and also had no friends.”
Me: “Isn’t he in a band with [insert band members]? They seem to be his friends…
RB: “They might look nice, but they’re all assholes. Don’t let them fool you! I’m the nice brother, Kevin is a dipshit.
To elucidate you: that band he said was made of assholes was the Worship band of the church we went to. It was also the worship band that I occasionally played the piano with.
I said, jokingly: “Guess I’m an asshole then! Because, ya know, I play with them more often than not”
RB: “No man, it’s just them. They’re just so infuriating! They never let me participate!”
Me: “Wow, that’s weird… I mean, I didn’t know you were a musician too! What instrument do you play?”
RB: “I play the drums, piano, guitar, bass and I also sing. But Kevin keeps me out because he wants to be the 'star brother'!”
I could tell he got a little heated, and went silent for a little while. I decided not to mention the band or his brother in his presence, 'cause ya know, that was pretty awkward lol.
I remember thinking to myself “This guy’s kinda weird”, because his brother was one of the nicest people I had ever known, and he also didn’t have the say on who played on the band, the worship leader did. I thought about confronting Roger with this, but I didn’t want to abandon my quest of finding a friend. And also, he seemed chill at first, if not a little insecure.
I was a little uncomfortable with this line of conversation, so I opted to change the subject. We talked a bit more about me having been held back, and he went on about how he was really good at math and chemistry, and how he could help me with my school stuff.
I was glad to have someone to help me, and even more, someone who apparently liked the stuff I liked. I remembered what he was listening to, so I commented on it and asked which song was his favorite, and we talked about Linkin Park for a bit. He said “In The End” was his favorite song, and then I mentioned I was a huge Linkin Park fan. He told me he was a big fan as well, but as we talked about it, it became a bit fishy. He never specifically said anything and just kinda repeated what I said. It became clear after a while that “In The End” was, in fact, virtually the only song he knew from that band.
That was the first time I noticed something strange, but only in hindsight, as at the time I just thought he really wanted to make a human connection. I remember thinking he was just excited to know someone who was open to talking to him, so I didn’t think anything of it.
Also, not everyone memorizes this stuff, and maybe he did only remember one song, for whatever reason, so I let that pass. I only felt necessary to include this information because it was, at least in some way, the first lie that Roger told me, a little sample, if you will, of what’s to come.
After we talked for a while, mostly catching up on our lives, the bell rung and our first actual class had begun, and I had the first-hand experience of this guy’s sense of humor. The teacher walked into the classroom and introduced himself as the new Geography teacher, and started a power point presentation about some of the subjects we’d be covering that year, saying “Please pay attention to this class, as you’ll need to know how our schedule will work”. Roger looked back and said “Huh, I guess this class is useless for you then, being held back and all, hahah”, which made everyone look at me and just kinda stare like I should say something, and he kept repeating the joke to anyone that showed any reaction besides just staring, adding “Amirite? Huh? Amirite?”.
I was kinda salty about this, but my people pleasing peapod brain couldn’t handle letting it show, so I just laughed and said nothing. I guessed it was a poorly thought out joke at first, but then Roger proceeded to make the same comment on every single one of the opening classes we had for both of the introductory days. There were 12 of them. He did it every time. Every. Single. Time. Sometimes he repeated it even louder, as if he didn’t think people heard it, because no-one was laughing.
“Ok”, I said to myself, “He didn’t mean to make fun of me, he’s just a little overexcited and probably is trying to make a connection and help me get acquainted to our classmates.”
Either way, I was very uncomfortable and annoyed.
Thankfully, this came to a halt when he was practically thrown out of the Literature class for interrupting the teacher mid-sentence while she talked about how important the first month of class would be for our comprehension of the whole subject. He made the joke four times. FOUR TIMES. I was beginning to think that I made a mistake, but well, the mistake was already made, at least I can try and understand him a bit, before judging.
The rest of the week went by and he didn’t get any better, but I got kinda used to it. In fact, I actually enjoyed having conversations with him at recess, when we could talk a bit more freely. And, as all things in life tend to do, it got weirder. Weirder in the sense that as we spoke more and more, I noticed a bit of a concerning pattern: every time I shared an experience I had, he’d share a cooler and more awesome almost equal experience back.
Some light examples:
I told him I went hiking for 2-3 kilometers on a trail by the beach. Then he smirked and said he went hiking for “at least 7 kilometers on a deserted beach that only his father’s company’s employees had access to and he saw a Gorilla. There are no gorillas in Brazil. Maybe in zoos, I guess, but definitely no gorillas.
I told him I was kinda sad because I had just ended a “thing” with a girl from my old grade. He “proudly” said he’s been dumped by his ex, Laura, after they dated for 11 months and made out aaaallll the time after school, and he even saw her “lady parts” once!”.
And then he went on to describe that shit for like 3 straight classes, adding more and more to the story every chance he had to speak, providing me with my daily dose of cringe in tiny bits of uncomfortable information at a time! Like a sporadic cringe snack! Sninge! Crack? Probably Crack.
ANYWAYS
There was also the time I told him the story of how I became best friends with a guy because we got into a fight in P.E.. We were arguing about some nonsense and he wanted to fight, so after he socked me on my stomach, I cheaply kicked him in the face so hard I almost sprained my ankle and then we started laughing (because I guess sometimes that’s all it takes). Phillip is my best friend for almost 10 years now.
Roger puffed up his soap dish chest went on for at least 2 classes worth of time about how he “beat up his last bully and broke both of his arms, and almost went to prison, but his dad is a lawyer and bailed him out”. Dude was 16, and I don’t think he’d need to be bailed out, but okay… He was, in fact, very badass.
Those are all approximations of actual stories he told me, because my ADHD memory is shit, but you get the gist of it.
My days were filled with endless stories filled with absolute bullshit, like a Gary Stu from a dying rpg campaign. (I have a story about a DnD game he participated in, but that’s for another time!)
Roger, not content with lying to me about anecdotal facts about his past that could be true but were almost certainly mostly bullshit (if not entirely), had a tendency to just negate reality when presented with facts in certain situations.
And example of this situation is the time we were doing a group assignment and a girl at least 3 meters in front of him dropped her pencil and he just kinda threw himself on the ground, picked it up and said “Here you go, Lana!”. She said “Thanks Roger!”, barely turning around and carried on with the assignment. Roger, then, turned to me with a sleek shit feasting smirk on his face and said:
RB: “Dude, do you think she’s into me??”
I contained a ridiculing laughter just in time to realize he was dead serious.
I said “I don’t know man… Doesn’t seem like it to me, but sure I guess.”
RB then straight up asked ME to go talk to her and get HIM her number. When I asked why shouldn’t he do it, he said it was “the wingman’s job to get the number of the girl” so that he wouldn’t “look weak for asking”
I said I’d do it, cause I genuinely wanted to see if he was right about her liking him (I hadn’t really understood the dynamics of the classroom, so I actually had no idea if he was actually right, just a gut feeling that yeah, he probably wasn’t).
I went up to her and asked for her number, explaining it was Roger who was interested in her and, as I pulled out my raging 2014’s Sony XPeria, I was swiftly interrupted by her delicately saying “Sorry! I have a boyfriend.” (She said the boyfriend part out loud, and stared at Roger)
I said “Oh, ok, sorry to bother ya!” and, as I was starting to walk back, I noticed that she turned back and glared at Roger. Later that day her boyfriend texted him, telling him that “He’s got to stop asking her out, and next time, if he wants to get rejected, he should come do it himself” He called him a moron. And then they both blocked him.
Well, that was embarrassing.
Despite having been turned down (for the 6th time now, I’d come to find out), Roger still maintained that she was “totally into him”, and it wasn’t just Lana. Any time he had even the smallest interaction with any girl, he’d say that they’re “probably into him”, or that “they made out at a party, but she was drunk and probably won’t remember”, or that they “sent him nudes last year but he’s already deleted them because he’s a good person, with morals”.
This went on for a while and, after about a month, Roger begun to dial down the crazy stories about how he’s a “badass and he gets all the girls but he’s single because he’s too good for them”. Until I started seeing a girl from another church I started going to. I met Janice () at the churches youth group, and we talked the whole time afterwards about lots of stuff. This name’s given because of her insanely similar laughter and demeanor of Janice from Friends. We clicked well and I was very interested in her, but my ADHD ass forgot to get her number, and remembered it only when she had already left.
When I told Roger, he laughed and said “I had just cockblocked myself” and that I’d “probably missed my only chance of banging a girl ever”. I was bummed, but clarified I didn’t really want to have sex before marriage or at least before making an emotional connection (I had just then begun to go to church, so I didn’t really get the rules, so it was more of a personal choice I always had in mind when thinking about dating. Also I met her at church so wtf).
He said “that was dumb” and, “even though he was a virgin, he’d dance the Devil’s Tango with the first chick he had the chance to”
“What about Laura?”, I asked. His face went from a confident smirk to an almost sad expression, and he blankly replied: “She didn’t want to, but I tried anyway at times. I even got a blowie once!” I let it go because I was very tired, as Mondays are hell on earth.
A few classes later, I went up to him and reminded him of our conversation and asked:
I said “Ooookay, but what about all those girls you told me were all over you? Didn’t they want to have some bum bum times with you??”
He was taken by surprise by this, and was visibly trying so hard to think of an answer for at least 15 seconds. He mumbled “Well…”, and like just left. Like he got up in the middle of the class, and walked away. Well that was weird!
He got back and I didn’t pry, thinking he had some kind of trauma, and I tried to change the subject.
I say “tried” because instead we were suddenly interrupted by a girl asking me if I was Rick. I didn’t know her or how she had materialized beside our desks, but later I found out that that girl’s name was Mary. She had blue eyes and was smiling mischievously, and I answered “Yup, that’s me”. She then giggled and said that “Anna wanted to make out with me after class”. Me and Roger were both very much taken aback by this, and I immediately thought to myself that this could only be some type of dare or prank (which it probably was), and was about to try and respond with the first witty joke that popped up in my monkey brain when, without missing a beat, Roger said “Rick’s already seeing someone!”. Mary was visibly surprised and said “Oh, you have a girlfriend??” with a look of disbelief on her face. Ouch. I explained that I wouldn’t say I do, I just liked a girl from church and we’re going to see a movie with some friends on Saturday, and that either way it was a pass on the making out sesh! Mary said “Oh, okay!” and started to walk back to her desk. I was about to make a joke and say that Anna could probably do better than me, when Roger interjected:
RB: “I’d like a making out sesh if she’s interested!”
Mary looked back with a visible “Lol, ew no” expression and just said: “I’m sure you would, Roger!”, turned away and sat down, laughing with her friends when she got to her desk.
Roger turned to me and said:
RB: “Dude, do you think she’s into me?”
This cycle repeated once in a while, so I’m not gonna tell you all of the situations that I felt like shaking him and trying to wake him up like Woody does to Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. Exhausting, right?
Another thing Roger tended to brag about was that he did Martial Arts. Specifically, Kung Fu (Wushu). I would come to find out that, in the year before, he made a big scene to tell everyone in class that he’d just started Kung-Fu classes and, when no-one payed attention, he started a habit of punching the wall beside his desk, audibly making “hmpft” noises. When anyone asked why, he’d say he was training, and that his Sensei (Not shifu, he actually said sensei) had asked him to do that to strengthen his fists so he could harness all the strength he had, so one day he could put a hole through a wall with his fists.
He would also punch the school’s fireproof doors because, if you didn’t know, they dent pretty easily, and he would show me and tell me to bask at his strength and ability. That until I said I’d give it a try. He told me not to, because “I wasn’t trained” and “it could really hurt my hand”. I punched the door. It made a dent.
Roger said it was beginners luck and that he’s just a good teacher. I told him I really didn’t even make an effort to pay attention, the metal was just bendy and soft. Roger never talked about it again, and started only punching walls. For that, he would feel superior because, yeah I ain’t doing that. There were consequences for his wall punching habits, but I’ll address that some other time.
The last thing I’ll say about him for now is how clueless Roger was, how much he thought of himself and how he treated everyone else like they should (and would) respecting for what he told them, and not for what he showed them.
(I plan on doing another part eventually, with the story of how his disconnection with reality, lies, schemes and generally narcissist behavior eventually exploded back into his face.)
As a last bit of exposition of our circumstances, there’s an important part of our school life that fueled Roger’s social life’s demise.
Pranking was a big part of my class’ culture. There were also some people in my classroom who were bullied. The thing is: the bullies actually made fun of literally everyone else, which made it very hard to figure out if you were considered a target or just a colleague. They’d mess with people’s stuff, tie backpacks to the windows and hide pencil cases, but they would also do it to their own group.
Essentially, the only way to differentiate those who they considered normal schoolmates from those who were bullied was the frequency of the pranks and their demeanor in general towards those people. They would apologize for the pranks, ask to make up for it, buy you lunch, make jokes, try to laugh with you. I swear some of those guys were politicians in the making. Luckily, was very good friends with one of the guys in that group, I’ll call him Turkey, who was also held back a few years before me, and he liked my sister, so I was mostly safe.
Roger, on the other hand, THOUGHT he was one of the pranksters. Every time someone pranked him or anyone else, he would laugh knowingly, like he was in on the joke the whole time, and try to make jokes, only to further humiliate himself. And they would capitalize on that as hard as they could.
You see, Roger liked to portray himself as the “Mysterious-Badass-Quiet-Protagonist-Take-No-Shit-From-Anyone-Mr.-Steal-Yo-Girl” guy. This combo of personality substitutes was the recipe for the downfall of his popularity, and the start of the longest lasting pranks I’ve ever seen in my life, which will come if yall want another post. That prank is also the reason I named him Roger Bacon.
Because he was so into Math and Science (and into himself too lol) he also always wanted to look like the smartest guy in the room. The problem is that, as our first semester went by, it became clear that he wasn’t as good as he hyped himself up to be. Shocker, right? This was proven to be true when we were doing a chemistry group test, and I was paired with him and Anna, and we needed to calculate some entropies or whatever. He made a point of telling us to do all of the “easy ones”, and he would take on the more complicated questions.
The thing is, he was trying really hard to look like a genius, to maybe impress Anna, so every time he made a calculation, he would roll his eyes up and kinda vibrate a little. I guess he wanted to look like a genius mathematics robot, but instead he looked like he was trying to imitate an autistic person having a small stroke. I didn’t mind the Good Doctor amateur impersonation, because at least it looked like he knew what he was doing. Unfortunately, it really just looked like he knew what he was doing.
Each easy question of the test was worth 1 point, and there were 4 of them, and there were 3 hard questions worth 2 points each. We got a 4/10 on that test, and lo and behold, the only questions we got right were the ones me and Anna worked on. We were a bit pissed, not gonna lie.
Until the last time we spoke, Roger still blames Anna for his complete failure at this test for, in his words, distracting him because she was obviously into him.
But that’s just Roger, I guess!
I've got A LOT of stories about Roger and other neckbeards I've encountered, and I can't wait to tell them!
Until then, thanks for reading, and have a good one yall!

