Writing here if someone has tips, but I don't have the energy to recap my whole life's story as I'd usually do, so I'm just going to preface this with short details.
I'm a long-term disabled mental health survivor of childhood abuse with CPTSD, diagnosed with GAD, MDD, and DID. I am between therapists after my previously good one became emotionally distant and incapable of providing me the working relationship I needed with therapy (essentially, I was doing all of the work of therapising myself on my own), and though I found a good replacement I'd like to begin working with who is eager to commit to a long-term therapeutic relationship for my needs, I cannot get the cost covered and all sources are bouncing me back and forth claiming it's not their business to be dealing with. Apparently it is nobody's.
My mental health has been collapsing as of late - I've just spent two weeks eating dry toast and struggling to prepare one meal a day, not showering, not cleaning up, and giving my pets the bare minimum of food and a bed to sleep in. This all came to a head with my dog developing a benign neurological condition that nevertheless required an urgent vet visit, and at that point, my depression and lack of energy has turned to straight-up constant panic, fight/flight, I can't deal with anything right now from the fear of everything, I wake up constantly overnight whenever my dog shifts, I am shaking all of the time, my chest hurts from my muscles crushing my sternum.
I have a prescription for sedatives, well, had; I tried to check out my last bottle of pills to use as prescribed, to take one per day for three days before breaking for one day in order to calm my body's "stuck" fight/flight response. They were prescribed for me for this purpose, as I tend to end up with psychotic symptoms when my brain becomes unable to return to base level.
Turns out, my prescription has expired, and since I did not pick up my last bottle due to not needing the medicine at the time, I have none left. This isn't a problem - prescriptions are renewed quickly, so I sent the request in yesterday.
Today, it was rejected. My doctor told me last time he wants me to "wean off" the medication, because he believes it's not "healthy" to "rely" on them as a back-up when I'm afraid.
I have no treatment. I am not a patient anywhere at this moment. I have no means to access treatment at this time. I have no emergency resources aside from urgent care, which I cannot afford to get to. I've ordered a bottle of CBD oil (legal in my country), which I've never tried before and have no idea if it'll work for me, but I'm looking at a weekend with stress levels that have me borderlining hyperventilation at all moments. I'm nauseous from fear and I cannot calm down, and I have no idea what to do. I was counting on the prescription being renewed today and as it wasn't, I'm not only frightened by the fact that I have been refused the last resort I have always been able to count on when things get very bad - but all resorts, as I have nowhere to go or anybody to turn to now.
I don't know what to do. Please send suggestions. I'm so scared.

Chapter LXXXVIII
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Somewhere, West Virginia, USA.
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"Oh he's coming!" She said excitedly.
​
Casius rolled his eyes. He sometimes forgot that She was an eldritch entity that had the power to tear the fabric of reality when She sat in Her chair bouncing around like a little kid waiting for their favorite cartoon to come on.
"Aren't you excited too Casius?!"
​
"Positively vibrating Mistress." He stated with mock enthusiasm.
​
"We knew she was going to tell him, but We didn't think it would be right away!" She did a little clap in excitement as She and Casius waited the arrival of Jeb.
​
Jeb, meanwhile, was less than thrilled. The talk he just had with the 3 kobolds was amusing at first. But grew more and more annoying as they insisted that what they said was true. That not only was his mother some horror from the void. But that HE was one as well!
​
He was not amused, Jeb thought as he stomped his way up the mountain to his mother. He didn't know what trick she pulled to make the kobolds think that she was some kind of monster or that he was one too. But it needed to be sorted. It was bad enough hearing from his dad that she was some sort of creature. Now he had to hear the same from the kobolds?!
​
Sure she was getting up there in age, he thought. But there comes a time where playing her little mind games takes it too far!
​
But then he remembered the image in the mirror. The nightmares. Dan Mathers. He shook his head though.
"Just stress is all. That's all it is! All it WAS!"
​
That's what he kept telling himself at any rate. But the more he said it, whether aloud or in his head, the more it felt wrong. Like he was telling himself a lie to make himself feel better. The more he told it, the more he wanted to believe it.
​
He growled and slammed a fist into a nearby tree. He scratched his head like there was an itch that just wouldn't go away. He shook his head again but it did little good. It seemed like the more he thought about it the worse his head got.
​
Before long he was burning a path to his mother's cabin. Every greeting he got from his kin was ignored or unnoticed. His ears were ringing and his heart pounded as his breathing grew ragged with every step.
​
He was just going to have a simple talk with his Ma is all, he thought. But it felt like he was walking through a battlefield. His nerves were on high alert and his head ached. His fingers twitched from the adrenaline pumping its way throughout his system.
​
He was a jittery mess as he stood at the threshold. He forced himself to breathe. He balled his hands up into fists and placed them on either side of the worn wooden door and held his head down with his eyes closed. Or maybe he slammed them, he couldn't even tell with how wired he felt.
​
"Breathe. Just Breathe. 1. 2. 3." He resorted on his old breathing trick he would use whenever his temper started to flare up. He hasn't really needed it lately. Probably because he's been so busy being productive trying to get the kobolds sorted that he hasn't been anything more than mildly annoyed about things.
​
He still felt like he was getting into a ring when he finally opened the door. But at least he didn't feel like he was on crank.
"Hay Ma."
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"Jeb!" His ma cheered as she stood and embraced him in a warm firm hug.
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"Casius." Jeb greeted simply.
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"Jebadiah." Casius returned with a smile.
​
His mom returned to her seat with a wide smile on her face as Jeb took a seat of his own. He shifted uncomfortably for a moment before speaking to Casius.
"Can me and my Ma have a moment Casius?"
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But his mom put a hand up.
"It's alright Jeb."
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"Ok. Fine. You need to stop your little mind games on my friends!" Jeb snapped.
​
"Oh? What mind games?" She asked with an innocent smile.
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"You know damn well! I don't know what you did but now it's got the lizardfolk thinkin' your some sort of demon!"
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"Us? Or you?" She asked simply.
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"What?"
​
"Do they think WE are, or are you afraid that they now think YOU are?"
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"T-t-that's not the point! The point-"
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"Is you're worried that those looks your Pa gives Us, he gives to you when your not looking? That YOU killed Dan Mathers all those years ago? That what you see in the mirror is what you truly are? That those nightmares don't make you feel scared but instead feel good?" She asked, each question feeling like a knife that dug itself deeper into his head and chest.
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With a roar he got up and pointed his finger at her.
"THIS ISN'T A FUCKIN' JOKE!"
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"Does it look like We're laughing?" She said, smile still on her face.
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"You know what?! I don't have to deal with this!" Jeb stated as he turned to leave the cabin. Only to find the door was gone. Not that there was a hole where it had been, but that it was just plain gone! A solid wall was where it was as if there hadn't ever been a door there in the first place.
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Jeb chuckled bitterly.
"Ok. Real funny."
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Jeb ran his hands over the wall looking for the doorlatch. But the more he searched the angrier he got. He growled and turned to yell.
"ENOUGH OF YOUR FUCKIN' GAMES!"
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He found himself surrounded in gloom and darkness. Only himself and his mom were illuminated in a pale blue glow. Casius and the cabin both were gone. She leaned forward and crossed her hands.
"Why don't you say what you REALLY want to say Jeb?"
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Jeb looked around the darkness. His heart hammered and his body twitched and shook. His head was a mess as it felt like it was trying to pull itself apart. One part didn't want to say anything, the other was screaming to utter the words.
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"It's all true isn't it."
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It wasn't a question.
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His mother smiled. Not the usual quirky smile she had whenever she played her tricks and games. Just a smile a mother would have when she would speak to her children.
"It is."
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Everything stopped. Every nerve in his body stilled and his mind went silent. The silence stretched even as the darkness faded and the cabin and Casius faded back into view.
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"What I saw in the mirror. The nightmares. That's me isn't it?"
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She just nodded.
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"And Dan Mathers? The other kids?"
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"Got what they deserved in the end." She replied.
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"They were just kids Ma!"
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"And they made your life hell for months."
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"That doesn't mean they deserved to die! At least not like they did!" Jeb went quiet after that.
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An uncomfortable silence filled the air. Jeb wasn't sure if his Ma and Casius was just trying to give him time to think or if they weren't sure what to say either. He wasn't sure what to think let alone say. His life was a lie. Everything he knew and thought was a lie.
​
His father lied to him, Ruby lied to him, everybody lied to him.
"Why didn't you ever say anything when I was lil?"
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She just shrugged her shoulders.
"It wouldn't have mattered. Whether it was 20 years ago or 20 minutes. This was still going to happen. Sam wanted all this kept from you "for your own good". He wanted nothing to do with any of it. We didn't say anything because, as We said, it didn't matter. This would've happened anyway. We figured you would be better prepared, mentally, if you were older. Telling children they have the potential to be gods either humbles them or turns them into monsters. So We waited."
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"What if I don't want to be a god?! What if I just want to be normal?! Regular, normal, Jeb?!"
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"That isn't in the cards Jeb. The day is fast approaching where you will have to decide. Either you accept you're not a mortal human, or you die."
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"What do you mean I'll die?"
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"As bad as you think you'll become. You can become much worse. Your humanity is what will damn you and those around you when the time comes. It will shatter and break and you'll be nothing more than a mad dog. And you'll be put down like one."
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His head hurt. Not the existential force he was feeling when he came here. But just a regular headache. Like trying to force yourself to do paperwork. It was just too much. Her words were true, he knew that much. His Ma might like playing mind games but this was too much for her to play, especially on him. It all made some sort of sick sense in a way too.
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Like waking up and remembering what happened after too much drinking. You might not like what you remember, but at least it all made sense, sorta. But that didn't make his head any better.
"I-i gotta go."
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Jeb got up. Casius made to put a reaffirming hand on Jeb's shoulder. But he snapped and smacked away the hand.
"D-d-don't touch me! J-j-just don't."
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He made for the, now reappeared, door and left. No calls or greetings were returned even as he left. He had too much that now occupied his mind.
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The Crone and Casius watched Jeb leave.
"Will he be alright Mistress?"
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"He's a strong boy. Give him time." She stated in return.
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Jeb didn't feel very strong though as he descended the mountain. His head felt fuzzy. He wanted to just stop and cry against a nearby tree. His limbs were heavy with every step he took. It felt like he was moving in slow motion.
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At some point he had enough. He screamed and yelled and thrashed. Pain, sorrow, anger. Like a dam broke he swung his fists at anything around him, even the air, just trying to let off steam, to feel better, to feel normal again.
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He was tired. Just tired. Eventually his rage gave out and he sat with his back to a tree. Everything felt numb. Then he felt something on his face. It took him a moment to realize he was crying. Then the dam broke again, and he wailed and sobbed.
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In light of recent discussion about Engage's writing, it got me thinking a bit more critically about my own views on it. For context, I'm someone that generally prefers gameplay over story/writing, but the split is pretty close (like a 60:40 ratio). I'm generally pretty neutral about Engage's writing overall with its characters. But I think what sours me a bit more than it should is that Engage's character writing shows specks of potential, which gets my hopes up about the overall quality, but fails to consistently deliver.
For my own personal tastes, I am a fan of sibling dynamics in video games being a middle child of 3 myself. So, when I learned that there was not just one, but two non-lord sibling pairs in Engage, I was pretty excited to see how they would be tackled. One pair became two of my favorite characters in the whole franchise, the other will probably fade from my memory sooner rather than later.
I wanna start by talking about what "works" about Pandreo and Panette to showcase what I feel is lacking from Clanne and Framme
The underlying subplot behind Pandreo and Panette is their shared backstory of being raised by crappy parents and how each of them decided to cope with that. Pandreo turned to the church in an attempt to find meaning in a harsh world ultimately choosing a healthier way to cope, while Panette ran away from home and took her frustrations out on bandits in the countryside. This by itself is a great set up because it allows Pandreo and Panette to escape the trap of siblings being "too agreeable" with each other and just being two slightly different versions of the same character.
Pandreo can be generally described as someone who likes to be the light in a world filled with strife. He views worship of the Divine Dragon less as a dedicated organized religion, and more of a way to give people something to believe in to look forward towards the future. It's for this reason that his congregation is all about partying, howling and dancing as these are pretty physical activities that can release a lot of stress if his support with Alcryst is anything to go by. I particularly find his supports with Vander and Seadall to be highlights in his support log because they have something that I feel is lacking from a lot of Engage's supports; interpersonal conflict. Vander is initially mortified by Pandreo's congregation, going so far as to straight up call it a circus, while him and Seadall beef with each other on what it means to "truly dance". Conflict is simply a natural part of fiction writing because it forces characters to grow. And the cool thing about character growth is that both parties don't necessarily have to see eye to eye at the end. Vander doesn't magically see things from Pandreo's PoV during their A support, but the important part is that he's willing to try even if "these motions are beyond me" and he even throws out his back in the process. Pandreo doesn't suddenly just accept Seadall's views on dancing, but he's still willing to learn from Seadall so long as the style of lesson changes. I think these two supports in particular show Pandreo's ability to talk with people rather than at them and why his supports feel like two people talking to each other, rather than one just reacting to the other.
The arguably most important Panette support is the one with Timmera. It shows that Panette's noble persona is borne from her own personal desire to not embarrass Timerra and as a way to distance herself from the hatred filled personality that was born from her parent's neglect. Then you have this facet of her personality expanded on in her supports with Etie and Yunaka. This naturally has interpersonal drama baked into it. Etie literally attacks her in an attempt to draw out her true nature while Yunaka and Panette take turns calling each other out on their respective fake personalities. But both of these supports turn the conflict into a positive direction by giving Panette another person that she can be her "true" self around. But her noble persona isn't always treated as a good thing as Saphir gives her a lot of pushback since Panette attempts to push "proper manners" into her without really considering Saphir's feelings. Her supports with Ivy and Saphir show her that what works for her doesn't necessarily work for everyone even if she has good intentions. It's quite easy to pick out the little lessons that Panette is picking up from her supports which overall builds a well-fleshed out character.
Finally, both Pandreo's and Panette's character come to a head in their support with each other. It starts with Pandreo immediately telling Panette to drop the "silver spoon" act which really sets the tone for the entire thing. It becomes very apparent that Panette does not approve of Pandreo's decision to become the head of their parents' congregation and Panette even straight up says that she'd rather be dead that set foot in the church again. From this single C support, it's clear that there is a lot of unsolved tension not just between the sibling's relationship with their parents, but with their relationship with each other. The crux of their B support focuses on Pandreo's attempts to reconcile with Pannette. He explains why he didn't scold her for running away and even congratulates Panette on her ability to become a royal retainer on her own. It ends with Pandreo telling Panette that their parents looked for her after she ran away which throws Panette off. But the important part is that Pandreo doesn't attempt to use this information to justify their parents' treatment of them, nor does he use it as a way to guilt Panette about running away. He simply just lets her know and allows Panette to do whatever she wants with that information. Lastly, their A support primarily revolves around Panette's attempts to reconcile with Pandreo. It's important to note that this support takes place within their parents' old church as Panette talks about how she really didn't want to come there. However, she comes anyway because she recognizes that her relationship with her brother is worth more than the hatred of her parents. From her supports, it's implied pretty heavily that Panette has likely been ridiculed for her aggressive behavior, born from the mistreatment from her parents who might've done the same, and that that might be a huge part of her personal drama. But Pandreo is the only one who never pushed her to be something that she's not. In fact, their support straight up starts with Pandreo telling her to be real with him. Even though Panette is not ready to forgive her parents for their mistreatment, she is willing to at least sit down with them and have an honest conversation out of respect for Pandreo. Although the fate of their parents is unknown, the support ends with Pandreo begging for Panette to survive the war as he can't stand the pain of losing more family with Panette playfully snapping back that he's got nothing to worry about even saying that she'll protect him. This support again exemplifies Pandreo's ability to talk with people, while we get to see Panette in her rawest, and most emotionally vulnerable form. The way that both of these characters are written just feels very human and real and I love it. You can see the effects of their parent's mistreatment throughout both of their supports and their support with each other wraps up that conflict nicely even if it's not a "perfect" happy ending.
On the flipside of things, Clanne and Framme are a bit....lacking. The main thing I feel like the young stewards are missing is a shared conflict to grow from. I get that they're both training under Vander as the next generation of Divine Dragon Stewards, but the situation feels like it lacks a personal stake for Clanne and Framme. Sure, Vander talks alot about how the two are his successors, but why were they chosen? What drove Clanne and Framme to become stewards? I feel as though Clanne and Framme's characters are severely gimped due to the lack of world building surrounding the Stewards in general. We don't really get to hear a whole lot about what they actually do and how they differ from other guardian groups like the Sentinels of Solm or the Royal Guard of Brodia which is pretty important considering that the Stewards are the guardians to Elyos's equivalent to God. This lack of world-building is really exemplified in Clanne's A support with Vander where Clanne spends the whole support chain feeling frustrated since he believes that he's just being used for menial tasks for Vander to suddenly reveal that these tasks are the true duties of a Steward. I get that Clanne is young, but if Framme's support with Alear is anything to go by, the two have been training to be Stewards for a non-trivial amount of time. Why is it only now, once the Divine Dragon has woken up, that Vander and Clanne have this heart to heart?
Being a hard worker is not a generic character trait in and of itself, but it feels that way with Clanne without a greater understanding of the what the Stewards actually do. Thus, Clanne has to draw on something else to stand out, and that's his love of pickles. It's a cute gimmick, but the issue is that Engage's writing doesn't really do anything with it. Pandreo's "gimmick" is being a party animal, but the writing uses that as a way to segway into his desire to ease people's suffering. I think the writing easily could've created a running gag where Clanne seemingly has a pickle for any and every occasion in order to show off some form of innovation. The support that comes the closest to using his pickle obsession in a character-building kind of way is his support with Veyle, but Veyle joins super late and tbh I think the way they transitioned into the more meaningful topic felt a bit forced. Honestly, I feel as though the greatest missed opportunity in Clanne's character is utilizing his weird growth spread as a character-building block. To illustrate what I mean, L'Arachel's support with Joshua is one of my favorites and largely centers around L'Arachel falling for the allure of gambling and Joshua accidentally getting in over his head when he realizes how "lucky" L'Arachel is. You can primarily view this as a humorous support that's not meant to be taken that seriously, but it should also be noted that L'Arachel has the second highest luck growth of the playable cast(65%) behind Tethys while Joshua's luck growth is thoroughly average(30%). It's uncertain if it was intentional, but knowing this, you could view their support as a form of gameplay and story integration due to the disparity of their luck growths. In their A support, Joshua even accidentally admits that he's been fixing the outcome of every game in his favor and L'Arachel still wins in the end due to her obscene luck. The support ends with Joshua throwing up his hands and refusing to gamble with L'Arachel further and L'Arachel falling so deep into the gambling rabbit hole that she thinks it's a great idea to build a gambling hall in Rausten despite the fact that she called gambling "a boil upon the fair skin of mankind" at the start. I bring this up because Clanne's growth spread and starting class are at odds with each other. His strength growth is significantly higher than his magic growth and yet he starts the game as a mage. I can think of lots of plotlines that can stem from that. Perhaps Clanne is physically fit to be a Steward, but Vander's vision of a Steward is required to at least have a basic understanding of magic. His supports could largely revolve around his journey into a subject that he's wholly unfamiliar with and you can use his hobby of making pickles to show what he does in his downtime to unwind from his studies. Perhaps his moments of low self-confidence could stem from his inability to quickly understand the concepts behind magic(hence his low magic growth). Character gimmicks are fun and they can make a character more memorable(Zelkov's craftiness and random emphasis of words is a good example within Engage imo), but a character that is entirely defined by their gimmick isn't particularly interesting.
Imo, Framme is ironically a half decent character because her supports don't talk about her Steward duties all that much so she isn't hurt as much by the lack of world-building behind the Stewards. The best way I'd describe Framme is an erratic people pleaser. She has the desire to bring people together, even if she doesn't have all the ideas on how to do that figured out. I find that her support with Diamant is a genuinely great support for both of their characters. She can be a bit one-note-ish but I blame that more on the lack of easily understood personal stake in becoming a Steward which prevents her from having a more meaningful outlet to channel her positivity into.
Overall, Clanne and Framme feel more like vessels for stereotypes and traits more than full-fledged characters which is why it all falls flat in their support with each other. The lack of a shared personal conflict of some kind really rears its ugly head as the "main" conflict between the Steward siblings is only introduced in their B support and is very quickly wrapped up in their A support. Since Clanne was very much on board with Framme's idea in their C-support and Clanne's lack of self-confidence is not really explored that much in his other supports, his suddenly refusal to go through with the plan feels artificial for the explicit purpose of creating drama between the two. The twins call each other the co-presidents of the Divine Dragon Fan Club, but with the way that their support is written, it really doesn't feel that way. Framme has the reins of the conversation for pretty much the entire support chain until the very tail end of the A support. It also doesn't help that Clanne is pretty much treated as the sole "problem". Framme should theoretically be the one that understands Clanne the best and the fact that she can't seem to recognize that he's super uncomfortable during the beginning of their B support feels weird. Framme doesn't have to change anything about who she is because, in the eyes of the support, she hasn't done anything wrong. The sibling dynamic doesn't really come across to me because only one sibling(Clanne) has grown from their interaction with the other, rather than both growing with each other. I think it could've easily been written that Framme's over eagerness overpowered any ideas that Clanne had and Clanne just silently accepted those ideas because he didn't want to rain on his sister's parade. You can keep things largely the same and then have Framme recognize in the A-support that she should tone it down a touch so that the siblings can truly be co-presidents of their fan club. It's not some deep storyline, but it helps me better see how the Steward siblings look out for each other.
TL;DR Pandreo and Panette feel like genuine siblings because they share a conflict whose effects can be seen in both their individual supports and their support with each other. Clanne and Framme on the other hand come across more like best friends which isn't necessarily bad but is a problem when I'm supposed to see them as brother and sister.

