Sprite winter spiced cranberry near me

I have marinara type sauce that I planned to use with pasta, but when my Mom asked me to make little pizzas for her group of card ladies I spiced it a bit to make it pizza sauce. Now she wants to me to make the pasta. Hence, I'm trying to make this sauce into a different sauce by adding different things.
My thoughts were on a Bolognese sauce. I'll reference here the things I can eat and have, once I explain my question above.
I'm of course going to try making Soffritto. I can also add garlic I have that, and I have most spieces.
What I'm worried about is the carrots and celery will still have a bite to them, and the texture won't seem right, maybe having a lousy or unusual mouth feel.
Will they ever soften as I fry them slowly over low heat? I know onions can, but what about the carrots and onion? And can I add the garlic to the Soffritto near the end, or should I just leave it since I used some browned garlic to make the original marinara?
Mostly my concern is getting everything to be soft and not have any crunch.
Please and thank you.

Wish List: Teslas below, AA/SS/1S melee below, rare apparel/masks, or Vanguard Scout armor with +Strength/Cavalier
I still need the following Teslas: H/50c/25,,, Jug/50c/25,,, Med/50L/15r,,, Troub/50c/25
I still need the following AA/SS/1S melee: cultist blade,,, gulper smacker
Complete Trade List: (Thank you for your time browsing this huge list!!!)
FIXERS: AA/25/15r,,, AA/25/15v,,, AA/50c/15v,,, AA/50vhc/25,,, AA/50L/25,,, AA/AP/25,,, AA/E/Dur,,, Ari/25/15r,,, Ari/E/15r,,, Ari/E/25,,, B/25/15v,,, B/50L/25,,, BAP/25,,, Exe/25/25,,, Exe/50c/25,,, Exe/AP/25,,, Exe/E/25,,, F/50c/25,,, GouE/25,,, GS/50c/25,,, GS/E/25,,, H/50c/25,,, Jug/50c/25,,, Jug/AP/25,,, Junk/25/15r,,, Junk/50c/15v,,, Junk/50c/25,,, Junk/50L/25,,, Junk/AP/25,,, Junk/E/15v,,, Med/25/25,,, Med/50c/25,,, Med/AP/25,,, Mu/AP/25,,, MS/50c/25,,, MS/AP/25,,, N/AP/25,,, N/E/25,,, Q/25/15r,,, Q/25/15v,,, Q/AP/25,,, St/50c/25,,, St/AP/25,,, St/E/25,,, Su/50c/25,,, Su/AP/25,,, Su/E/25,,, T/50c/25,,, T/AP/25,,, TS/25/15r,,, TS/25/15v,,, TS/50vhc/25,,, TS/AP/25,,, V/AP/25,,, Z/25/25,,, Z/E/25
HANDMADES: AA/E/15v,,, Junk/25/15r,,, MS/E/25,,, Mu/E/25,,, Mu/50c/25,,, Q/50vhc/25
HEAVY WEAPONS: AA/25/90 AGL,,, AA/25/15r Cryolator,,, AA/25/90 Harpoon Gun,,, As/25A/90 Fatman,,, As/25/90 Gatling Plasma,,, B/E/Gho 50cal,,, B/25A/90 Cryolator,,, B/50L/90 Cryolator,,, B/25A/90 Missile Launcher,,, B/50vhc/90 Missile Launcher,,, B/50L/90 AGL,,, Exe/50c/15r Flamer,,, Exe/25A/90 Gatling Plas,,, Exe/E/25 LMG,,, F/50c/25 Cryolator,,, Q/25/15v LMG,,, Q/50L/90 Minigun,,, TS/25/15r Gatling Gun,,, TS/E/25 Minigun,,, V/25/15r 50cal,,, V/25A/90 Cryolator,,, V/25/25 Gatling Gun,,, V/50L/90 Harpoon Gun,,, Z/E/90 LMG
MELEE: AA/SS/1S Death Tambo,,, AA/SS/1S Deathclaw Gauntlet,,, AA/40P/1S Gulper Smacker,,, AA/SS/1S Pole Hook,,, AA/50c/15v Power Fist,,, AA/SS/1S Super Sledge,,, Ari/SS/1S Shovel,,, Ari/SS/1S Sledgehammer,,, As/40P/1S Chainsaw,,, As/40P/1S Drill,,, B/SS/1S Deathclaw Gauntlet,,, B/SS/25 Gulper Smacker,,, B/SS/25 Meat Hook,,, B/SS/1S Power Fist,,, Exe/40P/25 Drill,,, Exe/50c/1S Power Fist,,, Ext/SS/1S Drill,,, F/40P/40 Chainsaw,,, GS/SS/1S Chainsaw,,, I/SS/1S Death Tambo,,, I/SS/1S Golf Club,,, I/SS/1S Super Sledge,,, Junk/SS/1S Assaultron Blade,,, Junk/SS/1S Security Baton,,, Mu/SS/1S Deathclaw Gauntlet,,, MS/SS/1S Shishkebab,,, Su/SS/1S Spear,,, Su/SS/1S Tire Iron,,, Troub/SS/1S Bowie Knife,,, Troub/SS/1S Golf Club,,, V/SS/1S Combat Knife,,, V/SS/1S Deathclaw Gauntlet,,, V/SS/1S Pole Hook,,, V/SS/1S Sledgehammer,,, Z/SS/1S Fire Axe,,, Z/SS/1S Knuckles,,, Z/SS/1S Pipe Wrench
RAILWAYS: AA/50c/25,,, AA/50vhc/25,,, AA/E/15v,,, AA/E/25,,, Ari/25/15r,,, B/50vhc/25,,, B/E/15r,,, B/E/90,,, F/50c/25,,, F/E/25,,, GS/25/25,,, GS/50c/25,,, H/50c/25,,, I/25/25,,, I/50c/25,,, Junk/E/25,,, Q/50L/90,,, St/50c/25,,, Su/E/25,,, TS/50L/25,,, TS/50vhc/25,,, TS/50c/15r,,, TS/AP/25,,, TS/E/Dur,,, V/25/25,,, V/50c/25,,, Z/E/90
TESLAS: AA/25/15r,,, AA/50L/15r,,, AA/AP/25,,, B/25/Gho,,, Exe/25/15r,,, Ext/25/15r,,, F/25/15r,,, I/25/15r,,, Q/25/250,,, Q/AP/25,,, TS/25/15r,,, TS/25/25,,, V/25/250,,, V/25/Dur,,, V/50L/15r,,, Z/25/15r
AA/25/25 Assaultron Head,,, AA/50c/15v Crossbow,,, AA/50L/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, AA/25/25 Gamma Gun,,, AA/E/15r Hunting Rifle,,, B/AP/25 Compound Bow,,, B/25/25 Gauss Rifle,,, Exe/50c/25 Combat Rifle,,, Exe/50c/25 Double Barrel,,, Exe/E/25 Hunting Rifle,,, Exe/E/25 Lever Action,,, F/50c/15v Compound Bow,,, F/E/25 Double Barrel,,, F/50c/15v Thirst Zapper,,, GouE/25 Double Barrel,,, Gou25/25 Lever Action,,, GS/50c/25 Gamma Gun,,, Jug/E/25 Combat Rifle,,, Jug/50c/25 Laser Rifle,,, Junk/50c/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, Mu/50c/25 Crossbow,,, N/25/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, N/50c/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, Q/50c/25 Assaultron Head,,, Q/25/15r Combat Shotgun,,, Q/25/15r Plasma Rifle,,, St/50c/25 Crossbow,,, St/E/25 Single Action Revolver,,, Su/25/25 Radium Rifle,,, TS/25/15r Combat Rifle,,, TS/50c/25 Combat Rifle,,, V/25/15r Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, V/50c/25 Bow,,, V/AP/25 Crossbow,,, V/50c/25 Gauss Rifle
ARMOR: Aristocrat's Heavy Robot left leg with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Assassin's Heavy Combat right leg with Strength/Sentinel,,, Assassin's Marine right leg with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Assassin's T-45 right leg with AP/Sentinel,,, Assassin's USA left arm with +25 Poison resist/Sentinel,,, Auto Stim Heavy Robot right leg with +25 Cryo resist/Sentinel,,, Auto Stim Raider Power left arm with AP/Sentinel,,, Auto Stim USA right arm with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Auto Stim USA right arm with AP/WWR,,, Auto Stim USA right leg with 7%LED/WWR,,, Auto Stim USA right leg with Strength/WWR,,, Bolstering FSA chest with 7%LED/WWR,,, Bolstering FSA left leg with AP/Sentinel,,, Bolstering Marine right arm with +25 Cryo resist/Sentinel,,, Bolstering Sturdy Combat left leg with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Bolstering Trapper chest with AP/Cavalier,,, Bolstering Trapper right arm with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Bolstering USA left arm with 7%LED/FDC,,, Bolstering USA left leg with slowed hungeWWR,,, Bolstering USA right leg with Agility/Cavalier,,, Bolstering USA right leg with Charisma/Sentinel,,, Chameleon FSA left leg with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Chameleon Heavy Leather right arm with AP/WWR,,, Chameleon Marine right leg with AP/HDT,,, Chameleon Raider Power right leg with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Chameleon Robot chest with 7%LED/WWR,,, Chameleon Trapper left leg with AP/Cavalier,,, Chameleon USA chest with 7%LED/Cavalier,,, Chameleon USA left arm with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Chameleon USA left leg with +25 Cryo resist/Sentinel,,, Chameleon USA right arm with 7%LED/WWR,,, Chameleon USA right leg with AP/FDC,,, Cloaking Raider Power right leg with 7%LED/WWR,,, Cloaking USA right arm with 7%LED/HDT,,, Exterminator's FSA right arm with 7%LED/Cavalier,,, Exterminator's FSA right leg with 7%LED/Cavalier,,, Ghoul Slayer's FSA right leg with AP/Cavalier,,, Life Saving Combat left leg with AP/WWR,,, Life Saving Trapper left leg with AP/Sentinel,,, Life Saving Trapper right leg with 7%LED/Cavalier,,, Life Saving USA left arm with AP/Cavalier,,, Life Saving USA right arm with +25 Poison resist/Sentinel,,, Mutant's Excavator left arm with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Mutant's FSA chest with 7%LED/WWR,,, Mutant's FSA left leg with 7%LED/WWR,,, Nocturnal Excavator right leg with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Nocturnal Marine right arm with AP/Cavalier,,, Nocturnal USA right leg with AP/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Combat left arm with +25 Cryo resist/Cavalier,,, Overeater's Excavator right leg with Luck/Cavalier,,, Overeater's FSA chest with Endurance/Sentinel,,, Overeater's FSA right arm with Luck/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Heavy Combat left arm with 7%LED/JWR,,, Overeater's Heavy Combat right leg with Perception/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Heavy Metal left leg with Strength/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Heavy Raider left arm with 7%LED/Cavalier,,, Overeater's Heavy Raider left leg with Charisma/WWR,,, Overeater's Heavy Robot chest with +25 Rad resist/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Heavy Robot left leg with Agility/WWR,,, Overeater's Marine left leg with slowed hungeWWR,,, Overeater's Marine right arm with +25 Rad resist/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Marine right leg with +25 Fire resist/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Metal left leg with +25 Cryo resist/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Robot right leg with Endurance/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Trapper left leg with +25 Fire resist/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Trapper left arm with AP/HDT,,, Overeater's Trapper left leg with Perception/WWR,,, Overeater's Trapper right arm with Luck/WWR,,, Overeater's T-60 left arm with +25% Env resist/WWR,,, Overeater's T-60 left arm slowed hungeWWR,,, Overeater's USA chest with +25 Cryo resist/HDT,,, Overeater's USA left arm with +25 Poison resist/Sentinel,,, Overeater's USA right leg with slowed hungeFDC,,, Overeater's Wood left arm with 7%LED/Cavalier,,, Regenerating Heavy Leather right leg with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Regenerating Heavy Raider right arm with AP/Sentinel,,, Troubleshooter's Excavator right arm with 7%LED/Cavalier,,, Troubleshooter's Marine left arm with AP/Sentinel,,, Troubleshooter's Sturdy Metal right leg with AP/Sentinel,,, Unyielding FSA chest with Intelligence/Dur,,, Unyielding FSA left arm with Charisma/Cavalier,,, Unyielding FSA left leg with AP/FDC,,, Unyielding Heavy Combat chest with Strength/HDT,,, Unyielding Heavy Combat right arm with +25 Poison resist/JWR,,, Unyielding Heavy Combat right leg with 7%LED/Less limb dam,,, Unyielding Heavy Leather right arm with AP/HDT,,, Unyielding Heavy Metal right leg with Endurance/Sentinel,,, Unyielding Marine right arm with +25 Rad resist/Cavalier,,, Unyielding Marine right leg with +25 Fire resist/WWR,,, Unyielding Metal chest with AP/HDT,,, Unyielding Metal right leg with AP/Cavalier,,, Unyielding Robot right arm with Agility/Sentinel,,, Unyielding Sturdy Leather left arm with Strength/WWR,,, Unyielding Sturdy Leather left leg with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Unyielding Sturdy Metal chest with AP/WWR,,, Unyielding Sturdy Metal left arm with +25 Rad resist/Sentinel,,, Unyielding Trapper left leg with AP/Cavalier,,, Unyielding Trapper right arm with 7%LED/HDT,,, Unyielding USA chest with Charisma/Cavalier,,, Unyielding USA left arm with +25% Env resist/Cavalier,,, Unyielding USA left leg with Charisma/Cavalier,,, Unyielding USA right leg with +25 Poison resist/JWR,,, Unyielding Wood chest with Luck/Cavalier,,, Vanguard's Excavator right leg with Intelligence/Cavalier,,, Vanguard's FSA left arm with slowed hungeSentinel,,, Vanguard's Heavy Leather right arm with 7%LED/HDT,,, Vanguard's Heavy Robot right arm with 7%LED/HDT,,, Vanguard's Marine right arm with AP/HDT,,, Vanguard's Sturdy Robot left arm with AP/Sentinel,,, Vanguard's Sturdy Robot right leg with 7%LED/WWR,,, Vanguard's USA chest with Luck/Sentinel,,, Vanguard's USA left arm with Intelligence/Sentinel,,, Vanguard's USA right arm with AP/Cavalier,,, Vanguard's Wood chest with Strength/Sentinel,,, Weightless USA left arm with Strength/Sentinel,,, Weightless USA right leg with AP/Cavalier,,, Zealot's USA right arm with AP/WWR,,, Zealot's USA right leg with AP/WWR
PLANS: Alien Blaster,,, Assault rifle,,, Barbed walking cane,,, Baseball bat rocket,,, Baseball bat searing puncturing rocket,,, Bear arm,,, Bear arm heavy mod,,, Boxing glove lead lining,,, Camo Backpack,,, Cave cricket tube,,, Deathclaw gauntlet,,, Dense marine armor torso,,, Dense trapper armor torso,,, Fire station bell,,, Flannel shirt & jeans,,, Hatchet electro fusion,,, Junkyard fountain,,, Machete sacrificial blade,,, Meat Tenderizer,,, Nuka girl area rug,,, Pepper Shaker,,, Pitchfork flamer,,, Protective lining marine underarmor,,, Protective lining raider underarmor,,, Puncturing pole hook,,, Radioactive barrel,,, Raw cement barricade,,, Scorchbeast queen plushie,,, Scorched tube,,, Shielded lining casual underarmor,,, Shielded lining marine underarmor,,, Shielded lining raider underarmor,,, Ski sword skate blade,,, Skiing outfit,,, Sledgehammer heavy searing sharp rocket,,, Small vault girl statue,,, Snallygaster plushie,,, Spiked walking cane,,, The Fixer,,, T-60 BOS knight paint,,, TV Aquarium,,, Ultracite emergency protocols,,, Undershirt & jeans,,, Vintage water cooler,,, WV state bird rug,,, Yao Guai tube,,, Cutting fluid recipe,,, Fasnacht donut recipe,,, Fasnacht sausage recipe,,, Healing salve Cranberry Bog recipe,,, Healing salve Mire recipe,,, Formula P recipe,,,Stimpak Diffuser recipe,,, Tato salad recipe
APPAREL: Asylum Uniform Pink,,, Clean Spacesuit,,, Emmett Mountain hazmat suit,,, Garrahan Foreman Outfit and Helmet,,, Grey Fishermans Overalls,,, Hunter's Long Coat,,, Longshoreman Outfit,,, Skiing red and green outfit,,, Straight Jacket Clean,,, ,, Winter Jacket and Jeans
CHEMS: Addictol: 180,,, Berry Mentats: 642,,, Buffout: 1518,,, Calmex: 538,,, Daddy-O: 1068,,, Day Tripper: 797,,, Disease Cure: 415,,, Mentats: 1000,,, Overdrive: 557,,, Psycho: 2803,,, Psychobuff: 1366,,, Psychotats: 1227,,, X-cell: 344
FOOD: Canned meat stew: 65,,, Pepper: 2566,,, Salt: 967,,, Spices: 1430,,, Sugar Bombs(w/rads): 382
MODS: Enclave plasma aligned flamer mod,,, Enclave plasma aligned sniper barrel mod,,, Enclave plasma severe beta wave tuner