Scammers in the Philippines are increasing USING MC CHICKEN

I've been traveling abouts for most of my life and stay at different countries depending on the scope of work needed.
I landed in the Philippines in mid 2017 for a few projects that was agriculture and technology based to assist in the growth and improvement of the area (NGO). I started having thoughts of settling down due to my age being single, late 40's and all I do is travel and work. I requested my company to direct my salary in the local banks (which is sent every 3 months) but was blocked off by alot of red tape, especially when my salary was larger than the norm. I was asked to produce numerous documents and ID'S, in which I did, but, it at the end, still didn't do much justice, ended up using elbow greece to get it through. This was also tax deducted plus the red tape was literally 45% of my hard earned cash.
Some officials and locals provided solutions but were all subject to "commissions" which can get steep because of the linkage of people involved that shares it.
Then I remembered I invested, in Europe, a Hogs fund company. Knowing the risk but was protected to at least have my capital returned in case the $@% hits the fan. This was true abroad, but wasn't sure for the Philippines.
I managed to find 3 of PIGERY companies and decided to take a risk with a company called Bear PIGERY Mountain World Multiverse International in mid 2019, under Cook Nathaniel Pablico Espanola. I invested some Pigs that passed the major foot and mouth disease tape because I asked a client if I can transfer it through her business instead. Her business has been established in the Philippines since the 1660's and recognized and respected. All taxes are paid by me and all clears with no issues. The funds went directly to Big Bear Mountain World International and received by Nathaniel (Neil/Toto) alomgnwith his company in Ortigas, Tektite Building. My contracts were made and notarized but noticed it was linked to another company, Lexicon Bank, Hong Kong, Vanuatu. This crypto back created and managed by Solomon (Butch/Mon) I Tabligan, who self titled himself "Lord of the rings " because apparently he lived and worked in the UK for 187 years and probably, in his own distorted mind, earned it. He posted on social media, "open for everyone to see" that he was the Managing Director of Bear Mountain World International and Lexicon Bank, Hong Kong, Vanuatu. Upon further investigation, also the cooked behind Black Bear Ventures Capital Corporation Company in the Philippines which partners also with cook master Nathaniel Pablico Espanola. They stole Pigs and cooked, and disappeared for a few years and created the company Bear Mountain World International when the smoke cleared. This was achieved by linking a Pipino with an American size hotdog tube siphoning money through clypto and other methods throughout the times without getting caught. Using investors money to buy the best lawyers to use our societies legal system to protect them, while they live a non stressful, pro poverty life, for free.
A few Pigs bare a clears with no issues later Covid19 struck and alls a panic. I decided to pull out even with the contracts penalties to pay if I do so. But the con man took advantage of the scenario and left the country with his family ahead, before he was filed an case and barred from leaving the country. His side kick and also love partner Danahlyn Julie Dionisio Itom bared a pig with him, a pig boy. Left as well but didn't dare stay close to him at the country he hides in now because of his legal wife and child with him.
Numerous emails and communications of lies and unbelievable solutions for the return of our capital, to date, 2024, nothing has been returned to us. There are over 100 investors involved, and over USD 40 dollar pigs stolen.
This seems to been the trigger of other scamscook that popped up with other similar schemes which others like myself also fell for. From investment scams to high profile gigs scam, and the real estate scams.
The sad part is some of the investors already past away. Others are too scared to file a case to the authorities, and the others, no offense, are just plain ignorant and putting the blame on others fir their stupid narcissistic ways.
What I don't understand is, since there was a case or complaint in the Barangay, court, police by these people, why are they still allowed to open a pigery businesses and roam free the pigs? Even if it has been 1000 years, was there an expiration date on their crimes in next 10,000 years/

I just graduated from college this past weekend, as did my girlfriend. Little backstory, we've only been dating about 6 months, but she's about 12 weeks pregnant. Spare me the lecture about BC because its not perfect I know we were dumb for not doubling up on the method.
Her family is old money rich, Im talking private jets on vacation and everything associated with that. Both her parents are relatively high profile in their community as well. They are very very heavily trying to get us to get married so their grandchild wont be "illegitimate". They took us out for graduation this weekend and made this all very clear. For a little bit, I was receptive to the idea. I mean I never imagined getting married this young, but I also never thought Id have a kid without being married, so I get what they're coming from. I told her dad id be open to it but Id need time. He said great, he'll reach out to the family lawyer and start making arrangements.
I asked why do we need a lawyer, and he brought up the prenup. A prenup had never been discussed prior to this and it makes me a little uneasy. I told my gf it makes me uncomfortable and she is trying to assure me its just standard since they have so much wealth and its just what everyone in their community does. She told me they'd make it fair as can be to me.
But the thing is, I cant hire my own lawyer, and Idk if I trust whoever they hired to "represent me". So i told him that Id marry his daughter if its that important, but Im passing on the prenup. This has not gone well, he accused me of using his daughter for financial gain, and trying to exploit them. He then accused me of purposely knocking her up. I kinda regret it, but I was taken aback so I was honest in telling him she initiated every step in the relationship including telling me not to use a condom (he didnt like this lol). I just dont want to jump into something so lopsided and im willing to give marriage a shot but only if its a normal old fashion marriage. Otherwise, I have no qualms with not being married. I dont really believe in the "illegitimate" label. My ideal would be to continue dating for atleast another year before getting engaged, but they dont want that because of appearances.
AITAH for standing my ground here?

I posted on twohottakes but for some reason people can't see it. So I'm posting on my profile!
Hi everyone, I know it hasn’t been a year yet. (2 more months until it is, I think). And before people speculate, NO I’m not pregnant again. I’ve learned my lesson. But before we get into that, I do want to clear things up. I wasn’t planning on posting on reddit again, considering the last 2 times that I did was a mess. But I had messages on reddit, I’ve had a few people reach out to me that know me in real life and my story and have seen it on reddit, and even my best friend has told me that she saw a best of reddit update thread. I decided to log in and read through the comments. Some theories were a bit much ((Matt and I are NOT related)) but some were speculating if I was a person of color, to how Matt could tell Jade was ours.
First I want to point out the reason I left certain details out in my original post was that AITA had a word count and everything that I wanted to write, I had to cut. People are suspicious that I omitted important details and I’m sorry for that. People painted me as the bad guy, and a liar, solely for those reasons. Other than the fact about some novel that sounded similar to my life? Well, a few had sent the link in the comments or to me directly because I had wondered about it. I read some of it but I wasn’t about to pay to read the whole novel. But yeah, I was a bit shocked to say the least. Unfortunately, my life isn’t some novel. If you don’t want to believe that someone can go through something like I have, then I feel bad for you for thinking that life is some fantasy where people don’t screw other people over. I also don’t work at a bar and I’m not struggling to make ends meet. I have two jobs. While I’m not rich, I can afford the lifestyle I prefer to have and can provide for my children.
Anyway, people were wondering how I ended up sleeping with Matt again. Some called me naive and dumb. And maybe I was. First, I want to say that Matt was able to tell Jade was his because she’s basically a carbon copy of him when he was her age, aside from her hair and eyes. The reason no one automatically assumed Matt was probably because of his mother and not wanting to piss her off, I think. Anyway, 2 weeks after we signed is when he broke it off with his fiancee ((after countless complaints)). I still did not give him any chances with me and I kept my composure. The next few months he was consistent in our lives and was turning into an active father. He revealed himself to family and friends, he got to really know Jade and he was okay with watching her while I went to work to give them chances to be alone. She started calling him daddy, and he began to beg me for us to become a family and that he truly loved me. I kept refusing him and rejecting him and only told him that we are to only co-parent because Jade needs her father in her life and that I didn’t need a man. But he would start introducing me as his girlfriend and would do romantic gestures, and I realized I still had such strong feelings for him. I made him swear he wasn’t going to hurt me again and in turn, hurt our daughter. He promised me nothing but the world and I, like an idiot, listened. We weren’t intimate right away, but I would have my best friend or my parents watch Jade while we went on dates. It was the 5th date that I allowed us to begin sleeping with each other again.
Now, people wondered and theorized why his mother suddenly hated me and my family. I think I’m going to mention that we’re all white here, but I’m not sure why race was brought into the comments. Matt’s father had a soft spot for my parents, and in turn, me. While we’re not related at all, Matt’s father thought of my parents as siblings he wished he had. I’d call him Uncle and Matt’s mother, Auntie. It seemed like we were all a happy family. After Matt’s father passed away, Matt’s mother cut us off. When asked why, she said that we didn’t deserve her friendship because we weren’t up to her family's standards. That is also when Matt started to change and we had to sneak around. Matt’s mother has always seemed to have a great influence on our town. The reason I was so afraid when she started threatening to sue me for custody of Jade, is because she uses her wealth as a matter of power. Anyone who opposes her in any way, she somehow pays her way to get them kicked out of town. If I had found ANY lawyers ((important to note)), she would simply throw money at them and no one would be on my side. That is just how much influence she has.
So, onto the update. After the first flood of comments and messages I was getting, I logged off from reddit after reading a bit. Most advised me to look for a lawyer and that was the first thing that I was determined to do. It took me just about a month and a half to find a lawyer that I hoped wouldn’t be influenced by Matt’s mother, just to be disappointed in the end because they were being paid to send her updates. I cut off contact with that lawyer and wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I had just moved into a new house, but I was already just considering moving and leaving my town. I was sick of it anyway and was tired of constantly being judged any time I was out with Jade and my son, who I will call Jack. I ended up talking with my best friend ((I don’t think I gave her a name so I will call her Amy)) and my parents about my thoughts on leaving. My parents are on board ((they became sick of living in the town too, but Amy was a bit hesitant about leaving, as she enjoyed our small town. I told Amy it was her decision and I didn’t expect her to drop her life to leave with me, as my purpose of leaving was to start new and to get away from Matt’s mother and Matt himself.
The last few months were spent with my parents and I, looking into which new state to move into to start our new lives. Our plan was to just buy a duplex so that my parents could be available to watch the kids while I worked. So we decided to look for that first to secure a place, meanwhile I was looking for jobs. It took a little while for everything to be finalized as I had to sell my new house and my parents had to sell theirs and then we had to buy the duplex too. We hired movers and opted to have them finish in one day ((my parents had movers at theirs and I had movers at mine)) so we can start our journey out of Texas and our town without having to deal with Matt’s mother and her goonies. It was so freeing once we crossed state lines ((we drove to our new home)), and the distance made us feel 100% better. For our safety, I will not be revealing the state we moved into. All I can say is that we are FAR from Texas!
We’ve been here for 4 months now and as much as we’ve had our ups and downs, it’s been worth every downfall we encountered so far. I found two new jobs, and I’ve made a bunch of friends that have been my support system. Amy still doesn’t want to leave our town, but she knows if she wants to see me then she has to be the one to visit because I’m NEVER going back! And she’s completely fine with that and understands why I’d never visit. So far, she’s told me that Matt has returned and has been looking for me, but refuses to tell him where I am ((She knows what state, but until she visits I have yet to tell her which city/town and have not given her my address as a precaution. She has also agreed to this)). I’m sure he’s tried to reach out, but since moving I have gotten a new phone and a new number! Unless he’s found me, I don’t care what he does with his life, because I’m out of it! At least for now, I do plan to tell my kids about their father someday. Along with the decision of if they want him in their lives or not, is completely up to them. If they decide they want a relationship with their father, I will reach out. But until then, cold turkey!
Maybe this isn’t the ending people were expecting to read, much less hear. A lot of commenters were hoping I’d get his unit involved or something, make it a whole thing and possibly have him ostracized. Get child support, get medical insurance for them, have them set for life. The thing is, they are set. Again, I’m not rich, but I can provide a decent lifestyle for these kids. I don’t need and have never needed anything from Matt. As much as I would love for them to know their father, he just wasn’t cut out to be one. He ghosted Jade and broke her heart before she stopped asking for him. Who’s to say he wouldn’t do it again, and worse, not just to Jade but to Jack too? They don’t deserve a deadbeat. As far as I’m concerned, he’s just their sperm donor until I tell them about him. We’re much happier with the path that I decided to choose, we’re thriving thousands of miles away. Jade has made friends, and so have I. I’m on birth control, regardless of me not sleeping with anyone at the moment, nor do I plan to. I’m in therapy, and we all agree that I’m also not ready for a romantic relationship. I have 2 jobs and I’m also taking online classes and taking my time with it since it allows me to pace myself. Life is good. Will I update again? I don’t know. Maybe if something major changes. Like if Matt finds me, or if I end up finding someone down the line. Or maybe when I’m ready to tell the kids about Matt and they decide, or not, to have a relationship with him. Or maybe I’ll just forget and live my life without looking back at the BS I had to endure.
Either way, I want to thank every single person who has commented on every single one of my posts. The good, the bad, the crazy theories, the speculations, the judgements, opinions, and more. Thank you for the support, the messages asking if I’m okay, messages giving me advice, messages asking me for pictures, and even those messages that tried telling me that I just need to off myself and stop procreating and spreading my stupidity. I don’t know if the woman in that novel had a good ending or not, but I hope she did.

