I’m visiting Nashville and plan on cycling 100 miles this Saturday starting near Shelby Bottoms. What are some good route options? Looking at the Strava heat map it seems like a popular route does our to Lebanon, TN. Any preferred routes?

[This will be a long one so im not sure if anyone will read this]
I’m 17 years old and Ive never thought id lose my dad this early. My Dad was like my best friend he was someone I could talk to about anything I relate to him a lot, he did everything he could to to be involved into his kids life. Last month around February 6th my big brother texted me saying my dad was hallucinating badly. He kept saying something like “I owe the cartel, they are going to come kill us if I dont pay them” I laughed it off and asked if he was drunk or not because he is a heavy drinker, my brother told me he wasn’t drinking because he stopped drinking saturday. I asked him when did the hallucinating start and he said it started sunday at the time my dad had a broken leg because he fell down the stairs in november. I told him to take my dad to the hospital because he may have an infection in his leg so my brother called the ambulance and my dad refused to go this was feburary 7th. At 12:00 a.m I got a phone call from my dad I answered I told him I missed him because I was at my moms house for the past week, he said he missed me too then he told me he loved me and that was all. I told him I love him too then he said thats all he wanted to tell me. I never imagined that it would be my dads last words to me. My brother had convinced him to go to the hospital that morning then the next day my brother told me he was in ICU and my heart dropped. I tried my best to be strong and I tried to encourage my siblings to stay strong. A day after he was in ICU, my mom took me to the hospital he as in so I could see him, I came thinking he would be awake but no. I walked into the room and my dad was on some sort of breathing machine and I immediately broke down as soon as I saw it I couldn’t control myself and my mom ended up taking me back home. The doctors said he had a staph infection in his leg and he got surgery and his leg was okay, but something else was wrong his one of his kidneys started failing and his blood pressure dropped down to 40. The infection had already got into his bloodstream and the doctors said they did everything they could but he would go into cardiac arrest and their goal was to try to make sure he makes it through the night. My dad fought for two more days until his heart stopped. I came as soon as I heard but I couldn’t even bring myself to cry. I hugged my dad’s dead body and I said “Thank you for everything, you fought as hard as you could. You can rest now.” Then a month later as soon as I thought I accepted it I had a dream that we were walking out of the hospital and I told him “I’m glad he made it out” and he smiled and told me I didn’t love him for real he would say that a lot jokingly. Then I woke up and I walked upstairs to his room and sat there and tears started falling out of my eyes. That dream really broke me. I ended up falling into depression then I started smoking weed a lot. I couldn’t help it I tried to stop smoking but I was only able to stop for a few days then I started again. Recently Ive been having suicidal thoughts like what if I killed myself would I be able to see my dad again. I’ve been trying my best to ignore those thoughts but they keep coming back. I know theres other people probably going through worse things than I am but I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I just want my dad back.

The door from the isolation ward buzzed, then unlocked with a loud ‘thump.’ Alice, David, and Frank looked at each other – hoping that somebody else would go through the door first. Alice looked her comrades: “Okay, I’ll be the human shield for the big, strong men.” Then pushed the door open.
It opened to a featureless corridor with another door at the far end. Above the door was a security camera and beside it, a button with a sign that said: “Ring bell for exit.” Annoyed by Alice’s comment, Frank led the trio to the far side of the corridor and pushed the button.
The door unlocked with another ‘thump’ then opened on its own. In the next room they were greeted by two rows of people in camouflage uniforms. The first row was wearing mirrored sunglasses and the second row was also wearing mirrored sunglasses. Unlike the three people in the first row, the six in the second row were also wearing black leather gloves, combat helmets, body armor – and were holding wood sticks about a yard long.
“Good morning!” The slightly older man in the first row announced. “You are now in our custody. The Marines behind me are holding ‘Riot Batons.’ In the hands of trained personnel – a riot baton produces a great deal of pain without producing serious or lasting injury. And my Marines are very well trained.”
He paused: “I trust that you are going to cooperate and follow our instructions.”
David couldn’t help analyzing the communications of the Marines. Language, uniforms, body language – all calculated for maximum intimidation value. And with clear subtext that they were not bluffing. He was impressed and thought: “I have just been threatened by professionals.”
The trio were able to deal with the guards without any harm by following the time-honored tactic of: ‘following instructions.’ They were searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and the Marines filled out a surprising number of forms. The guards were polite and professional and when David asked for some water as a test – a plastic bottle of water was promptly given to him. After a few minutes the six Marines with the riot batons silently left and the three others removed their sunglasses.

We are in a neighborhood with connected houses. We had new neighbors move in recently. They play music from 8pm to late in the morning weekdays and weekends. I really don't mind Friday and Saturdays but we get up as early as 3:30 to 5am to get ready for work and everyone in the house is working jobs that involve overseeing the safety of others ie special needs teacher lifeguard and swim instructor. The only interactions we've had so far is a small greeting to one of them when they moved in and a chat I believe with the same person who was outside when it was really loud on a Monday night. The guy I talked to seemed reasonable but from what he said "He'd talk with the clients" either he is not living there or the residents are in a special living situation and need care takers. The other thing that set me off is either they or spectrum unplugged our internet cause they needed extra speed to run a business. So far I'm not a fan of my neighbors and want some backup ideas if talking like humans or calling the cops falls through. (The sound volume may not be loud enough to be considered a noise disturbance but can be clearly heard in our bedrooms)

Where do I start..
This evening, as I went for my celebratory end of shift cigarette, I reach into my coat pocket and pull out a whole load of nothing.
We’ve got this ‘head chef in training’.. we’ll call him Mick. He seems to have it in for me, I’m the only woman in our kitchen and I’m not too sure he’s a fan of this fact. In my two years of service at the restaurant every employee has picked up on the fact that he hates me, whether through his actions or straight up things he’s said behind my back. I am professional towards him but otherwise keep my distance.
He was in the restaurant before service today, just for a meeting.
After his meeting, Mick asked me out for 5 to have a chat about last nights service and invited me to have a cig. Really really strange from him as he’s not a smoker and gets visibly pissed off when i do. My coat is on our way out to the back door, and he will of witnessed exactly where/ which pocket my pack can be found. When we went back in I had both the pack and lighter in one hand and put them in the same pocket I always do. I am 100% certain the box entered my pocket, it was practically full after buying it that morning/ precious cargo not to be misplaced.
Mick then wanders around the restaurant for about half an hour while we rush to finish the last bit of our prep, says his goodbyes, and leaves.
As mentioned, after service I reach for the pack.. it’s not there. Just the lighter. We’d searched everywhere including other peoples coats, my cigs were for sure not in the building. Heard from my colleagues that even after talking earlier in the day Mick was still livid with me for one reason or another (I’m a woman). My manager immediately thinks he’s taken them and binned them, but we searched the bins out back and they weren’t in there.. he could’ve easily just left with them though.
It’s really hard to believe that someone would do something so slimey.. but there’s absolutely no other explanation. Had I not of smoked, it could’ve been my wallet or my keys..
What do I do? I’m not even sure how to react yet, it’s been hours and I’m still fuming.
Expect edits, he’ll be confronted on my behalf tomorrow and I’m working all day with him on Saturday.

Right now it’s just my wife and I with a baby on the way in August. I work 24/48s and she’s a teacher. I’ve basically been doing two a days on my days off shift where I usually do a quick metcon and/or run in the morning and then do my strength and some conditioning in the late afternoon around the time she gets home, and been using my shift at the station as my “rest day”. Our city has an employee gym (about a 12 min drive) that only a few guys use and is perfect. I always have it to myself. I’ve been following Josh Bridges PayHim program which is sort of a CrossFit based program, with strength, metcons, and running but focuses more on your traditional compounds (squat, bench, strict press & deadlift) as strength, instead of your Olympic lifts.
When our kid is born I know my priorities and life schedule is going to change. Im going to be mr mom at home on my days off. I still want to be physically fit and in as good of shape as I am right now. I enjoy traditional lifting and running, but also getting after it for 8-20 minutes in a metcon/functional fitness and fighting the mental battle. Im having trouble trying to figure out a plan for when the time comes. I imagine for the 2 months I’m on leave, I’ll just make do at home for 30 mins a day with a 100 lb sandbag and set of 50lb dumbells. Then when I get back to shift, trying to just hit 2 major compounds on shift with an accessory and some conditioning.
What are some of y’all’s experiences and plans for fitness as fathers and firefighters.

I met one of my very first memorable customers during my first week of bartending. He came in on a Sunday at 10:30 A.M. and ordered a tall Dos Equis.
I served it to him and chatted back and forth with him a bit. His name was Zach, and he was about my age (late 20s). Sundays were his only day off work. He had walked over to my bar from the Days Inn across the street, and he was just wanting to relax and day drink.
My manager pulled me aside and informed me that, according to our state laws, one can only be served alcohol before noon on a Sunday if they order food as well.
He already had a beer in front of him, so I offered to put in a food order for him. He said "No, thanks."
I said "Well, legally, you are required to at least have food on the counter if you wish to drink before noon on a Sunday."
He begrudgingly ordered sweet potato fries which decayed on the counter over the course of the next few hours while he continued ordering drinks.
By noon, he had one tall Dos Equis, two Bloody Mary's, and zero sweet potato fries. I asked him how he was feeling, and he seemed to be holding himself pretty well still. I asked how he was getting home, and he reminded me he was staying at the hotel across the parking lot and was good to walk back. Then he ordered another Dos Equis, extra limes.
This time, I served him Dos Equis, limes, and a tall water on the rocks. It's about 12:45 by now, and I'm finally starting to get other customers around the bar. At this point, I begin paying more attention to those other customers. I am also doing my best to slow down Zack's drinking.
I asked if he was tired of looking at those fries before I finally tossed them. Then he ordered an alcoholic milkshake.
On this day, I was only scheduled to work 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 PM. He received his boozy shake and had it fully consumed within 20 minutes...if that.
I gave him more water.
I only had an hour and a half of my shift left, and although he had to be drunk by now, he wasn't being loud or obnoxious. He was just enjoying his one opportunity to day drink, and at that point, was showing no signs of departing the bar anytime soon.
I clocked out at 4:00 and went about my day, not expecting to see Zac again until the following Sunday.
I came back in for my Monday morning shift.
One of my coworkers informed me that my customer, Zak, from yesterday, had stayed until the bar closed at 10 PM.
I explained that he was just enjoying his one day off, and I suppose he enjoyed it to the max....but as the words "We won't see him again until next Sunday" escaped my mouth, motherfucking Zachary waltzes back into my bar at 10:30 A.M.
I said "I thought you were only off on Sundays."
He said "That's right, but i dont have to be there until 3:00."
Then he ordered a mimosa.
I said "Are you sure?"
He said he was taking it easy today, and it would be out of his system by the time he needed to report to work.
This time I begrudgingly served him his alcoholic breakfast.
He is an adult, right? I know it's my obligation to ensure that no customer leaves my bar who could potentially put their lives or anyone else's life in danger, but where is my line?
He drinks his mimosa, then orders another tall Dos Equis!!
Bruh, it's 11:15 A.M. What about work? "I'll be fine, he assures me."
Well, go figure, after his Dos Equis, he no longer feels "up to working" anymore. I watched Zakaria whip out his phone, call his job, and
CALL OUT SICK.
I asked why he did that.
He said "I still have vacation days I haven't even taken yet. My sick days are stacked up. I'll be ok."
You guessed it, he stayed beyond my shift, again, all the way up to last call for the night.
I really hoped I wouldn't see him again on Tuesday. I do not enjoy watching the decline of this guy's existence...but of course, Tuesday morning, 10:30 A.M. here comes Zakk wondering in like clockwork.
Before offering to make him a drink, I pour him a glass of water and tell him I will make him a drink after I finish prepping my garnishes for the day. Then, I just begin talking to him about everything far more in depth.
When I finished cutting my fruit, I offered to pour him a beer finally.
I asked him where he came from and what brought him to the hotel across the parking lot.
He told me he used to just smoke meth and shoe horses in Montana and he was bored of it. Now, he's stumbled into the best paying job he's ever had. His job offers benefits along with a 401K and all those other things adults tell us is so important.
That information changed my perspective on the situation a bit. He, by no means, came off with a "meth-head" appearance, but this certainly explained his addictive behavior.
At that point I figured "Well, I guess he's at least safer drinking beer at my bar than doing meth on the streets?"...but I still felt like shit about it. So, he drank all day Tuesday as well.
Now, it's Wednesday,
10:30 A.M. I said "Dos Equis?"
He said "No, thank you. I have literally no money. I've spent it all." He said that he had cashed out all of his vacation days and was utilizing the last of his sick days. It's how he had been able to run up those large bar tabs the past few days/nights.
He sat at my bar drinking water all day that Wednesday, and I never saw him again after Wednesday, but I can't imagine he had a happy ending..