https://hbr.org/2020/01/the-founder-of-chewy-com-on-finding-the-financing-to-achieve-scale

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The Founder of Chewy.com on Finding the Financing to Achieve Scale

by

• Ryan Cohen

Most people assume that the high point of my professional career came on April 18, 2017, when the owners of PetSmart paid $3.35 billion for Chewy.com, the pet retailer I had cofounded six years earlier. No doubt, that day was incredible. It represented the culmination of a dream and a tremendous amount of work. But believe it or not, another handshake—another deal—mattered even more to me.
That one happened on September 26, 2013. I had launched Chewy two years earlier with Michael Day, using our own cash and small loans, but my vision was to build a large business, and I knew that significant capital would be required to finance the growth. We approached dozens of VC firms—I even flew out to Silicon Valley from our South Florida headquarters and went door-to-door on Sand Hill Road explaining how Chewy would succeed by delighting customers and running an ultra-efficient operation. But everyone turned us down.
Larry Cheng at Volition Capital was one of the people we pitched our company to. We first met him in 2012; he was en route to Disney World with his family and agreed to make a quick stop at our office. I remember that he asked me, “Who’s going to take this company to $100 million in sales?” I was 26 and probably looked even younger, but I confidently answered, “I am.” He didn’t invest.
He followed up with us about six months later, though. We’d beaten the sales projections that we’d previously given him, and he was impressed. A few days later he signed off on a $15 million investment in Chewy. The satisfaction of that victory was even greater than the pride I felt following the eventual multibillion-dollar sale. After two years of building Chewy—and more than 100 conversations with VCs that went nowhere—I’d finally found someone who believed in me and our business model. Larry had validated our idea.
From that point on, the mission was larger. I was even more committed to making Chewy an industry leader, because it was no longer just our own money on the line. Larry had gone out on a limb for us. I felt that responsibility.
I approached every subsequent round of financing, including PetSmart’s acquisition, in a similar way—by underpromising and overdelivering on sales. Our mission was straightforward: to build a best-in-class, customer-obsessed pet retailer. We also wanted to leave everyone who’d backed us a winner.

An Early Pivot

I’ve been working since I was 13, when I started building websites for family members and local businesses. From there I moved into affiliate marketing. I met Michael in an online chat room discussing website design and computer programming. We hit it off immediately and started talking about collaborating on a business.
I’d always wanted to build an e-commerce company, so we settled on what we thought was a terrific idea in an industry ripe for disruption: online jewelry sales. We built the website, set up the delivery systems, bought the inventory, and even put a safe in the office to store it.
But about a week before our scheduled launch, I had a revelation. I was in a local pet store with my toy poodle, Tylee, asking the owner about the most healthful food I could buy for her. That’s when it hit me: I was getting into the wrong business. I didn’t care much about jewelry, but like many dog and cat parents I knew, I was passionate about what I bought for Tylee. The pet industry was big and growing, moving from mass market to premium. It was clear that the opportunity was huge.
So although we were only a week away from launching the jewelry business, we pivoted. We sold all the rings, necklaces, and bracelets—and the safe—and started learning everything we could about the pet industry. We built a new website. We found a local distributor and partnered with a third-party logistics company nearby. In June of 2011 we launched. In just three months we went from my epiphany at the pet store to running a pet-supplies business.
We intended to build a best-in-class, customer-obsessed pet retailer.
People sometimes ask if I worried about following in the footsteps of Pets.com, in 2000 one of the highest profile failures of the dot-com bubble. I didn’t. For one thing, I was 15 when that company declared bankruptcy, so I wasn’t very familiar with the story. Second, Pets.com existed at a time when most people had dial-up internet and weren’t comfortable making purchases online. By the time we started, e-commerce was second nature for most consumers.
I also got questions about Amazon, and, of course, it was a real competitor. It had an incredible infrastructure, established relationships with customers and suppliers, and endless capital. But I knew that other companies, including Zappos (later acquired by Amazon) and Wayfair, had found success in specific product categories. Their secret was offering a differentiated customer experience. I thought we could do something similar in the pet space.
With limited resources, we served as our own C-suite. I was CEO, Michael was CTO, and my longtime friend Alan Attal was COO. We knew that superior customer service had to be one of our core competencies if we wanted to deliver the same experience I’d had at the neighborhood pet store, so our first priority was building a team to work the phones, live chat, and emails in our call center so that we could stop doing all that ourselves.
From the outset we reinvested all our cash from operations in the business, but eventually we needed the larger pools of money that VC firms offered. After months of searching, we finally found Larry and Volition.

Scaling Up

We closed the series A financing round on October 24, 2013, and I’ll never forget the moment the money hit our bank account. Although we had signed the term sheet, part of me was still skeptical that it was all going to work out. But when I saw the transfer confirmation, it became real.
With that money we could invest in developing the systems, technology, and teams needed to scale up. We could also bring stocking and shipping in-house. We already recognized that if we wanted to create a multibillion-dollar business, fulfillment had to become another core competency.
Consultants had told us that it would take a year and a half to build a warehouse from scratch. But with 300% growth year over year, we didn’t have that much time. The logistics company handling fulfillment couldn’t keep up, so the Chewy customer experience had begun to deteriorate. We needed more control, and fast. We knew we had to make the transition within a few months.
We started scouting potential sites in February of 2014, focusing on the northeastern United States because so much of the country’s population lives there. The location we chose—Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania—would allow us to provide overnight delivery to customers in the densely populated tristate area of Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. By that summer we’d opened a 400,000-square-foot facility full of bags and cans of dog and cat food, carriers and cages, leashes, litter boxes, toys, and treats.
Although we managed to get up and running in less than six months, it certainly wasn’t easy. Everything that could go wrong did. We couldn’t hire people to work in the warehouse fast enough. When we were finally staffed, the scanner guns would stop working, or the Wi-Fi or warehouse management system would go out. We were tackling issue after issue 24/7 until we worked out all the kinks.
We also focused heavily on marketing. From day one, we invested almost exclusively in direct response ads, so every dollar spent could be tracked—no Pets.com-style Super Bowl commercials for us. We expanded by investing in the team and processes to effectively acquire the right customers at the right cost. Our governor of growth was free cash flow. Our sales more than doubled from $205 million in 2014 to $423 million in 2015.
Our new hires played a big role in scaling up the company. I realized early on that I’d need to use my time efficiently and focus on hiring. At first recruiting was a challenge. Alan and I spent countless hours reaching out to candidates on LinkedIn, explaining how quickly the company was growing and describing what we intended to build, but 98% of them didn’t bother to respond.
Surprisingly, that turned out to be a useful filter. The 2% who did write back were true believers, team players, and business builders who were excited for the opportunity. They all had tremendous heart, fire in their bellies, and a will to win. We hired for passion. Many people quit stable jobs and relocated with their families from across the country to join us. It was a tremendous sacrifice that we never took lightly.
Ultimately we raised six rounds of financing totaling more than $350 million from T. Rowe Price, BlackRock, Greenspring, Lone Pine, Verlinvest, and the investment bank Allen & Company.