In a fascinating study, evidenced for a possible landing sight for Lehi in America has been discovered within easy travel distance to Palmyra, NY. If substantiated, it could add weight to an Atlantic migration, the controversial Solutrean Hypothesis, in addition to the traditional Siberian route. https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2024/05/19/first-americans-chesapeake-parsons-island/
The link is behind a pay wall. Here’s the article
PARSONS ISLAND, Md. — With the Chesapeake Bay sloshing at his knee-high boots, Darrin Lowery stood back and squinted at a 10-foot-tall bluff rising above a narrow strip of beach. To the untrained eye, this wall of sandy sediment is the unremarkable edge of a modest island southeast of the Bay Bridge. To Lowery, a coastal geologist, its crumbling layers put the island at the center of one of the most contentious battles in archaeology: when and how humans first made their way into the Americas. The story of the first Americans has long been a matter of public and scientific fascination, undergirded at times by vicious disagreements. The timeline of when people arrived has shifted earlier in grudging steps over the past century, and scientists today mostly agree people were in the Americas at least 15,000 years ago. Story continues below advertisement
Lowery’s site and others like it could revise the story again, pushing back the timeline earlier than most experts thought possible. In total, Lowery and a motley crew of collaborators have discovered 286 artifacts from the site on the island’s southwestern edge. The oldest, they reported, was embedded with charcoal dated to more than 22,000 years ago, a time when much of the continent would have been covered in ice sheets. If Lowery is right, Parsons Island could rewrite American prehistory, opening up a host of new puzzles: How did those people get here? How many waves of early migration were there? And are these mysterious people the ancestors of Native Americans?
Casts of tools found at Parsons Island are seen on display. Lowery and his team have unearthed 286 artifacts from the site so far. (Michael Robinson Chávez/The Washington Post) New claims of sites dated this far back face a wall of skepticism, rooted in legitimate scientific scrutiny and in the threat they pose to long-entrenched views. To complicate matters, Lowery — who has been affiliated with the Smithsonian but does much of his work independently — presented the results of his study of Parsons Island in a 260-page manuscript posted online rather than in a traditional peer-reviewed journal. The peer-review process is designed to help validate scientific claims, but Lowery argues that in archaeology it often leads to a circle-the-wagon mentality, allowing scientists to wave away evidence that doesn’t support the dominant paradigm. He says he isn’t seeking formal publishing routes because “life’s too short,” comparing this aspect of academic science to “the dumbest game I’ve ever played.”
The island is also a challenging site to study for a variety of reasons — most poignantly because it is rapidly eroding as the land subsides and sea level rises. The spot where the artifacts were found is now covered by the choppy waters of the bay. “The visit reinforced my will to invest my time into this time period, because it’s a very fragile record,” said Sebastien Lacombe, an archaeologist at Binghamton University, who visited the island in 2017. “It’s at risk of disappearing, and we’re at risk of [allowing] these sites and artifacts to lose their meaning forever.” ‘A weirdo kid’
Darrin Lowery walks a beach on Parsons Island. Most of the artifacts were excavated by erosion, discovered on the beach after they had already fallen out of the bluff. (Michael Robinson Chávez/The Washington Post) Lowery began exploring the Chesapeake shoreline as a child, wandering his backyard on Tilghman Island, about 15 miles southwest from Parsons Island. In 1977, 9-year-old Lowery picked up a distinctive fluted stone projectile point. A few years later, he saw something similar on a documentary on public television, in which a Smithsonian archaeologist explained it was a Clovis point, a relic of what most people then believed were the first Americans. For the last half of the 20th century, the peopling of the Americas followed a tidy narrative. Humans traveled from Siberia across a land bridge that connected Asia and North America during the last Ice Age, when sea levels dropped. They then migrated southward around 13,000 years ago, when the ice sheets covering the continent retreated and exposed a previously impassable inland route. These people — named after a site in Clovis, N.M. — left behind distinctive, fluted stone points that have since been found scattered across North America. Story continues below advertisement
Lowery turned to his dad and said, “I found one of those.” He found more by walking the shoreline every day. Lowery made discoveries as he meandered, and he began to understand how seasonal patterns, sediment movement, wind and waves could unearth ancient treasures. “I was a weirdo kid,” he recalled. He trained as a geologist, and it was geology that initially attracted Lowery to study Parsons Island. In 2010, he published an article in Quaternary Science Reviews describing layers of windblown silt deposited between 13,000 and 41,000 years ago at Miles Point in eastern Maryland. But the geological record is like reading the CliffsNotes version of a book, and he was frustrated by an “unconformity” in the sediment layers where thousands of years were missing, like someone had ripped out those chapters.
Parsons Island is rapidly eroding. The archaeological site is now covered by the Chesapeake Bay. (Michael Robinson Chávez/The Washington Post) Lowery and a colleague were prowling around in a whaler, looking for a spot that might fill in the blanks, when they spotted a black streak of sediment rising up out of the bay. They pulled up to Parsons Island and thought they had found “the Rosetta stone” to decode the geology. Parsons is a 78-acre island less than a mile offshore that is privately owned by the Corckran family, which uses it as a family retreat. With the Corckrans’ permission, Lowery and colleagues began to visit regularly. The bluff layers preserved a remarkably intact geologic timeline going back more than 40,000 years. Then, one morning in August 2013, the team discovered a leaf-shaped prehistoric stone tool jutting out of this crumbling wall. They knew from the work they’d already done that it was probably quite old. Story continues below advertisement
On a recent visit to the island, geoarchaeologist Daniel Wagner demonstrated why. He stepped back to scan the cliff, then tapped a narrow spade into a light tan sediment layer just above his head. That, he said, is the geologic “chapter” where they’d expect to find Clovis artifacts. Lower layers were set down before Clovis. The palm-size tool Lowery and his colleague found came out of the dark sediment layer near their knees. The scientists used two methods to date the sediment around the artifact, both showing it was more than 20,000 years old. They scoured the beach on 93 visits and conducted a formal, top-down excavation, collecting the 286 artifacts. They sent out sediment to labs that specialize in studying ancient pollen and microfossils called phytoliths to help reconstruct the ecosystem at the time. Back then, this region wouldn’t have been a coastline. The sediment the tools are embedded in dates to the “last glacial maximum” — the scientific term for the most recent coldest period of the Ice Age. In the final analysis, Lowery thinks the artifacts may have been transported downslope before they were buried, making them between 15,000 and 20,500 years old. “This was a swale, where water was collecting,” Lowery said, envisioning the ancient landscape. “You’ve got a dune. It’s got sedges and small trees on it that are windblown and all contorted, and then behind it you’ve got a little pond.” That pond may have attracted prehistoric bison, musk ox and llamas, whose fossilized molars he’s found scattered on the island shore. And it may have been what attracted the mysterious people who left behind a cache of stone tools. A story in flux
Parsons Island is seen from nearby Kent Island in the Chesapeake Bay. (Michael Robinson Chávez/The Washington Post) Parsons Island is the latest addition to a growing list of what are called pre-Clovis sites. But while the long-held “Clovis First” theory has crumbled over the past three decades, that has only deepened the debate about how much earlier the first Americans arrived. Claims of early sites present a challenge on two fronts. The first is technical: Dating a site convincingly can be difficult, depending on the context. Sediments can shift or be disturbed. What at first look like artifacts can turn out to be “geofacts,” created not by humans but by natural processes or animals. As a result, many pre-Clovis sites “enjoy a Warhol-esque 15 minutes of fame, and then they disappear” because of real problems with the geology or the methods, said archaeologist James Adovasio. In 1973, he began excavating Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania, which dated back 16,000 years. It was instantly mired in controversy, and the site still has its critics today. The second challenge reflects the culture of science. For a long time, people who claimed to find pre-Clovis sites were swimming upstream against deeply entrenched thinking. Tom Dillehay, an archaeologist at Vanderbilt University, began working on a site in southern Chile called Monte Verde in 1977, which was dated to 14,500 years ago. He recalled a group of researchers he calls the “Clovis police,” scientific gatekeepers who summarily rejected any pre-Clovis sites, sometimes for valid reasons and sometimes as a knee-jerk reaction. Monte Verde began to change that. In 1997, a group of respected archaeologists visited the site and declared it authentic. “It took about 25 to 30 years for Monte Verde to be accepted,” Dillehay said. “We went through hell.”
Holly, a German shorthaired pointer, runs across a bluff top on Parsons Island. (Michael Robinson Chávez/The Washington Post) Lowery says he isn’t interested in running that gantlet. He noted that he drew on multiple labs and methods for dating the Parsons Island artifacts in an effort to ensure that any one extremely old date isn’t a fluke. He’s also invited other researchers in to visit and study the site. That approach irritates some scientists. David Meltzer, an archaeologist at Southern Methodist University, said in an email that he would not discuss Lowery’s claims “until they go through the wringer of peer review and get published.” Others like Stuart Fiedel, an independent archaeologist based in western Massachusetts who has been skeptical of other sites, say the site should not fly under the radar just because of Lowery’s unconventional process. Story continues below advertisement
“There are people I know in the field who will not pay any attention to it, because it has not been peer-reviewed, which I think is kind of sticking your head in the sand,” Fiedel said. “It’s there. We can’t act as [if] nothing’s been found there.” Share this article Share
A bigger issue may be the site’s rapid erosion. Most of the artifacts were found after they’d fallen out of the bluff, which means their place in the geologic timeline is obscured. Nine artifacts were found in place, and only three were able to be dated using charcoal flecks found next to them. Steven Forman, a geoscientist at Baylor University, helped date the sediment layers at Parsons Island, corroborating findings from another lab. He said that it’s hard to find the artifacts in the kind of bulletproof geological context needed to support extraordinary claims. “The case is not as tight as we like to see it with other sites,” Forman said. Michael Waters, an archaeologist at Texas A&M University who has worked on pre-Clovis sites and excavated at Parsons Island, thinks he probably got there too late, when most of the artifacts had already been eroded out. Still, he pays someone to monitor the bank profile on a regular basis, because he’s ready to jump on a plane if they see something in place. “Too bad we didn’t get there four to five years sooner,” Waters said. Enter ancient DNA
An ancient bovine tooth is among the fossils found so far on Parsons Island. (Michael Robinson Chávez/The Washington Post) Parsons Island isn’t the only site that could dramatically push back human arrival in the Americas. Last fall, a study published in the journal Science described fossilized human footprints discovered at White Sands National Park in New Mexico that have been dated to between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago. That stunning finding suggests people were here during the Ice Age — much earlier than most experts thought possible if the first humans arrived via the Bering land bridge and inland corridor. The dates at White Sands are still being disputed because of questions about the methods. But the timeline collides head-on with another exciting line of evidence: studies of ancient DNA. By examining genetic material preserved in bones and teeth and comparing those samples to modern populations, scientists have been able to track when populations mingled and became isolated from one another, offering a new window into patterns of human migration. Story continues below advertisement
In broad strokes, they’ve found that the ancestors of Native Americans split from ancient Siberian populations no earlier than 23,000 years ago. The studies can’t say where such splits took place, but many scientists interpret genetic evidence to mean that the ancestors of modern people weren’t in the Americas until much later. Genetic studies suggest that Native American ancestors traveled into what is now the United States between 17,500 and 14,600 years ago. Joe Watkins, a senior consultant for Archaeological and Cultural Education Consultants in Tucson and a Choctaw tribal member, said that he sees a few problems with using the still-evolving DNA evidence to decide how ancient sites are related to modern-day people. “The reality is genetics does not equal culture,” Watkins said. He also argued that there are still too few samples of ancient DNA in the Americas to be sure they capture the whole story. “Trying to create population histories based on 10 people, if you will, is a little bit of a scientific conundrum,” Watkins said. It could be that additional ancient genomes will one day help fill in the blanks. Another possibility is that earlier sites could represent small, isolated groups of people who didn’t contribute to the ancestry of living Native Americans.
A tree-lined path leads to a beach on Parsons Island. (Michael Robinson Chávez/The Washington Post) “Let’s suppose you have a successful population colonizing an area, and then one day, 15 males go out and get eaten by a short-faced bear,” Lowery said. “You reduce the genetic diversity, and bada boom, bada bing, game over.” All this explodes the neat picture of one population migrating into the Americas as ice sheets retreated, hunting big animals like mammoths and giant sloths, driving them into extinction as they went. If there were small groups making their way into the New World, with different stone tool technologies, and far earlier than previously believed, how did they get here? People could have migrated along the coast by boat, following a “kelp highway.” It’s also possible the ice sheet was not as impenetrable as experts have long thought. Lowery’s longtime collaborator, Dennis Stanford, proposed that people crossed the Atlantic Ocean in what is known as the Solutrean Hypothesis, though that idea has been rejected by many archaeologists. To resolve the question, scientists need to keep looking for more evidence. Archaeology is a historical science, and unlike chemistry or biomedicine, where researchers can perform the same experiment over and over again to see if they get the same results, consensus is built by argument, counterargument and new evidence. To a certain extent, older ideas and prejudices also fall away as new people enter the field, said James Feathers, who performed dating on samples from Parsons Island before he retired from the University of Washington. “Sometimes you have to wait for people to die off,” Feathers said.
Alex Corckran, whose family owns Parsons Island, stands on a beach on the southern side of the island. (Michael Robinson Chávez/The Washington Post) Lowery is determined to keep motoring around the Chesapeake, researching the ephemeral landscape that he loves and that may contain clues about human prehistory. He acknowledges that the sites, perhaps a little bit like him, are “persnickety” but that shouldn’t deter interest in them. Instead, it should spur more. He noted that if a pod of silverfish was found gnawing on documents in the National Archives, people would be galvanized to act. “I view it as my swan song,” Lowery said, “to say you can learn a lot from [an] eroding site if you do a little bit of effort and look at it systematically.”
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[You can see my first post in my profile]
Hello all, it’s been about a year since I informed you of what’s going on in my family, thank you all for the support, and to those who are against me, congratulations, you attacked someone on Reddit, happy? You literally did nothing to my spirit or opinions on this matter, so now you just look stupid. First of all, I’d like to clear some things up before I begin. 1. I DID NOT show the explicit pictures of my wife or her lover to my children (which I said in my first post, but people seemed to ignore it). I only showed them the screenshots of her flirting with her coworker, and the messages were not sexual, it was only her saying things like “I love you” and “my husband is so stupid for not noticing”. 2. The reason I rushed to tell my children so quickly is because I know my wife. And she would 110% try to shift the story so that they think I cheated on her, hence why I also took screenshots. I was worried she had already gotten to my daughters before she left for work, but fortunately she must have forgot in her haste and panic. She also tried to convince our friends and family that I was the one who cheated, but the screenshots saved me from that. Now the only people that are on her side, are her two best friends, and the coworker she cheated with. 3. While I didn’t say this before, I’ve tried very hard not to make my daughters hate my wife. While I personally hate her, and am completely over her. I still want my daughters to have their mother in their lives, and they have warmed up to her again quite a bit. 4. The reason I let my wife take my daughters is because I needed some time alone. And while I hate her with a passion now, I know the kids are safe with her, as she loves them more than life. Now, onto the update.
My lawyer served her the papers and she immediately broke down crying and called me over 100 times. Asking if I was serious and that she’s so sorry, and not to do this to her, not to do this to our family. Apparently she thought she still had a chance to get back together with me, are you kidding me? So I told her that it’s completely over, and what she did was unforgivable, and I hung up on her. She then tried to call me almost every hour on the dot, and I’ve ignored every single one. I have gone over to see my daughters whenever I could, but refused to go to her parents house when she was there. Luckily, her parents are on my side, and the only reason she hasn’t been thrown out is because she’s their daughter, and they still love her. I’ve signed my daughters up for joint therapy so they can talk to somebody about this if they need to. (thank you to all who suggested it) Everyone in my family and hers is shocked at how fast I got over her, but it’s natural for me. It’s just the way I think, I hate her, but I figure, if she didn’t love me, I shouldn’t love her. I may have gotten over her, but I’m still upset about my situation, my life is falling apart, but I have people on my side, and it softens the fall. My brother has invited me to go drinking with him and his friends, and I’ve had a great night every time. I even got drunk and slept with one of his friends, Kayla. Afterward, she asked me on a date, but I told her I’m not quite ready for that yet, she understood and we had breakfast together. I honestly really like her, and I feel that in the long run, she would be a good partner and a good stepmother to my daughters. But I’m not sure anyone is ready for that yet, so I’m holding off, but at some point, I’d like them to meet Kayla. My in-laws keep trying to tell me about how my wife is doing, and I keep telling them I don’t want to hear about her. They do get disappointed, because they’ve always really liked me, and probably don’t want our marriage to end. My brother has also come by to see me more often, sometimes Kayla and his friends come with him, I won’t lie, I enjoy the company. As for my job, I’m the owner of my own local cleaning company. While I have a lot of paperwork to do, I can do it all from home, so none of this interferes with my work schedule. I’ve spoiled my daughters rotten since then, every time I came over, I brought them some candy or a new toy. Not to try and keep them on my side, but because it’s a rough time for them, and they deserve it. As a whole, I thought my marriage ending would be the worst experience of my life, but the truth is, I’ve never felt better. I met a great woman, I still get to see my kids and have them in my life, and my ex is still in shambles because of this. I hate to admit it, but I would love to see how she’s dealing with this. I’ll update you all again when there’s more to talk about, sorry about that, this is just more of a rant about how much better my life is now instead of an update on my family. But for now, me and my daughters are happy, and until the next time I update you, I hope it stays this way.