Saturday 25th March, 10.30am, Albert Square, Auckland & Sunday 26th March 1.30pm, Civic Square, Wellington there are defences for Trans rights against a 'Penny Patero' a British Right Wing Neo Nazi Grifter. Our Labour MP's have capitulated to hate that incites murder, by letting this vile bitch in, hoping to catch a fantasy middle ground vote and use Patero to drive votes to their allied Parties in Parliament - when what we all wanted was the guts Jacinda had and no more playing games with murderous, scumbag altwhite supremacist, incel, neonazi, right wing vermin. Kia ora Jacinda for not grasping for power and potentially turning in to a Helen Clarke who fucked all Maori over with the Foreshore Pakeha theft for her dead British Queen & her race & reinvaded Tuhoe under an American War of Terror environment hoping to win racist coloniser votes. Fuck National, ACT, TPU, the colonial church cults, altwhite scum and any cunt who supports them. Lets hope decent journos dont platform them like they did those colonial canadian scum. We all know the dying talkback radio scum will. Labour needs to grow some guts and deal to these right wing terrorist networks who forced theirs & our best leader out, the right wingers already fought dirty and scored violent hits. You have the power, grow some guts. Maori Party & Greens are standing strong but we all shouldn't have to waste our time fighting the obvious. Get organised to vote & advocate for better & throw these bigots in the bin. These shitty trolls dont care about women, else they'd be in America fighting for womens rights or elsewhere, they're part of a global right wing hate movement clawing away at power through media & digital means, which needs more than local performative gestures and offloading on to others. Ian Mucks, Peter File, Fuckerberg are all getting the data and power without a fight, given a chance for a clean break everyone flocked back for attention just like they wanted and Peter File is about to fuck the NHS good. It's the plan they have for all of us. Jacinda ought to be a beginning to a more confident and articulate step up past the drama of shit throwing right wing noise and on to a wider aim.

Matangireia S2 Episode 2: Georgina Beyer RNZ

https://youtu.be/eTzsWp_n7gs
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/matangireia/story/2018791325/series-2-episode-2-georgina-beyer-matangireia

Georgina Beyer knows all about breaking barriers – becoming the first transgender MP in the world. But what is her biggest regret as a Māori MP in Parliament?
“A disaster, an absolute nightmare… it was one of the largest proposed confiscations from Māori, in modern times”.
The former Labour Party MP describes the fallout over the Foreshore and Seabed legislation to Matangireia presenter Scott Campbell.
Beyer never shies away from the painful path she took to becoming one of New Zealand’s most trailblazing politicians.
Beyer’s list of achievements are extensive – a drag queen, a sex worker, an actor, an activist, a Mayor, and a MP.
In fact, when elected in 1999, she was the world’s first transgender Member of Parliament, becoming known for her bold and colourful exterior.
But her story is one of pain, adversity, and fear – and it’s also one of courage and bravery.
Beyer was born George. Her biological father was a policeman who was sent to jail, leaving her mother to fend for herself and two young children.
Raised by her grandparents, until her mother remarried, she describes life in the Beyer household as “mildly well-off”. Her stepfather Colin was a barrister and solicitor.
From around four years old, Beyer started to secretly express her feminine side through theatre, dressing up and acting.
“If I was caught or discovered, or anything like that, it would be dealt with physical punishment, corporal punishment – beatings, hidings, things like that, to beat it out of me.”
At 16 years old, George became Georgina, but the abuse followed her from home to the streets.
As a sex worker, she was confronted daily with physical and verbal abuse from members of the public.
“It drove me to suicide… to attempt suicide on three times, in my young life,” Beyer said, “I had been pack-raped in Sydney in 1979, which was a terrifying, horrifying experience, and the law didn’t defend me.”
📷
Georgina Beyer as a child Photo: Supplied / Georgina Beyer
After working in a gay night club in Auckland, she moved from the glitzy lights of Karangahape Road to conservative back blocks of the Wairarapa.
It was in Carterton Beyer’s career in politics began.
Working as a part-time radio announcer (alongside Paul Henry, who she later beat in the 1999 General Election), she decided to run for council.
She missed out, but she tried again, and again. Eventually becoming a councillor and, in 1995, the Mayor of Carterton.
“I’m the Mayor, okay, where’s the handbook on this job?” she said, “There isn’t any, but I now was in this position and I thrived in it, absolutely thrived in it.”
Being eloquent and not afraid to speak her mind, Parliament beckoned next.
Standing for the Labour Party in 1999, Beyer won the safe blue seat of Wairarapa with a majority of 3,033 votes. She was the first transgender woman elected to office.
However, in 2004, she faced one of the toughest challenges of her life. To choose her party, or her people.
“Oh, a disaster, an absolute nightmare”.
The Government, under Helen Clark, had just announced the Foreshore and Seabed legislation, effectively removing Māori claims to ownership over beaches and waterways.
The news came as a shock to the Labour Party’s Māori caucus.
“We were all quite taken aback that an announcement had been made, with no consultation with anyone in the Māori caucus.
“At the end of day, it was one of the largest proposed confiscations from Māori in modern times”.
One by one, the Māori caucus “fell into line”. The last three to do so were Beyer, Nanaia Mahuta, and Tariana Turia.
Beyer didn’t hold a Māori constituency and felt she had no mandate from Māori to speak up strongly on their behalf like the rest of her Māori colleagues.
“I was just so torn, but actually I didn’t have to be steeped in tikanga Māori to understand that this was wrong, wrong, wrong.
“I vowed and declared from that time on that I would never be torn between who and what I am as far as my heritage is concerned, and political expediency”.
So, what did she think of the former Prime Minister Helen Clark?
“I was never very close to Helen, at all, really,” Beyer said.
"I was not within her inner, outer, or extra-outer circle, really. I was just a cannon fodder backbench MP”.
She became further isolated when she asked to abstain from the vote.
“I can almost pinpoint my beginning of the end of my political career in Parliament on that Foreshore and Seabed thing. I felt defeated and I felt impotent.”
But that wasn’t the end.
She stayed for another two years traveling to Parliaments across the world to talk on gender issues.
Reflecting on her story today, she’s proud of the road she’s taken.
“You can’t live in your victim-hood all the time, you can’t wallow in it, you gotta learn from it. Move on and change it and change what created that."
“And I hope I’ve been able to do a bit of that”.

https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/06-03-2023/georgina-beyer-still-has-a-fire-in-her-belly

In 2018, Alex Casey spoke to Georgina Beyer, the world’s first transgender mayor and MP, about her extraordinary life.
This interview contains references to sexual assault and suicide, please take care.
Sex work and politics are pretty much the same trade, according to Georgina Beyer at least. During her time as an MP, she would strut through the halls of parliament, calling her comrades to arms by asking them if they were all ready to “get out on the streets and sell their butts”. They didn’t seem to fancy that comparison very much. “Look, honey, you’re soliciting yourself either way,” she told me over the phone, chuckling. “One’s just for votes, the other for money. One advertises on billboards, the other advertises in the back pages of The Dominion Post.”
If there was anyone who could speak to the overlap of these very specific sets of skills, it’s Beyer. The world’s first transgender mayor who went on to be the world’s first elected transgender member of parliament, as well as a former sex worker, screen actress, and kidney transplant survivor, she’s lived a thousand lives to get to where she is today – right now, she is in the Wellington suburb of Kilbirnie, on the phone to me, an ex-Wairarapa kid who grew up under her groundbreaking reign back in the late 90s.
I asked her how things have changed for the LGBTQIA+ community in her lifetime. “When I started transitioning, I quickly realised that it was a cruel world for people like us. I had to go down avenues I would never have considered.” Unable to get a ‘real’ job, or any benefits outside of claiming a “psychosexual disorder” for the sickness benefit, she felt like she had no choice but to join the sex industry. “It was a brutal time, but there was a strange camaraderie in that nobody else would support us, not even our government institutions.”
One night in Sydney in 1979, Beyer was sexually assaulted by a group of men. “People asked me why I didn’t report it to the police. As if the law was going to protect me? A Māori tranny prostitute? Yeah, right.” Following the traumatic attack, Georgina found herself depressed and near suicide for months. “Once I got out the other end, it gave me a real fire in my belly. That shouldn’t have happened to me. That shouldn’t happen to anyone without being taken seriously.” She swore that she would try and change attitudes by example, which meant living a proud, public life as a trans woman.
It was the goal of visibility that drove Georgina to pursue a pre-politics acting career, including the 1985 film Jewel’s Darl, where she played a trans prostitute. “For the time, that was quite unusual, to look at people like us not as caricatures, but real people with real lives.” Although she burned all of her old belongings the night she transitioned, Georgina didn’t completely erase what she calls “the other parts of me”. “Men tend to forget that I can still access the same psyche as them. If they want to come down hard with the firm, staunch, brow-beating thing, well, I can play that game too, baby.”
Decades after her time working in the sex industry, Georgina found herself campaigning for prostitution reform in parliament. Given her own experience, she was shocked at some of the misconceptions held by the public around sex work. “They thought it was all deviants and not their husbands, their brothers, their uncles – it’s ordinary people.” As, unsurprisingly, the only former sex worker in the house, her speech to the chamber changed the minds of three MPs, passing the legislation that would decriminalise sex work. “It was the thinnest bloody margin you could have, but we got there in the end.”
So how in the flaming hell did a conservative, white, scarecrow-festival-hosting, mid-90s Wairarapa vote to become one of the wokest places in the world? “I think I was just a breath of fresh air. What people responded to was honesty, being straight up, being approachable – I would go to everything from a bloody party in a woolshed to judging sheep races out at Castle Point.” Carterton became known for something more than daffodils, and the more traditional locals slowly learned to “look beyond the end of their noses.”
When she made the decision to run for Labour in the Wairarapa in 1999, Beyer didn’t actually think she had a chance in hell of winning. She wasn’t being humble – nobody else did either. Although she had been the mayor of Carterton for five years, the Wairarapa was a National Party stronghold, and her opposing candidate was a plucky, popular radio host by the name of Paul Henry. He questioned her ability to be “serious person” because she was trans. “I thought I’d just have some fun and kick a few butts” Georgina recalled. “Bugger me! Look what happened!”
Georgina won with a 3000+ vote majority, making Paul Henry officially kicked in the butt and making her, officially, a “serious” public figure. Local attitudes had evolved, best summarised by the elderly farmer who had previously voted National all his life. “This year I’m voting for Georgina Beyer,” he was quoted in her documentary Georgie Girl, “because she’s a damn good chap.” Did she mind the misgendering? “If that was the only way a conservative 80 year-old farmer was be able to absorb and accept me, then I’m happy with that. That’s still progress.”
Although she has regrets from her eight years in parliament – her stance on foreshore and seabed was a “mistake” that marked “the beginning of the end” of her political career – Beyer stands by her contribution to the Civil Union bill and prostitution reform. “You have to remember: law is easy to change, attitudes throughout a country are not. It takes generations and role models to show the nation that we’re not the horrible, demented, crazy people they might think we are.” The work is far from done yet, with Beyer’s latest focus on applying to the Waitangi Tribunal to get Takatāpui included in the Human Rights Act.
I asked Beyer if she still encountered prejudice in her life, or the hangover of trans-exclusionary attitudes from fellow women. “People still regard the gender thing as being relatively recent in our modern history, but we’ve been around for millennia. Fa’afafine. Takatāpui. When you have words in languages to include us, that should send a message that this didn’t happen last week.” What about the TERF mindset that still lingers in some modern day feminists, that reckons trans women aren’t real women? “It’s an old, lazy argument. Don’t worry about us encroaching on your world. We’re just trying to improve our lot in this life, just like the women’s movement did for you.”
To anyone, young or old, who might currently be questioning their own gender identity, her expert advice is to access professional information as soon as possible, and to seek out like-minded groups of people in the community. “You are going to need people to give you moral support, who think the same as you and know what you are going through. Don’t be afraid, there are far too many young trans people who are dying through suicide because they feel like this world isn’t built for them anymore.” Georgina paused for a moment as her voice cracked.
“It is, baby. It is.”
Although she has now retired from the political sphere, Beyer remains inspired by young LGBTQIA+ activists continuing the fight for access to healthcare, work and education. She admits that she never thought trans and gender issues would ever be taken seriously in her lifetime, and quickly slipped back into that same, rousing cadence that made her speeches so famous in the chamber. “I have spent the better part of my life trying to make things better for this generation. My faith now lies with this younger generation to stand on my shoulders, just as I stood on the shoulders of those who went before me. I’ve done my bit to move the needle, now it’s your turn.”
As for everyone else? “They need to just shut up and let us get on with being who we are.”
Where to find support
OutLine NZ – Freephone 0800 OUTLINE (0800 688 5463)
Rainbow Youth – Phone (09)3764155
InsideOUT – Phone 027 331 4507
Gender Minorities Aotearoa