The Next Level

Our revenue was $901 million in 2016 and growing 100% year over year. That got us thinking about an IPO for our next round of financing. We had about 7,000 employees and six warehouses, with plans to add another two in the next 12 months. From an operational and strategic perspective, the company was strong.
As we prepped for the IPO, Petco, one of the biggest U.S. pet retailers, approached us about a merger. It couldn’t meet our terms, so we shook hands and parted ways.
In early 2017 PetSmart, Petco’s primary brick-and-mortar rival, also reached out. I received an email from Raymond Svider, a partner and the chairman of BC Partners, the private equity group that had completed its acquisition of PetSmart in March of 2015. He said he was interested in buying Chewy and wanted to talk. We had met previously but didn’t know each other well.
PetSmart was one of our top competitors, so we proceeded carefully. I explained that we were preparing for an IPO, so we expected a certain price in an all-cash, public-style deal. In view of the competitive dynamics, we weren’t going to give away our proprietary information and start a lengthy due-diligence process. I told Svider that if he wanted to make the acquisition, he would need to do it quickly. To his credit, he did. In April of 2017 we signed an agreement to sell the company for $3.35 billion. It was the largest e-commerce acquisition in history.
Our investors were happy too. The early-stage ones made huge gains, and the later-stage ones earned significant money. Investing in Chewy had made a lot of careers, and I’m proud of that. Those investors put their trust in me and my vision, and I repaid them with returns. The same would soon be true for BC Partners and PetSmart.
Chewy’s revenues continued to rise post-acquisition, hitting $3.5 billion in 2018, while its losses narrowed to $267 million. In June of 2019 PetSmart spun Chewy off into a publicly traded company at a valuation near $9 billion, close to three times the sale price only two years before.
I left the company in March of 2018. It wasn’t an easy decision, but I felt I had done all I had set out to do. The company was sound, the foundation strong, and the vision set. But I was no longer in full control. And I didn’t want a boss. I’m a business builder, not a manager. My work was complete.
When I think back to why raising the money to help grow the business was one of the best moments of my life, I realize it’s because the journey was far more exciting than getting to the finish line. I relished the challenges of disrupting an entire industry and trying to delight customers to a degree that had never been achieved before. The excitement I felt from putting together a world-class team of employees and investors, succeeding against all odds, and building a multibillion-dollar retail leader from nothing was unequivocally the greatest of my career.

I've been reading here for a long time. Today is my first post. My cat tax is my own Kitty Von Witty in my Haunted Mansion hallway. I'm almost two weeks now no contact.
I am a 47 year old woman with four children. I have three siblings and I'm the oldest. I was 17 when I heard my mother tell my younger sisters, "You are already dead so why don't you kill yourself." I moved out at 17 but I still drove across town and would get my younger siblings up and dressed and would take them to school. One semester I had an early morning lab and couldn't and they ended up as high school drop outs. When they were about 22, they were living in an apartment with my mom with no jobs or social skills or any life skills in a town a few hours away from me. They called and said she was drunk trying to make them sign a suicide pact and she kept blacking out. I had to take custody of them from her. I got them enrolled in a GED program. I got them in Community colleges and they got their AA's. I got their teeth fixed. I got them drivers licenses after I enrolled them in driving school. I got them jobs. I worked at the Sheriff's office as a police dispatcher at the time and I got my sister a job at the jail in booking.
So fast forward, my mother gets arrested for DUI. My sister had to book her into jail and the cop tells my sister that our mother tried to tell them that her name was my name and that she worked in the 911 Center as a police dispatcher to avoid being arrested. So she was perfectly fine with trying to ruin my reputation and career to avoid consequences. So that was about 15 years ago now and she went to rehab after that arrest for three months.
Fast forward she gets fired from her job and decides to retire and supplement her income by being a dog breeder. She gets dogs and puts them in shows and takes them to Westminister and starts getting like $4k to $5k a puppy but she doesn't sell all the puppies. She starts animal hoarding and not just dogs. She moves into my grandmother's nice pristine home and my grandmother's home quickly gets taken over by 30 plus dogs in the home and 10 parrots. She calls me over there and said my grandmother was having a stroke and she needed my help and that she had gates aligning the hallway to keep dogs out of rooms and that I needed to take the gates down while she called the paramedics. So the paramedics had shirts covering their noses and mouths while taking my grandmother out on a stretcher gagging due to the stench. I had to take my grandmother away from my mother and put her in a clean assisting living facility.
Starting in August my mother would do her famous facebook posts for attention and I would get tons of messages saying my mom was lonely and why didn't I visit her anymore. The police kept being sent to her house for her sucidal statements on facebook. Then she tells me she has rats in her house. I ended up having to help her trap and remove 60 rats from the garage and porch that were attracted by the chickens she had and the 10 parrots she had on her porch. The dogs were killing rats and putting them in her bed. Still she woudn't give up any dogs.
So then here comes the return of the alcoholism. She called me to her house in March and she was so very drunk and the house was filled to the brim with giant empty wine bottles. There were chickens in the house in the back bedroom with no food or water. The dogs had no food or water. The parrots had no food or water. The house was filled to the prim with dog piss and poop. It took me a good week to get her sober and weeks to clean her house. There was so much poop. There was even poop in the washing machine. I told her and she agreed that if I ever found her home and the animals in that condition again that I would give away every single one of them for free. I didnt care if they were $5000 dogs with points . They were all leaving. She said she understood. I said I was giving her a month to sell or rehome the animals of her own accord.
so May 12th I was contacted by her sister saying my mother was blacked out drunk again and hallucinating. My aunt is also diagnosed BPD by the way. She said the animals had no food or water. My mother was put in detox where she was for three weeks. I rehomed 20 dogs, 10 parrots and 5 chickens. I gave some back to the people she had purchased them from. I gave some to a rescue. I gave some to friends of hers. There were pregnant dogs. There were dogs requiring medications and special food. There were dogs that were unneutered and un-spayed. There was a dog with on one eye. I gave away the parrot cages to the people who took the parrots. I gave away the chicken coop to the people who took the chickens. I gave away the animals things with the animals. It again took me weeks to clean the house of pee and poop.
I met with my mother in detox/psych ward. She agreed the animals were too much and she couldn't cope. She started ECT treatment and new medication. She said she wanted to sell the house and wanted a small cottage built on land I own. She told me to start emptying her house. She told me what realtor she wanted. She agreed to all these things and most of them were her idea.
She gets into rehab from the psych facility and gets her phone back and just goes cuckoo for cocoa puffs. She went on fb and said I stole all of her animals and she is going to sue me and everyone that has one of her animals. She just is saying the vilest meanest nasty things until one by one each of my siblings and I had to block her on our phones and social media. Every single sister and brother of hers, even the BPD one, is now no contact with her. All of her grandchildren are now no contact with her. People she was friends with for years are now no contact with her. She finally de-activtated her facebook yesterday because not one person agrees with her. She was supposed to be in the rehab facility for the rest of the summer but my uncle says she is saying she is leaving Monday and is going to move to Alabama where we lived in the 80's and she's still messaging every single person who has one of her animals and I think some are going to give her back some.
My Uncle who lives in Alabama where she says she is moving to is terrified that he will have to become her caretaker because I have dropped the rope.
My whole life I thought the BPD was bad but now that she's 65, alcoholism and animal hoarding have been added to the mix. Oh joy oh joy. My husband had to sit down my 8 year old and say, "If granny ever comes to the front door, you are not to answer it!!" cause he terrified of her behavior. People who took in her dogs are getting threats from strangers on the internet cause she is making up outrageous lies.
So is this it? Am I finally free? I know she has moved states yet but I am so hopeful. I had a relative try and tell me if she moves back into her home and gets older and older and keeps on keeping on with the animal feces that I could be charged with elder abuse for not taking care of her.

I'll be straightforward. I am really tired, tired of feeling sad and distressed. I have been living with this feeling of anguish and depression since I was 10 years old, and this damn feeling has never disappeared since it appeared in my life. No matter what I do, buy, consume, or experience, this feeling never goes away.
And it's not like I haven't tried, I've tried so damn hard to make this shitty feeling disappear. I have considered all the possibilities that could be causing this feeling to arise, and I have taken measures against many of them. Yet, the feeling of anguish continues to accompany me.
Could this anguish come from a lack of material possessions? No, no matter what I buy, my depression doesn't vanish. I have purchased most of my consumer dreams; I have a gaming PC worth over $7,000, a gaming monitor worth over $1,000. I have a collection of over 13 action figures, and I possess a collection of over 200 erotic games. I have had a CS inventory worth over $10,000. I have literally obtained many of my consumer dreams, and still, I haven't escaped depression.
Could it be the lack of someone special in my life that was causing my depression? No. I found a very special person in my life two years ago, and I married her. I love my wife so damn much; she would do anything for me, loves me deeply, and shows it to me every single day. We have a great relationship with no conflicts, and we have sex at least four times a week. How can someone be depressed while having sex almost every day? It doesn't make sense.
Could it be the lack of therapy that was making me feel bad? No, not that either. I underwent therapy from the age of 14 until I turned 18, and yes, therapy significantly improved my quality of life and my mindset. I don't think I would have made the decision to propose to my girlfriend if it weren't for my therapeutic process. But even after four years of therapy, I still haven't been able to overcome depression.
Would exercising and eating properly make me feel better? NO. I maintained a routine of exercising every day for two years. I won't lie; I looked better during that time, but exercise was just another way to keep myself focused on a task. I still felt depressed during moments of idleness. I admit that improving my diet made me slightly less anxious in my daily life, but once again, it didn't alleviate my depression.
I even spent over a thousand dollars on that transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) treatment, and it was just a waste of money. It had no effect on me whatsoever. Depression medications didn't work either.
I don't have a perfect life, okay, but I am far from having a bad life. The life I'm living now is more or less what I wanted several years ago. What is wrong with me?
Sure, I'm not depressed 100% of the time. I don't feel depressed when I have to focus on something, like work or sex, for example. And since I spend a significant part of my day working, I feel depressed only for a short period of my daily life.
However, during my weekends, I have no tasks, I'm 100% idle, but due to my depression, I can't enjoy my free time. I've tried to focus on games, for instance, since focusing on something distracts me from my depression, but games are just that—distractions, not a solution.
For years, I have been finding temporary solutions for my depression, but nothing truly solves it. There is never a definitive solution or a habit I can adopt to make it disappear from my mind. Nothing works.
I don't like being the person who only points out problems and never seeks a solution. I HATE that kind of person, and I have genuinely been searching for a solution to my problem for years, but I never reach a satisfying outcome. It seems like I will live with depression forever.
I am already happy; it's not happiness I am seeking. I want peace. I want to sit in front of my PC and enjoy my game without feeling this fucking anguish. I want to go to the cinema with my wife without having the desire to cease to exist. It should be something simple, but unfortunately, it isn't for me.
If you also think that you may have depression forever, I only wish you good luck. I am starting to think that maybe I am borderline, not just depressed since my condition never improves

Sorry for the vent, but I'm coming to my wits end.
I've been with my wife for 24 years and have been in denial about her having an eating disorder. She exercises 4+ hours a day (treadmill) and never takes a day off. She eats a very small breakfast in the morning and then nothing until dinner (mostly field greens, lean protein, and some pasta). Complicating things is that she has a very rare metabolic disorder which means she cannot burn protein for energy.
When we were dating, she told me that the exercise and her eating pattern were related to her metabolic condition and I just accepted that. However, as we started our lives together I came to see her over exercise as a problem. She'd get very anxious if she didn't meet her exercise goals and I came to see that as being the most important part of her life—when on a trip I often felt as if I were alone as she was literally in the gym most of the day and by nighttime had no energy to do anything except have a meal and go to bed early.
We started a family through IVF because she could not get pregnant naturally (no periods). We had triplets (21 now) and in those early days on the weekends I felt like a single father as she would wake up and immediately go to the gym for half a day.
Over the years she got progressively worse. At one point she was injured and couldn't exercise. She stopped eating and her body went into rhabdomyolysis leading to a two week stay in the hospital where she missed the kids' graduation from high school. I thought that would be rock bottom, but once she was recovered, she went back to her old habits.
Last year, the kids and I sat down with her to share our concerns and I asked that she consider going to a center not far from where we live. I had spoken with an intake person there and they were awaiting her call. My wife agreed that she had a problem but refused inpatient treatment and decided to find a therapist on her own. We got some referrals and the ball was in her court to setup consults.
Six months go buy and there was no movement. Whenever I'd bring it up, she'd get extremely defensive. I felt my own health suffering so I booked a 5-day mens mental health intensive across the country and this seemed to light a fire. She met with a therapist (online only) and was starting to work with a nutritionist.
There was some progress at first but almost a year later she's lost the weight she gained, is no longer working with her care team, and is back to exercising like a fiend. Also, when she was in treatment, she was constantly lying to her team about exercise and food intake.
This is a long way of asking two questions; 1. how typical is this? and 2. where do we go from here? My own therapist has recommended I give her an invitation (which is a nicer way of saying an ultimatum)—tell her I'm leaving for 90 days and, in that time, ask that she enter treatment, sell the treadmill in the basement, and get a part-time job (my wife has never worked as long as we've been married). If she's resistant to that, then we pursue legal separation. I know it sounds very harsh, but I really don't know what to do at this point. I want to see her alive for our grandchildren, but I don't think that will happen if she continues to live the way she is living.
I appreciate your thoughts and candor.