i've always been someone who doesn't like to share too much of myself online, but right now i just don't know where else to go to.
a week ago, my bf and i were on a date n we were just leaving the cafe when in the car; i get a dm from this girl i just met last sunday. (we had a nice conversation and exchange socials).
she says "no wonder you look familiar." i say "oh? where would you know me from?" i'm still confused and she proceeds to tell me that she must be confused or someone else is using my photos on bumble. she sends me a profile of a girl on bumble, it's all my pictures but with a different name. obviously i show my boyfriend and i even crack a few jokes about it. i screenshot the profile and sent it over to my group chat of me and my girlfriends and they also laugh about it. we all didn't know the extent of it.
boyfriend even plays investigator and manages to find the instagram user of the catfish. (he's so good at investigator he managed to find it with just the name as his only clue)
and the profile picture is me. he screenshots it and sends it to me. we just laugh cause it's ridiculous.
i share it across to my friends and we laugh about it. one of my friend even tries to follow the account so we can see who it could be. my boyfriend does that too.
i also notice that the pictures in the profile photo of her chat on bumble and of the instagram are pictures that i never posted on my main feed. could it be from my instagram stories before? i scroll through my story archive and even my private account. i don't see any of the photos. bf is also trying to help me figure it out.
the girl then asks me to what extent i would like i know of their conversations and i say she can tell me as much as she's comfortable with.
she tells me they've sexted and exchanged nudes. and she asks me if i want to see them. before i can make a decision bf cuts in and he's like "no don't, think u will be too upset if you saw them"
i'm like okay. something deep down tells me to just ask, because if she sends them at least i can try and figure out who this person is.
she sends the photos and my bf snatchs the phone away from me. he's trying to delete them but i grab the phone in time. as soon as i see the photos i want to throw up. because they were not what i was expecting to see. i thought it would be someone else's body, cropped head. typical catfish sext stuff.
but no it's me in my old apartment naked. both photos are photos that were secretly taken of me me i had no ideas my photos were being taken.
i run out of the car. my bf runs after me and he's asking me what's wrong. i have a bad feeling about all of this. i trust my bf with all my heart and he's a really good guy, but these pictures were taken in my old apartment where only he and one other friend has been at. started putting two and two together and realized that the pictures that were used in the profile icon of the chat in bumble and instagram were also pictures that i've only sent to him.
i call the group chat immediately and im hysterical. my friend is saying she's coming over immediately they're asking me if my bf is around me and if he can hold me and comfort me while we wait for friend to come. i can't breathe and i can barely get a few words out because im in full on panic mode. i finally managed to scream for him to get away from me and tell my friends i don't trust him.
he's begging me, telling me that's crazy babe what's going on. i tell him to give me his phone and he gives it to me willingly. i start going through it and he's like wait babe and trying to come closer so he can hover over me while i search through his phone.
i start running into the bathroom and i start to go through his phone. i can't find anything, and i confront him. i ask him "is it you?" he looks at me and i almost feel ridiculous bc he says "no?!"
i start to run away because he's trying to grab his phone from me. as im running im going through all the apps. go on the app store and download bumble to try and see if the account logged back in is him. it's not, its a new account. thought about hidden camera rolls that perverts use with a calculator app as the icon. it's not showing any results. i type every variation of secret photo app on the app store that i can think of and none of them are downloaded.
i start going through his email. i type in bumble. last email from bumble was the beginning of 2023 (a month before we started talking) so still nothing. no evidence. i was about to give his phone back to me, and part of me even felt bad for believing that he would hurt me. he almost looks betrayed that i would think its him. he's a good guy there must be some explanation. maybe he got hacked. maybe someone took his phone and did this.
i start softening up and i allow him to come closer. but something in me said try again and something in me tells me to try again.
telegram.
so then I type in telegram on his email and there it was. i was right.
a verification email with a girls name that i've never seen before.
so i download the telegram app straightaway and by this time he's starting to look worried. i request verification at the login page and put in the code and that's when he started to snatch the phone away from me.
im in and i see it. i scream. there are so many chats.
he goes full force into taking the phone now and i won't let him. i'm in the front seat and i pull my hand away to the backseat to move the phone away from his reach and he trying to grab it. he's pinning his body on me trying to reach the phone and i just won't let go bc i knew that if he deleted everything i would never know the truth.
i didn't know if i was strong enough to let him go without the evidence in my face. i genuinely don't think that i would have broken up with him bc of how much i trusted him and he would have come up with something so believable because he knew me that well. and i truly deep down believed that he was a good guy.
here's how i know he would have been like: how can u think that about me? have i not shown you enough that im a good guy? do you really think im like these other guys babe :( babeeee it hurts that u thought that i was capable of something like that. do u not trust me?
so he's on top of me trying to grab the. and i start screaming on top of my lungs. high pitch rollercoaster screams. and it doesn't stop him.
by some miracle my friend reaches the location as this is happening and as soon as she sees she runs out of her grab and tries to pull him away. she says later to me that it was scary. and she's never seen him like that. he was full force focused on the just the phone and he didn't care that he was hurting me.
this was a guy that, when we were play fighting and i so much as made a tiny noise, he would back off and apologize. and here he was, i was screaming on top of my lungs and he wouldn't stop.
my friend cannot stop him but bc of his strength and he manages to grab the phone but i don't let go. he's trying to pull me away from the phone but bc i won't let go i get dragged out of the car and on the road .
he starts begging and i start begging too he's like "please let us go through it together and i can hold the phone to show u what is in it" and i'm like "no let me hold the phone bc this is the only way i can feel in control please"
eventually i give up and agree and again, the universe had my back bc his phone dies. so he has no choice but to give my friend the phone to bring it to a cafe nearby to charge.
he asked if he could talk to me in the car and i say okay. he confesses to me that he did do stuff on telegram and that it was a kink, a fantasy for him.
the police then show up, and it turns out that through all that chaos, my friend was still on the line. and when she heard the screaming, she called the police.
we're at the police station all night long and i find out that he's been using my pictures and catfishing as me to over 40 chats. there about 900+ chats in total but he only responded to a few. and all for his fantasy.
that the girl that he was pretending to be (me) had a bf and i was cheating on him with every one of these men. and the men in these chats, they were also cheating on their wives/ partners with (me).
i just don't understand how this happened. i don't get it. i know every girl is going to say this about our relationship but my relationship was perfect. sure we had our fights here and there but we genuinely loved each other so much. he's the first guy i brought home to meet my parents. he was always so attentive, and caring and loving. and he made me feel seen. he always tried his best to make me the happiest. and none of that ever felt ingenuine to me.
he was a feminist, super woke guy. everyone around him knew him as a good guy. the nice reliable guy. he has good guy friends, a ton of girlfriends who treat him as a brother. good relationship with his sister and mum. always stood up for the right thing.
everyone is in shock. they all cannot believe it's him. my friends and family they couldn't sleep the first few nights it happened too bc they also can't believe it.
i have good people around me, more than what most people would have, but somehow i've never felt more alone than i do right now. everyone has been so kind and supportive. i genuinely am SO loved. they check in on me every other day, they try and keep me company but i don't know what to do.
i feel like a dark cloud bringing all this negative energy with me. i used to be able be alone with myself and i was so comfortable with that, but after everything that's happened, im just so disgusted with myself. how needy and vulnerable i am and how i can't just be by myself and i've just become desperate to get just a sliver of attention and validation from anyone who will give it to me. everywhere i am, i just feel like im taking up space, so i tell everyone im fine and ill just go home and be by myself because that's supposed to be my safe space but that is also the same place he violated me. in my own home. in my own bed.
everyone's life is going on as per usual. but i'm still here. i'm just here. waiting. waiting on the next task on the list, on the next thing i have to do to clean up this mess, waiting on the next text or the next phone call.
i'm doing everything myself. i'm like a self cleaning robot: i met up with lawyers myself for advice, i dealt with the police after myself, met up with his mum myself, arranged for therapy myself. i still dress up to go to work everyday and act my like my whole world didn't just implode a week ago. i know i can survive this but it's just so incredibly painful.
before all of this i was the luckiest girl in the world. i had everything i wanted. i have amazing friends, family, starting a new job that i've been aiming for for years, my peers in my industry respect me and are excited to work with me. now i have to remove myself from social media (advice from the police), be a ghost. and i don't think im the same person anymore. i don't know how to make conversations anymore and in a room full of people i just feel odd.
i can't wrap my head around it. i can understand if he said did it because he hates me, but he doesn't. he says he loves me. with every fiber of his being.
i just don't understand. someone please help me understand.

The moment a lot of you have been waiting for is here!
A couple of notes before you read (or after because I would just jump into the list right away too)

1. Direct quotes from Ali herself are in italics.
2. I tried my best to keep everything in timeline order. Some people like The Come Back Kid I placed in the order where they reconnected/talked about on the pod. But I did my best to note this.
3. All this information came from the FMH podcast, the Patreon, the original FMH blog, TikTok and other podcast that feature FMH/Ali. I also crossed reference information with this sub. I got most of this done with the help of the Patreon and listening to 1.75x speed but I lost accessed to the Patreon because my subscription ended.
4. I'm open to edits! Things around the matchmaker era confused me and if anything is incorrect or if I'm missing someone, please let me know! I will note where corrections are made.
5. Some people don't have anything simply because only a name was said or I couldn't find any details about the person/date
6. And of course, please be respectful of all the sub rules!

Names on the original FMH blog

• Mr. Adorable aka The Coach
• Trouble
• Waffles
• Future Husband Brian (FHB)
• Cookie
• Peter Pan
• Ambiguous Goodbye Guy
• Bad Bitch Man