Only playing a few days. Built a few small bases but kept restarting. Finally started a game and got an amazing all female team of 3. Built up an awesome base and was determined to make it through the winter. It's early Fall and got a quest to go and collect a stash that had a telescope. Thought that sounded awesome so sent my amazing hunter (Ark) and melee (Blue) as backup. Easily dispatched 2 Yorkshire terriers and collected telescope.
On the way back, raiders burned my base to the ground and kidnapped my lone pawn, Professor Boots, who was stationed there and who I hadn't realised was incapable of violence. (I also hadn't realised my traps had been disabled by a "Mad Mare" some days earlier.) Almost quit but then I saw the message "you might be able to rescue them in the future". Amazing! Decided to take the challenge. Got back to base and nothing left except smoldering ruins. With all foods stores burned and close to starvation, Blue has "major break", goes into a rage and... destroys telescope. Typical. After a difficult few days, managed to get a small hovel set up and thanks to Ark's amazing hunting skills got on top of the food situation. Feeling good about situation.
It's mid-Fall, Ark is near the corner of the map hunting some wild boar. Get raided. She is knocked out and picked up by the lone raider. Blue is agonisingly close to getting there in time but Ark is carried over the edge of the map.. kidnapped. Bummer. I get the same message about rescue. I decide I want to keep playing and try to get the OG gang back together, no matter how long it takes.
Down to one, I spend the days honing Blue's previously non-existent hunting skills and improving the base. I have 100s of wood stored and meat in the freezer. Made a parka. Despite the depressing nature of the situation, pretty sure I will actually survive my first ever winter.
Winter comes, just passing the days hunting. Midwinter, a quest appears: Boots has stolen a radio and told me where she is being held! I hesitate only to craft 10 more meals then form a caravan and set out. When I get there, she is in a cell with 1 guard and 2 turrets. The turrets are covering Boots' cell but I'm not sure if I can somehow disrupt their power supply. I decide to give it a go as I feel like this is the beginning of getting the gang all back together. I am able to lure the guard away from the turrets. I hit him with my bow but he still makes it into melee. He bludgeons me to death. It is the end.
Genuinely had more fun, memorable story and LOL-moments in just a few hours of Rimworld this evening than I probably have with the last few years of gaming!! Can't wait to try again. Cheers.

Now that the Tish saga is done, it's time to move on to our landlord's retribution. This is a long one because I don't want to divide the story. TL;DR at the end.
Hubby and I lived in this apartment complex from 2016-2019. Until 2018, the apartment next to Tish's was rented by a Dominican couple who (apart from the Colosseum they erected in their living room every weekend for televised boxing matches) were very nice. So, Hubby and I were kind of bummed when the couple decided that they'd had enough of our complex. They came home one day to find at their doorstep a big-ass rat the size of a cat snacking merrily on some KFC bones that had dropped from Tish's garbage can. I would also argue that the couple probably found it hard to sleep with Tish's headboard slapping against their bedroom wall all weekend long (cue Vybez Kartel & Spice).
We were further disappointed when we realized they were being replaced by a mother and her two daughters. It's not that I don't like kids. I just that Jay wasn't exactly a model for confidence.
The family was quiet and timid, but it was clear they had problems. Big problems. According to what Tina would tell me in "casual" conversations in the laundry room, she had once sat upon her parents’ very high pedestal and - by her own account - had been violently shoved from that pedestal when she found herself pregnant with her first daughter. She'd tried to climb another very high pedestal and managed to stay there long enough to marry and have her second child, but "the cheating dog" had kicked Tina from the apex of prosperity to the pits of impoverishment once more. Heavy shit for laundry room talk.
But, it was hard to sympathize with Tina. The girls, unfortunately, seemed to understand all too well that they were Tina’s “burden”. The teenager (Mel) was ferrety and surly - which some would say is normal for a 15yo - but do 15yos spank their own sisters? Not fight - spank. As a parent would. And the 8yo, while sweet, tore through boundaries like acrylic nails through cheap toilet paper.
Tish immediately hated Tina because there was only enough room in this complex for one shit show at a time. Every time I saw Tish and Tina pass one another around the complex, the air would grow cold and the birds would flee to the West.
But, Tish and Jay left not long after Tina and her girls moved in. If y’all are looking for the catfight of the century, I am so sorry, but I must disappoint you. Jay's father returned from graduate school and got primary custody of Jay. That meant Tish was no longer entitled to child support, and she couldn't afford the apartment anymore. Hubby and I sacrificed a goat to the Most High in gratitude.
But then a few weeks after Tish and Jay left, Hubby and I noticed strange noises coming from the apartment upstairs. It should have been empty, but we heard chairs dragging against the floor at all hours of the evening. I called our landlord and asked if anyone had moved in, but she told us, "No."
"But there is someone upstairs," I told her. She dismissed me. Said there was no one up there.
Then why, only a few nights after that, was the security gate to Tish's old apartment open? And why were the lights on?
I called our landlord, but our landlord told me to take it easy, which was nice speak for "Leave me alone, you paranoid dumbfuck.”
Well, Hubby was sure some hobo was shacking up in Tish’s old apartment, which was highly likely considering where we lived. Our former apartment complex rests within one of the only remaining residential nooks in a fast-growing bacchanal city. On the street to the north is a string of touristy restaurants. On the street to the south is the sleaziest bar in five miles, and on the street to the right was a brothel masquerading as an AirBnB. It never once crossed my mind that the girls in 6-inch heels, batty riders, and lashes out to Wednesday walking up and down the road at 1:00 a.m. might were “working”…
Anyway, Hubby decided to go check on the apartment upstairs, and lo - the security gate and front door were both unlocked. Hubby figured Tish or our landlord must have left the doors open by accident, which allowed whoever the hell it was dragging chairs over our heads to enter the vacant apartment. I passed this knowledge on to our landlord, who assured me that she’d send a locksmith to change the locks.
It was an evening after the locksmith changed the locks that Hubby and I came home late to find ourselves face-to-face with the intruder upstairs. At the door to Tish’s old apartment was Mel. With her was a man who, though young, was clearly older than Mel, picking at the security gate lock.
When Mel saw us, she jumped so high she nearly took down some shingles from the roof. The young man, however, bid us a very cordial good evening. Then, he finished picking the locks to the doors and entered the apartment. Yes, my dear people. Mel had broken into the apartment upstairs and set up camp.
You better believe I called my landlord and told her about what we’d just seen. She was shocked. Was I sure that’s who I’d seen breaking into the apartment? Mel was such a mannerly, mature young woman. It must have been someone else! I guess I wasn't just a paranoid dumbfuck, but a blind one as well.
Anyway, a few days later, Mel and Tina started moving furniture into Tina’s apartment. They didn't say anything to us when they saw us. I wondered if I was the bad guy, but Hubby said no: I should call our landlord and report.
"Oh, don't worry about that. I told Tina that Mel could camp out there for a while."
What?
Well, friends, what happened was that our landlord called Tina to confront her about Mel breaking into the apartment. But then Tina told our landlord about her recent fall from grace and then lamented about the horrors of parenting a teenager all alone in a one-bedroom apartment. She cried so much that our landlord decided to make a deal. For $200 a month, Tina could rent the empty apartment for Mel under the condition that when a new tenant was found Mel would move out.
Okay, fine, I thought. If that's how you want to run your apartments, that's up to you. I'll stay out of your business next time.
And that's just what I did when I came home from work one day to find an American couple dressed in bathing suits trying to open the gate to the complex.
And I continued to do so the week after that when Hubby saw Mel cleaning the apartment while three Australian ladies grilled by the complex pool.
But, one night when a hooker knocked on our door, I'd had enough.
At first, I tried to give Tina and Mel the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this was something they had worked out with the landlord. Maybe this was actually the landlord playing her hand at AirBnB. So, I worded my texts carefully. Asked our landlord if she'd found a new tenant, since we'd seen some new people in the complex. If she'd been trying out short-term renting since so we noticed so many tourists roaming the complex. If she knew that there were strange people coming in and out every week. No reply.
Turns out we weren't the only tenants concerned - and ignored. Two of our other neighbors had also tried to contact our landlord to tell her about the strange tourists hanging bathing suits all over the fences and ordering "fair" company in the apartment above us. Our landlord, however, never responded to any of us. Didn't even blue tick.
By the time frat boys started renting the apartment, Hubby and I had had enough. We found a new apartment and gave notice. Oddly enough, our landlord got that message as soon as I sent it. She didn't bother asking us why we were moving out, and I didn't push the matter. I didn't even make a fuss when she didn't give us our security deposit back. In my city, it's rare you get that back anyhow.
But then a month later, I got a call from our old landlord. She said she'd assessed the apartment and found no damages, so she had our security deposit ready for us. I mean, money is money, and that was our money, so Hubby and I set a date to meet the landlord at the old place.
Our landlord was oddly chatty when we arrived. At first, we thought she was just excited because she was finally giving the complex a much-needed facelift. But then she started talking about Tina.
[Dramatization below]
Landlord: "Do you remember Tina?"
Hubby looks at me. I look at Hubby. “Of course."
Landlord: "Well, she doesn't live here anymore."
Crickets.
Landlord: "I evicted her."
Quizzical eyebrows.
Landlord: "You won't believe what she was doing."
Side eye-side eye.
Landlord: "Well, she was running an AirBnB! In the apartment right above you!"
Pikachu gasp: "No!"
Apparently, after we left, the landlord came to assess our apartment. When she entered the complex, who did she happen to run into?
A British couple in their bathing suits.
They asked her if she knew where the beach was, and the landlord gave them the directions in exchange for a glimpse at the AirBnB listing they'd contracted.
There it was - Tish's old apartment rented out at $800 a week!!! Take away the $200 a month Tina had arranged to rent the apartment, that was a $3000 profit!
The landlord confronted Tina, and as Tina packed her bags under the close supervision of a police officer, Tina railed on and on about how our landlord was being so cruel to a single mother. How could a fellow woman deny Tina the right to make a living for her girls? No one was using the apartment anyway! She'd sue, she sue for squatter's rights! She was a single mother!!!
So ends the Tina tale, but we have some extra credits. Our landlord realized how lucrative the AirBnB business could be, so she evicted all of the tenants and renovated the complex to open it up for short-term renting. That all came to an end when a 17yo boy drowned in the pool and the family sued the landlord for negligence.
All's well that end's well, eh?
TL;DR: Neighbor breaks into an empty apartment, manages to weasel the landlord into renting it to her for $200/month, and then sublets it on AirBnB for $800 a week!

I'd like to find somebody thoughtful, someone who isn't superficial. Somebody who appreciates the rich vastness of our shared multicultural past, and freely follows her curiosity in exploring it. Somebody who is trying her best to adhere to the guidance of her inner moral compass, and isn't so easily fooled by the distractions and illusions of the world.
One such illusion, that must immediately be mentioned (this is important, because it's led to a break for me, in the past): religion. Religion is man-made, and not of any higher authority. The Bible and the Quran all permit slavery—in addition to countless other horrid and divisive ideas—while claiming to be eternal wisdom, and that is indefensible. I still like to believe in the idea of some permeating higher morality, that imbues us with our general sense for justice, fairness, and empathy...but, I know that without outright proof, even my holding of such a notion can be deemed a flight of fancy, a residual remnant of a system so entrenched. However, it seems to me that life is often more than just what's on the surface. Um, but now, then—back to the person I wish to know...
I'd also love it if she were artistic. Singing, sketching, painting, writing, composing, creating. Someone who is trying to nurture their talents and passions. I know it can be difficult...
As for me, well... I adore music. Mostly voices from the past (the 1960s would have to be my favorite), because I find them to be humbler and more from the heart, at least in popular music. I’ll just give an example of something I’ve looked into, and this is nowhere near representative of my wider taste, but if you go back to early 1920s country music... (Here's an aside: a lot of what people think of as "country" today is a long cry from what the genre is actually like, historically. If you are into folk music—Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan—it is indelibly linked to "country", and if you'd like a popular example of a song that originated within the genre, look no further than the universally recognized "You Are My Sunshine", from 1939!)
Anyway. If you go back to that early period, where undiscovered niches of music were still sought out and first put to tape... a lot of those artists had no idea about anything to do with recording—no ego, no attempt to sound "cool". What came through instead was a bare expression of the life that had been lived—the inner beauty of their own personhood, and I love hearing that. It's so honest. A vulnerable and piercing expression.
So if you're into history or the beautiful music of decades (and centuries) past, if you have any aspirations for creating as a method of changing the world for the better, if you'd like to play games and watch movies together, if you'd like an accountability partner—or all of the above...please message me. I don't mind the chat function, either—in fact, it's probably easier. Also, to get this out of the way: this is what I look like.
I love beautiful things. Nature, music that tugs at your heartstrings or is so honest you're enraptured, experiences that heal. More specifically, here are some of my current interests:

• music (singing/playing an instrument/the Beach Boys are my favorite group—I also love Maybelle Carter, Cass Elliot, Pink Floyd, Lana Del Rey, The Cranberries, Sixpence None The Richer, loads of video game music, The Smiths, The Beatles, The Who, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Harry Nilsson, Joni Mitchell, The Righteous Brothers, Judy Garland, Sam Cooke, Frank Churchill, Marty O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori... Here’s a brief go at the Beatles’ “Julia”.) And, if you liked that—a more recent one…
• drawing—here are a few I've done.
• video games (any era from Atari—I like exploring the history and evolution—to the Switch and PS4) [Currently playing, or starting: The Binding of Isaac, Catherine]
• Disney, especially the Golden Age and Renaissance—Pinocchio (my favorite movie ever), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Aladdin, The Lion King, Tarzan. I love how handmade the early films look. And yet, how no expense was spared in creating these most precious and moving works of art.
• films/series/books I've enjoyed lately: The Sound of Magic, The Little Prince, Matilda, Love Hard, The Fundamentals of Caring, This Beautiful Fantastic, Donnie Darko, Alamut by Vladimir Bartol (this book was a key inspiration for the first Assassin's Creed), The Trial of the Chicago 7, Medici: The Magnificent, Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter, Judy

To close... I suppose I should say I've been afflicted with long-COVID for over two years. It'd be very nice to keep each other company, especially if we share any of the interests up above—we could watch favorite films, have shared listening sessions on Spotify, and it'd be a godsend to find somebody up to play on PS4 and Switch! Donkey Kong Country 2 and 3 on the secret hard modes, maybe? Or sculpting our own world from scratch in Minecraft? Or maybe we could act out Ocarina of Time's storyline using all the options available on Smash Ultimate!
I'd really like to know an intelligent person with a unique identity...who puts forth effort—though at the same time, no pressure on reaching out. If you are this type of person, but can currently only muster up a few words because, hey! Life is tough, and grueling, and we don't always have a ready-made letter in us to flip out of our pockets—don't be scared away by my tower of words. I absolutely know, firsthand, what it's like to want to communicate, yet not currently have the energy or the mindpower for it. Life can really sink you... I promise I will not judge. Please send me a chat message, if you're at all interested in chatting.