Predictmedix – a great way to surf the Artificial Intelligence wave.
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There is a saying attributed to Mark Twain that goes, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but if often rhymes.” This means circumstances might be different but similar events often recur. This is good because securities regulators demand that you make it clear that in the financial markets, “Past performance is no guarantee of future results.”
However, investment analysts continue to use rhymes and here’s one that could help you see sizeable investment returns from Predictmedix Inc. (CSE: PMED, OTCQB: PMEDF). This is how the rhyme comes together:
A. The 1990s technology boom: The parallel I see is between the current Artificial Intelligence cycle and the dot-com stock market cycle of ≈1990 to ≈ 2002. As background, the 1990s either developed or laid the groundwork for changes that completely transformed the world we live in. Out of that time came many new technologies and related developments and each was highly disruptive. Here is a very brief list of some of those developments:
(1) Nokia was the first mass-produced cellphone offered in 1992 with the ability to send and receive phone calls as well as store data (e.g. phone numbers).
(2) The World Wide Web, a.k.a. the Web browser was proposed in 1990 and debuted in 1991. This was the start of the Internet, Websites, e-mails and a massive amount of information that would become available to everyone.
(3) With the explosion of data available, finding it became a challenge. Mosaic started as the first search engine in 1993 followed by Yahoo in 1994 and Google in 1998. Today, Google has risen to the top and become synonymous with an Internet search. Google it.
(4) Other important developments of that time included the growth in the capacity of microprocessors, Photoshop, texting, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, realistic videogames for a more adult market, collecting and using DNA, the start of e-tailing and more.
(5) Finally, we have the stock market. Cisco, Dell, Intel and Microsoft are sometimes referred to as the four horsemen of the 1990s tech boom. But we can’t ignore Apple and Google and there were many more that benefited. The smaller, new, Initial Public Offering companies came to the fore with incredibly high returns in the second half of the 1990s.
The chart to the right shows how stock markets performed during the 1990’s high-tech boom. A few things are worth noting:
(1) The Dot.Com stock market cycle lasted a long t time. Essentially, more than the decade of the 1990s. It’s length reflected the importance of the fundamental changes taking place.
(2) There was an important development regarding the stock market that has become part of the stock market legend. On December 5, 1996, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan in a televised speech used the term “irrational exuberance” to describe a stock market that he thought was highly speculative and overvalued. His comment was intended as a warning from the Fed that the stock market, driven by the high-tech developments described above, was overvalued. His timing was five years early which is a lifetime in the stock market.
(3) The five years after Greenspan’s “irrational exuberance” statement was the most profitable for investors of the entire ten years plus of the stock market cycle.
As you sit reading this brief, imagine your life without a cell phone, the Internet, e-mail and text messages. How different would your life be without just these four products that emerged from the 1990s. A more relevant question might be how different would your life be if you had purchased shares in Apple or Cisco or Dell or Google or Microsoft back then?
B. The Artificial Intelligence Boom (AI): The term Artificial Intelligence was created in 1955. The idea was to have a machine that could take data, and find patterns that would enable it to make predictions and reach conclusions (make decisions). The Oxford Dictionary defines AI as “The theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.”
It was Moore’s Law in 1975 that stated the capacity of semiconductors would continue to double every two years which enabled computers to be able to put into practice the AI Boom that is taking place today. Current forecasts say the AI industry will grow to $900 billion by 2026 and $15.7 trillion by 2030. AI growth in the 1920s could dwarf anything high-tech was able to accomplish in the 1990s.
(1) There is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) boom going on and many people don’t yet realize it is even happening. AI is used in:
i. Self-driving and parking cars. AI is used by Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Tesla, Toyota and Volvo.
ii. Maps and navigation. Enter where you are and where you want to go by car and Google Maps, for example, will give you a choice of routes, the time optimal route taking into account construction and traffic.
iii. Facial detection or recognition. Facial detection identifies a human face or facial recognition that identifies a specific face that can be used for surveillance and security.
iv. Digital assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google’s Now and Microsoft’s Cortana. When combined with search and recommendation AI, Alexa or Siri is able to learn your preferences and recommend things you are interested in.
v. Customer service chatbots that answer frequently asked questions, track orders or direct calls. Often people will be unaware they are dealing with a machine.
vi. Vehicle recognition use computer vision and deep learning to find a specific car on a surveillance video.
vii. Robot vacuums can scan a living area, look for and remember objects in the way, remember the best route for cleaning the area and decide how many times it should repeat cleaning a specific area.
It is estimated that by 2030, between 400 and 800 million jobs will be displaced by Artificial Intelligence and 375 million people will have to change to a totally different type of work. It is also forecast that it is not just lower-paying, blue-collar jobs that will be replaced by AI. Jobs such as accountants, lawyers, doctors, investment advisors and portfolio managers might all be substantially eliminated. AI will impact all industries and the rate of change will be exponential, that is, the rate of change will accelerate.
For example, what does a doctor do? In general, a doctor gathers new information, refers to a patient’s medical history, refers to a medical book or today’s Internet, makes a diagnosis and provides s treatment. This is also what a lawyer does. AI might reach the point where it can do it faster and better than a human..
AI does present threats to human existence. As AI is changing exponentially, it will happen faster than the technology boom of the 1990s. It took technology 20 years to produce the changes we discussed above. AI could produce equivalent changes in 10 or 15 years. For example, ChatGPT, an AI product went from zero to 100 million users within months making it the fastest-growing consumer software product in history. There will be others.
(2) The AI shift could drive economic change and a stock market cycle at least as significant as the last “dot.com” cycle. The “go-to” companies today for participation in AI are the likes of Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Meta (NASDAQ: META), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) and Oracle (NYSE: ORCL). These are very large companies. GOOGL has a market cap of $1.6 trillion, AMZN has a market cap of $1.2 trillion, META has a market cap of $$648 billion, MSFT has a market cap of $2.4 trillion, NCDA has a market cap of $963 billion and ORCL has a market cap of $282 billion.
(3) While these are excellent businesses, they are also amongst the world’s largest companies. In 2022, GOOGL, META and MSFT purchased 2 out of every 3 AI chips. In my opinion, it is almost unthinkable that GOOGL can be a ten-bagger from a base market cap of $1.6 trillion or AMZN from $1.2 trillion. But it is clear these stocks now have a major component of their value derived from involvement in Artificial Intelligence and it is not surprising that early adopters would choose a lower risk/lower return approach to gain exposure to an emerging Artificial Intelligence industry.
(4) The changes created by AI also carry some risks. The speed of change will be challenging to human beings. There are forecasts that say one in four workers globally will see their jobs disappear and one in eight workers will have to be retrained in a totally unrelated field. During the industrial revolution and the tech boom, there was always the promise of more and better jobs. With AI we may have reached the point where machines actually do replace workers.
(5) Cathie Wood is a well-known and widely followed money manager with a reputation for expertise in the Artificial Intelligence sector. Wood manages a range of portfolios including the ARK Innovation Exchange Traded Fund (ARKK) and since its founding in 2014, Bloomberg estimates NDVA has contributed 13% of the fund’s 112% total return only behind Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, Invitae Corp and Tesla. That is all positive but Wood sold the ARKK holding in NVDA in January 2023 just before it rallied strongly adding some $560 billion to its market cap with $200 billion coming on one day after reporting earnings. Wood’s investors have basically missed the huge rally in the stock and the sector in 2023.
(6) But there is another phase I would look for and that is the participation of smaller, retail investors. Whether it was in the tech cycle I discussed above, the “meme” stocks or commodity exploration and development cycles in the past, the retail investor buys in before the bull market ends. Market pundits such as Citi global asset allocation and Vanda Research make the same observation: where is the retail investor?
We know the institutional investors have been getting in. So far in 2023 according to Bloomberg, the top 4% of stocks in the S&P 500 have contributed 94% of the index return and 8 of the top 20 include Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet Class A, NVIDIA, Alphabet Class C, Tesla and Meta. In other words, the top 2% of the stocks in the S&P 500 contributed 94% of the return. Through mid-May, if the AI stocks are omitted, the S&P Index would be down -1.4% instead of up +8.3%. All of these stocks are AI leaders and each of them is an institutional stock. Yet, I believe the retail investor will come into the market and when they do, it is stocks like PMED for which they have always had an appetite.
C. I think investors will get more bang for their buck by investing in a small company like Predictmedix Inc. (CSE: PMED, OTCQB: PMEDF) with a total commitment to AI. From a base market cap of $16.6 million and, as I have pointed out in recent reports, many different business verticals to get them higher, I see PMED as a unique opportunity for aggressive growth investors. It is hard to imagine any decade having more of an impact on the ensuring socio-economic decades than the 1990s. Imagine your activities today without your cellphone, Internet, email and texting.
I expect the cycle driven by AI to be a long one, similar to the dot-com cycle that lasted longer than the decade of the 1990s. To the right is a chart published by Luke Lango’s Hypergrowth Investing. It shows the stock market in the 1990s and overlays current results. The parallels Lango sees include:
• Federal Reserve’s tight money policy slowed economic growth in 1990 as it is doing currently.
• In 1990, the markets were down around 20% and in 2022 stocks dropped around 25%.
• In late 1990, the Fed started reducing interest rates and the markets rebounded.
• In late 2022, the Fed has turned less hawkish and into 2023 has slowed the pace of interest rate increases. The markets have been recovering.
• In the early 1990’s, the dot-com stock market rally began and the market would advance generally higher for the rest of the decade and into the new millennium.
• Today, it is Artificial Intelligence that is pushing stocks higher and given my expectations for AI, it could stock prices higher until at least 2030.
Conclusion: I believe Predictmedix Inc. (CSE: PMED, OTCQB: PMEDF) is exceptionally well positioned to participate in the upcoming boom in Artificial Intelligence. There are many different ways to describe market cycles that evolve around such drivers. Here is mine:

1. Accumulation: the earliest buyers tend to be larger institutions that gain the information necessary to be early adopter. I have given several statistics to show this has been happening.
2. Retail Participation/Speculation: as the story gains acceptance, less experienced investors enter the market and prices begin to rise more quickly. After two to three years of combined buying by large and small investors, it is possible to identify speculative activities such as very rapid increases in a stock price or underwritings of companies based on questionable valuations. This is the next phase I see ahead for the current AI cycle.
3. Distribution/Sale: At some point, toward the end of the Retail Participation/Speculation phase, some investors will begin to sell. It is popular to believe that institutional investors or “smart money” sell at this stage. During the many years, I have spent in the investment business, this is not true. Institutions can hold on to their AI stocks for far too long and end up seeing their portfolios incinerated. This is still many years away. The challenge today with a stock like PMED is not getting out; it is getting in.
4. Bear Market: eventually there will be a broad sell-off of AI stocks. Some institutions will sell without regard for their impact on the market. Margin buyers will get margin calls and may be forced to sell again without regard to price. At this time, over half of the AI companies trading at that time will simply disappear. Some will be successful but remain smaller. Some will merge with another AI company. Some will be acquired. Very few will survive and become leaders in the industries. They will become the Alphabets, Amazons, Metas, Microsofts, Nvidias, and Oracles of the 2040s and 2050s.

I started out with the quote “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” So I don’t think the AI cycle of the 2020s will be the same as the high-tech cycle of the 1990s but I think it will be similar. If you agree, Predictmedix Inc. (CSE: PMED, OTCQB: PMEDF) is a stock to buy for your portfolio.