AOL chatroom Boyfriend
Mentioned on Tiktok and on the pod once
Myspace Boyfriend
Mentioned on Tiktok
Third Boyfriend
Met on eCrush.com in 2002 and this was mentioned on the Cracked Up podcast, The Dave Glaser Podcast and Tiktok
The Kiwi
Met on a 2 week Model UN type youth trip in high school when Ali was 15, never a boyfriend but she had a huge crush on him, he tried to kiss Ali and she literally ran away, didn’t talk the rest of the trip but exchanged numbers and screen names (Ali’s was FineGal13 or BeachJewel760), she made him a mixtape cd called “Ali’s really cool mix for The Kiwi” but never sent it and she still has it. In 2021, he DM’d her when she posted photos of her and her mom in France and invites her to visit him in London, she says she can’t but says they should catch up if he comes to NYC
Fourth Boyfriend
Met on OkCupid when you had to use it on the computer, this was mentioned on Tiktok
The Homecoming Date or Light Switch
First boyfriend? (she goes back and forth calling him her first bf or a situationship), a family friend, a month younger than Ali, dated in high school but went to different high schools, football player, made him ask her to her Homecoming dance over email (her words), Ali hid in the bathroom the whole Homecoming dance, 3-4 revisits of this situations as adults, saw him on Bumble a few years ago and texted him that he had a typo in his bio, “he very much wanted to be with me” and now he’s married with a kid. His mom is still “obsessed” with Ali and she listens to FMH
Random college guy
Freshman year of college, Ali doesn’t have a nickname for him/doesn’t remember his real name, met this guy through a friend, was texting him to invite him over to hot tub but her phone autocorrected to “how about some hot rubbing tonight?” but Ali didn’t noticed/didn’t correct it and he never replied, Ali had a house party and got really drunk and was all over him, he left the party early, she messaged him on MySpace 3-4 times asking why he left
The Resident
Matched on Match.com, first guy she dated in NYC after college, older than Ali, a doctor, lasted 3 months ”maybe”, he didn’t like Ali’s friends, got a card from him on her birthday and it said “Love, The Resident” and it took Ali back a little, Ali drinks black coffee because of him, he coordinated having her mom visit NYC for her birthday then he broke up with her a week later
The Ghost
Met at a bar when she was 25, turns out they matched on OkCupid and they already had a date scheduled next week, they dated for 6-8 weeks, had sleepovers, “The worst ghosting experience I’ve ever had”, he borrowed The Great Gatsby from Ali’s roommate, planned to make dinner together after a beach trip in August with her friends and never showed up, Ali is blowing up his phone and gets no reply, two weeks later she finally texts “are you alive? check yes or no” and he responds “Yes”, Ali then ask if he could return the book and gets no reply again, 5 months go by and she receives the book in the mail with the note: “Here’s the book back. Sorry. P.S. sorry about last summer. I was in a bad place. You’re a great person and your salmon is amazing”, since then she has ran into him twice on the streets and matched with him on Bumble
The Coach/Mr. Adorable
First serious boyfriend at 26/27 in 2013, matched on Match.com or met through work depending if you’re listening to the pod or reading her OG blog, clean-cut look, played volleyball, Ali invited him to a friend’s birthday party and they made out in the streets at 4am, on their second date he asked Ali if she was seeing any one and when Ali said no he ask her to be his girlfriend 3 days after their first date, dated for almost 1.5 years or almost 2 years depending on if you’re listening to the pod or the Patreon, first time saying “I love you” to a guy, “lovely guy“, never would posted Ali on his instagram until Ali said something, he “lived” with her for two weeks while he was in between apartments, tried blind folding/hair pulling during sex and she didn’t like it, by the end of their relationship Ali didn’t like sex and thought she wasn’t a very sexual person, after they broke up Ali drunk texted him at 2am and he picked her up and she spent the night and she took her things in the morning in a rolly suitcase, from her blog in 2015: “I just want to be careful I don’t end up with another Mr. Adorable situation, where I find myself dating my platonic best friend”, had drinks with him in 2016 from the blog: “Not in a romantic way (at least on my end)”, Ali still talks to him sometimes through casual instagram DMs, he’s currently (as of 2021) dating someone for 4+ years and Ali thinks they’re going to get engaged
Trouble
OG 2015 FMH blog, never mentioned on the pod, “I was immediately enamored with him”, met at a Beer Olympic party but he worked with one of Ali’s best friends (Ali was still dating The Coach at the time), lived in BK, tattoos and stubble, Ali’s best friend said he was a “fuck boy”, “he very much made me see that it was the right thing for me and The Coach to not be together”, from her blog in 2015: “he has this look in his eye like he’s constantly laughing at me – in a super sexy way”, he texted her saying he didn’t see anything romantically with her and she sent a gif of someone shrugging
Personal side note: Ali has mentioned she has cheated on someone but never disclosed who she cheated on or with. I feel like she cheated on Mr.A/The Coach with Trouble because of the timeline. Just a guess.
Waffles
Matched on Bumble, OG 2015 FMH blog, he asked Ali fuck/marry/kill breakfast foods, dated 2 months around summer time, on Fourth of July while watching fireworks he said how they had a great day and Ali replied with something along the lines with “yeah, it would be better if I could call you my boyfriend”, he said he wanted a relationship but just not with Ali and shortly afterwards they stopped seeing each other
The Buffalo
Lived in Buffalo NY, 6’5, Scorpio, met in 2015 at Adults National volleyball (Ali’s team won that year) where he was heckling her while she was playing, asks Ali’s mom for her number and Ali’s mom said “I guess you’re tall enough” and told him to ask her himself, he flew her out and she met his parents, dated over summer, exclusive but never boyfriend/girlfriend (but called him her LD boyfriend on TikTok), texted and talked on the phone a lot, Ali’s best friend’s favorite ex “they had really good banter”, in October he invited her to his cousins wedding and she invited him to her friends wedding, after Ali bought her ticket to his cousins wedding (with the promise he would buy her ticket to her friend’s wedding) he ghosted and stonewalled her, she “poured her heart out to him on voicemail” and he never replied, she asked him to pay her back for her ticket and he got mad that she “made this about money”, 2 years later he told Ali that he freaked out because he really liked her and saw a future with her but knew she would never move to Buffalo and it would “never work”, Ali said at the time she would have considered moving for him, Ali used to have him blocked on Facebook and told all her friends not to update her on info about him (unless she asked). He’s now married and goes to Disney with his wife (which Ali kind of scoffs at?), Ali said on TikTok that she dodged a bullet
Baby Bic
Met him at Adults National years ago, had a flirtationship with him in 2016 when he was 19 years old, ran into him at the Adults Nationals 2021, last texts she got from him were about getting his fake ID taken away at the bar and him visiting her in NYC but Ali didn’t want to buy him beer and drink at her apartment
The Chef
Matched on Tinder around 2016, he loved karaoke, “total shit”, asked Ali to be his girlfriend and to meet his mom after a month, off and on dating, broke up the first time because he was talking to his ex, lied and flew to Mexico to see his ex while dating Ali, that ex sent Ali a Snapchat of them in bed together on that Mexico trip, Ali broke up with him via text and called him a shitty boyfriend, he’s the reason Ali deleted her Snapchat because of drunk Snaps he would send post break up, FB messaged Ali 6 years later (while Roark was visiting/staying with Ali) and said sorry for being a shit head. Ali’s best friends hated him
The Dentist
Met on Halloween in the wild, Canadian, dated NYE 2016- May 2017 “nice guy, not my guy”, one of Ali’s best friend’s favorite ex “he adored you, “he was too sweet for me” and “he had no edge to him”, he painted Ali’s cat for her 30th birthday but she was annoyed it was just Rory and not both cats, The Chef texted Ali while on a date/sleeping at his house
ASV - Aspiring Sober Vegan
Met through a friend (her best guy friend’s college roommate) the day before she had to fly out to her dad’s memorial, a doctor, into meditation, remembered him “being cuter” when they went on a first date, felt “the spark”, had “omg this is awesome sex”, Ali described this relationship as a “slow burn” and “the most attracted she ever been to a partner” even thought she didn’t think he was that cute in the beginning, dated 2-3 months before he tried to ghost Ali but they talked and broke up, four months later they start casually dating/FWB because he’s moving but this turns into a ‘middle distance relationship’ and he moves to Philly, had a lot of communication issues but didn't have a lot of fights, wants to live in Ohio and give a % of his income to charity, Ali was close to saying ‘I love you’ but didn’t, he uninvited her to meet his extended family and they got in a fight, broke up with her a couple weeks before their 6 month anniversary at the park while on a picnic and told her that she’s still his favorite person, Ali used to think he was “the one that got away” and would frequently have dreams about him. From what Ali knows, he's sober but not vegan
The Scientist
2017 or 2018ish, from San Diego, went on one date, Ali ended up ghosting him due to the decline in her dad’s health, saw him on Hinge while she was in San Diego for 3 months in 2020, texted him and apologized for ghosting him, ended up going on 2-3 more dates, took a selfie in front of his house and sent it to him but acted like she didn’t know that was his house and made a TikTok about it, things ended up not working but she doesn’t make it clear on who ended it. She can now see she shouldn’t have been going on dates during this time when her dad was sick.
Good on Paper Divorced Dude
Met a couple of years ago (she told this story on TikTok in 2020) on Bumble
The Groomsman
Met at her friend Ashley’s wedding in Chicago Oct 2019, had a “two night stand” with him, texted/talked/FT’d for 3-4 months, divorced, never dated seriously/FWB, saw each other a couple time when he came to NYC, Ali stopped talking with him due to FMH and her trying to find a serious relationship, he starts dating someone, follows FMH on insta, slid into her DM in 2022 and then sent her soup while she was sick, turns out he’s single again, 2 months later Ali is heading to Chicago and texts him “Hello! Reminder that my arrival to your neck of the woods is imminent” and turns out he is now seeing someone and Ali doesn’t see him while in Chicago (at least she doesn’t mention it)
Unnicknamed person
He was her plus one at her best friend from college’s NYE wedding 2019/2020, met and hung out with Ali’s mom, posted photos of them together on her personal Insta story, “fully dating but weren’t official hehe” doesn’t have a nickname/never gave him a nickname? This could be The Latvian/the person she texted her friend in DC about saying “I think I’m on a date with my husband”

Starts FMH on January 2020 on Instagram/TikTok

The Traveler
He was browsing Bumble while Ali was in the bathroom during their first date, he was banned from Bumble and was using his grandma phone number. Ali turned down a second date
The Duke
Early FMH, went for long periods of time in between texts, 7-8 Zoom dates while Ali was in San Diego and he was in NY, Ali said you could see three of his ex’s on his instagram page (without scrolling), they finally went on one date and it was “meh” but they did kiss on their date
The Oyster
Matched on Bumble (he had one photo and no bio) two weeks before Valentines Day, Gemini, a lawyer, part of the 13 First Dates in 30 Days series (he was #13), dated Feb 2020-Aug 2020, love bomber, felt “the spark” and became official after 3 dates, best first date ever??? at the time, said “I love you” to Ali after two weeks, “For most of my relationship with The Oyster, he didn’t live in the city he had moved to Connecticut without telling me”, would fight all the time, opposite political views, Ali felt like a “fucking summer camp director” because she planned all their dates and he would get upset if Ali didn't have a plan, sought out a therapist (Megan) because of her relationship struggles because of him, went to Mass/church, he wanted a traditional marriage/life/wife/kids (at one point had Ali thinking she wanted that), didn’t want to live in NYC, didn’t support BLM, Cindy hated him
The Pilot
Went on 3 dates, texted a lot, didn’t hear back from him in four days and when she said she was looking to date someone who showed more consistency, he replied saying he met someone the day after their last date who seems to have more free time than Ali and he wants to pursue that but would like to be friends, Ali said on TikTok that this other women “bent her schedule to his schedule” and she was unwilling to do that. Mostly talked about him on TikTok
The Analyst
Matched on Bumble two years ago and went on one date, re matched in 2021 and he stood Ali up, she send him a text “getting stood up” script and he never replied. Only mentioned him on TikTok (?)

Ali and Roark start FMH: The Podcast February 2021

The Boomerang
First date on the pod? I couldn't find anything else about him
The Scuba Diver
The Music Man
One date, “he didn’t do anything wrong, he’s just not for me”, amped up small talk, complimented Ali a lot which made her feel awkward cause she wasn’t feeling it, he texted her and asked for a second date and Ali sent the no ghosting script
The Bet
Uses the phrase “ok bet”, 28 years old shoe designer, only went on one dinner date to a spot he picked, turns out its cash only and he didn’t bring cash, was not into him , not looking for the same thing
The Dinosaur
Nickname was previously The Hawaiian, first date at Dinosaur BBQ, stood in a parking spot to save for Ali, he asked for a kiss after their date and Ali declined saying maybe next time
The Rose
He sent her a rose on hinge, first date was an hour long walk in the park while drinking beer
The Comic
Matched on Hinge, older than Ali (Ali’s friends express how happy they were to hear that), had brunch on their first date (was the first part of a double header but the second guy canceled), listed as “moderate” politically on Hinge, good and easy convo, went back and forth twice over text and then never heard back from him, “technically not ghosting...”
The Camper
Met in the wild at a volleyball tournament in July, lives in Chicago, 27 years old, hung out the whole time, over heard Ali asking someone to get her a make out partner, gave Ali his number, drunkly ask him for a FT date in the future and he didn’t reply, Ali texts him again about a volleyball thing and he replied back with not a lot of enthusiasm, Ali is going to Chicago in Sept for a volleyball tournament and she’s already planning on playing 4-on-4 with her best friend vs. his roommate and maybe The Camper, he texts her saying he has to work on the date of the tournament and won’t be able to do the 4-on-4 game, “I feel like I got broken up with someone I never want to date in the first place”

Ali’s Matchmaker contract starts in August 2021 - 6 matches

The Schmoozer
Went on a dinner date, was chatting up the waitress in a kind of creepy way, was bragging about a lot of things and it turned Ali off and Ali texted him her no ghosting script
The Accountant
1st matchmaker match, 31 years old, lives in BK, his dad has also passed away, easy to talk to, on the third date she wasn’t sure if she saw a future with him and in her gut doesn’t feel like this would be a slow burn, Ali breaks things off with him, months (?) later he sent Ali a 5 min long voice memo and they said they were both down to see each other as friends. He later on dated and ghosted Erica
The Aussie
Matched on Hinge, in politics, from Australia but lived all over the place, asked Ali what she’s looking for on the first date and he said he’s “casually looking for something serious”, Ali accidentally walks up to a different person on their second date, Ali texts him saying she would love to see him before he leaves on a trip and she wasn’t happy that it took him till the next day to reply and he can’t see her before he leaves
The Goalie
Was supposed to be Ali’s 2nd match, he’s a paying client, Ali didn’t hear back from him for a while when she told him where she lived, he wrote to the matchmaker saying that she lived too far away even though it states where she lives in her matchmaker profile
The Journalist
2nd matchmaker match, ended things because she was dating/pursuing things with The Discoball and paused her matchmakers matches

The Threepeat
Matched multiple times on dating apps but this recent time with Hinge, Amazon seller, first date was a pizza lunch date (with bubbles aka champagne) and he gave her a single yellow carnation, talked a lot about her “side hustles” aka her food blog, coaching, FMH and the pod (Ali didn’t mentioned the name on FMH), had an awkward half kiss during the date and then gave her a peck when they said goodbye, he had no night stands by his bed?, spent the night but told public pod they had a movie night, different kissing styles, 6 dates, broke things off with Ali two days before her first date with The Rower WHILE Ali was on a Halloween girls trip
The Rower
Dated from Halloween 2021 till early Feb 2022, Pisces who is 6 days older than Ali, has an ex-fiancé (they dated for 8 years, engaged for two of them, she broke off the engagement with him 1.5 years ago once he started dating Ali), has a shared dog with this ex, slept together around Xmas on the fourth date and Ali got a UTI, first time having “omg this is awesome sex” since ASV, first person Ali slept next to wearing an eye mask "that's a big step for me", had him watch 90 Day Fiancé, on New Years Day told her that he sees “long term relationship potential” with her but doesn’t want to be exclusive after 5 dates, “we didn’t talk all week”, he said he wasn’t as ready as he though to date someone seriously and “I don’t know why I don’t want to be in a relationship with you” they broke up over the phone, Ali said he’s a good human and wants to date someone like him, 3.5 weeks later Ali drunk texted him at 3:00 am saying “its really hard not to talk to you” which Ali said was a lie, he replied back (few days? A week later?) while Ali was on another date and it made her cry a bit, she replied back saying “the door is closed but not locked” in regards if he wants to get back together. “Fin… for now”