I'd like to find somebody thoughtful, someone who isn't superficial. Somebody who appreciates the rich vastness of our shared multicultural past, and freely follows her curiosity in exploring it. Somebody who is trying her best to adhere to the guidance of her inner moral compass, and isn't so easily fooled by the distractions and illusions of the world.
One such illusion, that must immediately be mentioned (this is important, because it's led to a break for me, in the past): religion. Religion is man-made, and not of any higher authority. The Bible and the Quran all permit slavery—in addition to countless other horrid and divisive ideas—while claiming to be eternal wisdom, and that is indefensible. I still like to believe in the idea of some permeating higher morality, that imbues us with our general sense for justice, fairness, and empathy...but, I know that without outright proof, even my holding of such a notion can be deemed a flight of fancy, a residual remnant of a system so entrenched. However, it seems to me that life is often more than just what's on the surface. Um, but now, then—back to the person I wish to know...
I'd also love it if she were artistic. Singing, sketching, painting, writing, composing, creating. Someone who is trying to nurture their talents and passions. I know it can be difficult...
As for me, well... I adore music. Mostly voices from the past (the 1960s would have to be my favorite), because I find them to be humbler and more from the heart, at least in popular music. I’ll just give an example of something I’ve looked into, and this is nowhere near representative of my wider taste, but if you go back to early 1920s country music... (Here's an aside: a lot of what people think of as "country" today is a long cry from what the genre is actually like, historically. If you are into folk music—Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan—it is indelibly linked to "country", and if you'd like a popular example of a song that originated within the genre, look no further than the universally recognized "You Are My Sunshine", from 1939!)
Anyway. If you go back to that early period, where undiscovered niches of music were still sought out and first put to tape... a lot of those artists had no idea about anything to do with recording—no ego, no attempt to sound "cool". What came through instead was a bare expression of the life that had been lived—the inner beauty of their own personhood, and I love hearing that. It's so honest. A vulnerable and piercing expression.
So if you're into history or the beautiful music of decades (and centuries) past, if you have any aspirations for creating as a method of changing the world for the better, if you'd like to play games and watch movies together, if you'd like an accountability partner—or all of the above...please message me. I don't mind the chat function, either—in fact, it's probably easier. Also, to get this out of the way: this is what I look like.
I love beautiful things. Nature, music that tugs at your heartstrings or is so honest you're enraptured, experiences that heal. More specifically, here are some of my current interests:

• music (singing/playing an instrument/the Beach Boys are my favorite group—I also love Maybelle Carter, Cass Elliot, Pink Floyd, Lana Del Rey, The Cranberries, Sixpence None The Richer, loads of video game music, The Smiths, The Beatles, The Who, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Harry Nilsson, Joni Mitchell, The Righteous Brothers, Judy Garland, Sam Cooke, Frank Churchill, Marty O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori... Here’s a brief go at the Beatles’ “Julia”.) And, if you liked that—a more recent one…
• drawing—here are a few I've done.
• video games (any era from Atari—I like exploring the history and evolution—to the Switch and PS4) [Currently playing, or starting: The Binding of Isaac, Catherine]
• Disney, especially the Golden Age and Renaissance—Pinocchio (my favorite movie ever), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Aladdin, The Lion King, Tarzan. I love how handmade the early films look. And yet, how no expense was spared in creating these most precious and moving works of art.
• films/series/books I've enjoyed lately: The Sound of Magic, The Little Prince, Matilda, Love Hard, The Fundamentals of Caring, This Beautiful Fantastic, Donnie Darko, Alamut by Vladimir Bartol (this book was a key inspiration for the first Assassin's Creed), The Trial of the Chicago 7, Medici: The Magnificent, Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter, Judy

To close... I suppose I should say I've been afflicted with long-COVID for over two years. It'd be very nice to keep each other company, especially if we share any of the interests up above—we could watch favorite films, have shared listening sessions on Spotify, and it'd be a godsend to find somebody up to play on PS4 and Switch! Donkey Kong Country 2 and 3 on the secret hard modes, maybe? Or sculpting our own world from scratch in Minecraft? Or maybe we could act out Ocarina of Time's storyline using all the options available on Smash Ultimate!
I'd really like to know an intelligent person with a unique identity...who puts forth effort—though at the same time, no pressure on reaching out. If you are this type of person, but can currently only muster up a few words because, hey! Life is tough, and grueling, and we don't always have a ready-made letter in us to flip out of our pockets—don't be scared away by my tower of words. I absolutely know, firsthand, what it's like to want to communicate, yet not currently have the energy or the mindpower for it. Life can really sink you... I promise I will not judge. Please send me a chat message, if you're at all interested in chatting.

Some Background information:
Kalindis is a mobile game my indie game 'studio', Nahar Studios (https://nahar.dev/) released back in April of 2021. It was our first (and currently only) 'major' (relative to what we've made before) release as a studio and garnered around 50 downloads (not bad for a first project!) and an average 4.9 stars on the Play Store. The game revolved around a jellyfish trying to escape the growing darkness rising below, and the main mechanic to do so involved collecting stars to replenish your jumps, as you’d lose them every time you jumped. The goal for this project was to get used to making a larger scale project as a team, as we’d typically made game jam projects and never dipped our toes into anything that took longer than week to make.
I’m writing a post-mortem now because I feel like I never actually reflected on the project post-release, and we’re struggling to get another big project started up so it may give us some insight as to what worked well and what didn’t the first time. Hopefully this is insightful to any other hobbyist game devs, especially those who are still getting started out on bigger, non-jam projects, or interested in journeying into mobile game dev.
We worked with the Godot Engine and opted for a 3D animated model as a 2D sprite. Essentially, we just modelled and animated everything, then rendered each frame as a PNG which we imported into the engine. We did our project management on Trello, held most updates and major discussions over discord, and we all typically worked from home while juggling high school work. It was our first mobile game, our first major project, and it took about 6 months to make from ideation to release.
Part I - What went well:
Kalindis was definitely a project we take a lot of pride in, having released the game while most of us were still in high school. It almost felt like a really polished, genuinely well-made mobile game you might find on the app store charts, although it definitely wasn’t perfect. The gameplay loop was simple and satisfying, although difficulty progression was nowhere near perfect, the visual identity and theming were consistent and well-polished and the music and SFX were satisfying and fit the vibe we were going for really well. Handing the game to a friend would almost always garner the reaction “You made this?!” which, as you’d imagine, would be a huge ego boost for a teenager on their first major project. We had only made lower quality jam games before this point, so achieving this level of polish and scale on our first project was a huge achievement. We even managed to push out an update to the game which brought in a leaderboard system, although there were (and still are) some issues with that.
We had a strong idea of what we wanted the game to be from start to finish. It felt like we knew what we wanted it to feel like, look like, sound like, and play like, and all we had to do was make it. The game slowly progressed with that idea in mind and that idea was what kept us on track. We tried our best not to get sidetracked with adding new features halfway through or changing up things that were working out perfectly fine for us and decided to just stick with what we thought important for the game to launch (at least until we’d released it), which turned out working well in the long run. Of course, theres no problem with being malleable, but for us we really just wanted to get a game out there, and we felt that being too malleable with our approach would slow us down and distract us, so we just drove straight down the tunnel we dug without looking at any other paths too deeply, which turned out well for us.
We were also reached out to by Lion Studios, a huge mobile game publisher owned by Applovin, who were interested in publishing the game for us and running some marketing campaigns, although we rejected that offer before it got anywhere. I'm not sure how common these offers are for mobile games, so we may have passed up on a really good deal....
Part II – What went…not so well:
Kalindis’ gameplay loop was satisfying, but it got worn out quickly without the introduction of many varying challenges and obstacles past the 20-point mark. It was simple, sure, but the gameplay progression of just making jumps a bit harder to reach as the game progressed wasn’t enough to entice players to keep playing, and oddly enough, it resulted in a weird soft barrier around the 40-point mark where the difficulty spiked. Once that was cleared, the game got easy again though. A lot of polish and playtesting was needed in the overall gameplay loop, which we evidently didn’t end up doing enough of. Admittedly, I got too lazy when it came to playing the game long enough to reach the higher numbers, so that was definitely a point worth getting play testers to run through.
Another thing which didn’t work out too well was our leaderboard system. We set it up in such a way that you could scroll through to find where people sat on the leaderboard, as well as to see the top 10, but the scrolling was messed up and didn’t work as intended. Many patches later, we gave up on it and just left it a broken mess.
Something that we did particularly badly was marketing. We made a couple of (admittedly well made) Instagram posts and that was pretty much it. No effort put in beyond that. We could’ve spammed reddit, discord showcase channels, twitter, and so on, but we did none of it. Sure, it was an indie mobile game, but a niche exists for everything, and we definitely should’ve pushed for that to get the downloads higher than 50 (most of whom were just our friends and family). Despite all of these shortcomings, there remains one which we never even got around to making, the skin shop.
The skin shop was a simple idea we had planned from the start. We were going to release the game with a few skins which you could earn through in-game currency, which we also planned to make purchasable to try and make some money back for the publishing costs on android and iOS (I’ll get to iOS in a second). We came across a lot of delays in the art team, whether it was because of personal stuff coming up or project management overambition I’m not sure, but we just barely managed to make the internal deadline we set for ourselves to actually release the project, so we opted to make skins for the game the first priority for our next update.
Of course, the skins never came. The team worked on some, but we never ended up finishing any, whether it was because of burnout, busy schedules, or lack of interest in the project I’m not sure, although it was likely a combination of the three. Since the art was out of my hands, I set out personally working on the leaderboard system while I waited, since I was sure I could finish it quickly and get the first update out before players started to lose interest.
For now, and forever, the skin shop will remain saying “Coming soon”.
We initially planned to launch for iOS and Android at the same time, but because of the annoying requirements needed to publish on iOS, we had to release on Android first to meet the announcement date of April. iOS proved to be a big headache, since you needed to do all the publishing stuff on Xcode to get it up on the store, which you can only do on a Mac (which I didn’t own). I had to borrow someone else’s, and even after doing all of the publishing setup on Xcode and submitting it for review, I couldn’t get it up because it would crash on certain iPad models. We didn’t even want to put the game on iPad, so I had a bit of a back and forth with the App Store representative before I opted to give up, since I know nothing about Godot Engine to iPad optimization, nor did I have an iPad to test with.
The Play Store was much more cooperative, with the build we submitted being approved in less than a week, and subsequent updates being approved almost instantly.
Part III – What to take forward:
I hold a lot of love for Kalindis. Certain quality of life features and unfulfilled promises kind of held it back in the end from being a perfect first ‘big’ game to me, but it definitely means a lot to me regardless. It’s been two years since, and I have yet to work on a project as big as Kalindis. We spent 6 straight months working on it, from coming up with game design elements in paint on discord calls in the beginning to polishing the way the trajectory worked towards the end, we always had something to do, and always worked hard to try and get the game done. I’m still so proud of what we were able to accomplish with the project, but I really wish we had done a few things differently to take the game from good to great. Simple things like not introducing currency/skins without having any skins to show for it, animating the UI a bit, spending a bit more time on getting that leaderboard to do at least one thing right, giving the freeze moon mechanic some kind of visual indication for when it’s active rather than just audio, and not giving up so early on the iOS publishing. We definitely should’ve play tested more before release, and not give ourselves a deadline by announcing it to the public…. (Although the public was mainly our friends and family, it was enough for us to feel the pressure lol) In any case, we made a great game we should be proud of, and I’m glad we got it out there, despite its flaws.
Part IV – Lessons Learned:
I’ll keep this section simple:
-Don’t overscale, and don’t be afraid to cut back features to get things out there.
-Strong and consistent visual/audio language goes a long way in giving a game a polished, stylized feel, rather than feeling like an asset flip or jam game.
-Don’t give up on features and project plans because of inconveniences, but don’t stress too much about them if they don’t end up coming to fruition in the end.
-Playtest playtest playtest. Playtesting should start early and often.
-Core gameplay loop matters more than additional features, dedicate more time to getting it right.
-Don’t underestimate marketing/leave it to the last minute. Get the name out there and build an audience before you release (admittedly harder for mobile games lmao).
I hope this is even a little bit insightful to someone! My memory is a bit hazy since it has been a couple years since we’ve touched the project, but I’ll do my best to answer any questions you may have!
Here's a link to the game: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nahar.kalindis&hl=en&gl=US

Hi I am 33F divorced with 6y.o daughter. I will be remarrying soon but my partner lives in Japan. I always wanted to move there as well and would like to raised my daughter in more safe environment compare to living in Chicago. My problem understandably that my ex-husband does not allow it. I am originally from Philippines but would also love to be near my family. I don't have any family in Chicago. Basically support wise for my daughter are my ex-husband, great grandma and his mom. Other than that I can't trust his stepdad for personal reason. I know this is complicated case. Ex-husband offered that If I still move to Japan, that I can have my daughter every Summer and Winter break. I don't know if thats a good deal. I feel like I will break my daughter's heart as she always say she doesn't want to be apart from me. Ex-husband is good person but he is addicted to computer games which my daughter usually complains at me. I am not sure if he can really focused on raising our daughter by himself like making sure homework is done, bath everyday , making decent or healthy food ( he can't cook). My daughter is a mama's girl (maybe I am saying it as a biased) but she usually calms down and listen to me. I think when it comes to choosing between me and her dad, she will always pick me but I know she is too young for the court to choose which side unfortunately. also when it comes to Japan, my future husband only want me to work part time to have something set aside for my daughter and savings and he can take care of the rest. Which I'll be grateful as I want to focus more on being a mom and wife. I need some advice on how I can go about this ? I am thinking of getting a lawyer to fight for sole custody and relocation. I am not sure if I can win or not. I wanna fight for my daughter. Also I was thinking if my ex will allow or judge to have my daughter every 2 years. It might be tough on her. But I believe there are kids that have move around more often than that. I was thinking every 2 years at least maybe my daughter can experience Japan and my other side of the family and see if she can integrate and revisit or reevaluate her feelings or which ever side she wants to be. But I want opportunity that she can experience the culture that we love. Is that something I can offer to my ex husband or judge like proposal ? My ex-husband concerns is my future husband and his family as he doesnt know them. which is understandable but how I go about that? what are other people experience when it comes to divorce and remarrying. Do I have to introduce them to each other or have them bond or something? How does it work ? Thank you for anyone help.