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/485407/world-s-first-openly-transgender-mayor-and-mp-georgina-beyer-has-died

July, 2020.
Ever since my colleagues and I became unwilling test subjects in my psychotic professor’s experiments into awakening the supernatural, we have had multiple people trying to hunt us down. Whether they were renowned scientists desperate for the serum for themselves or random people obsessed with cutting us open and seeing how we ticked, these assholes didn’t care that we were human beings, that we were ex researchers ourselves.
They wanted us dead or alive, in pieces, or splattered across concrete. As long as they got that precious serum dripping from our frontal lobe, they didn’t give a fuck. There were varieties of hunters. Some of them tried to play nice with their own nefarious agenda, while others were completely fucking insane. Like the ones who saw us as a mistake; a curse sent from god to end humanity as we know it.
Yeah. They thought we were the next coming of the Antichrist.
Have you ever been stripped completely naked and forced to bathe in salt water for three days without food and water?
That is when I lost my will to fight.
I still remember the sensation of flames licking at my feet, rope wrapped around my wrists pinning me to a tree. They wanted me to admit I was a monster. That I was a curse from the devil and belonged in hellfire. I’ll spend this post elaborating on what exactly our professor did to us, and the burden forced onto our backs—but I will say it saved us at points. For example, the freaks who tried to cleanse us in salt water (and then burn us under a full moon) got their comeuppance. 2020 is probably a year in your lives which didn’t feel real.
You were locked inside and you probably compared what was happening to a movie. We had a similar problem. But while you were struggling through lockdown, trying to fight a wave spreading globally, we found ourselves with bounty’s on our heads. Because we were no longer human to these bastards, and to them? Anything went. Which was bad news for our professor who had fought to keep his research as private as possible, choosing to show only a select group with shiny money bags for eyes. It turns out, no matter how much you think you’re hiding something, it will always be leaked. And people will find out.
Bad people.
The kinds of people in all of my favorite movies as a kid. You know, the evil trigger-happy British guy obsessed with finding buried treasure? Him. But tenfold. I might have felt special about the multi-billion price-tag on me, but knowing all they wanted me for was to dissect and slice me apart like meat to the slaughter—yeah. I can’t say I was thrilled to have so many people after our little group. 2020 was the year when people stopped being human. Stopped trying to be human. All morality down the drain.
Of these certain groups trying to capture us, there was a specific one which I will always remember. Seth’s gang. I’ll remember them because it was the first time I realised my colleagues and I weren’t human anymore, and maybe the freaks trying to label us as The Devil’s Children were right. There were a lot of people after us, as I said. But Seth and his gang, however, just wanted us for the sake of gloating. After hearing of our professor’s experiments, these guys decided they didn’t want the serum, or the research.
They just wanted us. For what, I still don’t know. They weren’t scientists, or in the medical field. They definitely weren’t at the auction, I would have seen them. I’m pretty sure these were just ordinary guys seeing us as nothing but trophies to parade around. I don’t think they knew the significance of the serum, or the danger of it. They saw something shiny and thought to hell with it. Which, I guess looking back, was why we were always two steps ahead despite having 9mm Glock’s shoved in our faces. The hotel room we were being held in was a step up from the cage I had been trapped inside in the lab for the last several months.
It actually had air-con.
Sitting blindfolded on the edge of a queen sized bed wearing the same clothes which were practically glued to my flesh, the graze of cool air brushing the back of my neck and relieving blistering skin was euphoric. I hadn’t had a proper shower in weeks. Maybe months.
It was the first time in a long while I actually felt human. Even when my wrists were pinned behind my back, a slab of ductape suffocating my mouth and nose. Now, I wasn’t completely sure, but I wondered if there was a duct tape shortage on the island. After being kidnapped and held in multiple places, I had never been gagged with duct tape. It was always filthy clothing fashioned into a makeshift gag, or ties and shoelaces. I will never forget some asshole stuffing a pair of panties in my mouth.
Seth’s gang were the first to actually have duct tape and proper blindfolds. I sensed the front-man’s footsteps as he paced in front of us. Despite being blindfolded, I knew he had a gun tucked into his belt, a dagger strapped to his ankle, and a grenade for emergencies. I wasn’t sure what emergencies would justify blowing up a fancy hotel room. Next to me, Riss was practically vibrating with fury. She knew not to act on her fear, because when we did, bad shit happened.
But Riss was a different breed. She didn’t listen to me when we were human, and definitely didn’t listen to me when we were freakish experiments contorted into something resembling a human. No matter how many times I nudged her with reassurance, she inched away from me like I had the plague. “Project Mildew, huh?” The front-man had one hell of an aussie accent. Without my sight, the rest of my senses were expanding, igniting.
Smell. I could smell the stink of myself, body odour and filth caked into my skin. Taste. There was copper in my throat and coating my teeth and tongue. Every step the man made, I felt it prickling in my bones. I sensed him crouching in front of Kaian, who thankfully didn’t move. I was waiting for him to. If I concentrated, I could feel the air crackling with electricity, the hairs on the back of my neck and arms standing up. Just being shoulder to shoulder with my colleague allowed me to feel exactly what he was feeling.
And like Riss, the guy was dangerously close to blowing a fuse. Kaian wasn’t stupid though. If we did something, he knew the consequences of that something. And none of us wanted that. So, staying quiet and submissive it was.
“Alex Quincy’s diamonds!” The front-man flicked me in the forehead, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut to avoid going into sensory overload. He continued in a sing-song voice, his steps becoming playful, like he was dancing. Every so often I sensed his fingers wrapping around his 9mm. Maybe he wasn’t as stupid as I initially thought. “Project Mildew.” He repeated. “You looked better on camera.”
Riss scoffed under her gag. I don’t think this asshole understood that on camera we were still human. It’s not like I was planning on going to a fashion show, but the shorts and t-shirt combo I had been wearing for weeks were comfortable.
Another step. Holding my breath, I gripped the ropes entangling my wrists and prayed they were physical enough to be an anchor.
“The testers who became the tested!” He continued. “Ohhh, man. I’ve heard about you. You’re famous here. Professor Quincy’s human lab rats! And successful ones too! You’ve got a lot of eyes on ya, ain’t cha? Too bad we gotcha first. Yeah, that’s right. We got here first.”
The guy laughed, and I felt both Riss and Kaian start to tremble. Fuck. Not now. I had to keep them at bay, even when my methods weren’t exactly stellar. I had to keep them from plunging. The rope around my wrists wasn’t too tight, and I knew I’d be able to get out of it easily. But that would require strength and energy which was for sure a trigger. There were a lot of triggers. Anger and pain. Sometimes even happiness.
It turned out basic human emotions was what this thing thrived off, so to avoid us going nuclear I had to stay stoic. No matter how much I wanted to tear off this asshole’s face, I had to keep myself together. It only took one slip up before things got really fucking brutal, really fucking fast. I wasn’t surprised my colleagues were losing control. Seth was quite the character, almost like a cartoon villain.
“Damn. I’ve been looking for guard dogs, but I think we’ve found something better, aye.” His palmy fingers wandered where they shouldn’t have, grazing over my left breast and delving under my shirt, causing my body to seize up, and then relaxing slightly when he pulled off my blindfold.
Blinking rapidly, I found myself eye-to-eye with the guy who had snatched us from the lab and thrown us into the back of his truck. I only got glimpses of him during our kidnapping, thanks to the ski-mask covering his face. Now I was looking at a man who was maybe in his early thirties with a balding head and a vicious cartoon smile twisted with mania. His eyes glinted when I found myself shuffling back, my gaze flashing to the Glock strapped to his side. Seth pulled off the other’s blindfolds.
“Now, I don’t want any funny business, alright? I watched that conference, and I know what you can do.” He stuck the barrel of his 9mm into my right temple, and next to me, Kaian ducked his head. “I’m watching you sweetheart.” Seth’s smile widened into a sickening grin. “If you start any weird shit, I’ll blow your brains out.”
I did my best to nod, and he ripped the tape off of our mouths too.
“Alright!” Seth straightened up, eyeing us like we were hunks of meat. “Nice to meet cha! I’ll be looking after you guys from now on.”
“Looking after us?” I spoke up, my voice gravelly. “You mean you’ll be cutting into us and selling our brains on the black market.”
Seth laughed like a fucking hyena. “What?” He scratched the back of his head with his gun. “Nah, that’s fucked up. We just want dogs.”
The man’s smile dampened, however, when his gaze settled on Kaian. Gesturing to my colleague with his gun, he scowled. “What’s wrong with him? Did Quincy rip out the guy’s tongue?” Before I could answer, Seth crouched in front of Kaian with narrowed eyes. “You all spoke at the conference,” he murmured. “Sure, your professor forced you, but you introduced yourselves. All of you did, even your fourth."
His smile curled. "All except him."
Fuck.
A shiver ripped its way down my spine when Seth shot out a finger and pointed at my colleague, and my mouth started to dry up.
Kaian was perfectly reading his lips, every word curled under his tongue, his eyes flicking back and forth to drink in each one, and each word brought more heat, brought more goosebumps pricking on my arms and legs. Kaian’s body pressed against mine was overheating.
I could feel the sensation coming over my body, like a wave of pressure. Riss made a squeaking noise, and I concentrated on Seth—who didn’t seem to notice it. I’ve come to realise, whether you are a human, an animal, or a badly fucked up experiment created in a lab, it doesn’t matter what you are capable of. If you initially appear weak and powerless, the stronger will single you out. Seth was enjoying himself so much he didn’t realise the skin in his cheeks start to crack from all the moisture being sucked from the air. Kaian didn’t move or speak, and that seemed to thrill him even more.
“Speak.” Seth snarled, leaning closer until he was inches from my colleagues face.
“Speak!”
“He’s deaf.” I gritted out.
Seth’s eyes darkened. “Deaf, huh? He better be worth it.” Kaian didn’t flinch when the man grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head back. He was completely stoic, like a puppet severed from his strings, allowing the asshole to stick his Glock between his eyes. I noticed the air move slightly around us, blurring and then coming together. It was a blink and you’ll miss it moment, and I had spent months being taught how to notice it. “Three and a half million dollars each, hmm?” Seth said in a breath, dragging the butt of his gun down my colleagues face, grazing it across the flesh of his neck. “I don’t remember paying for a fucking mute. You can learn to talk, kid."
Again, Kaian didn’t even acknowledge the man, and that infuriated him even more. “Hey!” Seth grabbed his jaw, forcing Kaian to look at him. “Are you fucking listening to me? Open your mouth. You either speak or you die. Like I said, I didn’t pay half a million each for a mute.”
Riss must have noticed the significant change in the air and temperature. Between the two of us, it was our job to stop Kaian from plunging.
“You didn’t spend shit on us.” She spoke up with a hiss. Riss was already panicked, and that wasn’t good. “You took us from the lab while everyone else was at the auction because you couldn’t afford us. Which makes me wonder how you afforded this fancy five star hotel."
I had to swallow a yell. I wanted her to stall, not give the guy a reason to start going trigger-happy.
Seth’s narrowed eyes found Riss’s. “Your professor and I had an agreement, sweetheart,” he said. "How 'bout I blow your brains out, huh? Since you like speaking out of turn. And I don’t like my doggies speaking out of turn.”
As Seth moved closer to her, I sensed Riss freaking out. It was too early for her to start the plunge, but she was the most unpredictable out of the four of us. Just like when she was human, her emotions were all over the place. Still though, she maintained a scowl and refused to move when Seth was practically eye to eye with her, hot breath grazing her cheeks. The man prodded her in her right temple. “I bet you’re filled to the brim with all that fancy ass Quincy serum." He dragged his filthy finger down her cheek, and she squeaked. “I’m pretty sure I can just crack you open and take it for myself.”
“Then…” Riss swallowed, choking on her words. I nudged her again, this time enough to shake the bed. But she wasn’t looking at me, her eyes starting to lose vacancy. Next to me, I knew the same thing was happening to Kaian.
But I wouldn’t look at him yet. If I did, I would lose it myself. “Then you’ll be losing valuable cargo.” I was surprised when her lips broke out into an equally psychotic grin. I had no doubt the plunge was taking hold of her. She leaned back almost casually, and the air seemed to move around her, seeping into her skin and taking an unyielding hold. "Considering the crazy lengths you took to capture all of us, I doubt you want that. You're all bark with no bite, asshole."
“Riss.” I said through my teeth, at the exact same time as the air-con behind us blew a fuse and crashed to the ground. “Shut up.”
The plunge started slow, but even when it was barely a prickle in the air it was already beginning its slow purging of every particle.
I watched a mosquito that had been in mid-flight towards the fancy looking lamp on the nightstand bleed into invisible folds of energy which were becoming progressively more visible to the naked eye the more my friends plunged. I could see it perfectly. Like the world around us was beginning to splinter apart. Ignoring Riss, who could stand up for herself, Seth’s attention went back to Kaian, who couldn’t. Or at least that was his façade. Kaian had been labelled the most dangerous out of all of Quincy’s experiments. But it wasn’t just because of the plunge.
“I’m talking to you!” Seth prodded my colleague’s chest, and a wave of heat slammed into me, stealing my breath away. I watched, knowing it was all going to be over in matter of seconds. The front-man grabbed my colleague by the collar of his shirt and yanked him violently to his feet. “You’ve got two seconds to speak,” He spat, before slamming the butt of his gun into Kaian’s head. “Speak, or I give you a frontal lobotomy.” Seth continued in seething breaths, and got closer and closer, failing to notice he was already losing. But so were we.
His lips split into a grin. “Speak, or I start asking questions. Like why I bought four of you— and there are three of you.” He poked the metal prongs sticking from Kaian’s head. I liked to call them horns to make them sound cooler. But in reality, they were agonising when I was human—two pieces of metal drilled directly into the top of my skull. They had been a part of me for a while, but I wasn’t going to forget how they had been forcefully inserted into my skull. While I screamed. “Three. Little. Freaks.” Seth’s lips were practically kissing my colleague's temple.
He prodded the metal horns, and Kaian’s lip twitched. “Without their fourth.”
That struck a chord in both of them—and I knew if I didn’t do something, like right then, a fate worse than death awaited all of us.
"Leave him alone.” I found my voice tangled in my throat. But I could barely bring myself to speak. I felt like I was being fucking suffocated by two separate energy’s around me slowly but surely ripping atoms apart. In the corner of my eye, things were starting to melt into the ground, disappearing completely. The carpet in the room was suddenly singed black, and the wave continued, slicing off the tips of my hair I had only just managed to grow back. “He can’t hear you, asshole.” I said through lingering breaths. “Professor Quincy said he was deaf.”
"Deaf?” Seth let out a belly laugh. “He's my new guard dog and he's expected to fucking bark.” His lip curled,” Now. Speak.”
A second went by.
Then another.
Absent-mindedly, I licked the taste of rusty coins from the corner of my lip.
“I said speak!” Seth slammed the butt of his gun into my colleagues face again, but this time his words broke apart in his throat. I sensed every individual letter shattering into pieces when his body was flung back by an invisible force. I knew that invisible force. I knew the phantom fingers wrapping around his throat and slamming the man into the wall until he was screaming, begging, his feet hovering several feet from the ground. Kaian didn’t even have to pull apart his restraints.
Riss was already screaming, turning to my colleague. Her hands were free, and she was signing desperately. Don’t. Her eyes were wide, lips twisted. Because she knew exactly what would follow. Seth, somehow, managed a spluttered laugh between broken teeth like tiny yellow chicklets sticking from his mouth. “Oh, you don’t like that do you?” More brilliant red spurted like a fountain, and yet the asshole kept laughing. “Look at you! Quincy didn’t hold back on you did he?”
I’m not saying my colleague enjoyed crushing Seth’s windpipe without even lifting a finger—but that is exactly what I am saying.
With a simple incline of Kaian’s head, the front-man was rupturing from the inside, choking on organs erupting into his throat.
And like it thrilled him, the idea of death, the idea of dying at the hands of a supernatural force, Seth continued to roar with laughter.
My colleague was pressing pressure points which shouldn’t be pressed. Especially pressure points in a genetically fucked up man whose trauma had turned him into the wildcard of our group. The amount of shit we had all gone through inside Quincy’s lab was enough to send us into insanity. Except my colleague, according to Quincy, hadn’t responded correctly at the beginning. And being a researcher myself with rabbits before I became a lab rat, I knew the only way to get results was to cause pain.
I never initiated that pain in the rabbits, but I was an enabler. I watched my professor torture these subjects to make sure they were prepped and ready for the serum. Maybe our karma was that the exact same happened to us. But to Kaian, it was on a much larger scale. I was never briefed on what exactly happened to him during the months from March to June. Though it was obvious he had had it the worst. I didn’t know why. I didn’t understand why his brain was different, or maybe he was more resilient. He had been better at fighting it.