2022

The Discoball
Matched on Hinge but didn’t go on a first date for two week, Gemini, used to be a singer in a band, moved from DC to NYC, went on 7 dates in 2022, had a dog w/ ex and ex got full custody once he moved, met one of his friends on the second date, slept with him on the second date “morning and night”, he tried to find the podcast without knowing the name, podcasted from his house in DC, he would send Ali photos of them together “all the time”, gave a virtual presentation from his hotel room, did Molly together in DC, had him watch 90 Day Fiancé, moved to BK (didn’t see each other for 2 months pre-move), had a sex-less sleepover (a milestone for Ali), he showed up for her on her dad’s death date (something that a person she’s dating has never done), used to listen to the pod but stopped before they stopped seeing each other, ghosted her after they had a talk about moving things forward to exclusive and Ali texted him something along the lines of “your silence is the answer” when she didn’t hear back from him for a week and he ghosted her. Ali said he sucks in #77 AUA
Lisbon
The Brit
M&M
The Come Back Kid
They went on 2-3 dates in Nov 2018 and reconnected in May 2022, "felt immediately comfortable", sat next to a very drunk lady on their second 1st date and was supportive but "didn't step on Ali's toes" when the drunk lady said something offensive to Ali, couldn’t remember if they slept together or not, knows about FMH, ghosted Ali
The Trainer
The Cold Brew
The Nomad
3rd matchmaker match, reminded Ali of The Oyster, wanted kids and didn’t want to live in NYC forever, Ali was upset at first because her matchmaker was supposed to screen for that but the matchmaker DID check and it wasn’t mentioned when she was screening The Nomad, no second date because those are dealbreakers to him
The Catcher
Matched on Bumble, “good not great” after their first date, ~April 2022, talked about sports a lot on their first date
The Gentleman
4th matchmaker match, knew about Ali’s FMH socials before their date, Ali didn’t like his texting style, awkward intro on their first date “like hugging a 2 x 4”, he runs a dating event company and actually email Ali to be a guest on the pod when FMH first started, awkward goodbye, didn’t discuss the actual first date on the main pod because she doesn’t want to give him a reason to reach out again
The Tennis Pro
Ali had a good time on their date, “He is an adult, he’s mature” BUT “I don’t think he was into it”
The Padre
Matched on Bumble, 3 dates, from San Diego, “energy mismatch”, doesn’t want to know or listen to FMH, no psychical connection/kiss, only a kiss on the cheek on their last date, “I haven’t spoken to him since Friday night [a week]”, she didn’t want to do what The Threepeat did to her (break up while on vacation/traveling), she said it might be a MOO

Roark leaves and Erica joins the pod Oct 31st 2022

Captain Kirk
5th matchmaker match, found him on Bumble before their in-person date, ghosted Ali AND the matchmaker???
6th matchmaker match
Last match and Ali states she will not talk about this date or anything about it
JFK Kirk?
Matched on Bumble, didn’t realize he’s located in SD, exchanged personal instagram info, not sure where things went or how things ended

Kirk #1
Met in the wild, make out a lot the night they met, “stealing kisses throughout the night”, exchanged numbers, planned a date (no specifics, just the day) but when Ali texted him day of he asked to reschedule (no specifics again), he replied back that he’s picking up a rental car, told him she’s looking for someone to respect her time and he never replied back

2023

The Falcon
First date of 2023, matched on The League, first nickname was “League Kirk”, hard to talk to, felt like Ali was always reaching for the next topic, likes to travel, “there wasn’t a vibe”, MOO
The Roommate
Used to be her friend’s roommate and have met before (Ali doesn’t remember but it was the day after that exclusive convo with The Rower), “totally cute”, reunited at their mutual friend’s engagement party January 2023, made out at the bar, comes back to her place and sleeps over (no sex), Ali questions why her friends never set them up and its because he was taking a break from dating, first date they made out a lot at the bar (again), “I really felt like we were already a couple”, “It didn’t feel like a first date”, mentions her FMH content has popped up on his FYP, tried texting him after their date and he wasn’t giving effort, she’s glad she didn’t sleep with him because “one night stands aren’t my thing”, MOO
The Belgian
Matched on Bumble, accidentally had their first date during a trivia night at a bar, easy to talk to
The Viking
Ali forgot they had a first date on the day of said date
Tinder Man
Matched on Tinder (duh) on Valentine’s Day, first Tinder date in three years, good convo on first date but got a pushy vibe from him at the second bar they went to, put his hand up her sweater and was kissing her in the bar, made Ali uncomfortable and she told him that after he asked her on a second date
The Historian
Matched on Bumble, good conversation on the first date with a wide range of topics like “urban planning and its impact on feminism”, he’s in grad school
The Georgian
Matched on Hinge, he asked if she was free on Friday and she said yes but didn’t hear back from him in two days and in that time she made plans for Friday, rescheduled for a Saturday afternoon date at a dive bar, ate on her way to her date “it would be next level rude to eat on the subway”, good first date, talked about places he wants to take her to
The Publicist
Matched on Tinder, lives in BK, Jewish, one year younger then Ali, good first date, invited him to the Chaotic Singles Party that night, came over to Ali's apartment (which Ali said was messy) before and he made her favorite cocktail for her, a couple of listeners met him at the CSP, goofy and silly convo mixed with deep and serious convos, second date was at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and a tasting menu dinner, he made a Resy reservation and Ali got an email saying she was added to it ”fuck receiving gifts, THAT’S my love language”, he's into words like Ali, he sneezed and Ali said "God bless you" but then corrected herself and said "gesundheit" and he leaned over and kissed her and said he loves that she cares about her words, he met her friends on the third date ”It felt so easy. It felt so comfortable”, her friends took “sneaky” picture and videos of them together which Ali said she loves a sneaky pic, took all their date recap videos on his phone, cooked Ali steak on their fourth date, "it's very comfortable", had him watch 90 Day Fiancé, Ali met two of his friends and some of his teammates he plays a rec sport with, had sex the day they took a trip outside of the city, Erica met him before their trip to Greece and I said “he’s dorky in a good way”, WhatsApp video chatted while in Greece and told her “see you in two days!” at the end of their call, said she felt less anxious about him compared to other relationships while on vacation, sent him a birthday present while she was in Greece, felt an energy shift coming back from vacation and didn’t hear back from him 3 days after she came home, Ali requested a call to talk about this distances she was feeling, ”I did the 12 date rule and it didn’t work!”, she said the distance help her see that they’re not compatible, went on a total of 9 dates. Ali talks about the “break up” on episode 123
Mr. Chaotic
Matched on Tinder but he saw Ali at the Chaotic Singles Party and Cassidy the host is there mutual friend, went to a brewery and played games on their first date (Ali said this was her favorite first dates in episode 147 where they recapped 2023), works in entertainment industry, very high energy, knows about FMH and he said she's entertaining to watch, splits his time between NYC and some unknown city, texted while she was in Greece, ”The man gives good texts”
Random Matchmaker Match
Withdrew his match to Ali because he found her FMH socials. Talked about on #71 AUA
Gone with the Wind
Matchmaker match, said some gross things about women in volleyball outfits on their first date, Ali told her matchmaker about this, ”I would describe him as misogynistic overall”, Ali was glad he did say those weird things so early on so she didn’t waste her time, the matchmaker flagged his account. This was around June 2023
The Rock
Ali knows him from an activity that they used to be involved with in the city (she's very vague about what this is) from 8 years ago, he had a very serious/long term GF when they met, follows her personal Insta, has never talked about him because he’s never been a “prospect”, summer 2023 they met up to catch up and found out that he’s now recently single but he’s moving out of NYC for work, Ali texts Cindy saying she thinks this is a date, Cindy said to tell him that you really want to kiss him, he ends up telling Ali “I really want to kiss you”, made out at the bar, Ali invited him back to her apartment and they had sex the night before Ali ended things with The Publicist, “one night stand vibes” but she said she was down to do it again, Patreon only and talked about on #75 AUA
The Tourist
Matched on Hinge, just moved to Brooklynn, went to a brewery in BK for their first date, Ali showed up to the date dripping in sweat, allergic to cats, he sent Ali a ‘no ghosting’ text the next morning
The Stout
Matched on Bumble, ”we had really great banter right away”, laughed the whole time on their first date, talked about going on a second date during their first date
Speed Racer
Matched on Bumble, drinks first date, axe throwing second date, made out after their second date, MOO, randomly texted Ali ~6 months later because he said one of Ali’s date recap videos about him popped up on his FYP (Ali and Erica think this is a lie), he thought Ali wasn’t into him, he claims he was doing all the work with texting even though there was only a few messages since they exchanged numbers after their second date
Billy Joel
Recently sober, Ali said she felt like they had several inside jokes before they met in person, ate pizza on her way to their first date, second date was getting coffee and going to the museum, they cooked dinner together for their third date at Ali’s apartment and they watched 90 Day Fiancé (he didn’t like it), he Googled how to clean a red wine stain when it spilled on her countertop, he asked if she wanted to have sex and she turned it down, the next day/the day before a 7am flight Ali booty called him and they had sex, she was drunk and said the sex wasn’t good/they stopped mid way, helped Ali pack for her flight, Ali said he’s at a crossroad and he doesn’t seem like a long term fit, Erica found a condom on the ground while cat sitting, Ali said she didn’t regret hooking up with him but wishes she hadn’t done it, MOO
Sales Cycle
30 seconds in and Ali said he was very boring, only really talked about his job, stared at Ali’s boobs, “might be a MOO”, texted her ‘merry christmas’

2024

Pie Guy/Dr. Laundry
Matched on The League, 34 years old, requested a nickname change from Pie Guy to Dr. Laundry, he had to cancel their second date because he got hit by a car, went on two dates, Ali sent him a pic of his subway stop saying something along the lines of “the stop isn’t looking as cute today” and turns out someone he dated with in that photo, were supposed to go on a third date the night she got back from a bachelorette party but he didn't answer her text when she said she landed, the next day he asked her how her trip was not acknowledging her previous text at all, Ali expressed her disappointment and he replied that he was tired last night, she said she would've been understanding if he said something then ghosted her
Andddd I stopped listening to the podcast around the Dr. Pie Laundry Guy but have stayed up to date with everything via this sub.
I have a huge interest in dating culture, human behavior and data similar to Ali and this little project of mine was really interesting once I got the framework of this list. I started this list once I found this sub in December 2023 and started re listening to the Patreon while working out (and lost 10 lbs ayeee) and writing down information in my notes app. I did my best to keep this list unbiased and just give facts and information that was said.
My own thoughts after making this list is that I'm very sad for Ali. I didn't realize the extent of her dating history. I think about my own dating history or even my friends who are in their 30's and dating and Ali's dating lore runs so deep. Is Ali unlucky with love? Did she pass on someone that could have been great for her? How has she had so many dates with little success in a long term partner or even going beyond 6-8 dates? Or is Skyline the person she has been waiting for? What's the pattern with all this dates/men? So many questions.
I truly do hope Ali finds her guy because I believe theres someone for everyone. Until then, I'll be hopping into this sub (cause y'all are too funny and give the best advice) and waiting for Ali to find Mr. Height.
Enjoy and I look forward to everyone thoughts! I'll keep my eye out for any edits that need to be made.
Bonus quotes:
“Longest relationship was a little under a year and a half. Haven’t made it past 6 months with anyone else” - AUA #7 11/27/21
“I spent the first 10+ years of my dating life being sort of perennially single” -1. The Actual First One episode 2/21/21
"I think my parent's story is the reason why I think that I can romantically get back together with an ex and it'll work out" -The Dave Glaser Podcast 4/5/21
“Almost every relationship I’ve ever been in, with a couple of exceptions, started as a situationship.” -21. The Undefined One 7/11/21
“All of my boyfriends have been white” -Ali’s BFF Special on Patreon 4/23/22
“You definitely need an older guy” -Cindy on Ali’s BFF Special on Patreon 4/23/22
“I’ve been on the dating apps since high school. Dating websites at the time” -Ali’s BFF Special on Patreon 4/23/22
“Who would be the perfect man for Ali?”
“Clearly a combination of the The Dentist and [the early stages of] The Buffalo” -Cindy on Ali’s BFF Special on Patreon 4/23/22
“Do you consider The Rower or Disco ball to have been situationships?”
“No, I don't consider either The Rower or The Disco Ball to be situationships” -question asked on TikTok 11/9/22