So I made post before I live in Illinois and im 21 living with parents and sibling who dont mask. Honestly? I have since long time ago gave up trying to convince them to mask indoors at least for their health really. I gave up. But I still feel at risk. I havent felt safe for three years now and I have no money to my name. I have been seeking remote and hybrid positions but never hear anything back or rejection emails. I have applied to in person jobs too out of desperation and no luck either besides like 3-4 interviews. This was the worst time for this to happen. I am unemployed and have an associates degree that is not useful its only an associates in general studies and I cant afford to get any other course of training right now. My parents wont help me got to back too. I want to give up im being real because even if I could move out it could take me years to save up enough money. I feel too tired to mask in my house when I mask all day when I have to go outside. I feel damn near worn down. I don't know what jobs that are covid-safe that are in person I could apply to that would help me raise enough money to move out soon? I have no friends to move in or a boyfriend. I can't seek someone to date and move in with because most people arent taking any precautions I tried I looked in apps like, tinder, and hinge, and bumble bFF for friends. I tried covidmeetups the website it dead for me. I really don't know to everyone here if im going to be able to make it out and move out before I get reinfected so many times by my family that I die by sickness or become disabled and be gaslighted by my parents more. Is there any job out there I dont know how to navigate which in-person job can be safe enough for me in city that also gets very cold in the winter? Also I live in Illinois if anyone is living there rn hmu I would like to find a least a friend who understands.

If you're aware of the ball inside a box analogy, you should give it a quick read, especially if you've experienced loss.
I'm a 27M, currently studying in uni here in Canada. Average looking guy, unironically have too much money to spend for my own, I have my own house and a good job. I'm living an introvert's paradise. But it's starting to take a toll on me.
I have bestfriends and family, but I'm always alone. I'd like to think that it's not too hard to get a date for me since I've tried, managed to hook up once in a while but it's always unsettling for me. Not just for me but my partners. I feel like I could be so much more and is still capable to be in a good relationship, there's just one problem. My ex wife ruined me and it scares me to no end that people are just out to take advantage of me.
Let's jump back about 12 years ago when we first became boyfriend and girlfriend. She is a mega stacy, malakas mang okray, and just the worst and also the best person I ever met that time. Half of our college life, I spent courting her friend who never reciprocated my feelings. It was okay, I was young, I went after the cutest girl in our room, it was a love based on looks i guess. So when her friend got a boyfriend, I gave up and just focus on my career. She was always my wingman so nung na busted ako, she just laughed at me. She's the worst person afterall. On our 3rd-4th year, we became close friends, best friends in fact. It was hard to say that I love her romantically because I see her as a tropa or maybe kapatid, or maybe I just distanced myself from her enough to avoid it, but I can tell it's there. She's not a very romantic person either, she loves kpop, very girly, but not the type of girl who has crushes on guys. She's also an introvert like me so we had the mutual boundary respect going on.
A month before we graduated, my papers to move to Canada as a permanent resident was accepted and we had to move on the next month right away. That's when I first realized I'm going to have to leave her and the thought nearly broke me. This is the first time I realized I actually love her. If her friend was 9/10, she was an 8 in appearance but is an 11/10 on everything else. So I confessed, I told her I love her and her reply was basically "I think I love you too but we're about to enter an LDR so I'm really not sure. Let's just stay the way we are and see where it goes."
6 years later we're still going strong. Everything I did for the past years was all for her. I got my first house, I saved tons that it's enough to let us travel to different countries after she accepts to marry me. So I went back home in PH, asked her to marry me and she did. I saved for a church wedding too but first we agreed to get a civil wedding first just so I could process her papers and bring her to Canada with me. It was the best time of our life and we're both happy. Until we're not.
Maybe the trauma clouded my memories, even as I type this, I'm trying to remember the events that concluded before the day I lost her. June 2019, 3rd month after our wedding, we're still happy, but I'm back to Canada and grinding for more savings. We were so contented and just waiting for her papers to be processed. November 2019, something happened to her relating to her sister's husband trying to make a move on her. Pina demanda nmin and I remember being so mad. December was hazy, we were both so stressed, winter weather is adding on to me, I'm always tired and cold. January 2020, 2 months before the start of pandemic. I remember I had a few arguments with her that wasn't really anything major. I got upset and decided it's my turn na babyhin, because I would always apologize to her when we argue sometimes. Initially I planned to see how long it'll take for her to text me. Little did I know that, it was the last time I would hear of her ever again.
During this time, I planned trips to surprise her. I booked us a flight to France by february, we'll spend a month there and go to Japan by March para tumira sa relative namin. By April we would go back home to PH and spend more time there together. But covid had other plans for me, by other plans I mean, it literally just kept me from seeing her.
February is fast approaching, and she's still not messaging me. At this point I've already been spamming our messenger for weeks. I've contacted her friends, sisters and mother and they won't tell me anything aside from just "give her time". Our trip to France was set and I went there myself, spend 2 days alone in a hotel before I decided to cut it short and go home. (I got lucky because the next day, they closed down the whole country). So I'm back here in Canada, waiting and just working. Worried sick and full of anxiety.
And just like that, I lost my wife and never heard of her again.
Of course I went through the stages of grief. I was in a loophole. Maybe she just needs more time.. Maybe she cheated? Maybe i fucked up for not apologizing to her on our last argument 6 months ago. By the end of 2020 I was in deep depression and I never really attempted suicide but the thought to this day lingers. It's just that, everytime the thought of killing myself becomes ripe, my bestfriends would always be there to distract me and give me a good time. Seeing my mother helped a lot too. I can't break her heart so I mostly fought for her. I haven't given her a proper gift since I was born because I didn't had a job back then and when I did get one, I was already so focus to my wife. The last thing I could do to her is give her a dead child. It was a harrowing 2 years of knowing nothing and just moving in autopilot. The box was so small that the ball just keeps bumping that button and it always fucks me up when it does. In those 2 years I've also burned through my savings building my expensive ass PCs, games, alchohol, weeds and traveling across Canada to hook up.
It was only last year when I finally got tired of my loophole that I finally started dragging myself to move on inch by inch. I started working again and got a good job. I'm making new friends and pursuing my career. I made peace with my unresolved past and each day, the box grows bigger for me, giving me more time and space to breathe on.
Today my ball hit the button and my world was falling apart until I got this off my chest by writing this. Thanks for reading.
Edit: Typos

So I made post before I live in Illinois and im 21 living with parents and sibling who dont mask. Honestly? I have since long time ago gave up trying to convince them to mask indoors at least for their health really. I gave up. But I still feel at risk. I havent felt safe for three years now and I have no money to my name. I have been seeking remote and hybrid positions but never hear anything back or rejection emails. I have applied to in person jobs too out of desperation and no luck either besides like 3-4 interviews. This was the worst time for this to happen. I am unemployed and have an associates degree that is not useful its only an associates in general studies and I cant afford to get any other course of training right now. My parents wont help me got to back too. I want to give up im being real because even if I could move out it could take me years to save up enough money. I feel too tired to mask in my house when I mask all day when I have to go outside. I feel damn near worn down. I don't know what jobs that are covid-safe that are in person I could apply to that would help me raise enough money to move out soon? I have no friends to move in or a boyfriend. I can't seek someone to date and move in with because most people arent taking any precautions I tried I looked in apps like, tinder, and hinge, and bumble bFF for friends. I tried covidmeetups the website it dead for me. I really don't know to everyone here if im going to be able to make it out and move out before I get reinfected so many times by my family that I die by sickness or become disabled and be gaslighted by my parents more. Is there any job out there I dont know how to navigate which in-person job can be safe enough for me in city that also gets very cold in the winter? Also I live in Illinois if anyone is living there rn hmu I would like to find a least a friend who understands.