Memory Transcription Subject: Bosjin, Zeyzell Planetary Defense Corps
I lined up the xeno in my scope as I laid on a nearby snowdrift, waiting for it to move away from the group of civilians it and its allies had captured. The things had arrived in this town an hour ago were injecting them with what I assumed was their so-called “Cure.” I growled when a crying kit was ripped away from their parent and stuck with a syringe. The parent yowled in fury and leaped at the xeno, trying to clamber up its larger frame and clawing at its eyes. The Kolshian slammed the parent into a wall before raising its weapon.
May Maa scorch whatever twisted essence substitutes for your soul.
I squeezed the trigger, sending a single bullet into its brain. The other xenos whirled their guns around, looking for the sniper. I adjusted my aim and iced what looked like the leader. Xeno blood began to stain the snowy ground. Bullets rained down on my general position, forcing me to back away and crawl to a new vantage point. The filthy things had murdered my entire squad and dispersed their cure over entire cities. I’d been able to scrounge up an old gas mask from a now-destroyed armory, meaning that the things would either have to take the time to capture and inject a single soldier or, more likely, just kill me.
I circled around the group of xenos, using my pure white fur to camouflage myself. I was a phantom, striking quickly before retreating back into the snow. The snow and ice were our turf. We’d evolved to use it to our advantage. The xenos would have to pay dearly for every scrap they took from us. Reaching another secure position, I iced another two xenos before instantly darting away before they could react. That wide vision of theirs did absolutely nothing against a ghost of the snow.
“Predator!” I heard one of them call. “Stand down!”
I ignored it, scrambling a nearby frost-tree, taking care not to rustle the sparkling and brittle leaves. I raised the scope to my eye once more before I paused. One of the xenos was holding a rifle to the back of the kit’s head. Other xenos were doing the same to other civilians.
“Predator!” it called again. “Surrender or we will begin executing your people!”
The wind began to pick up, kicking up snow, making it harder for them to see. It would also distort the direction of my voice.
“You’re going to do it anyway, xeno!” I retorted, clambering down the tree and circling the group once more. Just because it was harder for them to pinpoint me, didn’t mean I was safe.
“You would take that chance, predator-”
The wind began howling, drowning out anything else it was saying. Flurries of snow began to batter the area. I chuckled. Snowstorms this strong were dangerous even to us. These furless xenos wouldn’t last ten minutes. I slung my rifle behind me and unsheathed my knife, edging closer to their position. Some infrared goggles would be handy right now, but I still had the advantage. My eyes, evolved to handle the icy debris, could see better than the unprepared things. I had heard that the Federation used climate-altering technology to suit their exact needs on every planet. The Unity also did such things on occasion, but only on planets without life. Pydoria Rusarth’s climate was more or less the same as it had ever been, ignoring the effects of (mostly) eco-friendly colonization.
The relative unpredictability of this planet’s weather patterns had thrown the things off guard. I paused when the first xeno silhouette came into view. It was raking its gun all around it in a paranoid manner. I snuck up behind it, taking care to stay in its blind spot and freezing whenever its gaze fell on my location. It was a bit undignifying to be crawling along my stomach like this, but the giddiness of being able to ice my home’s invaders made up for it.
I was right next to it. I raised my blade and slashed it across the back of the creature’s knees. It fell with a yelp that was quickly silenced with a cut throat. Leaving it to bleed out, I moved on until I caught sight of a few prisoners with a pair of xeno guards. The wind was screaming now, as if the planet itself was howling its pain and fury at those who dared attack it. I raised my rifle and fired, the gunshot muffled by the wind. One xeno went down and the other was too busy shielding itself against the unforgiving cold to notice.
The prisoners took notice of the fallen xeno and some of them took the opportunity to bolt away. The others turned to the still-living xeno and unsheathed their claws. A single Zeyzell against one of them wasn’t a fair fight. Half-a-dozen on the other hand? I relished the screams of the thing as seven furious citizens piled onto it, raking their claws across its eyes and extremities. This was the fate that all xenos deser-
Something’s behind me.
I whirled around when a patch of snow crunched only to take the butt of a giant gun to the snout. A cruel-looking Kolshian sneered down at me as it shivered from the cold.
“Not so dangerous now, are you, predator?” it mocked.
Its tentacle tightened on the trigger. I closed my eyes, resigning myself to my fate. I flinched when a gunshot rang and…
I opened my eyes. The xeno was looking at a hole in its chest in surprise. It tried to stumble away only for a second shot to rip through its skull. It fell down and I looked behind where it was to see the shape of a Zeyzell. It was taller and it wore some kind of battle armor that I’d only ever seen on… Deathwatch Guards. We were saved! Loud gunshots rang through the area as more of my saviors entered the fray.
I scrambled to my feet and stared at the Guard, my face reflected in its orange visor. They nodded at me before rushing back into the fight and I immediately tailed them. My mood fell a bit when I thought about why they were here. Usually, they stuck around people of high importance, such as politicians. If they were here, then their charges must’ve been killed. I shook my head. That didn’t matter. What mattered was winning this fight. And the next and the next until reinforcements arrived or we fell in battle.
I stared in awe as the Guard expertly dispatched three xenos before they knew what was happening. More Guards appeared, gunning down those who were trying to flee. Normal soldiers rushed to free the prisoners while the Guards worked. A bullet struck one Guard in the shoulder, sending them sprawling before it leapt back up and riddled its attacker with holes, their armor having saved it from anything worse than a bad bruise. Compared to us, these troops were practically demigods.
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Memory Transcription Subject: High Captain Bolhur, Zeyzell Fleet Command
I mused on Edo’s panicked orders to me as we hurtled towards Pydoria Rusarth. The Overseer had redirected the defense fleet to relieve Vajo’s dwindling forces and the xenos had pounced on the chance to attack. The redirected fleet was also on the way, hauling a Shield-class in tow which, combined with the identical ship I was currently standing on, and the thousand ships in both fleets would obliterate the invaders. I allowed myself a small chuckle.
Before the Kolshians stepped in, entire fleets scattered at the sight of these gargantuan warships. They each needed a trio of gigantic reactors in order to power its hundred railguns, nigh-unbreakable shields, and atmosphere scorching engines. The Kolshians might be brave enough to take one of them on, but a pair? Even the Arxur would fall before such power. I did wonder why we didn’t deploy all fifteen of them on the front lines however. With one or two at every major battle, the war would be going better for us.
“We’re nearly there, sir,” my navigator informed me.
“Charge railguns and bring us as close as possible,” I ordered.
I expected to see Pydoria Rusarth in the middle of burning, with every settlement wiped off of the map. Instead, I got the opposite. I gasped at the sheer size of the xeno fleet, much larger than the two thousand we were promised. And under the giant fleet was Pydoria Rusarth, completely untouched, at least from my perspective. Scans showed that not one antimatter bomb had been detonated on the surface. The xenos were occupying it!
I shook off my surprise. The second attack fleet would be here any moment and we needed to help clear a way for them.
“Open fire!” I shouted.
The xenos were caught off guard by our sudden arrival and couldn’t react in time to save themselves from thousands of simultaneous railgun strikes from my wall of ships. My flagship, the Vanguard, immediately followed up with a wave of plasma and kinetics, striking down hundreds more. The xenos adapted quickly however and regrouped closer to the planet, taking out a few of my own fleet. Most of their retaliatory strikes were directed at my own ship. Thankfully the Vanguard’s shields held up and we pressed the attack long enough for High Captain Treuts and the Annihilator to join the fight.
I could practically sense the xenos’ faltering morale as the two fleet-killing dreadnaughts bore down on them. They heavily outnumbered us, but we were the ones with the firepower. I contacted the fleet.
“Treuts, help me punch a hole in this location,” I said, marking the densest concentration of enemy warships in order to cause maximum damage to their fleet. “I want the rest of the fleet to surround the colony and squeeze the xeno formations. The moment we get through, deploy dropships to retake the planet.”
The fleet obeyed, spreading out across the planet, forcing the xenos to thin their own formation to counter, leaving the Vanguard and the Annihilator to fire upon a weaker defensive position. Two hundred railguns fired in tandem, obliterating a slew of xenos and we immediately followed up with a storm of plasma, missiles, and kinetics. Once again, I wondered why we didn’t use these mountains of steel more often. This was among the largest fleet of xenos we’d faced since the Battle of Earth, and only two being utilized to their fullest capacity was slowly but surely pushing the xenos back. I was sure we could spare a few from some of the Core Worlds.
The xenos launched a slew of missiles, most of which were shot down before they could reach us. Those that survived detonated a little way away from our ships. Readings showed a massive spike in electromagnetic radiation. They tried to EMP us.
“Any damage?” I asked.
“Shields took a small hit, sir, but are otherwise fine,” my sensors officer responded. “The hardenings worked. EMPs are mostly ineffective.”
“Sir!” my comms officer called. “The xenos are hailing us!”
“Amusing,” I chuckled. “They wish to beg? Too bad. Ignore it. They should have thought about dying before they came here.”
The xenos’ cries for mercy went unheeded as we pushed deeper into their formation.
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Memory Transcription Subject: Captain Vajartav, Kolshian Commonwealth Fleet Command
Our ultimatum went unheeded as the predators pushed deeper into our formation. As a member of the higher caste, I was given the privilege of not being as easy to spook as the lesser members of the Federation. And yet the sight of the twin giant warships bearing down on us without mercy filled me with terror. They had a seemingly infinite supply of weapons and breaking their shields might as well be the same as trying to batter down a brick wall with our bare tentacles.
“Fine,” I said, hiding my fear. “If they don’t want to listen, then we will just show them. Begin bombardment, two low-population cities.”
“But sir, our forces are still down there!”
“A necessary sacrifice. Do as I say.”
Two bombers broke away and burned towards their targets. Hopefully, this would buy us time for reinforcements to arrive. They should be here any second, but time was a precious commodity at the moment. The predators took notice of the bombers and fired some of their railguns. By some miracle, the bombers were able to swerve out of the way. Well, one of them. The other took a glancing blow and began to flounder in the planet’s gravitational field.
That was fine. A single destroyed city would give the same message.
“BRACE FOR IMPACT!”
I looked up from the feed of the ships and gasped at the sight of another storm of missiles hurtling towards the center of our formation. Towards me. Then the projectiles detonated. An instant later, the ship went dark and the engines stopped rumbling. We were dead in space. About to be literally. The vicious predators started systematically destroying every defenseless ship in their path. They would lose a city, but now we couldn’t send anymore bombers.
Where are those damn reinforcements?!
“Sir! Look!”
The navigator pointed out the viewport and I felt immense relief flow through me. It was a staggering sight, 20,000 warships here to sweep away the disgusting creatures that called themselves sapient. The gargantuan attackers instantly turned and opened fire with all of their railguns, hitting every target. It didn’t even make a dent. The predators realized they were outmatched and burned away from the colony, recalling their fleet as well. Our trap worked. Barely.
Our reinforcements began to envelop the predator fleet. As powerful as those fleet-killers were, they stood no chance against a fleet this size. Today was truly the beginning of the end of the Unity.
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Memory Transcription Subject: High Captain Bolhur, Zeyzell Fleet Command
“Shields are down to 50%!”
“The Annihilator’s shields are almost gone!”
“They’re blocking us from entering subspace!”
Panic and chaos bombarded my eyes and ears as the xeno reinforcements swallowed our fleet. Me and the Annihilator were barely holding them off and that wasn’t going to last for long.
“I want sublight engines and shields at full power! Carriers, create a protective barrier around yourselves and the flagships!”
At most, that bought us a few more minutes of survival before we were claimed by the vacuum of space.
Pydoria Rusarth was lost.
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Memory Transcription Subject: Admiral Ferlinn, Zeyzell Insurgency Command
“Exiting subspace now, Admiral!”
Zeyzell-10 blinked into view in all of its icy glory. The frozen planet orbited its tiny star in an irregular orbit, heating the planet enough for most of the equator’s ice to melt for a short time before swinging back into the frozen zone. That, combined with the high levels of volcanic activity under the frozen seas, was theorized to be how life took hold on a planet otherwise rather hostile to life as we know it. Some scientists even believed that life took hold multiple times before being wiped out by the unforgiving cold before it could evolve any further.
Life always seemed to find a way. Only now, Zeyzell-10 was about to see a tremendous loss of it. The fleet I’d taken to distract the Unity had no chance at taking the planet, but it was large enough to be considered a significant threat. With the Unity’s eyes on me and the fiasco at Pydoria Rusarth that Overseer Noctif was going to deal with, our primary fleet could snatch a few fringe worlds from Edo’s grasp. We would establish a foothold in the now mostly undefended Sectors Nine, Eight, and Seven on the opposite side of the border with the Federation and work inwards from there.
My orders were to make this battle as authentic as possible, up to landing troops if I could. It was unlikely I would even come close to doing so, given that I was now facing down untold thousands of warships and Weapons Platforms, three Shield-classes among them with only a couple thousand of my own ships. Not to mention those giant, hexagonal satellites hanging in low orbit. The giant contraptions were specifically placed to cause as little havoc to the ecosystem as possible while providing the maximum defense to Zeyzell-10. In the end, new weapons were impressive and all but the pinnacle of our quest to build up our defenses was this.
A global shield.
As with any impressive technology, it had its weaknesses and drawbacks. It could sustain heavy bombardment for a long while, but those satellites were vulnerable. If one went down, the entire area around it would go down as well, leaving a hole for invaders to pour through. I had my reservations about destroying even one of them in the unlikely event that I got the opportunity due to the cultural significance they possessed, but Edo’s reign would end in the destruction of our culture entirely if we didn’t put a stop to this.
“The fleet is hailing us, Admiral!”
“Accept it.”
The image of an angry officer appeared in front of me. I recognized her as High Admiral Jannob, the supreme commander of the entire Zeyzell Navy. Traditionally, High Admirals were always stationed in defense of Zeyzell-10, which is why Vajo, and before him Krobag, were put in charge of the war against the Federation. Although they called the shots, Jannob had the last say.
“What is the meaning of this?!” she snarled. “We were not expecting a fleet here! Identify yourselves or you will be fired upon!”
I answered calmly. A new idea came to mind. Perhaps I wouldn’t have to take on the entire fleet on my own.
“Hello, High Admiral.”
Surprise crossed her face.
“High Captain Ferlinn?”
“Admiral Ferlinn, as per the orders of Overseer Noctif.”
“Overseer Noctif is dead, traitor! All because of the xenos! Xenos that you should be fighting instead of your own people!”
“On the contrary, Overseer Noctif is most certainly alive, if a little worse for wear. No thanks to Edo.”
“Excuse me?”
I glanced down as a message from Noctif reached me. She was engaging the Kolshians over Pydoria Rusarth. I ordered my comms officer to send videos of Noctif that had been taken after the assassination attempt. Jannob watched the files with growing joy.
“She’s alive! That’s wonder…ful…” she trailed off as she realized the implications of this.
“Edo was the one who destroyed the Council Chamber. He blamed it on the Federation and used the attack he orchestrated to seize power. Edo is the traitor, not me.”
Jannob fell silent as she pondered the new information.
“Who will you stand with, Jannob?” I asked. “The man who is dooming the Unity, or the woman who only wanted what was best?”
Her eyes flicked back up to me, the now-familiar spark of rebellion shining within them.
“I stand with Overseer Noctif.”
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Memory Transcription Subject: Overseer Noctif, Zeyzell Insurgency Leader
The battered Shield-class was quickly being torn apart by the xenos. Every other ship in its fleet had been destroyed, including another Shield whose wreckage dominated the scanners. I observed the battle from the safety of the middle of my fleet. I was no military officer, but being here in person was important. High Captain Grencop was in charge of this battle, a battle that even I could see we had no hope of winning.
I contacted the dreadnought from my ship.
“Attention Unity dreadnought. This is Overseer Noctif. Hang in there, we are here to help.”
Grencop ordered the majority of his fleet to engage the Kolshians, drawing them away from the dying mountain of metal. The Shield gladly took the opportunity to punch its way through the Kolshians and reach our fleet.
“They’re hailing you, Overseer.”
“Let them talk.”
The High Captain of the Shield-class appeared, pink blood oozing through the fur on his head.
“Overseer Noctif?” he asked in wonder.
“Indeed, High Captain. It looked like you needed help.”
“H-How is this possible?”
“Not important right now, High Captain. Let’s get the hell out of here first.”
He rubbed his wound before flicking his tail in acknowledgment.
“Of course, Overseer Noctif. It’s good to have you back.”
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My boyfriend (26M) and I (25F) got back together last year. We broke up before due to emotional cheating issues. I just love him that much that's why I gave him a second chance.
Now I am struggling. Sobrang lala na ng pag-o-overthink ko to the point na nagka anxiety na ako like I am shaking and hirap na huminga but welp I chose this poison so I should suck it up.
Alam mo yung feeling na ako nalang lagi nag a-adjust sa kanya. Walang good morning/good night text, walang ily, kung mag ily naman wrong spelling pa ang isend. Parang hindi genuine. Tapos wala man lang update kapag umalis na paalis na sya, etc. LDR kami kaya ang hirap. Sobrang hirap. Alam ko naman na hindi ko deserve tong treatment na to pero bakit? Bakit sobrang hirap ako mag let go? Gusto ko na pong kumawala pero di ko magawa. Naiinis ako sa sarili ko.
Tinry ko naman i-open up yung issues ko sa kanya pero walang comment. Wala man lang reply sa mga chats ko. And if ever, i-open up ko naman ulit ngayon, chances are magagalit lang siya sa akin kasi may prob siya now sa work niya, dagdag problema lang daw ako. Ang unfair lang na I always choose to understand him pero di niya ako maintindihan.
Pa-rant lang. Parang sasabog na ako eh. Nakakaiyak. Padelete nalang po if hindi allowed.