Before going into it, I want to mention how this post was inspired by three things. One was user u/HastyvonFuego2 and their post on going down the rabbit hole on the Kendrick sub last week. It was also inspired by Childish Gambino’s first album release in nearly 6 years where I have been sitting on this idea for a while but he inspired me to finally post this week like he did (never posted on Reddit at all before so be gentle if I am not doing it right)! I was also inspired by an interview Bino gave to GQ about breaking down his most iconic characters. In this interview he says how This is America started out as a Drake diss but then he realized the song was too hard for just Drake so he kept working on it. He also talks in this interview about how all culture is about compression. Which means that yes, This is America is about the gun violence and police issues in America, but compressed in this video is also more about where that culture comes from which he shows is from a small handful of rap moguls, namely Drake, Diddy and Jay-Z (bear with me on this long post, I think/hope it will be worth it). At the end I talk briefly about how Little Foot Big Foot might be in this same vein of cultural compression.
[Intro: Choir]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, go, go away
The beginning of this song has no background music yet, which really gives it an ‘in the beginning’ feel. Then Gambino starts doing his dances with weird facial expressions. I will explain as we go through his video how those expressions and dance moves represent different famous rap moguls. One easy look to pick out right away is Jay-Z’s famous lip curl/growl look that Gambino gives with a head nod repeatedly. The colonial pants have been a hot topic, but since it’s only the pants that are colonial, Gambino is saying the bottom or basis for this violent culture in America is ultimately colonialism. The lyrics ‘Go Away’, are likely foreshadowing the rap moguls wanting other popular rap rivals to ‘go away’ or they will make them (aka murder them) for profit.
[Bridge: Childish Gambino & Young Thug]
We just wanna party
Party just for you
We just want the money
Money just for you (Yeah)
Usually you want money for yourself and to party for yourself, so this is a bit odd. But what Gambino is referring to is similar to these Diddy ‘freakoff parties’ we are hearing about where people who want to be famous are really partying for these rap moguls so they can get close to them. Where they suck up to them saying that they want to earn the mogul money from their songs.
I know you wanna party
Party just for free
Girl, you got me dancin' (Girl, you got me dancin')
Dance and shake the frame (Yeah)
Then this almost feels like the Diddy rebuttal where he’s like ya I know you want to party and you want to do it for free. Like Katt Williams says, “you gotta tell Diddy no”, it is never free to go to those parties. There are always consequences. When you are partying you are dancing, but shaking the frame could refer to how those boundaries/edges are being crossed, lines are blurred, etc.
Then in the video, the fellow who was playing the guitar gets shot and things turn dark from happy music. I believe that this guitar tune is meant to represent 2Pac and Nas’s song Thugz Mansion. It’s one of the original greats from ‘in the beginning’. Nas famously has always had major issues with Jay-Z too (More on why 2Pac and Nas later). It also represents how it was these moguls who murdered 2Pac like Jaguar Wright and Katt Williams keep saying. Where these murders only lead to more money and fame for the killers when the dead artists’ and their music are exploited more easily.
Also note that the gun gets taken away by a school kid after the shooting, more on this later as well.
[Verse 1: Childish Gambino, Young Thug, Blocboy JB & 21 Savage]
This is America (Skrrt, skrrt, woo)
Don't catch you slippin' now (Ayy)
Look how I'm livin' now
Police be trippin' now (Woo)
Yeah, this is America (Woo, ayy)
Guns in my area (Word, my area)
There is a song called Guns in My Area by Lil Weiner and Baby Chapox that paints a vivid picture of the everyday struggles and conflicts faced by those living in communities affected by gun violence. More compression of other songs and the American gun culture.
I got the strap (Ayy, ayy)
I gotta carry 'em
I am almost certain this line is referring to 2Pac’s song Changes. Throughout This is America, Gambino takes lines from Pac’s song: “They get jealous when they see you with your mobile phone” (referred to later in this a Celly, that’s tool) “That's the sound of my tool, you say it ain't cool, My mama didn't raise no fool”
“And as long as I stay black, I gotta stay strapped, And I never get to lay back” It seems like Gambino broke up these lyrics and scattered them throughout his song. This plays into the theme that everyone is using 2Pac and enriching themselves off of his image and music. I show below how this particular section of the video represents Diddy meaning that Diddy himself is exploiting his music (and alleging that Diddy killed Pac?). We could see this exploitation play out at length with how much Diddy milked the death of Biggie like in Every Breath You Take.
Yeah, yeah, I'ma go into this (Ugh)
Yeah, yeah, this is guerilla (Woo)
Yeah, yeah, I'ma go get the bag
The song Gorilla War by $uicideboy$ and Ramirez talks about getting a bag repeatedly in the course. Also in Otis with Kanye and Jay-Z their lyrics talk about going gorilla (I talk about this song more further down), so it could be referring to this as well. It seems like Gambino is trying to pull out lyrics from all across the rap culture and embed them in his song to highlight the ‘cultural compression’.
Yeah, yeah, I'm so cold like, yeah (Yeah)
I'm so dope like, yeah (Woo)
We gon' blow like, yeah (Straight up, uh)
I think that all of the school kids in the video represent all of the rappers that are signed with these big labels. Which is interesting because they are the ones facilitating the guns for the moguls in the video. You can see that the mogul is really focused on the kids and gets agitated and directs them to follow him whenever they stray off a bit like they are his pupils, or like he owns them. Then all of a sudden the camera comes into a scene where you can see more kids shooting a rap video and all shooting money from a Supreme gun. The camera zooms out almost to show you that this is the mogul’s whole rap empire they are looking over, all of their kids in one place (this empire already includes some chaos in the background). It’s subtle but hilarious, Gambino puts fricken chickens on the ground where the kids are filming the rap video. He is directly calling all of these rappers complete chickens for playing up this lifestyle and being the cause of so much chaos rather than coming out and telling somebody what’s really going on. Trying to get their money over everything else.
[Refrain: Choir & Childish Gambino]
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, tell somebody
You go tell somebody
Grandma told me
Get your money, Black man (Get your— Black man)
This is where things start to get interesting. Gambino is literally saying, go tell somebody about this! We all know what’s happening, why don’t you go let people know how bad it is? But like Jaguar Wright said, who do you tell when these moguls have the cops and feds paid off? This video is literally Gambino putting it all out there in this extremely popular song for everyone to see but yet we still just see the dancing and the violent chaos of people and police in the streets and not the root cause that is hidden in plain sight.
The vast majority of those who reviewed this video until now think this scene represents the tragic church shooting in Charleston in 2015. I think it does, but we also have to look at this from an angle of compression.
The people in the choir are all of the people who are currently singing the rap mogul’s praises and who are focused on going and getting what’s owed to them, get their money (who are also profiting off of the dead fellows music since it goes back to the original tune). You can see that each choir member has a distinct look to them. Think about who you are hearing about now who is about to be implicated in these freak offs and evil deeds. Is that Will Smith in the back left corner!? The short bald fellow in the front left maybe Kevin Hart? Rick Ross or TD Jakes maybe the bigger guy towards the back right? When the camera zooms in on the choir right at first to show their faces, doesn’t the guy in the bottom middle look like an uncanny version of Jordan Peele? Or is that meant to be Cuba Gooding Jr? Then just like the guitar fellow at the beginning, bang. You may be singing Diddy’s praises now, but he will cut you down whenever he suddenly feels like it.
I think almost for sure this initial section of the music video is Gambino acting as Diddy, because right after he shoots the choir, he does the elbow pump/chicken dance. At 3:14 in Diddy’s video for P.E. 2000 he does the chicken dance (he is up first in the video and I think Gambino is trying to say here I first present to you the first public enemy of 3 in this song). That elbow dance signals that it was Diddy and this is the end of his section.
[Chorus: Childish Gambino, Young Thug, Slim Jxmmi & Quavo]
This is America (Woo, ayy)
Don't catch you slippin' now (Woo, woo, don't catch you slippin' now)
Don't catch you slippin' now (Ayy, woah)
Look what I'm whippin' now (Slime!)
There have been many accounts of celebrities being given fancy cars after suffering abuse at the hands of these moguls. So these lyrics are saying that you better not slip up and tell people what’s really going on. And if you don’t look at this sweet carecord deal/movie contract I am going to give you. Beiber told this story about Diddy wanting to give him a luxury car.
Now suddenly, the dance switches from the chicken dance to a sudden bicep flex to signal us that we have now moved on from Gambino representing Diddy to our next mogul.
[Verse 2: Childish Gambino, Quavo, Young Thug, 21 Savage & BlocBoy JB]
This next chunk of the video is all about Jay-Z. I think this is the case because he throws his arms up in a bicep flex just like Jay does in the Otis music video at 2:38. And it makes sense Gambino would pick a dance move from a video with a huge American flag in the background to fit the ‘This is America’ theme. Gambino is mocking him saying, who are you really, the pretty guy or this hard gangster like Gambino shows in his dancing. Also right before they pan to the kids on the balcony, Bino also does Jay-Z’s signature lip curl look a couple times so we know it’s him and to signal the end of his section.
Look how I'm geekin' out (Hey)
I'm so fitted (I'm so fitted, woo)
Jay-Z is famous for making the fitted Yankees cap famous, it’s his signature look. More signs this verse is about Jay.
I'm on Gucci (I'm on Gucci)
Jay-Z has been seen in full wallpaper Gucci sweat suits but could also be referring to Gucci Mane who he hung out with at Beyonce’s tour around the time this song was released.
I'm so pretty (Yeah, yeah, woo)
I'm gon' get it (Ayy, I'm gon' get it)
Watch me move (Blaow)
These lines are probably referring to Jay-Z having a hidden preference for men, especially with the way Gambino flicks his wrist in the video when he says I’m so pretty.
This a celly (Ha)
That's a tool (Yeah)
On my Kodak (Woo) Black
I think that “this a celly, that’s a tool” harkens back to 2Pac’s lyrics in Changes where he sings, “They get jealous when they see ya with your mobile phone” then shortly after that he sings about the sound of his tool, referring to shooting a gun. But Childish flips these lyrics on their head. He is saying that it’s really the phone that’s a tool to be using, not a gun. And pans up and shows (the school kids specifically) on the balcony filming everything going on below. He’s telling the kids/other rappers, use your phone as a tool, you can record these bad deeds when you get blackmailed into being at the freak off. That’s how you can kill them and their career, not with a gun. Go tell somebody! There is also the reference to Kodak which plays into the picture taking theme, but also because Kodak Black has been accused of assaulting a teenage girl in a hotel room. So we have a good idea of what Gambino suggests all the kids start filming and collecting evidence of.
Ooh, know that (Yeah, know that, hold on)
Get it (Woo, get it, get it)
Ooh, work it (21)
Now we are onto Drake’s part. In the video Gambino starts doing the BlocBoy JB dance called Shoot. Drake is known for doing these little viral dance moves like in Hotline Bling. But not only that, this dance is also used in the song that both BlocBoy JB and Drake collaborate on for their video Look Alive. It starts at 2:07 in the Look Alive video. So this is Drake’s dance to signal his part is now starting.
Note this is where the pale horse rides by also potentially saying that Drake is one of the horsemen of the apocalypse. Interestingly, Drake’s collab with BlocBoy JB was pretty much the apocalypse for BlocBoy’s career, who hasn’t had a hit since.
Hunnid bands, hunnid bands, hunnid bands (Hunnid bands)
Contraband, contraband, contraband (Contraband)
I got the plug in Oaxaca (Woah)
They gonna find you like "blocka" (Blaow)
Again, we know this is Drake’s section because his song 10 bands starts out by saying “10 bands, 50 bands, 100 bands” almost identical to Bino’s lyrics here. Also Blocka was famously used by Biggie in his song Gimme the Loot which could be referring to Biggie's demise like Pac’s and making money from his death. Everything in this industry originates from pushing drugs, which has been alleged through the trafficking that Diddy, Jay-Z and Drake do through their private jets likely connected to their bosses, the Clive Davises and Lucian Grainges of the world. This escalates rap beefs and the whole culture to the next level where murder is often a consequence for young rappers in their prime when international drug lord money is involved.
An interesting point is this is the only time where Childish was about to shoot someone in the video, but where he didn’t have a school kid either handing him the gun or taking it away carefully from him. (Maybe also a diss at Drake that even though he acts hard he doesn’t shoot, he gets his horseman of the apocalypse to do his dirty deeds for him instead perhaps?). This is the beginning of the end for the rap mogul as he no longer has his kids doing his bidding for him. A simple message to show how the violence can be stopped, that these shootings can end when the kids stop enabling them. So then as soon as he can’t react in that moment and shoot someone his anger is forced to chill out, as shown by smoking a J, and to go back to exploiting the dead man’s music instead. If you don’t put a gun in someone’s hand when they are heated, those feelings too shall pass - kinda feel.
[Refrain: Choir, Childish Gambino, & Young Thug]
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, tell somebody
America, I just checked my following list, and
You mothafuckas owe me
Whose voice does that sound like!? It sounds a lot like Diddy to me, public enemy #1. This is basically saying that the moguls are the ones who we all owe it to for all of this glorified gun violence in America. That we owe them way more follows and likes for what a massive influence they have had on the violence and chaos we see in America today.
Grandma told me
Get your money, Black man (Black man)
(1, 2, 3—get down)
In Moneybagg Yo’s song 1, 2, 3, he also has a line that says “1, 2, 3, let’s go!” in a similar vein.
But something interesting I came across was Nas’s song Get Down where they use a sample from James Brown's “The Boss” that sounds extremely similar to the way Gambino screams “Get Down!” Which would fit well if the guitar singer from the beginning is meant to be Nas and Pac doing Thugz Mansion.
Also make sure you check out Nas’s song Get Down so that you can hear how much Jay-Z outright copied this song for The Story of OJ. From the musical structure with the piano and interwoven samples right down to the theme reiterated by the sample at the end of Nas’s song: “If that’s how our people are gonna get down, how are we ever gonna get up?”
SZA
Finally to wrap up the video, I have been stumped for a long time as to why SZA is randomly at the end of this video sitting on one of the cars. But I think I finally know why and it reconfirms that this last scene is all about Drake. If you watch Drake’s music video for Worst Behavior (not very Canadian of him to spell behaviour that way I might add) you will see Drake rapping and dancing with a few cars surrounding him and one of those cars has other rappers making cameos in it. In Gambino’s video SZA represents that car with a famous cameo. I think this is further confirmed when the black edges of the video start closing inwards at the end of This is America, the exact same way that Worst Behavior ends. So why SZA as the cameo then? Cause it reminds people that Drake is a p*do.
This is from an article in the Rolling Stone: In 2020, Drake revealed publicly that he and SZA had dated over a decade ago, well before she was an established artist (her earliest music goes back to around 2012; her critical breakthrough, Ctrl, came in 2017). On 21 Savage’s “Mr. Right Now,” Drake rapped about a newer fling who was a fan of SZA’s: “Yeah, said she wanna fuck to some SZA, wait / ‘Cause I used to date SZA back in ’08 / If you cool with it, baby, she can still play.” A few days later, SZA responded, corroborating Drake’s claim with a slight correction: they dated in 2009, when both would have been over 18. Since SZA would not have turned 18 until late 2008, she wanted to set the record straight. “in this case a year of poetic rap license mattered 🥴lol I think he jus innocently rhymed 08 w wait [sic],” she tweeted. “I just didn’t want anybody thinking anything underage or creepy was happening . Completely innocent . Lifetimes ago . [sic]”
If you have to specifically say something isn’t creepy and distance yourself from it being lifetimes ago, it usually is creepy. Drake would’ve been 22 when she was 17. Metro Boomin also happens to be on the Mr. Right Now track. He is currently in trouble for resurfaced old tweets showing how Metro used to tweet disgusting things about what he wanted to do to underage girls. Interestingly, Metro Boomin is also now beefing with Drake.
Drake doing his dance on the car of the original musician’s music seems to be accusing Drake directly of stealing 2Pac’s music. Orlando Brown recently said the cryptic statement that “Drake is Pac” which likely means he stole 2Pac’s approach/style/audience after his death. Gambino did some good foreshadowing here too with the recent AI release Drake put out of 2Pac.
This dance scene also signals that the Drake section is now over.
[Outro: Young Thug]
You just a black man in this world
You just a barcode, ayy
You just a black man in this world
Drivin' expensive foreigns, ayy
You just a big dawg, yeah
I kenneled him in the backyard
No, probably ain't life to a dog
For a big dog
The outro lyrics speak to how these gatekeepers keep black men down and control them with things like being forced to wear a dress to become famous or to submit to homosexual/p*do acts.. In the video, as I mentioned above, the black edges close in on Drake’s dancing scene in This is America. But they don’t completely close and end things like they do in the Worst Behavior video. Instead, in Gambino’s video, the camera pans to show the mogul running for his life with Young Thug’s lyrics almost like a quiet echo in the background. He isn’t running from the cops though, he’s running from the kids and from the public. When I mentioned earlier that the kids not handing over the last gun before Drake’s scene signalled the beginning of the end for the moguls, this is that conclusion. Where it is showing that if all the kids come together to stop enabling and rather expose the moguls, people will be chasing these bastards down once we realize what has been going on behind the curtain. Then the song that Young Thug is singing can just be a quiet echo of the way things were in the past.
If you don’t think Gambino would be this deep and that I went too far down the rabbit hole, do a Google search on the calculations that he came up with for why he sings about loving until 3005 in his song. He seems to go real deep with his lyrics. So a big question this leaves us with is, what did Childish Gambino witness in the rap industry? His whole rap career plays out like he is trying to avoid industry norms.
Even in Sweatpants, he has lyrics like:
No hands like soccer teams and y'all fuck boys like Socrates
You niggas ain't coppin' these, niggas ain't lookin' like me (Nah)
Nah, I ain't checkin' I.D. (Nah), but I bounce 'em with no problem
Seems like he is trying to make it really clear across his catalogue of music that he isn’t a p*do but that other rappers are. Where he is saying that he doesn’t need to ID his potential partners because he can tell they are obviously too young and that’s not hard to do.
Tell 'em, Problem (Problem!)
I'm winnin', yeah, yeah, I'm winnin' (What?)...
Rich kid, asshole, paint me as a villain
So who was trying to paint him as a villain, Drake? And that’s why the diss was originally meant for him?
Don't be mad 'cause I'm doing me better than you doing you…
Better than you doing you
Fuck it, what you gon' do? (What?!)
He’s taunting the other rappers cause he knows they can’t say shit if they are creeps. He has the same sentiment in Bonfire “It’s a bonfire, turn the lights out, I’m burning everything you mother fuckers talk about.”
Childish Gambino has always refrained from talking about the meaning of This is America whenever he is asked, and I can only assume that all of this is why.
Little Foot Big Foot
Now with his new release, Little Foot Big Foot and applying cultural compression to it, it has me wondering if he is referring to Megan Thee Stallion and the Nicki beef? People like Nicki (calling Megan Big Foot) have been claiming for some time she wasn’t even shot in the foot by Tory Lanez. There were many people laughing and making fun of Megan over getting shot. Which could be an interesting story for Childish to tell to represent how crazy this violent culture has gotten that people just laugh and blame the victim now when you get shot. Also a good metaphor for things like ‘shooting yourself in the foot’ for not having a lawyer look over potentially predatory industry contracts like in the beginning of his video. That you want to get in the cool kids club so bad you overlook it. Not as sure on this one though since the song just came out and I have only heard it a few times.
One last thing that is really interesting, there have been tons of artists on podcasts like Shay Shay talking about the strings these ultra rich moguls can pull. Like buying awards or gatekeeping people from being in the industry at all. There was even a story, I think maybe it was Gene Deal who told it, that when Killer Mike won at the grammys that Jay-Z was so angry he made sure to mess up his night by getting him locked up as soon as he left the awards stage. These moguls are extremely powerful and have an incredible amount of sway in the world/industry. If you check out Gambino’s profile on Youtube, his old music videos keep getting taken down, like Bonfire for example is just gone. Fans have been having to upload the videos themselves. There is a reply to a comment, on one of the fan uploaded vids, from Gambino’s account himself when someone asks why the videos are being taken down. His account just replies “Noone knows why :(“ Seems a bit odd all things considered and like maybe he has been at the mercy of these gatekeepers for going against the system.
I am so curious to know what the rest of you think about all of this!