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--- Part 1/2 ---
When Shon woke again, it was to be told he'd slept, not only the rest of the day and night of the incident, but the entire day after as well. Despite the Cleric assuring Shon that this was normal, he still had Shon eat breakfast in the infirmary while the Squires attended their morning lessons. He'd slept through drills, breakfast, and prayer.
The Cleric kept the curtains drawn over the window, though Shon's head wasn't pounding anymore, and had added a second set of standing curtains around the girl's bed. Shon's eyes flicked in her direction with every alternate bite he managed to force down, but there was no movement beyond the white cloth.
Master Daunas came in shortly before tenth bell and armor practice to inform Shon that he was to take the day off to rest but could rejoin the others in training the following day. He was at least allowed to leave the infirmary, though he waited until he could hear sparring outside before he did. He didn't want to run into any of the Squires.
As he opened the door to leave something flew by the window, catching Shon's attention enough to make him stop and look over. But it was already long gone. Just a bird... Assuming he hadn't imagined it. He shook his head, still aching all over. His mind swam with worries and memories, made worse by the fact that the Cleric was trying to hide shivers now that Shon was fully rested. He'd probably just imagined it...
Back in his room Shon huddled over his journal. He could still smell the smoke in his hair and had decided it would be best to shower soon, but finally alone, his thoughts and memories could no longer be ignored.
So he drew. He tried to start safe. Nangran atop his borrowed horse; Ivelm mostly naked and shaking a club in his doorway; the Archmage's workroom lined in shelves filled with magical components. That one had taken a while. But as he released these images onto the page, others forced themselves forward. Smoke billowing over treetops; a burning tower; charred bodies; and a girl reaching out through the flames. A girl lying asleep in the bed next to his. The stillness of the picture made her look dead.
He dropped his pencil, letting it roll right off the desk. Crossing his arms over the book, he rested his head on his desk. The wood felt warm compared to his skin, comforting. What more could he have done? What could a Paladin have done? Or Master Veon-Zih? Shon saw again the bodies and shivered.
No one could save everyone. To think otherwise was pure arrogance. But knowing the facts and feeling them were two very different things. The tower wasn’t that far from Hamerfoss. Shouldn’t they have known something was going on? Shouldn’t they have been able to do something sooner? Years sooner? Long before the fire killed those people?
A loud tapping startled him awake. When had he fallen asleep? Shon searched his room in confusion, trying to piece together his dream and what had awoken him. He'd been in the Temple chapel, but as he'd walked down the middle aisle, the pews had started to decay, the stone walls crumbling. Small plants, then trees began to sprout from the ground, overgrowing the once-holy place now in ruin. Shon pressed the heels of his hands hard into his eyes, trying to remember what had come next... A man with white hair pulled back in a ponytail had been standing at the head altar... something with leathery wings on his shoulder...
The painful screech of something sharp on glass had Shon jumping up, his chair falling to clatter on the ground behind him. He looked to his window but saw only orange sky beyond. Was the sun already setting? He knelt on the mattress and looked out the window, unsure what he expected to see. He was on the third floor, but that was definitely where the sound had come from, and the window was the only glass in the room.
Nothing but open sky.
He opened the tiny window, the pane swinging up and letting in cold and refreshing air that helped clear his mind. Master Daunas's voice bellowed orders from the courtyard below, and Shon stuck his head out to look down and see his fellows working through their dagger forms. He'd slept through lunch and afternoon lessons. And he still needed a shower.
If he hurried, he would be able to shower before the others finished their lesson. Shon left the window open and even opened his door before he remembered to grab a fresh uniform. Obviously, he still wasn't thinking clearly.
The halls were blissfully empty, and Shon could almost pretend that even if he did pass someone, their breath wouldn't show in the air. It was a short-lived fantasy, however. He managed to make it all the way to the showers, but when he opened the door a voice called, "Squire! Why aren't you... Oh..." Shon performed a sharp about face to stand at attention before the Major General.
"At ease, Squire Shon," Selibra sighed, waving him down, "Did you get enough rest?"
"Yes, Sir," Shon answered but then caught movement out of the corner of his eye, again. He hadn't managed to turn his head far enough to see before the Major General started speaking. Shon snapped his head back to give the officer his undivided attention.
"You did well, Squire. Smith Nangran told us what happened at the tower." Sir Selibra managed a strained smile that faded quickly, "If you want to talk about what you saw there... any one of us will be more than willing to listen. You shouldn't have had to experience death so soon." an image of an arm pulling away from a charred corpse flashed in Shon's vision.
Shon swallowed down the accompanying nausea at the memory and managed a nod, adding a quiet "Thank you, Sir." for good measure.
Feeling the need to scrub even more than before, Shon was grateful when the Major General left, allowing him to enter the still-open room. The shower was only mildly comforting, however. What should have been scalding water felt merely lukewarm now, the mist billowing off his truly icy skin thick enough that he could barely see the spigots. Closing his eyes, he scrubbed and tried to imagine the images flowing off of him with the filth...
Something chirped, and Shon slammed the water off. Just the pipes creaking... How much longer would he have to rest before his mind stopped playing tricks on him? But as he moved for his towel, Shon stopped in shock, his new uniform had been scattered around the benches and floor.
He hadn't heard the door open, but had heard the pipes creaking? But who here would even do something like this? Shon started to search the showers, but as he did, he heard something else—voices in the hall. The Squires were done with their practice. He still didn't want to see them and dressed quickly, rushing from the shower and slamming the door behind him.
Something thumped into the door from the other side. Shon held his breath and turned slowly. It was his imagination. It had to be. He reached for the handle again and, standing behind the swing, opened the shower slowly.
"He's been gone three days... Do you think they sent him away?" Thom's voice sounded from around a corner, and Shon jumped in surprise, pulling the door open fully as if he could hide behind it.
"No way. he's the best Squire we have, so what if he's a Sorcerer." They were talking about him... Shon definitely didn't want to see them yet. He dashed down the opposite way, taking a long way around through the Paladin's barracks and back to his room. Or that's what he'd planned before he remembered the Squires hall would be full of people now taking their break and trying to get into the shower before everyone else. His feet faltered, and he turned away again, to one of the hardly used stairs that would take him down to the rest of the fortress.
Barred from his room, Shon made his way to the place he associated the most with comfort, the chapel. It wasn't empty, three Paladins knelt in prayer near the front, but it didn't matter anymore. He felt a wash of calm as he entered the incense-filled room, the sweet-smelling smoke finally banishing the stench of burning hair from his memory.
Shon took a spot near the back, kneeling to pray as he stared up at the statue of Hengist behind the altar. He was dressed in full plate mail, his arm raised in triumph, holding his mighty sword, Darkspliter.
Shon sighed and felt himself smile for what felt like the first time in a very long time. He could tell Hengist anything and everything, and none of it out loud... But then his smile faded. What would he say...?
I'm sorry. I feel like I've been lying to everyone, to you. I've known there was something different about me, something wrong with me. That's why no one likes to touch me, why everyone pulls away at the feel of my skin, like it's somehow dirty or painful. I should've realized... Should have known...
But I worked so hard... You know that, don't you? And I'm not ready to give up. I'll do whatever it takes, atone anyway I can if you just tell me how. The Major General said something about it being a sign. I want to believe he meant the unlikely convenience of Smith Nangran knowing an Archmage who could make an item so I won't have to get the tattoo. Thank you. I just hope I don't disappoint after getting a second chance...
The bell for dinner sounded. Feeling better, Shon considered going with the Paladins as they left the chapel. Until one of them shivered as they passed. "Winters right around the corner," another muttered.
"We'll need to install the heating orbs soon." the last answered before the door closed... He wasn't hungry anyway.
Please, Hengist. Don't let me hurt anyone else. Kefir was trying to help me, and I answered that kindness with pain. What if the healers hadn't gotten to him in time? Would I have smothered him in ice? Please, I'll give up everything if it means that will never happen again...
But he didn't want to give up anything. He wanted to fight, to reach his highest potential, and lead a life of meaning. He thought of Master Veon-Zih. The Monk had told him that he didn't need to be a Paladin to fight for justice, and he was living proof of that. But...
I don't want to be alone... At first, I thought I just wanted you, a god, as a guiding light in my life. But now I realize that being a Paladin gives me even more than that. It gives me brothers and friends, and I don't want to lose them either. But I especially don't want to hurt them.
Shon clenched his hands tighter, as tight as he could, digging his fingers into the spaces between his knuckles; as if external pain might dull internal strife...
They say I'm scary... And I know they aren't really joking. I can see it in their eyes and hear it in their nervous laughs when they try and make it a joke. But they only mean when they fight me... don't they? And I'll never try to hurt them. It's only sparring... they know that... don't they?
He squeezed his eyes tighter shut,
But what about now? Will they be even more afraid? Even when we aren't sparring? Can I blame them if they are?
He actually found himself waiting for an answer... Of course, none came. He wasn't a Paladin yet, and wouldn't be able to feel the god until he swore his Oath and took a piece of Hengist into himself. For now, Shon took in a deep breath, as deep as he could, then let it out slowly, relaxing his hands and face as he attempted to release his anxieties unto his god.
I won't give up. I'll fight this danger within me as hard as I will fight any threat without. I ask for your help with this. Please don't give up on me yet. I'll prove I'm worthy, I swear.
The bell ending dinner and starting study time sounded. Shon stayed in the chapel until a handful of Squires came in to pray themselves. They hesitated by the door, but Shon didn't look at them. He knew he couldn't hide forever. But he also wasn't sure what he should say to any of them. Or if he should say anything at all. Shon waited until they moved away from the door to finally stand. If he had to face any of them, he wanted it to be the ones he considered friends first.
Shon left the chapel and made his way to the library, fighting the urge to just go back to his room. Heads swiveled in his direction the moment he opened the library door. Shon flinched, sucking in a sharp breath and holding it, pulling his energy in as best he could.
He stepped in, and the Squires exchanged looks, but then the Paladin on library duty coughed, and they quickly went back to reading.
His typical spot was available as usual, so Shon made his way there. The others would want to talk after... and if not, he would just go back to his room. Distracted by his continued worries -and the silent effort to hold his energy in- Shon still heard when something behind him hissed along the stone.
He spun quickly, scanning the floor. This time he definitely wasn't imagining it...
"Squire Shon... Shouldn't you be resting?" He turned back to find the Squires trying to make it seem like they weren't staring at him, while the Paladin who called looked openly concerned.
Shon's cheeks flushed, now feeling cool rather than warm. Another change... He cleared his throat, "No, Sir..." and when the Paladin's worried expression didn't let up, Shon added, "I've been resting all day."
"Three days..." Zihler muttered.
Shon met his eyes and the Squire smiled, but Shon couldn't tell if the expression seemed strained or not. He nodded anyway, taking his seat alone at the table by the window.
Books on their current subject of study were already laid out, and he pulled one forward, opening it without checking the title. As he read, he could hear the others occasionally whisper and even caught snippets of what they were saying,
"I found another one. Do you think this will be enough?" Thom asked.
"We have the rest of the hour; we should find all we can," Rerves answered. It didn't sound like they were studying, but Shon had missed three days of lessons; maybe they were working on an assignment... He went back to his reading. He would get any missed work tomorrow.
When the bell rang that would finally begin their last hour of free time, Shon closed his book. It would be best to just go to bed early; everyone seemed to think he should be resting anyway; they could talk after he got the sealing item... But he hadn't stood yet when his six closest friends jumped up, books in hand, and crowded around him, preventing him from leaving. From running away.
"We're glad you're okay." Rehlien blurted out.
"The Major General told us what happened," Baradin added.
Shon looked from him to Kefir and took in a sharp breath, "I'm..." he started to apologize, but Kefir interrupted with a broad smile,
"I'm fine. I even got a day off for it. I didn't need it though, they healed me up right away."
Rerves placed his book down on Shon's table, "It was just really surprising, you know? But hey! Now we know why you're so cold all the time."
Shon looked down at the massive tome on the table, not wanting to meet their eyes. He didn't know what to make of what they were saying. There was no way it was okay. How could they be alright with a dangerous magic user that could kill them all on accident...
"We found these. We thought they might make you feel a little better," Thom whispered, stacking his book on top of Rerves' and opening it to a page he'd marked with a ripped piece of scrap paper. It wasn't a textbook, it was a record book. Shon furrowed his brows down at the page, reading 'Sir Patrich, served 4876-4929, died 4955. Paladin of Hengist, General. Air Sorcerer...'
Shon looked up to find them all smiling down at him. Zihler set his book down over Thom's, opened to another personal record, "This one was a fire Sorcerer, and they're supposed to be the most destructive."
Rehlien took Baradin and Kefir's books and stacked them with his own beside the open records. He ran his fingers over the slew of bookmarks sticking out of the closed pages, "All Sorcerers and Paladins." Rehlien said.
"Master Daunas said you would be back in a few days, but just in case we wanted to find these for you," Thom explained in a rush, "You know... in case the officers or Mages needed to be convinced..."
Baradin cleared his throat before he spoke, clasping his hands behind his back, "We haven't found any ice Sorcerers yet, but they're also the rarest, so that really shouldn't be surprising."
"Yeah, and there are plenty of fire who are crazy dangerous even when they're trained," Kefir added quickly.
Shon could feel a burning in his eyes and blinked furiously, looking away from his friends. He wouldn't cry.. he wouldn't. "Thank you..." he managed to croak out, finally giving in and rubbing his eyes. None of them commented on his show of emotion, or the frost clouding his window.
Rerves took the seat across from him with a smile, "So, what type of familiar do you think you'll get?"
Shon managed to stop blinking enough to arch an eyebrow. Hadn't Ivelm said something about a familiar too?
"I bet you it'll be something really lame." Zihler laughed, "To balance Shon's badassness."
"Squire!" the Paladin librarian barked, "Pushups! Now!"
Zihler groaned, mumbling as he stepped back to perform the punishment, "How do they always do that?"
"Divine hearing," Rehlien snickered as Zihler started the pushups, "Probably only works for curses, though."
"You can join him," the Paladin called without looking up from his book, and Rehlien groaned, dropping down next to Zihler.
"Seriously though," Rerves said, ignoring the boys huffing and puffing through their punishment, "Familiars are animals, they're supposed to be even closer to their Sorcerer than a Paladin and their mount! Like an extension of yourself. You can see through their eyes and talk to them with your mind. It's awesome!"
Thom actually blushed, confessing, "We read up on it a bit over the last two days..."
They knew more about what he was than he did. Shon actually smiled, starting, "I don't..." but chittering, like a particularly loud squirrel, interrupted him. The Squires all swiveled their heads to look around, Rehlien and Zihler jumping to their feet with the Paladin, who stood so quickly his chair fell over. The chittering turned to chirping, and then to a purr, as Shon finally found what was making the noise.
On top of the bookshelf closest to the door, sat a tiny dragon.
The size of a large barn cat, its scales were mostly brown but had streaks and blotches of red and orange, like the few deciduous trees that still held their leaves in autumn. Its leathery wings were folded against its back and its front claws grasped the edge of the bookshelf. Its long tail, complete with a scorpion-like stinger, flicked back and forth, its sinuous neck held high as it surveyed the library.
Some of the Squires let slip breaths of wonder, and the little dragon seemed to preen at the attention, holding its head a little higher and purring even louder. The Paladin, however, stepped around his desk and commanded, "Stay back, Squires," before he started chanting. The little dragon tilted its head at the Paladin, as curious as the rest of them. A moment later, the knight's spell washed over them to fill the room, sending a shiver down Shon's spine and making more than one of the other Squires shudder.
The little dragon let out another string of chittering and hissed down at the Paladin, whose eyes went wide as he announced in a breath, "It's real."
"How did it get in?" a senior Squire asked. Shon started to stand but then fell back again as images flooded into his mind. He watched a window opening from outside the fortress, and saw himself lean out. Then the image shifted, and he saw himself digging under his bed for a new uniform and towel as the him that was watching slipped out the door. It shifted again, and he saw himself in the shower, mist billowing off his shoulders before he dug through the piles of clothes left on the bench. It shifted again, and he darted into the library and behind the bookshelf, watching as he, Shon, walked in and sat down at the little table.
Shon blinked and shook his head furiously to try and clear it. All the pictures had flooded in so fast that no one even had time to answer the question or pose their own, "I let it in..." Shon whispered, then looked at the Paladin, explaining quickly, "I didn't mean to. I left my window open to air out my room and..."
"It's okay, Squire," the Paladin was actually smiling, and the little dragon whistled, "They're goodly creatures, though elusive. I've never seen a live one." the dragon leaned forward on the bookshelf, crouching down on its front claws and wiggling its hindquarters before it leaped into the air, opening its wings to spread as wide as it was long. It glided a lap around the library then hovered in front of the Paladin, chittering again and flapping hard enough to blow the man's short hair back before flying right towards the group of Squires around Shon.
It brushed Baradin's head with its claws, the boy ducking as it swooped down to land on Shon's table. The dragon looked from the open books to Shon, then, before Shon could pull back, climbed up his arm and to his shoulder, purring hard enough to vibrate Shon too. It weighed considerably less than it looked like it should, though its claws were sharp enough to pierce through his clothes as it climbed. It brought its face right up to Shon's eye, and though he tried to pull away, it followed him with its long neck, rubbing its cheek along his face. The scales were smooth and lacked temperature, like being touched by a gloved hand. It nuzzled his cheek again, then down his neck and into his shirt.
Surprised, Shon tried to throw the dragon off, but it just dug its claws into his sleeves, chittering angrily then clawing its way around to his back before lifting itself up to drape over his head. "What..." Shon started, but the Paladin cut him off with a laugh.
"I think that answers your friends' questions, Squire."
Shon was too confused to even arch an eyebrow at the man, but Rerves apparently understood what he'd meant because he said, "But I thought only animals could be familiars, like cats and crows and stuff..."
The Paladin nodded but then shrugged, "That's usually the case, but sometimes, rarely, there will be a Sorcerer who gets something a bit more special, like a winged serpent, fairy dragon, or in this case," he nodded at Shon, "A pseudodragon."
The pseudodragon purred, vibrating Shon's head. The Squires all gaped slack-jawed in awe at it, and Shon reached up slowly. He wasn't even sure what he was going to do, pet it? Push it off? But before he'd even touched it, it lifted its head, stretching its long neck out and nuzzling into his hand, obviously not caring that his skin was colder now than it had ever been.
"Damn..." Zihler muttered in obvious disappointment, "I was really hoping it would be a toad so I would have something to make fun of..."
The little dragon's answering twitter almost sounded like a laugh.
***
She groaned, rolling over and nuzzling deeper into Her pillow. Except it didn’t smell like Her pillow. Her eyes flew open, and She sat up. Then fell back down. That was stupid. Ran and Brom had probably taken more blood than usual again… except She couldn’t remember them taking Her for samples. Not for weeks and weeks…
“It’s alright, you’re safe here,” the kindly voice of a man spoke from Her right, and She sat up again, more slowly this time. A stranger in white robes with a sword embroidered on the chest reached out to help Her up, but after touching Her back he pulled sharply away.
She was too confused to apologize for burning him. “Where?” She asked, looking around the room. Like the stranger, it was covered in white. White blankets, white rug, and white curtains hanging to either side of an open window. A window that looked out onto a blue sky. She gasped, scrambling from the bed and nearly tripping over Her white gown. Of course it was white. How in all the hells did they keep it all clean?
She shook Her head and rushed for the window. The man behind Her gasped, his chair scraping loudly as he stood to follow. She pressed Her hands on the cold glass, staring up into the sky, “I’m on an upper floor!?” She grinned excitedly over Her shoulder as the stranger stared at Her, mouth hanging open.
Turning back to the window, She used Her arm to wipe the fog from Her heat off the glass, letting Her gaze trail down. She didn’t see the treetops She expected. Not close anyway. Instead, the forest was beyond a wide clear field, which in turn was beyond a tall stone wall with people dressed in silver walking along its top. She stood on Her toes to look down through the window. Between the wall and Her was a courtyard full of more people swinging things that glinted in the sun.
This wasn’t the tower. None of those people wore robes except the nice stranger. She spun to him, “My treasures, where are they? Brom? Ran? Where…” She saw a flash of red, heard a pained bark, and smelled iron. She fell to Her knees, grasping Her chest and breathing hard, remembering bits and pieces. He killed them. He killed all of them. Then what? She couldn’t remember...
“You are in a training facility of the Temple of Hengist, Hamerfoss, in Clearhelm.” a new voice, deeper, less kind though not cruel, spoke from the doorway. Lifting Her head, She saw the new man wearing a crisp, white, uniform, with a sword hanging comfortably from his belt. Hengist… so that explained all the white.
The kind man in robes had rushed to Her but dared not touch Her. Wise. With Her head spinning so fast, there was no way She was controlling Her heat properly. “How long has she been awake?” the new man asked the kind one.
“She just woke up, Major General,”
“He killed them…” She whispered, squeezing Her eyes shut, pushing back the rage and sorrow, trying to fill in Her memory. What happened next?
“It will be alright. You're safe here,” the kind man said again.
She pulled Her own hair, lacing Her fingers into the golden strands and squeezing. What had happened? She had run down the hall, but how had She gotten out of Her room? There were strangers in Her tower. These men? She glared up at the brown-haired man who looked down at Her, his hands behind his back.
“Who are you? What did you do to the Mages?” She could feel the hair rise on the back of Her neck and a familiar tingling where the collar should be.
The Major General remained calm before Her building fury, saying only, “Calm down.” It was a command backed by magic. She felt the power flow over Her and try to settle on Her mind. She could almost sense the peace it promised but shook Her head, clearing it of the spell.
He could've used his magic to hurt Her. Perhaps not with the collar as the Archmages did, but in other ways. And yet, he hadn’t moved from his spot, his hands still behind his back. She looked again at the sword of Hengist at his side. She'd read all about the gods. Hengist was good and noble, all about self-sacrifice and protecting the weak… A fool, the Mages had said. And yet his Temple ruled this province. The Mages of Her tower would never work with the Temple of Hengist. Or any kingdom order…
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She didn’t need his help to calm down, not when She had something to focus on. She shoved Her grief to the back of Her mind. “How did I get here?” another image flashed in Her mind, fire all around, a white path, blue eyes.
The Paladin didn’t answer right away; instead, he motioned for the robed man - a Cleric? - to bring him a chair. She tilted Her head curiously at him, but he only sat down with a weary sigh, then gestured towards the bed, “Please, have a seat.”
She stood, returning to the bed and eyeing the door over his shoulder. He hadn’t locked it. “We saw smoke from the woods and found you in a burning tower.” the blood drained from Her face, “We have recovered several bodies from around the structure, but there were no other survivors.” he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and fixing Her with a piercing stare, “What happened? What was going on in that tower?”
She brought Her feet onto the bed and hugged Her legs tight, “I don’t… I can’t remember…” a fire, the tower burning… But it was made of stone. Her fire couldn’t burn that hot… Could it?
“Sir Selibra,” the kindly Cleric sounded stern, crossing his arms and glaring down at the Paladin, “She has just woken up from what was obviously a terrible ordeal. Show some compassion.”
The Paladin, Selibra, actually looked ashamed, leaning back in his chair and clearing his throat, “I apologize, miss…” he drew out the last word, looking at Her expectantly. She tilted Her head. “What is your name?” he asked more clearly. She tilted Her head the other way. Were they going to play that game here too?
The Cleric hummed then said, “Please forgive him, miss, we are all very troubled by the events and deaths at the tower. The Major General merely got ahead of himself. If you could tell us your name, then we can let you rest and…”
“I don’t have a name.”
The two men blinked dumbly at Her, and She rolled Her eyes, “I knnnooowww,” She let Her legs fall back down, so She was sitting properly again, “But I don’t know it yet. As soon as I do, I'll tell you.” She assured them. The men exchanged looks as She glanced again out the window. Maybe She should've just told them what Brom and Ran called Her… But those weren’t names. They were descriptors. No better than ‘Firewyrm.’
If these Temple men were to be believed, everything was gone. She had no room, no books, no clothes, no treasures, and no name. What did She have? She pulled Her hair over Her shoulder and stared out the window as She stroked it. She had Her hair. They hadn’t cut it in months. She had Her body. She straightened Her posture, holding Her head high. And She had Her power—the fire crackling deep inside Her soul. The Mages had taken the first two. The third had destroyed them.
“You should rest,” Selibra stood, and Her eyes snapped back to him, “You can send for me when you feel ready to talk. Until then, focus on recovering your strength and your memories.”
He made it all the way to the door, even swung it open before She called out, “What are you going to do to me?”
Selibra turned back, his eyebrows raised in surprise. The Cleric placed a hand on Her shoulder, slowly and carefully, gauging how much of Her heat he could handle. She turned to him, and he let Her go. He'd held on longer than expected. “We will keep you safe, child.” the Cleric assured Her.
The Paladin grew stiff for a moment, then brought his right fist up to his chest, “By the sword of Hengist’s honor, we will safeguard your life and freedom,” Freedom? “Whatever injustices you endured there, you will find justice in the laws of Clearhelm.” She didn’t know what to say, and so, after an awkward moment of silence, Selibra turned for the door again and left.
She didn’t lay down. Instead, She walked back to the window. The view seemed to stretch on forever from so high up, higher than She'd ever remembered being before. Even when She used to climb the trees around Her tower.
Selibra hadn’t locked the door, but the Cleric bustled around behind Her, and the wall below Her clanked with armored knights. What was freedom anyway?
--- Table of Contents ---
Thanks for making it this far, you are the real MVP