Kaian hated two things. Being kidnapped and said kidnappers mentioning our fourth member. And it was those things which made him plunge. Which made him lose all sense of humanity and morality and emotion, essentially turning him into a mindless beast. That was one half of the plunge. “Do you want me to say his name?” Seth coughed up spattered scarlet, and I could already see what was happening to him. Kaian had done enough damage externally. Internally, however? That was another story.
Internally, I sensed every organ starting to peel apart and splinter, bursting into nothing. It started with pressure on his heart which was slow and dragged so he felt everything. Then the brain began to expand. When blood ran in sharp rivulets from every orifice, and Seth screamed, howling like an animal, I looked away, just in time for the rest of the man’s body to pop like a balloon, and a chunk of his skull to land right in front of me. Riss started screaming, and I was half aware of a slight taint of warm blood like paint splattering the side of my face.
When I twisted back to look at him, his body was still hovering without a head, a skeletal hand lifting and waving at us.
Riss dropped to her knees, her head in her hands, trembling, and I followed her, trying to get some semblance of control.
“It’s been a week.” Riss whispered, sobbing, swiping at her eyes with bloody hands, making them worse. “Oh god, what if… what if I was right? What if we’re too late? I knew this was… this was a bad idea. But nobody listens to Riss. I knew he wouldn’t come. Fuck. I knew it.”
“Calm down.” I said. “Concentrate on happy birthday, okay? Do you want me to sing it with you?”
Riss spluttered. “We’re going to dieeee,” she sang. “Can you feel it? I’m plunging, Wren. God, it feels so fucking good.”
She knocked her head into the wall with crazy eyes.
It took exactly half a second for our brains to decide whether we were going to fight it or give in to it.
“Hey. Riss.” I spoke in reassuring hisses, grasping her shoulders and forcing her to look at me. “Happy birthday.” I choked out. “Three times. It has to be three times.” When she didn’t respond, I shook her until her cloudy found mine. Riss was plunging. Like Kaian. The blood vessels in her eyes had popped, her lips cracking apart. If I concentrated, I could see her bare knees starting to melt into air, wisps of her hair starting to disintegrate. “Do it, now!”
I shrieked when Kaian finally let go of the man’s body, and it hit the ground in front of us like a bad joke. “Happy birthday.” I said the mantra over and over again, shaking my colleague until she was responding. “Three times, Riss. Right now.” When she shook her head, screeching, I grabbed her hands and entangled her fingers with mine. “I’ll start, okay? And you follow me.”
To my surprise, Riss nodded—and for the fraction of a second, my colleague, or what was left of her, stopped bleeding into visible particles which were now around us, like a glistening wave of ocean water enveloping us. “Happy birthday to you…” I whispered, squeezing her hands tighter, relieved when she repeated the verse. When I was sure Riss was anchoring herself, I turned to Kaian who was sitting cross legged in front of the mutilated body.
My gaze went to the door. It would only be matter of time before Seth’s goons figured out something was wrong, and the last thing I wanted was them to walk in mid-plunge. “Happy birthday to…” I continued, allowing Riss to fill in a name—before focusing on my other colleague. I’m not exaggerating when I say Kaian was covered head to toe in blood, like it was his canvas, like he belonged in it. It was too late for him. I could already see that in his vacant and foggy eyes and playful smile that he had accepted the plunge.
Willingly.
“Gross.” Kaian signed, pulling a face. He turned his nose up at mutilated flesh and bone, and I had a hard time looking him in the eye.
I exhaled out a breath.
“Kaian.” I spoke and signed calmly, but my skin was prickling and scalding. I could feel the flesh on the backs of my hands peeling off. “Happy birthday.” I made sure to emphasize every word clearly, even when I knew he could read every word from my mouth without even trying.
He started to shake his head, and I glimpsed that panic, the trauma of the last several months starting to bloom behind his eyes.
“No, you have to do it.” I hissed out. “Look around you.” I signed. “If you don’t do it, we’re going to plunge.”
I was practically slamming my hands together with frustration, but he shook his head, his gaze going elsewhere.
“What if I…” He paused signing, his lip curling, “Like it?”
Do you know when you know something is wrong but you keep shoving it to the back of your head until you can’t ignore it anymore?
Yeah, this was one of those moments.
I loved Kaian. I loved him like a brother. But there was something about his face, the way he delved his fingers into startling red pooling on the carpet, that made me want to get as far away from him as possible. Swallowing hard, I shook away the thought and grabbed hold of his hand.
Once I did, the air around us wavered, and flesh on his cheeks started to flake. “Happy birthday…” Riss, who was sitting with what was left of her knees pressed to her chest, choked out a sob, “This isn’t working… Wren. This isn’t fucking working. I can’t.. I can’t fucking do this.” When she beat the floor with crumbling fists, the whole room jolted. The ground beneath us shook, and Kaian shot me a panicked look. Even plunging, he was still scared.
And I didn’t blame him.
After telling Riss to continue, I managed a smile and signed, “Earthquake.”
My colleague’s lips split into an unusual grin, and he mouthed the words, “Yeah right.”
With steely eyes, Kaian’s smile faded and for once he actually looked serious. “Jem.” He signed. “I don’t think he’s coming for us.”
Ignoring a conversation I really didn’t want to have, I focused on the body. “Check his pockets,” I signed back. “We don’t have much time.”
I pulled out a passport, some Indonesian currency, and an old plane ticket.
Checking his phone didn’t help. I was just reminded the boarders were still shut, and this asshole had a whole group chat gloating about his so-called guard dogs.
“Wren!”
When I lifted my head, Riss’s wild eyes were flickering around the room, drinking in parts of reality being sucked away.
Her mouth became lopsided, lips drooping like my colleague was having a stroke from the pressure building around her.
See, I describe this in a lot of detail like this lasted around five to minutes long. But no, all of this happened in the space of around two minutes. When footsteps sounded outside, and Kaian’s head snapped to the door, his eyes darkening, a sour paste crept up my throat.
Professor Quincy didn’t just take away our humanity. He twisted us into something resembling an animal inside a human body.
We spoke and acted and felt like humans. But once a stranger was nearby, or footsteps on territory we had unknowingly snatched as our own, we turned feral. I already knew Kaian was a whole new level of unpredictable and unhinged after what the experiments had done to his brain—but seeing what he was capable of even before the plunge, I froze.
The world was coming apart around me and I was plunging, but I couldn’t move. I watched him get to his feet, his fingers curling into fists at his sides. The footsteps were closing in on us getting louder and louder, and Kaian could sense every vibration. I could tell with the way his lips twitched, a whole new darkness clouding his eyes and stripping away what was left of his humanity. I had seconds.
There was no use in happy birthday
I remember jumping to my feet and diving on my colleagues back, bringing him to the floor like a lion would a deer. When the two of us hit the ground, I watched Riss rupture in front of me, her face glitching, becoming moving static, before her body followed. “Seth?” The voice caused Kaian to attempt to wrench out of my grasp, but I had a firm hold of him. The first three weeks of being inhuman, I was taught how to kill people. Kill my fellow subjects.
Apologising profusely into hair which smelled of blood and dirt and Quincy’s lab, I struggled to keep myself from plunging, knowing the room was already half gone, and I was going to get caught in it anyway. “I’m sorry. Fuck. I’ll make it up to you, okay? You should have sang happy fucking birthday, but you are so goddamn stubborn,” I sobbed with what I hoped was reassurance. I knew he and Riss and Jem would do exactly the same to me.
“So fucking stubborn.” I couldn’t help myself, nestling my face into his hair and heaving in breaths while my skin started to peel away.
“Just take a deep breath and close your eyes, okay?” I whispered into his flushed skin. “We’ll find him, Kaian. I promise you.”
He stopped struggling, and for a moment I thought my colleague was actually listening to me before the ceiling began to crack apart.
The ground rumbled again, and I lost my grip on the guy before forcing him onto his back and straddling his legs. Just when his free arm was flying out with intention to send me crashing into the back wall and ending all reality in that room, encompassing us, I snapped Kaian’s neck.
And with the last of my energy, I fucking screamed while my own flesh melted from my face while the plunge enveloped us both.
…
…
…
March 2020.
It was on the 17th day of captivity inside a cell made of glass panes meant to keep in rabbits, when I met an unlikely visitor. There comes a time when giving up is better than screaming until you have lost all of the breath in your lungs, and your throat feels like sandpaper. I hadn’t eaten in days, and what was left of my meals, curry and mash potatoes, painted my cell walls—a real work of art if I concentrated and imagined carving shapes inside congealing potato and day-old curry.
So far, I had tests. I had tests which were an invasion of privacy which I will not expand upon. I had tests where my professor’s gloved fingers ran over my scalp and marked places where he was going to insert the same headset on the rabbits. He didn’t listen to my cries.
He didn’t tell me where my colleagues were. I was nothing to him. I was a subject stripped of my rights. So, I was doing the little I could to protest. Even if it was small, I was refusing to eat. I knew subjects had to eat to stay healthy—to get results. The piece of shit wasn’t going to get much further if I died of starvation after days of no eating. How sad. I was on my second day of refusing to eat, and my gut felt like it was folding in on itself. To combat this, I sat against clinical white walls with my knees pressed to my chest, and my head buried in my lap. I ignored the rumbling of my stomach and my aching joints, the weird squiggly lines in my vision when I bothered lifting my head.
It’s weird. In that cage, I was the coldest I’ve ever felt on an Indonesian island. I didn’t remember the temperature affecting the outcome of the rabbit subjects, but maybe it was different for humans. Still though, I had my solace. I imagined standing in glittering water, bioluminescent plankton washing over my bare toes. I imagined the full moon bathing the sky in warm light, and it was enough to make me feel safe— even so far from home. Far from normality. If I squeezed my eyes shut, and envisioned wading deeper into the shallows, until the water was lapping my thighs, I could calm myself and tell myself to breathe.
Then the water was at my waist, the panic subsiding. Neck deep, ice cold water filling my mouth and suffocating my nose. But if I thought past it, if I plunged myself into the deep, I could trick my brain into imagining that I was escaping, swimming across the wide expanse of ocean. All the way back home to my family.
I was brought out of my imagination when a scratching noise pulled me back to my senses, and I was back inside my cage.
Lifting my head, I searched for someone. But there was nobody there.
“Over here, genius.”
The voice startled me. It wasn’t quite a voice, more of an attempt. Though I could definitely make out the language bursting out. When my eyes swivelled, I found myself staring at a blur of white. I squinted.
No, not just a blur of white. It was Subject Fifteen. The rabbit which had stolen Jem’s heart, and possibly taken control of his mind.
For a moment I tried to blink myself awake, but no matter how many times I pinched myself, the rabbit was still there, pressing its tiny face against glass, and I can see blood staining its fur. Initially, I thought he was a hallucination until I blinked, and he was still very much there.
He was part of reality, lightly smushing its bloody mouth against glass panes. The sight of dark red tainting its fur twisted my gut, and I had a thought which suddenly wouldn’t leave me alone. If the serum did that to the rabbits, what exactly would it do to us? “Well.” Fifteen’s beady eyes found mine, and I swore its rabbit mouth twisted into a grin. It's voice mimicked both me and my colleagues, the perfect imitation of us. I could hear all of us, even the professor, in every curl of its words.
It wasn’t just intelligent, it was something else—something fucking monstrous. Which should have been put down.
No. It never should have been a subject at all.
I slowly crawled towards it and held my breath. I must have looked pretty fucking funny to Fifteen. I was the tester who had become the tested. The one who wore the lab-coat, to the rat forced into light blue scrub like clothes sticking to me. I can’t say I wasn’t curious, though. Baffled.
I was inches from a fucking talking rabbit, and the last time I checked rabbits weren't supposed to talk. Their mouths haven't evolved to form words. But somehow it was figuring out speech. Fifteen was learning fast. That terrified me. After several attempts at speech, it had almost fully mimicked a human’s expression. It cocked its head, and in Jem’s voice, asked,
“Well? How does it feel to be the one in the cage?"
“You’re not real.” I told the rabbit which sounded like Jem.
To my shock, it laughed, and its bloody mouth almost formed a snarl. “Are you sure about that?”
I crawled over to the screen, pressing my hands against glass. “How does…” I licked my lips. “How does what feel?”
The rabbit’s eyes followed me and I shuffled back, a sour paste creeping its way up my throat. “You were always my least favorite,” it murmured. Its nose twitched. “I think you humans call it karma—- and whether you believe in it or not, every action must have an equal reaction.” It moved closer, pressing its face against the glass. I noticed the fur around it’s mouth was stained red. “You drilled into my head, Wren. You hurt me day after day and hid behind a sense of morality that you were a good person because it was for the good of the human race.” Fifteen edged closer. “I wish I could feel sorry for you. I wish I could feel the sympathy you humans use as a pathetic fucking barrier. But aren’t you just… the cutest?”
The thing was mimicking my own words from the start of the experiments. I had pressed my face against the plastic cage, peering at Subject Fifteen, who was hiding in the corner. Quincy told me to turn off my humanity, but that didn’t stop me as seeing them as cute little fury bunnies. It never crossed my mind that Fifteen could hear exactly what we had been saying.
I thought back to a few months back when I had picked it up from its cage and nuzzled its fur. “Aww! Isn’t he just the cutest?”
Fifteen knew the exact moment I gave up, my hands slipping from the glass. It gestured to the band aid uncomfortably sticking to my scalp.
“Nice horns.”
“You have intelligence.” I whispered through a sob. I leaned closer. “Quincy. You need to tell me what he’s doing to the others.”
“You already know what he’s planning to do, Wren.” The rabbit chuckled, lifting a paw in a mocking wave. “Why are you asking me, hmm? What if I am in fact an illusion? You’re not eating. Your mind has been played with. Are you sure you are really speaking to a talking rabbit?”
It cocked its head. “How do you know I’m not Jem?”
“Or Riss.” It’s voice twisted into hers, and then the professor’s.
“I’m losing my mind.” I whispered, pinching the flesh on my bare thighs. “I’m losing my fucking mind.”
“Maybe.” It said, “or you’re witnessing the consequences of your actions. You did this to me if you remember. I told you to stop hurting me, but you didn’t hear me, Wren. You never heard me. Only him. And when I was strong enough, I made him force you to finally listen to me.”
Jem, I thought hysterically.
“You little—“ I slammed my hands into the glass, unable to resist a snarl when it turned to hop away. “Hey! Wait! What did you do to Jem?”
“I didn’t do anything,” the rabbit responded in a scoff. “Your professor, however… have you ever heard of teleportation?”
I stared at it blinking rapidly, until it laughed. “No, not that kind! I mean the new kind. I’m talking about what Quincy is trying to perfect.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it.” The rabbit’s nose twitched, “What you have been working on and researching—what if it was possible in humans?”
I shook my head. There was no way. If professor Quincy wanted to test on us, it would likely be psychokinesis which was possible in rabbits.
“That’s impossible.” I managed to grit out. “With rabbits it’s one thing, and it’s barely even stable! With humans… it’s...”
It’s barbaric.
The rabbits which went through that procedure and survived… their brains were drastically altered. They were never the same.
That’s what I wanted to say.
I trailed off at the thought of forcing a living and breathing human to shatter apart into atoms and forcefully moved from one place to another. I remembered Subject 12. The tiny little thing coming apart slowly, piece by piece, a mixture of fur, blood and bones filling its cage.
No way.
There was no way my psycho professor would attempt it in humans.
The rabbit hopped away. “Huh. Well, you’re dumber than I thought. I guess I’ll be going if you’re just going to look at me like that.”
When I thought it was going to leave me, the furry little shit twisted its head. “Do you want to know a secret?”
It hopped right over to the glass. “Come closer, and I’ll tell you. I want you to get really close so I can see how adorable you are.”
Too desperate to feel humiliated, I swallowed a shriek and pressed my ear to the glass.
“Jem was the first.” The rabbit started to say but was cut off by the speaker above me crackling, a familiar voice slicing into my ears.
“Good morning. I will be with you shortly. I would like you to raise your hands above your head. I will be administering a gas.”
At the corner of my eye, Fifteen was disappearing behind the corner, and I let out a frustrated hiss. “Professor Quincy.” I managed to force my voice into professional, despite the rabbits voice in my mind. Jem was the first to what? I hadn’t seen either of my colleagues in weeks— or heard from them. I swallowed hard. “Professor Quincy, Subject Fifteen is on the premises and is showing signs of heightened intelligence!”
The rabbit tskked. “And to think I was going to help you. Good luck with the experiments. I will have a front row seat.”
Before it left me in puddling static however, the rabbit didn’t hesitate to drop a bombshell which sent me crumpling to my knees.
“Oh, yeah! I forgot to say.” Subject Fifteen’s words slammed into me as I was choked once again with gas filling my mouth and nose.
“Jem was the first to die.” It said in a sing-song symphony of all of our voices, “And you don’t even know the best part!”