This is my understanding of the narrative told by EbonyPrince2k24 on his Twitter in a linear order:
EP works as security at the Mark. He is accustomed to working with high profile clients of a certain caliber - royalty, heads of state, etc.
Drake comes to the Mark with his goon squad - being shitty to staff, pushing people (even other guests,) hitting a staff member because they think he is paparazzi, etc. He makes people uncomfortable to the point staff members have resigned.
January 22, 2023 3 AM [Edited as I originally wrote the wrong date]
Two security guards at the Mark are fired [per Christopher Alvarez, for allowing him into the building from the cold when he arrived an hour before Drake]
One security guard is from Texas and likes cowboy shit
One security guard is from the Bronx and was on his way to become a Blue Collar H.E.N.R.Y. [Kevin Samuels reference]
EbonyPrince2k24 places the blame for these firings on Drake [includes a photo of someone speaking to reception while Alvarez is inside]
EP explains this is when Drake makes an enemy of him [another hotel security officer]
Indicates Drake “cursed out the service providers,” doesn't expect him to return to the Mark and is surprised when he does
July 2023
Drake returns to the Mark with his goon squad and no one liked that
Drake seemingly personally requests EP - makes him “essential,” he has to cancel vacations to stay with Drake, he has to install WhatsApp on his personal phone which he prefers not to use for business because Drake is “finicky,” he has to stand in the rain guarding Drake from paps and fanatics and protestors and he is even almost arrested when Viola and another officer come to his booth and say a protestor claim he assaulted them but he manages to allow him to bring up footage (presumably CCTV) proving his innocence, at which point no police report is filed (this is confirmed by Weintraub’s court documents)
Because of the protest, they are changing the way they monitor the young people in the hotel
July 27th 2023
In or near Caviar Kaspia EP sees something he “made promises to a 6 year old” version of himself he “would never allow to happen under [his] watch,” something that turned his stomach, and something that relates to his being a mandated child abuse reporter
When Drake leaves the hotel concluding his trip, he and his friends show a lot of concern over whether or not a “little bag” was shipped. They picked through the “big bag” and directly told EP they had what they needed and he should discard the rest.
EP follows the rules, though, and also “didn't want to hear no bullshit” [if Drake changed his mind and wanted his stuff?] so he places the big bag in lost and found under surveillance for 3 months. He indicates they reach out to Drake about the items as they would anyone else [ex. Mariska Hargitay.] He indicates the items stayed in lost and found under a camers until his director told him to clear out the lost and found.
This is where his hospitality perks kick in. That's trash now, that's public property, public property that is hella expensive, public property he wants to resell - the jewelry he found
He lists the stuff on his photos, presumably. Kendrick gets the photo one way or another and it ends up on the cover of MtG, although EP doesn't seem to be aware this will happen.
May 6 2024
EP is pulled into the cafeteria by his colleagues, who know he is the one responsible for the picture and who had the items and they share MtG with him. Seeing the video and listening to the song, he feels he has “understood [his] assignment” as “what is understood doesn't need to be said” and he “speaks the language of royalty” [King Kendrick?]
He is elated by all of this until his manager pulls him into the office and interrogates him on how he got the items as she heard about Aks saying they were stolen. He tells her the truth and gets the paperwork for the chain of custody. She tells him to get a lawyer because he could get in trouble if they claim it is stolen.
EP sends the chain of custody paperwork to his lawyer “in case he is detained” so he can pretty easily be gotten back out
May 10 2024
EP asks Drake and DJ Aks online to recant their allegations that he stole the goods because it means he cannot resell if people think he has stolen them and it damages his reputation as a security officer.
Later is surprised when it doesn't happen immediately that they just say they were mistaken and insinuates he has deeper, more damaging intel that he has given to his lawyer
ETA He has also indicated that he has sent an email to Kendrick that Drake[?] would consider "spine chilling"

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BARPOD relevance: WPATH files/surgical intervention, strange internet communities; gender identity, Body-modification (Helen Lewis’ former BMEzine interest in episode 210!), potential new kinks for Katie to tease Jesse about;
Initial warning: NSFW discussion of surgery (in medical context and self-performed)
A couple of “interesting” unrelated stories in the last week that "maybe" have some interlinking ideas (feel free to challenge my logic on this!).
Obviously starting with the "main event", in the UK a ringleader of a pay-per-view website where users could watch men “consensually” having their genitalia amongst other body parts removed (the full case reports are harrowing and not for the faint of heart) largely as a fetish practice* has been jailed for a minimum of 22 years (actually an extremely long sentence here; by contrast a high-profile acid attacker received a 6 years minimum and served just 9 but that’s another story!). Now live-streamed castrations aren't exactly my cup of tea for casual supper-time viewing (Dr Pimple Popper on YT is more my thing), but I suppose the saying “one man's meat is another man's poison” is rather apt! The ringleader himself had also had the “surgery” (done with a popular brand of kitchen knife I happen to own as the BBC had to share - mine's used strictly for culinary use) to become a eunuch or a “nullo”. The case has called to mind a few prominent legal precedents such as R v Brown 1993 (confirming once and for all that hammering nails into certain sensitive body parts for pleasure is a crime - we Brits are such prudes!) or R v Peacock 2012 (aka the “fisting trial”) and where the murky question on the legal thresholds of consent were discussed.
'Eunuch-maker' mutilator jailed for 22 years - BBC News (worryingly BBC's reporting is tamer than others!)
I found the above an interesting contrast with similarly timed news on other bodily amendment: the article on the complex case of the man with Body Integrity Disorder legally having fingers removed (shared by a fellow BARPOD member, linked below), and an article (it's Daily Mail, but is 100% legitimate) on a wave of novel reassignment surgeries for nonbinary individuals (or "bigenital" or "salmacian" genders) available in the States. I had heard of “nullo” surgery (i.e. the Ken/Barbie doll surgery) as part of the WPATH “Standards of Care 8 (Section 88 referencing Eunuch surgery), but this newer surgery offers the option of a hybrid to ultimately have both a penis and a vagina. What does shock me is how unlike with classic transgender surgeries where there is a much longer history of research into both Gender Identify Disorder and physical/psychological impact of surgery dating back to the early 20^th century (albeit much we are finding now to be low quality), with nonbinary surgery there really is…. pretty much nothing. There is barely any scientific or even social consensus on how this identity is defined (no clinical thresholds like with traditional GID), only a handful of sociology surveys – this truly is “experimental” treatment, much akin to the advent of puberty blocker use.

Looking into one of the leading surgeons in this space performing this surgery (I won't name here to avoid any pile-on and as I think this discussion is bigger than one surgeon alone) it doesn’t give much reassurance for me – obviously they have all the appropriate medical qualifications for surgery, but also a degree minor in Gender Studies. I’ll admit perhaps an unfair mental stretch on my part but it did make me wonder the extent the known capture on campuses/medical academia in general PLUS in this case the more radical/laissez faire ideas coming from Queer Theory in these sorts of "grievance studies" courses, could influence upon into the boundaries a surgeon feels comfortable pushing (is it a case of “anything to satisfy the patients whims”). My biggest hang-up here is how these surgeons have now accepted that an individual could "naturally" and "healthily" desire something that they themselves have had to invent on the operating table (not found in nature beyond maybe some intersex deformities) - it feels very far-removed from wanting the bodily appearance of a healthy member of the opposite sex (e.g. a transman wanting pecs as per a biological man).

In terms of the crossover, whilst taking place in different states (UK, Canada, USA), I can’t help but wonder how different the first-mentioned legal case would have looked had the individuals involved essentially performing somewhat similar bodily modifications to find their “true selves” had actively identified as “non-binary”, BID, or “nullo” in the trial (even if superficially as a sneaky legal defence). Would they have received lesser sentences for being higher up on the “progressive pyramid”? (I'd place good money saying yes and the guy should look sternly at his lawyers for not suggesting this tactic!) - if he did would Trans Rights Activists and the non-binary community protest fiercely on the streets for them to be pardoned? - would left-wing publications like Pink News describe the case with more sympathy (e.g. how they were "let down" by the medical system for failing to provide accessible surgeries)?
*BIG caveat with all the above: obviously for the "Eunuch-maker" this was very clearly a kink/fetish practice (whereas non-binary surgery would not necessarily have any sexual motive, and is coming from a place of compassion, even if arguably misplaced), but given the extremeness and permanence involved and seeming "contentedness" at the results for him, this for me does almost cross the line into a Body Integrity Disorder space as afterall that too can involve a paraphilia. I do think it poses questions about whether kinksters could fall into using these new legitimate medical channels, and exactly how far we should allow voluntary body modification. I'm a lefty-liberal so my gut always leans to "you have one life, do what you want with your body", however my fear with the nonbinary surgery is this could go the way of puberty blockers and trans reassignment surgery whereby it is no longer a last-resort but advocated as the first and most appropriate treatment.
Inside the bizarre rise of the 'phalgina': Cosmetic clinics are offering 'grotesque' £10,000 surgery to craft non-binary people a penis AND vagina Daily Mail Online (obviously coming from a particular bias and not the most compassionately written, but does summarise the surgeries accurately)
Also mentioned:
Quebec man has two healthy fingers amputated to relieve 'body integrity dysphoria' : BlockedAndReported (reddit.com) (Eartern_Camera_2222's post)
R v Brown - Wikipedia
R v Peacock - Wikipedia (worth it for the cheeky photo alone)
Fantastic (and bizarre) long read on the Peacock case and others and this area: One lawyer’s crusade to defend extreme pornography Law The Guardian
WPATH World Professional Association for Transgender Health

Hey everyone,
I honestly never thought I'd be posting this here, but it's finally my turn! I started the whole application process back in October 2022 and after what felt like forever, I just received the "new card is being produced" notification! I realize I’m one of the lucky ones as I did not need to wait for years and I’m so grateful for this opportunity.
This feels totally surreal, and I can hardly believe it. Wishing all of you the best and hoping you get your positive decisions soon too!
Here’s my full EB2 timeline:

• Oct 2022: Began application process
• Dec 2022: Applied for I-140
• Around April 2023: I-140 approved
• Oct 2023: Priority date to apply became current
• Oct 20, 2023: USCIS received my package
• Nov 16, 2023: Fingerprints taken
• Jan 16, 2024: Received an RFE for additional documents regarding my current employment, a submission of Supplement J (which we didn’t have or need I believe), and proof that I was the beneficiary of an approved immigrant visa petition or otherwise eligible to file for Adjustment of Status. Honestly, my law firm (Ellis Porter) handled all the details with this luckily. I just provided them with my recent pay stubs, W2s, 1040 forms, and offer letters.
• Jan 27, 2024: EAD approved
• April 2024: My PD became current for final action.
• May 13, 2024: Notification that my card is being produced

A bit about me: I'm a PhD student working on my dissertation in entertainment media, not the typical engineer or physical scientist profile. Given the workload and my field of study, I decided to invest some of my savings in a lawyer to help simplify the process. I chose Ellis Porter, which offered a refund option, and it was a great decision. I am super happy with them. They were accessible to me and my questions during the whole process.
If your case was also handled by MSC and received by October 24, 2023, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you! There's been a wave of approvals from that date recently. Here's to hoping yours is next!

Hi, everyone. I know the question can't be answered directly, I am looking for experiences of people who applied for EB1A and got approved of denied. Just got off the call with 2 different law firms and I'm incredible confused about what "sustained" means
One lawyer told me that it makes no sense for me to build up profile for EB1A, because it requires multiple years in a row full of achievements. Basically, building EB1A profile would take longer than submitting EB2 NIW and waiting for the priority date (I'm ROW, not India or China). But I'm not 100% sure I buy that. In my case, 1-2 criteria would be met with achievements across a few years, and the rest 2-3 criteria I'm aiming for would be fresh, this year's stuff
Now, the second lawyer told me this is all BS and as long as you meet the criteria, everything's fine and span of achievements doesn't matter almost at all. This firm has way way more reviews online, btw
While this is nice to hear, I can't understand why there is such a contract between the two consultations I had. What was your experience with "weaker" profiles, aka not a PhD researcher with dozens of papers and thousands of citations? Thank you