Sorry for double-post; I messed up the title...
More cleaning out my gear closet: Verification photo: https://imgur.com/gallery/1tWahov
All prices below include CONUS shipping & PayPal G&S Fees
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3. SWD Superior 30L (torso=Large) - $140 with removable hip belt, water bottle carrier. Very clean with one dirt stain near the front of the roll-top and one small abrasion on bottom. Purchased new/used last summer from backpackinglight.com site for $200. Used 4 times - all overnight hikes. Torso size was too long for me otherwise I would keep this as this pack is beautifully made, light, and comfortable - especially the shoulder straps.
Notes: white X-Pac fabric (VX21), black on the bottom (VX42), 210 HDPE on the side pockets. Belt and holster weight 19.6 oz and can be removed). SWD doesn’t include pockets in their volume calculation; this 30L is comparable to a 40L pack.
Original link when purchased: https://backpackinglight.com/gear-swaps/fs-superior-wilderness-designs-swd-backpack-brand-new/

More cleaning out my gear closet: Verification photo: https://imgur.com/gallery/1tWahov
All prices below include CONUS shipping & PayPal G&S Fees

1. New in Box Thermarest NeoAir XTherm MAX - $140 (regular length & regular width, vapor color). Purchased September 2022 for winter camping and never used or removed from the box. Same as this (although purchased at REI):

https://www.amazon.com/Therm-Rest-Ultralight-Backpacking-Mattress/dp/B07YDJZW7D/ref=asc_df_B07YDJZW7D?tag=bngsmtphsnus-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=80882941569590&hvnetw=s&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4584482468439549&psc=1 2. New 60' Sterling 8.5mm CanyonPrime orange rope - $50 designed for canyoneering. 60' of rope was purchased with the intent for lowering geapeople for short, steep descents in the Grand Canyon (ended getting rerouted by the NPS onto another trail and never ended up bringing/using it). Note that this is 60' and not 60 meters.
https://sterlingrope.com/canyonprime/

1. SWD Superior 30L (torso=Large) with removable hip belt, water bottle carrier - $140. Very clean with one dirt stain near the front of the roll-top and one small abrasion on bottom. Purchased new/used last summer from backpackinglight.com site for $200. Used 4 times - all overnight hikes. Torso size was too long for me otherwise I would keep this as this pack is beautifully made, light, and comfortable - especially the shoulder straps.

Notes: white X-Pac fabric (VX21), black on the bottom (VX42), 210 HDPE on the side pockets. Belt and holster weight 19.6 oz and can be removed). SWD doesn’t include pockets in their volume calculation; this 30L is comparable to a 40L pack. Original link when purchased: https://backpackinglight.com/gear-swaps/fs-superior-wilderness-designs-swd-backpack-brand-new/

Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/ZlN2NqH
What's up gamers - bunch of kit that's been sitting around + some stuff that doesn't fit any more due to lifting heavy objects.
Spiritus Systems MK4 Chest Rig Setup - $140 Fat Straps, Back Strap, Dangler Sack, MK4 rig, will include either an SMG or Triple M4 pouch whichever you prefer
Sunshine Custom Works Hand Warmer - $50 Keep the fingies warm come fall/winter time with this sicko piece of kit. Has a small pouch for a hand warmer to go in as well. Choco Chip for gucci cred
Holosun EPS Carry 6moa red (non MRS) - $310 Unboxed and unbagged but basically brand new. Mounted once and realized I didn't like the carry sized window as much as I thought. Never wired.
Im no longer a fatty so below is gear that no longer fits me!
Crye G3 Tiger Stripe Combat Shirt - 2X Reg - $200 Worn once and washed, no cuts our tears and in near mint condition.
Crye G3 Tiger Stripe Field Pants - 40 Reg - $450 Same as combat shirt, phenomenal condition with no visible wear.
Spiritus Elastic Cummerbund Ranger Green - Size 2 - $70 Basically new. Worn once or twice until I got the AXL equinox.
VTac Raze Gun Belt Black - Size L - $50 Comes with basic velcro inner belt. Nice construction, this si in great condition. Regular Cobra Buckle
AXL Eclipse Grey w/ Syzygy 1.0 - Size XL (38-40) - $140 Bought this and it was almost immediately too big for me. Nice amount of adjustment but now even the size L is a little too big too. Only wore the Syzygy a couple times for casual use. Belt has seen almost no use. Comes with Raptor Buckle
Spiritus Systems LV119 Full build Ranger Green - Size XL - $500 XL Plate Bags, XL Back Panel Adapter, Back Panel Core, Back Panel GP Flap, AXL Equinox Size L/XL, Tri-Fold Shoulder Pads, 556 Placard. Whole kit has seen only a few range uses and has virtually no salt or wear on it. AXL Equinox is brand new.
Thanks for looking!

As the title mentions I'm an advanced-novella RPer looking for GMs or offering myself as a GM for various text-based RPs. I've provided a sample down below and will ask the same of anybody that reaches out. Outside of writing I tend to spend most of my time on games like Knights of the Old Republic 2, New Vegas, and, indeed, the Hobocop Game. I'm an Associate at Amazon with an otherwise unimpressive social life, occasionally leaving the house to play WH40K Tabletop.
Discord is more-or-less required for me to be interested; sample incoming.
​

The boar is not dead, though to all the other hunters’ senses it is. It lays motionless on its side within the sled, tied down by rope with two arrows sticking discordantly out of its hide like seams of broken bone. Frozen blood pools in the cracked stomach of the sled, collecting rather than leaking now that red ice has sealed the wood. Poison leaching out of the arrowheads keeps the boar docile, and its breathing so light that only Trapper can see. An ovate in too-thin robes shivers as she ties a garland of rosemary around the beast’s neck, murmuring prayers to the ancestors that they might find the kill worthy.
Winter has seized the land in its vise, its unending waves of cold and snow having transformed the Barony of Marlas into a crueler scape, one Trapper doesn’t quite recognize. Tranquility abounds along the driven snow, all through the clearing, hiding the buried world and the woes of man but unable to snuff them out. Trapper knows well what a mirage it is, the oppressive winters of his homeland no less savage than the bloodletting summers. The numbing cold does not soothe his aches, for he knows they’ll be worse come morning, come the thaw. Too soon this clearing will melt, its river gone from white to red, the whole Septima Line thrust back to war.
Baron Orys refuses to yield to midnight season, to accept its peace, and so from his great warhorse’s saddle he brazenly belts out a mixture of drunken lyrics and commands, determined to master this hunt even if he does not partake. An entourage on horseback spreads out in his orbit, ranging from eager young footmen to grizzled junkers, all in varying states of inebriation at his command. Their braying is nearly louder than the hounds’, who hungrily stalk between the sled and the hole they pulled the boar out from. Teased by the hunt but yet unrewarded, they’re too unruly to be kept in check by the kennel master.
On foot slog the unfortunates who actually have to take part in the hunt, Trapper among them. They huddle into their hemp canvas cloaks, glancing up at the moody afternoon sky threatening to crack open with another snowstorm. Dark clouds sweep in low from the south like a riptide, a single vast current swept in from the mountains already menacing the Oldwoods. Its furthest gales reach them as tongues of vengeful cold, flecks of whipped-up snow biting into Trapper’s exposed skin.
By the boar’s nest leans a typical Mallean, one of Trapper’s two erstwhile comrades. Sigorn is tall, pale, broad, with the close-set, wide-boned features of a commoner, and a shock of red hair grown out to protect against the elements. Beneath his cloak he proudly bears his blood-flecked armor, each dent a Darkman put into it a point of dear pride. He’s not the only one, either, the clearing filled with dozens of youths whose first blooding ended in victory amid a blizzard. Baron Orys, deep into his cups after six days of nonstop celebration, saw a break in the storms and gladly called a hunt. When informed he could not go on account of his shattered knee - he simply grinned, and ordered himself tied to his saddle.
Trapper remembers the moment his lord fell from the saddle, burned into his nerves. The screaming of horses, skidding hooves catching on the frozen ground. On the edges of his vision a rider smashes into a branch in the din, others don’t move at all for fear of the blizzard. His spurs dig, his borrowed steed whines, and he races for his lord - only for another to reach him first.
“What a woman.” Sigorn sighs beside Trapper, craning his neck to look at one of their lord’s companions of honor. Susannah Oye, junker unlike the others, a pretty, willowy noblewoman well into motherhood, with the lean, ruthless look of a ranger. Her two poisoned arrows are what struck the boar down, and her pride curls off her body like steam. Sigorn’s face cracks into exaggerated appreciation, and then he turns to their lord’s other honored companion. Another woman, this one as young as they are, haughtily-built and leering with none of Susannah’s refinement. Many of those looks are reserved for Trapper, forced to slog on foot as just another hunter. “Anya too. I think she fancies you, eh?”

​

Looking to move by the end of June or August at the latest and in need of 420 friendly (I have a medical card). Not a big fan of smoking indoors but winters get cold and I’d like to stay inside for that lol I’m early 30s and a Navy veteran. Currently in school so schoolwork tends to keep me busy. I love socializing but consider myself an introvert and usually keep to myself most of the time. Hoping to keep things in the 600-1025 range for my portion of the rent. Pet friendly but don’t have my own pets. Would like a place near the L in the Roger Park, Edgewater area but open to location as long as it’s easily accessible to Loyola by train. I’m not a neat freak, but a clean kitchen and bathroom is definitely a must. Let me know if you have any questions for me! I’m pretty flexible, really just looking for a comfortable place to stay for the next year or so.