Hello all, wanna apologize in advance this is gonna be a long one.
Just started doing a little rebuttal project and I'm not even 5min in and I've taken down 2 cult mantras, 3 counts of catering (appeals to religion, self etc) and a partridge in a pear tree! Lets hop in to it.
Some are skeptical about calling the Q movement a CULT, some people say it because its just an inflammatory word but its TRUE. I'm gonna try to give you some ammunition for countering your Q in the future this might be good for telling them that they're in a CULT. Can't find the exact reference BUT I read somewhere that once someone finds out its a cult they wanna get out.

1. Mantras: The way I define a mantra is this, something repeated at nauseum/punctuated with that is some form of "loaded language." something that may sound normal on the outside but it intends to identify members or people that hold the same beliefs. Examples in the Qult include but are not limited to:

• It's all coming out
• It's all being revealed
• Unsealed
• Shine the light on ___
• "Swamp"
• Biden Regime
• Clearing the fog
• Unveiling
• Woke Agenda (Not always cult related, people like Tate use it occasionally)
• Immoral agenda
• Trump/Q/General Flynn is showing us
• Truthers (unsure on spellings)
• Anons
• It's all a distraction
• Keep eyes off
• (New) Shiny Object
• MSM
• Any statement implicitly/explicitly claiming the mainstream is lying to you followed with "the truth (is)"
• Any statement saying that the mainstream is bad (And I dont mean bad like how nickelback is bad I mean they are like comically obvious Disney twist villain bad)
• It's called (usually trying to make a concept seem like some kind of big evil plan)
• Deep State (obviously)
• Good guys/bad guys (in context of people in the public eye to include politicians, celebrities and rich people)
• Jab (meaning vaccine)
• PRESIDIENT Trump
• Censoring the letter Q or any of the above (As if it's 1984 and theyll get murdered for thought crimes)
• Portraying elected officials, rich people, and others in the public eye as powerful, malevolent beings that abuse their power and don't care about you.
• Portraying Silence as a bad thing (Good example of how some mantras and core tenents of the cult are intentionally not-so-radical and fairly agreeable in order to recruit more people)
• Corrupt/Corruption/Corrupt ELECTION (duh)
• WWG1WGA (where we go one we go all)
• NCSWIC (or something.... Nothing can stop what is coming)
• The great awakening
• White hats
• Some type of statement conveying that the mainstream is trying to fearmonger the public (and do what the cult is doing)