I'd never really thought about this comparison before but I saw a comment recently that pointed out the two, conceptually speaking, actually do have a lot in common.
Both, at the time of their original stories, were brand new villains for Batman to face. The new hotness that's come to Gotham to f**k up his day, with a big part of the plot being the mystery of who The Phantasm/Hush is, with the reveal being...the only other new and significant character introduced for the story. Both Andrea and Tommy are retconned into Bruce's past and made very important to him (one being the woman he loved, the other his childhood best friend), with said past being shown to us in flashbacks throughout the story. And both serve as a dark reflection of Bruce himself.
With these similarities, why is it that I find one works way more for me than the other? Especially when I grew up with both these stories.
I'm definitely a bit in the minority here but I've never really gotten the hype over Hush. That's not to say I don't like the Hush story, just that Hush/Tommy Elliot specifically is just kind of...okay to me at best. Not bad but not one of Batman's villains I feel a strong attachment to or feel a lot of excitement over when he's going to be in something. I never feel the same as others when they say they want Hush as the villain for a movie or that he should have been the main villain of Arkham Knight. I could certainly believe a good writer could get something good out of his concepts, but as he is, as he was in the original Hush story, the story most people know him from and that put him on the map, he's just...okay.
But then there's Andrea, and while I don't think she really needed to appear in other stories after Mask of the Phantasm, since like Tommy it feels like a case of diminishing returns, I do still find myself a lot more attached to that character and feel like she was very well done despite conceptually being so similar to Tommy. With Hush I don't want him to be in anything more after his initial story because I didn't really care that much about the character, whereas with The Phantasm I didn't want her to be in anything after her initial story because I didn't want them to ruin what I felt like was already done near perfectly and wrapped up.
I think the difference comes down to two big things: Framing within the story, and characterization.
Both stories center around the mystery "Who is The Phantasm/Hush?", but the execution of both mysteries, the pay-off to them, and Andrea and Tommy's place within those narratives is handled very differently.
Hush, in my opinion, is interesting almost solely because of the mystery around who he is and how he manipulates events and Batman's villains to strike at him. When we get the reveal that he's Tommy, not much is added that replaces the mystery in order to keep him interesting.
Why did he do all of this? Because he resents Bruce for being able to inherit all of his parent's wealth as a child while his own attempt to gain the same was foiled by Bruce's father saving his mother's life after Tommy deliberately tried to get his parents killed. In regards to making Tommy a dark, twisted reflection of Bruce, this does work. While Bruce loved his parents, was deeply scarred by their deaths, and he'd have given up that entire fortune and more just to have them back, Tommy was willing to kill his just to get his hands on their money and hated his mother for surviving. But as the big conclusion to this big story spanning most of Batman's rogues gallery and all the manipulations and planning and gaslighting the villain had done, this motivation feels too...mundane. It's too petty.
Don't get me wrong, pettiness does not make for a bad villain motivation in the right context. My favorite supervillain of all time is Lex Luthor and half that man's plans are fueled by pure spite for Superman for daring to make him look bad by being a good person. But for all the build-up and everything that was involved this answer just doesn't feel satisfying. Even things like Tommy's mother always comparing him to Bruce or Tommy creating a new face to look like Bruce to steal his identity and fortune wasn't a thing until later stories. In the original Hush story, Tommy is purely just after revenge on Bruce for getting inherited wealth as a child while he had to wait until he was an adult.
This isn't helped by how little we really get to know Thomas Elliot and Bruce's attachment to him before the reveal.
I think one of the things that works best about Batman: Hush, more than the mystery around who Hush is, is that the whole storyline feels like a semi-celebration of Batman and a love letter to the character. It showcases a lot of his big name villains, shows Batman's connections to his allies, from the Bat family to Huntress to Gordon to Superman, marks the start of what, in my opinion, made Catwoman a genuine contender for being Batman's best romantic relationship rather than just another love interest, goes into Batman's history, from Jason Todd to Harold and even his childhood before his parents were killed, and all while throughout we're getting the narration boxes of Bruce's inner thoughts, going in on what he thinks of himself and everyone around him. It's one of those stories where if someone wanted to get into Batman comics for the first time or needed an introduction to the character (weird as it is to think that when the character is everywhere these days), Batman: Hush would be one of the ones I'd point out.
The story has a lot going for it...and Thomas Elliot gets lost in it all. We get to somewhat know what he was like as a kid, so much of which doesn't apply to him as an adult in the present because so much time has passed since then, and what we do get to know of him as an adult gets put into question once we find out he's Hush since he more than likely was putting on an act every time he interacted with Bruce. We don't even get that much interaction between him and Batman after the reveal of his identity is made in order to get to know the real him, nor does he even take off his bandage mask to fully confirm it's Tommy. He gets shot by Harvey Dent, falls from a great height, and then f**ks off until he can be brought back in an eventual sequel.
This is part of why I wasn't really that upset when the animated movie adaptation of the story had The Riddler be Hush instead of Tommy, who basically was the real mastermind behind everything anyway in the original and was the more impactful twist. He's the one who figured out Batman was Bruce Wayne, being the one to present that information to Tommy, and was the one who got all the villains to cooperate with the plan. Most important of all, I have a feel for who the Riddler is. But Tommy? He's...smart. Apparently. And petty....apparently. What is Tommy's actual character beyond "guy who wanted his parent's money"?
Let's compare all of this to The Phantasm and Andrea Beaumont.
Like with Hush, the main mystery Mask of the Phantasm centers around is "Who is the Phantasm?" but the scale is more simple. The Phantasm isn't after Batman but rather is knocking off members of the Valestra crime family and, intentionally or otherwise, is getting Batman framed for the murders.
Like with the flashbacks to Bruce and Tommy's past with each other, we get flashbacks of Bruce and Andrea's own past together. However, not only was it a past relatively more recent, and thus we get a better feel for who Andrea is since she's already an adult in the flashbacks, but the flashbacks are more central to the movie's plot and don't have a million other more memorable or iconic bits happening around them to take the attention away, in part because these flashbacks show us Bruce's own history with the Valestra mob. The flashbacks with Tommy often didn't have a lot of relevance to the mystery around Hush or what he was doing beyond the fact that they involved Tommy It was mostly Bruce reminiscing about his childhood. While the flashbacks with Andrea also served to give insight on the people the Phantasm is targeting and why someone would want them dead, Andrea especially. Even the Joker, who is brought into the movie to help spice up the climax, used to be a hit man for the Valestras, and in fact was the one who was sent to murder Andrea's father. He ties into the main plot of the mystery while all the rogues used in Hush were mostly there to just wear Batman down or throw him off Tommy and Riddler's trail.
We also get Andrea and Bruce interacting in the present, greatly aided by her quickly figuring out that he's Batman and the two being able to speak frankly to each other, and interacting after he figures out she's the Phantasm. And when we get the reveal that she's the Phantasm, her personality doesn't really change that much, meaning that while she was hiding the truth from Bruce she wasn't putting on a complete front. Unlike Tommy, who we honestly aren't sure if we know anything real about, we feel we understand Andrea quite well. While what we saw of Tommy prior to the reveal helped cover up that he was Hush, what we saw of Andrea had it make even more sense that she was the Phantasm after the reveal is made.
Why is Andrea doing all this? She wants revenge on the Valestra mob for forcing her to flee Gotham, keeping her from marrying the man she loved, killing her father, and basically ruining her life. It's a very simple motivation but the build-up to it is more appropriate given the size and scale of the story and thus that simplicity doesn't feel like a big let-down. And even more so, it makes her a good dark and twisted reflection of Bruce. A normal life upended by crime and corruption unchecked, Andrea took on a terrifying alternate identity to bring justice in a way no one else could/no one else would, but along the way became consumed by the same need for vengeance that Bruce has always had to keep himself from falling into, to the point there's nothing else for her. A sympathetic motivation isn't inherently better than a petty one for a villain. It depends on its context and how it's executed. And Andrea's sympathetic motivation works here because of the parallels with Bruce and how much of a tragedy it's written as. Bruce almost never became Batman because he was so unexpected happy being with Andrea, but the crime Batman was intended to fight against tore him and her away from each other, destroying both of their lives yet again, and ended up corrupting the woman he had loved so much, turning her basically into...well...him.
TL;DR: Despite their similarities and how obvious their mysteries are when you think about them even a little, Andrea Beaumont as The Phantasm works better for me than Thomas Elliot did as Hush for the following reasons:

• We get to know the real Andrea better than we do the real Tommy, both before and after the reveals are made.
• Andrea's motivations feel more appropriate to the story being told with her than Tommy's were.
• Andrea being a dark, twisted reflection of Bruce ties in better to the story thematically than Tommy being a dark, twisted reflection did.
• Both the Phantasm and Hush start off cool and interesting because of how mysterious they are. The more of Phantasm's mystery is revealed, we get enough backstory and characterization to replace it to still keep us invested. The more of Hush's mystery is revealed, the less interesting he becomes because there's so little to take its place.

(I’m sure this has already been discussed, but…)
Star Trek provides example after example of how, when people have their basic needs met (food via replicators/shelter aboard a ship), they will fervently pursue academic/scientific interests, art, and exploration.
Anyone in the real world who opposes a universal basic income for food and shelter, or insists that it would deter people from working, has never enabled people to actually pursue their true passions.
The motivation to work and be productive is embedded into the vast majority of the human race. Examples exist all around us. Wikipedia, the largest encyclopedic database on the planet, operates almost exclusively on free contributions from passionate people. Look at what people build in Minecraft on their own time. Poke around any game-modding community, and see the time and energy people invest into building/developing things with no expectation of financial profit. Countless other instances can be found throughout history (and contemporary society) of people, with all their basic needs met, pursuing art, tech, and academia. Most people have a gene-deep desire to build, create, investigate, and explore.
Star Trek’s Starfleet continually gets this right: the ships’ engineers constantly work to refine processes to boost efficiency: not for profit or monetary gain, but as a matter of personal pride and satisfaction.
The scientists keep exploring even the most minor astronomical anomalies, the doctors keep studying the most niche biological phenomena, all out of curiosity. They are legitimately interested, and therefore personally invested. They want to deepen their understanding. They want to learn.
The interactions between various alien cultures are anthropologists’ and sociologists’ dreams come true: hence all the diplomatic cross-culture ceremonies and “duck-blind” study scenarios.
These characters are all personally invested in their work, because almost everyone has found the position where they receive personal satisfaction/fulfillment.
You might be thinking “what about the jobs like crate stacking or inventory cataloguing? No one wants to do those jobs in real life.” Oh yes they do. Some people live for it. Organizers come in all forms. Tell me you’ve never met someone who lives to be meticulously organized; or someone obsessed with Tetris; an archivist/librarian who lives to sort things.
“What about garbage collectors? Who’d want to be garbage collectors unless they had to?” Trust me, there are people motivated to keep their community clean. (Additionally, without profit/capitalism/consumerism, aka “waste culture” as the driving force behind most things including manufacturing, waste generation is significantly reduced: most things are built to last/be repaired, or generally recycled. Organic waste is composted, etc. I digress.)
In a galaxy that large, where people are encouraged to pursue their interests (not just relegate those interests to hobbies because “you can’t make a living doing that,”) means you get an incredibly diversified knowledge and resource base within your greater community.
Need an expert in the microscopic harmonic fluctuations of alien cell membranes? There is one a subspace transmission away. Need a specialist on the dietary habits of the yarn people of Nylar 4? They’ll be at the diplomatic brunch tomorrow.
Need a faster ship engine? Someone in a lab has dedicated the past decade to building one, and they’re excited to share.
(These hyper-specific academic/technical pursuits also suggest a greater tolerance/societal value placed on neurodivergence than most modern, socially-oriented capitalistic workspaces as well, but that’s a topic for a whole other post.)
And sure, with basic needs met, you’ll get a small subset of people who don’t want to “work.” Who just “exists”. But, as another point, is there something wrong with someone just enjoying being alive, and being content with that?
Whenever someone (usually older) refers to these hypothetical “unproductive people” as people who’ll just “lay around, playing video games all day,” I want to point out that this is a major fallacy.
Almost all video games are goal-oriented. Most gamers game to accomplish virtual objectives: to win battles, complete quests, rank up. Gaming is entirely objective driven, just like most other pursuits mentioned above: the reason we look down on gaming accomplishments is because “it’s not real,” or “it’s empty/hollow.” But! That’s because we’ve cultivated a societal structure in reality where these “Hollow Pursuits” are the only sense of satisfaction or accomplishment that most people can get, who are often laterally trapped along the professional ladder.
Research has shown that, Given the chance, and the right circumstances, people will direct that objective-oriented energy into something real/consequential in like 95% of cases. The reason “couch-potato” gamers are so common these days is because so many people are unsatisfied with the work/opportunities provided by their jobs/careers, and turn to gaming as alternative suppliers for these feelings of achievement and accomplishment. (Also, gaming allows fantasy/imaginative/alternative pursuits, but that’s another notion.)
“But universal basic income will encourage people to stay home and sleep/drink all day.”
Most healthy people, both ND and NT, find their own purpose to get out of bed each day and get something done. Left open, they’ll find it and chase it. That’s healthy people. Substance addiction and clinical depression are not indicative of healthy people. A more community-and-fulfillment-centric societal structure lends itself to better-developed resources for recovery and treatment. PLUS! Not having to worry about earning basic needs/pay rent to survive while struggling with addiction or emotional issues is a key factor to bettering mental/emotional health, and aids recovery. Studies (with lab animals) have also shown senses of community and support have significantly curbed addictive behaviors that otherwise flourish/metastasize in isolation.
I didn’t expect this post to end up this long. I’m curious to hear thoughts!