Wish List: Teslas below, AA/SS/1S melee below, rare apparel/masks, or Vanguard Scout armor with +Strength/Cavalier
I still need the following Teslas: H/50c/25,,, Jug/50c/25,,, Med/50L/15r,,, Troub/50c/25
I still need the following AA/SS/1S melee: cultist blade,,, gulper smacker
Complete Trade List: (Thank you for your time browsing this huge list!!!)
FIXERS: AA/25/15r,,, AA/25/15v,,, AA/50c/15v,,, AA/50vhc/25,,, AA/50L/25,,, AA/AP/25,,, AA/E/Dur,,, Ari/25/15r,,, Ari/E/15r,,, Ari/E/25,,, B/25/15v,,, B/50L/25,,, BAP/25,,, Exe/25/25,,, Exe/50c/25,,, Exe/AP/25,,, Exe/E/25,,, F/50c/25,,, GouE/25,,, GS/50c/25,,, GS/E/25,,, H/50c/25,,, Jug/50c/25,,, Jug/AP/25,,, Junk/25/15r,,, Junk/50c/15v,,, Junk/50c/25,,, Junk/50L/25,,, Junk/AP/25,,, Junk/E/15v,,, Med/25/25,,, Med/50c/25,,, Med/AP/25,,, Mu/AP/25,,, MS/50c/25,,, MS/AP/25,,, N/AP/25,,, N/E/25,,, Q/25/15r,,, Q/25/15v,,, Q/AP/25,,, St/50c/25,,, St/AP/25,,, St/E/25,,, Su/50c/25,,, Su/AP/25,,, Su/E/25,,, T/50c/25,,, T/AP/25,,, TS/25/15r,,, TS/25/15v,,, TS/50vhc/25,,, TS/AP/25,,, V/AP/25,,, Z/25/25,,, Z/E/25
HANDMADES: AA/E/15v,,, Junk/25/15r,,, MS/E/25,,, Mu/E/25,,, Mu/50c/25,,, Q/50vhc/25
HEAVY WEAPONS: AA/25/90 AGL,,, AA/25/15r Cryolator,,, AA/25/90 Harpoon Gun,,, As/25A/90 Fatman,,, As/25/90 Gatling Plasma,,, B/E/Gho 50cal,,, B/25A/90 Cryolator,,, B/50L/90 Cryolator,,, B/25A/90 Missile Launcher,,, B/50vhc/90 Missile Launcher,,, B/50L/90 AGL,,, Exe/50c/15r Flamer,,, Exe/25A/90 Gatling Plas,,, Exe/E/25 LMG,,, F/50c/25 Cryolator,,, Q/25/15v LMG,,, Q/50L/90 Minigun,,, TS/25/15r Gatling Gun,,, TS/E/25 Minigun,,, V/25/15r 50cal,,, V/25A/90 Cryolator,,, V/25/25 Gatling Gun,,, V/50L/90 Harpoon Gun,,, Z/E/90 LMG
MELEE: AA/SS/1S Death Tambo,,, AA/SS/1S Deathclaw Gauntlet,,, AA/40P/1S Gulper Smacker,,, AA/SS/1S Pole Hook,,, AA/50c/15v Power Fist,,, AA/SS/1S Super Sledge,,, Ari/SS/1S Shovel,,, Ari/SS/1S Sledgehammer,,, As/40P/1S Chainsaw,,, As/40P/1S Drill,,, As/SS/1S Sheepsquatch Staff,,, B/50c/1S Drill,,, B/SS/1S Deathclaw Gauntlet,,, B/SS/25 Gulper Smacker,,, B/SS/25 Meat Hook,,, B/SS/1S Power Fist,,, Exe/40P/25 Drill,,, Exe/50c/1S Power Fist,,, Ext/SS/1S Drill,,, F/40P/40 Chainsaw,,, GS/SS/1S Chainsaw,,, GS/SS/1S Ripper,,, I/SS/1S Death Tambo,,, I/SS/1S Golf Club,,, I/SS/1S Super Sledge,,, Junk/SS/1S Assaultron Blade,,, Junk/SS/1S Security Baton,,, Mu/SS/1S Deathclaw Gauntlet,,, MS/SS/1S Shishkebab,,, Su/SS/1S Spear,,, Su/SS/1S Tire Iron,,, Troub/SS/1S Bowie Knife,,, Troub/SS/1S Golf Club,,, V/SS/1S Combat Knife,,, V/SS/1S Deathclaw Gauntlet,,, V/SS/1S Pole Hook,,, V/SS/1S Sledgehammer,,, Z/SS/1S Fire Axe,,, Z/SS/1S Knuckles,,, Z/SS/1S Pipe Wrench
RAILWAYS: AA/50c/25,,, AA/50vhc/25,,, AA/E/15v,,, AA/E/25,,, Ari/25/15r,,, B/50vhc/25,,, B/E/15r,,, B/E/90,,, F/50c/25,,, F/E/25,,, GS/25/25,,, GS/50c/25,,, H/50c/25,,, I/25/25,,, I/50c/25,,, Junk/E/25,,, Q/50L/90,,, St/50c/25,,, Su/E/25,,, TS/50L/25,,, TS/50vhc/25,,, TS/50c/15r,,, TS/AP/25,,, TS/E/Dur,,, V/25/25,,, V/50c/25,,, Z/E/90
TESLAS: AA/25/15r,,, AA/50L/15r,,, AA/AP/25,,, B/25/Gho,,, Exe/25/15r,,, Ext/25/15r,,, F/25/15r,,, I/25/15r,,, Q/25/250,,, Q/AP/25,,, TS/25/15r,,, TS/25/25,,, V/25/250,,, V/25/Dur,,, V/50L/15r,,, Z/25/15r
AA/25/25 Assaultron Head,,, AA/50c/15v Crossbow,,, AA/50L/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, AA/25/25 Gamma Gun,,, AA/E/15r Hunting Rifle,,, B/AP/25 Compound Bow,,, B/25/25 Gauss Rifle,,, Exe/50c/25 Combat Rifle,,, Exe/50c/25 Double Barrel,,, Exe/E/25 Hunting Rifle,,, Exe/E/25 Lever Action,,, F/50c/15v Compound Bow,,, F/E/25 Double Barrel,,, F/50c/15v Thirst Zapper,,, GouE/25 Double Barrel,,, Gou25/25 Lever Action,,, GS/50c/25 Gamma Gun,,, Jug/E/25 Combat Rifle,,, Jug/50c/25 Laser Rifle,,, Junk/50c/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, Mu/50c/25 Crossbow,,, N/25/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, N/50c/25 Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, Q/50c/25 Assaultron Head,,, Q/25/15r Combat Shotgun,,, Q/25/15r Plasma Rifle,,, St/50c/25 Crossbow,,, St/E/25 Single Action Revolver,,, Su/25/25 Radium Rifle,,, TS/25/15r Combat Rifle,,, TS/50c/25 Combat Rifle,,, V/25/15r Enclave Plasma Rifle,,, V/50c/25 Bow,,, V/AP/25 Crossbow,,, V/50c/25 Gauss Rifle
ARMOR: Aristocrat's Heavy Robot left leg with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Assassin's Heavy Combat right leg with Strength/Sentinel,,, Assassin's Marine right leg with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Assassin's T-45 right leg with AP/Sentinel,,, Assassin's USA left arm with +25 Poison resist/Sentinel,,, Auto Stim Heavy Robot right leg with +25 Cryo resist/Sentinel,,, Auto Stim Raider Power left arm with AP/Sentinel,,, Auto Stim USA right arm with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Auto Stim USA right arm with AP/WWR,,, Auto Stim USA right leg with 7%LED/WWR,,, Auto Stim USA right leg with Strength/WWR,,, Bolstering FSA chest with 7%LED/WWR,,, Bolstering FSA left leg with AP/Sentinel,,, Bolstering Marine right arm with +25 Cryo resist/Sentinel,,, Bolstering Sturdy Combat left leg with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Bolstering Trapper chest with AP/Cavalier,,, Bolstering Trapper right arm with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Bolstering USA left arm with 7%LED/FDC,,, Bolstering USA left leg with slowed hungeWWR,,, Bolstering USA right leg with Agility/Cavalier,,, Bolstering USA right leg with Charisma/Sentinel,,, Chameleon FSA left leg with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Chameleon Heavy Leather right arm with AP/WWR,,, Chameleon Marine right leg with AP/HDT,,, Chameleon Raider Power right leg with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Chameleon Robot chest with 7%LED/WWR,,, Chameleon Trapper left leg with AP/Cavalier,,, Chameleon USA chest with 7%LED/Cavalier,,, Chameleon USA left arm with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Chameleon USA left leg with +25 Cryo resist/Sentinel,,, Chameleon USA right arm with 7%LED/WWR,,, Chameleon USA right leg with AP/FDC,,, Cloaking Raider Power right leg with 7%LED/WWR,,, Cloaking USA right arm with 7%LED/HDT,,, Exterminator's FSA right arm with 7%LED/Cavalier,,, Exterminator's FSA right leg with 7%LED/Cavalier,,, Ghoul Slayer's FSA right leg with AP/Cavalier,,, Life Saving Combat left leg with AP/WWR,,, Life Saving Trapper left leg with AP/Sentinel,,, Life Saving Trapper right leg with 7%LED/Cavalier,,, Life Saving USA left arm with AP/Cavalier,,, Life Saving USA right arm with +25 Poison resist/Sentinel,,, Mutant's Excavator left arm with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Mutant's FSA chest with 7%LED/WWR,,, Mutant's FSA left leg with 7%LED/WWR,,, Nocturnal Excavator right leg with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Nocturnal Marine right arm with AP/Cavalier,,, Nocturnal USA right leg with AP/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Combat left arm with +25 Cryo resist/Cavalier,,, Overeater's Excavator right leg with Luck/Cavalier,,, Overeater's FSA chest with Endurance/Sentinel,,, Overeater's FSA right arm with Luck/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Heavy Combat left arm with 7%LED/JWR,,, Overeater's Heavy Combat right leg with Perception/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Heavy Metal left leg with Strength/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Heavy Raider left arm with 7%LED/Cavalier,,, Overeater's Heavy Raider left leg with Charisma/WWR,,, Overeater's Heavy Robot chest with +25 Rad resist/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Heavy Robot left leg with Agility/WWR,,, Overeater's Heavy Robot right leg with +25 Cryo resist/Cavalier,,, Overeater's Marine left leg with slowed hungeWWR,,, Overeater's Marine right arm with +25 Rad resist/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Marine right leg with +25 Fire resist/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Metal left leg with +25 Cryo resist/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Robot right leg with Endurance/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Trapper left leg with +25 Fire resist/Sentinel,,, Overeater's Trapper left arm with AP/HDT,,, Overeater's Trapper left leg with Perception/WWR,,, Overeater's Trapper right arm with Luck/WWR,,, Overeater's T-60 left arm with +25% Env resist/WWR,,, Overeater's T-60 left arm slowed hungeWWR,,, Overeater's USA chest with +25 Cryo resist/HDT,,, Overeater's USA left arm with +25 Poison resist/Sentinel,,, Overeater's USA right leg with slowed hungeFDC,,, Overeater's Wood left arm with 7%LED/Cavalier,,, Regenerating Heavy Leather right leg with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Regenerating Heavy Raider right arm with AP/Sentinel,,, Troubleshooter's Excavator right arm with 7%LED/Cavalier,,, Troubleshooter's Marine left arm with AP/Sentinel,,, Troubleshooter's Sturdy Metal right leg with AP/Sentinel,,, Unyielding FSA chest with Intelligence/Dur,,, Unyielding FSA left arm with Charisma/Cavalier,,, Unyielding FSA left leg with AP/FDC,,, Unyielding Heavy Combat chest with Strength/HDT,,, Unyielding Heavy Combat right arm with +25 Poison resist/JWR,,, Unyielding Heavy Combat right leg with 7%LED/Less limb dam,,, Unyielding Heavy Leather right arm with AP/HDT,,, Unyielding Heavy Metal right leg with Endurance/Sentinel,,, Unyielding Marine right arm with +25 Rad resist/Cavalier,,, Unyielding Marine right leg with +25 Fire resist/WWR,,, Unyielding Metal chest with AP/HDT,,, Unyielding Metal right leg with AP/Cavalier,,, Unyielding Robot right arm with Agility/Sentinel,,, Unyielding Sturdy Leather left arm with Strength/WWR,,, Unyielding Sturdy Leather left leg with 7%LED/Sentinel,,, Unyielding Sturdy Metal chest with AP/WWR,,, Unyielding Sturdy Metal left arm with +25 Rad resist/Sentinel,,, Unyielding Trapper left leg with AP/Cavalier,,, Unyielding Trapper right arm with 7%LED/HDT,,, Unyielding USA chest with Charisma/Cavalier,,, Unyielding USA left arm with +25% Env resist/Cavalier,,, Unyielding USA left leg with Charisma/Cavalier,,, Unyielding USA right leg with +25 Poison resist/JWR,,, Unyielding Wood chest with Luck/Cavalier,,, Vanguard's Excavator right leg with Intelligence/Cavalier,,, Vanguard's FSA left arm with slowed hungeSentinel,,, Vanguard's Heavy Leather right arm with 7%LED/HDT,,, Vanguard's Heavy Robot right arm with 7%LED/HDT,,, Vanguard's Marine right arm with AP/HDT,,, Vanguard's Sturdy Robot left arm with AP/Sentinel,,, Vanguard's Sturdy Robot right leg with 7%LED/WWR,,, Vanguard's USA chest with Luck/Sentinel,,, Vanguard's USA left arm with Intelligence/Sentinel,,, Vanguard's USA right arm with AP/Cavalier,,, Vanguard's Wood chest with Strength/Sentinel,,, Weightless USA left arm with Strength/Sentinel,,, Weightless USA right leg with AP/Cavalier,,, Zealot's USA right arm with AP/WWR,,, Zealot's USA right leg with AP/WWR
PLANS: Alien Blaster,,, Assault rifle,,, Barbed walking cane,,, Baseball bat rocket,,, Baseball bat searing puncturing rocket,,, Bear arm,,, Bear arm heavy mod,,, Boxing glove lead lining,,, Camo Backpack,,, Cave cricket tube,,, Deathclaw gauntlet,,, Dense marine armor torso,,, Dense trapper armor torso,,, Fire station bell,,, Flannel shirt & jeans,,, Hatchet electro fusion,,, Junkyard fountain,,, Machete sacrificial blade,,, Meat Tenderizer,,, Nuka girl area rug,,, Pepper Shaker,,, Pitchfork flamer,,, Protective lining marine underarmor,,, Protective lining raider underarmor,,, Puncturing pole hook,,, Radioactive barrel,,, Raw cement barricade,,, Scorchbeast queen plushie,,, Scorched tube,,, Shielded lining casual underarmor,,, Shielded lining marine underarmor,,, Shielded lining raider underarmor,,, Ski sword skate blade,,, Skiing outfit,,, Sledgehammer heavy searing sharp rocket,,, Small vault girl statue,,, Snallygaster plushie,,, Spiked walking cane,,, The Fixer,,, T-60 BOS knight paint,,, TV Aquarium,,, Ultracite emergency protocols,,, Undershirt & jeans,,, Vintage water cooler,,, WV state bird rug,,, Yao Guai tube,,, Cutting fluid recipe,,, Fasnacht donut recipe,,, Fasnacht sausage recipe,,, Healing salve Cranberry Bog recipe,,, Healing salve Mire recipe,,, Formula P recipe,,,Stimpak Diffuser recipe,,, Tato salad recipe
APPAREL: Asylum Uniform Pink,,, Clean Spacesuit,,, Emmett Mountain hazmat suit,,, Garrahan Foreman Outfit and Helmet,,, Grey Fishermans Overalls,,, Hunter's Long Coat,,, Longshoreman Outfit,,, Skiing red and green outfit,,, Straight Jacket Clean,,, ,, Winter Jacket and Jeans
CHEMS: Addictol: 180,,, Berry Mentats: 642,,, Buffout: 1518,,, Calmex: 538,,, Daddy-O: 1068,,, Day Tripper: 797,,, Disease Cure: 415,,, Mentats: 1000,,, Overdrive: 557,,, Psycho: 2803,,, Psychobuff: 1366,,, Psychotats: 1227,,, X-cell: 344
FOOD: Canned meat stew: 65,,, Pepper: 2566,,, Salt: 967,,, Spices: 1430,,, Sugar Bombs(w/rads): 382
MODS: Enclave plasma aligned flamer mod,,, Enclave plasma aligned sniper barrel mod,,, Enclave plasma severe beta wave tuner