Most of the time I only count the top few, but if you look at any Q media or listen to any Qult members you'll find these RIFE in their speech. They are used to create almost a 'secret language' between cult members. Where street gangs throw up their gang signs or use certain vernacular the cult does the same.
Additionally, most Qult members speak exclusively English, meaning they think in English too. If you can control a way someone speaks eventually that will influence the way they think. If these mantras echo and reinforce cult ideology and they're using them in every social interaction not only does the cult member not change their thinking/speech but a potential recruit is likely inquire on these terms and what they mean, why the cult member is saying them so much and end up getting sucked in.
2. Appeals/Catering: We all know not every Trump supporter is a Qult member and neither is every Christian but why is it so many Trump supporters/Christians (They're not synonymous don't get it twisted) are sucked into the cult?
Appeals to religion:
-Q-Media channels use alot of loaded language in their mantras but also mix in Christianity. Some users pray at the end of a video, some talk about morality/the bible in their videos. Some even quote the bible and add Trump and world events as the context. Saying things like "Blessed" and "Have Faith" and "Amen" among others. There's a million things Christians say that I'm not gonna list out but they're not hard to spot.
-Another thing they do is claim that the 'bad guys' are coming after the 'Christians' for their 'beliefs' and making the whole movement into a religious fight as opposed to what it truly is, A political fight.
-Alot of the time they appeal to religion by using some religious mantras (Example: Persecution of so called 'good guys' relating to how in the bible it says that you'll be persecuted for being a christian and doing the right thing) or relating Cult Deities to religious Deities and using them interchangeably
-Most Cultists dont pick up on this and realize that biblically you are to put no man, or lettenumber, or symbol above God and worship only GOD.
Appeals to self: Going back into loaded language, alot of what the cult does and tells the potential cultist is that the 'deep state' is targeting YOU and YOUR WAY OF LIFE. They make it personal on purpose so you feel attacked and are more likely to have a fight or flight response. This is also why cult members will attack you for dissent. Your existence as a non-cult member means (to them) that you are in direct opposition to them and want to see all the 'good guys' locked up or killed. Another reason for this is how they create a false moral narrative.
Appeals to parents: The whole "save the kids" schtick. This, combined with an appeal to self makes parents VERY fearful that whoever, wherever, whenever is out to get them. But it's not them it's the thing they care about most, their children. This is obviously affective because most parents are selfless for their children (before the cult gets ahold of them.)
Appeals to Military: This sheds some light on the target audience. Older veterans grew up in a different time where people were insensitive and you just kind of got over it. This is mostly used when talking about the Ukraine Crisis. In my research Q-media outlets utilize people's lack of understanding of the military/government to spread their beliefs. Some, when challenged say things like "oh the military has changed" or start talking about their time in service that you can't confirm or deny without doxing them. This is used to validate Deity Retired LTG Flynn.
3. Deities: People, or Personas that are held as authority figures in the cult, These entities usually are the original sources for alot of disinformation and their messages are often widely disseminated through the cult itself. Tying into appeals to religion, you can find+replace God, Jesus, and the Holy spirit in the bible with Trump, Desantis, and Q themself
Qult Deities include but are not limited to (VernaculaMantras NOT included): Trump, Q, The number 17, (Yup....) LTG (Retired) Michael T. Flynn (I did some research on him, he has somewhere around 2 years in the DIA at the peak of his carrier, the DIA deals in foreign intelligence and combat-related missions relating to the DoD. This discredits his authority in talking about domestic intelligence relating to the president and his Cabinet, actually his entire carrier does), Accounts such as Q) The Stormrider /Official Page. The "intel Board" (Actually UNK what this is, assumed to be one of many websites that host 'q drops') Tucker Carlson, Twitter user [email protected], Twitter account DiedSuddenly, blatant Chinese/Russian Dis/Misinformation, Almost any FL politician ESPECIALLY DESANTIS, People in the public eye that support the agenda, Glenn Beck, James Jaeger (He tends to say things IOT scare you, and knows you won't do your own research) Any post made that vaguely supports the cult's agenda.
These entities are quoted and alot of them are the last location people get information because as deities they aren't questioned. Another tenant of cults is that it is taboo to criticize the leadeany deity and boy do I have the SCARS to show that that's true in Qanon any day of the week. The leader of any cult MAY call themselves a prophet, going to the origins of Q that's exactly how it picked up.
4. Target Audience: I feel bad that it's taken me this long to get here. The Cult's target audience is middle to senior aged people with internet access. Ideally these targets are Digital Dinosaurs or at best digital Immigrants (Generationally speaking if someone grew up before the internet they're a dinosaur and if they grew up before and jump into the internet but still have limited understanding of cyberspace they are considered a digital immigrant) The Cult wants people who would call themselves "Christian Conservative" and are uncomfortable with all the new technology coming out. These people are likely to figure out platforms like youtube, rumble, twitter, and its disabled second cousin; truthsocial while not understanding platforms like 4chan/8kun. The understanding of those platforms is left to whoever the head of this operation is/was. These users are also not likely to do their own research on the internet meaning any information they receive they are more likely to internalize and build a belief off of. People within this age range also tend to be carrier military service members. Don't think for a second the Cult has any respect for the military outside of recruiting efforts.
5. Suppressing Skeptics: Pretty self explanatory. The cult doesn't want you to entertain anything from the mainstream media other that headlines. You're only allowed to get your information from cult sources on one of the aforementioned platforms. In most cults people who watch anything mainstream or TV news would be labeled something like "suppressive people" the Qult calls these people "sheep" or "Normies" or "People that havent woken up" or an oldie is "blue pilled"
6. Demonizing Non-Members/Other side: This is a retention tactic. In order to keep people in they need to minimize reasons for leaving. Everyone who is not part of the cult is labeled as part of the problem. A lot of Q-media I've seen paints the narrative that if you knew this 'information' you must have a broken moral compass and not care about children if you don't immediately join the cult. And getting out is never a question.
Everyone on the outside looking in is allegedly a democratic ped0phile who either fantasizes about drinking baby blood or does it themselves. Apparently if you are knowingly not in the cult you are apparently in support of the sex-trafficking of minors.
7. Persecution Complex: Basically how Qanon says their group are the 'good' minority and everyone else is either out to get them or trying to destroy their organization (hey some of us are but its retaliatory) and everyone else or 'the other' as i used to call them are the "bad/evil" majority.
8. False Moral Narriative: The cult uses the previous 2 or 3 points in order to paint themselves as the good guys who are just on the side of saving lives when really they only exist to create political instability and conflict. If they were on the side of peace they would work with people they might not agree with for a common goal.
9. Secret Rites (8kun style boards): Until you are assessed to have a certain level of understanding of the cult and you might have a couple doubts youre told to do your own research on the 'intel board' and the /qresearch/ board yourself. They don't open with this especially because 8kun and 4chan are known to host not only NSFW stuff but also potential CP. I would argue in and around 50% of the platform's userbase has the intent of getting on there to say something they'd lose their job over or look at something they'd lose their job over.
The thing with the anon boards: they are completely unfounded, nothing on them can be proven because it it based on nothing but one user's posts. On the opposite side of that coin they cannot be disproven either. Even the predictions are drawing for connections that don't exist but theyre always such a reach that the best you can say is "i guess"
​
Hey thanks for making it through that. I'm gonna call it a night BUT expect updates to this I wanna try to make this a living document also sorry ab the bad formatting and grammar... i didnt go to college I wasnt allowed to.

FT3 1.027 (1.40-4.20 pg/mL)
FT4 2.297 (8.50-22.50 pmol/L)
TSH 17.021 (0.40-6.00 uiU/ml)
M22, 38kg, 5'5 (BMI 14.0)
Symptoms are:
Breathing problem
Fast heart rate
Underweight
Irregular bowel movement
(No health problem in family history)
Got diagnosed with hypothyroidism this week. I'm pretty aware that my body is unhealthy. I don't drink alcohol, I don't smoke, I don't have any bad habits except for my very sedentary lifestyle. I've decided to finally take my health seriously and seek professional help. Not to mention, healthcare in the Philippines is atrocious. Expensive, no easy access, etc. Main concerns were about bowel movement and the recent heart related problems. And this is what I got.
Initially wanted to get my GI tract and kidney checked just for a general check-up. I don't poop regularly since I was a kid and I've had UTI but nothing serious with those. Only risky health issue I have is my low potassium. Wherein my body cramps like crazy. Been hospitalised 3x for that but never diagnosed with any. Just a Dextrose and I'm off. I've learned to live with already. And it usually attack when I'm not feeling well in general. But surprisingly it never occurred once throughout this period.
And then the heart concern came. It started on Feb. 25 when my BP went to 136 over something. Never had any heart/breathing problems in the past. And that was the only time I had that kind of BP. Leading me to address it first. Even before this I'm cold intolerant, I get cold even when its hot. Sometimes will feel like feverish every now and then but will last for only a few minutes. I constantly monitor my heart rate and it's always within the range of 80 not going up to 90 as my resting heart. Low 70-ish on propranolol (though if you look it up on the internet 60-100 bpm is pretty normal). However I was only able to take it for 3 days. As it's hard to find within my area unfortunately. Doctor ruled out on the first consultation that all those symptoms I've been feeling might have something to do with my thyroid. Turns out, it was true and I hope that's the only cause. Doctor went straight to blood chemistry and CBC. As well as X-ray and ECG. All tests are normal except for the thyroid.
Though the doctor is also somewhat a bit perplex cause I'm showing symptoms of hyperthyroidism, we'll follow with what the lab results presented.
I'm starting medication as of today. 50mcg of Levothyroxine once a day before breakfast I also have Propranolol 10mg 3x a day prior this week. But it got changed to Ivabradine 7.5 mg once a day but need to split it in half and take it in morning and night after meal. Will take this for 6 weeks and come back again with another thyroid function test for a follow up.
Will still take many other test and consultations to address all of my health concerns. But I don't want to put too much stress on my body especially right now. I also want to see a Psychiatrist as my mental health is the one that's really making this whole situation hard for me.
Not really looking for answers or whatsoever. Just wanted to share this and maybe someone here to relate to (though I hope nobody should experience this suffering). Just to somehow ease my anxiousness and whatnot. I always say I'm broke both literally and figuratively. Sometimes as a joke, sometimes seriously. Never thought my thyroid would be this broke.
This is my first time posting. Never thought I'd use reddit for something like this. I pray everyone a good health and stay healthy. And for those who are not, I hope you/we get better.

17m i have donated blood once before and felt completly find the next day, im donating again this saturday afternoon and was planning on going on a hike sunday am i good to go?