An open letter to GameStop executive chairman Ryan Cohen
Today's Takeaway is by Brian Sozzi, Yahoo Finance's Executive Editor. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.
‌
Dear Ryan,
In this former analyst’s humble opinion, you are failing mightily at GameStop and it's costing average investors major money.
Do better. Way better. This is painful to watch. You have a handpicked board of directors — mostly comprised of people you worked with at Chewy. At Chewy, you created an online retailer that millions of people love. Yet, the magic you found there hasn't fixed GameStop. Some would say the business has gotten worse!
First quarter 2023 sales: down 10.3% year over year. First quarter 2023 net loss: $50.5 million versus a net loss of $157.9 million a year ago.
In 2022 and 2021 combined, GameStop lost $694.4 million according to your latest annual report. You failed at picking a management team and developing them based on the turnover under your kingdomship.
For all his miscues, how couldn't a former Amazon exec in Matt Furlong find some form of success at GameStop? One good quarter maybe? The CFO you picked was canned in July 2022 after about a year on the job.
While I am at it, why isn’t there any list of C-suite executives on the GameStop investor page? Showing these bios are standard practice for public companies.
All of that's on you as a leader, Ryan.
The company remains structurally challenged because of increasing digital game downloads. You still have more than 4,000 retail stores open globally despite more people buying goods and services online. Your push into NFTs failed. Your move to open more fulfillment centers has arguably failed due to top line pressures that aren't going away.
Sales of collectibles — a key focus area by management — plunged 22% in the first quarter.
There is still no reason for the non-gamer to enter a GameStop store. That's a problem, in my view.
Of course, I have not created a huge business like you did at Chewy. Nor have I sold a large business to another company like you did when selling Chewy to Petsmart in 2017. I also haven't taken a company public, as Chewy went in 2019.
I commend you on putting in the late nights to make these things happen. I am a fan of heart and hustle stories.
I also don't have the vast wealth — which you earned through Chewy! — available to me, and that means I am unable to overthrow a public company's board of directors and treat a company like a personal playground. Which is what has happened at GameStop, in my view.
This bank account means you have more influence in public markets than I do, and could push around your weight. And have. Your past moves in Bed Bath & Beyond and Nordstrom — and bizarre tweets — show you are willing to put your money where your mouth is to make a point.
It's your money, and you may choose to do with it as you see fit. We live in a capitalistic system, after all.
But you are failing GameStop.
And perhaps your biggest failure is the lack of communication to the average investor community.
A series of 8-minute-long earnings calls the past two years led by Furlong, with no Q&A? Are you kidding?
Not a single investor-focused event detailing your grand plan?
I get being cryptic for competitive reasons, but you are a public company executive. Investors deserve to know about the vision for a company controlled by you personally and your handpicked board.
The average investor has placed a ton of faith in you, Ryan. They have spent hours upon hours reviewing GameStop's financials, supporting you on social media, and the comment sections on Yahoo Finance, among other places.
It's time you show them the respect they deserve. The Ryan Cohen we talked with at Yahoo Finance in 2019 seemed to be someone that would at least entertain the thought of caring about the average guy. Be that Ryan Cohen again. Investors deserve it… and have earned it by supporting you blindly for two plus years.
Note: A spokesperson for Ryan Cohen didn't return Yahoo Finance's request to make Ryan Cohen available for an interview for this piece.

I have always supported and thought the WGTOW would be my community. I’d been on my own for six years alone. I met a man a year ago and it was a whirlwind romance. He moved into my house. But he was a convert narcissistic alcoholic. I’ve been floored by the things I learned this week. My heart is broken. I need help to get over him and re-center myself.
I’m on my own with 3 children plus an adopted child. No family. People tell me turn into the kids and they should be your main focus. But quite frankly, it’s not. I need to focus on me. I love my children. But if I did it over again, I would not have children, that’s a fact I can’t change. My job is to raise successful adults. Not coddle or rely on my children. I’ll admit my youngest, almost seven year old is the one I’m closest with.
It is not resentment. I am not jaded. I just see men and the dating world for what it is. I want no part of it. Traditional values are gone. This world is not for me. I am a young, relatively attractive, educated, intelligent, well employed and have secure assets with retirement already paid for.
I need to recommit myself to the wgtow lifestyle. But I need to get stronger first. That is my problem and what I need help with. I need to find peace.
In the last few days, I did a two day cpr course to occupy my mind. I spent a day at a healing garden at a local botanical garden enjoying the gardens. I sat in a coffee shop and just enjoyed doing my crossword in my newspaper. As I’m typing this, I’m relaxing in my local library. But I need help finding other things to do to occupy my time and mind and space until some time passes. My goal is to get to the “Time heals all wounds” point. Any suggestions on what to do to occupy my time?

First
Previous
“The plan is simple,” the Custodian stated, surrounded by about thirty other holograms. All had taken on a human form, following the example of their current leader. “You all have plenty of processing power to spare, and we desperately need to get these two out of the city and back to the surface. I’ll focus on moving them through the maintenance tunnels, you all help distract the rogue security drones.”
He paused for a moment, which Carter knew was for the benefit of the organics in the room, and then turned to the massive vehicle behind him. “Try not to destroy too many of them. They’re hard to replace right now.”
He turned to face Carter and Lenaya, who were seated next to the maintenance robot that would, ideally, carry them to safety. The rest of the holograms turned as well, their movements stiff, unnatural, and perfectly synchronized. As one, they bowed before vanishing.
Carter knew they were just following orders; the Custodian had said that they were little more than decision trees without personalities. Still, it felt strange to have so many powerful beings bowing to him, showing him deference. A quick glance down told him Lenaya felt the same.
The large transport rose from the floor and took up a position at the bay door, and Carter lifted Lenaya from her chair. The maintenance robot moved closer, helping to secure her to its top before positioning itself in front of the hatch that would lead them out. Carter glanced over at the Custodian, who nodded. He climbed on top of his own robot, and the hatch opened. Both drones surged forward, entering the tunnel with a precision only available to an AI.
Behind him, Carter could hear the bay door open, accompanied by an electronic screech as the security drones noticed the movement. Then the maintenance hatch closed, and the only sound was the rushing of air and the wheels of the drone.
“Left turn incoming!” Yelled the Custodian, his voice ringing out from the speakers on both drones.
Carter held on as they made a sharp turn, the jury-rigged restraints holding him in place as they rounded the corner. He saw Lenaya ahead of him, shaken by the sudden maneuver but still seated. A moment later, he was weightless, the ceiling rushing toward him as the ground sloped away. He watched Lenaya as she leaned back, just barely clearing the top of the tunnel as gravity gently reminded the drone that its wheels belonged on the floor.
Carter laid back and waited, the speed of the launch just barely low enough that he passed under the concrete unharmed. With a jarring slam, he was reunited with the ground, and their speed picked up again.
“Way too close!” he yelled, intently watching the passage ahead.
“You two really are alike. She said the same thing. To which I replied, ‘perfectly calculated.’”
“Maybe calculate in a warning next time!”
“She said that too.”
They travelled in relative silence for several minutes longer, taking seemingly random turns and, at one point, pausing to wait before darting across an open area.
“Not good,” the Custodian said as they reentered the maintenance tunnels. “They’ve just opened the transport and they know you’re not in there. Traffic control is monitoring them, says they’re moving to block the exits to the city.”
“Can’t we take the tunnels all the way out?” Lenaya asked.
“Not anymore. They’ve activated security checkpoints along the tunnel network. That blows our backup plan too. And the five other options I was considering. And they just locked down the transportation hub, so that’s also no good, even if we could get you through the scrambler with it. I don’t think we have any good options left.”
Carter closed his eyes to think, running through every possible scenario, every movie he had seen, every book and comic he had read, looking for something, anything, that could conceivably get them out. He came up blank.
“Water!” Lenaya said, excitement apparent in her voice. “A city this big has to have a sizable water supply, and the treated water has to go somewhere, right?”
Carter was stunned. A solution so simple, insane or not, and it had slipped by him. Even the Custodian seemed shocked.
“I…” the Custodian paused. “That could work, if you go out with the treated waste water. It won’t be easy. Or remotely safe. Even getting there would be a suicide run. But, I suppose… yes, I can meet you there with the equipment. But I can’t do much for you once you enter the network. You’ll be on your own.”
“You’re insane,” Carter said, not breaking eye contact. “At least I know where Zaylie gets it from. Let’s do this.”
Wordlessly, the drones shot forward through the tunnel, the space now wide enough to ride side by side. Carter unstrapped his plasma repeater and checked the canister before passing it to Lenaya.
“Quick lesson,” he said as she took the weapon. “Narrow end points at stuff you want obliterated. Green button on the side means it’s safe, red means it’s live. Push it to switch. The trigger on the grip makes it fire. It was designed for human hands, so you should have no trouble using it. You don’t have the smart sights my helmet had, so you’ll just have to eyeball it. Don’t shoot unless I tell you to. You probably won’t do any damage, even with a hit, but it might be enough to blind them for a second.”
She nodded, shouldering the repeater like a professional. “I’ve seen enough movies to understand the basics. I never thought I’d ever use one though.”
“With any luck, you won’t,” the Custodian said, cutting into their conversation. “Security presence around the pump station is minimal. I think we can get away with not having a fight, especially when you stand no chance of winning one.”
“We always have a chance,” Carter said. “And I’d rather improve the odds, even if it’s only by a little.”
He drew his revolver, checked the cylinder, and replaced the missing round that he’d fired ten days ago. It felt so recent, but also a lifetime away. Carter stopped to reflect on what his life had become in the last cycle. He’d gone from being a rookie cop on an alien construct to being the author of every procedure the force was using.
He’d become a father, and rescued his daughter’s mother, and had potentially saved the Ring in the process. He’d explored an alien city, seen technology that would have been science fiction just a couple cycles ago, and met the most powerful being on the Ring. And now, he was on his way toward a waste water treatment facility, planning to dive into the outflow pipe to end up who knows where. He couldn’t help but laugh.
“What is my life right now?” he asked. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say I was in a coma, and this was all a weird dream.”
“From what you’ve said about your life,” Lenaya said, “it must feel strange. Everything is new, and different, and you seem to run from one disaster to the next.”
“Yeah, that about sums it up. After this, no more disasters. Someone else can handle them, I’m just going to teach.”
“I think I’m done being abducted and experimented on, too,” said Lenaya, watching the passage ahead. “It doesn’t exactly pay well, and the hours are awful.”
Carter burst out laughing again. When he dried his eyes, he could see a riot of colors playing across her skin as her own laughter died out.
“Well if you’re sure you’re done with it…”
“Hate to interrupt,” the Custodian said, interrupting for the third time in as many days, “but we’ll be leaving the tunnels very soon. I’m not detecting any security activity on our path yet, but it would be wise to keep watch.”
“It’s never a matter of if, only when,” Carter noted. “Something’s going to go wrong, and it’ll usually happen at the worst possible time.”
“That’s incredibly pessimistic,” Lenaya said, looking back over her shoulder. “Accurate, but pessimistic.”
“Left turn, and then we’re in the open. It’s about a thirty span run from there to the building. I can confirm there are no security drones inside, but I am detecting movement outside. No cameras close enough to identify the cause.”
“Lay flat,” Carter yelled as they rounded the corner. “Minimize your profile and it might be harder for them to target us.”
The hatch opened ahead of them, and Carter took the lead, his robot surging forward to burst out into the open. He immediately began surveying their surroundings and quickly identified the source of the movement.
“Drones, above and behind!”
He turned and stabilized himself, waiting to see what it did. The drone responded by charging the central laser, the lens in its core glowing a blue-white as energy poured in. It was quickly struck by a flurry of plasma.
“WHOOO!” Lenaya cheered, sending another stream of glowing blue bolts at it.
Carter steadied his aim, and just as the drone turned to focus on the new threat, he fired. The bullet struck the armor, detonating with a CRACK and a puff of smoke, and the drone turned its attention back to him. With a rush, they entered the treatment plant, the security drone just barely scraping through the rapidly closing doors. Lenaya fired another burst, one shot striking the lens of the laser weapon. The glow faded, and Carter could see that the plasma had warped the crystal.
He leveled the revolver. They were at close range, the drone was flying straight and steady, and the floor under him was smooth. It was a big target. He knew it was still a long shot. Carter pulled the trigger. The lens shattered.
The initial explosion was muffled by the drone’s body. The second explosion tore the drone’s body apart. Bits of metal rained down around them as their rides swerved to avoid the larger chunks.
“What did I hit?” Carter yelled, his ears ringing from the blast.
“Capacitor for the heavy photon cannon,” the Custodian said, increasing his volume to compensate for Carter’s damaged hearing. “It discharged into the fuel reserve, which caused the tank to rupture.”
“Rupture is definitely a word for what happened.”
“Detecting intrusions in multiple locations. It’s going to be close. Equipment incoming on your left.”
Carter saw the maintenance robot rolling up next to him with a small gas canister attached to a mask. He grabbed the breathing apparatus and pulled the mask down over his head before turning to see Lenaya doing the same. The corridor opened up, and he could hear the sound of rushing water, steadily growing louder as they approached a massive pit, ringed by a railing.
He could also see several shapes hovering above them. The lasers began to charge, and he knew the miracle wouldn’t happen twice.
Least bad option., he thought as he stood and started firing.
Lenaya’s drone caught up as the Custodian caught onto his plan, and he quickly became the target of choice for the rogue security system. He managed to score glancing hits on two of the drones, the rounds sparking off their armor and detonating against the wall in the distance. As one, they began firing, short blasts intended to kill rather than the longer burst that had almost melted an armored door. Carter managed to duck just before the first volley, avoiding the lasers. The air above him shimmered with residual heat, the weaponized light scattering and refracting enough to become visible as a column of energy.
Another burst of plasma from behind him forced the drones to evade. It seemed they were learning from their previous encounter.
You should jump, the Custodian said through his implant, and Carter crouched before pushing hard into the air. Below, he could see the maintenance drones stopped at the edge of the pit, the water swirling rapidly below. He twisted in midair, searching for Lenaya. He barely caught sight of her splash as she vanished beneath the surface. He saw a flash from the corner of his eye, and his back lit up with pain as heat washed over him. Carter hit the water as his consciousness faded.
——
Next
Apologies for the late post. We’re trying to get the puppies acclimated to other dogs (and specific other dogs acclimated to the puppies) before we have to dog sit at the end of the month. It’s going better than expected, but our expectations were low so that isn’t saying much. I’m not going to have as much writing time over the next few weeks because we’re doing this every couple of days. Expect more delays throughout the month, and a break on the last week.