Trigger warnings: depression, emotional, mental and physical abuse, child abuse, abortions, suicide idealations and attempts.
Backstory: I was diagnosed with epilepsy when I was 13 years old, although some doctors believe I'd been having seizures since I was as young as 6 or 7. I was also diagnosed with manic depression/bipolar disorder when I was 16.
At 21 I gave birth to my first daughter, M. A little under two years later I had my second daughter, A. The first pregnancy wasn't easy and I had a lot of seizures during the course of the pregnancy. Many trips to the hospital to make sure baby was safe. But after I gave birth I jumped straight into motherhood. I lived roughly 4 hours away from my parents and struggled with feeling homesick frequently. I called my dad daily for parenting advice, to vent, to update him, and also to help subside that homesick feeling. Regardless though, I was a very attentive and active mom. I spent all of my time with M. She was my best friend. I LOVED being a mom and I was THRIVING. After M turned 1, I moved back "home" and moved back in with my parents. My second pregnancy was much the same. Uncomfortable pregnancy, many seizures. However with this pregnancy I had some complications that caused A to be born 10 weeks early. This caused A to spend the first several months of her life in the nicu and even had to have gastral intestinal surgery before she was even 4 months old. Due to my epilepsy I do not drive, but I did everything I could in my power to see my A as frequently and for as long as I could. Visiting hours were somewhat restricting though.
At some point in time I started displaying symptoms of postpartum depression that was heavily exasperated by my manic depression. I was at an all time low. The physical pain of a depression that immense had crippled me. I felt like I had concrete in my veins. Just getting up and going to the bathroom was an exhausting task. I spent most of my days sleeping as an escape from the pain and exhaustion. Thankfully I lived with my parents, my younger daughters father (J), and some of my sisters. I would say I had plenty of help and support, but a more accurate statement would be "the children were looked after". I on the other hand was mocked, teased and belittled at every opportunity. At the time I thought nothing of it. I thought "that's just how my family is" I was raised with the motto "the more I tease you, the more I love you". Before my dad knew I was pregnant (I kept it a secret for 18 weeks because J was pressuring me to get an unwanted abortion.) my dad pointed to my stomach one morning and said "you know, some situps would help with that" I was devastated, already feeling fat and disgusting, and went to my room to cry.
Without me even realizing it, the negative comments and belittling nature of my family took a toll on me and I was getting deeper and deeper into my depression without a light at the end of the tunnel. I HATED myself for not being able to get up and play with my children. I couldn't understand how I could be so active and attentive with M at that age but I just didn't have it in me for A. I felt like I'd failed her in so many ways. I tried my best to find solutions to the problem. Often times I'd try to find games to play with them that involved me lying or at least sitting on the couch. Puzzles, coloring, movies, cars. Anything low impact, but kids want to run and play and be active.. I felt like the worst mom of all times and I wasn't being told differently by those around me. In fact my greatest fears were being confirmed daily. One day I finally broke and had a full mental breakdown in front of my mom. I had confessed to my mom that I was having suicidal idealations. I knew deep down I didn't want to end my life, but I wanted the pain to stop. I couldn't breathe under the weight of my depression and I desperately needed help. I sat on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably, confessing all of my deepest darkest thoughts and feelings at that time. My mom, in my opinion, brushed me off and said "well look into counseling or something" and then walked away, while I stayed sitting against our front door, crying my heart out. I felt devastated. All I wanted was a hug and some comfort but it was clear I was barking up the wrong tree. I got myself together, went upstairs, and went to sleep in order to escape the heartbreak and numb myself again. This entire timeline is a blur to me, so I'm not sure how much time passed between my melt down and this next conversation, but I feel like it was less than a week when my mom sat me down to have a conversation about the girls.
She suggested to me that my parents take temporary custody of the girls until I was able to "get on my feet". She kept pushing this narrative that it was what was best for the girls and their safety. She used my epilepsy as an excuse. Telling me that it was unsafe for the girls to be under my care when my epilepsy was so unpredictable. She also used my mental health, feeding into all of my fears and my own perceived shortcomings. A decent way into the conversation, my dad joined us. His whole demeanor radiated "this is a waste of my time. Just do what we say so I can go do other things" but maybe that was me reading too deeply into his behavior. Once he sat down it felt like my mom leaned even deeper into this narrative that they were clearly the better option for the girls wellbeing, but it would only be for a short time and that they were mainly concerned with the girls quality of life. I really struggled with what to do. I already felt like I was failing my children because I was so mentally and emotionally drained and detached. I didn't want to abandon them or lose them, but I also didn't want to harm them in the ways I had been harmed growing up. I figured my mom knew best because she had been in my shoes for all of my childhood. The vast majority of memories I have of my mom are of her sleeping on the couch, or raging out over the most minuscule things. I didn't want my children raised like that... So reluctantly, I agreed, truly believing I was doing a selfless thing and putting my children first. (This would later be used against me at every opportunity) I signed a piece of computer paper that my mom had scribbled an agreement on, stating that I was signing over temporary custody of my kids to my parents, with the understanding that I would get full custody back at an undisclosed time.
One day while I was down the road at a friend's house, my mom called me frantic, demanding I get home immediately. I rushed up to the house to find out that A's dad, J, had her wrapped in three blankets, in her car seat (it's the only place she would sleep). She was drenched in sweat (apparently new borns aren't supposed to sweat, especially not that much) and she was crying hysterically due to discomfort. J was irate, screaming at her and aggressively shaking the car seat. My mom said she heard him scream "shut the fck up or I'm going to *unalive you". She was under the impression that him and I were arguing again, and had come to break up the fight. (This always seemed odd to me seeing as how she never once intervened in our arguments before) When she realized I wasn't home and he was talking to A, she grabbed A and went downstairs. As she walked down the hall, j punched a hole in the wall near her head. He claimed he was "only trying to scare her" because she was "stealing his child from him" I was outraged and mortified. I tried multiple times to leave him and kick him out, but I had no support from my family. At one point I even resorted to packing up all of his belongings and throwing them out on the lawn. I'm not proud of that but I felt I had no other choice, and rushed to lock the doors when he went to get his things. My sister promptly unlocked the door and let him back in, claiming I was "acting psychotic" I felt trapped... But I had grown up around this behavior. My dad was an angry drunk and I had grown up believing that those behaviors were "passion" rather than aggression. So I accepted my fait and went on as if nothing had happened, certain that this would be the rest of my life.
One day when J was driving me to work we got into an argument and he repeatedly told me "your dad was right. You should do the world a favor and just unalive yourself. Everyone would be a lot happier" he kept repeating it over and over until I finally had it. He pulled up to a stop sign and I got out of the car and started walking down the road. He immediately started freaking out, begging me to get back in the car, using everything he could think of to manipulate me into getting back into the car. I finally caved and got back in. J dropped me off at work and as I got out of the car I told him "we're over. I'm breaking up with you". I closed the door before he could say a word and walked into work feeling like I was on cloud 9. It felt like all of my troubles had been wiped away. When I got inside, I told a friend what happened and explained that I didn't want to go home that night because I knew a guilt trip was waiting for me when I got there. I knew there would be an argument that would last hours and I would finally break due to exhaustion and would inevitably take him back. My coworker seemed to understand and let me stay at his house as long as I needed.
I called my mom and told her what had happened. I begged and pleaded with her to kick J out, but she refused. She was concerned that he'd try to take A if she kicked him out. I told her I was certain he wouldn't. He only ever cared about himself and his own self preservation. A baby would only make things harder for him and it was a responsibility and a role he didn't even want in the first place. I told her J had spent 18 weeks pressuring me to abort A and was evening willing to drive me out of state to get the procedure done, until I finally put my foot down and told him no, I was keeping my baby. I stayed away for 2 full weeks, the entire time begging and pleading with my family. Pointing out his abusive tendencies and his history with verbal and physical abuse and outbursts. My mom held her ground and refused to help me in any capacity. Every time M asked where I was, my mom would say "your mom's at work" rather than have her call me and talk to me. This created a lot of psychological trauma for M. She had severe seperstion anxiety, having panic attacks any time someone had to leave the house, convinced that if they left they'd never return. Still to this day she has abandonment issues as well as severe panic attacks.
After two weeks, I started coming over for visits but I never moved back in. During this time, J informed me that he was talking to another girl. He made it abundantly clear that she was 16. He was roughly 25 or 26 at the time. I later found out that they weren't talking. In fact, she had a boyfriend who was age appropriate, but J had been going and telling their entire friend group that they had been messing around together. I was then informed by my younger sibling L, that J had made advances on her that she quickly shut down. I think she was roughly 18 at the time. When this didn't pan out and J didn't get the reactions he expected from myself or L, he moved on. Years later I was told the same time xact story by both J and my oldest sister Al. "We had been hanging out, drinking, smoking. Ya know, the usual. And then well... Because I was so inebriated, they took advantage of me and we slept together" Knowing the both of them well enough, I knew it was consensual and they were just embarrassed and scared of my reaction. I laughed and told them they deserved one another.
As you can imagine, J's questionable life choices caught up with him and he was rejected from every friend group he had, to the point where he left the state and broke all contact with myself, and my family. It was a weight off my shoulders when he was finally gone. At that point I had gotten my own apartment but it was the first time I lived alone, paying my own bills, and I was not good at it. I was missing bill payments left and right. My power was shut off in the middle of winter and before long I was evicted. I was homeless and asked my parents if I could move home. They said no, that it would be too confusing for the girls if I moved back in with them. I ended up staying with friends on the couch in a one bedroom. It was extremely uncomfortable, but I had a roof over my head. When their lease was up, they invited me to get a new place with them. I agreed and I started learning about finances and how to be a functioning part of society.
My parents said I was welcome to visit the girls any time I wanted, but when I'd ask, it was a whole ordeal and guilt trip because they had to come pick me up and refused to bring my kids to my place. They said the car ride was too much for the girls to handle. Mind you, Ms dad B, still lives 4 hours away. My parents regularly drive both of my daughters up to see B and his parents whenever Bs parents request it. However, a 30 minute drive was asking far too much of such young and fragile children. When I argued that point they would use other excuses why they would not be bringing my children to see me. Once again I felt powerless and like a bad mom, being paraded by my parents for not being more active in my kids lives, but when I tried to make the effort it was scorned and met with negativity.
I self isolated for awhile, but still tried to be apart of my children's lives.
Over the years I've brought up the custody agreement, pointing out that it was supposed to only be temporary. I think my parents got frustrated with this because once the girls started school, my mom pressured me to sign over full custody, claiming it would make filling out paperwork a lot easier on my parents. But it was still only temporary, supposedly. Again, I continued to press for custody back and I would be met with argument after argument, bombarded with all of my shortcomings. On multiple occasions my mom told me "if you take custody of the girls back it will destroy mine and your father's marriage. Some days the girls are the only thing keeping us together" I was also told "if you take custody back it will literally kill your father. He won't survive." A year or so ago I told my mom we needed to go to therapy because I could not speak to her without a mediator. She finally agreed and we had two sessions. The first of which she cried her eyes out, telling the therapist that she's always done her absolute best for us kids and that we never appreciate anything she's done for us. She said "I took on the responsibility of raising two young children while she was out there f*cking anyone and everyone she wanted" mind you, during the time frame she was talking about, I had one intimate partner. When I confronted her about it outside of the session she said "I said that to highlight the poor life choices you were making at the time"
Fast-forward to now, A and I have a good relationship, but she's closest to my dad over everyone. M and I still have an incredibly tight bond though. She tells me everything. I'm her best friend.
The things she's been telling me the last couple of years are bringing up a lot of PTSD and trauma for me from my childhood. It's been opening my eyes to the level of mental abuse I suffered at the hands of my parents.
At this point you're probably thinking what I thought for most of my life. "This girl's mom sounds like a monster" It wasn't until recently that my father's facade was irreversibly shattered in my eyes. M had come to me and asked "what would you say if I asked to be called unisex name". I told her "I wouldn't say anything. I'd just call you by the name you chose. I love you no matter what I call you. I will always love you no matter what. There's nothing in this world that will change that, especially not a name." In time M came to me and said "how would you react if I told you I like girls" I said "the same way I reacted when you wanted to change your name. I will always accept, support and love you, no matter what"
She had gone to my mom with the same questions and my mom had roughly the same response. My dad on the other hand had a much more viseral response. When the name was brought up, he hit the roof, yelling "I'm not having another kid try and change their name. That's stupid. You have a name." (L changed their name when they were in school and my father always hated it and still refuses to call L by their chosen name) When the topic of sexual preference was broached he'd just roll his eyes, huff and act like M was being stupid and childish. As I touched up on previously, M has severe panic attacks. I can relate because I also suffer from them and they were extremely bad around the same age that M is now. From things M had told me in passing I'm under the impression that she was being bullied at school. Every morning was a struggle. She would beg my parents to let her stay home. If it was up to my mom, she'd get frustrated and give in, saying "whatever. Do whatever you want. You do anyway. None of you ever listen to me or respect anything I say" and M would go lie in bed and call me crying that she "upset nana" If it were my dad however, he'd yell at her to get her @$$ in the car and that he wasn't dealing with her $ht. She would have full fledged panic attacks in the car to which he would yell and scream at her to knock off the teenage bllsh*t and to suck it up. One day he even threatened to institutionalize her if this behavior continued. She called me, mid breakdown, telling me everything that had happened and asked me "what even does that mean? Is he gonna lock me up in a psych ward because I'm having panic attacks?" I assured her that no one was doing any such thing. I then called my parents and tore into them for treating her like that. My skin was crawling, I was so appalled at his behavior.
He tries his best to mask his negativity and what I consider to be narcissistic tendencies. He went from being an angry alcoholic to being a sober helpful part of the church he attends. I told my mom recently that I believe he swapped one addiction for another. He portrays this happy healthy life and family all over social media, showing my kids off to the people at his church, claiming they're his kids. So much so to the point that I had attended a few services and people thought I was their sister, not their mom, because my dad refuses to refer to them as his grandchildren. He's even taken it so far as to claim that he BIRTHED them. I don't know what level of psychosis it takes for a man to claim that he carried two children in his womb, but that's besides the point.
Also to Ms detriment, he will tease her about her weight, her eating habits, her sleeping habits. He will also make snide comments about LGBTQ+ related and adjacent topics.
L, had also suffered this same emotional and mental abuse for years from our dad and subsequently my mom who is too scared of my dad to stand up for her own beliefs. L finally made the difficult decision to go no contact for their mental health. This was extra difficult for them because that meant they had less access to their nieces and nephew, but they had to do what was best for their mental state and they took a step back. At one point my dad had brought L up, calling them by their dead name and misgendering them. When M corrected my dad he scoffed and said "people who change their names and gender are just people who weren't loved enough as a child" M responded with "k.." and went to her room to call me, explaining how incredibly offensive that statement was, especially seeing as how that's his own child. She said "who's fault is it if L wasn't loved enough as a child?" (She's extremely aware for her age)
I got a phone call from A one afternoon. She was crying and told me "I'm just sad because I'm never going to see L again because she abandoned us." I asked who told her that and she said "papa said dead name abandoned us because she doesn't care about the family anymore" I explained that none of that was true and that L missed them very much, and wanted to see them very much.
I spoke to L regularly about the situation at hand, being as supportive as possible while trying to stay out of the family drama. After months of distancing themselves from our parents, they came to me for help and guidance. They wanted to have dinner with our parents to try and mend their relationships. However they were scared of the response they would receive, so I offered to be the buffer and reach out on their behalf.
My mom's response was perfect. She said "I would love to have dinner with them. Tell me when and where" My dad's response was less ideal. He said "we would love to have dinner with her. If she's ready to respect our family and our beliefs we would be happy to have dinner with her" I lost it on him. I told him that I was sick and tired of his behavior. He puts on a holier than thou facade but he doesn't actually act very christ like in reality. I pointed out that when the prodigal son returned he wasn't met with "are you ready to ahere to our rules and regulations now? Are you prepared to act the way that we want you to? If you are then you can come home, but if not, get out" he was welcomed home with open arms, regardless of anything he had done or said. He replied with "I had a gut feeling that I shouldn't have responded to that text. I should've listened to that gut instinct"
I've gone no contact with him since that argument, but as you can imagine, that was just the straw that broke the camel's back.
On mother's day, my dad was out of town but my girls went to church with my mom. There was a guest speaker who had an extremely antitrans message. The way my mom explained it was "if your kid comes out as trans, you're a failure as a mom" I was dumbfounded to hear that they'd have a message like that at all, but especially on mother's day, shaming parents, but specifically mom's, into rejecting their children's self identification, as if one person has control over another person's identity. M told me she didn't ever want to go back. I told her I understood and I'd do my best to make sure she didn't have to.
Today is my birthday and my girls are coming over. M texted me this morning saying "I'm getting ready for church. I was told that if I wanted to go to my mom's house, I had to go to church first" This used to be a place that she felt safe and happy in and now it's become a place of contention for her. She'll ask my mom if she can stay home (never my dad) and although my mom usually caves and lets her stay home, it's always with some stipulation.
My dad is a controlling, manipulative, homophobic, close minded fraud of a Christian who is emotionally and mentally harming and abusing my children, and my mom isn't much safer for either of them, always siding with my dad out of fear and exhaustion.
I desperately want to remove them from this situation and regain full custody but I don't know where to start. I work two jobs in order to make ends meet. I'm behind on my rent. I have to take buses and Ubers everywhere I go. I have a very small two bedroom apartment (the girls each have their own rooms at my parents house). They have friends and a sense of community where they are, with a nice sized backyard, a trampoline, two of my three siblings are close by so they get to see their cousins daily. I don't want to rip them away from the only home they've known for years. I don't want to uproot them and disrupt the little amount of structure they do have. I don't even know how I would manage two jobs as well as a 10 and a 12 year old, but I also don't want to leave them in this toxic suffocating and damaging environment when all along I thought it was a better and safer environment for them than what I had to offer.
I feel like I'm still brainwashed to some extent by my parents, second guessing my abilities as a mom. Telling myself I'm not capable of the things I need to do for these girls. I'm at a loss for what to do at this point. Do I fight for custody back? Do I leave them as they are? Do I continue to try and advocate for them even though it either falls on deaf ears or makes matters so much worse, because that frustration is then taken out on my kids?

Hello there, internet stranger! Let's talk about AI!
(((DISCLAIMER just to be sure:
Yes I am aware that "AI" is a marketing buzzword for many different technologies. I am also aware of the serious ethical and copyright issues of AI. This is just a discussion about a potential usecase of AI.)))
Anyways, when I saw how good some AI sharpening and upscaling tools are, it gave me an idea (that someone definitely already had, maybe even already created):
What if we used AI to generate near perfect "mipmaps".
Now, mipmaps might not be the correct term here, because what I am thinking of would allow upscaling to higher resolutions than the original, not just downscaling like with mipmaps.
Basically using AI sharpening tools, we could pre-generate many versions of an original sprite/texture that would be indistinguishible from the original, but of higher and lower resolution.
We would then swap the versions of the sprites based on how close it is to the camera, just like mipmaps.
It could also counter one of the greatest problems with 2D sprites: scaling. (scaling-related problems like blur.)
We could create different versions of the sprite for different resolutions, without having to recreate it.
What do you think?

Hello lovely people!
I have a few wonderful restaurants near me that serve foods of different regional Indian styles, and some of them serve delicious drinks that I’d love to learn to make, and possibly learn of others!
One of them is turmeric milk; I was once ill and my friend made me a cup of golden delicately spiced milk. It seemed to cure me! Have you ever heard of this?
A lassi is also amazing, I’ve heard of several varieties, mango, strawberry, yogurt. Which is your favourite? Are there others?
I’ve also tried a lemonade that was a little salty, and a spiced chai that I always crave. Do you perhaps know any good recipes for these?
Thank you for taking the time to read this!