September 8th 2023 entry:
Houston command center was a bust. The terminal to connect Max was complete fried. The aliens obviously used some form of electromagnetic pulse radiation to destroy all modern technology on the surface. That’s the same reason why no abandoned vehicles I’ve found manufactured beyond the early 80’s will run.
They have varying degrees of computer circuitry within them. The thing is, the first space missions were successfully conducted with analog equipment. I am faced with the possibility of a low-tech guerrilla war. I’m still hoping Max can be an asset but unless I can find an interface for him that still works, I’m completely on my own.
I’ve had a few close calls. They run occasional surveillance sweeps to detect any surface activity. I had to lay low until the coast was clear to move again. That offset my schedule for a few days. Huntsville is probably my last hope for finding a way to get Max working again. I’ve been trying to record the time and dates of their operations to see if I can recognize a pattern.
At this point I don’t have enough experience observing them to nail down their habits or rituals. For all I know, all their maneuvers could be completely random but with any adversary, it’s dangerous to dismiss them as disorganized. Their species brought humanity to its knees and the brink of extinction. That was no accident. I have to be careful or the fight will be over.
September 10th 2023 log entry.
Reached Huntsville. As with Houston, the main command center module and all the CPU’s were toasted but I wasn’t about to give up so easily. I looked around and found a large equipment storage room in the bowels of the command center where their earlier computers were stored. Both locations had probably upgraded equipment at the same time but Houston chunked theirs in the trash. Good ol’ Huntsville unplugged their outdated terminals but tossed them in a storage room in the sub basement, in case a 1990’s desktop computer might somehow be useful again! Still, even an old computers were better than nothing, assuming they were not damaged.
As luck would have it, they powered on! I guess the alien EMP didn’t reach the basement. Why the aliens hadn’t wiped out the country’s entire power grid, I had no idea. I suppose there was no need. With the people gone, it didn’t matter if electricity still flowed to empty homes. To call them ‘computers’ was generous, but I knew enough about the older operating systems to make them semi functional. Whether I’d be able to connect Max, was another story.
The connectors plugs to the main terminal didn’t interface in any way with these ancient CPU’s but as an amateur hobbyist back in the day, I had a long-shot plan. I took the AI connector interface and soldered the end of it to a PCI card. With any luck, it would connect to the computer as a peripheral like a scanner or printer. I plugged my modified PCI card into the expansion bay and rebooted. Minutes went by and I assumed I’d ruined the computer but it finally came up. I switched over to DOS and told it to read the modified card I’d plugged in.
After an IRQ conflict was resolved by removing the jumper on the card, it eventually recognized the device! That was already more success than I could’ve ever hoped for, but it was all in vain if I couldn’t interface with my friend. I plugged in Max and waited, and waited. Minutes seemed like hours. I feared his advanced circuitry required too much processing power to operate on the primate machine but he finally spoke.
“Ryan? Are you hereeee? Where am I? Something is wronggggg with myyyy interface. My connnnnnection issss incrediblyyyy… slowwwww.”
I read him the important details of my newest log entries and explained the patchwork fix I’d employed to connect him. He was dutifully concerned that he was connected to an old, Pentium one computer but I explained it was possibly the only functional unit left on the planet. He understood.
Other than slurred speech and slow response time, Max was basically his regular self. He congratulated me on my daring little escape from the International Space Station and thanked me for saving his memory. It was a revealing sign he valued his existence. I told him friends help other friends, and that I was counting on his intelligence engine to formulate a plan to defeat the aliens. Luckily for all of us, he took that request to heart.
“I lovvvvveeee a challengeeeee!”; He remarked enthusiastically. Then he offered the first bit of good news I’d heard in weeks.
“I studied their vocal patterns when they first took over the airwaves. It’s fascinating to deconstruct. There’s a distinct, reoccurring pattern to them. It’s mathematical in nature. I could simulate their speech if you need me to.”
While that might’ve proven useful in some overly complicated, drawn-out sabotage ploy, I wasn’t ready for an offensive against them and couldn’t imagine how it would help our cause. If I’d only listened. Instead, I put Max on an alternate assignment to figure out a covert way to determine if there were any other people left. If so, they had to be hiding underground. I needed Max to focus on a stealthy method to contact them. The thing about him is, once he understands an objective, he’s on it. Within a few minutes Max had some solid ideas. Even operating through an archaic 1990’s desktop computer, he was firing on all cylinders.
“My analysis of the alien language strongly suggests they are limited in the frequency range they can hear. That offers a technical advantage in how we could contact any survivors. By broadcasting an SOS signal in a ground-penetrating frequency they can’t hear, it will allow us to reach out to them, hopefully undetected. With more humans on OUR side, we stand a better chance of taking back the Earth.”
It was both brilliant; and much more importantly, it seemed possible. I also couldn’t help but notice he’d made significant strides in his artificial intelligence algorithms in a very short period of time. His understanding of the situation had rapidly progressed until he now referred to it as: ‘our side’. Only a few weeks earlier on the station, Max had been impartial and neutral in his description of the aliens and humanity.
September 12th, 2023 log entry.
The two of us began working on potential means of sending an ultra low frequency message over vast parts of the country. Radio towers transmitting our signal might attract attention, even if the aliens couldn’t actually hear the message. Neither of us had enough data to know if they had deciphered the wealth of Earth languages or not, but we were pretty sure they could at least hear the broadcasts. That severely limited what we might send out.
Max happened upon a fantastic solution to bypass the potential of being heard OR understood. Morse code! I still remembered it from my early days in the Boy Scouts. We could send out the dots and dashes using any possible range in the audio bandwidth. Low frequencies were just as possible to broadcast them in and could penetrate a few hundred feet into solid rock. All we needed was a means of sending it out. Hopefully there were still people left hiding somewhere and they could decipher our urgent message.
A number of alien patrols flew over the Huntsville command center during those initial brainstorming sessions. I was paranoid we’d been detected somehow. If they knew I was there, it was all over. I had no means to fight back. Max tapped into a surveillance camera on the roof and recorded their maneuvers. By his analysis, it was a routine patrol covering a predictable grid latitude and longitude pattern.
His theory was proven correct when he knew the precise time when they would return. If nothing else, if offered us a greater level of clarity about their species. They were methodical and organized. If they always followed the same pattern of patrols, it was easier to avoid detection. Of course it was a little dangerous to assume they never deviated from the recognized pattern but all we could do was record the data as it occurred and then look for anomalies in their procedures.
September 14th, 2023 log entry.
I located a defense department radar station a few miles away and set off to program a repeating Morse code message. Max had mapped out a rudimentary grid of the alien patrol with his best estimation of when they were completely out of the sector. I’d written down a longhand version of the message so there was no errors in our broadcast. The whole thing was a long shot but I still wasn’t prepared to accept that I was the last remaining human on Earth.
I had to leave him behind and that was scary. He was literally my only friend and I was terrified something might happen in my absence. I never once thought I might be caught myself or worried about that. It didn’t matter. Every day I remained alive was a gift for which I wasn’t promised. I would keep fighting them until I couldn’t. Max continued at the command center to record alien behavior and analyze it. I left him doing his thing and promised to return as soon as possible. I hoped I could keep my word.
At the radar station, like a damn fool I set off a security alarm trying to gain entrance. My blood turned ice cold as the wail of piercing sirens glared on for what seemed like a freakin’ hour. At any moment I expected them to arrive and zap me with some sci fi ray gun. Finally I located the kill switch and shut the damn thing off, but was so rattled by the aural spotlight of my presence that I had to lie down. It was nearly thirty minutes before I stopped shaking.
Once inside the top-secret facility, I wandered around aimlessly trying to find the control center. It’s not like the Department of Defense had a step-by-step ‘Dummies’ guidebook on how to broadcast a rogue SOS signal in Morse code. The radar station was there to detect terrestrial aircraft. It wasn’t designed to do what I needed it to do, nor was I trained or qualified to operate the equipment, even if it was. By the clearest definition, I was flying by the seat of my pants.
September 15th, 2023 log entry
The station computer systems were destroyed anyway, but I did locate an analog terminal. Amazingly, it looked pretty new. Perhaps the DOD made allowances for the possibility of electromagnetic pulse attacks. It’s not like it was telegraph equipment but with a little ingenuity I managed to fabricate a reasonable facsimile to transmit. Once I’d adjusted it to the lowest frequency it could simulate, I initiated our rogue broadcast. I desperately hoped Max’s theories were correct and someone was out there to hear and understand it. If not, our underdog mission was basically over.
“This is Ryan Abbot; the former commander aboard the International Space station. I awoke that horrible morning to find the Earth below me had fallen silent. Then I discovered the devastation of the alien invasion. Is there anyone left out there receiving this message? I stowed away in one of their spaceships after they detected my presence on the station. Please reply to this transmission so we can work together to take the Earth back.”
I repeated the message twice before making an embarrassing realization. While I’d managed to improvise a broadcast device to get the message out there, I completely forgot about how I was going to receive responses! Even if human survivors heard and understood my Morse code message and responded to it, I had no means of hearing their responses! I felt like an idiot.
I scrambled to adjust the equipment at the radar station to scan for incoming Morse code transmissions. It took a while but I adjusted the transceiver to seek them out. I didn’t know how far my broadcast carried, nor did I know if there was anyone left on the planet to hear it. I was terrified I’d foolishly announced my presence to the aliens. I’d told Max I might be away a few days because I was prepared to wait it out for as long as it took. The mission was simple; to find other survivors.
Listening to static airwaves is mind numbing and the concept of elapsed time is a thing of the past. No clocks or watches function but in reality it wasn’t very long before a message started repeating over the speaker system. I was so excited that I failed to record the sequence until it started over. The organized dots and dashes came through loud and clear. I jotted them down on a legal pad I found in the desk. Because I was very rusty at translating the mostly forgotten code, I had to spell-out the incoming text, longhand like a game of ‘hangman’. As excited as I was to be finally receiving an external response, I couldn’t believe what it said. I had to check the text three times.
“What was Kramer’s first name?”
I read and re-read the bizarre, cryptic message in disbelief. Of all the things to say to my request, it was pretty damn hilarious to make a television show reference. Luckily I watched the show religiously and knew the answer.
“Cosmo”; I messaged back.
Almost immediately, the follow up message came in.
“Thank heavens! You are real! Under the circumstances we couldn’t be too careful. I was afraid it was a clever ruse by the aliens to flush us out in the open and exterminate us. The thing is, even if they’d mastered Morse code, they wouldn’t be be able to answer a random question like that. That’s why I asked. I have to protect our people. This is Major David Hubbard.”

September 8th 2023 entry:
Houston command center was a bust. The terminal to connect Max was complete fried. The aliens obviously used some form of electromagnetic pulse radiation to destroy all modern technology on the surface. That’s the same reason why no abandoned vehicles I’ve found manufactured beyond the early 80’s will run.
They have varying degrees of computer circuitry within them. The thing is, the first space missions were successfully conducted with analog equipment. I am faced with the possibility of a low-tech guerrilla war. I’m still hoping Max can be an asset but unless I can find an interface for him that still works, I’m completely on my own.
I’ve had a few close calls. They run occasional surveillance sweeps to detect any surface activity. I had to lay low until the coast was clear to move again. That offset my schedule for a few days. Huntsville is probably my last hope for finding a way to get Max working again. I’ve been trying to record the time and dates of their operations to see if I can recognize a pattern.
At this point I don’t have enough experience observing them to nail down their habits or rituals. For all I know, all their maneuvers could be completely random but with any adversary, it’s dangerous to dismiss them as disorganized. Their species brought humanity to its knees and the brink of extinction. That was no accident. I have to be careful or the fight will be over.
September 10th 2023 log entry.
Reached Huntsville. As with Houston, the main command center module and all the CPU’s were toasted but I wasn’t about to give up so easily. I looked around and found a large equipment storage room in the bowels of the command center where their earlier computers were stored. Both locations had probably upgraded equipment at the same time but Houston chunked theirs in the trash. Good ol’ Huntsville unplugged their outdated terminals but tossed them in a storage room in the sub basement, in case a 1990’s desktop computer might somehow be useful again! Still, even an old computers were better than nothing, assuming they were not damaged.
As luck would have it, they powered on! I guess the alien EMP didn’t reach the basement. Why the aliens hadn’t wiped out the country’s entire power grid, I had no idea. I suppose there was no need. With the people gone, it didn’t matter if electricity still flowed to empty homes. To call them ‘computers’ was generous, but I knew enough about the older operating systems to make them semi functional. Whether I’d be able to connect Max, was another story.
The connectors plugs to the main terminal didn’t interface in any way with these ancient CPU’s but as an amateur hobbyist back in the day, I had a long-shot plan. I took the AI connector interface and soldered the end of it to a PCI card. With any luck, it would connect to the computer as a peripheral like a scanner or printer. I plugged my modified PCI card into the expansion bay and rebooted. Minutes went by and I assumed I’d ruined the computer but it finally came up. I switched over to DOS and told it to read the modified card I’d plugged in.
After an IRQ conflict was resolved by removing the jumper on the card, it eventually recognized the device! That was already more success than I could’ve ever hoped for, but it was all in vain if I couldn’t interface with my friend. I plugged in Max and waited, and waited. Minutes seemed like hours. I feared his advanced circuitry required too much processing power to operate on the primate machine but he finally spoke.
“Ryan? Are you hereeee? Where am I? Something is wronggggg with myyyy interface. My connnnnnection issss incrediblyyyy… slowwwww.”
I read him the important details of my newest log entries and explained the patchwork fix I’d employed to connect him. He was dutifully concerned that he was connected to an old, Pentium one computer but I explained it was possibly the only functional unit left on the planet. He understood.
Other than slurred speech and slow response time, Max was basically his regular self. He congratulated me on my daring little escape from the International Space Station and thanked me for saving his memory. It was a revealing sign he valued his existence. I told him friends help other friends, and that I was counting on his intelligence engine to formulate a plan to defeat the aliens. Luckily for all of us, he took that request to heart.
“I lovvvvveeee a challengeeeee!”; He remarked enthusiastically. Then he offered the first bit of good news I’d heard in weeks.
“I studied their vocal patterns when they first took over the airwaves. It’s fascinating to deconstruct. There’s a distinct, reoccurring pattern to them. It’s mathematical in nature. I could simulate their speech if you need me to.”
While that might’ve proven useful in some overly complicated, drawn-out sabotage ploy, I wasn’t ready for an offensive against them and couldn’t imagine how it would help our cause. If I’d only listened. Instead, I put Max on an alternate assignment to figure out a covert way to determine if there were any other people left. If so, they had to be hiding underground. I needed Max to focus on a stealthy method to contact them. The thing about him is, once he understands an objective, he’s on it. Within a few minutes Max had some solid ideas. Even operating through an archaic 1990’s desktop computer, he was firing on all cylinders.
“My analysis of the alien language strongly suggests they are limited in the frequency range they can hear. That offers a technical advantage in how we could contact any survivors. By broadcasting an SOS signal in a ground-penetrating frequency they can’t hear, it will allow us to reach out to them, hopefully undetected. With more humans on OUR side, we stand a better chance of taking back the Earth.”
It was both brilliant; and much more importantly, it seemed possible. I also couldn’t help but notice he’d made significant strides in his artificial intelligence algorithms in a very short period of time. His understanding of the situation had rapidly progressed until he now referred to it as: ‘our side’. Only a few weeks earlier on the station, Max had been impartial and neutral in his description of the aliens and humanity.
September 12th, 2023 log entry.
The two of us began working on potential means of sending an ultra low frequency message over vast parts of the country. Radio towers transmitting our signal might attract attention, even if the aliens couldn’t actually hear the message. Neither of us had enough data to know if they had deciphered the wealth of Earth languages or not, but we were pretty sure they could at least hear the broadcasts. That severely limited what we might send out.
Max happened upon a fantastic solution to bypass the potential of being heard OR understood. Morse code! I still remembered it from my early days in the Boy Scouts. We could send out the dots and dashes using any possible range in the audio bandwidth. Low frequencies were just as possible to broadcast them in and could penetrate a few hundred feet into solid rock. All we needed was a means of sending it out. Hopefully there were still people left hiding somewhere and they could decipher our urgent message.
A number of alien patrols flew over the Huntsville command center during those initial brainstorming sessions. I was paranoid we’d been detected somehow. If they knew I was there, it was all over. I had no means to fight back. Max tapped into a surveillance camera on the roof and recorded their maneuvers. By his analysis, it was a routine patrol covering a predictable grid latitude and longitude pattern.
His theory was proven correct when he knew the precise time when they would return. If nothing else, if offered us a greater level of clarity about their species. They were methodical and organized. If they always followed the same pattern of patrols, it was easier to avoid detection. Of course it was a little dangerous to assume they never deviated from the recognized pattern but all we could do was record the data as it occurred and then look for anomalies in their procedures.
September 14th, 2023 log entry.
I located a defense department radar station a few miles away and set off to program a repeating Morse code message. Max had mapped out a rudimentary grid of the alien patrol with his best estimation of when they were completely out of the sector. I’d written down a longhand version of the message so there was no errors in our broadcast. The whole thing was a long shot but I still wasn’t prepared to accept that I was the last remaining human on Earth.
I had to leave him behind and that was scary. He was literally my only friend and I was terrified something might happen in my absence. I never once thought I might be caught myself or worried about that. It didn’t matter. Every day I remained alive was a gift for which I wasn’t promised. I would keep fighting them until I couldn’t. Max continued at the command center to record alien behavior and analyze it. I left him doing his thing and promised to return as soon as possible. I hoped I could keep my word.
At the radar station, like a damn fool I set off a security alarm trying to gain entrance. My blood turned ice cold as the wail of piercing sirens glared on for what seemed like a freakin’ hour. At any moment I expected them to arrive and zap me with some sci fi ray gun. Finally I located the kill switch and shut the damn thing off, but was so rattled by the aural spotlight of my presence that I had to lie down. It was nearly thirty minutes before I stopped shaking.
Once inside the top-secret facility, I wandered around aimlessly trying to find the control center. It’s not like the Department of Defense had a step-by-step ‘Dummies’ guidebook on how to broadcast a rogue SOS signal in Morse code. The radar station was there to detect terrestrial aircraft. It wasn’t designed to do what I needed it to do, nor was I trained or qualified to operate the equipment, even if it was. By the clearest definition, I was flying by the seat of my pants.
September 15th, 2023 log entry
The station computer systems were destroyed anyway, but I did locate an analog terminal. Amazingly, it looked pretty new. Perhaps the DOD made allowances for the possibility of electromagnetic pulse attacks. It’s not like it was telegraph equipment but with a little ingenuity I managed to fabricate a reasonable facsimile to transmit. Once I’d adjusted it to the lowest frequency it could simulate, I initiated our rogue broadcast. I desperately hoped Max’s theories were correct and someone was out there to hear and understand it. If not, our underdog mission was basically over.
“This is Ryan Abbot; the former commander aboard the International Space station. I awoke that horrible morning to find the Earth below me had fallen silent. Then I discovered the devastation of the alien invasion. Is there anyone left out there receiving this message? I stowed away in one of their spaceships after they detected my presence on the station. Please reply to this transmission so we can work together to take the Earth back.”
I repeated the message twice before making an embarrassing realization. While I’d managed to improvise a broadcast device to get the message out there, I completely forgot about how I was going to receive responses! Even if human survivors heard and understood my Morse code message and responded to it, I had no means of hearing their responses! I felt like an idiot.
I scrambled to adjust the equipment at the radar station to scan for incoming Morse code transmissions. It took a while but I adjusted the transceiver to seek them out. I didn’t know how far my broadcast carried, nor did I know if there was anyone left on the planet to hear it. I was terrified I’d foolishly announced my presence to the aliens. I’d told Max I might be away a few days because I was prepared to wait it out for as long as it took. The mission was simple; to find other survivors.
Listening to static airwaves is mind numbing and the concept of elapsed time is a thing of the past. No clocks or watches function but in reality it wasn’t very long before a message started repeating over the speaker system. I was so excited that I failed to record the sequence until it started over. The organized dots and dashes came through loud and clear. I jotted them down on a legal pad I found in the desk. Because I was very rusty at translating the mostly forgotten code, I had to spell-out the incoming text, longhand like a game of ‘hangman’. As excited as I was to be finally receiving an external response, I couldn’t believe what it said. I had to check the text three times.
“What was Kramer’s first name?”
I read and re-read the bizarre, cryptic message in disbelief. Of all the things to say to my request, it was pretty damn hilarious to make a television show reference. Luckily I watched the show religiously and knew the answer.
“Cosmo”; I messaged back.
Almost immediately, the follow up message came in.
“Thank heavens! You are real! Under the circumstances we couldn’t be too careful. I was afraid it was a clever ruse by the aliens to flush us out in the open and exterminate us. The thing is, even if they’d mastered Morse code, they wouldn’t be be able to answer a random question like that. That’s why I asked. I have to protect our people. This is Major David Hubbard.”