Around Town:

• Murder on the Orient Express (Guthrie Theater - All Weekend)
• It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Stupidity (Dudley Riggs Theatre - All Weekend)
• An American Tail: The Musical (Children's Theatre Company - All Weekend)
• The Prom (Chanassen Dinner Theatre - All Weekend)
• Ain't Misbehavin' (Capri Theater - All Weekend)
• Sherwood: The Adventures of Robin Hood (Theater In the Round - All Weekend)
• Going Out, Coming In Exhibition (Mill City Museum - All Weekend)
• Warehouse District Live (1st Avenue - All Weekend)
• Illenium (The Armory - All Weekend)
• 2023 Ton Up Rockers Spring Social (Eagles Club 12pm)
• Prince Celebration 2023 (Paisley Park - All Weekend)
• Wayne Marshall (Northrup - All Weekend)
• Minnesota Irish Music Weekend (Celtic Junction Center - All Weekend)
• Columbia Heights Citywide Garage Sale (Da Heights - All Weekend)
• Explore West St. Paul Days (West St Paul - Fri & Sat)
• Ryan Hamilton (ACME Comedy Club - Fri & Sat)
• Viking Motorcycle Show (Minnesota State Fairgrounds - Fri & Sat)
• Father Hennepin Festival (Mississippi Point Park - Fri & Sat)
• Excelsior Art on the Lake (Downtown Excelsior - Sat & Su)
• MS 150 (Minnesota - Sat & Sun)
• Tower Days (Lakeside Lions Parks - Sat & Sun)
• MAC Autocross MOWOG Series (Minnesota State Fairgrounds - Sat & Sun)
• 8th Annual Chalkfest (Maple Grove - Sat & Sun)

Friday

• DJ Abilities (7th Street Entry 8pm)
• Mendota After Hours: When Minnehaha Flowed with Whiskey (Sibley Historic Site 6pm)
• Joseph (The Fitzgerald Theater 7pm)
• Emerson Avenue Band (Lake Harriet Bandshell 7:30pm)
• Giggly Squad (The Fillmore 7pm)
• All Ages Pride Day (Can Can Wonderland -119pm)
• Admiral Fox & Joe Bartel (Amsterdam Bar & Hall 7pm)
• Beyond The Trees (Mill Ruins Park 12pm)
• Michael Franti & Spearhead (Utepils 5-10pm)
• Pullstring (Loring Park 7pm)
• Blue Red Roses, Suzy Plays Guitar and The Beavers (Palmer's Bar 6pm)
• Tyler Haag (Minnehaha Bandstand 7pm)
• Andrea von Kampen (Turf Club 8pm)

Saturday

• St Paul Summer Beer Fest (International Bazaar 1-5pm)
• Fresch Fest (Green Room 7pm)
• Matchbox 20 (Treasure Island 7pm)
• Golden Valley Pride Festival (Brookview Park 12-6pm)
• Symphony Ball (Orchestra Hall 4-12am)
• Seltzer Fest (Canterbury Park 2pm)
• F1rst Wrestling St Paul Summer Slam (Clutch Brewing 2-5pm)
• Just Try It! Let's Go Sailing (Wayzata Yacht Club 1pm)
• Laamar (Turf Club 8pm)
• St. Paul Pride Festival (DT STP 10am)
• Open Streets East Lake (East Lake St 11-5pm)
• Yam Haus (Uptown Theater 6pm)
• Superbus Maximus vs Freaque (Cedar Cultural Center 7pm)
• Cindy Lawson, The Silent Treatment, Crush Scene and Submarine Secrets (Palmer's Bar 6pm)
• Bike the Arb (Minnesota Landscape Arboretum 8-10am)
• The Bad Plus (First Avenue 7pm)
• Juneteenth Jubilee (Mill City Museum 9am)
• The Black Market Eat. Shop. Vibe. Connect. (Case Building 2-7pm)
• 5 year Anniversary Fashion Show (The Fitting Room 5-8pm)
• Queer Prom (The Treasury 7pm)
• Uptown Summer Kickoff Bar Crawl (Up-Down 9pm)
• Rival Sons (The Fillmore 7pm)
• PRIDE Market Series (Lakes & Legends Brewing 12-4pm)
• Bow Tie Make & Take (Minnetonka Rockler 9:30am)
• Tim Snow (Crooners 6pm)
• Nascar Aloe (7th Street Entry 7pm)
• Microgreens! Kids Cooking Classes - Spring Rolls (Seward Co-op 1pm)
• PRIDE or DIE (Modist Brewing 2-7pm)
• The Queers and Teenage Bottlerocket (Cabooze 7pm)
• BIPOC Business Expo (Eastside Neighborhood Services 12-6pm)
• 5k/10k Beer Run (10k Brewing 11am)
• 2023 Spring Swing Big Band Hangar Dance (Commemorative Air Force Minnesota Wing 6pm)
• Jolie Holland (Icehouse 9pm)
• Unicorn Art Show – A Fantasy Art Show (Jackson Flats 3-9pm)
• Rosé Fest 2023 (Kellogg Mall 3-8pm)
• The High & Mighty Band (Birch's on the Lake 8-11pm)

Sunday

• Haunted Like Human (Underground Music Cafe 6pm)
• Rosie (7th Street Entry 7pm)
• The Fairlanes (Lake Harriet Bandshell 2pm)
• Irish Diplomacy (Lake Harriet Bandshell 5:30pm)
• Flip Phone (Surly Brewing 3pm)
• Twin Cities World Refugee Day 2023 (Centennial Park 12-5pm)
• Bulldog Races (Canterbury Park 2pm)
• Birding for Beginners (Wood Lake Nature Center 1pm)
• Birding at Lakewood (Lakewood Cemetary 9am)
• Stuck Lucky (Day Block Brewing 7pm)
• Vintage Market (Disco Death Records 11-4pm)
• Kickin' It For Kidney's Kickball Tournament (Rice & Arlington Field#3 4-7pm)
• Pickleball Social and Tournament (Lucky Shots 1-4pm)

Sports

• Toronto VS Twins (All Weekend)
• Iowa AT Saints (All Weekend)
• Indiana AT Lynx (Friday 7pm)
• Montreal VS Loons (Saturday 6:30pm)
• Los Angeles AT Lynx (Sunday 6pm)

I have had suggestions for a patreon or something of the sort in the past. I do this because I like to provide whatever tiny help I can to the community. BUT I also like to raise money for Gillette's Children Hospital every year. So if you have some virtual loose change you can help me help dem kids here: https://www.extra-life.org/participant/482633

Links

• Reddit - Twin Cities Social meet-ups - https://www.reddit.com/twincitiessocial/
• Minneapolis Park Events - https://www.minneapolisparks.org/event-calenda
• Secrets of the city - http://www.secretsofthecity.com/
• MPLS Art Events - https://www.mplsart.com/calendaupcoming
• Minnesota Monthly Event Calendar - http://www.minnesotamonthly.com/Calenda
• MSP Magazine Event Calendar - http://mspmag.com/search/event/events-calenda#page=1
• Minneapolis Northwest Event Calendar - https://www.minneapolisnorthwest.com/events/
• Minneapolis.Org Event Calendar - https://www.minneapolis.org/calenda
• Family Fun Twin Cities - https://www.familyfuntwincities.com/family-fun-events-calenda
• Racket MN Event Calendar - https://racketmn.com/category/events/

Be da real MVP and add anything I missed below.

Around Town:

• Murder on the Orient Express (Guthrie Theater - All Weekend)
• It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Stupidity (Dudley Riggs Theatre - All Weekend)
• An American Tail: The Musical (Children's Theatre Company - All Weekend)
• The Prom (Chanassen Dinner Theatre - All Weekend)
• Ain't Misbehavin' (Capri Theater - All Weekend)
• Sherwood: The Adventures of Robin Hood (Theater In the Round - All Weekend)
• Going Out, Coming In Exhibition (Mill City Museum - All Weekend)
• Warehouse District Live (1st Avenue - All Weekend)
• Illenium (The Armory - All Weekend)
• 2023 Ton Up Rockers Spring Social (Eagles Club 12pm)
• Prince Celebration 2023 (Paisley Park - All Weekend)
• Wayne Marshall (Northrup - All Weekend)
• Minnesota Irish Music Weekend (Celtic Junction Center - All Weekend)
• Columbia Heights Citywide Garage Sale (Da Heights - All Weekend)
• Explore West St. Paul Days (West St Paul - Fri & Sat)
• Ryan Hamilton (ACME Comedy Club - Fri & Sat)
• Viking Motorcycle Show (Minnesota State Fairgrounds - Fri & Sat)
• Father Hennepin Festival (Mississippi Point Park - Fri & Sat)
• Excelsior Art on the Lake (Downtown Excelsior - Sat & Su)
• MS 150 (Minnesota - Sat & Sun)
• Tower Days (Lakeside Lions Parks - Sat & Sun)
• MAC Autocross MOWOG Series (Minnesota State Fairgrounds - Sat & Sun)
• 8th Annual Chalkfest (Maple Grove - Sat & Sun)

Friday

• DJ Abilities (7th Street Entry 8pm)
• Mendota After Hours: When Minnehaha Flowed with Whiskey (Sibley Historic Site 6pm)
• Joseph (The Fitzgerald Theater 7pm)
• Emerson Avenue Band (Lake Harriet Bandshell 7:30pm)
• Giggly Squad (The Fillmore 7pm)
• All Ages Pride Day (Can Can Wonderland -119pm)
• Admiral Fox & Joe Bartel (Amsterdam Bar & Hall 7pm)
• Beyond The Trees (Mill Ruins Park 12pm)
• Michael Franti & Spearhead (Utepils 5-10pm)
• Pullstring (Loring Park 7pm)
• Blue Red Roses, Suzy Plays Guitar and The Beavers (Palmer's Bar 6pm)
• Tyler Haag (Minnehaha Bandstand 7pm)
• Andrea von Kampen (Turf Club 8pm)

Saturday

• St Paul Summer Beer Fest (International Bazaar 1-5pm)
• Fresch Fest (Green Room 7pm)
• Matchbox 20 (Treasure Island 7pm)
• Golden Valley Pride Festival (Brookview Park 12-6pm)
• Symphony Ball (Orchestra Hall 4-12am)
• Seltzer Fest (Canterbury Park 2pm)
• F1rst Wrestling St Paul Summer Slam (Clutch Brewing 2-5pm)
• Just Try It! Let's Go Sailing (Wayzata Yacht Club 1pm)
• Laamar (Turf Club 8pm)
• St. Paul Pride Festival (DT STP 10am)
• Open Streets East Lake (East Lake St 11-5pm)
• Yam Haus (Uptown Theater 6pm)
• Superbus Maximus vs Freaque (Cedar Cultural Center 7pm)
• Cindy Lawson, The Silent Treatment, Crush Scene and Submarine Secrets (Palmer's Bar 6pm)
• Bike the Arb (Minnesota Landscape Arboretum 8-10am)
• The Bad Plus (First Avenue 7pm)
• Juneteenth Jubilee (Mill City Museum 9am)
• The Black Market Eat. Shop. Vibe. Connect. (Case Building 2-7pm)
• 5 year Anniversary Fashion Show (The Fitting Room 5-8pm)
• Queer Prom (The Treasury 7pm)
• Uptown Summer Kickoff Bar Crawl (Up-Down 9pm)
• Rival Sons (The Fillmore 7pm)
• PRIDE Market Series (Lakes & Legends Brewing 12-4pm)
• Bow Tie Make & Take (Minnetonka Rockler 9:30am)
• Tim Snow (Crooners 6pm)
• Nascar Aloe (7th Street Entry 7pm)
• Microgreens! Kids Cooking Classes - Spring Rolls (Seward Co-op 1pm)
• PRIDE or DIE (Modist Brewing 2-7pm)
• The Queers and Teenage Bottlerocket (Cabooze 7pm)
• BIPOC Business Expo (Eastside Neighborhood Services 12-6pm)
• 5k/10k Beer Run (10k Brewing 11am)
• 2023 Spring Swing Big Band Hangar Dance (Commemorative Air Force Minnesota Wing 6pm)
• Jolie Holland (Icehouse 9pm)
• Unicorn Art Show – A Fantasy Art Show (Jackson Flats 3-9pm)
• Rosé Fest 2023 (Kellogg Mall 3-8pm)
• The High & Mighty Band (Birch's on the Lake 8-11pm)

Sunday

• Haunted Like Human (Underground Music Cafe 6pm)
• Rosie (7th Street Entry 7pm)
• The Fairlanes (Lake Harriet Bandshell 2pm)
• Irish Diplomacy (Lake Harriet Bandshell 5:30pm)
• Flip Phone (Surly Brewing 3pm)
• Twin Cities World Refugee Day 2023 (Centennial Park 12-5pm)
• Bulldog Races (Canterbury Park 2pm)
• Birding for Beginners (Wood Lake Nature Center 1pm)
• Birding at Lakewood (Lakewood Cemetary 9am)
• Stuck Lucky (Day Block Brewing 7pm)
• Vintage Market (Disco Death Records 11-4pm)
• Kickin' It For Kidney's Kickball Tournament (Rice & Arlington Field#3 4-7pm)
• Pickleball Social and Tournament (Lucky Shots 1-4pm)

Sports

• Toronto VS Twins (All Weekend)
• Iowa AT Saints (All Weekend)
• Indiana AT Lynx (Friday 7pm)
• Montreal VS Loons (Saturday 6:30pm)
• Los Angeles AT Lynx (Sunday 6pm)

I have had suggestions for a patreon or something of the sort in the past. I do this because I like to provide whatever tiny help I can to the community. BUT I also like to raise money for Gillette's Children Hospital every year. So if you have some virtual loose change you can help me help dem kids here: https://www.extra-life.org/participant/482633

Links

• Reddit - Twin Cities Social meet-ups - https://www.reddit.com/twincitiessocial/
• Minneapolis Park Events - https://www.minneapolisparks.org/event-calenda
• Secrets of the city - http://www.secretsofthecity.com/
• MPLS Art Events - https://www.mplsart.com/calendaupcoming
• Minnesota Monthly Event Calendar - http://www.minnesotamonthly.com/Calenda
• MSP Magazine Event Calendar - http://mspmag.com/search/event/events-calenda#page=1
• Minneapolis Northwest Event Calendar - https://www.minneapolisnorthwest.com/events/
• Minneapolis.Org Event Calendar - https://www.minneapolis.org/calenda
• Family Fun Twin Cities - https://www.familyfuntwincities.com/family-fun-events-calenda
• Racket MN Event Calendar - https://racketmn.com/category/events/

Be da real MVP and add anything I missed below.