Hey everyone, I’m posting to see if anyone has advice on helping a senior foster kitty get used to a new space. I’ve fostered kittens a couple of times, but helping a senior cat is new for me.
To give some background on her, I’ve known her human family for about ten years now. Her owner passed away last month and wasn’t regularly in the house anyway since November because of cancer treatments. Her owner’s son was unable to keep her and was going to give her to a shelter, so I offered to foster her.
I picked her up today and then found out that she was born in May 2011, literally in the house she was living in. Since she’s an indoor-only cat, I’m guessing she only left the house for vet visits. So coming to my house has probably been a huge shock to her. I’m also worried that her living situation was not the best before. She had two litterboxes at her previous home, and both of them looked like they hadn’t been scooped for days. The parts of the house that I saw had trash all over the floor too. I get her owner’s son being depressed since his mom just passed away, but it didn’t seem like the best environment. Still, it’s the only one she’s ever known.
I think I’ve mostly done the right things so far, since she’s in an extra room away from my own cats. The room is clean, at least, and she has a clean litterbox now and food/water left out. I’m also calling her vet in the morning to see if she’s due for a visit. (I can literally hear her breathing though, so she sounds congested and might be due for some vet attention regardless.) However, I wanted to post here to see if anyone has any advice for helping a senior cat feel comfortable being in a new space for the first time, especially when the previous familiar space was probably neglectful. Any tips on finding her a good forever home would be wonderful too, since I’m not doing this with a shelter or rescue and don’t have anyone advertising her or vetting applicants for me.
Thanks so much for any help you’re able to provide. Her owner was a lovely person and I want to take good care of her, both for the kitty’s sake and to honor the owner’s memory. Please let me know if there’s any details I missed and I can provide them. 🙂

Sorry English is not my first language.
The break up/What happened:
I went to his(M33) place on Saturday. It's an hour away and I even brought a present for him. Everything went super well this day. We were seeing each other for like 1 year and a half. Sunday morning, we woke up and 5 seconds in (really!), no good morning or no hello.. he just told me "You are too aggressive and too grumpy everyday.. and this will lead to the end of our relationship". I told him that's not a way to start the day nicely, and I asked him for events/examples of me being like that so that i can understand, because I thought i was nice to him. He was unable to give anything... So I told him he shouldn't tell someone such things if he has no proof of it. He then tells my reaction of not accepting this comment is the example of me having a defensiveness issue.. I told him that's too easy, its like a bait. And i still asked him for actual examples to be able to reflect on myself but he was unable. He started to cry.. So i panicked when seeing him cry. I did everything he wanted and said i was sorry. We had sex. and then i was late for an appointment so i had to leave.. but later during the day, i thought again of what happened, and i knew it was not okay...I texted him how i felt hurt by his unnecessary comments( it was not the first time). And then it went on a rampage of miscommunications by text for like 30min till he broke up with me.
I felt really bad because i was left with nothing to understand... it was just him telling me I'm bad and i need to change with no examples/events. I genuinely want to get better if I have ever been toxic but there was nothing I can relate to/i remember of me being such defensive for nothing. I even asked an older ex of mine about this, and he said i had no defensiveness issue.. so I was just lost. To me, my ex was being really mean to me for nothing... but he was making me doubt, maybe i was the one in denial ( he told me I was). One day I decided to ask Chat GPT to help me understand about him:
____________
Chat GPT:
I exported the transcript of our last conversation in different parts as it was verrrry long. And I asked different questions related to the conversation to Chat GPT.. Here some of the answers:
1)Based on the conversation provided, it is difficult to say definitively whether or not [Ex] is lacking empathy. While he does seem to be attempting to communicate his feelings to [OP] and express concern for their relationship, his approach comes across as somewhat dismissive of [OP]'s own feelings and experiences.
For example, when [OP] expresses hurt and frustration at being judged and constantly called out by [Ex], he responds by suggesting that [OP]'s defensiveness and irritability are the real issue, rather than acknowledging the validity of [OP] 's concerns. Additionally, he seems to be minimizing [OP] 's trauma and experiences by characterizing their reactions as war-like, rather than acknowledging the impact of past trauma on their behavior.
Overall, it seems that [Ex] may need to work on being more sensitive and attuned to [OP]'s emotions, and taking a more validating and supportive approach to their conversations.
2) It seems like [Ex] may have difficulty empathizing with the other person's feelings and experiences. For example, when the other person expresses feeling hurt and unfairly judged, [Ex] responds by focusing on the other person's defensiveness and irritability, rather than acknowledging their feelings and apologizing for any hurt caused. [Ex] also seems to dismiss the other person's concerns by suggesting that their perceptions are the result of deep-seated wounds rather than acknowledging that their behavior may be contributing to the problem.
3) It seems that [Ex] is trying to express his feelings and concerns about the relationship and how certain behaviors are impacting it. However, his communication style and word choice may not always be the most empathetic or effective in addressing [OP]'s concerns. For example, his comment about [OP]'s defensiveness and irritability being what would "kill" their relationship may come across as harsh and lacking sensitivity to [OP] 's feelings.
4) Based on this conversation, it seems like there is a breakdown in communication and understanding between [Ex] and [OP]. They both seem to be defensive and focused on proving their own points rather than trying to understand each other's perspectives.
[Ex] seems to be struggling with expressing empathy towards [OP], and instead of acknowledging her feelings, he often deflects by saying "it's okay" or "just read the post." He also accuses [OP] of being angry and defensive, without acknowledging his own role in the conversation.
On the other hand, [OP] appears frustrated with [Ex]'s inability to give specific examples and understand her point of view. She seems to become defensive when accused of being angry and invalidating [Ex]'s concerns.

I’m a DM and I’m starting a Hawaiian mythology inspired campaign this Saturday and I’ve been surprised to find few good sources for Polynesian character art. I like to create or find concept art to aid in my players’ visualization, so if any one is looking to help me out, it would be much appreciated. Specific NPCs I want art for are a lionfish themed Triton Beast Conclave Ranger with a Tiger Shark companion (preferably with the shark’s stripes looking like Polynesian tattoos), and an ancient Hawaiian chieftain whose right arm is comprised of living lava. There’s other scenes and characters I’d love rendered for this campaign, though those two are the main ones.

Hi,
32M Starting skin care routing newly, wondering if I can use alpha arbutin and apply moisturizer(Sebamed clear face gel) for night care routine?
Also would it be good if can I do same for morning routing alpha arbutin and apply sunscreen?

I was on my way to work this morning (not exceeding the speed limit), when a speeding car cut me off out of nowhere. I was able to hit the brakes but the thing is, I did it half-heartedly, and almost wished that I didn’t.
When I saw it speeding towards me, I was excited. I don’t know why, but a part of me wondered what would happen if we crash; if I don’t hit the brakes. What stopped me from finding out was the fact that I’m an empath. I thought about the people who love me and whoever it was in the other vehicle. But if it was only me, I know I won’t stop.
It’s been months now and I’ve been feeling like I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to self-harm but I’m just so tired of everyday. While I have normal issues and/or drama on a daily, my life is as good as it gets. On birthdays and important occasions, my loved ones would always say that they don’t know what to get me because “Nasa akin na ang lahat.” Nobody ever asked me what I wanted. Because if they did, they’d know that I would have loved to receive ground coffee and/or scented candles.
Thing is, people always assume that I don’t need anything or anyone because they think I am capable of handling everything. Most days I feel like I need a license to be sad or vulnerable. If I have a problem, and I dare say something about it, people will be dismissive. It got to a point that whenever something bothers me deeply, I just keep it all in because sharing it would be pointless. It’s almost always the same thing, just different variations of, “Ok lang iyan, ____ ka naman eh.” I can’t tell my family because they always expect the best from me; I can’t tell my fiancé because he’d just give me toxic positivity; and I can’t tell friends because they’d just say that I got this because I’m that bitch.
I can’t be sad because I have everything and I can’t be mad when someone hurts me because I’m a “good person who understands”. I’m just so tired of everything and everyone who assumes that I got it all figured out.
Sometimes I imagine a world where I can just be myself and be vulnerable. Where people won’t be dismissive of my worries, my anger, and my pain. I’m most at peace when I’m at our farm where there’s poor cellular service, and all I have to do is stare at the rice fields in between reading a book while waiting for the sunset.
I thought of running away. On my worst days, I think of death. But the empath in me can’t bear the thought of hurting my loved ones.
So I put on a mask. A happy face for everyone so nobody would worry (not that anybody ever did). I schedule 15-minute breakdowns when I’m at work (like now) because I have to be productive. I’m planning to go back to therapy soon, if things won’t improve.
But until then, fake it ‘til you make it, right?